Free Autumn Softly Fell by Dominic Luke

can be so dreadful that you never smile?’
    Dorothea looked at the hand holding hers, the long pale fingers, the soft skin. Was such a hand really capable of the cruelties that Nanny had described?
    The fingers stroked. The voice soothed. ‘Dorossea? Will you not tell me?’
    What did it matter, Dorothea thought, what did anything matter anymore? She might as well speak. It wasn’t as if she had any choice. The monster had her trapped.
    But once she started to talk, it all came out in a rush, everything: how much she missed her papa, how she was angry with him, too, for leaving her (oh, the shame of feeling like that, the shame!), how the nursery was a prison and the days dragged on and on and nothing ever happened and she felt trapped and stifled and lost and hopeless. The monster listened, did not interrupt, did not become angry or impatient – did not, in fact, behave much like a monster at all. Her expression softened, her eyes became moist, and all the time her fingers went on stroking, stroking, stroking.
    ‘Oh,
ma petite,
what a sad story you tell me!’ she said when Dorothea finally fell silent. ‘You love your poppa very much, I think.’
    ‘There is no one else. I don’t have anyone.’
    ‘Ah, but zis is not true, Dorossea. Do you not have your aunt and your uncle? Is not Nora always kind to you? Is there not Richard, too?’ (She pronounced his name strangely:
Rishar
) ‘And there is someone else, someone you have forgotten, someone who watches over all of us.’
    ‘I d-don’t understand.’
    ‘God,
ma petite.
God watches over us. We are all in His hands.’
    Dorothea was bewildered. She had been expecting a beating, to have her head held under water until she nearly drowned. Instead – was it possible? – the governess was offering words of comfort. And now, to complicate matters further, there was talk of God. Dorothea did not know much about God. She remembered a man once coming to Stepnall Street to tell them they should go to church, it was their duty. Mrs Browning had given his short shrift. ‘Go to church? I’ve never heard such rubbish! Do you think we’ve got time to waste, praying on our knees? Church is not for the likes of us! We’ve a living to earn! Now be off with you!’
    What was the truth of the matter? Did God really have everyone in his hands, as Mlle Lacroix said? Whatever the case, even God’s hands could not be as soft and comforting as those of the governess. Dorothea was beginning to doubt Nanny’s words. There must be some mistake. Not all governesses were monsters, they couldn’t be.
    ‘Now,’ the governess said with a gentle smile. ‘We shall try the sums again, yes?’

    She wanted to tell Richard the extraordinary news – that not all governesses were monsters – but Nurse turned her away, said that Richard was too poorly for visitors, she must come back another day. Was Nurse being entirely honest, Dorothea wondered, or was she using her authority to keep them apart? There was nobody she could appeal to. Nobody was interested in Richard. He was, as Henry had said, often overlooked.
    Lost in her thoughts as she wandered slowly back along the corridor, a sudden noise brought her back to herself. Her heart was in her mouth as she looked round in fear, half expecting to see MrsBourne looming up—but it was only one of the housemaids on the stairs with a duster.
    ‘Oh my days, Miss Dorothea! You did give me a turn! I thought it was Bossy Bourne, checking up on me!’
    The maid’s name was Bessie Downs, a friendly girl if something of a chatterbox. Nora, however, called her
slovenly
and
a slouch
and said you couldn’t believe half of what she said.
    ‘I’m keeping out of everyone’s way, miss.’ Bessie Downs flicked her duster around in a desultory manner as she sidled up to the landing. ‘They’re all as miserable as sin today, I can’t tell you. Cook’s got a face on her that would curdle milk and as for Bossy Bourne—But when is she any different?