ROSE GOES ON
Chapter Six
In spite of her initial misgivings, Rose
proved a competent caretaker for the little girls. She had little previous
experience with children, having rarely been exposed to them except for when
she was a child herself, but she soon learned. She had occasionally seen the
small children of other women at social functions, but at such times the
children had been on their best behavior, dressed in their finest clothing, and
already trained in how to act at such occasions.
The toddlers that she had been hired to care
for were a different matter. Having never had staid upper class mores drilled
into their heads, they behaved in a more natural fashion, one that Rose often
found perplexing and sometimes annoying.
Although both John and Rose tried to keep the
children well-behaved, they were only two years old, and usually wanted to go
their own way. Mary in particular could be difficult. She had often found
herself in charge when John had been unable to find someone to watch them while
he was working, and she was loath to give up her control over her foster sister
and what they did. She frequently defied Rose’s attempts to control her,
sometimes driving Rose to yell loudly and spank her, after which she would sit
in a corner of the apartment and sulk. Rose surprised herself with the amount
of tolerance she had for Mary’s behavior, and soon learned that yelling and
spanking were ineffective in most cases. It was far more effective to put Mary
in a corner alone, with no one to play with and no toys, and make her stay
there for five minutes, until she had calmed down.
Nadia was often easier to care for than Mary.
She was still silent and frightened, clinging to those familiar to her, but
when she did decide to misbehave, she was sometimes harder to handle than Mary.
Mary was loud and boisterous, frequently announcing what she was going to do
before she did it, but Nadia rarely gave any indication of what she had in
mind. She simply did what she pleased, and Rose soon learned to keep a close
eye on her, especially outside of the apartment, where she once spent a
frightened half-hour searching for the little girl after she wandered off on a
trip to the local park. Nadia was found safe and sound, playing quietly in a
mud puddle, but after that Rose kept the children within her sight at all times
outside the apartment.
When the girls played together, Mary usually
dominated the game, bossing Nadia around with shameless aplomb. Nadia sometimes
followed Mary’s lead when she misbehaved, much to Rose’s dismay. Mary had a
strong independent streak and a creative mind, which would stand her in good
stead in later years but often got her into trouble as a toddler. She often
tried to refuse such things as holding hands when crossing the street, taking
baths, and eating with utensils instead of her fingers. Nadia sometimes
imitated her beloved playmate, driving Rose to distraction. The two young
children were active and energetic, in spite of Nadia’s silence and both girls’
frequent nightmares about the sinking of the Titanic.
At first, Mary defied Rose at every turn when
her father was away, testing the limits to see how far she could go. Rose
didn’t know what to do with her initially, except punish her for inappropriate
behavior, but punishment only went so far in controlling a child. Her superior
size and strength were useful when it came to making the toddler do things that
she didn’t want to do, such as holding hands out on the street, and it wasn’t
long before she realized that Mary’s attitude toward her was a curious mixture
of defiance and adoration.
Mary adored Rose, even as she defied her
commands and tried to go her own way. Her two-year-old need for independence
warred with her adoration of the tall, red-headed woman who cared for her and
her foster sister, persisting in taking care of them and forgiving them for
their misbehavior no matter how far they pushed her. It wasn’t long before Rose
found that while spanking the little girl for misbehavior did little more than
increase her defiance, ignoring things deliberately calculated to get her
attention did work, as did openly disapproving of her misbehavior. In spite of
herself, Mary longed for Rose’s approval, and when she found that behaving well
brought her what she craved, she was less inclined to misbehave.
Rose in turn learned to put up with the
normal exploratory behavior of small children, not objecting when they stopped
on the street to inspect everything of interest or when Mary asked endless questions.
She allowed them play freely, as long as they were safe, remembering how often
she had longed to do so when she was a child. She insisted that they be polite
and do as she told them to insure their safety, but she also allowed them to be
children, letting them play whatever games their young minds could come up with
and only insisting that they clean up at the end of the day. A little dirt
wouldn’t hurt them, contrary to what her mother had believed when Rose was a
child. Ruth would have been appalled had Rose been allowed to play in the mud,
make toys out of abandoned newspapers and tin cans, play with small, grubby
children, or most of the other things that Rose permitted her charges to do.
She saw no harm in letting them explore, so
long as she kept an eye on them. Sometimes, rather than scolding them, she
allowed them to learn from their mistakes--such as when Mary threw her plate of
food on the floor at lunch during a temper tantrum, and Allegro promptly
devoured every crumb. There wasn’t any food left in the apartment, and Rose
wasn’t planning on going to the market until after the girls’ naps, so Mary
wound up going hungry until later in the afternoon, in spite of her attempts to
talk Rose into giving her Nadia’s lunch. She never threw her food to the dog
again.
John approved of how she cared for them,
surprised that she had adapted so quickly to the life she now led. Mary adored
her, and Nadia soon grew used to her, clinging to her when she was frightened,
much as she also clung to John, Mary, and Allegro. Rose cared for the toddlers,
keeping them safe, clothed, and fed, and trying to give them the mother’s love
that they no longer had. Remembering some of the happier moments in her own
childhood, she would set them in her lap and tell them stories, just as her own
mother had done when she was small, and allowing them to help her around the
apartment and at the market, as she had tried to do when left in the care of
servants other than her nanny or governess when she was a little girl.
All in all, the arrangement worked well, and
Rose found herself far more at home in her new environment than she had ever
been in the far more restrictive upper class world.