The Lure of Eden

By Derina McLaughlin

1836 - A young woman becomes a Governess to Count Vorontsov in a palace on the Black Sea, where she falls in love with the palace gardener.

Only when she is forced to flee from the brewing Crimean War does she become truly aware of the lurking malevolence that has ebbed beneath the tranquil veneer of palace life.

Mary-Ann and James are forced by Mary-Ann’s Governess contract to postpone their marriage, in an atmosphere tainted by jealous rivalries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9781035812721

Derina McLaughlin

Derina’s bustling career in national cultural institutions in Australia and her years spent on a UNESCO Committee have led her to treasure the time she now dedicates to writing and gardening. Derina has earned accolades for scriptwriting in Canada and the UK. Her debut book, The Brumby of Summerhill Park, received the Charlotte Waring Barton Mentorship Award from the Children’s Book Council of Australia NSW Branch. She continues to craft children’s stories that immerse them in a world of horsey challenges, providing an escape and a role as a judge in horse shows. Earlier in her career, she delivered science radio talks for ABC Radio and served as the publications manager at the National Archives of Australia, overseeing the production of history books and a history magazine. While contributing to the Community Heritage grants with the National Library of Australia, Derina seized the opportunity to advocate for the preservation of gardening archives. This endeavour sparked her research into the lives of those who pioneered horticulture in Australia, including the protagonist in her latest novel, The Lure of Eden.

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About The Author

Derina’s bustling career in national cultural institutions in Australia and her years spent on a UNESCO Committee have led her to treasure the time she now dedicates to writing and gardening. Derina has earned accolades for scriptwriting in Canada and the UK. Her debut book, The Brumby of Summerhill Park, received the Charlotte Waring Barton Mentorship Award from the Children’s Book Council of Australia NSW Branch. She continues to craft children’s stories that immerse them in a world of horsey challenges, providing an escape and a role as a judge in horse shows. Earlier in her career, she delivered science radio talks for ABC Radio and served as the publications manager at the National Archives of Australia, overseeing the production of history books and a history magazine. While contributing to the Community Heritage grants with the National Library of Australia, Derina seized the opportunity to advocate for the preservation of gardening archives. This endeavour sparked her research into the lives of those who pioneered horticulture in Australia, including the protagonist in her latest novel, The Lure of Eden.

Copyright Information ©

Derina McLaughlin 2023

The right of Derina McLaughlin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035812264 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035812721 (ePub e-book)

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First Published 2023

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Acknowledgement

My role with the National Library, on the Community Heritage Grants Committee, while working as Director of Accessibility Development for the National Archives of Australia, raised my awareness of horticultural archives of early Australia. For that experience, I remain extremely privileged.

I am appreciative for the resources and services of the National Library of Australia and the State Library of Victoria. The State Library of Victoria holds all of the Australian publications by James Sinclair mentioned in this book. I am also grateful to resources such as E. Prescott, The Pioneers of Horticulture in Victoria, Victorian Historical Magazine, Melbourne, 1940 and staff who kindly went out of their way to provide prompt digital services.

I am also indebted to Edward Morton, a physician to Prince Voronstov, who wrote Travels in Russia: And a Residence at St. Petersburg and Odessa, 1827-1829, London, printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1830.

I was informed by newspaper reports and academic papers such as Marjie Bloy’s The Crimean War: General Causes, National University of Singapore online at: www.raleighcharterhs.org

Any errors are mine, as I sought to recreate part of the history of horticulture through the eyes of Mary-Ann Cooper, one of the brave young women who set out for Russia in the Victorian era, to take on the role of Governess and who found herself resident in Australia.

Mary-Ann Cooper escapes family misfortune in England in 1836 by applying for a job as a Governess for Count Vorontsov’s children, at his Palace in the Crimea, where she falls in love with the obstinate Scottish horticulturalist, poet and artist, James Sinclair.

Mary-Ann and James are forced by circumstances to postpone their marriage in an atmosphere tainted by jealous rivalries.

When their idyllic life on the shores of the Black Sea is threatened by the brewing Crimean War, they are forced to leave the prosperity of life in a Palace and retreat to England. Only as they prepare to escape, does Mary-Ann become truly aware of the lurking malevolence that has ebbed beneath the tranquil veneer of Palace life.

