The Gilded Cage - Taking my Place

The Gathering

"Golly, Nanny...we are going to be very full...and very busy!" I suggested, as I stood with Miss Ford, next to the stairgate, looking at all the children we had been settling in the nursery as they arrived, who filled every seat, rug and playpen we had up there. It was a big nursery and had never felt cramped, even when it was home to up nine girls, whilst Camilla and I had been in residence, but with so many cousins appearing to spend the holidays with us, we were bursting at the seams. "How many do we have? I think I have lost count somewhere along the line?"

"Me too...but your grandmama tells me that everyone will muck in...and Miss Stewart will be joining us after spending the week since school broke up with her family...she really is a glutton for punishment!" Miss Ford chuckled, taking my arm as I did a rough headcount. There seemed to be seventeen girls, seventeen nurslings, plus four boys. Several of the visitors were actually Catriona's great-grandchildren, although they were mostly her grandchildren, ranging from just about Nicola's age, to two very little girls, the very youngest children of her youngest daughter. "Sleeping arrangements will be the biggest challenge...you are sharing with at least one of our visiting maidens, and I might put a temporary cot in there with you as well!"

"Can I choose which nurslings?" I asked, a little cheekily. Miss Ford and I were not friends in the same way Annie and I were, but I liked her, and I think she liked me. I still had to call her Nanny, and do as she said, but I did not mind that at all, and she was always nice to me.

"Obviously not, your doting grandmama will decide who goes where...but I doubt she will disappoint you, Hermione!" She laughed, before leaning close to whisper in my ear, as if she did not want the children to hear her. "Our oldest boy is not in the best of moods...Miss Knight suggested that you might like to make sure he is comfortable?"

"Me? Really?" I asked, rather surprised that Miss Knight wanted me to look after one of the boys. My nannying experience was all with girls, obviously, other than the occasional Sunday lunch guest. And since my conversion, I had not had anything to do with any boys. But if Miss Knight had suggested it, she must have had her reasons.

"Good practice if you are going to be a housemother at Deepdene one day?" Miss Ford said with a grin, and the penny dropped. I was still learning and preparing for my future, potentially as Mrs Steven Blackstone, and Miss Ford was right, if I did end up as a housemother, I probably would have to deal with as many boys as I did girls. Catriona was preparing me for the life of a wife and mother, and if I was going to marry Steven, that would include supporting him with his career. Miss Knight, as my tutor and mentor, clearly had no concerns about my abilities to look after little girls, but it did make sense to give me some experience looking after some boys as well, and our captive audience for the holidays represented a risk-free opportunity to let me have a go. "Master Henry did not expect to be up here...he is just fourteen, and thought that he would be considered a young man here, just as he is at home...but when he arrived, whilst you were at prayer, he received his outfit as an early Christmas present...and your grandmother sent him up here!"

"Oh, dear...what do you want me to do with him?" I asked, examining the young man a little more closely than I had before. He was a small boy for his age, fair-haired, dressed in the latest fashion for boys in Meadvale, which grandmama seemed to like, as she had bought all of her male grandchildren an example of it. Henry's frock coat was dark blue, with white lace around the lapels, worn with white stockings and sweet shiny black shoes, rather like Mary-Janes, with large silver buckles.

"He is due downstairs to eat his lunch in a little while...Miss Knight is doing that in shifts as I understand it...so, he needs a bottle, a good mess and a change in attitude! Take him into your room, I've left a bottle in there...and let me know if you have any real trouble?" Miss Ford said with another chuckle, before sending me into battle. I took a deep breath and walked down to the sofa, where Henry was sitting with two of the other boys.