A Lady's Point of View by Jacqueline Diamond Read Free Book Online Page A

few
minutes, then,” said the housekeeper, and Jenny followed her out.
    “Would you like to see my bugs?”
asked Tommy.
    “Oh, yes. I adore bugs.” Meg
forced herself not to flinch as he produced a wooden box filled with dried
flattened specimens. “You must tell me all their names.”
    “I dunno their names,” he said.
“Do you?”
    “That is a six-legged
bug-opterus,” Meg improvised, pointing, but not able to bring herself to
actually touch the crusty thing. “And that is a hard-shelled thing-a-ma-bob.”
    Tommy regarded her sceptically.
“You don’t act much like a governess.”
    “What makes you so certain I am
one?” Meg replied with equal gravity.
    “Well, of course you are!” said
Vanessa. “What else would you be?”
    “Perhaps a lady of fashion,” Meg
suggested.
    “Then what would you be doing
here?” the girl demanded.
    “Well—” Meg pretended to rack her
brains “—perhaps I was on a journey when your coachman mistook me for the real
governess, and I mistook him for a hired post chaise driver.”
    “What fun!” cried Tom, stuffing
the box of bugs back into the toy chest.
    “Oh, don’t be a goose,” snapped
his sister. “Everyone knows ladies don’t travel alone. And no one would be such
a nodcock as to mistake uncle’s carriage for a post chaise.”
    Meg smiled ruefully. “I’m sure
you’re right.”
    “Now we must be good hosts and
show you around the nursery,” announced Vanessa, standing up.
    “Vanny, don’t,” pleaded Tom, his
eyes widening. “I like her.”
    “Well, of course you do.” Vanny
had learned young to imitate her elders’ hypocrisy, Meg noted; the young girl
parroted polite phrases even while clearly intending mischief.
    “I should be delighted to see
more of your playroom,” said Meg. If the children made convincing enough ghosts
to frighten off the last governess, she was mightily curious to see what else
they would try.
    She heard a whispered conference.
In compensation for her eyesight, it seemed, Meg had developed keen hearing and
made out the words, “Where is it?” and “...under the chest, where it always goes.”
    “This way, Miss Linley.” Vanessa
straightened and led the way about the large nursery, pointing out its shelves
of books, the rocking horse, and a chipped music box. With aplomb, Meg shook
hands with a stuffed bear and conducted a mock conversation with a china doll,
pretending not to notice that its voice issued from Vanessa’s mouth.
    “I like her!” Tom repeated, more
forcefully than before.
    “Get it!” hissed his sister.
    After a moment’s hesitation, the
boy scrambled away, while Vanessa provided a diversion in the form of a
curtsey. “This is how my mother taught me, Miss Linley. Do you think I’m ready
to be presented at court?”
    “I shouldn’t be in any hurry for
that if I were you,” Meg said.
    “Why not?”
    “It’s a horribly stiff affair,
everyone in black dresses afraid they’ll make some slip,” she said. “Queen
Charlotte is most imposing, and if you give offence, you are banished from
London at once. Not officially, of course, but it comes to the same thing.”
    “You sound as if you’ve been
there.” The childish face gazed up at her with new interest.
    “Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t
really a governess?” As she spoke, Meg felt something small and furry drop onto
her foot and arch itself against her leg. “Well, what have we here?”
    She knelt and scooped up the
white mouse, which regarded her with beady black eyes. “What’s his name?”
    “Terror,” admitted Vanessa, not
the least abashed. Tom could only stare up at the fearless governess in awe.
    “Do you know,” continued Meg, who
had once owned a pet mouse, “that he might suffer serious harm being dropped on
a person’s foot that way? Suppose someone kicked him off by mistake?”
    “It’s been done,” Tom said.
    “Was he injured?”
    “He limped for two days, just
like Uncle Andrew,” the little boy