Their return to Queen Victoria’s England is short-lived, as London’s citizens are whipped into frenzy for war against Russia and they are despised by their peers and friends, who see them as possible spies aligned with the Russian Czar.

They flee to Melbourne, Australia, to try to rebuild their lives in a new Colony gripped by gold fever. Mary-Ann hopes that they can leave the darker side of their time in the Crimea behind but find themselves establishing new friendships with other colonists who are also running from the past.

Introduction

I was privileged to represent the National Archives of Australia in the work of the Community Heritage Grants Committee for several years, a program run in conjunction with the National Library of Australia; it was there that I first realised the potential of the broader popular history that could be revealed in gardening archives.

Thank you to the State Library of Victoria and the National Library of Australia and Harvard University Library for making it possible to access to books, magazines, newspapers and archival material that provided glimpses into history and created the historical backdrop for this story. The women who married famous horticulturalists of Australia deserve to be remembered for their role as book editors, community leaders, inventors and shrewd businesswomen as well as lovers, mothers and wives; modern gardening and successful horticulture in Australia relied on their spirit of adventure and fearlessness in stepping up into life’s challenges.

This is a re-creation of the love story of Mary-Ann Cooper and poet and horticulturalist James Sinclair, who bid successfully to create Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne Australia. They both had a long sojourn in Russia and the Crimea, before they reached our shores. There was need to create story lines that may or may not have been precisely what happened, but were possible, based on the history recorded and the dates of major events.

I have a BA in writing from the University of Canberra and have won awards and accolades for my script writing overseas. I was also a winner of the Charlotte Warring Barton Award in 2015-16, run by the Children’s Book Council of NSW. I am a member of the Australian Writers Guild and the Australian Society of Authors.

What is paradise, but a garden, and orchard of trees and herbs, full of pleasure and nothing there but delights.

– William Lawson 166

Part I

Melbourne, Australia

1854

Mary-Ann stared across the sea through the sheet of light rain that had been with them all morning as their ship waited to berth at the port of Melbourne. A day out from shore she had been uplifted by the promising smell of wild honey drifting in the breezes from the flowering eucalyptus forests of the wild continent. Knowing how close they were to stepping onto shore, there was a frantic packing of recent botanical drawings and paintings, carefully inserted in a leather folder with a blank sheet of thick mottled paper separating each picture.

Standing on the deck of the ship as it drew closer to land, the smell of floral scents from the inland gusts was a memory now, replaced by the smell of wet ropes and stale damp clothes. Her husband hoisted their daughter Malvina onto his shoulders and said in his Scottish burr, ‘May God bless us all in this new quest!’

Mary-Ann looked askance at her husband, then quickly looked down to avoid attracting his gaze, feeling that God had been wavering in his attention to answering her prayers for quite some months, as they had lurched perilously from a Russian stronghold to England and now to the new colony of Australia. She feared more discord lay ahead and unconsciously, her hand went to her stomach and she remained silent. They had their life savings in a leather pouch and only mere ideas as to how they would be able to make a living in this new place so far from Europe.

Her husband jogged their daughter up and down, ‘May our little Malvina rejoice that we have escaped the wicked plans of those who no longer value us.’ Mary-Ann could see that he was still annoyed with the plight that had led them here. Their escape from the pathway of the brewing Crimean War had now brought them in a circuitous route to this place so far from London and so far from their stone cottage on the grounds of the Palace in Alupka, near Sevastopol on the edge of the Black Sea. Most recently they had run away from the opinions of London society and she hoped his tension would lessen, as they made a new start in a fledgling continent where they were unknown.

Her new shipboard friend Matilda joined her on the deck with three of her six children balancing on her skirts. Toddler Malvina tried to dive from her husband’s arms to touch the older boy, who teased her, pulling faces and dodging back and forth from behind his mother. Malvina clapped her hands and giggled in delight at this game of hide and seek. Mary-Ann smiled to see Malvina so entertained and contented; she squeezed her husband’s arm, hopeful, comforted by the feeling of belonging in this new group brought together by proximity on the ship and their shared botanical interests.

