Nanny Diaries 3 - Pride and Prejudice

Reception Revelations

"She looks lovely, Mrs Scott? Is she being a good little girl?" Mrs Forsyth said as she drew me down onto her lap with ease. Bella was quite accustomed to handling nurslings of all sizes and I was instantly helpless in her arms, as a girl like me should be. She really did not seem to mind that I was crushing the copious skirts of her peach silk DiMarco gown as she cuddled me to her corseted chest and planted a kiss on my forehead, showing her affection for me. "I know she can be a handful at times?"

"So far, so good...this time." Mum replied, watching me closely, as always on edge. She was taking her responsibilities towards the litter very seriously. Having us all spread around the big hall, during the wedding reception, clearly made her nervous. But most of my sisters were total angels, with the Brewster girls reunited with their grandparents, and Naomi and Natalie sitting happily with Mama, whilst Caris was enjoying the rare treat of seeing her parents. So, that left Nicola and me, the terrible twins, and Mum had been taking us around the room with her, as she circulated, to make sure that we stayed out of trouble. "I am sure you have heard all about our...oh, I should have asked, Bella dear...how was your honeymoon?"

"Very educational, Mrs Scott...Rome is a beautiful city but it has a lot of museums, and John wanted to see every single one." Bella laughed, holding me tight and kissing my hair. "But it is nice to be home, and catching up with all the gossip...my grandmother thinks you are being a brick, Ma'am...in difficult circumstances...I would be happy to help, if you ever need me...I am sure my husband would approve..."

"That is very kind of you, Bella...but now that we have Miss Stewart back, things are much easier, and we hope to have a new fulltime nanny before she starts her new job at Deepdene, if things go to plan, for once." Mum replied, watching Bella rest my head back against her soft shoulder. "I am sure you have many church activities to involve yourself in, dear?"

"Arabella will be spending her time with me...and her mother...no doubt," Edwina Deacon said, rather sharply, appearing from my blindside, and slipping a pacifier into Bella's reluctant mouth, just like that. Bella accepted it, of course. She had been well-trained like me, and it was just automatic to fall under discipline. The wedding had been a formal affair at church, as one might expect, and almost every adult woman I saw was sporting a comforter, but the reception was different, and most of them had been removed, so that everyone could chat and celebrate with Mr and Mrs Radcliffe. But after the meal, when people started to circulate more, a few had started to reappear, especially with the younger ladies, most of whom were still maidens I had noted. Mama was still unencumbered, I was pleased to see, as was my mother, and Edwina Deacon, who I had never seen using one, but others were not so lucky. "She is being a little too exuberant...don't you think, Elizabeth?"

"It is not for me to say, Edwina...but I was enjoying hearing about Bella's honeymoon." My mother replied, quite properly, but also supporting Bella, just a little, I thought. Mum had been quite friendly with Mrs Deacon, before. But I sensed something different between them, which could only be my fault, but I also wondered whether mum had learned a lesson about the harsh politics of Meadvale. I had been thinking about it a lot, whilst tuning out for the previous week to get over the incident with Miss Danvers, and I was of the opinion that my dear father, in his eagerness to secure the biggest job of his career, had quite innocently found himself right in the middle of the Ellesmere cabal. And mum had gone along with him, whilst they were both still settling in to their new lives. Meadvale was a bubble. I had not left the village for months and mum was probably the same, and it was a very enticing world to embrace. I loved the close community, and the gentle, mannered lifestyle. And mum had made more friends in Meadvale in a few months than she made in almost four years living up north. However, once you had a chance to get the measure of the place, there were factions, people with very different attitudes to the doctrine. I wondered if my mother was starting to think that dad had got too close to Mr Ellesmere and his ilk, who were extreme by any standards. And Mrs Edwina Deacon was part of that group, which I had helped Helen Hughes escape, to an extent, even if we were all still required to behave ourselves for the sake of Colin's career. In fact, the more I actually thought about all of it, Edwina was like a queen in the village, partly because of her close affiliations to Richard Ellesmere, but also because she owned twenty percent of the bank in her own right of course. The blessed bank, I had just started to realise, was incredibly important to Meadvale and the people who lived there. Most of the rich men in the village seemed to work there, and people talked about it like it was somehow connected to the church, which made the sainted Mr Ellesmere, who owned half of it, extremely influential, with Edwina Deacon only just in his shadows. "Weddings are supposed to be joyous occasions, after all?"