How I loved driving along the Royal Mile from the castle on the rock to that most delightful of all palaces, Holyrood House. Once I had been inside the palace. I had stood in the room where Rizzio had been murdered at the feet of Queen Mary; I had shivered and dreamed of it for months afterwards. It was all so frighteningly wonderful.
Every Sunday I went to church with my mother and with my father if he was not away. In that case my mother and I went alone and after the service we would pause outside the church to chat with friends before we got into the carriage which Vosper, the coachman, would have waiting for us. Then we would drive through the streets with their Sunday quietness to the house and Sunday lunch.
That would have been a solemn occasion but for my mother; she laughed a good deal and could be a trifle irreverent about the sermon; when she talked about people she had a way of imitating them so accurately that it was as though they themselves were speaking. She did this affectionately rather than maliciously; and we were very amused. Even my father allowed his lips to twitch and Kirkwell would put his hand discreetly to his lips to hide a smile; Kitty would smirk and my father would look with mild reproach at my mother who only laughed.
My father was a very solemn man, very religious and anxious that everyone in the house should be the same. He conducted prayers every morning in the library when he was at home, and all must attend, except my mother. She had been told by the doctor that she needed rest, so she did not rise until ten o’clock.
After church Sunday lunches would be going on in all those tall granite houses. Most of them would have the requisite number of servants, similar to ours. We had Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwell, Kitty, Bess and the tweeny. Then there were the Vospers. They did not live in the house but had their own quarters in the mews where the horses and carriage were kept. There were Mr. and Mrs. Vosper and Hamish their son. Hamish was about twenty. He helped his father and if old Vosper was not able to drive the carriage, Hamish did.
There was something about Hamish which puzzled me. He was very dark-haired with eyes which were almost black. Mrs. Kirkwell said: “There’s more than a touch of insolence about young Hamish. He seems to have a notion he’s a cut above the rest of us.”
He certainly swaggered. He was tallish and broad; he towered above his father and Mr. Kirkwell, and had a habit of lifting one eyebrow and the side of his mouth at the same time as he surveyed people. It made him appear supercilious, as though he were looking down on us because he knew so much more than we did.
My father seemed to like him. He said he had a way with horses, and he rather preferred the younger Vosper to the elder when it came to driving the carriage.
I loved those sessions when my mother and I were alone and we talked. She was fascinated by what she called the olden days and talked of them constantly. Her eyes would glow with excitement when she discussed the conflicts with our enemy below the border. She grew passionate about the great William Wallace who had stood against the mighty Edward when he had wreaked such harm on our country that he was known in history as the Hammer of the Scots.
“Great Wallace was captured.” Her eyes would glow with anger and then with bitter sorrow. “They hanged and quartered him at Smithfield … like a common traitor.”
Then there was Bonnie Prince Charlie and the tragedy of Culloden; there was the triumph of Bannockburn; and, of course, the ill-fated and ever romantic Mary Queen of Scots.
Enchanted afternoons they were and I could not bear to think that they had gone forever.
How I loved our grey city—so austere and so beautiful when the sun shone on the grey stone buildings. Such a comfortable, cosy life that was. The affairs of the household ran smoothly, or if they did not it never reached our ears but was sorted out by the excellent Kirkwells. Meals were always on time. Prayers when my father was in residence, with everyone except my mother and the Vospers attending. The Vospers were excused, of course, because they did not live in the house. I was sure no prayer ritual was conducted in the mews rooms.
Until I was fourteen I had taken my meals with Miss Milne. After that I joined my parents. It was as I was beginning to grow up that I became such good friends with Lilias Milne. I learned a great deal about her, and it was through her that I understood something of the precarious and often humiliating life these ladies were forced to live. I was glad Lilias had come to us. So was she.
“Your mother is a lady in every sense of the word,” she said on one occasion. “She has never made me feel that I am a sort of servant. When I first came here she asked me questions about my family and I could see at once that she understood and cared. She took an interest in other people; she saw what their lives were like and could put herself in their places. She always tried not to hurt people in any way. That’s what I call a lady.”
“Oh, I am so glad you came, Lilias,” I said. I was calling her Lilias then when we were alone. I reserved Miss Milne for when we were not. I was sure Mrs. Kirkwell would have objected to my use of the governess’s Christian name—my father, too. My mother would not have cared.
Lilias told me about her family who lived in England in the county of Devon.
“I was one of six,” she said. “All girls. It would have been better if some of us had been boys, although, of course, they would have had to be expensively educated. We were really very poor. We had the big house to keep up. It was always cold and draughty. How I love these warm fires here. You need them up here, of course, where it is so much colder. But in the house I’m warm. That’s what I like.”
“Tell me about the vicarage.”
“Big … draughty … right close to the church. The church is ancient, as so many of them are, and there is always something going wrong. Deathwatch beetle, woodworm and leaking roof. We have it all. It’s beautiful though. It’s in the heart of Lakemere, which is one of our English villages, with the old church, the cottages and the manor house. You don’t have them up here. You notice the difference as soon as you cross the border. I love the English villages.”
“And the draughty old vicarage? You must admit it’s warmer in our house.”
“I do. I do. I appreciate it. Then I say to myself, how long? That’s something I have to face, Davina. How much longer will you be needing a governess? I’ve been wondering that for a long time. They will send you away to school, I suppose.”
“They won’t now. Perhaps I’ll get married and you can be governess to my children.”
“That’s a little way ahead,” she said wryly.
She was ten years older than I and I had been eight when she came to us. I was her first pupil.
She told me about life before she came.
“Six girls,” she said. “We always knew we should have to earn a living if we did not get married. We couldn’t all stay at home. The two eldest, Grace and Emma, did marry. Grace to a clergyman and Emma to a solicitor. I was next and then there were Alice, Mary and Jane. Mary became a missionary. She’s out in Africa somewhere. Alice and Jane stayed at home to help keep house, for my mother had died.”
“And you came here. I’m glad you did, Lilias.”
Our friendship was growing closer. I, too, was afraid that one day my father would decide that I was no longer in need of a governess. When would that be? When I was seventeen? That was not far-off.
Lilias had come near to marriage once. She talked of it sadly, nostalgically. But her lover had “never spoken.”
“I suppose it was all implication,” I said. “How did you know he might … speak?”
“He was fond of me. He was the son of the squire of Lakemere, the younger son. It would have been a good match for the vicar’s daughter. He had a fall when he was riding. It crippled him very badly. He lost the use of his legs.”