Folly! Contemptible, dangerous folly! Of course, she could give plenty of reasons – her loneliness; the longing for intelligent conversation, for human warmth; the flattering nature of his interest in her, and the way he treated her as an equal, not only socially but intellectually; her pique and anger at the accident to her shawl and Lady Whitworth’s contemptuous curl of the lip – but reasons were not excuses.
What then if she were gently born? What if her intellect had gone unexercised for as long as she had been trying to teach these bacon-brained young girls, and fetching and carrying for their even more witless mama? She was what she was, a governess, and must keep her place. She was guilty of the sin of pride, and would be punished.
But what punishment? She went cold when she contemplated the worst that might happen to her. The Murrays might cast her out without a character, and then, unprotected in a foreign country, she would starve, or worse, fall a prey to some fate too hideous to contemplate. Lady Murray was not a cruel woman, but she was very conscious of her position in the world. Perhaps they would at least take her back to England with them before turning her off. To be destitute in one’s native land seemed somehow less terrifying. Without a reference she would not be able to get another place with a respectable family, but in England she might perhaps be able to find a position in a school – an unfashionable one where they were less particular. Miss Oliver might help her to find a place, however mean, where she could earn enough to keep body and soul together.
And then, simply in reaction to these dreadful pictures, she thought that perhaps it would not be so bad. Perhaps Lady Murray would do no more than reprimand her, and her punishment would be to endure humiliation and a certain degree of suspicion for a time. That would be bad enough, but if she might escape a worse fate, it would be as well to humble herself before her mistress and beg forgiveness.
For an instant her pride reared up. She was a gentlewoman: Admiral Peters’ daughter! Count Kirov had sought her out, had led her into the set, and had danced opposite her with as warm a smile as he had bestowed upon the wife of the Prussian Ambassador. She hugged the memory of that dance and its conversation to her for a moment. Though she had walked to the set scarlet with embarrassment and apprehension, it had been delightful to take her proper place in the world. If her father had lived, she might have gone to such a ball and danced every dance and never even noticed that the Miss Murrays existed! Was she to be punished for doing what she was born to?
The carriage halted with a jerk outside the house and brought her back to reality, and she busied herself with collecting up reticules and fans and retrieving Caroline’s glove, trampled and soiled, from the carriage floor before alighting. She followed the young ladies up the steps into the foyer, and, as they began climbing the stairs, chattering like magpies as they told the story of their triumphs all over again to Simpkins and Salton, Anne was only too glad to make her way directly to bed.
She woke early, and since there was no likelihood that her young ladies would stir before noon, she had all the longer in the company of her own thoughts. One of the maids told her that Mr Hartley had not come home last night, and that Sir Ralph was in a terrible taking about it. From the distance of her room, Anne heard some of his fury reverberating about the house. Silence fell when he left to go about his business, and Anne sat quietly and got on with her sewing, wondering whether he had spoken to Lady Murray before he left, and when the summons would come.
It did not come until the early hours of the afternoon, when the young ladies were astir and had sent for trays in their room. Lady Murray was up, but not dressed when Anne entered her room. She had stationed herself on the day bed by the fireplace, and her cold had evidently passed from the feverish into the merely tiresome stage. She greeted Anne with a grave and nasal, ‘Come in, Miss Peters. I wish to speak to you.’
Anne closed the door behind her, and stood facing her mistress. Lady Murray surveyed her with cold disapproval, and Anne was surprised to discover that even in her extravagantly flounced and beribboned wrapper, she did not, for once, look ridiculous. Roused from her usual good-natured vacancy, she had attained to a kind of dignity. Anne found that her hands were trembling, and folded them together in front of her to keep them still.
‘Miss Peters,’ Lady Murray began at last, ‘I am at a loss what to say to you. I am profoundly shocked. I never should have thought that a young woman of your education could so forget herself, and forget what was due to her employers, too. We have given you every consideration. Why, I don’t suppose there are three governesses in all of England who live so well as you do – and on such terms with the family – and yet this is how you repay us! Presumption, impertinence, and a total want of consideration for our good name! Perhaps it is not well to talk of ingratitude between employer and employee, but I should have thought that your sense of duty alone, if not your sense of decency, would have prevented you from making such a spectacle of yourself in a public place. Sir Ralph was shocked beyond measure, and when he told me, I found it hard to believe such a thing could happen! But to dance in that wanton way, you, a governess! And taken to the ball as chaperone to my girls. How could you do it, Miss Peters?’
For all her intentions, Anne was unable to prevent herself from rising to her own defence.
‘Indeed, ma’am, I am very sorry it happened, very sorry indeed, and nothing could have been further from my wishes; but I do not know how I could have refused, when the Count had asked permission, and had been given it–’
‘Given permission?’ Lady Murray cried. ‘And how, pray, could Sir Ralph do anything else but give it, in front of everyone, when he had been asked? He was placed in an intolerable position.’
‘And how, ma’am, could I do anything else but accept?’ Anne retorted.
‘Do not answer me back, Miss Peters!’ Lady Murray said, reddening with anger. ‘You know perfectly well that none of this would have happened if you had not encouraged his attentions. Gentlemen do not customarily ask chaperones to dance at embassy balls! A pretty world it would be if they did!’
‘He did not ask me, ma’am, because I was a chaperone, but because he was a friend of my father,’ Anne said desperately.
‘Aye, so he said. But as to that, it would be more likely if he had other things on his mind than old friends when he took it into his head to notice you. A count and a governess? I know what everyone at the ball thought about that! What would you make of it, Miss Peters, if you heard it of someone else?’
Anne’s eyes filled with tears of hurt and anger at the dreadful suggestion. She struggled against them for a moment, and stammered, ‘I did not – there was never – there was nothing improper in anything he said or did! Indeed there was not! You must believe me!’
Lady Murray sniffed irritably. ‘Well, well, yes, I believe you. Do stop crying, Miss Peters. I only say that that is what everyone will believe. And you did very wrong, you know you did, to speak to him at all, and encourage him in that way.’
‘I am very sorry,’ Anne began, but was interrupted.
‘Sorry? I should think you may! I do not know what will come of this night’s work, indeed I do not. I shall have to ask Sir Ralph what is right to do about it. There is no possibility of concealment. Why, already this morning I have had a note from Mrs Anstruther, the cat, asking me in such a way whether I was having my girls instructed in the Russian language! It will be all over Paris before the day’s out. You have made us look so particular, and you know I hate anything of that sort. It is bad enough to have Hartley talked of, though it is only what everyone’s sons seem to do, but people will wonder how our girls are being brought up, if their governess acts in such a peculiar fashion. You should have thought how it would reflect on them. It is too much, really it is, to have them brought to shame by such a one as you.’