Page 19 of The Earl Next Door
“I’m in no hurry,” the little girl offered as she looked around the garden. “I like it here. I think it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”
That appeared to be the case for Fanny. She didn’t seem at all disturbed. Maybe it was only mere curiosity that caused her to leave the school building.
“When I met all of you a few minutes ago, I noticed you were holding hands with one of the other girls. Was it Irene?”
As she shook her head, her long red curls bounced. “No. That was Mathilda. She doesn’t cry. She’s brave like I am and doesn’t mind being here either.”
“That’s good to hear.” If some of them were coping already, there was hope in time all of them would and without too much trauma in the meantime.
“We haven’t done much sewing or learning, yet, but I liked seeing the workroom. It has a lot of thread in it. I wanted to touch the spools but Mrs. Tallon told me I couldn’t. I didn’t know there were so many different colors. I could look at them all day.”
Her comment pleased Adeline. The room was also full of most anything they could want or would need to add frippery to all types of clothing, hats, and bonnets. Mrs. Tallon had stocked the room with various colors of embroidery and tatting threads, yarns, lace and ribbons, and many different kinds of trim. There were feathers, dried flowers, and jars of beads lining several shelves.
Though the headmistress had argued against it because of the cost, Adeline insisted a few lustrous fabrics must be included with the many bolts of inexpensive muslin that had been purchased for teaching. The girls needed to appreciate the texture differences among a coarse, worsted wool, heavy cotton, and a fine silk tulle or lightweight brocade when pushing a needle through it or cutting it from a pattern.
“You’re young enough that you’ll probably have the opportunity to use every shade that’s in there before you are ready to be employed by a dressmaker.”
“I hope Mrs. Tallon lets me pick the colors I get to use first.” Fanny scrunched her nose and then twitched it a time or two. “But she probably won’t.”
“That will be up to her.”
Adeline wasn’t getting any closer to finding out what Fanny was really doing outside the schoolhouse. If it wasn’t fear of the earl, or that she wanted to run away, perhaps it was…
“Tell me about Mrs. Tallon and her helpers? Have they been kind to everyone?”
Fanny hesitated as if she wanted to study on what she wanted to say. “Mrs. Tallon says I need to answer her when she speaks to me, but sometimes I don’t have anything to say. Mum says I don’t talk enough either.” She breathed in deeply and shrugged.
Adeline couldn’t help but think of herself and Lyon. They probably said too much to each other and could take a lesson from Fanny and just be quiet. “I’m sure you miss your mother and that she misses you, too.”
Fanny nodded. Her blue eyes continued to gleam confidently. “But I need to be here. She said I’m going to learn how to read and write my name. I already know how to sew.”
“Really? Well enough to cut up an entire piece of fabric and make a dress out of it?”
She shook her head. “Not that much. I can’t make a fancy dress like you have on, but I can sew on a button, hem a skirt, and darn a hole in the elbow of a sleeve.”
“That’s quite impressive for someone your age.”
“Mum says I’m good help to her but she wants me to learn how to read.” Fanny’s lashes suddenly lowered. “Papa knew how. He used to read to us when he was home, but he’s been in Heaven a long time now.”
Adeline swallowed down a lump of sorrow that sprung up in her throat. She supposed two years was a long time for a child. “I’m sorry he can no longer do that.”
“That’s all right. I’m going to learn so I can read to Mum the way Papa did, and then she won’t be so sad. Papa will be happy when he knows I can read, too.”
“And it will bring a smile to your mother’s face when she hears you reading to her.”
“Papa will be watching from Heaven.”
“I believe he will,” Adeline said with a smile. “I’m glad to know you want to be here and you weren’t trying to run away from the school when you came outside.”
Fanny unclasped her hands and held them up as she shrugged again. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“All right. Let’s start heading you back to the school. If Mrs. Tallon realizes you’re gone, it would worry her.” Fanny fell in step with Adeline. “You do know you can’t be walking out of the schoolhouse again without Mrs. Tallon’s permission, don’t you?”
“Why, if I’m not going to do anything but walk around and look at everything?”
“You might accidently walk too far away and get lost. That would concern all of us. And, you might miss out on an important lesson she’s teaching. You wouldn’t want to do that, would you?”
Fanny shook her head again, causing her curls to bob across her shoulders. “Mum told me it was very important that I mind all the rules and eat all my food when it’s put before me whether or not I like it and don’t say a word.”
