As she stood in the hall trying to look warm and amiable, Mrs. Cole's heart forsook her. On that earlier day of her visit Miss Jones had looked possible, sitting up in Mrs. Cole's drawing-room, smiling her brightest, because she so desperately needed the situation, and wearing her best dress. Now she was all in pieces; she had had to leave her little village early in the morning to catch the village bus; she had waited at wayside stations, as in Glebeshire only one can wait; the world had dripped upon her head and spattered upon her legs. She had neuralgia and a pain in her back; she had worn her older dress because, upon such a day, it would not do to travel in her best; and then, as a climax to everything, she had left her umbrella in the train. How she could do such a thing upon such a day! Her memory was not her strongest point, poor lady, and it was a good umbrella, and she could not afford to buy another. Perhaps they would find it for her, but it was very unlikely.
She had had it for a number of years.
She was a little woman, all skin and bone, with dried withered cheeks, a large brown nose and protruding ears. Her face had formed severe lines in self-defence against her brother, but her eyes were mild, and when she smiled her mouth was rather pleasantly pathetic.
“Oh, she'll never do,” thought Mrs. Cole, as she looked at her dripping in the hall.
“I can't think how I forgot it,” said the poor lady, her mind fixed upon her umbrella. “They said that perhaps they would find it for me, but there was a man in my carriage, I remember, who will most certainly have taken it—and it was a nice one with a silver handle.”
“Never mind,” said Mrs. Cole cheerfully, “I'm sure they'll find it. You must come up to the nursery—or the schoolroom I suppose we must call it now; there's a lovely fire there, and we'll both have tea with the children to-day, so as to feel at home, all of us, as quickly as possible.”
What Miss Jones wanted was to lie down on a bed in a dark room and try and conquer her neuralgia. The thought of a lighted nursery filled her with dismay. However, first impressions are so important. She pulled herself together.
The children had heard the arrival; they waited in a bunch by the fire, their eyes partly fixed on the door, partly on the strawberry jam that they were allowed to-day as a treat in the new governess's honour. Hamlet, his eyes and ears also upon the door, expecting perhaps a rat, perhaps Aunt Amy, sat in front of the group, its bodyguard.
“She's in the hall,” said Helen, “and now Mother's saying: 'Do take off your things. You must be wet,' and now she's saying: 'You'll like to see the children, I expect,' and now—”
There they were, standing in the doorway, Mrs. Cole and Miss Jones. There followed a dismal pause. The children had not expected anyone so old and so ugly as Miss Jones. Hamlet did not bark—nothing occurred.