A Vindication Of Miss Everlee

Chapter 6

That night, she closed her eyes and replayed the conversations she had with Mr Bishop in her mind, just to make her smile a little. Occasionally she cringed, thinking she had talked too quickly. When engaging in discussion, sometimes she got overexcited and forgot one was supposed to speak clearly and calmly. However, she eased over this, reminding herself that no one said anything and perhaps didn't even notice, and instead focused her attention on how wonderful it was to talk to freely.

This didn't last long, though. Her head began to throb in fatigue and her recollection turned into unremarkable dreams, swallowed by darkness. After all, she had been home much later than she was used to. She couldn't go home without a chaperone, but Mr and Mistress Walden both liked to stay in the lower rooms late and thus she had to force herself to stay as animated as possible. She didn't realise how much sleep she needed until she was deprived of it.

Unlike her employers, however, she did not have the liberty of being able to sleep in seeing as she had a job to do. Was a somewhat decent conversation worth the fatigue it rewarded her afterwards? That morning, she decided it wasn't.

"Daniel, please do excuse my lethargy. I'll try to make your lessons as exciting as possible, but I do not believe even my alertness would save the Hebrew you must revise today," she said.

"Vocabulary? Grammar? Tenses?" he asked.

"Tenses, of course. What else would deserve such glowing approval as what I have just exhibited?" she said. He ignored her after she told him it was tenses and began shuffling through his papers. Meanwhile, she stifled a yawn and thought of how she would always go out during the day back at home. How innumerably preferable that was forcing oneself out so late.

Night was an uncomfortable affair when one was not at home, she decided. The sound from the gentlemen's room grew rowdier, the men grew bolder and the girls forgot themselves, shaken up by the former matters of which they do not understand. Nonetheless, she was brightened when she saw Amelia and looked around sharply for her brother. For a moment, she thought he must be dancing, or that he had decided to make entertainment elsewhere other than the lower rooms.

"Are you looking for Mr Bishop?" asked Mistress Walden with a coy smile as they stepped into the parlour.

"Indeed, I am,"

"Then you must not make yourself so obvious. Move your eyes, not your head," she instructed. And Midge did so accordingly. Mistress Walden moved a little closer to her until they arms became intertwined. "He would be a good match in the future. By the time Daniel goes to school, his studies will be finished and he will have settled well into a profession. You can beguile him now and marry him later,"

"Is that what I am supposed to be doing?" asked Midge, a little alarmed. She had never had to beguile someone before! Well, she was so young and her independence simply didn't call for it. When Mistress Walden informed her that, seeing as she no longer had her independence, it was now necessary, Midge said, "Well, I am terribly sorry, Mistress Walden, for I have been quite unbecoming with him already. Not realising I was supposed to be charming, I showed him quite the opposite. I argued and spoke of academics-"

Not noticing that she was just being irreverent, Mistress Walden cut in to say, "Miss Everlee, contrary to what you believe, men do not want to marry women with no intelligence. However, you must be carful in the way you display it, meaning you must be intelligent without opinion, or with amenable opinion, at least until you're married." She looked over at Mr Bishop. "Perhaps it is not too late. Just be careful with him today,"

They parted ways when Amelia approached Midge, but not before the latter could feign concern over having been too forward with Mr Bishop. The second she was out of view, she allowed the smile that had been building up with Mistress Walden to be released, but she passed it off as though she was just happy to see Amelia.