Agnes Grey, by Anne Bronte

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Title: Agnes Grey

Author: Anne Bronte

Release Date: December, 1996  [EBook #767]
[This file was first posted on December 24, 1996]
[Most recently updated: September 9, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

Transcribed from the 1910 John Murray edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk




AGNES GREY




CHAPTER I - THE PARSONAGE



All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.  Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge.  I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to others; but the world may judge for itself.  Shielded by my own obscurity, and by the lapse of years, and a few fictitious names, I do not fear to venture; and will candidly lay before the public what I would not disclose to the most intimate friend.

My father was a clergyman of the north of England, who was deservedly respected by all who knew him; and, in his younger days, lived pretty comfortably on the joint income of a small incumbency and a snug little property of his own.  My mother, who married him against the wishes of her friends, was a squire’s daughter, and a woman of spirit.  In vain it was represented to her, that if she became the poor parson’s wife, she must relinquish her carriage and her lady’s-maid, and all the luxuries and elegancies of affluence; which to her were little less than the necessaries of life.  A carriage and a lady’s-maid were great conveniences; but, thank heaven, she had feet to carry her, and hands to minister to her own necessities.  An elegant house and spacious grounds were not to be despised; but she would rather live in a cottage with Richard Grey than in a palace with any other man in the world.

Finding arguments of no avail, her father, at length, told the lovers they might marry if they pleased; but, in so doing, his daughter would forfeit every fraction of her fortune.  He expected this would cool the ardour of both; but he was mistaken.  My father knew too well my mother’s superior worth not to be sensible that she was a valuable fortune in herself: and if she would but consent to embellish his humble hearth he should be happy to take her on any terms; while she, on her part, would rather labour with her own hands than be divided from the man she loved, whose happiness it would be her joy to make, and who was already one with her in heart and soul.  So her fortune went to swell the purse of a wiser sister, who had married a rich nabob; and she, to the wonder and compassionate regret of all who knew her, went to bury herself in the homely village parsonage among the hills of -.  And yet, in spite of all this, and in spite of my mother’s high spirit and my father’s whims, I believe you might search all England through, and fail to find a happier couple.

Of six children, my sister Mary and myself were the only two that survived the perils of infancy and early childhood.  I, being the younger by five or six years, was always regarded as the child, and the pet of the family: father, mother, and sister, all combined to spoil me - not by foolish indulgence, to render me fractious and ungovernable, but by ceaseless kindness, to make me too helpless and dependent - too unfit for buffeting with the cares and turmoils of life.

Mary and I were brought up in the strictest seclusion.  My mother, being at once highly accomplished, well informed, and fond of employment, took the whole charge of our education on herself, with the exception of Latin - which my father undertook to teach us - so that we never even went to school; and, as there was no society in the neighbourhood, our only intercourse with the world consisted in a stately tea-party, now and then, with the principal farmers and tradespeople of the vicinity (just to avoid being stigmatized as too proud to consort with our neighbours), and an annual visit to our paternal grandfather’s; where himself, our kind grandmamma, a maiden aunt, and two or three elderly ladies and gentlemen, were the only persons we ever saw.  Sometimes our mother would amuse us with stories and anecdotes of her younger days, which, while they entertained us amazingly, frequently awoke - in me, at least - a secret wish to see a little more of the world.

I thought she must have been very happy: but she never seemed to regret past times.  My father, however, whose temper was neither tranquil nor cheerful by nature, often unduly vexed himself with thinking of the sacrifices his dear wife had made for him; and troubled his head with revolving endless schemes for the augmentation of his little fortune, for her sake and ours.  In vain my mother assured him she was quite satisfied; and if he would but lay by a little for the children, we should all have plenty, both for time present and to come: but saving was not my father’s forte.  He would not run in debt (at least, my mother took good care he should not), but while he had money he must spend it: he liked to see his house comfortable, and his wife and daughters well clothed, and well attended; and besides, he was charitably disposed, and liked to give to the poor, according to his means: or, as some might think, beyond them.

At length, however, a kind friend suggested to him a means of doubling his private property at one stroke; and further increasing it, hereafter, to an untold amount.  This friend was a merchant, a man of enterprising spirit and undoubted talent, who was somewhat straitened in his mercantile pursuits for want of capital; but generously proposed to give my father a fair share of his profits, if he would only entrust him with what he could spare; and he thought he might safely promise that whatever sum the latter chose to put into his hands, it should bring him in cent. per cent.  The small patrimony was speedily sold, and the whole of its price was deposited in the hands of the friendly merchant; who as promptly proceeded to ship his cargo, and prepare for his voyage.

My father was delighted, so were we all, with our brightening prospects.  For the present, it is true, we were reduced to the narrow income of the curacy; but my father seemed to think there was no necessity for scrupulously restricting our expenditure to that; so, with a standing bill at Mr. Jackson’s, another at Smith’s, and a third at Hobson’s, we got along even more comfortably than before: though my mother affirmed we had better keep within bounds, for our prospects of wealth were but precarious, after all; and if my father would only trust everything to her management, he should never feel himself stinted: but he, for once, was incorrigible.

What happy hours Mary and I have passed while sitting at our work by the fire, or wandering on the heath-clad hills, or idling under the weeping birch (the only considerable tree in the garden), talking of future happiness to ourselves and our parents, of what we would do, and see, and possess; with no firmer foundation for our goodly superstructure than the riches that were expected to flow in upon us from the success of the worthy merchant’s speculations.  Our father was nearly as bad as ourselves; only that he affected not to be so much in earnest: expressing his bright hopes and sanguine expectations in jests and playful sallies, that always struck me as being exceedingly witty and pleasant.  Our mother laughed with delight to see him so hopeful and happy: but still she feared he was setting his heart too much upon the matter; and once I heard her whisper as she left the room, ‘God grant he be not disappointed!  I know not how he would bear it.’

Disappointed he was; and bitterly, too.  It came like a thunder-clap on us all, that the vessel which contained our fortune had been wrecked, and gone to the bottom with all its stores, together with several of the crew, and the unfortunate merchant himself.  I was grieved for him; I was grieved for the overthrow of all our air-built castles: but, with the elasticity of youth, I soon recovered the shook.

Though riches had charms, poverty had no terrors for an inexperienced girl like me.  Indeed, to say the truth, there was something exhilarating in the idea of being driven to straits, and thrown upon our own resources.  I only wished papa, mamma, and Mary were all of the same mind as myself; and then, instead of lamenting past calamities we might all cheerfully set to work to remedy them; and the greater the difficulties, the harder our present privations, the greater should be our cheerfulness to endure the latter, and our vigour to contend against the former.

Mary did not lament, but she brooded continually over the misfortune, and sank into a state of dejection from which no effort of mine could rouse her.  I could not possibly bring her to regard the matter on its bright side as I did: and indeed I was so fearful of being charged with childish frivolity, or stupid insensibility, that I carefully kept most of my bright ideas and cheering notions to myself; well knowing they could not be appreciated.

My mother thought only of consoling my father, and paying our debts and retrenching our expenditure by every available means; but my father was completely overwhelmed by the calamity: health, strength, and spirits sank beneath the blow, and he never wholly recovered them.  In vain my mother strove to cheer him, by appealing to his piety, to his courage, to his affection for herself and us.  That very affection was his greatest torment: it was for our sakes he had so ardently longed to increase his fortune - it was our interest that had lent such brightness to his hopes, and that imparted such bitterness to his present distress.  He now tormented himself with remorse at having neglected my mother’s advice; which would at least have saved him from the additional burden of debt - he vainly reproached himself for having brought her from the dignity, the ease, the luxury of her former station to toil with him through the cares and toils of poverty.  It was gall and wormwood to his soul to see that splendid, highly-accomplished woman, once so courted and admired, transformed into an active managing housewife, with hands and head continually occupied with household labours and household economy.  The very willingness with which she performed these duties, the cheerfulness with which she bore her reverses, and the kindness which withheld her from imputing the smallest blame to him, were all perverted by this ingenious self-tormentor into further aggravations of his sufferings.  And thus the mind preyed upon the body, and disordered the system of the nerves, and they in turn increased the troubles of the mind, till by action and reaction his health was seriously impaired; and not one of us could convince him that the aspect of our affairs was not half so gloomy, so utterly hopeless, as his morbid imagination represented it to be.

The useful pony phaeton was sold, together with the stout, well-fed pony - the old favourite that we had fully determined should end its days in peace, and never pass from our hands; the little coach-house and stable were let; the servant boy, and the more efficient (being the more expensive) of the two maid-servants, were dismissed.  Our clothes were mended, turned, and darned to the utmost verge of decency; our food, always plain, was now simplified to an unprecedented degree - except my father’s favourite dishes; our coals and candles were painfully economized - the pair of candles reduced to one, and that most sparingly used; the coals carefully husbanded in the half-empty grate: especially when my father was out on his parish duties, or confined to bed through illness - then we sat with our feet on the fender, scraping the perishing embers together from time to time, and occasionally adding a slight scattering of the dust and fragments of coal, just to keep them alive.  As for our carpets, they in time were worn threadbare, and patched and darned even to a greater extent than our garments.  To save the expense of a gardener, Mary and I undertook to keep the garden in order; and all the cooking and household work that could not easily be managed by one servant-girl, was done by my mother and sister, with a little occasional help from me: only a little, because, though a woman in my own estimation, I was still a child in theirs; and my mother, like most active, managing women, was not gifted with very active daughters: for this reason - that being so clever and diligent herself, she was never tempted to trust her affairs to a deputy, but, on the contrary, was willing to act and think for others as well as for number one; and whatever was the business in hand, she was apt to think that no one could do it so well as herself: so that whenever I offered to assist her, I received such an answer as - ‘No, love, you cannot indeed - there’s nothing here you can do.  Go and help your sister, or get her to take a walk with you - tell her she must not sit so much, and stay so constantly in the house as she does - she may well look thin and dejected.’

‘Mary, mamma says I’m to help you; or get you to take a walk with me; she says you may well look thin and dejected, if you sit so constantly in the house.’

‘Help me you cannot, Agnes; and I cannot go out with you - I have far too much to do.’

‘Then let me help you.’

‘You cannot, indeed, dear child.  Go and practise your music, or play with the kitten.’

There was always plenty of sewing on hand; but I had not been taught to cut out a single garment, and except plain hemming and seaming, there was little I could do, even in that line; for they both asserted that it was far easier to do the work themselves than to prepare it for me: and besides, they liked better to see me prosecuting my studies, or amusing myself - it was time enough for me to sit bending over my work, like a grave matron, when my favourite little pussy was become a steady old cat.  Under such circumstances, although I was not many degrees more useful than the kitten, my idleness was not entirely without excuse.

Through all our troubles, I never but once heard my mother complain of our want of money.  As summer was coming on she observed to Mary and me, ‘What a desirable thing it would be for your papa to spend a few weeks at a watering-place.  I am convinced the sea-air and the change of scene would be of incalculable service to him.  But then, you see, there’s no money,’ she added, with a sigh.  We both wished exceedingly that the thing might be done, and lamented greatly that it could not.  ‘Well, well!’ said she, ‘it’s no use complaining.  Possibly something might be done to further the project after all.  Mary, you are a beautiful drawer.  What do you say to doing a few more pictures in your best style, and getting them framed, with the water-coloured drawings you have already done, and trying to dispose of them to some liberal picture-dealer, who has the sense to discern their merits?’

‘Mamma, I should be delighted if you think they could be sold; and for anything worth while.’

‘It’s worth while trying, however, my dear: do you procure the drawings, and I’ll endeavour to find a purchaser.’

‘I wish I could do something,’ said I.

‘You, Agnes! well, who knows?  You draw pretty well, too: if you choose some simple piece for your subject, I daresay you will be able to produce something we shall all be proud to exhibit.’

‘But I have another scheme in my head, mamma, and have had long, only I did not like to mention it.’

‘Indeed! pray tell us what it is.’

‘I should like to be a governess.’

My mother uttered an exclamation of surprise, and laughed.  My sister dropped her work in astonishment, exclaiming, ‘You a governess, Agnes!  What can you be dreaming of?’

