“Beg pardon, my lady, but the young ladies are gone out.”
“Oh, indeed? Don’t you think you could find them?”
“I’ll try, my lady,” answered the footman with perfect gravity, “but it may take an hour or two, as your ladyship knows.”
“Oh, yes. Well, then, you had better show Miss Scott to her room, and send somebody to look for them. You see,” she added, turning to the new governess, “they have got altogether out of the habit of regular hours. I hope you’ll be quite comfortable.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Scott, who had risen; and she followed the footman meekly with her limping gait.
Lady Jane Follitt had rarely experienced a more intimate satisfaction than she felt when her husband and two younger sons straggled into luncheon, and each in turn glanced quickly at the new governess, and then sat down with an expression of visible disappointment. The Colonel, who was a mild and kindly man, addressed one or two remarks to the newcomer, which she answered as briefly as possible in her somewhat monotonous voice, but Jocelyn and Claude ignored her existence. The girls sat on either side of her, very neat and quiet and well-behaved, but they eyed her from time to time with the distrust which a natural enemy inspires at close quarters. They were taking her measure for the coming contest, and in the mind of each girl there was already a conviction that it would not be an easy one. They had seen all sorts: the one whose gentle ways and pleasant conversation delighted the Colonel; the one that used to blush and stammer whenever Jocelyn came into the room; the one who was almost a match for Claude at lawn tennis, and who could ride nearly as well as the Follitts themselves, because she was the daughter of an old-fashioned sporting parson, who had spent his substance on horse-flesh, and broken his neck in the hunting field; they had seen Miss Kirk, with her violet eyes, who drew all men in the house after her as easily as the Pied Piper of Hamelin led away the little children; but they had never till now seen one who gave them the impression that she meant business, and would probably get the better of them. If she did, there would be an end of snaring hares and angling for trout, of riding bareback, and of peppering the passing horses on the Malton road with buckshot from catapults. The future was shrouded in deep gloom, through which stalked hideous spectres of geography, arithmetic, and the history of England. They would be told to sit up straight and not to ink their fingers, and they would be taken to walk instead of being let loose after their meals like a brace of terrier pups, to roam the park and harass man and beast.
There was one chance left. Miss Scott might be a musician. There had been one governess of that sort, too, and the girls had enjoyed long hours of sweetest liberty while she was hammering away at the piano in the schoolroom.
“Do you play?” asked Evelyn in a sweet low voice.
“Oh, no,” answered Miss Scott. “I don’t know one note from another.”
The last ray of hope was extinguished, the gloom deepened, and Evelyn relapsed into mournful silence after exchanging a depressed glance with Gwendolen.