Page 7 of The Lady's Companion
Enchanted, Susan held out her hand for the cup and saucer. “You run a business together?”
“Since my husband died, Miss Hampton,” said the woman as she stirred two lumps of sugar into her tea. The glance she gave to her son was almost as warm as the tea Susan sipped. “If you could wait a few months, I am sure we will have a betterselection of servants for you to select from. As it is now...” She shrugged her shoulders in an eloquent way that Aunt Louisa would have found uncouth, but which delighted Susan.
I cannot dupe these kind people, Susan thought as she set down her cup. “You do not precisely understand. I want to hire myself out as a governess.”
The Steinmans looked at each other and frowned. This is going to be more difficult than I thought, Susan considered, but forged ahead. “I am proficient in French, piano, and needlework, and know the rudiments of grammar, math, and composition,” she offered, stammering in her desire to please.
Mrs. Steinman shook her head, while Joel Steinman frowned at her. “It won’t do, Miss Hampton,” he said, and his tone was decisive. “There’s not a married woman in the whole country who would hire you.”
“But... you just told me how hard it is to find good servants, and here I am offering ...”
The Steinmans exchanged glances again and sighed. “Mother, you tell her,” Joel said. “She might think I’m being forward.”
Mrs. Steinman folded her arms in front of her and leaned toward Susan across her desk. “Miss Hampton, when was the last time you looked in a mirror?”
“Why . . . only this morning. I don’t understand,” Susan protested.
“Ladies come here for abigails and governesses, my dear, and most particularly they do not hire pretty women with tiny waists, dimples, and curly hair. You can’t be over twenty.”
“I am twenty-five,” Susan asserted. “But I am qualified in every way for such a position!” And you cannot imagine how badly I need it, she thought, leaning forward, too.
“Ladies do not want women in the house that look like you,” Joel explained, his face a dull red. “They have husbands and older sons who would consider you too much temptation.” Heheld up his hand against the militant look on her face. “I’m telling you this for your own good, Miss Hampton. I assure you it’s nothing personal. I mean, I think you’re charming.” He blushed some more, and Susan laughed in spite of herself.
“Thank you, I think,” she said, rising to go. Now what, she asked herself as she looked outside. It was snowing harder. “No,” she said, and sat down again. “I need a job. My father Sir Rodney Hampton is a gambling fool, my aunt wants to turn me into her footstool, I am twenty-five with no dowry, and I need a job.” I could cry without too much effort, she thought as she looked from one Steinman to the other. She wondered briefly which one would yield the faster to tears, then rejected the notion. This is business, she told herself. Tears are out.
“You’re making this difficult,” Joel said after a moment, but there was more regret than dismissal in his tone.
She took heart and hitched her chair closer to both desks. “I suppose I am,” she began, “but I ...”
“... still need a job,” he finished for her, his eyes merry in spite of her dilemma.
“Oh, I do,” she sighed. “Please help me, sir.”
Steinman looked at his mother for a long moment and then drummed his fingers on his desk. The rat-a-tat sound had a definite military cadence, and Susan wondered again where he had lost his arm.
Her attention was broken by the postman’s whistle and the whoosh of letters shoved through the opening in the door. Without thinking, Susan got up and gathered the mail, brushing off the snow. She handed it to the man in front of her. He glanced at the letters, then slapped one of them.
“Oy gevalt, Mamele, here’s another one from Lady Bushnell.” Forgetting her presence for a moment, he made a face at it, then took the envelope in his teeth and carefully slit it open with the letter opener. He took out the letter and shook it open,looking over it at Susan again. “You’d appreciate this lady, Miss Hampton. I think she is almost as persistent as you.”
He was about to toss it into a wire basket when he stopped and read it through again, looking over the letter at her when he finished. With scarcely concealed excitement, he glanced at his mother. “Mamele, I have an idea,” he said finally, triumph in his voice as he looked at Susan. “Miss Hampton, I have an offer for you.”
“Joel! You can’t be thinking ...“
He swiveled in his chair to watch his mother. “And why not,Mamele? Everyone we’ve sent, she’s rejected. ‘Too old, too slow, too stupid, too vulgar, too this, too that’ until I want to smack her!”
Susan grinned in spite of herself. Joel Steinman, you are irresistible, she thought. “She sounds like a dragon.”
“Most certainly. And Lady Bushnell is only the dog guarding the entrance to the underworld. What was his name?”
“Cerberus,” she said automatically, wondering what he would say next
“Ah ha!” he exclaimed, kissing his long fingers at her. “Exactly. I have here a letter from Lady Bushnell, widow of Lord Bushnell, late colonel of the Fifth Regiment of Foot, the Cotswolds Guards. I have been trying for months to please her with a lady’s companion for her mother-in-law, the dowager Lady Bushnell.” He leaned across the table until he was closer to her face. “Miss Hampton, do you have any objection to old ladies?”
Captivated by him, she shook her head.
“Strong-willed, stubborn, drive-you-crazy martinets?”
Again she shook her head. “I’ve been living with them for years, sir,” she said.
