She drew forth the little worn slip of paper which she had guarded as of more value to her than money, because it declared her respectable and a competent music-teacher, and gave it into the lady’s fat hands.
“It is not dated very lately,” said Mrs. Blight. “How am I to know that this recommendation is not a forgery? People do forge such things, I hear. Why, a friend of mine took a footman on a forged recommendation, and he ran away and took all her silver.”
Lally’s honest cheeks flushed, and her heart swelled. She would have arisen, but that the lady motioned to her to retain her seat, and so long as there was a prospect that she might secure the situation Lally would remain.
“The recommendation looks all right,” continued Mrs. Blight, scanning it with her glass, while she held it afar off, and daintily between two fingers, as if it were a thing unclean. “You look honest too, but appearances are so deceiving! I had a nurse girl once who looked like a Madonna, and as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she turned out a perfect minx, artful as a cat. What salary do you expect?”
“I—I don’t know, Madam. I have never been employed as nursery governess.”
“My husband allows me forty pounds a year for the salary of the governess,” said Mrs. Blight. “But, of course, forty pounds ought to get a governess with the very best of references. You are inexperienced, as you confess. Now I will take the risk of you turning out bad, if you should decide to remain with me as governess to my five children, at a salary of twenty pounds a year, board and washing, lights and fuel, included.”
It was “[Hobson’s] choice—that or none”—to poor Lally. Twenty pounds a year, and to be sheltered and fed and warmed besides, seemed very liberal after her recent terrible struggle with the vulture of starvation.
“I will accept it, Mrs. Blight,” she said, her voice trembling—“that is, if you will take me when you know that I have only the clothes I stand in, and that for a few weeks I shall need my pay weekly to provide me with decent garments.”
“Oh, as to that,” said Mrs. Blight, “your clothes are poor, beggarly, I might say. They will have to be improved at once. I will advance you a quarter’s salary, five pounds, if you are quite sure you will use it for clothes, and that you do not intend to cheat me out of my money. You see I always speak plainly. My governesses are not pampered. They have to earn their money, but that you probably expect to do. I don’t know of another lady in Canterbury who would do as I am doing, lending money to a perfect stranger, on a recommendation you may have written yourself. But I am different from other ladies. I am a judge of physiognomy, and am not often deceived in my estimate of people. Why are you out of clothes?”
“I have been out of a situation as a teacher for some time,” said Lally. “I have the present addresses of the ladies who signed my recommendation, and I beg you to write to them to assure yourself that I have spoken the truth. The addresses are written on the recommendation itself.”