The Chevalier's daughter

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

The next morning and for many succeeding days my mother was very unwell, and I naturally spent most of my time with her in her apartment, which was at some little distance from the rest of the house. Jeanne attended on her, and Simon worked in the garden, taking great pleasure in the variety of plants and flowers he found there. He got on very well with his fellow-servants, being of a quiet and sober disposition. He did not at all disturb himself when laughed at for his mistakes in English, but only laughed back, or contented himself with quietly correcting his mistake. But Jeanne's southern blood was more easily stirred, and she more than once came to my mother declaring that she could endure her life no longer.

Betty used to take pleasure in teasing her, as indeed she did every one who came within her reach, except her mother and Andrew, of whom she stood in awe. She and I had more than one encounter, in which I can safely say that she met her match, and she did not like me the better for it; but Rosamond was her especial butt, and she made the poor girl's life miserable. Rosamond was of a studious turn of mind, and loved nothing so much as to get away by herself, with a great chronicle, or with her French or Latin books. It was a somewhat uncommon disposition at that time, when the education of women was much neglected, even more than it is now. But the Corbets have always been rather a bookish race, and Rosamond was a true Corbet in all things. She loved acquiring new ideas above any other pleasure in the world. She made Simon tell her all about Normandy and Brittany, and there were several old sailors in the village to whose tales of foreign parts she was delighted to listen for hours, albeit I fear they were sometimes more romantic than reliable.

Aunt Amy never interfered with this taste of Rosamond's, but allowed her to read as much as she pleased, though she never cared to open a book herself. Margaret was Rosamond's champion in all things, though she thought so much reading a waste of time; but Betty was always tormenting the poor girl, hiding her books, destroying her collections of dried plants and shells, and laughing at and exaggerating the mistakes which she now and then made in her preoccupation. I must say that in general Rosamond bore all with the utmost sweetness, but now and then she would fly into a passion. Then Betty would provoke her more and more till she succeeded in driving Rosamond into a burst of passionate crying, which generally ended in a fit of the mother, which brought my aunt on the scene.

Then Betty would be all sweetness and soothing attentions to the sufferer, bringing everything she could think of to relieve her, and affecting to pity and pet her till, if it had been me, I am sure I should have boxed her ears. Aunt Amy never saw through these manœuvres, but when Rosamond recovered, she would talk to her seriously about the necessity of governing her temper, and Rosamond would listen humbly and meekly promise to try and do better. There was always more real worth in her little finger than there was in Betty's whole person, but her timidity and absent-minded ways often made her appear at a disadvantage.

She and my mother were soon great friends, and she used to bring her precious books to our apartment, where Betty dared not intrude. Here she would read aloud to us for hours, or practise her French and Italian with maman and myself. She spoke them both horribly, but was very desirous to improve, and made great progress.

Margaret also joined in the French lessons, but she had a great many other things on her hands. She took a good deal of the care of housekeeping off her mother. She visited the poor in the village, and worked for them, and she had taken upon herself a kind of supervision of the dame school, which furnished all the education for the village of Tre Madoc. Old Dame Penberthy, who taught or rather kept it, had not been a very good scholar in her best days, I imagine, and she was now old and half blind. The little children were sent to her to be kept out of mischief, and taken away as soon as they were fit for any sort of work. Some of the brightest of them learned enough to pick out, with much stammering, a chapter in the Testament, and these were the dame's best scholars, whom she exhibited with great pride.

Margaret, however, had lately taken the school in hand, moved thereto by something she had read, and also by Andrew's wish for a better state of things. He had seen in the American colonies day-schools established for all sorts of children, and he wished for something of the same sort at Tre Madoc. So Margaret had persuaded the dame to take home an orphan grandniece, a clever girl who had lived a while at the court, and the old woman easily fell into the way of letting this girl, Peggy Mellish by name, have most of the charge of the school.

Margaret herself went every other day, to inspect the sewing and spinning, and to hear the children say their horn-book and teach them their Belief and Commandments. * By and by she would have me join her in this work. I was fond of walking and of children; my mother and Andrew favored the plan, and so I took hold of it with great zeal, and after a few visits along with Margaret to learn her ways, I even took charge of the school on alternate days, and soon knew as much about the families of the children, their wants and ways, as Margaret herself.

* A horn-book was a printed sheet containing the alphabet and some other lessons, protected from moist little lingers by a sheet of transparent horn.

Thus it came to pass that Betty was in a manner left out in the cold. It was her own fault, I must needs say, for she laughed equally at Meg's and my teaching and Rosamond's learning; but she was not any more pleased for that; and so, partly from idleness, partly for revenge, she set herself to make mischief between Andrew and me. But I must put off the relation to another chapter.