Matilda was her one hope of an immediate friend in this new place, and she inspired Mary-Ann with her dreams of how she intended to make a prosperous life in this new country. Matilda had confided that she and her husband Thomas Lang were glad to be shedding the expectations of Europe too.

‘I appreciate there are times when you have to turn your back on the old world and start anew,’ said Matilda.

Fifteen years ago, a naïve eighteen-year-old Mary-Ann would have taken this comment at face value. Now she knew enough of life to consider that Matilda was probably hiding something. Mary-Ann knew that they all had their secrets, some more perfidious than others.

Pagoda at Kew Gardens

Kew, England

1836

The Chinese pagoda tower rose out of the fog along the Thames like a mystical spire. Mary-Ann wrapped her cloak around her tightly and kept her hair covered with the hood so that it could not get damp and break into the halo of lank curls that made her look dishevelled. Her bun at the nape of her collar was coiled so severely by her cousin that morning that it made it hard to straighten her neck to look up, so she traipsed along, with her young cousin Lisbeth a few strides behind her, towards the beacon of the temple steeple but with her eyes on the gravel path.

For Mary-Ann, the fog felt as cold and as still as her heart. Her Father’s scandal was still hanging like the vapour on the river, thick and not dispersing. Now she had a way out, to travel to abroad. The Crimea, she had been told, was far colder than England in winter, which was hard to imagine. Surely wealthy families who hired domestic staff and had several large residences and could afford to burn fires in every room and would have coal for furnaces. The home in Odessa sounded promising, as Odessa was a port in the Black Sea. If it was an anchorage closer to Asia than England, then Mary-Ann surmised that it may have warm oriental air and languid seas in summer.

How could she make a decision after such short acquaintance with the idea? The tall animated Russian man who interviewed her needed her answer by tomorrow so that she could make the sailing that best suited his mission and the weather and winds. One hour walking in the gardens so far from her present home in London was not long enough to juggle her fears and to judge if travelling via the Russian frontier and to a town that was once a disputed territory, and previously a battlefront, was indeed a safe alternative for her future.

She could hear the voice of her cousin Lisbeth walking behind her on the path, breaking into her regular refrain.

‘Come now Sebbie, I cannot carry you. You must walk,’ wailed Lisbeth.

Mary-Ann turned to see that Sebbie, her Aunt Felicia’s small curly haired terrier, had lain down on the gravel pathway and was daring the pouting Lisbeth to make him move. Lisbeth pulled at the red leather leash, to get Sebbie moving forward, but in response the terrier rolled over and showed no interest in even sitting up, let alone progressing towards the distant rise and finial, where two workmen were assembled, with knotted string and pegs and wooden mallets.

‘Why can’t you carry Sebbie?’ groaned the unfit Lisbeth, straining and sighing melodramatically with each step.

‘Please Lisbeth, I have a desire to be on my own for a few minutes, as I cannot think clearly unless I have calmness and quiet.’

‘Pointless fog, hanging around for hours. I’m so damp it is like I’ve been standing in the rain. I am very sure Sebbie would rather be indoors,’ Lisbeth lamented.

‘Then take Sebbie back,’ instructed Mary-Ann, ‘Let’s meet at the glass house, as at least that will be warm inside for you both,’ she said, hoping that Lisbeth would not continue to debate with her or tag along behind her whinging. Oh how Mary-Ann longed for a few minutes solitude! She needed to make a decision away from the echoes of Aunt Felicia’s voice that was ricocheting around her mind and Lisbeth’s immediate demand for attention about her latest woes.

‘I will go back, but don’t be too long,’ said Lisbeth. ‘After all, it wouldn’t be right for us to walk separate ways and…’ Lisbeth stopped as she looked up and saw that Mary-Ann was looking quite dour, wearing her schoolmistress face that she saved for days when Lisbeth could not progress with her music lessons for want of daily practice. Mary-Ann’s stern features were enough to make Lisbeth retrace her steps, and Sebbie, suddenly filled with jauntiness, trotted along beside her back towards the entry gate, glad that his forced march was over.

