For as long as I can remember, I have always been Miss Jessamin Rose Stewart, an orphan of good family. Of course, when I say orphan, I do not mean to include myself among those poor wretches who must scrimp and save and scratch a living in the workhouses and factories. I am rather more fortunate than they; I am of good family, though I have little enough in my possession with which to make proof of that claim.
My father was Major James Stewart of His Highness, the Prince of Wales Regiment, a decorated officer who mixed in the finest of social circles until he met my mother, Rosemary Weaver. Unlike her husband, my mother was of the upper middle class, the daughter of a vicar whose parish was tucked away among the sleepy villages of Hampshire. From what I have been told of them both, it seems that they were blessed with love at first sight, and though my father's parents objected, they were married within the year.
I have gathered, from the reminiscences of my aunts and their friends, that my parents were overjoyed when, a mere four months after their wedding day, it was discovered that they were to be blessed with a child. My father even went so far as to request that he be discharged from the army in order to care for his wife and child without leaving them behind. It is unfortunate, then, that my mother simply was not strong enough to bear me safely. I am told that she was a slight creature, smaller than myself, and delicate in looks, fragile in health. The burden of birthing me, small though I was at the time, proved too much strain for her heart, and she died before my first cries were heard.
Heartbroken, my father did his best to care for me, with the help of my aunts and his own brother's wife. For a year, he devoted his life to the care of his daughter, whom he named Jessamin Rose in memoriam of his beloved wife so soon taken to the care of the angels. Yet it seemed that his heartbreak could not survive the painful reminder of her loss each time he held me in his arms for at the end of that year, when war broke out once again in the colonies, he resumed his commission and ventured to fight the Boer in Africa, leaving me to the care of my mother's sisters. Three days before my third birthday, news of his death fighting the Dutch and Germans on the plains of South Africa was brought to the Miss Weavers, and I was no longer a major's daughter. I was, and always will be, an orphan, of good family.
Despite the loss of both my parents before I reached my third year, I was fortunate enough to be taken in by my mother's elder sisters, the Miss Weavers, who owned and ran a small, highly recommended finishing school in the city of York. They were " are " a sweet pair of dear spinsters, now advanced into the withering of their middle age. Aunt Margaret, the elder, was the sweeter of them both; gentle in spirit and in manners, she never had less than a kind word for me throughout my childhood, though I confess I was a very dull child. She was the mother hen of the school, to whom any of the girls could go if they were in need of comfort or advice.
Aunt Cecilia, the younger, was the disciplinarian, though no less kind in manner and mind than her elder sister. Yet it was Aunt Cecilia who took me in hand when it became clear that my mind was not so quick as it should be, who taught me by rote, and instilled in me a love of reading, of history and science and philosophy. I owe them both a great debt, which I never shall be able to repay.
I studied at the school until my nineteenth year, after which my aunts decided that it was time for me to venture out into the world and make something of myself, to learn how to manage my own life without their interference. Letters were sent to those women who had previously attended the Miss Weavers? Finishing School for Young Ladies, and before long, replies were returning, each offering some suggestion of an occupation or position for which I could apply.
After much consideration, Aunt Margaret and Aunt Cecilia decided upon a position as governess to the ten-year-old daughter of one of their most favoured graduates, a young woman named Harriet Armstrong who had entered into the American upper classes by means of a marriage to one of the eminent Forbes family. I was to travel to New York by steamer, from there to Boston by coach, and take up my position in the Forbes household by no later than December of that same year.
And so it was, on the twenty-fifth of October 1899, I embarked upon the steamship Clarissa, bound from Liverpool to the New World ...
My father was Major James Stewart of His Highness, the Prince of Wales Regiment, a decorated officer who mixed in the finest of social circles until he met my mother, Rosemary Weaver. Unlike her husband, my mother was of the upper middle class, the daughter of a vicar whose parish was tucked away among the sleepy villages of Hampshire. From what I have been told of them both, it seems that they were blessed with love at first sight, and though my father's parents objected, they were married within the year.
I have gathered, from the reminiscences of my aunts and their friends, that my parents were overjoyed when, a mere four months after their wedding day, it was discovered that they were to be blessed with a child. My father even went so far as to request that he be discharged from the army in order to care for his wife and child without leaving them behind. It is unfortunate, then, that my mother simply was not strong enough to bear me safely. I am told that she was a slight creature, smaller than myself, and delicate in looks, fragile in health. The burden of birthing me, small though I was at the time, proved too much strain for her heart, and she died before my first cries were heard.
Heartbroken, my father did his best to care for me, with the help of my aunts and his own brother's wife. For a year, he devoted his life to the care of his daughter, whom he named Jessamin Rose in memoriam of his beloved wife so soon taken to the care of the angels. Yet it seemed that his heartbreak could not survive the painful reminder of her loss each time he held me in his arms for at the end of that year, when war broke out once again in the colonies, he resumed his commission and ventured to fight the Boer in Africa, leaving me to the care of my mother's sisters. Three days before my third birthday, news of his death fighting the Dutch and Germans on the plains of South Africa was brought to the Miss Weavers, and I was no longer a major's daughter. I was, and always will be, an orphan, of good family.
Despite the loss of both my parents before I reached my third year, I was fortunate enough to be taken in by my mother's elder sisters, the Miss Weavers, who owned and ran a small, highly recommended finishing school in the city of York. They were " are " a sweet pair of dear spinsters, now advanced into the withering of their middle age. Aunt Margaret, the elder, was the sweeter of them both; gentle in spirit and in manners, she never had less than a kind word for me throughout my childhood, though I confess I was a very dull child. She was the mother hen of the school, to whom any of the girls could go if they were in need of comfort or advice.
Aunt Cecilia, the younger, was the disciplinarian, though no less kind in manner and mind than her elder sister. Yet it was Aunt Cecilia who took me in hand when it became clear that my mind was not so quick as it should be, who taught me by rote, and instilled in me a love of reading, of history and science and philosophy. I owe them both a great debt, which I never shall be able to repay.
I studied at the school until my nineteenth year, after which my aunts decided that it was time for me to venture out into the world and make something of myself, to learn how to manage my own life without their interference. Letters were sent to those women who had previously attended the Miss Weavers? Finishing School for Young Ladies, and before long, replies were returning, each offering some suggestion of an occupation or position for which I could apply.
After much consideration, Aunt Margaret and Aunt Cecilia decided upon a position as governess to the ten-year-old daughter of one of their most favoured graduates, a young woman named Harriet Armstrong who had entered into the American upper classes by means of a marriage to one of the eminent Forbes family. I was to travel to New York by steamer, from there to Boston by coach, and take up my position in the Forbes household by no later than December of that same year.
And so it was, on the twenty-fifth of October 1899, I embarked upon the steamship Clarissa, bound from Liverpool to the New World ...