I was engrossed in the diary. The barriers to legibility forced me toread slowly, puzzling out the difficulties, using all my experience, knowledge and imagination to flesh out the ghost words, yet the obstacles seemed not to impede me. On the contrary, the faded margins, the eligibilities, the blurred words seemed to pulse with meaning, vividly alive.
As I write this I hear noises outside my room. The girls have come out of their hiding place and are creeping about the house. They have been done no favors, allowed to suit themselves like this. They will benefit enormously from the regime of order, hygiene and discipline that I mean to instill in the house. I shall not go out to them. No doubt they will expect me to, and it will suit my purposes to disconcert them at this stage.
Hester’s diary was damaged. The key was missing, the clasp so rusted that it left orange stains on your fingers. The first three pages were stuck together where the glue from the inner cover had melted into them. On every page the last word dissolved into a brownish tide mark, as if the diary had been exposed to dirt and damp together. A few pages had been torn; along the ripped edges was a tantalizing list of fragments: abn, cr, ta, est. Worst of all, it seemed that the diary had at some point been submerged in water. The pages undulated; when closed, the diary splayed to more than its intended thickness.
I wish Mrs. Dunne would not move my books about. How many times shall I have to tell her that a book is not finished until it is finished? And if she must move it, why not put it back in the library whence it came? What is the point of leaving it on the staircase?
I told John, with a little anger that I cannot regret, that I intended to speak to the schoolmistress about it, and that I would go directly to the parents and sort the matter out with them. He simply waved his hand, as if to say it was nothing to do with him and I might do as I liked (and I certainly shall). I am sure he knows who the boy is, and I am shocked at his refusal to help me in my duty toward him. It seems out of character for him to be obstructive, but then I suppose he began his own apprenticeship as a child and thought it never did him any harm. These attitudes are slow to die out in rural areas.
The girls would not come down to eat. I called once and no more. Mrs. Dunne was all for calling and persuading, but I told her that I have my methods, and she must be on my side.
I did not want her to see that I had noticed anything. I continued to look as if I was reading only to Emmeline. I maintained the animation of my face and voice. But all the time I was keeping an eye on Adeline. And she wasn’t only listening. I caught a quiver of her lids. I had thought her eyes closed, but not at all—from between her lashes, she was watching me!
Tomorrow I will start by cleaning this bedroom. I have wiped the surfaces with a damp cloth this evening, and was tempted to clean the floor, but told myself no. It will only need doing again tomorrow when I scrub the walls and take down the curtains that are so thick with dirt. So tonight I sleep in dirt, but tomorrow I shall sleep in a bright clean room. It will be a good beginning. For I plan to restore order and discipline to this house, and to succeed in my aim must first of all make myself a clean room to think in. No one can think clearly and make progress if she is not surrounded by hygiene and order.
I will not test your patience by reproducing Hester’s diary here as it came to me: fragmented and broken. In the spirit of Hester herself, I have mended and tidied and put in order. I have banished chaos and clutter. I have replaced doubt with certainty,shadows with clarity, lacunae with substance. In doing so, I may have occasionally put words into her page that she never wrote, but I can promise that if I have made mistakes, it is only in the small things; where it matters I have squinted and scrutinized until I am as sure as sure can be that I have distinguished her original meaning.
I hear sounds of an upset from downstairs. Presumably the girls have discovered the lock on the pantry door. They will be angry and frustrated, but how else can I train them to proper mealtimes? And without mealtimes, how can order be restored?
I have had a curious conversation with John the gardener.
Talking of John and the garden reminds me—I must speak to him about the boy. Walking about the schoolroom this afternoon, I happened to come near the window. It was raining, and I wanted to close the window so as not to let any more damp in; the window ledge on the inside is already crumbling away. If I hadn’t been so close to the window, nose almost pressed to the glass, in fact, I doubt I’d have seen him. But there he was: a boy, crouching in the flower bed, weeding. He was wearing a pair of men’s trousers, cut off at the ankle and held up with a pair of braces. A wide-brimmed hat cast his face in shadow, and I was unable to get a clear impression of his age, though he might have been eleven or twelve. I know it is common practice in rural areas for children to engage in horticultural work, though I thoughtit was more commonly farmwork they did, and I appreciate the advantages of their learning their trade early, but I do not like to see any child out of school during school hours. I will speak to John about it and make sure he understands the boy must spend school hours in school.