As soon as Lisbeth had disappeared from view, Mary-Ann felt guilty that she was lacking judgement in letting Lisbeth go back on her own, but questions about her future needed to be fully contemplated in the silence of the gardens that reminded her so much of the reassuring times spent with her Father. Should she leave England to work abroad? Would it be forever? What unknown diseases might there be in such a remote place? Would her harp be able to make the journey safely given that it was a voyage of many weeks in unknown climates? Could she trust her chaperone? Would this wealthy family be kind to her and treat her fairly or would she be treated as a shabby servant girl and be worse off than she was at present? Would they pay her in currency that she could use to book a ship home if the situation didn’t suit her? What would she do if she didn’t like the children or they were too difficult for her? What were the customs and arrangements when you had your monthlies visit?

Sometimes she knew she was in too much pain to do much for two days a month, and it was hardly something you could discuss with a man, especially if he was your employer; she cringed with even the idea of such embarrassment, putting her gloved hand to her mouth and anxiously biting the tip of her index finger, in a quandary about such an untenable circumstance. What if she hated Russia and the Crimea and couldn’t afford to come back to England? Would she be able to make friends? Would her Aunt Felicia take her back even temporarily if it didn’t work out? Perhaps there were other pathways in life?

She pondered that if her cousin Lisbeth married well, she could move in with her and become a nanny to her children; but that would maybe take years and years at the rate that Lisbeth was progressing into adulthood. Lisbeth might never forgive her for being an orphan, and being forced to share her room. Perhaps Lisbeth would remain vindictive even after her childhood jealousies faded, so maybe that was not a promising plan after all. Mary-Ann felt her own chances of marriage had been spoilt.

Her mind went back to the interview in the foyer of Mivarts hotel i where her Aunt Felicia had sat with her waiting for the arrival of an envoy sent to interview her for the position of Governess to a prosperous foreign family.

‘Your Father made things difficult for you, but here is a chance to live in a home that most likely has all of the things that your mother had when she was a girl,’ her Aunt said, as way of encouraging her in her pending discussion with the envoy from the Crimea, ‘I am sure your mother would have sanctioned this arrangement.’

Mary-Ann noted that her Aunt Felicia said nothing about her Father’s indiscretions that had led to him being sent to the penal colonies for seven years and what he might have thought about her budding independence from the family taking her thousands of miles away. His crime had been frowned upon and he was not given any sanctuary from prosecution no matter how esteemed his previous patrons.

As his only living child, all she had left was the harp and her clothes and a few trinkets that had been her mothers, small things passed down, a pendant, a ring and two hat pins that were so different to any other jewels that she had ever seen, that they looked unfashionable when she tried them with her shawls or coats or stuck in her bonnet. She presumed given the financial circumstances that they were crystal and semi-precious stones, or they would have been sold off when her Father needed money for lawyers. There were also the inks and pens and nibs and brushes and fine drawing paper that had been used by him to draw maps and plans of bridges, gardens with stone walls and archways, and unfortunately, according to the law, to forge documents. She was unclear why he had chosen to take that path, but he had been gaoled on the river in a leaking hulk and was probably fortunate to even survive before being transferred to a fleet bound for the Australia. Now she too could be going on a protracted voyage in a different direction if she chose the pathway to the Crimea that had opened before her.

Mary-Ann couldn’t imagine her Aunt Felicia allowing her own daughter Lisbeth to travel away with strangers to an unsighted destination, perhaps never to return. Neither could she imagine her mother agreeing to this leap into the unknown, like her Aunt was suggesting. Her mother had spent more time in the swamps collecting butterflies than at the hearth fussing over meals. Quite often she would come back from her travels in the marshes with her prized sketches, too tired to do much except serve up the stodge of peas and ham left from the previous night, so stiff and unyielding to the wooden spoon that they had to be cut out of the pot with a knife. Almost each and every night her mother started conversations about her much loved swamps.

‘The butterflies and dragonflies,’ she would say as they ate their chewy repast, ‘are becoming rarer the more swamps are drained for pasture, and no one cares about the encroachment of the town and the loss off our winged creatures.’ Her father would nod and pronounce sagely, ‘There are the greater needs of humanity to consider.’

