The Gilded Cage - Finding My Place

Holiday Fun

"Nicola...let Maddie help you...she is the big girl," I said as young Madeleine, a very helpful twelve-year-old, tried to wipe Nicola's face with a wet wipe. It was a bit cruel really. But letting Annie's youngest girl assist me kept her out of mischief, because she seemed to enjoy helping out, and it was good for Nicola. Obviously, Maddie was not a big girl, either in terms of height or width, or age, but she was not a nursling and therefore she was allowed to do so many things that my girls could not, much to her apparent delight. And Nicola needed to accept that, because as a nursling she had no right to do anything for herself. She had to develop what Annie's notes called a 'little' mindset to help her accept her new place in life. If she was embarrassed, and she clearly was, it was a clear sign that she was resisting her re-education, because there was nothing to be embarrassed about, for a girl like her. So, I needed to keep pushing her down into her 'little' headspace, until she regressed as her parents wanted her to. Then, according to the holy doctrine, she would start to thrive. "She should really finish her prunes and her nice plain yoghurt, Maddie...why don't you feed it to her, as she is being silly with it?"

"Can I really?" Maddie asked, clearly eager to give it a go. Nicola was like a big doll for her to play with, and Mrs Montague wanted her eldest daughter to learn her place, which seemed to be that of a born-again baby, so Maddie really was helping me. Not to mention the fact that if Maddie did it, I did not have to bother, which suited me just fine. Nannying three nurslings was quite hard work, and I did not mind having a willing helper at all, as much as I was enjoying myself in general terms.

"Saves me a job," I grinned, giving Nicola one of my sterner looks. We were on a joint day out at London Zoo, in Regent's Park. Like the good nannies we were, Annie and I had made a picnic lunch, and the girls and I were sitting at a wooden table, finishing off. Poor Annie was off chasing after the terrible twins, Felix and Luke. Maddie had come with us, as she sometimes did if our destination appealed to her, and helping with the girls, and sometimes her brothers if pushed, was just about the only thing that kept her off her mobile phone. I was in my second week with the Montague family and things were going rather well, if I said so myself. Not only in my splendid nursery, where the girls were settling nicely, but in terms of my friendship with Annie. Days off were hard to come by in the holidays, but we met up with the kids two or three times a week, and once the kids were asleep, we got two evenings off each, which we had spent at the cinema, a pub and a restaurant thus far. I actually had a friend, a proper one, and I really enjoyed working with the girls, so I was on cloud nine.

"I will finish it myself, Nanny...I promise?" Nicola desperately assured me, her big doe eyes appealing to my better nature. She was a fussy eater. I often ended up feeding her, to clear her plate, or put her in the highchair at home, but the idea of being fed by Maddie seemed to affect her more.

"Too late, little one," I said firmly, and Maddie grinned, taking the bench seat next to Nicola and reaching for the plastic spoon. My three were wearing navy blue and white sailor dresses with huge navy bows in their hair. Maddie was wearing cropped jeans and a tee shirt. It was such a contrast, and I knew which one I preferred, because I loved showing off my girls. I liked them all to look pretty. "I am just going to check on Natalie and Naomi...be good for Maddie please, pickle?"

"Yes Nanny," Nicola murmured as the first prune approached her and I laughed out loud at the pitifully miserable expression on her face. She had to learn, and I was more than happy to teach her. I was really beginning to think that I had finally found my own place in life. My vague notion of working with children, after dropping out of Uni, and the rather half-hearted research I had done about suitable courses just to stop my father going on, was developing into something else inside of me. I liked being a nanny. I liked my little girls, or my litter as a group of nurslings are commonly described, again according to Annie's notes, and I felt useful and needed in the Montague household, which certainly made a change for me. And I was making friends. For the first time in a long time, I was feeling happy and confident about my life. My dark thoughts, which had threatened to consume me at university, and then again at home with my parents, were long gone.