Governess

onte

Olivia Rose

I am Olivia Rose, I am a well-educated woman but unfortunately my family is from the working class. I am sixteen and my parents died when I was ten. I have been a governess for two years in the Pierce's mansion. Today I arrived to a city called Duncan. I am here since I have been given a tremendous opportunity to work in a high-class mansion serving as the governess for a ten-year-old boy; my salary is fifty pounds per year. I feel blessed that such and opportunity like this has been given to me, since it is rare that the Mars family would take in a governess with such little experience. Mary Romero and Steven Mars are the owners of this mansion, they are well-mannered and educated people.

When I arrived they showed me the entire house and then led me to my room, they treated me with such kindness, like as if they had pity for me. Even though I appreciated their kindness I hoped they would have treated me as their equal, for in relation to my room it certainly look like a servant's room. With this observation I foreshadowed that I will be treated as their inferior, not as their equal. I don't mind if they do so since I really couldn't have expected more from one the richest families in the country. Plus, in comparison to my experience with the Pierce family I believe this will be paradise. In the Pierce's Mansion my salary was fifteen pounds a year and I was treated like a servant, perhaps less than a servant for I was rarely fed, my room was no bigger than the space of my bed and the only person to whom I spoke was my pupil and even she treated me like an inferior such that when she couldn't learn a lesson she would blame me for being poor and not good enough as for teaching her properly. They fired me because of her complains. Five months have passed since they fired me and I have lived in my cousin's house since. Leila, my cousin, is the sweetest person I know, she is very generous and compassionate, and never rejects me when I need her. She is from the middle-class, but I think sooner o later she will be rich since another cousin of ours is dying and we all know that he will leave Leila the inheritance.

A normal day here begins with breakfast: bread with coffee, even though they give me the same amount as they give to the servants, it is rather a reasonable amount. After breakfast, I start teaching Ethan for 10 hours, then at dinner Mary and Steven would some nights give me food, if not I remain starving till the next morning. Even though it doesn’t seem bad, I hate my job since I am always alone and I don’t actually talk to my masters, maybe we exchange some words through out the day but that’s it, no conversation nor interest in having one. Both have boring and dry personalities. I must say, I may be wrong since I must remember I am just the governess and they are one of the richest families here, for they have no reason to actually like me.

2 weeks have passed since I arrived. My first week here was not as bad as I though it will be, even though it was bad. I started teaching Ethan French, and he is learning it very well and fast. Ethan is not a typical rich boy, he may be ten but he acts like if he were 16, which I find it good and bad at the same time. Good, because he is mature and it’s easier to teach him, but bad since he isn’t actually having fun in his childhood, he is too focused in the future and in the money he will earn. Mary and Steven are both materialist human beings, they have a life’s mission to have everything of everything. They are not ok with their son being the richest boy of his age, nor that he wears the best clothes there is. They always expect more of him, even though I can’t think of something he doesn’t already have. Mary expects more of me too; she occasionally tells me to change my clothes when she doesn’t like what I am wearing and sometimes

...