“Refuse?” Lillian’s eyes flashed. “No one could bear my presence long enough to teach me. But I don’t care. My life is wretched enough without spending my time reading about everything everybody else can do.” Her chin rose. “I prefer staring at walls.”
“That is one way to look at the matter,” Violet said carefully, as if her heart was not twisting into shards of pain at the injustice the child must feel. If Lillian were allowed to nurse such melancholy, she would never rise above her despair. Violet would have to provide for Lillian what the Livingstone School for Girls had given to Violet: hope. “I suppose I wasted my time learning about Beethoven, a brilliant composer of music, since I was no child prodigy myself, and to this day have never composed a single note. I imagine going to an opera is pointless as well, if one can neither sing nor act. Thank heavens I am neither wealthy enough nor idle enough to indulge such folly. I suppose enjoying a warm biscuit is equally senseless if one finds oneself incapable of baking her own.”
Lillian’s face flushed with anger. Good. Rage was better than self-pity. “That isnotwhat I meant, and you know it.” Her chin rose. “I take it back.” Lillian’s lip curled. “You know nothing. How could you?”
This last was spoken with such derision that Violet could not control her tongue.
“How could I?” she asked archly. “Allow me to share a few things Idoknow. I know that one can always discover people in a better position than oneself. I know that if you allow bitterness to drive your life, then you will not have a life at all.” Violet gestured at the closed door. “Although you have not left this chamber, we both find ourselves at a crossroads. Although I cannot offer you the sun, Icanteach you to read unforgettable stories, to capture your imagination on paper with a bit of charcoal, even to pluck out inappropriate melodies on the pianoforte. That is one path. Or, simply instruct your father to send me away, and you can continue as you have always been. Uneducated. Unimaginative. Lonely.” Violet took a breath. “The choice is yours.”
Lillian glared up at her with open contempt. Violet’s stomach clenched. She’d pushed too far. She wanted to help, to illustrate how shecouldhelp, and instead she’d alienated Lillian even further. Perhaps even planted the idea that with a mere word to her father, this irksome governess and her unpardonable presumption would disappear from her life forever.
Violet fought the urge to bang her head against the closest wooden plank. Had she lost her mind?
A knock sounded in the passageway moments before the lock disengaged. She was out of time. Mr. Waldegrave swung open the door, his eyes only for his daughter. Upon viewing her expression, he speared Violet with a glare of unadulterated malice before returning a fatherly gaze to Lillian.
“Sweetling, what is it? I had thought a governess would be a positive addition to your life, but if it is not working out—”
“Nothing is working out,” the girl snapped, and turned her back to them both. “Nothing has ever worked out.”
Violet sighed. There it was, then. She’d gambled and lost. Her fingers brushed against the tiny lumps made by the two coins in her pocket. If she had just—
“Very well.” Mr. Waldegrave turned to Violet, his features the same cold marble as ever, his eyes hard with disappointment. “Miss Smythe...”
“Ready, sir.” She crossed to join him at the door, pausing only once to glance at her erstwhile charge, who stood facing the boarded windows. Violet expected Mr. Waldegrave to yank her into the corpse-lined tunnels for an immediate sacking, but as she eased out of the room, he stepped further in. When he passed by, something tugged at her sleeve, ripping a tiny hole in the tattered homespun. Thorns. He’d brought fresh roses for his daughter.
Unwilling to slink into the murky passageway without so much as a candle, she froze in place with one hand on the doorjamb and half her body already in shadow.
Paying her no mind whatsoever, Mr. Waldegrave strode across the room, cutting directly to the small escritoire rather than risk passing too close to his still-silent daughter. With a practiced motion, he upended the crystal vase over a bin. The withered stems tumbled into its black depths.
He placed three stunningly perfect roses into the vase, and arranged their enormous red blooms to best effect. After filling the vase with water from a porcelain pitcher on the nightstand, he gathered the fallen petals from the desk and upon the floor—where was the maid who tended to such menial tasks?—and deposited them into the bin atop the dead flower stems. He turned toward his daughter and waited as she climbed into bed in silence.
At last, he turned away, and caught sight of Violet trapped in the cracked doorway like a moth entangled in a spider web.
Her face heated at having been discovered spying, and she floundered for an excuse for her behavior. “I...”
“Don’t,” he said abruptly. “I’m not surprised you remained behind. The tunnel is dark, and I did not think to offer you a candle.” His tone, if not the words themselves, had sounded impossibly close to an apology. He lit a taper on one of the many candelabra protruding from the looming walls. “Now we are ready.”
Because he was facing Violet and not Lillian, Mr. Waldegrave did not see his daughter spin around. He likewise missed the split-second of hunger exposed in her fragile features. Despite repeated avowals of hatred, Violet realized, despite the kicks and punches and vicious bites, Lillian desperately hoped her father would stay. Yet she gave the man no inkling.
When Mr. Waldegrave reached the door, he handed Violet the extra candle he’d procured and followed her into the blackness of the tunnel. Before he could close the door behind them, however, Lillian’s trembling voice carried through the darkness.
“H-how inappropriate are those melodies, Miss Smythe?”
Hope exploded in Violet’s chest. Momentarily forgetting proper decorum yet again, she reached around him and pushed open the heavy door in order to look into Lillian’s pale gray eyes. Violet gave her an earnest smile. “Very.”
With his brow creased in apparent confusion—and rightfully so, for Violet imagined Lillian was as new to private jokes as her father was to not being privy to them—he pivoted toward his daughter. “What’s this, Lillian?”
“I require a pianoforte,” the girl announced, her tone imperious. Shoulders back and spine straight, she exuded confidence and authority. “And art supplies. Miss Smythe will instruct me in both.”
Mr. Waldegrave glanced at Violet in openmouthed surprise before returning his dark gaze to his daughter. “Dare I hope you shall also be learning to read?”
The coldness in Lillian’s gaze was matched only by the frigidity in her tone. “I have been able to recognize my own name since I was five. How hard can it be to learn to read?”
His jaw worked silently for a brief second. Rather than find humor in his attempt to conceal what was clearly an unprecedented moment of utter bafflement, Violet’s insides once again gave a sharp turn.
She had won the skirmish with her young charge, but in doing so, had she drawn battle lines with her employer? The unfeigned astonishment in his face indicated he’d been aching to hear those words, but the immense relief in his eyes could not disguise the flicker of hurt to discover that a mere governess had gained more headway in one hour than he had in years.
Violet’s stomach chose that moment to growl its complaint.
