Free Florence and Giles by John Harding Page B

own mother. The shocking vandalism that had been carried out on her image must never come to his attention. What would anyway be the use of showing him pictures of his mother without her face? What would he feel but that the desecration of her was a cruel attack upon himself? So I tonguebit and own-counselled. I would let nothing spoil our new happiness.
    But, of course, something did. Or rather someone. A month later Miss Whitaker arrived.
    Now, the least said about Whitaker, the better, at least in her first incarnation. She was a silly young woman who stood and besotted before the portrait of my uncle on the stairs and twittered about how handsome he was and how when he interviewed her he had seemed quite taken with her andhad all but given her the post of Giles’s governess before she had spoke a word. I saw through this straightway; it obvioused our uncle, who had no time for us at all, could not be bothered to question the stupid woman, but wanted to not-more-ado the matter. It doubtlessed she was the only person he saw for the post, for anyone else must have been preferred.
    Suffice it to say, I did not see the icy heart of this creature then or things might have worked out different. All I awared was that she neglected Giles, in whom she had less interest than in brushing her hair and mirroring her looks; I innocented her true nature and when she tragicked upon the lake I near drowned myself in a lake of my own tears, it so upset me. I thought her merely foolish and I guilted I had so despised her almost as much as I guilted that I did not save her, even though it impossibled me to do so, and kept thinking ‘if only I had this’ and ‘if only I had that’, even though all these things would nothing have availed. I reproached me, too, for the bad thoughts that were in my head when she went to her watery grave, for it was the very day after she unlibraried me and I had spoke the words over and over in my heart, ‘I wish she would die, I wish she would die’, but never meant them, and when my wish was granted I near died of grief myself that I could no way call them back.

10
    We were history-repeating-itselfing in front of the house, the three of us, Mrs Grouse, Giles and I, lined up to welcome the new governess just as we’d been for poor Miss Whitaker what seemed a lifetime ago (as indeed it was, her lifetime). Because our uncle was travelling in Europe and it difficulted to contact him, Giles and I had halcyoned it for four whole months, the time from when Miss Whitaker misfortuned until now, the day of the arrival of her replacement. It had been like the old pre-Whitaker, pre-school days, only better, because having twice lost our former life of just Giles and me feralling throughout the house and grounds, first for one reason, him awaying to school, then the other, Whitaker, I now precioused it all the more. I had forgotten how busy life with Giles could be, how he could December a July day, making it fly past so that dusk always seemed to come early. And when the Van Hoosiers arrived for the summer vacation, Theo had joined us in our games nearly every day and the three of us had run wild as if there was no tomorrow. But of course there was and it was here. School would be starting and Theo was returning to New York. And Miss Whitaker’s replacement would be here any moment.
    All we had left of our golden summer was the time it tookJohn to horse-and-trap the new woman from the railroad station in town, and that little was taken up by Mrs Grouse inspecting us for general cleanliness and tidiness. Giles was school-suited and I best-frocked, with a shining white pinafore thrown in for good measure. Satisfied that we were presentable, or at least as presentable as we were ever going to be, Mrs Grouse spent the last few minutes goodmannering us and attempting once again to teach me how to drop a curtsey (I had so half-hearted it with Miss Whitaker when she arrived as to make it unnoticeable). For some reason,