Anne Hereford: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Put it to yourselves what it was, if you have any experience in teaching. Five girls, all in different stages of advancement, to learn everything, from German and good English down to needle-work. The worst task was the music; the drawing lessons I could give conjointly. All five learnt it, piano and harp, and two of them, the second and the youngest but one, were so wild and unsteady that they could not be trusted to practise one instant alone. I rose every morning at half-past six to begin the music lessons, and I was usually up until twelve or one o'clock the next morning correcting exercises, for I could not find time to do them during the day. "Make time," says somebody. I could only have made it by neglecting the children.

"Our last governess never did a thing after six in the evening," Kate said to me one day. "You should not be so particular, Miss Hereford."

"But she did not get you on to your mamma's satisfaction."

"No, indeed: mamma sent her away because of that. She did not care whether we advanced or not. All she cared for was to get the studies over anyhow."

Just so: it had been eye-service, as I could have told by their ignorance when I took the girls in hand. My dear mother had enjoined me differently: "Whatever you undertake, Anne, let it be done to the very best of your ability: do it as to God; as though His eye and ear were ever present with you."

I appealed to Mrs. Paler: telling her I could not continue to work as I was doing, and asking what could be done.

"Oh, nonsense, Miss Hereford, you must be a bad economizer of time," she answered. "The other governesses I have had did not complain of being overworked."

"But, madam, did they do their duty?"

"Middling for that—but then they were incorrigibly lazy. We are quite satisfied with you, Miss Hereford, and you must manage your time so as to afford yourself more leisure."

I suggested to Mrs. Paler that she should get help for part of the music lessons, but she would not hear of it; so I had to go on doing my best; but to do that best overtaxed my strength sadly. Mrs. Paler might have had more consideration: she saw that I rarely went out; one hurried walk in the week, perhaps, and the drive to church on Sunday. My pupils walked out every day, taken by one or other of the servants; but they did not go together: two or three stayed with me while the rest went, and when they came back to me these went. Mrs. Paler insisted upon my giving an hour of music to each child daily, which made five hours a day for music alone. The confinement and the hard work, perhaps the broken spirits, began to tell upon me; nervous headaches came on, and I wrote to the Miss Barlieus, asking what I should do. I wrote the letter on a Sunday, I am sorry to say, failing time on a week day. None of us went abroad on a Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Paler protested that nothing but sin and gallivanting was to be seen out of doors on a French Sunday; and once home from church we were shut up for the rest of the day. She did not go out herself, or suffer anybody else to go; Mr. Paler excepted. He took the reins into his own hands.