The Eldest Son Part 29

"If I hadn't been ready to take a woman of your age, other things being equal, I shouldn't have asked you to come and see me," said Mrs.

Clinton. "But I cannot decide anything until I have seen every one I have written to."

"Ah well!" she said, with a sigh. "I know you won't choose me, or you would have told me more about the children, and what you wanted. I suppose I must go on with the weary round until I drop."

"It is very depressing, poor thing!" said Mrs. Clinton when she had gone. "But I can't possibly engage a governess out of motives of pity."

"She would be all right for younger children," said Lady Birkett. "It is hard that she should begin to find it difficult to get work at that age."

Miss Gertrude Wilson, twenty-nine, was brisk and business-like. She would have made an excellent commercial traveller, taking it cheerfully for granted when she entered a shop that she was going to get an order, and not leaving it until she had got one. It was she who asked the questions, not in the manner of Miss Player, obsessed by her own personality and experiences, but rather like a doctor, anxious thoroughly to diagnose a case so that he might do the best he could for his patient.

"Now I should like to know, first of all," she said, "what the characters of your girls are like, Mrs. Clinton. Then one can form some idea as to how to treat them."

"They are physically active," said Mrs. Clinton; "mentally too, especially Nancy, who has developed greatly within the last year. She is a clever child, and is beginning to take a great interest in books, and I think one might say in everything she finds inside them."

"Ah, a student!" said Miss Wilson. "One ought not to let her overdo that at her age, although one must take pains to encourage her in anything she wants to take up, and try and concentrate her upon it. I don't believe much in desultory reading. I should feel inclined to curb that. But that is not quite what I want to know. I can deal with all that when I see the girls. It is their dispositions I want to get at. Are they bright as a general rule, or inclined to be subdued?"

"Not at all inclined to be subdued," said Lady Birkett, with a laugh.

"Not spoilt, I hope?" asked Miss Wilson. "If they are, please say so.

I can deal with them all right."

"I don't think they are spoilt," said Mrs. Clinton. "They are both affectionate, and easily managed by any one they love. They are apt to be mischievous, perhaps, although they are growing out of that now.

They are rather overfond of making fun of people, but I think no one would call them ill-natured."

"Well, that is a very satisfactory report on the whole," said Miss Wilson. "I expect I shall get fond of them. I generally do get fond of my pupils, and they of me. May I ask what other members of your family there are, Mrs. Clinton--brothers or sisters, older or younger?"

"Joan and Nancy are the only ones regularly at home," replied Mrs.

Clinton.

"Oh! No brothers at school coming home for the holidays?"

"No," said Mrs. Clinton.

"It is apt to make things difficult sometimes. Girls get out of hand.

Are there older brothers, may I ask?"

"Yes, but you would see little of them, Miss Wilson. You need not take them into account."

By the look of Miss Wilson's face, it might have been gathered that she would have preferred to take them into account, at any rate to the extent of hearing a little more about them. But her momentary dejection disappeared. She had to keep her control of the situation.

"And now as to hours," she said. "My plan would be to work the _whole_ of the morning, with perhaps a quarter of an hour off for a gla.s.s of milk and a rock cake or something of that sort--say from nine o'clock to lunch time; exercise and games in the afternoon, till four. Then three hours' work, with tea in between, and I should expect the girls to do an hour or so's preparation later in the evening. They do not dine with you, of course."

"They come down to dessert," said Mrs. Clinton.

"That would be about eight o'clock, I suppose. We can just fit in the other hour before they go to bed. I should like them to go to bed not later than half-past nine, and----"

"I like them to go to bed at nine," Mrs. Clinton managed to break in.

"And they would not do any work after they have come downstairs; there would not be time."

"Oh, well, we can settle all that later," Miss Wilson handsomely conceded. "I shall do my very best to get them on, Mrs. Clinton.

Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days I suppose we shall have half-holidays, or do you prefer a whole holiday on Sat.u.r.day? Perhaps we had better settle that later too; it is all one to me. I shall do my best to fit in with the ways of the house. Shall you wish me to take my meals downstairs?"

"Breakfast and luncheon, yes," said Mrs. Clinton. "You would dine in the schoolroom."

Miss Wilson's face again fell. But she said, "That will suit me very well. I shall have time for my own reading when the children have gone to bed. When shall you wish me to come?"

"If I engage you, about the tenth. Now I should like to ask you a few questions, if you are ready to answer them."

The cross-examination Miss Wilson underwent as to her scholastic attainments and previous experience, at the hands of both ladies, was somewhat searching, and she came through it admirably. She was, in fact, the ideal governess, as far as could be seen. And yet, neither of them liked her, and they would have been pleased rather than regretful to find some flaw which would give them an excuse to reject her. "Well," said Mrs. Clinton at last, "I have others to see, but I will take up your references and write to you in a few days. You have given me all the addresses, I suppose?" She took up Miss Wilson's letter, which was shorter than the rest, confining itself to one sheet of note-paper.

"Yes, you will find them there," said Miss Wilson, rising a little hurriedly. "Then I shall hope to hear from you, and I will say good-morning, Mrs. Clinton."

Mrs. Clinton ignored her outstretched hand. "I will just pencil the dates at which you were with these three families," she said. "Mrs.

Waterhouse was the first."

"Oh, I am very bad at dates," said Miss Wilson. "But they are all in order. You will have no difficulty."

Mrs. Clinton looked at her in mild surprise. "Surely you remember the number of years you were with each family," she said.

"Oh, I dare say I can remember that," she said, with a rather nervous laugh. "I was with Mrs. Waterhouse about three years, Mrs. Simkinson one and a half, I think it was."

"That is all I wanted to know," said Mrs. Clinton, but Lady Birkett asked, "Are those three all the posts you have filled?"

Miss Wilson, who was still standing, drew herself up stiffly. "I was with some other people for about a year," she said. "But they were intensely disagreeable people, and I should be very sorry to have to rely on a testimonial from them. They behaved atrociously to me."

"In what way?" asked Mrs. Clinton.

"I prefer not to say," said Miss Wilson firmly. "I have no wish to talk about those people at all. I only wish to forget them. If you will take up the references I have given you I think you will know everything about me that you have a right to ask, and you will find it thoroughly satisfactory; and anything else I shall be pleased to tell you."

"I think, then, I must ask why you left these people. Were they the last you were with?"

"Yes," said Miss Wilson, "they were; and the whole subject is so painful to me that I must refuse to go into it."

"You will not give me the name, so that I can at least hear their side of the story?"

"Certainly not, Mrs. Clinton," replied Miss Wilson indignantly. "If those are the only conditions on which I may accept your offer, then I must refuse it altogether."

"I haven't made you an offer yet," said Mrs. Clinton, "and of course, under the circ.u.mstances, I cannot do so. So I will wish you good-morning."

Miss Wilson seemed about to say something more, but changed her mind and left the room with her head in the air.

The two ladies looked at one another. "What on earth can it have been?" asked Mrs. Clinton.

"Carrying on," replied Lady Birkett, with a laugh. "I can see it now.

She's the sort that carries on. The details we must leave to the imagination, but we're well rid of her."

CHAPTER XIX