What happened to you, Hester, I thought. Where on earth did you go?
It is a most interesting development, and one that I foresee will be the centerpin of my project here.
While I was reading in this absorbed fashion, in another part of my mind entirely a decision was forming. When the train drew in at the station where I was to descend for my connection, I found my mind made up. I was not going home after all. I was going to Angelfield.
Mrs. Dunne gave me tea (which I pretended to drink out of politeness, but later threw into the sink for I had no faith in the cleanliness of the teacup, having seen the state of the kitchen) and told me a little about herself. She is in her eighties, never married, and has lived here all her life. Naturally enough our talk then turned to the family. Mrs. Dunne knew the mother of the twins as a girl and young woman. She confirmed what I had already understood: that it is the recent departure of the mother to an asylum for the sick of mind that precipitated my engagement. She gave me such a contorted account of the events that precipitated the mother’s committal that I could not make out whether the woman had or had not attacked the doctor’s wife with a violin. It hardly matters; clearly there is a family history of disturbance in the brain, and I confess, my heart beat a little faster when I had it confirmed. What satisfaction is there, for a governess, in being given the direction of minds that already run in smooth and untrammeled lines? What challenge in maintaining ordered thinking in children whose minds are already neat and tidy? I am not only ready for this job, I have spent years longing for it. Here, I shall finally find out what my methods are worth!
Mrs. Dunne showed me the rooms on the ground floor. There is filth everywhere, all the surfaces thick with dust, and curtains hanging in tatters, though she does not see it and thinks of them as they were years ago in the time of the twins’ grandfather, when there was a full staff There is a piano that may be beyond saving, but I will see what can be done, and a library that may be full of knowledge once the dust is wiped and one can see what is there.
The twins are crying in the hall. It is time for me to meet my charges.
Angelfield House is decent enough at a distance, although it faces the wrong way and the windows are badly positioned, but on approaching, one sees instantly the state of dilapidation it has been allowed to fall into.
I returned to the kitchen as soon as I could. Mrs. Dunne was preparing our evening meal, and I had no inclination to eat food cooked in pots as unpleasant as the ones I had seen, so I got stuck into a great pile of washing up (after giving the sink the most thorough scrubbing it had seen for a decade) and kept a close eye on her with the preparation. She does her best.
But to return to my subject: Where Adeline’s viciousness to her sister is concerned, she might be surprised to know it, but I have seen it all before. Jealousy and anger between siblings is commonplace, and in twins rivalries are frequently heightened. With time I will be able to minimise the aggression, but in the meantime constant vigilance is required to prevent Adeline hurting her sister, and this slows down progress on other fronts, which is a pity. Why Emmeline lets herself be beaten (and have her hair pulled out, and be chased by Adeline wielding the fire tongs in which she carries hot coals) I have yet to understand. She is twice the size of her sister and could defend herself more vigorously than she does. Perhaps she flinches from inflicting hurt on her sister; she is an affectionate soul.
The local line train to Banbury was too crowded with Christmas travelers to sit, and I never read standing up. With every jolt of the train, every jostle and stumble of my fellow passengers, I felt the rectangle of Hester’s diary against my chest. I had read only half of it. The rest could wait.
It was going to be quite a puzzle. Although I subsequently made a transcript of the diary, on that day the holiday train was too crowded to permit pencil and paper. I hunched in my window seat, diary close to my nose, and pored over the pages, applying myself to the task of deciphering. I managed one word in three at first, then as I was drawn into the flow of her meaning, the words began to come halfway to meet me, rewarding my efforts with generous revelations, until I was able to turn the pages with something like the speed of reading. In that train, the day before Christmas, Hester came to life.
