“He is, poor boy, but his education is very deficient. He ought to have been sent to school long ago, but her ladyship would not hear of it. But I never teach him now. He is supposed to be finished!”
“Why don’t you find another situation then?” demanded Harriet, who was becoming interested in the ex-governess.
She was a fragile, melancholy looking woman of perhaps five-and-thirty, who had evidently been good-looking in her day and would have been so then but for her attenuation, and shabby dress. But she was evidently a gentlewoman, and far above the menial offices she appeared to fill in the Red House. She gazed at Harriet for a minute in silence after she had put the last question to her, and then answered slowly:
“There are reasons which render it unadvisable. But you, Miss Brandt, have you known the Baroness before?”
“I never saw her till we met at Heyst and she invited me here,” replied the girl.
“O! why did you come? Why did you come?” exclaimed Miss Wynward, as she left the room.
Harriet stood gazing at the door as it closed behind her. Why had she come? What an extraordinary question to ask her! For the same reason that other people accepted invitations to them by their friends—because she expected to enjoy herself, and have the protection of the Baroness on first entering English society! But why should this governess—her dependant, almost her servant—put so strange a question to her? Why had she come? She could not get it out of her mind. She was roused from her train of speculation by hearing the Baroness thumping on the outside panels of her door with her stick.
“Come along,” she cried, “never mind dressing! The supper’s ready at last and I’m as ’ungry as an ’unter.”
Hastily completing her toilet, Harriet joined her hostess, who conducted her down to a large dining-room, wrapt in gloom. The two dozen morocco chairs ranged against the wall, looked sepulchral by the light of a single lamp, placed in the centre of a long mahogany table, which was graced by a fried steak, a huge piece of cheese, bread and butter, and lettuces from the garden. Harriet regarded the preparations for supper with secret dismay. She was greedy by nature, but it was the love of good feeding, rather than a superfluity of food, that induced her to be so. However, when the Baron produced a couple of bottles of the very best Champagne to add to the meal, she felt her appetite somewhat revive, and played almost as good a knife and fork as the Baroness. Bobby and Miss Wynward, who as it appeared, took her meals with the family, were the only ones who did not do justice to the supper.
The lad looked worn-out and very pale, but when Miss Wynward suggested that a glass of champagne might do him good, and dispel the exhaustion under which he was evidently labouring, his mother vehemently opposed the idea.