Lady Rose's Education Read Free Page B

confused. Nellie popped her head from one of the doors and said, ”Keep up. This way.”
    Norah ran after her and remarked, ”You are a busy bee, aren't you?” And the resident busybody, she said quietly to herself.
    ”I must get you to work, right away,” Nellie said cheerily. ”It looks like you have plenty to learn and no one to teach you. This is your room, and mine.” They had arrived at the door of a tiny bedroom with two beds, a small desk and a rustic wooden armoire. There was a small window, but Nellie lit the oil-lamp on the desk anyway, with a quick expertise.
    ”The room looks very nice,” Norah said, to be polite.
    ”I have laid your uniform on the bed, so you can go ahead and change into it now. I'll come back in a few minutes and take you to Lady Rose.” Nellie click-clacked away and closed the door.
    Norah put her bag on the floor and changed into her new uniform as quickly as she could. The room was quite cold, and besides, she did not want condescending Nellie to catch her in her petticoat or practicing to tie her white bonnet. She tried to calm herself, but it had begun to dawn on her that she might not be equal to her task. Nowhere near equal to it.
    ”While in Rome,” she said out loud, taking solace in the familiar maxim, ”do as the Romans do.”

CHAPTER 5
     
     
     
     
     
    From Lady Rose's phrase book:
     
    I never anticipate, - carpe diem – the past at least is one's own,
    which is one reason for making sure of the present.
     
    Lord Byron
     
    Lady Rose was sitting by her dresser. Her hair was down and her feet were resting on a velvet cushion. The crimson fabric of the cushion was somewhat worn and its edges were faded, but it was comfortingly soft under her soles.
    Lady Rose looked at herself in the mirror. Her face looked small in the middle of it, a white and serious oval with plenty of empty space around it.
    She knew that any of the servants downstairs would give anything to trade places with her, to get to sit in this beautiful room completely idle. Sometimes she wondered, if she wouldn't willingly trade places with them, too. What a relief it would be, to busy her hands with labour. She was not quite desperate enough for cross-stitching.
    There was a knock on the door. The door was opened, and Norah ventured in. Lady Rose turned around to receive her.
    ”Oh, good, you have arrived! You look different from the last time I saw you,” she said.
    Indeed, if Norah had been a butterfly in the meadow, she was now a severe pianoforte in her black and whites. Early in the morning her aunt Sarah had helped her make her hair into a rigid bun. It was pleasant to feel that almost every bit of her personality was safely wrapped inside the uniform.
    ”Yes, I believe it, My Lady,” she said.
    ”Look at my hair,” Lady Rose said, raising some of the locks falling wildly off her shoulders with her hands. ”This is what we call a clean slate.”
    The room had a bounty of colourful things: guilt hand mirrors, porcelain vases with intricate patterns and perfume bottles. The bottles gave the room a flowery scent. There were also several shelves with intimidating rows of books. Some of their dust jackets looked very worn, as if they had been taken out and read again and again.
    Norah tried not to see the room the way her mother Mary would have: hopelessly cluttered. Mary had seen most things primarily as obstacles to thorough cleaning. One of her favourite expressions had been, ”Even the poorest can afford cleanliness and good manners.”
    Almost every time she had added sternly, ”And we are not the poorest, Norah.”
     
    ***
     
    Lady Rose pointed a linen towel to Norah. She placed it on the lady's shoulders and started to comb her caramel-coloured tresses. Norah was doing her best not to painfully pull at the lady's hair but not always succeeding.
    Apart from her own, Norah had only ever combed her mother's hair, during her last weeks on this earth. Her dark hair had still been as