Then the most unexpected thing happened. The doctor’s face changed. Yes, hanged, before my very eyes. It was one of those moments when a face comes suddenly into new focus, when the features, all recognizably as they were before, are prone to a dizzying shift and present themselves in an unexpected new light. I would like to know what it is in a human mind that causes the faces of those we know to shift and dance about like that. I have ruled out optical effects, phenomena related to light and so on, and have arrived at the conclusion that the explanation is rooted in the psychology of the onlooker. Anyway, the sudden movement and rearrangement of his facial features caused me to stare at him for a few moments, which must have seemed very strange to him. When his features had ceased their jumping about, there was something odd in his expression, too, something I could not, cannot fathom. I do dislike what I cannot fathom.
I am content with my work on Emmeline.
The other floors I explored alone, not wanting to inflict too many stairs at once on Mrs. Dunne. On the first floor I became aware of a scuffling, a whispering and smothered giggling. I had found my charges. They had locked the door and fell silent when I tried the handle. I called their names once, then left them to their own devices and went on to the second floor. It is a cardinal rule that I do not chase my charges, but train them to come to me. The second-floor rooms were in the most terrible disorder. Dirty, but I had come to expect that. Rainwater had come through the roof (I expected as much) and there were fungi growing in some of the rotting floorboards. This is a truly unhealthy environment in which to raise children. A number of floorboards were missing, looked as if they had been deliberately removed. I shall have to see Mr. Angelfield about getting these repaired. I shall point out to him that someone could fall downstairs or at the very least twist an ankle. All the hinges need oiling, and all the doorframes are warped. Wherever I went I was followed by a squeaking of doors swinging on their hinges, a creaking of floorboards, and drafts that set curtains fluttering, though it is impossible to tell exactly where they come from.
It was this submersion that was going to cause me the greatest difficulty. When one glanced at a page, it was clear that it was script. Not any old script, either, but Hester’s. Here were her firm ascenders, her balanced, fluid loops; here were her comfortable slant, her economic yet functional gaps. But on a closer look, the words were blurred and faded. Was this line an l or a t? Was this curve an a or an e? Or an s, even? Was this configuration to be read as bet or lost?
Pondering this, I began to think it time I met my employer, and could not have been more surprised when Mrs. Dunne told me he spends his entire day in the old nursery and that it is not his habit to leave it. After a great many questions I eventually ascertained that he is suffering from some kind of disorder of the mind. A great pity! Is there anything more sorrowful than a brain whose proper function has been disrupted?
I inquired after the father’s family—-for though Mr. March is deceased and the children never knew him, still, his blood is theirs and has an impact on their natures. Mrs. Dunne was able to tell me very little, though. Instead, she began a series of anecdotes about the mother and the uncle, which, if I am to read between the lines (as I’m sure she meant me to), contained hints of something scandalous… Of course, what she suggests is not at all likely, not in England at least, and I suspect her of being somewhat fanciful. The imagination is a healthy thing, and a great many scientific discoveries could not have been made without it, but it needs to be harnessed to some serious object if it is to come to anything. Left to wander its own way, it tends to lead into silliness. Perhaps it is age that makes her mind wander, for she seems a kind thing in other ways, and not the sort to invent gossip for the sake of it. In any case, I immediately put the topic firmly from my mind.
My first judgment of Adeline in the early days was of a child who might not ever come to live as independent and normal a life as her sister, but who could be brought to a point of balance, of stability, and whose rages could be contained by the imposition of a strict routine. I did not expect ever to bring her to understanding. The task I foresaw was greater than for her sister, but I expected far less thanks for it, for it would seem less in the eyes of the world. But I have been startled into modifying that opinion by signs of a dark and clouded intelligence. This morning she came into the classroom dragging her feet, but without the worst displays of unwillingness, and once in her seat, rested her head on her arm just as I have seen before. I began the lesson. It was nothing more than the telling of a story, an adaptation I had made for the purpose of the opening chapters of Jane Eyre, a story loved by a great many girls. I was concentrating on Emmeline, encouraging her to follow the story by animating it as much as possible. I gave one voice to the heroine, another to the aunt, yet another to the cousin, and I accompanied the storytelling with such gestures and expressions as seemed to illustrate the emotions of the characters. Emmeline did not take her eyes off me, and I was pleased with my effect.
