Free Jennie Kissed Me by Joan Smith Page A

successfully.
    “Can’t I let them canter, just the last mile?” she begged as we neared the end of the road.
    “Very well, but pull in at the corner and let me drive home. The main road is too busy, but you’ll be driving it within the week. You have a natural talent.” She beamed with pleasure.
    The canter was beyond her. The nags got out of rhythm, and we finished the lesson at an uneven, jiggling gait. I thought it a good lesson to us both. She must not have more confidence than skill, and I must not let her talk me into folly. I intimated the former in my schoolmistressy way.
    “Oh, Jennie!” she laughed. “Don’t turn into a governess on me again.”
    I was surprised at her calling me Jennie but pleased at her unconsciously friendly speech. “I heard Papa call you Jennie,” she said, with a curious light in her eye. “Do you mind my doing so, as you are a friend, not a governess?”
    I was happy to be free of anything that smacked of the schoolroom and gave her permission. We got on better after the lesson. That evening Victoria (she asked me to call her so) and Mrs. Irvine and myself retired to a small, cosy saloon to chat while Victoria worked on her father’s slippers and I mended a rip under the arm of a favorite blouse.
    “If it’s worn out, why don’t you throw it away?” she asked innocently.
    “It is not worn out. A seam has split, that’s all. One does not discard perfectly good clothing.”
    “It doesn’t look new. The nap is all worn off.”
    “I’ve had it two years.” She laughed. “You don’t realize what a privileged position you hold, Victoria. Most young ladies have to count their pennies. It cost me a whole day’s work to buy the material for this blouse and three evenings’ labor to make it.”
    “Did you make it yourself?” she asked, eyes wide. This was what impressed her and not the cost.
    “Certainly I did. I did all my own sewing till I inherited a little money from an uncle.”
    “You are so capable, Jennie,” she said, shaking her head in wonder. “I wish I could be like that.”
    “What is to prevent it? You’re able-bodied and intelligent.”
    “That is a very nice stitch you are setting there in your papa’s slippers,” Mrs. Irvine pointed out.
    “And soon you’ll be driving well, too,” I added.
    “Yes,” she said doubtfully, “but you are really independent. Papa has always taken care of me. You take care of yourself completely. You do your own hair. You don’t have a dresser or anything.”
    “My circumstances were different from yours. We must each learn the duties we have to perform in life. For you that will be running a gentleman’s house. What you ought to do is spend some time with the housekeeper learning such things. I would be no help to you there. I would be happy, however, to accompany you in your charitable work while I am here.”
    Her face was a perfect blank. “What charitable work?”
    “Why, visiting your father’s tenants and the sick of the parish, helping out at the church, and the local orphanage ...” I continued with a list of the usual good deeds of a lady, but none of the items elicited any understanding.
    She read the disapproval on my brow, and said, “I have been in the schoolroom till now.”
    “Now that you are out of it you will want to assume the duties of a lady. One cannot be expected to be treated as an adult if she behaves like a child, can she? You must bear in mind that privileges impose an obligation, Victoria. How many girls do you think live in such a home as this, surrounded by every luxury? My room at the seminary was not much bigger than the clothes press in my room here, and I was not amongst the truly unfortunate. From my tiny stipend, earned by the sweat of my brow, I always designated a tithe for charity.”
    She was aghast at this plain speaking. “No one ever told me! They have been treating me like a child!”
    “Someone has dropped you the hint now. We shall see if you are mature