Explore "Forget-me-not" by Marjorie Bowen on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In a fortnight it was done; by tact, by firmness, by the use of her gift of authority that was often resented, never resisted, by sheer talent for organisation and the experience that had come from long, ironic observation of where other women went wrong, the governess had transformed the establishment of M. du Boccage. Some servants had been dismissed, some reformed, the place of Mademoiselle Broc had been taken by a stolid, effaced, hard-working Swiss, Mademoiselle Heller; the Major Domo, who had taken ill to the domination of the governess, had gone and in his place was an Italian, excellently trained, keenly anxious to please the woman to whom he owed his splendid post.
There was no more dust on the pelmets, no more faded flowers in the vases, no longer did the sound of quarrels come from the kitchens; the accounts went down, the entertainments were smoothly successful, the equipages, the lackeys smarter than before; the whole establishment had that air of easy finish that hitherto it had lacked.