I have been so busy organizing the house that I have had little time for my diary lately, but I must make the time, for it is chiefly in writing that I record and develop my methods.
I went to John and told him just what I thought. I told him I would not allow children to work for him in school hours, that it was wrong to upset their education just for the few pence they earn, and that if the parents did not accept that, I would go and see them myself. I told him if it was so necessary to have further hands working on the garden that I would see Mr. Angelfield and employ a man. I had already made this offer to get extra staff, both for the garden and the house, but John and Mrs. Dunne were both so against the idea I thought it better to wait until I was more acquainted with the running of things here.
I do not give the entire diary, only an edited selection of passages. My choice has been dictated first by questions of relevance to my purpose, which is to tell the story of Miss Winter, and second by my desire to give an accurate impression of Hester’s life at Angelfield.
He is a good worker, more cheerful now that his topiary is mending, and a helpful presence generally in the house. He drinks tea and chats in the kitchen with Mrs. Dunne; sometimes I come across them talking in low voices, which makes me think she is not as deaf as she makes out. Were it not for her great age I would imagine some love affair going on, but since that is out of the question I am at a loss to explain what their secret is. I taxed Mrs. Dunne with it, unhappily, because she and I have a friendly understanding about things for the most part; I think she approves of my presence here—not that it would make any difference if she didn’t—and she told me that they talk of nothing but household matters, chickens to be killed, potatoes to be dug and the like. “Why talk so low?” I insisted, and she told me it was not low at all, at least not particularly so. “But you don’t hear me when I talk low, ” I said, and she answered that new voices are harder than the ones she is used to, and if she understands John when he talks low it is because she has known his voice for many years and mine for only a couple of months.
We stared at each other for a few seconds, each as awkward as the other, then rather abruptly he left.
I had forgotten all about the low voices in the kitchen, until this new odd-ness with John. A few mornings ago I was taking a walk just before lunch in the garden when I saw again the boy who was weeding the flower bed beneath the schoolroom window. I glanced at my watch, and again it was in school hours. The boy did not see me, for I was hidden by the trees. I watched him for a moment or two; he was not working at all but sprawled across the lawn, engrossed in something on the grass, right under his nose. He wore the same floppy hat as before. I stepped toward him meaning to get his name and give him a lecture on the importance of education, but on seeing me he leaped to his feet, clamped his hat to his head with one hand and sprinted away faster than I have seen anyone move before. His alarm is proof enough of his guilt. The boy knew perfectly well he should be at school. As he ran off he appeared to have a book in his hand.
John’s response was to shake his head and deny all knowledge of the child. When I impressed upon him the evidence of my own eyes, he said it must be a village child just come wandering in, that it happened sometimes, that he was not responsible for all the village truants who happened to be in the garden. I told him then that I had seen the child before, the day I arrived, and that the child was clearly working. He was tight-lipped, only repeated that he had no knowledge of a child, that anyone could weed his garden who wanted to, that there was no such child.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a movement. Adeline had turned her head in my direction. Still her head rested on her arm, still her eyes appeared closed, yet I had the distinct impression she was listening to me. Even if the change of position was meaningless (and it was not; she has always turned away from me before), there is the alteration in the way she held herself. Where she normally slumps over her desk when she sleeps, in a state of animal unconsciousness, today her whole body seemed alert: the set of the shoulders, a certain tension. As if she was straining toward the story, yet still trying to give the impression of inert slumber.
Sections of the stonework are dangerously weathered. Window frames are rotting. And it did look as though parts of the roof are storm-damaged. I shall make it apriority to check the ceilings in the attic rooms.