‘Well!  I don’t see anything so very extraordinary in it.  I do not pretend to be able to instruct great girls; but surely I could teach little ones: and I should like it so much: I am so fond of children.  Do let me, mamma!’

‘But, my love, you have not learned to take care of yourself yet: and young children require more judgment and experience to manage than elder ones.’

‘But, mamma, I am above eighteen, and quite able to take care of myself, and others too.  You do not know half the wisdom and prudence I possess, because I have never been tried.’

‘Only think,’ said Mary, ‘what would you do in a house full of strangers, without me or mamma to speak and act for you - with a parcel of children, besides yourself, to attend to; and no one to look to for advice?  You would not even know what clothes to put on.’

‘You think, because I always do as you bid me, I have no judgment of my own: but only try me - that is all I ask - and you shall see what I can do.’

At that moment my father entered and the subject of our discussion was explained to him.

‘What, my little Agnes a governess!’ cried he, and, in spite of his dejection, he laughed at the idea.

‘Yes, papa, don’t you say anything against it: I should like it so much; and I am sure I could manage delightfully.’

‘But, my darling, we could not spare you.’  And a tear glistened in his eye as he added - ‘No, no! afflicted as we are, surely we are not brought to that pass yet.’

‘Oh, no!’ said my mother.  ‘There is no necessity whatever for such a step; it is merely a whim of her own.  So you must hold your tongue, you naughty girl; for, though you are so ready to leave us, you know very well we cannot part with you.’

I was silenced for that day, and for many succeeding ones; but still I did not wholly relinquish my darling scheme.  Mary got her drawing materials, and steadily set to work.  I got mine too; but while I drew, I thought of other things.  How delightful it would be to be a governess!  To go out into the world; to enter upon a new life; to act for myself; to exercise my unused faculties; to try my unknown powers; to earn my own maintenance, and something to comfort and help my father, mother, and sister, besides exonerating them from the provision of my food and clothing; to show papa what his little Agnes could do; to convince mamma and Mary that I was not quite the helpless, thoughtless being they supposed.  And then, how charming to be entrusted with the care and education of children!  Whatever others said, I felt I was fully competent to the task: the clear remembrance of my own thoughts in early childhood would be a surer guide than the instructions of the most mature adviser.  I had but to turn from my little pupils to myself at their age, and I should know, at once, how to win their confidence and affections: how to waken the contrition of the erring; how to embolden the timid and console the afflicted; how to make Virtue practicable, Instruction desirable, and Religion lovely and comprehensible.


- Delightful task!
To teach the young idea how to shoot!


To train the tender plants, and watch their buds unfolding day by day!

Influenced by so many inducements, I determined still to persevere; though the fear of displeasing my mother, or distressing my father’s feelings, prevented me from resuming the subject for several days.  At length, again, I mentioned it to my mother in private; and, with some difficulty, got her to promise to assist me with her endeavours.  My father’s reluctant consent was next obtained, and then, though Mary still sighed her disapproval, my dear, kind mother began to look out for a situation for me.  She wrote to my father’s relations, and consulted the newspaper advertisements - her own relations she had long dropped all communication with: a formal interchange of occasional letters was all she had ever had since her marriage, and she would not at any time have applied to them in a case of this nature.  But so long and so entire had been my parents’ seclusion from the world, that many weeks elapsed before a suitable situation could be procured.  At last, to my great joy, it was decreed that I should take charge of the young family of a certain Mrs. Bloomfield; whom my kind, prim aunt Grey had known in her youth, and asserted to be a very nice woman.  Her husband was a retired tradesman, who had realized a very comfortable fortune; but could not be prevailed upon to give a greater salary than twenty-five pounds to the instructress of his children.  I, however, was glad to accept this, rather than refuse the situation - which my parents were inclined to think the better plan.

But some weeks more were yet to be devoted to preparation.  How long, how tedious those weeks appeared to me!  Yet they were happy ones in the main - full of bright hopes and ardent expectations.  With what peculiar pleasure I assisted at the making of my new clothes, and, subsequently, the packing of my trunks!  But there was a feeling of bitterness mingling with the latter occupation too; and when it was done - when all was ready for my departure on the morrow, and the last night at home approached - a sudden anguish seemed to swell my heart.  My dear friends looked so sad, and spoke so very kindly, that I could scarcely keep my eyes from overflowing: but I still affected to be gay.  I had taken my last ramble with Mary on the moors, my last walk in the garden, and round the house; I had fed, with her, our pet pigeons for the last time - the pretty creatures that we had tamed to peck their food from our hands: I had given a farewell stroke to all their silky backs as they crowded in my lap.  I had tenderly kissed my own peculiar favourites, the pair of snow-white fantails; I had played my last tune on the old familiar piano, and sung my last song to papa: not the last, I hoped, but the last for what appeared to me a very long time.  And, perhaps, when I did these things again it would be with different feelings: circumstances might be changed, and this house might never be my settled home again.  My dear little friend, the kitten, would certainly be changed: she was already growing a fine cat; and when I returned, even for a hasty visit at Christmas, would, most likely, have forgotten both her playmate and her merry pranks.  I had romped with her for the last time; and when I stroked her soft bright fur, while she lay purring herself to sleep in my lap, it was with a feeling of sadness I could not easily disguise.  Then at bed-time, when I retired with Mary to our quiet little chamber, where already my drawers were cleared out and my share of the bookcase was empty - and where, hereafter, she would have to sleep alone, in dreary solitude, as she expressed it - my heart sank more than ever: I felt as if I had been selfish and wrong to persist in leaving her; and when I knelt once more beside our little bed, I prayed for a blessing on her and on my parents more fervently than ever I had done before.  To conceal my emotion, I buried my face in my hands, and they were presently bathed in tears.  I perceived, on rising, that she had been crying too: but neither of us spoke; and in silence we betook ourselves to our repose, creeping more closely together from the consciousness that we were to part so soon.

But the morning brought a renewal of hope and spirits.  I was to depart early; that the conveyance which took me (a gig, hired from Mr. Smith, the draper, grocer, and tea-dealer of the village) might return the same day.  I rose, washed, dressed, swallowed a hasty breakfast, received the fond embraces of my father, mother, and sister, kissed the cat - to the great scandal of Sally, the maid - shook hands with her, mounted the gig, drew my veil over my face, and then, but not till then, burst into a flood of tears.  The gig rolled on; I looked back; my dear mother and sister were still standing at the door, looking after me, and waving their adieux.  I returned their salute, and prayed God to bless them from my heart: we descended the hill, and I could see them no more.

‘It’s a coldish mornin’ for you, Miss Agnes,’ observed Smith; ‘and a darksome ’un too; but we’s happen get to yon spot afore there come much rain to signify.’

‘Yes, I hope so,’ replied I, as calmly as I could.

‘It’s comed a good sup last night too.’

‘Yes.’

‘But this cold wind will happen keep it off.’

‘Perhaps it will.’

Here ended our colloquy.  We crossed the valley, and began to ascend the opposite hill.  As we were toiling up, I looked back again; there was the village spire, and the old grey parsonage beyond it, basking in a slanting beam of sunshine - it was but a sickly ray, but the village and surrounding hills were all in sombre shade, and I hailed the wandering beam as a propitious omen to my home.  With clasped hands I fervently implored a blessing on its inhabitants, and hastily turned away; for I saw the sunshine was departing; and I carefully avoided another glance, lest I should see it in gloomy shadow, like the rest of the landscape.



CHAPTER II - FIRST LESSONS IN THE ART OF INSTRUCTION



As we drove along, my spirits revived again, and I turned, with pleasure, to the contemplation of the new life upon which I was entering.  But though it was not far past the middle of September, the heavy clouds and strong north-easterly wind combined to render the day extremely cold and dreary; and the journey seemed a very long one, for, as Smith observed, the roads were ‘very heavy’; and certainly, his horse was very heavy too: it crawled up the hills, and crept down them, and only condescended to shake its sides in a trot where the road was at a dead level or a very gentle slope, which was rarely the case in those rugged regions; so that it was nearly one o’clock before we reached the place of our destination.  Yet, after all, when we entered the lofty iron gateway, when we drove softly up the smooth, well-rolled carriage-road, with the green lawn on each side, studded with young trees, and approached the new but stately mansion of Wellwood, rising above its mushroom poplar-groves, my heart failed me, and I wished it were a mile or two farther off.  For the first time in my life I must stand alone: there was no retreating now.  I must enter that house, and introduce myself among its strange inhabitants.  But how was it to be done?  True, I was near nineteen; but, thanks to my retired life and the protecting care of my mother and sister, I well knew that many a girl of fifteen, or under, was gifted with a more womanly address, and greater ease and self-possession, than I was.  Yet, if Mrs. Bloomfield were a kind, motherly woman, I might do very well, after all; and the children, of course, I should soon be at ease with them - and Mr. Bloomfield, I hoped, I should have but little to do with.

‘Be calm, be calm, whatever happens,’ I said within myself; and truly I kept this resolution so well, and was so fully occupied in steadying my nerves and stifling the rebellious flutter of my heart, that when I was admitted into the hall and ushered into the presence of Mrs. Bloomfield, I almost forgot to answer her polite salutation; and it afterwards struck me, that the little I did say was spoken in the tone of one half-dead or half-asleep.  The lady, too, was somewhat chilly in her manner, as I discovered when I had time to reflect.  She was a tall, spare, stately woman, with thick black hair, cold grey eyes, and extremely sallow complexion.

With due politeness, however, she showed me my bedroom, and left me there to take a little refreshment.  I was somewhat dismayed at my appearance on looking in the glass: the cold wind had swelled and reddened my hands, uncurled and entangled my hair, and dyed my face of a pale purple; add to this my collar was horridly crumpled, my frock splashed with mud, my feet clad in stout new boots, and as the trunks were not brought up, there was no remedy; so having smoothed my hair as well as I could, and repeatedly twitched my obdurate collar, I proceeded to clomp down the two flights of stairs, philosophizing as I went; and with some difficulty found my way into the room where Mrs. Bloomfield awaited me.

She led me into the dining-room, where the family luncheon had been laid out.  Some beefsteaks and half-cold potatoes were set before me; and while I dined upon these, she sat opposite, watching me (as I thought) and endeavouring to sustain something like a conversation - consisting chiefly of a succession of commonplace remarks, expressed with frigid formality: but this might be more my fault than hers, for I really could not converse.  In fact, my attention was almost wholly absorbed in my dinner: not from ravenous appetite, but from distress at the toughness of the beefsteaks, and the numbness of my hands, almost palsied by their five-hours’ exposure to the bitter wind.  I would gladly have eaten the potatoes and let the meat alone, but having got a large piece of the latter on to my plate, I could not be so impolite as to leave it; so, after many awkward and unsuccessful attempts to cut it with the knife, or tear it with the fork, or pull it asunder between them, sensible that the awful lady was a spectator to the whole transaction, I at last desperately grasped the knife and fork in my fists, like a child of two years old, and fell to work with all the little strength I possessed.  But this needed some apology - with a feeble attempt at a laugh, I said, ‘My hands are so benumbed with the cold that I can scarcely handle my knife and fork.’

‘I daresay you would find it cold,’ replied she with a cool, immutable gravity that did not serve to reassure me.

When the ceremony was concluded, she led me into the sitting-room again, where she rang and sent for the children.

‘You will find them not very far advanced in their attainments,’ said she, ‘for I have had so little time to attend to their education myself, and we have thought them too young for a governess till now; but I think they are clever children, and very apt to learn, especially the little boy; he is, I think, the flower of the flock - a generous, noble-spirited boy, one to be led, but not driven, and remarkable for always speaking the truth.  He seems to scorn deception’ (this was good news).  ‘His sister Mary Ann will require watching,’ continued she, ‘but she is a very good girl upon the whole; though I wish her to be kept out of the nursery as much as possible, as she is now almost six years old, and might acquire bad habits from the nurses.  I have ordered her crib to be placed in your room, and if you will be so kind as to overlook her washing and dressing, and take charge of her clothes, she need have nothing further to do with the nursery maid.’

