Simon's Waif by Mira Stables

Author:Mira Stables [Stables, Mira]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-11-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Thanks to Mrs Pauncefoot’s skilful handling of the situation, Harriet soon fitted into the household in Arlington Street. It was generally assumed that she was a little older than Miss Dorothea since she was emancipated from the schoolroom during lessons. Mrs Pauncefoot, at first wondering how in the world she could occupy the girl, soon found her useful in a dozen different ways. With her clear writing, and spelling that was a good deal better than her employer’s, it was not long before the writing of invitations and the keeping of lists and records devolved almost wholly on Harriet. Mrs Pauncefoot began to wonder how she had ever managed without her, and even the master of the house was heard to comment favourably upon her activities. She found favour, too, with the twins, because she obviously approved of their adored Tramp – an animal that appeared to be the result of a misalliance between a terrier and some kind of spaniel – and because she had a fund of stories about farm animals remembered from her own childhood and was endlessly patient with their questions.

It took longer to become acquainted with Dorothea. The girl was friendly enough, but she was at an awkward age, eager to shake off the shackles of the schoolroom, longing for the day when she would make her début. Not this coming Season, Mama had said firmly. She would be barely seventeen, and that was too young. Dorothea argued, cajoled and pleaded, but her parents stood firm. She might make an appearance in the drawing-room after dinner, and they would arrange one or two parties of younger people especially for her benefit, but there it must stop. Dorothea was rebellious and dissatisfied, and briefly inclined to be jealous of Harriet, that paragon of all the virtues, whom even Papa had praised.

Harriet was too diffident at first to take a strong line, but as her confidence in her real usefulness increased, she began to indulge in a little plain speaking. When Dorothea complained of the close watch that was kept on all her activities and excursions, not only by Mama but by Miss Hall, her governess, and even by the older members of the household staff, any one of whom was quite likely to suggest that it threatened rain or was too cold for outdoor exercise so that some cherished scheme had to be abandoned, Harriet, while properly sympathetic, painted in the other side of the picture. How would Dorothea like to be wholly bereft of parents and friends, dependent solely on her own efforts to supply her every need? If one of her watchful guardians had suggested such a possibility, Dorothea would have been inclined to scoff at its absurdity. To Harriet, who had actually experienced the conditions that she described and who was not so very much older than herself, she was prepared to listen. And while Harriet did not disclose her more sordid experiences, she did provide an account of such an existence as gave the sheltered darling of a wealthy family a good deal to think about.

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