daughter,’ he clarified. ‘You look very much like she did at your age, with the same hair and eyes. The resemblance is remarkable.’
He rubbed his round chin, his previous melancholy threatening to overcome him again.
‘I’m so sorry to disturb you, but Sir Rodger asked me to return this book to Vicar Carlson. Do you know when he’ll return?’ Despite the stranger’s kindly manner, she wanted to be done with this errand, to enjoy the solitude of the long walk back to Huntford Place. She needed the quiet to gather herself before she was thrust back into the pit of she-vipers and their indifferent parents.
‘Vicar Carlson? Why, that’s me.’ He didn’t seem too sure but it wasn’t her place to question a clergyman.
She handed him the book. ‘I won’t disturb you any longer. I’ll be on my way.’
‘No, please stay. You seem troubled.’
She ran her foot over the patch of tall grass in front of her, trying to bite back the worries which had followed her through the forest. At school there’d always been Grace, Rachel or Isabel to commiserate with. She’d written to them, but with each of the girls facing their own trials in their new positions, she’d understated hers. She didn’t want to burden them with her problems. She needed to speak to someone, anyone or she’d run mad.
‘I’m having difficulty in my new position.’ It was all she was willing to hazard with this stranger. ‘The girls won’t listen and Sir Rodger is threatening to dismiss me if I don’t control them, but I can’t.’
He winked at her. ‘Dealing with the Huntford girls, I’m not surprised. They could use a firm hand and much better parenting. I had the entire brood at a Christmas party once, a long time ago when they were very young. They nearly tore up the music room with their wild behaviour.’
‘The twins almost set the curtain in the sitting room on fire yesterday. They’re unwieldy heathens.’
Vicar Carlson tossed back his head and let out a laugh as rich as a church bell.
She clapped her hand over her mouth, horrified by what she’d just said. He might tell Sir Rodger and she’d find herself on the next mail coach to Salisbury. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk about them so, but be grateful to have a position.’
She didn’t feel grateful, but exhausted.
‘Don’t be sorry for speaking the truth. I promise I won’t say a thing to Sir Rodger about his precious offspring,’ he reassured her with all the authority of a man used to speaking from the pulpit. ‘It’s the duty of a vicar to help those who are burdened.’
‘Burdened doesn’t begin to describe it.’ She paced back and forth, hands flapping at her sides with her agitation as she explained to him everything about her conversation with Sir Rodger. His willingness to listen unleashed the torrent of words she’d kept inside her for the past month. She even told him of Frances’s two instances with Lieutenant Foreman and the impossible position she now found herself in. ‘If I’m sent home, the people who cared about me the most will be disappointed.’
‘You mean your family?’ he prodded.
‘I don’t have a family, not a real one. My parents, whoever they were, left me for the school to raise when I was a baby,’ she nearly whispered the words as she stopped to face him. It was the first time she’d admitted her illegitimacy to a stranger. It wasn’t something Madame Dubois or any of the teachers had ever mentioned. A few days before leaving the school, Madame Dubois had cautioned her about revealing it in her new position, though the warning hadn’t been necessary. Joanna knew how the world viewed illegitimate children. ‘The teachers at the school raised me.’
‘And you must be about nineteen?’ He scrutinised her with the same curiosity as when they’d first met.
Joanna nodded, wondering what her age had to do with anything, but she didn’t care. For the first time since her arrival in Hertfordshire, here was someone besides Major Preston who sympathised with her plight. Unlike the major, who was all but forbidden to speak to her, Vicar Carlson could listen and perhaps help. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘As someone who’s supposed to guide his flock...’ he flapped his hand at the church as though he wasn’t certain this was his duty ‘...I’ll tell you what you can do. Headstrong girls like to be in charge. Of course they can’t be with the governess, but they’ll try. The trick is to give them choices, but make sure they’re deciding between two things you want.’
‘Like studying French or Geography?’
‘Exactly. Make them think they’re in charge, even when they aren’t.’
‘I’ve never heard anything like this.’ And if it helped, it might be her last hope of staying on and making Madame Dubois proud.
‘I used to do it with my daughter, though it didn’t always work.’ He looked to the headstone with the violets. Sadness crossed over his expression like a cloud in front of the moon. ‘After my wife died, I spoiled Jane. It made her headstrong. The older she grew, the more obstinate she became, like me.’
‘I’m very sorry.’
He smiled at her, tender like the fathers used to be with their daughters before they left them at the school. ‘Don’t be. Her troubles are passed now, but yours aren’t and we must focus on those.’
He offered her a few more suggestions on how to deal with the girls.
Then, in the distance, the bells from the village church began to ring. She didn’t want to leave the vicar or the tranquillity of this corner of the world, but she must. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go. Thank you so much for your help.’
‘It was my pleasure. Please, feel free to return whenever you want. I’m often here reading during the day. I like the quiet. And good luck with your students.’
‘Thank you and goodbye.’
Joanna hurried down the path towards Huntford Place. The shadows of the trees didn’t consume her as they had on the walk here. It was the light coming through the branches she noticed instead. She didn’t dread facing the girls, but looked forward to it with a new resolve, eager to try Vicar Carlson’s suggestions, confident for the first time in days she might at last settle into her position.
She was well along the path when male voices from somewhere up around the bend caught her notice.
‘Why are you trying to stop me from visiting him?’
‘Because you don’t understand the situation.’
Joanna crept cautiously forward and peeked around a thick oak tree in the bend of the road. Up ahead, two men had dismounted and now stood arguing while their horses grazed nearby. Joanna’s fingers tightened on the smooth bark. It was Major Preston and his brother, Lord Pensum.
‘If you expect me to linger in your shadow, doing nothing except waiting for providence to make me an earl, you’re mistaken,’ Major Preston countered.
‘Now you know what it’s like to be me.’ His brother grabbed the reins of his horse from where they dangled below the animal’s nose. Lord Pensum stepped into the stirrup and threw one leg over the top
