Free The Long Walk Home by Valerie Wood

cross with you?' Nanny asked. 'He would surely have had it out with you if that was the case.'
    That was true, Eleanor conceded. Her father was never one to hold back over an issue of what he might consider disobedience.
    'It's just that I accidentally heard him saying he would not discuss something with Mama, and I thought that perhaps it might have been about me.'
    A concerned expression fleetingly crossed Nanny's face, but then she smiled to soften her words as she commented, 'That just goes to show that eavesdroppers never hear anything good! But I think it was probably something else entirely and not to do with you at all. Perhaps it might have been about Master Simon; he'll be home from school very soon. Or perhaps your father has concerns at work. Whatever it was, there's no use worrying your head over it.'
    'No,' she replied. 'I'll try not to. Nanny,' she began again. 'Will I have to get married when I'm grown up?'
    Nanny took a breath. 'What a lot of questions today. Won't you want to get married and have a husband and a home of your own?'
    'I'm not sure,' Eleanor said quietly. 'But I don't know what else there is.'
    Nanny frowned. 'Would you rather stay at home and eventually look after your parents in their old age?'
    'Oh, no!' Eleanor gazed at the old lady. 'I don't think so. But you didn't, Nanny. You looked after Mama and then Simon and me. You didn't get married, did you?'
    'No,' she replied. 'But then nobody asked me. That's why I became a children's nursemaid and later a nanny. I wanted to be with children and there wasn't any other choice. I wasn't clever enough to be a governess or teacher like Miss Wright.'
    'I see,' Eleanor said sadly. She cast her mind over her parents' friends and acquaintances and thought that out of all the married men they knew, there wasn't a single one that she would have chosen as a husband to love, honour and obey as would be expected of her.
    The next day Miss Wright resumed her duties, though she sniffled a lot and constantly blew her reddened nose.
    'Miss Wright,' Eleanor ventured as the morning wore on, 'are you very poor?'
    Miss Wright stared at her with watery eyes. 'Certainly not! Whatever gave you that idea?'
    'Did no one ask you to marry them?' Eleanor continued. 'Nanny said no one asked her and that's why she became a children's nursemaid. And I wondered whether if perhaps you were poor and yet clever, and that's why you chose to become a governess.'
    A frown wrinkled Miss Wright's forehead. 'You ask far too many impertinent questions, young lady. You are in great danger of becoming a busybody.'
    'Oh, but I wouldn't tell anyone,' Eleanor assured her. 'It's just that I don't know what I want to do when I'm grown up. I don't know whether to marry somebody if they should ask me or become a teacher like you, because I expect by then I shall be educated enough to do that.'
    Miss Wright permitted herself a small smile. 'I think, Miss Eleanor, that you won't have to think about it too much. When the time comes I'm quite sure that your parents will choose somebody suitable for you; and you'll be as happy as they are,' she added ironically.
    'Yes.' Eleanor nodded, and sighed. That is what I am afraid of.
    Several weeks went by, and from time to time Eleanor heard snatches of her parents' conversation as she entered the drawing room. They always stopped talking abruptly when she went in and she felt that her father perused her, assessing whether or not she had heard what they were saying. But she kept her expression closed as her mother always did, never letting her emotions appear on her face.
    Then one evening as she stood in her usual place in front of them, her father without any preamble said, 'Your brother is coming home from school.'
    Eleanor looked up at him. Was she supposed to be surprised? Or pleased? He was early, at any rate. It wasn't the end of term yet.
    'He has been expelled.' Her father waited as if she should make a comment, but she didn't know what to say.