I replied I was quite willing to do so; and at that moment my young pupils entered the apartment, with their two younger sisters.  Master Tom Bloomfield was a well-grown boy of seven, with a somewhat wiry frame, flaxen hair, blue eyes, small turned-up nose, and fair complexion.  Mary Ann was a tall girl too, somewhat dark like her mother, but with a round full face and a high colour in her cheeks.  The second sister was Fanny, a very pretty little girl; Mrs. Bloomfield assured me she was a remarkably gentle child, and required encouragement: she had not learned anything yet; but in a few days, she would be four years old, and then she might take her first lesson in the alphabet, and be promoted to the schoolroom.  The remaining one was Harriet, a little broad, fat, merry, playful thing of scarcely two, that I coveted more than all the rest - but with her I had nothing to do.

I talked to my little pupils as well as I could, and tried to render myself agreeable; but with little success I fear, for their mother’s presence kept me under an unpleasant restraint.  They, however, were remarkably free from shyness.  They seemed bold, lively children, and I hoped I should soon be on friendly terms with them - the little boy especially, of whom I had heard such a favourable character from his mamma.  In Mary Ann there was a certain affected simper, and a craving for notice, that I was sorry to observe.  But her brother claimed all my attention to himself; he stood bolt upright between me and the fire, with his hands behind his back, talking away like an orator, occasionally interrupting his discourse with a sharp reproof to his sisters when they made too much noise.

‘Oh, Tom, what a darling you are!’ exclaimed his mother.  ‘Come and kiss dear mamma; and then won’t you show Miss Grey your schoolroom, and your nice new books?’

‘I won’t kiss you, mamma; but I will show Miss Grey my schoolroom, and my new books.’

‘And my schoolroom, and my new books, Tom,’ said Mary Ann.  ‘They’re mine too.’

‘They’re mine,’ replied he decisively.  ‘Come along, Miss Grey - I’ll escort you.’

When the room and books had been shown, with some bickerings between the brother and sister that I did my utmost to appease or mitigate, Mary Ann brought me her doll, and began to be very loquacious on the subject of its fine clothes, its bed, its chest of drawers, and other appurtenances; but Tom told her to hold her clamour, that Miss Grey might see his rocking-horse, which, with a most important bustle, he dragged forth from its corner into the middle of the room, loudly calling on me to attend to it.  Then, ordering his sister to hold the reins, he mounted, and made me stand for ten minutes, watching how manfully he used his whip and spurs.  Meantime, however, I admired Mary Ann’s pretty doll, and all its possessions; and then told Master Tom he was a capital rider, but I hoped he would not use his whip and spurs so much when he rode a real pony.

‘Oh, yes, I will!’ said he, laying on with redoubled ardour.  ‘I’ll cut into him like smoke!  Eeh! my word! but he shall sweat for it.’

This was very shocking; but I hoped in time to be able to work a reformation.

‘Now you must put on your bonnet and shawl,’ said the little hero, ‘and I’ll show you my garden.’

‘And mine,’ said Mary Ann.

Tom lifted his fist with a menacing gesture; she uttered a loud, shrill scream, ran to the other side of me, and made a face at him.

‘Surely, Tom, you would not strike your sister!  I hope I shall never see you do that.’

‘You will sometimes: I’m obliged to do it now and then to keep her in order.’

‘But it is not your business to keep her in order, you know - that is for - ’

‘Well, now go and put on your bonnet.’

‘I don’t know - it is so very cloudy and cold, it seems likely to rain; - and you know I have had a long drive.’

‘No matter - you must come; I shall allow of no excuses,’ replied the consequential little gentleman.  And, as it was the first day of our acquaintance, I thought I might as well indulge him.  It was too cold for Mary Ann to venture, so she stayed with her mamma, to the great relief of her brother, who liked to have me all to himself.

The garden was a large one, and tastefully laid out; besides several splendid dahlias, there were some other fine flowers still in bloom: but my companion would not give me time to examine them: I must go with him, across the wet grass, to a remote sequestered corner, the most important place in the grounds, because it contained his garden.  There were two round beds, stocked with a variety of plants.  In one there was a pretty little rose-tree.  I paused to admire its lovely blossoms.

‘Oh, never mind that!’ said he, contemptuously.  ‘That’s only Mary Ann’s garden; look, THIS is mine.’

After I had observed every flower, and listened to a disquisition on every plant, I was permitted to depart; but first, with great pomp, he plucked a polyanthus and presented it to me, as one conferring a prodigious favour.  I observed, on the grass about his garden, certain apparatus of sticks and corn, and asked what they were.

‘Traps for birds.’

‘Why do you catch them?’

‘Papa says they do harm.’

‘And what do you do with them when you catch them?’

‘Different things.  Sometimes I give them to the cat; sometimes I cut them in pieces with my penknife; but the next, I mean to roast alive.’

‘And why do you mean to do such a horrible thing?’

‘For two reasons: first, to see how long it will live - and then, to see what it will taste like.’

‘But don’t you know it is extremely wicked to do such things?  Remember, the birds can feel as well as you; and think, how would you like it yourself?’

‘Oh, that’s nothing!  I’m not a bird, and I can’t feel what I do to them.’

‘But you will have to feel it some time, Tom: you have heard where wicked people go to when they die; and if you don’t leave off torturing innocent birds, remember, you will have to go there, and suffer just what you have made them suffer.’

‘Oh, pooh!  I shan’t.  Papa knows how I treat them, and he never blames me for it: he says it is just what he used to do when he was a boy.  Last summer, he gave me a nest full of young sparrows, and he saw me pulling off their legs and wings, and heads, and never said anything; except that they were nasty things, and I must not let them soil my trousers: end Uncle Robson was there too, and he laughed, and said I was a fine boy.’

‘But what would your mamma say?’

‘Oh, she doesn’t care! she says it’s a pity to kill the pretty singing birds, but the naughty sparrows, and mice, and rats, I may do what I like with.  So now, Miss Grey, you see it is not wicked.’

‘I still think it is, Tom; and perhaps your papa and mamma would think so too, if they thought much about it.  However,’ I internally added, ‘they may say what they please, but I am determined you shall do nothing of the kind, as long as I have power to prevent it.’

He next took me across the lawn to see his mole-traps, and then into the stack-yard to see his weasel-traps: one of which, to his great joy, contained a dead weasel; and then into the stable to see, not the fine carriage-horses, but a little rough colt, which he informed me had been bred on purpose for him, and he was to ride it as soon as it was properly trained.  I tried to amuse the little fellow, and listened to all his chatter as complacently as I could; for I thought if he had any affections at all, I would endeavour to win them; and then, in time, I might be able to show him the error of his ways: but I looked in vain for that generous, noble spirit his mother talked of; though I could see he was not without a certain degree of quickness and penetration, when he chose to exert it.

When we re-entered the house it was nearly tea-time.  Master Tom told me that, as papa was from home, he and I and Mary Ann were to have tea with mamma, for a treat; for, on such occasions, she always dined at luncheon-time with them, instead of at six o’clock.  Soon after tea, Mary Ann went to bed, but Tom favoured us with his company and conversation till eight.  After he was gone, Mrs. Bloomfield further enlightened me on the subject of her children’s dispositions and acquirements, and on what they were to learn, and how they were to be managed, and cautioned me to mention their defects to no one but herself.  My mother had warned me before to mention them as little as possible to her, for people did not like to be told of their children’s faults, and so I concluded I was to keep silence on them altogether.  About half-past nine, Mrs. Bloomfield invited me to partake of a frugal supper of cold meat and bread.  I was glad when that was over, and she took her bedroom candlestick and retired to rest; for though I wished to be pleased with her, her company was extremely irksome to me; and I could not help feeling that she was cold, grave, and forbidding - the very opposite of the kind, warm-hearted matron my hopes had depicted her to be.



CHAPTER III - A FEW MORE LESSONS



I rose next morning with a feeling of hopeful exhilaration, in spite of the disappointments already experienced; but I found the dressing of Mary Ann was no light matter, as her abundant hair was to be smeared with pomade, plaited in three long tails, and tied with bows of ribbon: a task my unaccustomed fingers found great difficulty in performing.  She told me her nurse could do it in half the time, and, by keeping up a constant fidget of impatience, contrived to render me still longer.  When all was done, we went into the schoolroom, where I met my other pupil, and chatted with the two till it was time to go down to breakfast.  That meal being concluded, and a few civil words having been exchanged with Mrs. Bloomfield, we repaired to the schoolroom again, and commenced the business of the day.  I found my pupils very backward, indeed; but Tom, though averse to every species of mental exertion, was not without abilities.  Mary Ann could scarcely read a word, and was so careless and inattentive that I could hardly get on with her at all.  However, by dint of great labour and patience, I managed to get something done in the course of the morning, and then accompanied my young charge out into the garden and adjacent grounds, for a little recreation before dinner.  There we got along tolerably together, except that I found they had no notion of going with me: I must go with them, wherever they chose to lead me.  I must run, walk, or stand, exactly as it suited their fancy.  This, I thought, was reversing the order of things; and I found it doubly disagreeable, as on this as well as subsequent occasions, they seemed to prefer the dirtiest places and the most dismal occupations.  But there was no remedy; either I must follow them, or keep entirely apart from them, and thus appear neglectful of my charge.  To-day, they manifested a particular attachment to a well at the bottom of the lawn, where they persisted in dabbling with sticks and pebbles for above half an hour.  I was in constant fear that their mother would see them from the window, and blame me for allowing them thus to draggle their clothes and wet their feet and hands, instead of taking exercise; but no arguments, commands, or entreaties could draw them away.  If she did not see them, some one else did - a gentleman on horseback had entered the gate and was proceeding up the road; at the distance of a few paces from us he paused, and calling to the children in a waspish penetrating tone, bade them ‘keep out of that water.’  ‘Miss Grey,’ said he, ‘(I suppose it is Miss Grey), I am surprised that you should allow them to dirty their clothes in that manner!  Don’t you see how Miss Bloomfield has soiled her frock? and that Master Bloomfield’s socks are quite wet? and both of them without gloves?  Dear, dear!  Let me request that in future you will keep them decent at least!’ so saying, he turned away, and continued his ride up to the house.  This was Mr. Bloomfield.  I was surprised that he should nominate his children Master and Miss Bloomfield; and still more so, that he should speak so uncivilly to me, their governess, and a perfect stranger to himself.  Presently the bell rang to summon us in.  I dined with the children at one, while he and his lady took their luncheon at the same table.  His conduct there did not greatly raise him in my estimation.  He was a man of ordinary stature - rather below than above - and rather thin than stout, apparently between thirty and forty years of age: he had a large mouth, pale, dingy complexion, milky blue eyes, and hair the colour of a hempen cord.  There was a roast leg of mutton before him: he helped Mrs. Bloomfield, the children, and me, desiring me to cut up the children’s meat; then, after twisting about the mutton in various directions, and eyeing it from different points, he pronounced it not fit to be eaten, and called for the cold beef.

‘What is the matter with the mutton, my dear?’ asked his mate.

‘It is quite overdone.  Don’t you taste, Mrs. Bloomfield, that all the goodness is roasted out of it?  And can’t you see that all that nice, red gravy is completely dried away?’

‘Well, I think the beef will suit you.’

The beef was set before him, and he began to carve, but with the most rueful expressions of discontent.

‘What is the matter with the beef, Mr. Bloomfield?  I’m sure I thought it was very nice.’

‘And so it was very nice.  A nicer joint could not be; but it is quite spoiled,’ replied he, dolefully.

‘How so?’

‘How so!  Why, don’t you see how it is cut?  Dear - dear! it is quite shocking!’

‘They must have cut it wrong in the kitchen, then, for I’m sure I carved it quite properly here, yesterday.’

‘No doubt they cut it wrong in the kitchen - the savages!  Dear - dear!  Did ever any one see such a fine piece of beef so completely ruined?  But remember that, in future, when a decent dish leaves this table, they shall not touch it in the kitchen.  Remember that, Mrs. Bloomfield!’

Notwithstanding the ruinous state of the beef, the gentleman managed to out himself some delicate slices, part of which he ate in silence.  When he next spoke, it was, in a less querulous tone, to ask what there was for dinner.

‘Turkey and grouse,’ was the concise reply.

‘And what besides?’

‘Fish.’

