Janet Barton - A Nanny For Keeps

* * *

Tyler took his leave, glad he’d gone to ask Mrs. Heaton for guidance. She was a kind woman and he felt sure she would do what she could to try to find someone to fill in as nanny.

And although he hadn’t been formally introduced to Georgia Marshall at the wedding he and his daughters had been invited to not long after they’d moved in, he remembered seeing her there. Since then he’d caught a glimpse or two of her going in and out of Heaton House.

One couldn’t help but notice her. She was lovely, with her dark brown hair and deep green eyes. But he hadn’t expected his reaction to being near to her. Her smile had warmed his heart and made his chest tighten in a way it hadn’t since his wife passed away.

And because of that reaction, Tyler quickly forced Miss Marshall out of his mind. He wasn’t looking for love or a wife. Not now and not in the future. All he needed at the moment was someone to take care of his daughters.

His butler opened the door the moment his foot touched the top step. What would he do without Mr. Tate? Thankfully, the man had no plans of desertion, at least not that he’d voiced to Tyler.

“How did it go, sir? Did Mrs. Heaton have any ideas about replacing the nanny?”

His butler was the one person Tyler felt he could confide in here in his new home. “Not right away, but she’s going to see if she can find someone to help. I’m glad I thought to go to her, since it’s obvious that the service I’ve gone through hasn’t worked.”

“Much as I dislike saying so, I believe that is true, Sir Tyler. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I feel I must tell you that the cook is making noises about leaving again.”

“Oh, dear, what have the girls done now?”

“It’s not Miss Polly or Miss Lilly, sir. They’ve done nothing to cause this. Mrs. Biddle just doesn’t like it here very much. Or so she says.”

Tyler sighed. He’d felt better after speaking with Mrs. Heaton, but he wasn’t confident even she could find anyone to help him. And now this. “I’ll speak to her.”

“That might help. It certainly can’t hurt at this point.”

Dear Lord, please help me. Now I might need a cook, too. I should have brought over a housekeeper to deal with some of these problems. Did I make the wrong decision in coming here? And what made me believe I could do this? I felt it was the answer, but perhaps I was wrong.

“Where are the girls now?”

“The maid gave them a snack earlier and they were in the playroom when I checked on them a few minutes ago.”

“Thank you, Tate. I can’t tell you how much your presence here is helping with this move. You aren’t thinking of leaving us, are you?”

“No, sir. It is a change to be sure, but my loyalties are with you and your family, Sir Tyler. I wish to work for no one else.”

“That puts my mind at ease. I’ll check on the girls and then go speak to Mrs. Biddle.”

“Very good, sir.”

Tyler gave his butler a nod and headed upstairs to his daughters’ playroom. The designer he’d hired on recommendation from his in-laws had done a wonderful job. The room was bright and sunny, decorated in blue and white. The girls were busy playing with their three-story dollhouse and talking for the dolls. He loved watching them and stood quietly at the door until they noticed him.

“Papa!” Polly jumped up and ran to him with her younger sister, Lilly, right behind her.

“We missed you, Papa!” Lilly said, kissing him on the cheek as he gathered them both up, one in each arm.

“We truly did,” Polly agreed, giving him a kiss on the other cheek.

He took them to the settee and sat down, one on each side of him.

“I went to Mrs. Heaton’s to ask—”

“Without us? Oh, Papa, we love taking tea at Mrs. Heaton’s!” Lilly exclaimed.

They’d gone only once to have tea with Mrs. Heaton and her daughter and granddaughter. But they’d taken a liking to their neighbor right away. “We’ll go another time, I’m sure, Lilly. But today I needed to ask her assistance in finding someone to help out—at least until I can find a permanent nanny.”

“Oh, Papa,” Polly said, “we don’t want any mean old nanny. Why couldn’t Mary stay?”

“Why did she have to leave us?” Lilly asked in an overly dramatic tone.

“She got homesick for England and I’d promised I’d send her home if she didn’t want to stay.”

“Why wouldn’t she want to stay with us?” Polly asked, her eyes filling with tears. “She’s been with us since we were born and after Mama passed away, too.”

“You know Nanny loved you both. It was hard for her to leave you. But she missed her family and she doesn’t like cities.”

“Oh,” Lilly said, a tear plopping out of her eye. “But we miss her.”

“I know you do. And I’m sure she misses the two of you, too.”

Mary had been a good nanny and the girls did love her. She’d cried when he took her to the ship to leave, telling him she knew how much he and his girls had already lost and that she felt as if she was deserting them. Which was exactly how Tyler felt, too.

He’d heard Mary was thinking of leaving from Tate and Mrs. Biddle, but she’d kept it from him and the girls as long as she could. But she had been miserable. In the end, she missed her own family too much to stay, and Tyler felt he had no choice but to let her go back.

“Well, I hope you’ll like the next nanny better than the one I hired to replace Mary and then the next one. You weren’t very nice to her, you know.”

“She wasn’t nice to us when you weren’t around, Papa,” Polly said.

“I’m sorry. You should have told me, instead of trying to run her away.”

“We weren’t exactly trying to do that, Papa. We were kind of...” Lilly looked over at Polly.

“If she wasn’t going to stay, we wanted her to leave as soon as possible,” his older daughter stated matter-of-factly. “If they don’t want to be nanny to us, we don’t want them to be.”

Tyler sighed and pulled his daughters closer, kissing them each on the top of the head. He didn’t know what to say. He understood their reasoning, but he felt terribly inept at figuring out what to do in this situation. It seemed he questioned every decision he’d made since Ivy had passed away.

All he really could do was pray for the Lord to help him talk Mrs. Biddle into staying, and for Mrs. Heaton to come up with someone to help out as soon as possible. He’d never thought the move to America would be such a huge adjustment for them all. And that might have been the root of the problem. He hadn’t thought things through at all.

* * *

Sir Walker’s dilemma had been on Georgia’s mind ever since he’d left Heaton House. She’d heard his daughters playing in their courtyard from time to time when she’d been out in Mrs. Heaton’s small garden reading. They were pretty little girls and she hated that not only did they have to adjust to a new country without their mother, but they also didn’t have a nanny to care for them in her place. She’d mulled over Mrs. Heaton’s suggestion and prayed about it and thought she’d come to a decision.

She dressed for dinner in a pink silk damask-and-satin dress trimmed with cream lace and silk braid. Then she went through the bathroom she shared with one of the new boarders, a seamstress named Betsy Thomas, and knocked on the door to her room.

“Georgia, come in. I was just about to go down to dinner. That pink looks lovely on you.”

“Thank you. You look very nice, too.” Betsy was quite pretty with dark, almost black, hair and blue eyes. She was dressed in a silk gown almost the same shade as her eyes. “We’ll go down together.”

“I appreciate that. It still feels a little awkward entering the parlor alone. I don’t know why, when everyone has been so kind to me.”