Margaret made no reply, simply because at the moment she felt absolutely incapable of speech. Dismay at the thought that she was to be a governess held her spellbound. She certainly had not gathered from anything that Eleanor had said that she was expected to teach, and two naughty unruly children into the bargain. No wonder that she grew paler even than her wont at the appalling thought. Luckily for her, however, Maud was far from guessing the dismay her casually given information was causing her silent companion, and under cover of her chatter, Margaret had time to recover a little from the shock she had received and to resolve to try and make the best of it. Of one thing she was sure, Eleanor herself had no idea of the services she had been expected to give in exchange for being asked to spend her holidays at The Cedars. Neither had Mrs. Danvers wished to get her there under false pretences. After all, had not her letter said that she was both to enjoy herself and to make herself useful. So she had no right to complain at the discovery that the latter half of the sentence meant so much more than either she or Eleanor had suspected. "To make yourself useful," Eleanor had said airily; "oh, that means that you will be expected to arrange flowers for the dinner table, and to write notes, and so on. Little things of that sort, you know."
So, naturally, it had been a great shock to discover that "little things of that sort" included the entire control of two unruly children. It was not the prospect of having to work that perturbed Margaret, it was the knowledge of how incapable she felt to deal with children. Why, she had scarcely ever spoken to a child in her life, and now she was to have the entire charge of two thrust upon her. She could not help wondering what Eleanor would have said or done in her place, but was unable to answer the question satisfactorily. The situation, however, could hardly have dismayed her as much as it was dismaying her substitute. To fill the post of holiday governess to two small children would seem to her an easy task after having taught for three years in a big school. Of one thing, however, Margaret felt quite convinced. If Eleanor had known of the predicament in which Margaret was placed, she would, after a moment or two of consternation, have gone off into fits of laughter. And no doubt the situation had its comic side; even Margaret, full of alarm as she was, could not restrain a smile as she thought of the very queer governess that she would make.
"You look pretty young to be a governess, don't you?" said Maud. "Did you ever have any difficulty in keeping order?"
"No, never," said Margaret, truthfully enough.
"How many girls were there?"
"Twenty boarders, forty day girls, and five governesses when I—when I——" this came out with a gulp, for Margaret found the first falsehood she had been obliged to tell most distasteful to her—"went there. But the school has been going down the last few years, and last term there were only seven boarders and ten day girls."
"Sounds rather a poor sort of show, doesn't it?" said Maud with a yawn. "I say, what a slow horse we have got, haven't we? We shall be all night getting home at this rate. What sort of place was Putney or Hampstead, or wherever the school was to live in?"
"Miss McDonald's school was at Hampstead, which is a suburb of London and is situated high up. It is celebrated for its Heath, which is a great holiday resort for the lower orders—the 'Arrys and 'Arriets, you know—on Bank Holidays, at which time it is advisable for quieter members of society to keep off it. But at other times it affords an excellent exercise ground for all the young ladies' schools in the neighbourhood. The air is fine and invigorating, and there is no reason why, with the help of a little imagination, one should not fancy oneself in the heart of the country, and many miles away from the greatest metropolis in the world. The sunsets can, by those who appreciate the beauties of Nature, be viewed from that portion of the Heath which commands a view of the western sky, and——"
"Very interesting indeed," broke in Maud, who had been listening with astonishment to this flow of instructive discourse.
At first she had thought that Margaret was, to use her own phrase, "rotting her," but a glance at the serious face beside her was sufficient to dispel that theory, and she came to the conclusion that young though she was, Margaret was a typical governess, who rejoiced in framing stilted sentences and in letting them flow from her lips in an even, monotonous voice.