‘What kind of fish?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’ cried he, looking solemnly up from his plate, and suspending his knife and fork in astonishment.

‘No.  I told the cook to get some fish - I did not particularize what.’

‘Well, that beats everything!  A lady professes to keep house, and doesn’t even know what fish is for dinner! professes to order fish, and doesn’t specify what!’

‘Perhaps, Mr. Bloomfield, you will order dinner yourself in future.’

Nothing more was said; and I was very glad to get out of the room with my pupils; for I never felt so ashamed and uncomfortable in my life for anything that was not my own fault.

In the afternoon we applied to lessons again: then went out again; then had tea in the schoolroom; then I dressed Mary Ann for dessert; and when she and her brother had gone down to the dining-room, I took the opportunity of beginning a letter to my dear friends at home: but the children came up before I had half completed it.  At seven I had to put Mary Ann to bed; then I played with Tom till eight, when he, too, went; and I finished my letter and unpacked my clothes, which I had hitherto found no opportunity for doing, and, finally, went to bed myself.

But this is a very favourable specimen of a day’s proceedings.

My task of instruction and surveillance, instead of becoming easier as my charges and I got better accustomed to each other, became more arduous as their characters unfolded.  The name of governess, I soon found, was a mere mockery as applied to me: my pupils had no more notion of obedience than a wild, unbroken colt.  The habitual fear of their father’s peevish temper, and the dread of the punishments he was wont to inflict when irritated, kept them generally within bounds in his immediate presence.  The girls, too, had some fear of their mother’s anger; and the boy might occasionally be bribed to do as she bid him by the hope of reward; but I had no rewards to offer; and as for punishments, I was given to understand, the parents reserved that privilege to themselves; and yet they expected me to keep my pupils in order.  Other children might be guided by the fear of anger and the desire of approbation; but neither the one nor the other had any effect upon these.

Master Tom, not content with refusing to be ruled, must needs set up as a ruler, and manifested a determination to keep, not only his sisters, but his governess in order, by violent manual and pedal applications; and, as he was a tall, strong boy of his years, this occasioned no trifling inconvenience.  A few sound boxes on the ear, on such occasions, might have settled the matter easily enough: but as, in that case, he might make up some story to his mother which she would be sure to believe, as she had such unshaken faith in his veracity - though I had already discovered it to be by no means unimpeachable - I determined to refrain from striking him, even in self-defence; and, in his most violent moods, my only resource was to throw him on his back and hold his hands and feet till the frenzy was somewhat abated.  To the difficulty of preventing him from doing what he ought not, was added that of forcing him to do what he ought.  Often he would positively refuse to learn, or to repeat his lessons, or even to look at his book.  Here, again, a good birch rod might have been serviceable; but, as my powers were so limited, I must make the best use of what I had.

As there were no settled hours for study and play, I resolved to give my pupils a certain task, which, with moderate attention, they could perform in a short time; and till this was done, however weary I was, or however perverse they might be, nothing short of parental interference should induce me to suffer them to leave the schoolroom, even if I should sit with my chair against the door to keep them in.  Patience, Firmness, and Perseverance were my only weapons; and these I resolved to use to the utmost.  I determined always strictly to fulfil the threats and promises I made; and, to that end, I must be cautious to threaten and promise nothing that I could not perform.  Then, I would carefully refrain from all useless irritability and indulgence of my own ill-temper: when they behaved tolerably, I would be as kind and obliging as it was in my power to be, in order to make the widest possible distinction between good and bad conduct; I would reason with them, too, in the simplest and most effective manner.  When I reproved them, or refused to gratify their wishes, after a glaring fault, it should be more in sorrow than in anger: their little hymns and prayers I would make plain and clear to their understanding; when they said their prayers at night and asked pardon for their offences, I would remind them of the sins of the past day, solemnly, but in perfect kindness, to avoid raising a spirit of opposition; penitential hymns should be said by the naughty, cheerful ones by the comparatively good; and every kind of instruction I would convey to them, as much as possible, by entertaining discourse - apparently with no other object than their present amusement in view.

By these means I hoped in time both to benefit the children and to gain the approbation of their parents; and also to convince my friends at home that I was not so wanting in skill and prudence as they supposed.  I knew the difficulties I had to contend with were great; but I knew (at least I believed) unremitting patience and perseverance could overcome them; and night and morning I implored Divine assistance to this end.  But either the children were so incorrigible, the parents so unreasonable, or myself so mistaken in my views, or so unable to carry them out, that my best intentions and most strenuous efforts seemed productive of no better result than sport to the children, dissatisfaction to their parents, and torment to myself.

The task of instruction was as arduous for the body as the mind.  I had to run after my pupils to catch them, to carry or drag them to the table, and often forcibly to hold them there till the lesson was done.  Tom I frequently put into a corner, seating myself before him in a chair, with a book which contained the little task that must be said or read, before he was released, in my hand.  He was not strong enough to push both me and the chair away, so he would stand twisting his body and face into the most grotesque and singular contortions - laughable, no doubt, to an unconcerned spectator, but not to me - and uttering loud yells and doleful outcries, intended to represent weeping but wholly without the accompaniment of tears.  I knew this was done solely for the purpose of annoying me; and, therefore, however I might inwardly tremble with impatience and irritation, I manfully strove to suppress all visible signs of molestation, and affected to sit with calm indifference, waiting till it should please him to cease this pastime, and prepare for a run in the garden, by casting his eye on the book and reading or repeating the few words he was required to say.  Sometimes he was determined to do his writing badly; and I had to hold his hand to prevent him from purposely blotting or disfiguring the paper.  Frequently I threatened that, if he did not do better, he should have another line: then he would stubbornly refuse to write this line; and I, to save my word, had finally to resort to the expedient of holding his fingers upon the pen, and forcibly drawing his hand up and down, till, in spite of his resistance, the line was in some sort completed.

Yet Tom was by no means the most unmanageable of my pupils: sometimes, to my great joy, he would have the sense to see that his wisest policy was to finish his tasks, and go out and amuse himself till I and his sisters came to join him; which frequently was not at all, for Mary Ann seldom followed his example in this particular: she apparently preferred rolling on the floor to any other amusement: down she would drop like a leaden weight; and when I, with great difficulty, had succeeded in rooting her thence, I had still to hold her up with one arm, while with the other I held the book from which she was to read or spell her lesson.  As the dead weight of the big girl of six became too heavy for one arm to bear, I transferred it to the other; or, if both were weary of the burden, I carried her into a corner, and told her she might come out when she should find the use of her feet, and stand up: but she generally preferred lying there like a log till dinner or tea-time, when, as I could not deprive her of her meals, she must be liberated, and would come crawling out with a grin of triumph on her round, red face.  Often she would stubbornly refuse to pronounce some particular word in her lesson; and now I regret the lost labour I have had in striving to conquer her obstinacy.  If I had passed it over as a matter of no consequence, it would have been better for both parties, than vainly striving to overcome it as I did; but I thought it my absolute duty to crush this vicious tendency in the bud: and so it was, if I could have done it; and had my powers been less limited, I might have enforced obedience; but, as it was, it was a trial of strength between her and me, in which she generally came off victorious; and every victory served to encourage and strengthen her for a future contest.  In vain I argued, coaxed, entreated, threatened, scolded; in vain I kept her in from play, or, if obliged to take her out, refused to play with her, or to speak kindly or have anything to do with her; in vain I tried to set before her the advantages of doing as she was bid, and being loved, and kindly treated in consequence, and the disadvantages of persisting in her absurd perversity.  Sometimes, when she would ask me to do something for her, I would answer, - ‘Yes, I will, Mary Ann, if you will only say that word.  Come! you’d better say it at once, and have no more trouble about it.’

‘No.’

‘Then, of course, I can do nothing for you.’

With me, at her age, or under, neglect and disgrace were the most dreadful of punishments; but on her they made no impression.  Sometimes, exasperated to the utmost pitch, I would shake her violently by the shoulder, or pull her long hair, or put her in the corner; for which she punished me with loud, shrill, piercing screams, that went through my head like a knife.  She knew I hated this, and when she had shrieked her utmost, would look into my face with an air of vindictive satisfaction, exclaiming, - ‘Now, then! that’s for you!’ and then shriek again and again, till I was forced to stop my ears.  Often these dreadful cries would bring Mrs. Bloomfield up to inquire what was the matter?

‘Mary Ann is a naughty girl, ma’am.’

‘But what are these shocking screams?’

‘She is screaming in a passion.’

‘I never heard such a dreadful noise!  You might be killing her.  Why is she not out with her brother?’

‘I cannot get her to finish her lessons.’

‘But Mary Ann must be a good girl, and finish her lessons.’  This was blandly spoken to the child.  ‘And I hope I shall never hear such terrible cries again!’

And fixing her cold, stony eyes upon me with a look that could not be mistaken, she would shut the door, and walk away.  Sometimes I would try to take the little obstinate creature by surprise, and casually ask her the word while she was thinking of something else; frequently she would begin to say it, and then suddenly cheek herself, with a provoking look that seemed to say, ‘Ah! I’m too sharp for you; you shan’t trick it out of me, either.’

On another occasion, I pretended to forget the whole affair; and talked and played with her as usual, till night, when I put her to bed; then bending over her, while she lay all smiles and good humour, just before departing, I said, as cheerfully and kindly as before - ‘Now, Mary Ann, just tell me that word before I kiss you good-night.  You are a good girl now, and, of course, you will say it.’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Then I can’t kiss you.’

‘Well, I don’t care.’

In vain I expressed my sorrow; in vain I lingered for some symptom of contrition; she really ‘didn’t care,’ and I left her alone, and in darkness, wondering most of all at this last proof of insensate stubbornness.  In my childhood I could not imagine a more afflictive punishment than for my mother to refuse to kiss me at night: the very idea was terrible.  More than the idea I never felt, for, happily, I never committed a fault that was deemed worthy of such penalty; but once I remember, for some transgression of my sister’s, our mother thought proper to inflict it upon her: what she felt, I cannot tell; but my sympathetic tears and suffering for her sake I shall not soon forget.

Another troublesome trait in Mary Ann was her incorrigible propensity to keep running into the nursery, to play with her little sisters and the nurse.  This was natural enough, but, as it was against her mother’s express desire, I, of course, forbade her to do so, and did my utmost to keep her with me; but that only increased her relish for the nursery, and the more I strove to keep her out of it, the oftener she went, and the longer she stayed, to the great dissatisfaction of Mrs. Bloomfield, who, I well knew, would impute all the blame of the matter to me.  Another of my trials was the dressing in the morning: at one time she would not be washed; at another she would not be dressed, unless she might wear some particular frock, that I knew her mother would not like her to have; at another she would scream and run away if I attempted to touch her hair.  So that, frequently, when, after much trouble and toil, I had, at length, succeeded in bringing her down, the breakfast was nearly half over; and black looks from ‘mamma,’ and testy observations from ‘papa,’ spoken at me, if not to me, were sure to be my meed: for few things irritated the latter so much as want of punctuality at meal times.  Then, among the minor annoyances, was my inability to satisfy Mrs. Bloomfield with her daughter’s dress; and the child’s hair ‘was never fit to be seen.’  Sometimes, as a powerful reproach to me, she would perform the office of tire woman herself, and then complain bitterly of the trouble it gave her.

When little Fanny came into the schoolroom, I hoped she would be mild and inoffensive, at least; but a few days, if not a few hours, sufficed to destroy the illusion: I found her a mischievous, intractable little creature, given up to falsehood and deception, young as she was, and alarmingly fond of exercising her two favourite weapons of offence and defence: that of spitting in the faces of those who incurred her displeasure, and bellowing like a bull when her unreasonable desires were not gratified.  As she, generally, was pretty quiet in her parents’ presence, and they were impressed with the notion of her being a remarkably gentle child, her falsehoods were readily believed, and her loud uproars led them to suspect harsh and injudicious treatment on my part; and when, at length, her bad disposition became manifest even to their prejudiced eyes, I felt that the whole was attributed to me.

‘What a naughty girl Fanny is getting!’ Mrs. Bloomfield would say to her spouse.  ‘Don’t you observe, my dear, how she is altered since she entered the schoolroom?  She will soon be as bad as the other two; and, I am sorry to say, they have quite deteriorated of late.’