‘Those green drained meadows grazing sheep and cows come at a cost!’ her mother would say in frenzy, ‘the only place we will see some insect species in the future is in drawings!’

Her father would inevitably reply, ‘People need to be housed and fed my dear. We can’t expect it to remain like Eden so close to a growing city. Commerce brings wealth to our overlords and pays our stipends and enriches us and allows us freedom to live our lives as we choose.’

‘But the birds,’ she would say, ‘what will the birds eat if the insects all leave us? Will birds also cease to exist? We must form a society and publish leaflets. We must fight it!’

After that her mother would stroll anxiously as if a grim future was already at the door and Mary-Ann stayed quiet, knowing that her father would rather spend some of his sparse remuneration on her own education than on a maid to help her mother live as she had been raised, without worries of domestic life, let alone the printing of pamphlets on saving insects.

Mary-Ann knew that living in her altered circumstances, knee to cheek in her Aunt’s two bedroom townhouse with her husband and cousin, had only ever been a temporary offer, despite phrases like, ‘We’re here to help you through this,’ and ‘you are welcome to stay as long as you need.’ Her Aunt and Uncle never went to church so she doubted if they were really true in their words. If you didn’t believe in an after-life, how could you be expected to do the right thing in this life, she thought, and how long could she continue to squeeze into the cramped bedroom as her cousin Lisbeth grew taller and sturdier. They both maintained a polite pretence that sharing the squeaky bed was all fine.

The two girls occupied the smallest room which had a view of the private fenced communal garden at the front with its newly planted trees, which Sebbie had to be dragged away from before he killed them with the doggy-delight of marking his territory. There was also a narrow window overlooking the backyard which was kept shuttered. The backyard was not a place anyone would want to look at and even Sebbie was never allowed out into the postage stamp sized yard which was frequently a smelly quagmire. It was a bog more insidious than the swamp that bred the diseases that sickened her mother.

After life in a cottage in the grounds of a rectory in the countryside, where there were still farms and calm bucolic scenes, the townhouse in London with its thick, hard to breath air and often putrid overflowing drains, was as far from her rural childhood as the moon was from the earth. The path to the outside toilet pit was a trap for anyone unsteady on foot; puddles from the neighbours ablutions and theirs, rose thru the soil once the pit leakage hit the clay layer below. The odour of humid rotting excrement made the small yard a place that was unpleasant except when it froze over in winter. Her aunt was happy to have her washerwoman hang shirts from the upstairs bedroom window on a pole rather than risk the stench in the yard. More intimate apparel was dried near the kitchen stove, a place that her Uncle never entered. Any large item like bedding was sent out twice a year. The backyard smelt evil on a sunny summer day. When the inclination was to get some warmth outside, the only person who enjoyed venturing out to the back terrace to the garden was her Uncle. Her Uncle boasted the largest tomatoes she had ever seen and was very proud that although he had left his country heritage behind as a third son who wasn’t the right fit for the military and too much an atheist for the clergy, he was happy to still have his fingers in dirt growing tomatoes while clerking for a shipping company where two decades on, through shrewd investments in cargo, he now had a major share in the business. No matter how ravenous she was some days, Mary-Ann could not bring herself to eat the plump soft tomatoes he grew.

Her precious harp was lodged in a precarious space so near the fireplace in the reception room of the townhouse, that she was sure the wood was starting to bend into a new shape during winter, when the fire went for most of the day. It was clear that while one extra girl with thin fawn hair, huge round blue eyes and short solid legs didn’t extend the food budget by much, dress money was still a problem. The puritan style fabrics that her father had preferred her to purchase were far different to what was required to impress people, particularly young men, in London. Her mother had always worn practical clothes for her tramping in the marshes and her father when faced with raising her these last two years could not see that any difference of dress was required.

Often she thought that the young men she saw swishing past in cabriolets in London wore gaudy colours compared to the women, and sopped with more lace hankies than her temperament could bear. Even if she had the clothes and a dowry and a good family reputation, she surmised, could these slim boy-men decorated in silk cravats with white lace sleeves and bright gold and red velvet vests even be marriageable or likely to move in her restricted social circle?

