Anne Serre - The Governesses

Copyright 1992 by ditions Champ Vallon

Translation copyright 2018 by Mark Hutchinson

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

Originally published in French as Les gouvernantes by ditions Champ Vallon.

First published as New Directions Paperbook 1421 in 2018

Manufactured in the United States of America

Design by Erik Rieselbach

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Serre, Anne, 1960 author. | Hutchinson, Mark, translator.

Title: The governesses / by Anne Serre ; translated by Mark Hutchinson.

Other titles: Gouvernantes. English

Description: New York : New Directions Publishing, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018021518 (print) | LCCN 2018024714 (ebook) | isbn 9780811228084 (ebook) | isbn 9780811228077 (acid-free paper)

Subjects: lcsh: GovernessesFiction.

Classification: LCC PQ2679.E67335 (ebook) | LCC PQ2679.E67335 G6813 2018 (print) | DDC 843/.914dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021518

New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

by New Directions Publishing Corporation

80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011

T heir hair held firmly in place by black hairnets, they make their way along the path, talking together in the middle of a large garden. Around them, young boys frolic and prance around, chasing hoops under the trees. One of the two women holds a book to her chest. She has slipped a finger between the pages, and her chin is resting on the spine. Her head half-lowered, she has a dreamy air as she speaks. A gleam from her yellow leather ankle boots lashes the grass by the path, then jumps up like a startled hare. The other woman clasps two small valiant hands unencumbered by rings or bracelets, her only ornaments the ten pearl buttons that keep the sleeves of her blouse stretched tightly around her wrists.

Here they come, stepping up to the large white house. Its a low-roofed, two-story building, hidden away beneath high trees. Comfortably installed in the salon, they start gossiping with an almost stately air. Theyre like queens at this time of the year. The house is empty and theyre preparing for a ball, it seems, the poor little fools a ball in their own honor, and in honor of the little boys rolling hoops.

In the salon, the scene is scantily lit by a single small lamp on a card table at the center of the rug. From the outside you can see the shimmer of the young womens hair reflected in the French doors. Theyre hot, so they remove their brooches and scarves and unbutton their blouses. Tea is brought, which they drink by candlelight. Even in a state of semi-undress, theyre a model of discretion, as smooth-skinned as infants fresh from the tub.

Elonore appears to be reciting something. From the outside, you can see her lips move, at times quite forcefully. At other moments they remain parted for a spell. The gleam of her wet teeth is visible in the French doors.

While Elonore talks, the other one stretches out comfortably on the settee, swinging her legs over the back then covering them at once with the skirt of her long dress. She eats pastries, snatching them up without looking as finger and thumb reach out at random across the low table, then closing her eyes as she carries them to her mouth.

These are the governesses. Tomorrow, the family will be back: Monsieur and Madame Austeur, Monsieur and Madame Austeurs four children, and the little maids, plus one or two friends perhaps. Back from the seaside, back from the beach.

But before that, theres the party, a gala more than three weeks in the making. Poor Ins, the governess who has been sent across the road, was in tears yesterday at the thought of missing the party. Asked to look after the elderly gentleman, she was busy making herbal tea in the stuffy, overheated room, and glancing out of the window from time to time. Ins could see the garden opposite, the path surrounded by gray lawns, a tiny corner of the bench concealed in the bushes, and the last little boy searching for his hoop. As soon as the elderly gentleman had gulped down his bowl of herbal tea, slipped on his spectacles and opened his big book, she sat down by the window. In the large gray garden, the tops of the old trees were trembling, and the young trees quivering all over. Further back was the tiny house, lit by a small light in its center. What were her two friends doing? Were they preparing for the party at least?

In the house opposite, in the dark night of the garden, the governesses are playing cards. Elonore who seems so straitlaced is laughing like a madwoman. Her cheeks are bright pink. She shakes out her wet hair and tosses her head back. One of the little boys has sat down in a large leather armchair and is leaning on his hoop as though on the rail of a ships bridge. He watches the two governesses smoking sleek little cigarettes and playing cards. From time to time, he reaches down and spears an olive in a large china bowl next to the armchair, while holding the hoop steady with his other hand.

Another little boy is standing beneath the ponderously beating clock. Wearing knee breeches, his hands clasped behind his back, hes leaning forward slightly to make sure his feet are properly aligned within the floor squares. The right side of his face is concealed by a lock of stiff hair.

All through the house, on the stairs and landings, little boys march up and down, passing each other in silence. Sometimes a hoop trundles down the stairs and bounces across the wide hall. Only once does it pass through the hall without stopping and on into the salon, catching on a vase on one of the side tables. Whereupon children arrive six or seven at a time to pick up the pieces.

Were you to base an assessment of the governesses professional skills on this particular evening, you would conclude that Monsieur and Madame Austeur had been most remiss in hiring the services of such a scatterbrained band of young women. You would even wager there was something fishy going on.

Still, its only fair to say that, when it comes to throwing parties, the governesses are in a class of their own. In every other department of life as far as one can judge from the time theyve spent in the service of Monsieur and Madame Austeur their imagination seems a little sluggish, as though held in check by a bizarre sense of propriety. But the moment a party or a birthday is involved or any other commemorative event, for that matter that same imagination, which a second before had been dead to the world, springs to life, opening its arms and shaking its legs about, and then, with an elegant thrust of the hips, diving into the thick of things.

In acknowledgement of their gift, Monsieur and Madame Austeur, who have done a fair bit of entertaining in their day, have appointed the governesses to a more senior position, albeit one that has yet to be properly defined: mistresses of games and pleasures, say, or something along those lines. With their legendary generosity, they have thrown open the upstairs salons to the three young women so that they can install their offices and work spaces there, complete with paper lanterns, hoops, and background actors; even acrobats, if need be, graciously added Monsieur Austeur, marveling at their mastery of an art for which he himself, alas, had long since lost the knack.