‘You may say that,’ was the answer.  ‘I’ve been thinking that same myself.  I thought when we got them a governess they’d improve; but, instead of that, they get worse and worse: I don’t know how it is with their learning, but their habits, I know, make no sort of improvement; they get rougher, and dirtier, and more unseemly every day.’

I knew this was all pointed at me; and these, and all similar innuendoes, affected me far more deeply than any open accusations would have done; for against the latter I should have been roused to speak in my own defence: now I judged it my wisest plan to subdue every resentful impulse, suppress every sensitive shrinking, and go on perseveringly, doing my best; for, irksome as my situation was, I earnestly wished to retain it.  I thought, if I could struggle on with unremitting firmness and integrity, the children would in time become more humanized: every month would contribute to make them some little wiser, and, consequently, more manageable; for a child of nine or ten as frantic and ungovernable as these at six and seven would be a maniac.

I flattered myself I was benefiting my parents and sister by my continuance here; for small as the salary was, I still was earning something, and with strict economy I could easily manage to have something to spare for them, if they would favour me by taking it.  Then it was by my own will that I had got the place: I had brought all this tribulation on myself, and I was determined to bear it; nay, more than that, I did not even regret the step I had taken.  I longed to show my friends that, even now, I was competent to undertake the charge, and able to acquit myself honourably to the end; and if ever I felt it degrading to submit so quietly, or intolerable to toil so constantly, I would turn towards my home, and say within myself -


They may crush, but they shall not subdue me!
’Tis of thee that I think, not of them.


About Christmas I was allowed to visit home; but my holiday was only of a fortnight’s duration: ‘For,’ said Mrs. Bloomfield, ‘I thought, as you had seen your friends so lately, you would not care for a longer stay.’  I left her to think so still: but she little knew how long, how wearisome those fourteen weeks of absence had been to me; how intensely I had longed for my holidays, how greatly I was disappointed at their curtailment.  Yet she was not to blame in this.  I had never told her my feelings, and she could not be expected to divine them; I had not been with her a full term, and she was justified in not allowing me a full vacation.



CHAPTER IV - THE GRANDMAMMA



I spare my readers the account of my delight on coming home, my happiness while there - enjoying a brief space of rest and liberty in that dear, familiar place, among the loving and the loved - and my sorrow on being obliged to bid them, once more, a long adieu.

I returned, however, with unabated vigour to my work - a more arduous task than anyone can imagine, who has not felt something like the misery of being charged with the care and direction of a set of mischievous, turbulent rebels, whom his utmost exertions cannot bind to their duty; while, at the same time, he is responsible for their conduct to a higher power, who exacts from him what cannot be achieved without the aid of the superior’s more potent authority; which, either from indolence, or the fear of becoming unpopular with the said rebellious gang, the latter refuses to give.  I can conceive few situations more harassing than that wherein, however you may long for success, however you may labour to fulfil your duty, your efforts are baffled and set at nought by those beneath you, and unjustly censured and misjudged by those above.

I have not enumerated half the vexatious propensities of my pupils, or half the troubles resulting from my heavy responsibilities, for fear of trespassing too much upon the reader’s patience; as, perhaps, I have already done; but my design in writing the few last pages was not to amuse, but to benefit those whom it might concern; he that has no interest in such matters will doubtless have skipped them over with a cursory glance, and, perhaps, a malediction against the prolixity of the writer; but if a parent has, therefrom, gathered any useful hint, or an unfortunate governess received thereby the slightest benefit, I am well rewarded for my pains.

To avoid trouble and confusion, I have taken my pupils one by one, and discussed their various qualities; but this can give no adequate idea of being worried by the whole three together; when, as was often the case, all were determined to ‘be naughty, and to tease Miss Grey, and put her in a passion.’

Sometimes, on such occasions, the thought has suddenly occurred to me - ‘If they could see me now!’ meaning, of course, my friends at home; and the idea of how they would pity me has made me pity myself - so greatly that I have had the utmost difficulty to restrain my tears: but I have restrained them, till my little tormentors were gone to dessert, or cleared off to bed (my only prospects of deliverance), and then, in all the bliss of solitude, I have given myself up to the luxury of an unrestricted burst of weeping.  But this was a weakness I did not often indulge: my employments were too numerous, my leisure moments too precious, to admit of much time being given to fruitless lamentations.

I particularly remember one wild, snowy afternoon, soon after my return in January: the children had all come up from dinner, loudly declaring that they meant ‘to be naughty;’ and they had well kept their resolution, though I had talked myself hoarse, and wearied every muscle in my throat, in the vain attempt to reason them out of it.  I had got Tom pinned up in a corner, whence, I told him, he should not escape till he had done his appointed task.  Meantime, Fanny had possessed herself of my work-bag, and was rifling its contents - and spitting into it besides.  I told her to let it alone, but to no purpose, of course.  ‘Burn it, Fanny!’ cried Tom: and this command she hastened to obey.  I sprang to snatch it from the fire, and Tom darted to the door.  ‘Mary Ann, throw her desk out of the window!’ cried he: and my precious desk, containing my letters and papers, my small amount of cash, and all my valuables, was about to be precipitated from the three-storey window.  I flew to rescue it.  Meanwhile Tom had left the room, and was rushing down the stairs, followed by Fanny.  Having secured my desk, I ran to catch them, and Mary Ann came scampering after.  All three escaped me, and ran out of the house into the garden, where they plunged about in the snow, shouting and screaming in exultant glee.

What must I do?  If I followed them, I should probably be unable to capture one, and only drive them farther away; if I did not, how was I to get them in?  And what would their parents think of me, if they saw or heard the children rioting, hatless, bonnetless, gloveless, and bootless, in the deep soft snow?  While I stood in this perplexity, just without the door, trying, by grim looks and angry words, to awe them into subjection, I heard a voice behind me, in harshly piercing tones, exclaiming, -

‘Miss Grey!  Is it possible?  What, in the devil’s name, can you be thinking about?’

‘I can’t get them in, sir,’ said I, turning round, and beholding Mr. Bloomfield, with his hair on end, and his pale blue eyes bolting from their sockets.

‘But I INSIST upon their being got in!’ cried he, approaching nearer, and looking perfectly ferocious.

‘Then, sir, you must call them yourself, if you please, for they won’t listen to me,’ I replied, stepping back.

‘Come in with you, you filthy brats; or I’ll horsewhip you every one!’ roared he; and the children instantly obeyed.  ‘There, you see! - they come at the first word!’

‘Yes, when you speak.’

‘And it’s very strange, that when you’ve the care of ’em you’ve no better control over ’em than that! - Now, there they are - gone upstairs with their nasty snowy feet!  Do go after ’em and see them made decent, for heaven’s sake!’

That gentleman’s mother was then staying in the house; and, as I ascended the stairs and passed the drawing-room door, I had the satisfaction of hearing the old lady declaiming aloud to her daughter-in-law to this effect (for I could only distinguish the most emphatic words) -

‘Gracious heavens! - never in all my life - ! - get their death as sure as - !  Do you think, my dear, she’s a proper person?  Take my word for it - ’

I heard no more; but that sufficed.

The senior Mrs. Bloomfield had been very attentive and civil to me; and till now I had thought her a nice, kind-hearted, chatty old body.  She would often come to me and talk in a confidential strain; nodding and shaking her head, and gesticulating with hands and eyes, as a certain class of old ladies are won’t to do; though I never knew one that carried the peculiarity to so great an extent.  She would even sympathise with me for the trouble I had with the children, and express at times, by half sentences, interspersed with nods and knowing winks, her sense of the injudicious conduct of their mamma in so restricting my power, and neglecting to support me with her authority.  Such a mode of testifying disapprobation was not much to my taste; and I generally refused to take it in, or understand anything more than was openly spoken; at least, I never went farther than an implied acknowledgment that, if matters were otherwise ordered my task would be a less difficult one, and I should be better able to guide and instruct my charge; but now I must be doubly cautious.  Hitherto, though I saw the old lady had her defects (of which one was a proneness to proclaim her perfections), I had always been wishful to excuse them, and to give her credit for all the virtues she professed, and even imagine others yet untold.  Kindness, which had been the food of my life through so many years, had lately been so entirely denied me, that I welcomed with grateful joy the slightest semblance of it.  No wonder, then, that my heart warmed to the old lady, and always gladdened at her approach and regretted her departure.

But now, the few words luckily or unluckily heard in passing had wholly revolutionized my ideas respecting her: now I looked upon her as hypocritical and insincere, a flatterer, and a spy upon my words and deeds.  Doubtless it would have been my interest still to meet her with the same cheerful smile and tone of respectful cordiality as before; but I could not, if I would: my manner altered with my feelings, and became so cold and shy that she could not fail to notice it.  She soon did notice it, and her manner altered too: the familiar nod was changed to a stiff bow, the gracious smile gave place to a glare of Gorgon ferocity; her vivacious loquacity was entirely transferred from me to ‘the darling boy and girls,’ whom she flattered and indulged more absurdly than ever their mother had done.

I confess I was somewhat troubled at this change: I feared the consequences of her displeasure, and even made some efforts to recover the ground I had lost - and with better apparent success than I could have anticipated.  At one time, I, merely in common civility, asked after her cough; immediately her long visage relaxed into a smile, and she favoured me with a particular history of that and her other infirmities, followed by an account of her pious resignation, delivered in the usual emphatic, declamatory style, which no writing can portray.

‘But there’s one remedy for all, my dear, and that’s resignation’ (a toss of the head), ‘resignation to the will of heaven!’ (an uplifting of the hands and eyes).  ‘It has always supported me through all my trials, and always will do’ (a succession of nods).  ‘But then, it isn’t everybody that can say that’ (a shake of the head); ‘but I’m one of the pious ones, Miss Grey!’ (a very significant nod and toss).  ‘And, thank heaven, I always was’ (another nod), ‘and I glory in it!’ (an emphatic clasping of the hands and shaking of the head).  And with several texts of Scripture, misquoted or misapplied, and religious exclamations so redolent of the ludicrous in the style of delivery and manner of bringing in, if not in the expressions themselves, that I decline repeating them, she withdrew; tossing her large head in high good-humour - with herself at least - and left me hoping that, after all, she was rather weak than wicked.

At her next visit to Wellwood House, I went so far as to say I was glad to see her looking so well.  The effect of this was magical: the words, intended as a mark of civility, were received as a flattering compliment; her countenance brightened up, and from that moment she became as gracious and benign as heart could wish - in outward semblance at least.  From what I now saw of her, and what I heard from the children, I know that, in order to gain her cordial friendship, I had but to utter a word of flattery at each convenient opportunity: but this was against my principles; and for lack of this, the capricious old dame soon deprived me of her favour again, and I believe did me much secret injury.

She could not greatly influence her daughter-in-law against me, because, between that lady and herself there was a mutual dislike - chiefly shown by her in secret detractions and calumniations; by the other, in an excess of frigid formality in her demeanour; and no fawning flattery of the elder could thaw away the wall of ice which the younger interposed between them.  But with her son, the old lady had better success: he would listen to all she had to say, provided she could soothe his fretful temper, and refrain from irritating him by her own asperities; and I have reason to believe that she considerably strengthened his prejudice against me.  She would tell him that I shamefully neglected the children, and even his wife did not attend to them as she ought; and that he must look after them himself, or they would all go to ruin.

Thus urged, he would frequently give himself the trouble of watching them from the windows during their play; at times, he would follow them through the grounds, and too often came suddenly upon them while they were dabbling in the forbidden well, talking to the coachman in the stables, or revelling in the filth of the farm-yard - and I, meanwhile, wearily standing, by, having previously exhausted my energy in vain attempts to get them away.  Often, too, he would unexpectedly pop his head into the schoolroom while the young people were at meals, and find them spilling their milk over the table and themselves, plunging their fingers into their own or each other’s mugs, or quarrelling over their victuals like a set of tiger’s cubs.  If I were quiet at the moment, I was conniving at their disorderly conduct; if (as was frequently the case) I happened to be exalting my voice to enforce order, I was using undue violence, and setting the girls a bad example by such ungentleness of tone and language.