She thought duly that after her Father’s fiasco she was destined to be a spinster anyway, as who would marry the daughter of a convict? She toyed with the idea that she could be a noble spinster and that it might be the preferred state, as she had only suffered one kiss, stolen by a lad still covered in youthful pustules, and even hugging anyone, except those to whom she had filial obligations, made her feel repugnance. To make it worse her Father had trusted the pustule-faced young man, Mr Sloane, to teach her the sciences, but the wage he offered was so low, that she imagined this is why she was stuck with an immature young man who was not much taller than a stable lad, despite that he had studied, he said, at Cambridge University.

The foreign envoy that greeted her and Aunt Felicia at Milvarts Hotel was clean-shaven and dressed in very old-fashioned attire, even an outfit that her Father would not dared to have worn to meet with his clients. At first glance, Mary-Ann thought that the tall young man was there to meet someone else, as he didn’t look at all like she thought he should, which was like the drawings she had seen of feudal, bearded and fur-hatted Kosacks, mounted on their stocky steeds, and when he spoke to the concierge he had a clear very precise copy of an English accent. Once they realised this young man was indeed the agent of her possible employer, the concierge shepherded them all promptly away from the hotel foyer and to a large room with cushioned leather and oak chairs with high arm rests.

Mary-Ann propped her leather folder of drawings carefully against the leg of her chair. The chairs were so tall and deep that she and her Aunt shuffled onto only the very edge of the green leather padding, for fear of being trapped and unable to rise again in their voluminous frocks if they sat too far back. Mary-Ann could smell the heavenly scent of white lilies, towering in clutches in Chinese vases, perched in decorative alcoves along the wall. She clutched the armrest of her chair fretfully. Her Aunt leaned over and patted her nearest hand, and glanced across at her other hand; Mary-Ann’s stray fingers were clawing anxiously at the curving timber armrest. Her Aunt Felicia cleared her throat, and in response Mary-Ann immediately sat up straight, snatched back her nervous jittery hand and interlocked her gloved fingers, resting both hands together on her lap.

The envoy waited for them to be at ease, and then sat down. He leaned forward towards them, and introduced himself as Viktor Levitski, and as he spoke he ran his thumb over a raised scar on the side of his chin. Mary-Ann was mesmerised by his flawed appearance, following his thumb as it traversed the long red imperfection; the welted skin added a sad dimension to his youthful charm and puckered and stretched as he spoke.

As he ordered tea for the ladies, Viktor tried to keep up with their buoyant replies and questions, and only then, when he was attempting to do two things at once, could they hear a pronounced undertone of an accent in his speech. Eventually in defeat, Viktor held up a hand to convey that he wanted them to slow down, so that he could understand the nuances of their inquiries.

As he turned back to the waiter to negotiate a pot of hot China tea for three people served with lemon slices, Mary-Ann contemplated Viktor’s disfigured jaw for far too long; her Aunt caught her staring at his scar and pinched her upper arm slyly but firmly. Mary-Ann drew a sharp inward breath to disguise her pain, and blushing at her own bad manners, she looked away.

‘Let me try to answer your questions. The Count…’ Viktor stumbled, ‘…my Master Mikhail Vorontsov, who lived many years in England and who went to school here, desires an English finishing for his children. So you must tell me, please, how you think this will be achieved by Miss Mary-Ann.’

‘Sir, Mr Levitski, I apologise if my niece and I spoke too quickly for your understanding,’ said Aunt Felicia loudly and slowly, as if Viktor was deaf, ‘I can assure you, as her mediator, that she has all the qualities for a Governess, if you wish the children to be taught English ways, having undertaken these duties for some time in my home.’ Aunt Felicia spoke in such a tone that her confined terrace, although well appointed and larger than many, sounded like a mansion and she herself sounded like an independent authority. ‘She has also taught music to my daughter and her drawing is very accurate, having trained under a talented draughtsman.’

‘She means my Father,’ interrupted Mary-Ann giving a side-ways look at her Aunt with a delicate smile that hid her annoyance of her Aunt’s deception very well, ‘he was also commissioned to plan many buildings that while not famous were imaginatively designed and constructed under his supervision.’

