only hoped she was present when he finally realized this.
“I b-beg your pardon,” Frances said on a gasp. “Please forgive me for this… this… I don’t know what’s come over me. What you must think of all of us!”
Not knowing what else to do, Charlotte patted her shoulder again. “Nothing bad. Not at all.”
The reassurance simply made Frances cry harder. “I believe Lizzy would love school,” she sobbed. “A good one, I mean. All those other girls to be friends with and… and m-match her high spirits. But she refuses even to c-consider leaving home.”
“She wishes to be with her family, I suppose.” Charlotte could certainly understand that.
“And this winter! It has been so difficult, nursing Anne… so worrisome. Lizzy needs a governess. She h-hasn’t enough to do, but she keeps chasing them off with her p-pranks. She n-never knew her mother, you know. I have done the best I can, but…” Tears overcame her.
“I’m sure you’ve done very well,” was all Charlotte could think to offer.
“James… their father was such a b-bulwark. To have him die so young! But he would go out in the w-worst weather. Sometimes I think he cared more about his wretched tenants than…” She gulped back the rest of this sentence.
“When did he die?” Charlotte wondered.
“F-four years ago. Things had been more trying since then, but only… Then when Anne could not shake off her cough…”
Frances sniffed, and Charlotte concluded that Anne’s father had died of a lung complaint. “It must have been frightening,” she said.
“H-horribly.” The older woman drew in a breath and visibly struggled for control. She pulled a handkerchief from a pocket in her gown. “What you must think of me!”
“I think you have been under a great strain.”
“Yes.” Frances sniffed, dabbed her eyes, then blew her nose. She nodded, as if unable to help emphasizing the fact to herself, but she did not meet Charlotte’s eyes. “I am feeling so old,” she added forlornly.
“You know,” Charlotte began, a thought forming. “I had a very good governess myself, as well as lessons with my father, and I enjoyed my studies. Particularly geography; I love maps. Perhaps I could spend some time with Lizzy, tell her what I remember.”
“Would you do that?” exclaimed Frances.
“I’d be happy to.”
“But… why?” Frances could not seem to imagine anyone wishing to take charge of Lizzy.
“I would be glad to have something to do,” Charlotte told her. She had felt singularly useless over the last year. “To repay you for your kindness in taking me in.”
“But you are not obliged to…”
“I know. It would be a pleasure.”
“Then of course I accept.” Frances clutched her hand like a lifeline. Charlotte would have felt flattered if she hadn’t suspected that any offer to amuse Lizzy would have been met with equal gratitude. How had one young girl reduced this cultured woman to such a state?
And so, a short while later, Charlotte went in search of Lizzy. She found the schoolroom without difficulty, a large comfortable chamber at the top of the house with dormer windows looking out over London rooftops. The fire was burning low, however, and there was no Lizzy and no cat. A moment’s thought sent her back down to Anne’s room, where she was cheerfully admitted. Lizzy hunched in an armchair by the hearth; a soft growl came from under the bed. Charlotte also noticed a bottle of the herbal mixture on a small table at Anne’s bedside. The ransacking had yielded quick success.
“Alec is really angry,” Lizzy said. “I’ve never seen him so angry.” It had the sound of a much-repeated litany.
“He’ll get over it,” Anne replied, as if she had said this quite often as well.
“He’s going to put Callie back out in the street,” the younger girl said.
“I don’t think he will, Lizzy.” Anne looked at Charlotte, shook her head very slightly.
“He hates her!”
“He doesn’t. He just… You know you should not have put her in the drawing room. You promised…”
“It was only to chase off Aunt Bella! I thought Alec would be glad. He doesn’t like her.”
“That is not precisely true, Lizzy.” Anne glanced at Charlotte again. “They have had some disagreements, but that does not mean that he…”
“And she is always trying to get me sent away,” Lizzy muttered. “I won’t go. No one can make me.”
The girl looked so anxious that Charlotte decided just to plunge in. “I was thinking, Lizzy, my… a friend of mine used to tell me wonderful stories about all the countries on the globe. My