I remember one afternoon in spring, when, owing to the rain, they could not go out; but, by some amazing good fortune, they had all finished their lessons, and yet abstained from running down to tease their parents - a trick that annoyed me greatly, but which, on rainy days, I seldom could prevent their doing; because, below, they found novelty and amusement - especially when visitors were in the house; and their mother, though she bid me keep them in the schoolroom, would never chide them for leaving it, or trouble herself to send them back.  But this day they appeared satisfied with, their present abode, and what is more wonderful still, seemed disposed to play together without depending on me for amusement, and without quarrelling with each other.  Their occupation was a somewhat puzzling one: they were all squatted together on the floor by the window, over a heap of broken toys and a quantity of birds’ eggs - or rather egg-shells, for the contents had luckily been abstracted.  These shells they had broken up and were pounding into small fragments, to what end I could not imagine; but so long as they were quiet and not in positive mischief, I did not care; and, with a feeling of unusual repose, I sat by the fire, putting the finishing stitches to a frock for Mary Ann’s doll; intending, when that was done, to begin a letter to my mother.  Suddenly the door opened, and the dingy head of Mr. Bloomfield looked in.

‘All very quiet here!  What are you doing?’ said he.  ‘No harm to-day, at least,’ thought I.  But he was of a different opinion.  Advancing to the window, and seeing the children’s occupations, he testily exclaimed - ‘What in the world are you about?’

‘We’re grinding egg-shells, papa!’ cried Tom.

‘How dare you make such a mess, you little devils?  Don’t you see what confounded work you’re making of the carpet?’ (the carpet was a plain brown drugget).  ‘Miss Grey, did you know what they were doing?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You knew it?’

‘Yes.’

‘You knew it! and you actually sat there and permitted them to go on without a word of reproof!’

‘I didn’t think they were doing any harm.’

‘Any harm!  Why, look there!  Just look at that carpet, and see - was there ever anything like it in a Christian house before?  No wonder your room is not fit for a pigsty - no wonder your pupils are worse than a litter of pigs! - no wonder - oh! I declare, it puts me quite past my patience’ and he departed, shutting the door after him with a bang that made the children laugh.

‘It puts me quite past my patience too!’ muttered I, getting up; and, seizing the poker, I dashed it repeatedly into the cinders, and stirred them up with unwonted energy; thus easing my irritation under pretence of mending the fire.

After this, Mr. Bloomfield was continually looking in to see if the schoolroom was in order; and, as the children were continually littering the floor with fragments of toys, sticks, stones, stubble, leaves, and other rubbish, which I could not prevent their bringing, or oblige them to gather up, and which the servants refused to ‘clean after them,’ I had to spend a considerable portion of my valuable leisure moments on my knees upon the floor, in painsfully reducing things to order.  Once I told them that they should not taste their supper till they had picked up everything from the carpet; Fanny might have hers when she had taken up a certain quantity, Mary Ann when she had gathered twice as many, and Tom was to clear away the rest.  Wonderful to state, the girls did their part; but Tom was in such a fury that he flew upon the table, scattered the bread and milk about the floor, struck his sisters, kicked the coals out of the coal-pan, attempted to overthrow the table and chairs, and seemed inclined to make a Douglas-larder of the whole contents of the room: but I seized upon him, and, sending Mary Ann to call her mamma, held him, in spite of kicks, blows, yells, and execrations, till Mrs. Bloomfield made her appearance.

‘What is the matter with my boy?’ said she.

And when the matter was explained to her, all she did was to send for the nursery-maid to put the room in order, and bring Master Bloomfield his supper.

‘There now,’ cried Tom, triumphantly, looking up from his viands with his mouth almost too full for speech.  ‘There now, Miss Grey! you see I’ve got my supper in spite of you: and I haven’t picked up a single thing!’

The only person in the house who had any real sympathy for me was the nurse; for she had suffered like afflictions, though in a smaller degree; as she had not the task of teaching, nor was she so responsible for the conduct of her charge.

‘Oh, Miss Grey!’ she would say, ‘you have some trouble with them childer!’

‘I have, indeed, Betty; and I daresay you know what it is.’

‘Ay, I do so!  But I don’t vex myself o’er ’em as you do.  And then, you see, I hit ’em a slap sometimes: and them little ’uns - I gives ’em a good whipping now and then: there’s nothing else will do for ’em, as what they say.  Howsoever, I’ve lost my place for it.’

‘Have you, Betty?  I heard you were going to leave.’

‘Eh, bless you, yes!  Missis gave me warning a three wik sin’.  She told me afore Christmas how it mud be, if I hit ’em again; but I couldn’t hold my hand off ’em at nothing.  I know not how you do, for Miss Mary Ann’s worse by the half nor her sisters!’



CHAPTER V - THE UNCLE



Besides the old lady, there was another relative of the family, whose visits were a great annoyance to me - this was ‘Uncle Robson,’ Mrs. Bloomfield’s brother; a tall, self-sufficient fellow, with dark hair and sallow complexion like his sister, a nose that seemed to disdain the earth, and little grey eyes, frequently half-closed, with a mixture of real stupidity and affected contempt of all surrounding objects.  He was a thick-set, strongly-built man, but he had found some means of compressing his waist into a remarkably small compass; and that, together with the unnatural stillness of his form, showed that the lofty-minded, manly Mr. Robson, the scorner of the female sex, was not above the foppery of stays.  He seldom deigned to notice me; and, when he did, it was with a certain supercilious insolence of tone and manner that convinced me he was no gentleman: though it was intended to have a contrary effect.  But it was not for that I disliked his coming, so much as for the harm he did the children - encouraging all their evil propensities, and undoing in a few minutes the little good it had taken me months of labour to achieve.

Fanny and little Harriet he seldom condescended to notice; but Mary Ann was something of a favourite.  He was continually encouraging her tendency to affectation (which I had done my utmost to crush), talking about her pretty face, and filling her head with all manner of conceited notions concerning her personal appearance (which I had instructed her to regard as dust in the balance compared with the cultivation of her mind and manners); and I never saw a child so susceptible of flattery as she was.  Whatever was wrong, in either her or her brother, he would encourage by laughing at, if not by actually praising: people little know the injury they do to children by laughing at their faults, and making a pleasant jest of what their true friends have endeavoured to teach them to hold in grave abhorrence.

Though not a positive drunkard, Mr. Robson habitually swallowed great quantities of wine, and took with relish an occasional glass of brandy and water.  He taught his nephew to imitate him in this to the utmost of his ability, and to believe that the more wine and spirits he could take, and the better he liked them, the more he manifested his bold, and manly spirit, and rose superior to his sisters.  Mr. Bloomfield had not much to say against it, for his favourite beverage was gin and water; of which he took a considerable portion every day, by dint of constant sipping - and to that I chiefly attributed his dingy complexion and waspish temper.

Mr. Robson likewise encouraged Tom’s propensity to persecute the lower creation, both by precept and example.  As he frequently came to course or shoot over his brother-in-law’s grounds, he would bring his favourite dogs with him; and he treated them so brutally that, poor as I was, I would have given a sovereign any day to see one of them bite him, provided the animal could have done it with impunity.  Sometimes, when in a very complacent mood, he would go a-birds’-nesting with the children, a thing that irritated and annoyed me exceedingly; as, by frequent and persevering attempts, I flattered myself I had partly shown them the evil of this pastime, and hoped, in time, to bring them to some general sense of justice and humanity; but ten minutes’ birds’-nesting with uncle Robson, or even a laugh from him at some relation of their former barbarities, was sufficient at once to destroy the effect of my whole elaborate course of reasoning and persuasion.  Happily, however, during that spring, they never, but once, got anything but empty nests, or eggs - being too impatient to leave them till the birds were hatched; that once, Tom, who had been with his uncle into the neighbouring plantation, came running in high glee into the garden, with a brood of little callow nestlings in his hands.  Mary Ann and Fanny, whom I was just bringing out, ran to admire his spoils, and to beg each a bird for themselves.  ‘No, not one!’ cried Tom.  ‘They’re all mine; uncle Robson gave them to me - one, two, three, four, five - you shan’t touch one of them! no, not one, for your lives!’ continued he, exultingly; laying the nest on the ground, and standing over it with his legs wide apart, his hands thrust into his breeches-pockets, his body bent forward, and his face twisted into all manner of contortions in the ecstasy of his delight.

‘But you shall see me fettle ’em off.  My word, but I will wallop ’em?  See if I don’t now.  By gum! but there’s rare sport for me in that nest.’

‘But, Tom,’ said I, ‘I shall not allow you to torture those birds.  They must either be killed at once or carried back to the place you took them from, that the old birds may continue to feed them.’

‘But you don’t know where that is, Madam: it’s only me and uncle Robson that knows that.’

‘But if you don’t tell me, I shall kill them myself - much as I hate it.’

‘You daren’t.  You daren’t touch them for your life! because you know papa and mamma, and uncle Robson, would be angry.  Ha, ha! I’ve caught you there, Miss!’

‘I shall do what I think right in a case of this sort without consulting any one.  If your papa and mamma don’t happen to approve of it, I shall be sorry to offend them; but your uncle Robson’s opinions, of course, are nothing to me.’

So saying - urged by a sense of duty - at the risk of both making myself sick and incurring the wrath of my employers - I got a large flat stone, that had been reared up for a mouse-trap by the gardener; then, having once more vainly endeavoured to persuade the little tyrant to let the birds be carried back, I asked what he intended to do with them.  With fiendish glee he commenced a list of torments; and while he was busied in the relation, I dropped the stone upon his intended victims and crushed them flat beneath it.  Loud were the outcries, terrible the execrations, consequent upon this daring outrage; uncle Robson had been coming up the walk with his gun, and was just then pausing to kick his dog.  Tom flew towards him, vowing he would make him kick me instead of Juno.  Mr. Robson leant upon his gun, and laughed excessively at the violence of his nephew’s passion, and the bitter maledictions and opprobrious epithets he heaped upon me.  ‘Well, you are a good ’un!’ exclaimed he, at length, taking up his weapon and proceeding towards the house.  ‘Damme, but the lad has some spunk in him, too.  Curse me, if ever I saw a nobler little scoundrel than that.  He’s beyond petticoat government already: by God! he defies mother, granny, governess, and all!  Ha, ha, ha!  Never mind, Tom, I’ll get you another brood to-morrow.’

‘If you do, Mr. Robson, I shall kill them too,’ said I.

‘Humph!’ replied he, and having honoured me with a broad stare - which, contrary to his expectations, I sustained without flinching - he turned away with an air of supreme contempt, and stalked into the house.  Tom next went to tell his mamma.  It was not her way to say much on any subject; but, when she next saw me, her aspect and demeanour were doubly dark and chilled.  After some casual remark about the weather, she observed - ‘I am sorry, Miss Grey, you should think it necessary to interfere with Master Bloomfield’s amusements; he was very much distressed about your destroying the birds.’

‘When Master Bloomfield’s amusements consist in injuring sentient creatures,’ I answered, ‘I think it my duty to interfere.’

‘You seemed to have forgotten,’ said she, calmly, ‘that the creatures were all created for our convenience.’

I thought that doctrine admitted some doubt, but merely replied - ‘If they were, we have no right to torment them for our amusement.’

‘I think,’ said she, ‘a child’s amusement is scarcely to be weighed against the welfare of a soulless brute.’

‘But, for the child’s own sake, it ought not to be encouraged to have such amusements,’ answered I, as meekly as I could, to make up for such unusual pertinacity.  ‘“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”’

‘Oh! of course; but that refers to our conduct towards each other.’

‘“The merciful man shows mercy to his beast,”’ I ventured to add.

‘I think you have not shown much mercy,’ replied she, with a short, bitter laugh; ‘killing the poor birds by wholesale in that shocking manner, and putting the dear boy to such misery for a mere whim.’

I judged it prudent to say no more.  This was the nearest approach to a quarrel I ever had with Mrs. Bloomfield; as well as the greatest number of words I ever exchanged with her at one time, since the day of my first arrival.