At the same moment both women realised that this could be a faux pas that would lead to questions about her Father. Her Aunt rescued the situation before Viktor Levitski could politely request after the health of her parents.

‘Mary-Ann came to me when her Father was no longer with us and able to provide a household for her manage,’ she said by way of as truthful explanation as she could make it in the circumstances of a family member cast out of England by the courts. ‘Her mother also passed three years ago this spring season.’ This time it was her Aunt who looked at Mary-Ann with a covert smirk, daring her to put her foot in it again.

Mary-Ann sat demurely while her Aunt continued, ‘She knows some French although given the past disagreements and fighting between the French and the English perhaps this is not a bonus,’ said her Aunt, referring to Napoleon Bonaparte, who for Mary-Ann was only an historical figure but for her Aunt with a husband trying to get a footing into the profits of shipping in their early days together, had elevated the strain in their lives for many years. ‘I would sadly miss her but I understand her need to live abroad and to take opportunities that are not open to everyone who is tied down by family obligations.’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Viktor nodding his head.

Mary-Ann did her best to stay still, with her interlaced fingers still wrung together and her rounded blue eyes with their pale fine lashes downcast, so that she didn’t venture into any more traps of her own making. She glowered inwardly at her Aunt’s conjecture that she was bursting to travel to the steppes of Russia and her cheeks flushed red again. She was totally aghast and frightened of going abroad into an unknown country where she didn’t know the local language or customs or have any family or friends.

‘And Mary-Ann has a superior level of education and a natural decorum learnt from her mother,’ added her Aunt, to fill the small silence that followed Viktor’s nodding.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Viktor.

Her mother was hardly the model of decorum, thought Mary Ann, but she could only hope that her Father was correct in saying that she had passed some of her grit, inquiring mind and emotional vigour onto her.

Her Aunt’s well-founded attempt to share her merits and accomplishments appeared to be working. Viktor looked at her critically and decided that this quiet modesty she was showing about her talents was a good thing indeed. Shy and demure, she would be perfect for instilling lady-like virtues in young Lady Sofia. He knew by the end of their afternoon assembly that she played music, painted pleasing watercolour pictures and was educated in drawing techniques. She also looked healthy and her skin glowed, smooth with no scars from any pox, her cheeks a deep rosy shade, like a proper English flower; the blushing Mary-Ann was a stereotype of all things good in English women that the Count Mikhail Vorontsov told him he had desired in a Governess.

‘The main residence is in Odessa but there are two other residences she may visit,’ explained Viktor, ‘one has been under construction for many years and will be a rural idyll of prominence in the Crimea when completed.’ Viktor smiled as he envisioned the castle that was merging from the forest near the Black Sea, with a backdrop of ice-covered mountains looming over it. ‘The other is a very large residence the family visit in St Petersburg.’ Her Aunt Felicia imagined a large townhouse with many rooms. Viktor smiled to himself, imagining how amazed Mary-Ann would be when she saw the Winter Palace, when the Count and Countess travelled north with their entourage to be guests of the Czar.

‘That sounds very grand and suitable for my niece, who I expect to be treated as part of the family if she decides to take up your offer,’ stated Aunt Felicia, smiling widely at Viktor then turning her smile on Mary-Ann as if to say that the possibilities of this new existence sounded grand enough for a life of contentment.

‘It is I who will make that decision of who will take the position,’ Viktor said, trying to retake ground and to appear that he was in control of the situation, his accent flaring. However, he had very few suitable healthy young misses prepared to travel to Russia and the Crimea. Some appeared far too old to take on the necessary travel and might pass of old age from the arduous journey alone and were hardly the delicate feminine role models that the Count desired for the young Sofia.

‘Do you have any other questions?’ he asked them.

‘Thank you, Sir,’ inquired Mary-Ann, ‘how many girls and boys will be under my tutelage?’

‘There is Master Simon who is almost thirteen and young Miss Sofia who at almost eleven years old, and just becoming a lady, is very much in need of ladylike guidance and English etiquette,’ he stated. ‘They have had a nurse who they have outgrown, but who takes care of their eating…’ he paused, ‘their dinner,’ he corrected. Master Simon will have a new tutor for geometry and mathematical problems. You will need to bring English speaking, customs and traditions to them both. Music, drawing and sewing for Miss Sofia will all be of importance.’