The doctor came to dine. As I had been led to expect, the head of the household did not appear. I had thought the doctor would be offended at this, but he seemed to find it entirely normal. So it was just the two of us, and Mrs. Dunne doing her best to wait at table, but needing much help from me. The doctor is an intelligent, cultivated man. He has a sincere desire to see the twins improve and has been the prime mover in bringing me to Angelfield. He explained to me at great length the difficulties I am likely to face here, and I listened with as much politeness as I could muster. Any governess, after the few hours I have had in this house, would have a full and clear picture of the task awaiting her, but he is a man, hence cannot see how tiresome it is to have explained at length what one has already fully understood. My fidgeting and the slight sharpness of one or two of my answers entirely escaped his notice, and I fear that his energy and his analytical skills are not matched by his powers of observation. I do not criticise him unduly for expecting everyone he meets to be less able than himself. For he is a clever man, and more than that, he is a big fish in a small pond. He has adopted an air of quiet modesty, but I see through that easily enough, for I have disguised myself in exactly the same manner. However, I shall need his support in the project I have taken on, and shall work at making him my ally despite his shortcomings.
Emmeline I have made good progress with, and my experience with her fits the pattern of behavior I have seen in other difficult children. She is not, I think, as badly disturbed as was reported, and with my influence will come to be a nice child. She is affectionate and sturdy, has learned to appreciate the benefits of hygiene, eats with a good appetite and can be made to obey instructions by kind coaxing and the promise of small treats. She will soon come to understand that goodness rewards by bringing the esteem of others in its wake, and then I will be able to reduce the bribery. She will never be clever, but then I know the limits of my methods. Whatever my strengths, I can only develop what is there to start with.
Her sister is a more difficult case. Violence I have seen before, and I am less shocked than Adeline thinks by her destructiveness. However, I am struck by one thing: In other children destructiveness is generally a side effect of rage and not its primary objective. The violent act, as I have observed it in other charges, is most frequently motivated by an excess of anger, and the outpouring of the anger is only incidentally damaging to people and property. Adeline’s case does not fit this model. I have seen incidents myself, and been told of others, in which destruction seems to be Adeline’s only motive, and rage something she has to tease out, stoke up in herself in order to generate the energy to destroy. For she is a feeble little thing, skin and bone, and eats only crumbs. Mrs. Dunne has told me of one incident in the garden, when Adeline is known to have damaged a number of yews. If this is true, it is a great shame. The garden was clearly very beautiful. It could be put to rights, but John has lost heart over the matter, and it is not only the topiary but the garden in general that suffers from his lack of interest. I will find the time and a way to restore his pride. It will do much to improve the appearance and the atmosphere of the house if he can be made happy in his work and the garden made orderly again.
Mrs. Dunne told me about the household. The family has been living here with what most would consider a greatly reduced staff for years now, and it has come to be accepted as part of the way of the house. Quite why it should be so, I have not yet ascertained, but what I do know is that there is, outside the family proper, only Mrs. Dunne and a gardener called John Digence. There are deer (though there is no hunting anymore), but the man who looks after them is never seen around the house; he takes instruction from the same solicitor who engaged me and who acts as a kind of estate manager—so far as there is any estate management. It is Mrs. Dunne herself who deals with the regular household finances. I supposed that Charles Angelfield looked over the books and the receipts each week, but Mrs. Dunne only laughed and asked if I thought she had the sight to go making lists of figures in a book. I cannot help but think this highly unorthodox. Not that I think Mrs. Dunne untrustworthy. From what I have seen she gives every indication of being a good-hearted, honest woman, and it is my hope that when I come to know her better I shall be able to ascribe her reticence entirely to deafness. I made a note to demonstrate to Mr. Angelfield the advantages of keeping accurate records and thought that I might offer to undertake the job myself if he was too busy to do it.
The housekeeper welcomed me at the door. Though she tries to hide it, I understood immediately that she has difficulty seeing and hearing. Given her great age, this is no surprise. It also explains the filthy state of the house, but I suppose the Angelfield family does not want to throw her out after a lifetime’s service in the house. I can approve their loyalty, though I fail to see why she cannot be helped by younger, stronger hands.
