Dear Heart, How Like You This by Wendy J. Dunn Read Free Book Online Page A

girls’ nursery to hear yet another one of Simonette’s stories. As well as true stories from our country’s recent past, she knew so many fables. Indeed, Simonette seemed, to us children, to know by heart a multitude of different stories. What we especially enjoyed was Simonette telling us one of the legends from Le Morte D’Arthur . The chivalry of these legends inspired us but I must be truthful and say that the bloodier and bolder the story, the better the four of us appreciated it.
    As I grew to manhood I could not help but be curious as to why Simonette never saw fit to remarry. There were suitors aplenty, as I recall, but Simonette was content to stay a part of our lives even when her role of governess had fulfilled its purpose. Sometimes I think she too at first was caught up in the magic of our childhoods—magic, I believed, stemming greatly from Simonette’s own joyful nature. But later I came to believe that Simonette did not leave because she loved Anne too dearly to depart forever from her, which would have likely been the situation if she chose to marry. It seemed to me that Anna was more precious to Simonette than a daughter.
    Yea, we were very happy in our childhoods. As long as our Priest was there for us to tag after and ask endless questions of, and Simonette to lay beside us on our beds at night, soothing us when plagued with childish fears, we had no desire or need for those other more complicated, evasive adults. Adults who sometimes also chose to reside at Hever.
    Later in her life, Anne’s enemies accused her of being more French than English. In a way this was true. Simonette was more mother to her than her true mother. Indeed, Anna’s first words were French and, as she grew up, she went easily from one language to the other. This ability made her later transition to the French court at such an early age so much easier than one would naturally expect.
    Of course, learning languages was a very important part of our education. Along with French, we were expected to learn Greek—taught to us via Homer’s epic tales—and of course Latin. My cousin Mary easily managed the French because she had Simonette to help her from the early years of her life, but would often have her ears teasingly boxed by our frustrated priest because of her backwardness in regard to learning the other required languages. Eventually, she managed sufficient Latin to be able to say her Psalter well enough, but that was the end of that.
    I reflect as I write that Mary must have felt completely left out in the cold while we had our lessons, because she found it all beyond her uncomplicated intellect. As I have mentioned before, Mary, during her parents’ long absences, frequently sought out every excuse to avoid the time we spent in the library where the harder lessons were taught. It was so different for George, Anna, and me. We savoured every moment of Father Stephen’s tutelage. He jokingly called us the three muses, and often said that we all would have been dedicated to and followers of Apollo if we had been born in the time of ancient Greece.
    Father Stephen, when the day promised to be warm and dry, would take the four of us out of doors for our lessons. Aristotle, Father Stephen frequently said, would no doubt have taken his young charges out of doors when the weather beckoned. He then reminded us that one of these charges grew up to be Alexander the Great, proving implicitly that customary education away from books and the quill did not prevent satisfactory learning. Indeed, it often proved the greater benefit.
    On these days Father Stephen would take us on long walks in the woods near Hever, and encourage us to discover for ourselves the many different species of plants that grew there. His knowledge of this subject was absolutely amazing. It appeared to us that Father Stephen knew the name of every living plant found within the borders of our Kentish home. I remember these long walks with so much joy and simple