‘Where will Miss Mary-Ann sleep at night?’ asked her Aunt.

Viktor turned to her stating proudly, ‘You will have your own suite of rooms and assistance with your hair-dress when required for special meetings.’ He didn’t add that it meant she would probably be expected regularly at the dining table as her protégés showed their new refined English tea ceremony skills with their father and mother in attendance.

Aunt Felicia looked across at her and raised her eyebrows. Mary-Ann and her Aunt had discussed that there may be too many undisciplined spoilt children and her remit might be difficult. Right now this sounded very manageable and better than life at Aunt Felicia’s by far!

They both knew that her wardrobe was not up to the job of setting an example for young misses. However, the old-fashioned clothes of the messenger from afar, suggested that he was unaware of the latest London styles.

‘My niece will only take the position if she has a female chaperone for the voyage and suitable clothing attire to meet the expectations of the position,’ said her Aunt in a firm loud voice.

Mary-Ann immediately thought that her cousin Lisbeth would get a whole bed of her own to spread out in, while she endured exile herself; she thought ruefully, at least she would no longer be answerable for the deceits of her young impetuous cousin.

‘Her closet is very proper,’ Viktor said, his English slipping, as he wondered how the stipends allowed for travel could possible extend to additional clothing.

The purchase of extra clothing wasn’t something that Victor had thought necessary, however, there was no endless queue of refined young ladies flocking to take up the offer of Governess with the required range of talents and he had been reluctant to advertise to that the position would be with a Noble family close to the Czar, as this might raise expectations too high and mean that he would be swamped with women looking to better their circumstances through association, who might not stay if they found a marriageable partner or who might be tempted to become a mistress to a wealthy man. Some who looked elegant he thought were not strong enough to survive the hot dry summer or long treks in the ice, or did not have the pad of beautiful pastel sketches and detailed ink drawings that this young lady had provided. Her references were close to home, except for the one from her previous music teacher. His mind ticked over quickly as to how he could solve the problem, because already he knew that Mary-Ann, with her demure bearing and precise, soft English speech, good skin but plain countenance, would fulfil his mission to provide a young girl who would look and behave perfectly as a governess in the Palace at Odessa. Viktor decided that there was solution to his dilemma; if he paid her in advance from the purse meant for their victuals, hostelry and transport on the voyage, she could have a set of travelling and dining clothes made.

‘Do you ride?’ he asked her.

‘No Sir, Mr Levitski. I have always been driven on long excursions, but I love to walk in parks and gardens as I am very aware of the wellbeing it brings to the mind.’

Well, Viktor thought, at least she wouldn’t need a new riding habit so they would not starve on the return trip.

‘I have letters of introduction to enable a lawyer to write up a suitable contract to be signed; a fixed ten year agreement. I already have a female companion to travel with me and the lady I choose.’ Viktor looked at her Aunt who responded with a silent nod of approval. That was how she had come to be mulling over her circumstances as she walked Kew garden, liberated from her younger cousin, temporarily.

Mary-Ann could now see the full height of the decorative pagoda ahead of her near the peak of the rise. She pulled the pins from her bun that sat tightly on the nape of her neck and her hair unravelled inside its net; now she could stare upwards; she felt closer to her Father in these surroundings, remembering his keenness to educate her on the structure which had been constructed for Princess Augusta over fifty years ago. Rather than a disembodied structure coated in tendrils of mist, close up it was a solid tower rising above her in ten narrow storeys, but with what looked like wings coming off each roof layer. Perhaps in the Crimea there were such curving buildings with winged porches?

Around the base of the pagoda, two men worked away in the damp air, measuring and taking notes. They seemed unaware of her standing there, so engrossed were they, in their discussion.

‘There’ll not be enough space for planting if the new constructions are too close to the Chinese tower,’ stated one, looking down at the plans that were held by the younger man who had a thick beard, which made it hard to tell the shape of his chin. Bright blue eyes stood out on a face that had turned brown from