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The maid, who told Mari that her name was Harriet, assisted Mari with putting the children to bed in a high, enormous bed with heavy purple velvet curtains festooned with gold tassels.
“It’s the royal apartments, miss,” she said to Mari, almost apologetically. “We’re not used to having small children.”
“Well they certainly won’t be hurt if they fall out of bed. This carpet is thick as my ankle.”
She wasn’t supposed to mention the richness of carpets, probably, but she was so tired of maintaining her ruse of superiority.
“Thank you, Harriet.” She could even thank the servants.
The children were asleep before she even left their room, which adjoined her grand suite of rooms.
Such extravagance.
An entire floor of a hotel for one charity school governess and two illegitimate children.
It was a stark reminder that she and Edgar belonged in separate worlds. The intimacies they had shared could never mean as much to him as they had to her.
He was wealthy, titled, and experienced in the ways of the world.
Probably this time apart was for the best. Maybe she would regain her senses and refocus her attention on the children, and her true purpose for seeking employment as their governess.
When they returned to London she would redouble her efforts. Visit every Ann Murray she could find and make inquiries about Mr. Shadwell.
Temporary, fleeting pleasures could never provide the answers she sought.
A cold, solitary bed might be lonely, but it was all she’d ever known.
“No dawdling, Miss Perkins!” The next morning, the children flew ahead of her, tripping merrily down the pathway to the beach.
A manservant and maid followed with blankets, and baskets containing all of the children’s toys and books.
The day was fine, the sun shining through the clouds.
Michel sniffed the air. “It doesn’t smell precisely right, but it will do.”
Adele hugged herself. “It will more than do, Michel. I didn’t know England could be so sparkling.”
Mari found the specimen boxes from Lumley’s and set the twins to the task of finding and identifying all of the minerals and rocks listed.
The sun sparkling on the water filled her mind with golden light.
The colors were muted here. Grays and tans, browns and golds. Speckled over rocks and painting sand and charred pieces of wood from fires past. The delineations between the clouds and the sea. Strong lines sketched in gray, white, and cobalt.
In the distance, a rock that looked like a spiny, barnacled sea monster, its head beneath the waves, stood ready to rise and devour them all.
“Is this malachite?” Adele brought her a greenish stone.
“I don’t believe so. That would occur perhaps in Cornwall.” Mari opened the book of minerals and they pored over the colored plates.
“It could be olivine,” said Adele.
“We’ll make a notation for further study, shall we?”
Adele placed the small rock in a box and Mari added a scrap of red silk ribbon, to indicate that they weren’t sure if it was olivine.
The children were so happy here, so open and trusting. She was glad to have this opportunity to help guide them during this difficult transition in their lives.
She’d fought for this escape from the narrow confines of the orphanage. The sea surrounded her, the widest vista she’d ever seen.
