"Must we go through this every morning, Miss Emma? You know that your mother wants you down at breakfast with her," Marianne said with an air of frustration in her voice.
Amy came in the room and calmly said to Emma, "I don't like to get up some mornings either. Just think of all the interesting things you will miss if you stay in bed?"
"You and your brothers and sister could show me around the grounds. Take me on a guided tour of the house and grounds," Amy suggested.
Emma had several dresses to choose from. Amy chose a dress and some matching hair ribbons for Emma to wear that day. After Emma was ready, Amy went to George's room.
She changed his diaper and put clean clothes on him. She wanted to give him a bath, but he was a little too big to sit in the wash basin with its matching pitcher. Amy had just grabbed the soiled linens off George's bed when Marianne came in the room.
The other children were ready. Marianne said that Amy need not worry about the sheets and such, because that was part of her job. Amy left the linens
Lady Pellew took one look at Amy and announced to her, "Maybe you should have a new dress or two now. That dress is too formal for your work. I will have Trudy take you to Mrs. Rappaport's house for a fitting tomorrow."
Amy did want a new dress. Preferably one that buttoned up the front. She had seen a lot of movies where the ladies wore dresses with buttons on the front of their dresses. She now understood why the buttons were on the front. Amy took a seat at the table and put George on her lap.
Lady Pellew told her, "You don't have to keep George on your lap. We have a chair for him. I usually don't keep it in the dining room. I will have Megan retrieve it for you."
Amy wondered why she didn't think of asking about a high chair for George before. It certainly made things a lot easier for her.
She worried about what to do after breakfast. How was she going to teach four children and keep an eye on the fifth one? She took a deep breath and went upstairs to the nursery.
She stood in front of the blackboard and stared at all the smiling faces. She wasn't sure where to start first. Reading? No, that could wait until this afternoon. Arithmetic? Amy never cared much for that subject. At least
"Are we going to learn all those plants and flowers? Papa got us a book. I can go get it and we can go to the garden now. Why wait?" Paul announced.
Amy's head was beginning to spin. All their voices seemed to blend as one. She looked at the ground and didn't see George. She had put him down beside her, now he was gone.
Amy rushed towards the door and saw that George was crawling near the steps. She bent down and grabbed him just as he was about to tumble down. She swung his body in her arms and said, "I am glad you don't walk yet."
"He walks, Miss Amy, he is not any good at it. He likes crawling better than walking," Emma told Amy.
Amy went back in the nursery and closed the door behind them. This way, George would stay away from the steps. She breathlessly said to the other children, "I would like you to get out your slates and put your full name on the slate. I want to view your handwriting."
"I need to see how well you write. If you and Paul have good handwriting, then you don't have to participate in the handwriting lessons. I will have you two do something else," Amy told Julia.
"How is this, Miss Amy?" Paul said as he showed her his slate. He had written Pownoll Bastard Pellew.
Poor child, Amy thought. With a name like that, no wonder he would rather be called Paul. Amy looked over at Julia's slate and noticed that she and Paul had good handwriting.
Amy took a look at Emma's slate. Emma was right about something. She did need help with writing, but she did pretty well for a five-year-old. Amy took a look at Frederick's slate and could not understand what he wrote. It looked nothing like Frederick.
Frederick interjected, "But, Miss Amy, that is my name. I was named after Papa's mentor's too. My name is Fleetwood Broughton Pellew. Mum just calls me, Frederick."
Amy saw George doing something he should not do, so she picked him up. He squealed in protest. Amy tried to conduct the class over George's whines. She told the children, "I will be teaching Emma and Frederick their handwriting and I want Paul and Julia to learn how to spell."
Paul took offense and shoved his sister off her chair. Julia let out an exaggerated cry as she fell to the floor. She got up and hit her brother, who in turn, hit her back. Amy shifted George to her left hip and got between the brother and sister.
"Stop it! Really, now! Paul, you should not shove your sister. Julia, you should not push your brother!" Amy told them.
"I don't mean "push", push. I mean egg him on, show him up, ah . . . Don't make fun of his shortcomings," Amy said trying to find a phrase they would understand.
The children looked at her like she had two heads. Slang was hard. She took it for granted in speaking. In writing, she knew she should not use it that much. But, how was she going to get through life without using her 20th Century slang?
Amy shook her head at the children. Both of Amy's parents were teachers. She knew that the one thing she didn't want to do was to be a teacher. But, she was, teaching children. What would she teach the children? She could not tell them about the Civil War. Did the British learn about the American Civil War? She could not even tell them anything about the War of 1812. None of that had happened in history, yet.
She knew about the Revolutionary War. She knew the American side of the story. What did the British think about the Revolutionary War? What did they think of Americans? They seemed to like her well enough.
She had to look over those books that Paul talked about. Maybe later this afternoon or evening, she would take a look at them. Maybe she could read one before bed. That may be fun. Amy liked old books. Well, these were not old books in this time -- they were new.
