Brownie’s fair face grew scarlet, as she listened to this, and was made to feel, by the indelicate explanation, that Lady Randal, at least, had regarded her in the light of an intruder.
It explained to her, too, what she had at first considered singular—that the rooms should be connected by archways and curtains instead of doors.
“I regret exceedingly,” she returned, with dignity, “that I should have put an aged lady like Lady Ruxley to such inconvenience. I laid my plans yesterday to go to some hotel as soon as I should be able, and remain until I fully recover. If you will allow one of your servants to order a carriage for me, I will put my plan into execution at once.”
“No, no, Miss Dundas, that would never do at all, and Aunt Ruxley would berate me soundly if she knew I had told you this. She is a very queer woman, as doubtless you discovered yesterday. She will not be crossed in anything, and when her mind is once made up, you can no more move her than you could one of the seven hills of Rome. But,” continued the woman, who had never once taken her eyes from the fair young face before her, and had read every expression with a boldness which made her odious, “I did not come to tell you this—I came upon a little matter of business.”
She paused a moment, and Brownie wondered what business she could have with her.
“Aunt Ruxley has taken a great shine to you, so to speak,” she resumed, “and has commissioned me to ask you if you would be willing to remain with her as her companion? Wait, if you please, until I get through, Miss Dundas, before you decide,” she said, as Brownie looked up in surprise, and then went on, as if she supposed the young girl possessed of no feeling or delicacy: “I do not approve of the plan myself; I never believed in engaging any one in this way, for she says you have no recommendation or credentials beyond your own word. But she has set her heart upon it, and seems to think you will be willing to remain. It is very difficult to get any one of the right sort who is willing to stay and do for her what she requires, on account of her peculiarities. We have tried several during the last two years. Now, if you think you would like the place, and would exert yourself to please her, we will overlook your lack of credentials, and I think we can arrange to give you the situation. Your salary would be fifty pounds a year. Of course we do not expect,” she hastened to add, “that you can do very much until you get strong, and we will make every allowance for that.”
Brownie was disgusted with the woman’s coarseness, and felt more like refusing the offer than accepting it, but what could she do?
It seemed like flying in the face of Providence to reject it.
She had no credentials, and no good family having children would engage her without, and she knew she was likely to fare no better, if as well, if she returned to her native land, unless she should acknowledge she had failed in her great undertaking, and fall back upon Mr. Conrad’s offer to give her a home.
So, after thinking the matter over carefully, she decided to accept Lady Randal’s offer.