At last Mrs. Cole said: “Now, children, come and say, 'How do you do?' to Miss Jones. This is Helen, our eldest—this Mary—and this Jeremy.”
Miss Jones did a dreadful thing. In her eagerness to be pleasant and friendly she kissed the girls, and then, before anyone could stop her, kissed Jeremy. He took it like a man, never turning his head nor wiping his mouth with his hand afterwards, but she might have seen in his eyes, had she looked, what he felt about it.
She said: “I hope we shall be happy together, dears.”
The children said nothing, and presently they all sat down to tea.
II
It was unfortunate that there was so little precedent on both sides. Miss Jones had never been a governess before and the children had never had one. Of course, many mistakes were made. Miss Jones had had a true admiration for what she used to call “her brother's indomitable spirit,” her name for his selfishness and bad temper. She was herself neither selfish nor bad-tempered, but she was ignorant, nervous, over-anxious, and desperately afraid of losing her situation. She had during so many years lived without affection that the wells of it had dried up within her, and now, without being at all a bad old lady, she was simply preoccupied with the business of managing her neuralgia, living on nothing a week, and building to her deceased brother's memory a monument, of heroic character and self-sacrifice. She was short-sighted and had a perpetual cold; she was forgetful and careless. She had, nevertheless, a real knowledge of many things, a warm heart somewhere could she be encouraged to look for it again, and a sense of humour buried deep beneath her cares and preoccupations. There were many worse persons in the world than Miss Jones. But, most unfortunately, her love for her brother's memory led her to resolve on what she called “firmness.” Mrs. Cole had told her that Jeremy was “getting too much” for his nurse; she approached Jeremy with exactly the tremors and quaking boldness that she would have summoned to her aid before a bull loose in a field. She really did look frightening with her large spectacles on the end of her large nose, her mouth firmly set, and a ruler in her hand. “I insist on absolute obedience,” was her motto. Jeremy looked at her but said no word. It was made clear to them all that the new regime was to be far other than the earlier nursery one. There were to be regular lesson hours—nine to twelve and four to five. A neat piece of white paper was fastened to the wall with “Monday: Geography 9-10, Arithmetic 10-11,” and so on. A careful graduation of punishments was instituted, copies to be written so many times, standing on a chair, three strokes on the hand with a ruler, and, worst of all, standing in the corner wearing a paper Dunce's cap. (This last she had read of in books.) At first Jeremy had every intention of behaving well, in spite of that unfortunate embrace. He was proud of his advance in life; he was no longer a baby; the nursery was now a schoolroom; he stayed up an hour later at night; he was to be allowed twopence a week pocket-money; his whole social status had risen. He began to read for pleasure, and discovered that it was easier than he had expected, so that he passed quite quickly through “Lottie's Visit to Grandmama” into “Stumps” and out again in “Jackanapes.” He heard some elder say that the road to a large fortune lay through “Sums,” and, although this seemed to him an extremely mysterious statement, he determined to give the theory a chance. In fact, he sat down the first day at the schoolroom table, Mary and Helen on each side of him, and Miss Jones facing them, with fine resolves and high ambitions. Before him lay a pure white page, and at the head of this the noble words in a running hand: “Slow and steady wins the race.” He grasped his pencil, and Miss Jones, eager to lose no time in asserting her authority, cried: “But that's not the way to hold your pencil, Jeremy, your thumb so, your finger so.” He scowled and found that lifting his thumb over the pencil was as difficult as lifting Hamlet over a gate. He made a bold attempt, but the pencil refused to move.
“Can't hold it that way,” he said.
“You must never say 'can't,' Jeremy,” remarked Miss Jones. “There isn't such a word.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mary eagerly, “there is; I've seen it in books.”