The rest of the morning went without any incidents. At lunchtime, Amy asked the children, "How do you handle lunch? Do I go down and bring it up to you or do we all go downstairs?"
"You have a lot of different ways of saying things where you are from, don't you? We call the noontime meal dinner and dinner is called supper. Unless it is formal, then I have heard it called dinner," Julia told Amy.
Frederick spoke up and informed Amy, "Our old governess used to have Marianne bring up a tray from the kitchen and we would eat up here."
"I will get the food from the kitchen and bring it up here. I don't want any of you doing anything wrong. Julia, will you please watch George for me?" Amy asked the children.
"Don't worry, Miss Amy. If anything goes wrong, I am sure that Freddie will tell you about it," Paul told her.
Amy smiled at him and went down to the kitchen. She noticed that in back of the house, they had another small building for the actual cooking. The room that they called the kitchen was used to prepare food and served as a dining room for the servants to have their meals.
"How may I ëelp you, Miss? Are you ëere for the children's food?" One of the servants, who had a thick Yorkshire accent said.
"Yes, Miss. We ëaven't been properly introduced, my name is Willa. Let me introduce you to the rest of the table. That is Elderidge, the coachman, Jenkins, the gardener, Trudy, is the Lady's personal maid, Eleanor is the cook and she is over there and you know Marianne. Megan and Butler are ëelping the Lady with her dinner. Mrs. Stowe, the ëousekeeper, doesn't like to associate with us. She thinks she is too good for us," Willa said.
Trudy told Amy, "Lady Pellew told me that I was to take you to Mrs. Rappaport's house for a fitting. Elderidge can take us to town in the carriage, tomorrow morning. Marianne will be handling your duties for the day. Meet me in this room after breakfast."
"I look forward to the trip into town. I will be seeing you later this afternoon. The children and I are going for a walk in the garden," Amy said as she took the tray of food.
"Miss, this trip tomorrow will not be a shopping trip. We have business to conduct," Trudy told Amy.
"No Problem," Amy said as she left the room. Her problem was walking up two flights of stairs in this dress and a big tray of food. She did make it up the steps and only spilled a little milk. Amy was proud of that accomplishment, but asked the children if they could perhaps have all their meals downstairs. It was agreed that they have their dinner downstairs.
After lessons were over, it was time for their walk. Frederick asked Amy, "Do you want us to show you the whole house or just outside?"
"This is the nursery, out there is the stairs and the servants bedrooms," Paul said with a sly smile.
"Thank you, Paul. I will let you be the host of the tour," Amy said with the same smile that Paul gave her.
As they walked outside, Amy noticed how well groomed everything was. She loved the ornamental garden and the stables. Amy noticed that the Pellews owned more than one carriage. There was the covered carriage, the one she had ridden in, a convertible four-seat carriage and a wagon. She assumed that the wagon was the equivalent to a truck. Every man wants a truck, she was sure that men in the 18th Century felt the same way. The stable was also had six horses and two ponies.
Amy went in the kitchen building, but didn't stay long. She didn't want to disturb Eleanor and Willa while they were working. The gardener had a whole bunch of tools in his shed. That is probably what he used to make the garden look so beautiful. Just outside the garden was a bench. Amy, who was getting a little tired of holding George, took a seat on the bench.
The rest of the children played in the garden, while she sat with George. This, she liked. It was peaceful and calm. Unlike, the rest of the day had been. Amy could not wait until tomorrow. She wanted to walk through town. She knew Trudy told them they were not there to shop. They didn't have to buy anything. Amy just wanted to experience all that Plymouth had to offer. Who knows, may be she would get to see a certain sailor again. That would be nice.
An elegant country villa nestled in the beautiful Tuscan Countryside is secured by a large wrought iron gate at the end of a driveway in the Province of Siena, Tuscany, Italy.
A grand Tuscan villa, nestled amongst its gardens and lush green surroundings, can be seen in the distance from behind its wrought iron gate.
The Region of Tuscany is home to many grand villas, some of them are permanently inhabited, while others are available for rental to tourists on a week-by-week, or even a month-by-month basis.
The term 'Tuscan villa' is now applied to pretty much any large house located in Tuscany, but originally a villa was a Roman country house, built for members of the upper classes. They were used as country homes for the residents of Rome to escape the oppressive summer heat of being in a city.
Villas were often completely self-sufficient, as owners had enough slaves living in and around the grounds, that they could grow their own food and even grow their own grapes for wine, so villas were often located so far apart that they were not easily accessible to each other, because they didn't need to be. ... continue below the picture...
... The idea of this seclusion was attractive to wealthy members of the upper classes, and tourists today still rent villas because they represent the magic of being able to 'get away from it all' for a while.
Closed gate at the entrance to a driveway leading to a villa in the Tuscan countryside, Province of Siena, Region of Tuscany, Italy, Europe.
I photographed this photo with the digital SLR camera model Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, aperture of f/6.3, exposure time of 1/200 sec. on ISO 100, as always I used a original Canon Lens, the focus lenght for this picture was 70mm.
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