Читать книгу Alice’s Secret: A gripping story of love, loss and a historical mystery finally revealed - Lynne Francis - Страница 25

Alice had been wary of Richard at first, worried that he had been sent by his father to spy on her, to make sure that she was fulfilling her duties in the classroom and teaching the children to a proper standard. She was painfully conscious of her deficiencies when she compared herself to Master Richard, and his fancy education, the likes of which she could barely comprehend. It hadn’t taken her long, however, to discover that, fancy education or not, he was totally at sea in the classroom and, it would seem, in life in general.

‘Could you help me hand out the slates?’ Alice said. Within two days, she had had enough of Richard helplessly watching her, or following her around the schoolroom, hanging on her every word. She no longer worried that he had been sent to report back: rather, she feared she was minding him until James Weatherall had decided what to do for the best with regard to his future in the mill. Alice’s time with the children was limited and precious, and she resented having to waste any of it on Master Richard. She was going to have to come up with a plan.

‘Today, Master Richard will work on arithmetic with half the class, while I work on handwriting with the rest of you.’

The children started to mutter their discontent. They wanted nothing to do with either arithmetic or Master Richard.

‘Then, halfway through the morning, we will change over,’ Alice announced firmly. ‘I want you all to listen very carefully to Master Richard. We are very lucky to have him here to help.’

She’d felt shy at first, suggesting that he might devise a lesson, thinking herself presumptuous and hoping he wouldn’t take her request amiss. It didn’t take her long to discover that he had as little experience of teaching as she had of life at Cambridge. The noise from his group swiftly reached such levels that she had to break off, leaving her group to practise the loops of their ‘g’s’ and ‘f’s’ and intercede before it got too far out of hand.

‘I wonder if you might start with something a little more basic?’ she suggested, once she realised that Richard had set himself the challenge of explaining long division to his group. Richard looked blank.

‘Perhaps if you went back to simple addition or subtraction you could build on that to show how multiplication and division work?’

Richard looked embarrassed and hopeful at the same time. Alice could see he was wondering whether she would step in and take over.

Her cheeks flushed pink, partly at the frankness of his gaze, and partly with annoyance at the difficult position she had been put in. Should she speak to Ramsay? Explain to him that Richard was not well-suited to this role? That he was, in fact, a hindrance to her?

She took a deep breath. ‘I think if you tried to make this relevant to their everyday lives it would help.’

Richard still looked uncomprehending so she pressed on. ‘I mean, if Charlie earns five shillings a week, and gives his mother three shillings towards the running of the house, and has to pay a shilling in fines and stoppages at the mill’ – here all the children laughed, seeing that Alice knew Charlie only too well – ‘how much money has he got left? And if he wants to save sixpence, but wants to buy a penn’orth of sweets from Mrs Wrigglesworth’s shop’ – more laughter – ‘how much does he have left then?’

Alice laid the sums out on her slate as she spoke and held it up for the children to see. Richard’s confusion seemed to have grown and she felt her impatience rising. With a sharp look, she quelled the giggles and unrest that had broken out in the writing group and thought rapidly.

‘We’ll change the lesson a bit. I’d like this group’ – she indicated the arithmetic group – ‘to introduce themselves to Master Richard and tell him about the numbers in their life. So, how old they are, the numbers of brothers and sisters that they have, and the number of people in their family that work in the mill. Then we will put all the numbers together and over the next few weeks we will talk about average numbers, and how to work them out.’

Alice looked at Richard. She hoped he would seize the lifeline she was offering him. At least it would allow him to learn a little about his pupils’ lives, and perhaps to see how he could make arithmetic relevant and useful to them.

‘And tomorrow, I will ask Mr Ramsay if we can borrow the abacus from his office to help with our sums.’ She hoped the novelty would add an extra incentive to get on with things.

As she turned back to her own group, Alice was relieved to see Richard gather his group to him and to hear him start to question them. Even if they got nowhere with the project she’d set them, at least he would start to gain a bit of an insight into their lives.

So how had she moved from irritation to these complicated emotions? When had she stopped feeling annoyed by his uncertainty in the classroom, and started to see it for what it was: shyness and lack of experience? When had she started to respond to his vulnerability, finding herself protecting him from the children? Sharp and canny in spotting weak spots, they soon got over their awe of Master Richard and were quick to tease and fluster him. With no experience of quelling wildness, he was at a loss, until Alice stepped in and exerted discipline. She had no need to raise her voice or threaten – the children instantly understood that she meant what she said. And in any case, they had no desire to displease her.