Katy’s face brightened. “Oh yes! Oh, let’s!”
Philip threw her a quizzical look. “If you insist.” He lifted a cream–coloured garment and looked at it, puzzled. It was an unmentionable, a pair of stays.
Arabella flushed scarlet.
Katy giggled.
He dropped it like a hot coal. “Well, then.” He cleared his throat and didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. Then he unwrapped Joy and hauled her on his shoulder. She squealed. “How about we leave these two to their business and you and I, Jollykins, continue reading Mouse?”
“A mouse! A mouse!” Joy screeched as both left.
A while later they heard his voice droning from the bedroom as he read to Joy and Robin with dramatic intonation.
A wistful little smile played about Arabella’s face. How lucky those children were. Her father had never treated her with such evident love as Philip had for his children.
“Miss?” Katy dug deep into the box and dragged out its entire contents, spreading everything on the bed. “There are some dresses in there that mother never wore. Like this one.” She lifted a dark blue cotton dress. “Mama never liked it, because she said it looked too severe on her.”
“Perfect.” Just the kind of thing a governess would wear.
“This one, too.” She held up a forest green dress that went with the shawl that Joy had wrapped herself in. It was a long-sleeved dress for cooler days. “I never saw Mama wearing this one. Or this one, either.” She held up a brown dress. “Mama preferred the pink and yellow ones. This one was her favourite.” She held up a rose–pink afternoon dress embroidered with pink buds.
“How pretty, Katy. Should we alter this one so you can wear it?”
Katy hugged it to herself. Then she dropped it. “No. It reminds me too much of her. We can use this one.” She held up a lemon-yellow dress.
“It would suit you nicely, indeed.”
Katy stared at the pink dress. “Mama wore this dress when —”
“When?”
“Oh, nothing.” She threw the dress down again. “Mama died at Joy’s birth; you know. Joy never even knew her.”
“I am so sorry,” Arabella whispered. “That is terrible. My mother also died at my birth.”
“Oh!” Katy looked at her with huge eyes. “So, you never knew your mother.”
Arabella shook her head.
“I was as old as Robin when she died. Robin was six. He can no longer remember her face.” She looked up. “But I can. She was pretty.” She hesitated before she added, with a lowered voice, “but I don’t think she was happy.”
So Mr Merivale’s marriage had been unhappy. Arabella searched for consoling words.
“Maybe you can try to paint the image of your mother in one of the water colouring classes that we will have.”
Katy’s face brightened. “It is wonderful to finally have a governess.”
Arabella hoped that she could fulfil the girl’s expectations. Poor children. Poor Mr Merivale.
As she helped Katy refold the dresses, she wondered why she felt like her bones were melting every time Mr Merivale threw her one of his keen, swift glances. It was as if he penetrated her veneer and saw right through to her very heart and soul.
Chapter 8
Early next morning it had stopped raining, and a pale sun ray peeked through the tiny window of Arabella’s room. She’d slept fitfully on the lumpy, narrow bed but had awoken with a sense of anticipation. This was her first day of work.
She would prove to herself and, most importantly, to Mr Merivale, that she could do it.
Arabella scrambled out of bed and washed her face with cold water from the pitcher that stood on a small nightstand. She pulled on a petticoat and over it a stay. It was an old–fashioned short stay that laced up in front. Without the help of a maid, she couldn’t put on the usual stiff stays that laced up in the back, the kind that Mr Merivale had hauled out of the trunk yesterday. She’d placed it aside for later use. When she heard repetitive clanking outside, she realised he must be already up and working.