But Mr. Robson and old Mrs. Bloomfield were not the only guests whose coming to Wellwood House annoyed me; every visitor disturbed me more or less; not so much because they neglected me (though I did feel their conduct strange and disagreeable in that respect), as because I found it impossible to keep my pupils away from them, as I was repeatedly desired to do: Tom must talk to them, and Mary Ann must be noticed by them.  Neither the one nor the other knew what it was to feel any degree of shamefacedness, or even common modesty.  They would indecently and clamorously interrupt the conversation of their elders, tease them with the most impertinent questions, roughly collar the gentlemen, climb their knees uninvited, hang about their shoulders or rifle their pockets, pull the ladies’ gowns, disorder their hair, tumble their collars, and importunately beg for their trinkets.

Mrs. Bloomfield had the sense to be shocked and annoyed at all this, but she had not sense to prevent it: she expected me to prevent it.  But how could I - when the guests, with their fine clothes and new faces, continually flattered and indulged them, out of complaisance to their parents - how could I, with my homely garments, every-day face, and honest words, draw them away?  I strained every nerve to do so: by striving to amuse them, I endeavoured to attract them to my side; by the exertion of such authority as I possessed, and by such severity as I dared to use, I tried to deter them from tormenting the guests; and by reproaching their unmannerly conduct, to make them ashamed to repeat it.  But they knew no shame; they scorned authority which had no terrors to back it; and as for kindness and affection, either they had no hearts, or such as they had were so strongly guarded, and so well concealed, that I, with all my efforts, had not yet discovered how to reach them.

But soon my trials in this quarter came to a close - sooner than I either expected or desired; for one sweet evening towards the close of May, as I was rejoicing in the near approach of the holidays, and congratulating myself upon having made some progress with my pupils (as far as their learning went, at least, for I had instilled something into their heads, and I had, at length, brought them to be a little - a very little - more rational about getting their lessons done in time to leave some space for recreation, instead of tormenting themselves and me all day long to no purpose), Mrs. Bloomfield sent for me, and calmly told me that after Midsummer my services would be no longer required.  She assured me that my character and general conduct were unexceptionable; but the children had made so little improvement since my arrival that Mr. Bloomfield and she felt it their duty to seek some other mode of instruction.  Though superior to most children of their years in abilities, they were decidedly behind them in attainments; their manners were uncultivated, and their tempers unruly.  And this she attributed to a want of sufficient firmness, and diligent, persevering care on my part.

Unshaken firmness, devoted diligence, unwearied perseverance, unceasing care, were the very qualifications on which I had secretly prided myself; and by which I had hoped in time to overcome all difficulties, and obtain success at last.  I wished to say something in my own justification; but in attempting to speak, I felt my voice falter; and rather than testify any emotion, or suffer the tears to overflow that were already gathering in my eyes, I chose to keep silence, and bear all like a self-convicted culprit.

Thus was I dismissed, and thus I sought my home.  Alas! what would they think of me? unable, after all my boasting, to keep my place, even for a single year, as governess to three small children, whose mother was asserted by my own aunt to be a ‘very nice woman.’  Having been thus weighed in the balance and found wanting, I need not hope they would be willing to try me again.  And this was an unwelcome thought; for vexed, harassed, disappointed as I had been, and greatly as I had learned to love and value my home, I was not yet weary of adventure, nor willing to relax my efforts.  I knew that all parents were not like Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield, and I was certain all children were not like theirs.  The next family must be different, and any change must be for the better.  I had been seasoned by adversity, and tutored by experience, and I longed to redeem my lost honour in the eyes of those whose opinion was more than that of all the world to me.



CHAPTER VI - THE PARSONAGE AGAIN



For a few months I remained peaceably at home, in the quiet enjoyment of liberty and rest, and genuine friendship, from all of which I had fasted so long; and in the earnest prosecution of my studies, to recover what I had lost during my stay at Wellwood House, and to lay in new stores for future use.  My father’s health was still very infirm, but not materially worse than when I last saw him; and I was glad I had it in my power to cheer him by my return, and to amuse him with singing his favourite songs.

No one triumphed over my failure, or said I had better have taken his or her advice, and quietly stayed at home.  All were glad to have me back again, and lavished more kindness than ever upon me, to make up for the sufferings I had undergone; but not one would touch a shilling of what I had so cheerfully earned and so carefully saved, in the hope of sharing it with them.  By dint of pinching here, and scraping there, our debts were already nearly paid.  Mary had had good success with her drawings; but our father had insisted upon her likewise keeping all the produce of her industry to herself.  All we could spare from the supply of our humble wardrobe and our little casual expenses, he directed us to put into the savings’-bank; saying, we knew not how soon we might be dependent on that alone for support: for he felt he had not long to be with us, and what would become of our mother and us when he was gone, God only knew!

Dear papa! if he had troubled himself less about the afflictions that threatened us in case of his death, I am convinced that dreaded event would not have taken place so soon.  My mother would never suffer him to ponder on the subject if she could help it.

‘Oh, Richard!’ exclaimed she, on one occasion, ‘if you would but dismiss such gloomy subjects from your mind, you would live as long as any of us; at least you would live to see the girls married, and yourself a happy grandfather, with a canty old dame for your companion.’

My mother laughed, and so did my father: but his laugh soon perished in a dreary sigh.

‘They married - poor penniless things!’ said he; ‘who will take them I wonder!’

‘Why, nobody shall that isn’t thankful for them.  Wasn’t I penniless when you took me? and you pretended, at least, to be vastly pleased with your acquisition.  But it’s no matter whether they get married or not: we can devise a thousand honest ways of making a livelihood.  And I wonder, Richard, you can think of bothering your head about our poverty in case of your death; as if that would be anything compared with the calamity of losing you - an affliction that you well know would swallow up all others, and which you ought to do your utmost to preserve us from: and there is nothing like a cheerful mind for keeping the body in health.’

‘I know, Alice, it is wrong to keep repining as I do, but I cannot help it: you must bear with me.’

‘I won’t bear with you, if I can alter you,’ replied my mother: but the harshness of her words was undone by the earnest affection of her tone and pleasant smile, that made my father smile again, less sadly and less transiently than was his wont.

‘Mamma,’ said I, as soon as I could find an opportunity of speaking with her alone, ‘my money is but little, and cannot last long; if I could increase it, it would lessen papa’s anxiety, on one subject at least.  I cannot draw like Mary, and so the best thing I could do would be to look out for another situation.’

‘And so you would actually try again, Agnes?’

‘Decidedly, I would.’

‘Why, my dear, I should have thought you had had enough of it.’

‘I know,’ said I, ‘everybody is not like Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield - ’

‘Some are worse,’ interrupted my mother.

‘But not many, I think,’ replied I, ‘and I’m sure all children are not like theirs; for I and Mary were not: we always did as you bid us, didn’t we?’

‘Generally: but then, I did not spoil you; and you were not perfect angels after all: Mary had a fund of quiet obstinacy, and you were somewhat faulty in regard to temper; but you were very good children on the whole.’

‘I know I was sulky sometimes, and I should have been glad to see these children sulky sometimes too; for then I could have understood them: but they never were, for they could not be offended, nor hurt, nor ashamed: they could not be unhappy in any way, except when they were in a passion.’

‘Well, if they could not, it was not their fault: you cannot expect stone to be as pliable as clay.’

‘No, but still it is very unpleasant to live with such unimpressible, incomprehensible creatures.  You cannot love them; and if you could, your love would be utterly thrown away: they could neither return it, nor value, nor understand it.  But, however, even if I should stumble on such a family again, which is quite unlikely, I have all this experience to begin with, and I should manage better another time; and the end and aim of this preamble is, let me try again.’

‘Well, my girl, you are not easily discouraged, I see: I am glad of that.  But, let me tell you, you are a good deal paler and thinner than when you first left home; and we cannot have you undermining your health to hoard up money either for yourself or others.’

‘Mary tells me I am changed too; and I don’t much wonder at it, for I was in a constant state of agitation and anxiety all day long: but next time I am determined to take things coolly.’

After some further discussion, my mother promised once more to assist me, provided I would wait and be patient; and I left her to broach the matter to my father, when and how she deemed it most advisable: never doubting her ability to obtain his consent.  Meantime, I searched, with great interest, the advertising columns of the newspapers, and wrote answers to every ‘Wanted a Governess’ that appeared at all eligible; but all my letters, as well as the replies, when I got any, were dutifully shown to my mother; and she, to my chagrin, made me reject the situations one after another: these were low people, these were too exacting in their demands, and these too niggardly in their remuneration.

‘Your talents are not such as every poor clergyman’s daughter possesses, Agnes,’ she would say, ‘and you must not throw them away.  Remember, you promised to be patient: there is no need of hurry: you have plenty of time before you, and may have many chances yet.’

At length, she advised me to put an advertisement, myself, in the paper, stating my qualifications, &c.

‘Music, singing, drawing, French, Latin, and German,’ said she, ‘are no mean assemblage: many will be glad to have so much in one instructor; and this time, you shall try your fortune in a somewhat higher family in that of some genuine, thoroughbred gentleman; for such are far more likely to treat you with proper respect and consideration than those purse-proud tradespeople and arrogant upstarts.  I have known several among the higher ranks who treated their governesses quite as one of the family; though some, I allow, are as insolent and exacting as any one else can be: for there are bad and good in all classes.’

The advertisement was quickly written and despatched.  Of the two parties who answered it, but one would consent to give me fifty pounds, the sum my mother bade me name as the salary I should require; and here, I hesitated about engaging myself, as I feared the children would be too old, and their parents would require some one more showy, or more experienced, if not more accomplished than I.  But my mother dissuaded me from declining it on that account: I should do vastly well, she said, if I would only throw aside my diffidence, and acquire a little more confidence in myself.  I was just to give a plain, true statement of my acquirements and qualifications, and name what stipulations I chose to make, and then await the result.  The only stipulation I ventured to propose, was that I might be allowed two months’ holidays during the year to visit my friends, at Midsummer and Christmas.  The unknown lady, in her reply, made no objection to this, and stated that, as to my acquirements, she had no doubt I should be able to give satisfaction; but in the engagement of governesses she considered those things as but subordinate points; as being situated in the neighbourhood of O---, she could get masters to supply any deficiencies in that respect: but, in her opinion, next to unimpeachable morality, a mild and cheerful temper and obliging disposition were the most essential requisities.

My mother did not relish this at all, and now made many objections to my accepting the situation; in which my sister warmly supported her: but, unwilling to be balked again, I overruled them all; and, having first obtained the consent of my father (who had, a short time previously, been apprised of these transactions), I wrote a most obliging epistle to my unknown correspondent, and, finally, the bargain was concluded.

It was decreed that on the last day of January I was to enter upon my new office as governess in the family of Mr. Murray, of Horton Lodge, near O---, about seventy miles from our village: a formidable distance to me, as I had never been above twenty miles from home in all the course of my twenty years’ sojourn on earth; and as, moreover, every individual in that family and in the neighbourhood was utterly unknown to myself and all my acquaintances.  But this rendered it only the more piquant to me.  I had now, in some measure, got rid of the mauvaise honte that had formerly oppressed me so much; there was a pleasing excitement in the idea of entering these unknown regions, and making my way alone among its strange inhabitants.  I now flattered myself I was going to see something in the world: Mr. Murray’s residence was near a large town, and not in a manufacturing district, where the people had nothing to do but to make money; his rank from what I could gather, appeared to be higher than that of Mr. Bloomfield; and, doubtless, he was one of those genuine thoroughbred gentry my mother spoke of, who would treat his governess with due consideration as a respectable well-educated lady, the instructor and guide of his children, and not a mere upper servant.  Then, my pupils being older, would be more rational, more teachable, and less troublesome than the last; they would be less confined to the schoolroom, and not require that constant labour and incessant watching; and, finally, bright visions mingled with my hopes, with which the care of children and the mere duties of a governess had little or nothing to do.  Thus, the reader will see that I had no claim to be regarded as a martyr to filial piety, going forth to sacrifice peace and liberty for the sole purpose of laying up stores for the comfort and support of my parents: though certainly the comfort of my father, and the future support of my mother, had a large share in my calculations; and fifty pounds appeared to me no ordinary sum.  I must have decent clothes becoming my station; I must, it seemed, put out my washing, and also pay for my four annual journeys between Horton Lodge and home; but with strict attention to economy, surely twenty pounds, or little more, would cover those expenses, and then there would be thirty for the bank, or little less: what a valuable addition to our stock!  Oh, I must struggle to keep this situation, whatever it might be! both for my own honour among my friends and for the solid services I might render them by my continuance there.



