The Governess of White Stag Hall

The Cage

(image by wirestock on Freepik)

In the morning, Edith and Meg began their day with a walk. It had simply become part of their routine and the trail which followed the property's farthest edge had become just as familiar. For her part,. Edith was always glad to escape the confines of the house and breathe fresh air. Moreover, it was not as if they were wasting time. Usually, she took this hour or so to quiz Meg on what they'd gone over the day before and reiterate some of their previous lessons. It was also a good opportunity for Meg to work on her elocution as she recited old sonnets from memory.

However, on that morning lessons were as far from her mind as they were from Meg's.

She didn't know what to make of her encounter with the girl's uncle. In some ways, it felt like it'd been another part of the dream which had first woke her. There was also everything she had heard from the innkeeper in Newcastle. It seemed that the rumors that he'd been disfigured were true enough and now she had to wonder what Mrs. Horn had meant when she called him "half a devil".

Edith shook her head to clear it. She blamed her lingering curiosity on the strangeness of their meeting and thought the isolation must be getting to her–both the physical isolation of living in a place like White Stag and her own personal loneliness which followed her about these days like a specter.

Meg did not take long to wander off the path to gather leaves and flowers to press, leaving Edith alone with her thoughts, though she still kept a watchful eye on her charge.

"Good morning, Miss Belle."

The voice came from behind and Edith turned sharply toward it. There, standing on the path before her, was the man she'd encountered the night before, like her thoughts had summoned him.

He looked just as bedraggled and tired in the light of day, with his messy hair hidden under a wide-brimmed hat and the wind blowing the ends of his long coat. Without any shadows to obscure them, his scars were even more pronounced and brutal and he kept his right hand pointedly tucked into the fold of his waistcoat, though she could see enough of his wrist to make out the scars there as well.

"Good morning, sir," she greeted him finally.

If Rhys noticed how she hesitated, he made no mention of it. Instead, he also watched Meg as the girl fluttered about the clearing. "Do you and your student walk this path often?" he asked.

"When it doesn't rain," she said. "I find that starting the day with a walk makes Meg more amenable to her lessons."

He hummed at that, but said nothing.

Edith chanced a look at him when he came to stand beside her and was surprised by his tender expression as he watched Meg. It was a jarring shift that softened his hard features and cutting eyes, making him almost like another person entirely.

Edith tried to focus again on Meg, even as she felt his attention turn on her and from the corner of her eye she could see how intently he watched her. "Meg!" she called out to her student. It was partially to keep the girl from going even further afield, but mostly she hoped to escape the man's scrutiny by turning his attention to his niece. "We ought to move on before you pick the whole field clean!"

The girl looked up, ready to protest that they hadn't been there all that long, but her expression brightened at the sight of her uncle. She bounded over to them and enthusiastically hugged Rhys around the middle. "You're outside!" she said, excitedly. "You never come outside. Are you going to walk with us?"

Rhys chuckled. He seemed unbothered by the girl's affection, though he made little effort to return it. "I don't know," he said. "I suppose you must ask your governess if she would allow such a thing."