CHAPTER VII - HORTON LODGE



The 31st of January was a wild, tempestuous day: there was a strong north wind, with a continual storm of snow drifting on the ground and whirling through the air.  My friends would have had me delay my departure, but fearful of prejudicing my employers against me by such want of punctuality at the commencement of my undertaking, I persisted in keeping the appointment.

I will not inflict upon my readers an account of my leaving home on that dark winter morning: the fond farewells, the long, long journey to O---, the solitary waitings in inns for coaches or trains - for there were some railways then - and, finally, the meeting at O--- with Mr. Murray’s servant, who had been sent with the phaeton to drive me from thence to Horton Lodge.  I will just state that the heavy snow had thrown such impediments in the way of both horses and steam-engines, that it was dark some hours before I reached my journey’s end, and that a most bewildering storm came on at last, which made the few miles’ space between O--- and Horton Lodge a long and formidable passage.  I sat resigned, with the cold, sharp snow drifting through my veil and filling my lap, seeing nothing, and wondering how the unfortunate horse and driver could make their way even as well as they did; and indeed it was but a toilsome, creeping style of progression, to say the best of it.  At length we paused; and, at the call of the driver, someone unlatched and rolled back upon their creaking hinges what appeared to be the park gates.  Then we proceeded along a smoother road, whence, occasionally, I perceived some huge, hoary mass gleaming through the darkness, which I took to be a portion of a snow-clad tree.  After a considerable time we paused again, before the stately portico of a large house with long windows descending to the ground.

I rose with some difficulty from under the superincumbent snowdrift, and alighted from the carriage, expecting that a kind and hospitable reception would indemnify me for the toils and hardships of the day.  A gentleman person in black opened the door, and admitted me into a spacious hall, lighted by an amber-coloured lamp suspended from the ceiling; he led me through this, along a passage, and opening the door of a back room, told me that was the schoolroom.  I entered, and found two young ladies and two young gentlemen - my future pupils, I supposed.  After a formal greeting, the elder girl, who was trifling over a piece of canvas and a basket of German wools, asked if I should like to go upstairs.  I replied in the affirmative, of course.

‘Matilda, take a candle, and show her her room,’ said she.

Miss Matilda, a strapping hoyden of about fourteen, with a short frock and trousers, shrugged her shoulders and made a slight grimace, but took a candle and proceeded before me up the back stairs (a long, steep, double flight), and through a long, narrow passage, to a small but tolerably comfortable room.  She then asked me if I would take some tea or coffee.  I was about to answer No; but remembering that I had taken nothing since seven o’clock that morning, and feeling faint in consequence, I said I would take a cup of tea.  Saying she would tell ‘Brown,’ the young lady departed; and by the time I had divested myself of my heavy, wet cloak, shawl, bonnet, &c., a mincing damsel came to say the young ladies desired to know whether I would take my tea up there or in the schoolroom.  Under the plea of fatigue I chose to take it there.  She withdrew; and, after a while, returned again with a small tea-tray, and placed it on the chest of drawers, which served as a dressing-table.  Having civilly thanked her, I asked at what time I should be expected to rise in the morning.

‘The young ladies and gentlemen breakfast at half-past eight, ma’am,’ said she; ‘they rise early; but, as they seldom do any lessons before breakfast, I should think it will do if you rise soon after seven.’

I desired her to be so kind as to call me at seven, and, promising to do so, she withdrew.  Then, having broken my long fast on a cup of tea and a little thin bread and butter, I sat down beside the small, smouldering fire, and amused myself with a hearty fit of crying; after which, I said my prayers, and then, feeling considerably relieved, began to prepare for bed.  Finding that none of my luggage was brought up, I instituted a search for the bell; and failing to discover any signs of such a convenience in any corner of the room, I took my candle and ventured through the long passage, and down the steep stairs, on a voyage of discovery.  Meeting a well-dressed female on the way, I told her what I wanted; but not without considerable hesitation, as I was not quite sure whether it was one of the upper servants, or Mrs. Murray herself: it happened, however, to be the lady’s-maid.  With the air of one conferring an unusual favour, she vouchsafed to undertake the sending up of my things; and when I had re-entered my room, and waited and wondered a long time (greatly fearing that she had forgotten or neglected to perform her promise, and doubting whether to keep waiting or go to bed, or go down again), my hopes, at length, were revived by the sound of voices and laughter, accompanied by the tramp of feet along the passage; and presently the luggage was brought in by a rough-looking maid and a man, neither of them very respectful in their demeanour to me.  Having shut the door upon their retiring footsteps, and unpacked a few of my things, I betook myself to rest; gladly enough, for I was weary in body and mind.

It was with a strange feeling of desolation, mingled with a strong sense of the novelty of my situation, and a joyless kind of curiosity concerning what was yet unknown, that I awoke the next morning; feeling like one whirled away by enchantment, and suddenly dropped from the clouds into a remote and unknown land, widely and completely isolated from all he had ever seen or known before; or like a thistle-seed borne on the wind to some strange nook of uncongenial soil, where it must lie long enough before it can take root and germinate, extracting nourishment from what appears so alien to its nature: if, indeed, it ever can.  But this gives no proper idea of my feelings at all; and no one that has not lived such a retired, stationary life as mine, can possibly imagine what they were: hardly even if he has known what it is to awake some morning, and find himself in Port Nelson, in New Zealand, with a world of waters between himself and all that knew him.

I shall not soon forget the peculiar feeling with which I raised my blind and looked out upon the unknown world: a wide, white wilderness was all that met my gaze; a waste of


Deserts tossed in snow,
And heavy laden groves.


I descended to the schoolroom with no remarkable eagerness to join my pupils, though not without some feeling of curiosity respecting what a further acquaintance would reveal.  One thing, among others of more obvious importance, I determined with myself - I must begin with calling them Miss and Master.  It seemed to me a chilling and unnatural piece of punctilio between the children of a family and their instructor and daily companion; especially where the former were in their early childhood, as at Wellwood House; but even there, my calling the little Bloomfields by their simple names had been regarded as an offensive liberty: as their parents had taken care to show me, by carefully designating them Master and Miss Bloomfield, &c., in speaking to me.  I had been very slow to take the hint, because the whole affair struck me as so very absurd; but now I determined to be wiser, and begin at once with as much form and ceremony as any member of the family would be likely to require: and, indeed, the children being so much older, there would be less difficulty; though the little words Miss and Master seemed to have a surprising effect in repressing all familiar, open-hearted kindness, and extinguishing every gleam of cordiality that might arise between us.

As I cannot, like Dogberry, find it in my heart to bestow all my tediousness upon the reader, I will not go on to bore him with a minute detail of all the discoveries and proceedings of this and the following day.  No doubt he will be amply satisfied with a slight sketch of the different members of the family, and a general view of the first year or two of my sojourn among them.

To begin with the head: Mr. Murray was, by all accounts, a blustering, roystering, country squire: a devoted fox-hunter, a skilful horse-jockey and farrier, an active, practical farmer, and a hearty bon vivant.  By all accounts, I say; for, except on Sundays, when he went to church, I never saw him from month to month: unless, in crossing the hall or walking in the grounds, the figure of a tall, stout gentleman, with scarlet cheeks and crimson nose, happened to come across me; on which occasions, if he passed near enough to speak, an unceremonious nod, accompanied by a ‘Morning, Miss Grey,’ or some such brief salutation, was usually vouchsafed.  Frequently, indeed, his loud laugh reached me from afar; and oftener still I heard him swearing and blaspheming against the footmen, groom, coachman, or some other hapless dependant.

Mrs. Murray was a handsome, dashing lady of forty, who certainly required neither rouge nor padding to add to her charms; and whose chief enjoyments were, or seemed to be, in giving or frequenting parties, and in dressing at the very top of the fashion.  I did not see her till eleven o’clock on the morning after my arrival; when she honoured me with a visit, just as my mother might step into the kitchen to see a new servant-girl: yet not so, either, for my mother would have seen her immediately after her arrival, and not waited till the next day; and, moreover, she would have addressed her in a more kind and friendly manner, and given her some words of comfort as well as a plain exposition of her duties; but Mrs. Murray did neither the one nor the other.  She just stepped into the schoolroom on her return from ordering dinner in the housekeeper’s room, bade me good-morning, stood for two minutes by the fire, said a few words about the weather and the ‘rather rough’ journey I must have had yesterday; petted her youngest child - a boy of ten - who had just been wiping his mouth and hands on her gown, after indulging in some savoury morsel from the housekeeper’s store; told me what a sweet, good boy he was; and then sailed out, with a self-complacent smile upon her face: thinking, no doubt, that she had done quite enough for the present, and had been delightfully condescending into the bargain.  Her children evidently held the same opinion, and I alone thought otherwise.

After this she looked in upon me once or twice, during the absence of my pupils, to enlighten me concerning my duties towards them.  For the girls she seemed anxious only to render them as superficially attractive and showily accomplished as they could possibly be made, without present trouble or discomfort to themselves; and I was to act accordingly - to study and strive to amuse and oblige, instruct, refine, and polish, with the least possible exertion on their part, and no exercise of authority on mine.  With regard to the two boys, it was much the same; only instead of accomplishments, I was to get the greatest possible quantity of Latin grammar and Valpy’s Delectus into their heads, in order to fit them for school - the greatest possible quantity at least without trouble to themselves.  John might be a ‘little high-spirited,’ and Charles might be a little ‘nervous and tedious - ’

‘But at all events, Miss Grey,’ said she, ‘I hope you will keep your temper, and be mild and patient throughout; especially with the dear little Charles; he is so extremely nervous and susceptible, and so utterly unaccustomed to anything but the tenderest treatment.  You will excuse my naming these things to you; for the fact is, I have hitherto found all the governesses, even the very best of them, faulty in this particular.  They wanted that meek and quiet spirit, which St. Matthew, or some of them, says is better than the putting on of apparel - you will know the passage to which I allude, for you are a clergyman’s daughter.  But I have no doubt you will give satisfaction in this respect as well as the rest.  And remember, on all occasions, when any of the young people do anything improper, if persuasion and gentle remonstrance will not do, let one of the others come and tell me; for I can speak to them more plainly than it would be proper for you to do.  And make them as happy as you can, Miss Grey, and I dare say you will do very well.’

I observed that while Mrs. Murray was so extremely solicitous for the comfort and happiness of her children, and continually talking about it, she never once mentioned mine; though they were at home, surrounded by friends, and I an alien among strangers; and I did not yet know enough of the world, not to be considerably surprised at this anomaly.

Miss Murray, otherwise Rosalie, was about sixteen when I came, and decidedly a very pretty girl; and in two years longer, as time more completely developed her form and added grace to her carriage and deportment, she became positively beautiful; and that in no common degree.  She was tall and slender, yet not thin; perfectly formed, exquisitely fair, though not without a brilliant, healthy bloom; her hair, which she wore in a profusion of long ringlets, was of a very light brown inclining to yellow; her eyes were pale blue, but so clear and bright that few would wish them darker; the rest of her features were small, not quite regular, and not remarkably otherwise: but altogether you could not hesitate to pronounce her a very lovely girl.  I wish I could say as much for mind and disposition as I can for her form and face.

Yet think not I have any dreadful disclosures to make: she was lively, light-hearted, and could be very agreeable, with those who did not cross her will.  Towards me, when I first came, she was cold and haughty, then insolent and overbearing; but, on a further acquaintance, she gradually laid aside her airs, and in time became as deeply attached to me as it was possible for her to be to one of my character and position: for she seldom lost sight, for above half an hour at a time, of the fact of my being a hireling and a poor curate’s daughter.  And yet, upon the whole, I believe she respected me more than she herself was aware of; because I was the only person in the house who steadily professed good principles, habitually spoke the truth, and generally endeavoured to make inclination bow to duty; and this I say, not, of course, in commendation of myself, but to show the unfortunate state of the family to which my services were, for the present, devoted.&n