The five minutes had hardy elapsed when Marion rejoined her cousin. The damp day had rendered a tiny fire acceptable. Cissy was seated near it, and Marion knelt down on the rug before her, looking up into her face with a curious, half-anxious expression on her own.
“What is the matter, May? Have you really any adventures to tell me?” asked Mrs. Archer.
“Yes,” replied the girl quietly, “at least I have a confession to make to you. What do you think I have done, Cissy?”
“What do I think you have done? How can I think till I know? Don’t frighten me, May: tell me quickly what you mean.”
“Well, then, I will tell you quickly, Cissy. What I have done is this: I have engaged myself as daily governess to Lady Severn’s grand-daughters, for three months certainly, and, if possible, for six.”
“Marion,” said Cissy excitedly, “you are joking. You don’t mean that you have really done such a mad, unheard-of thing. You, Marion Vere, a daily governess! You Uncle Vere’s daughter! No, nonsense, you can’t be in earnest.”
“Yes, Cissy, I am, thoroughly and entirely in earnest. It came into my mind yesterday, when Lady Severn mistook me for Charlie’s governess. I saw before me a simple, easy way of making the money I required to pay back poor Harry’s debt, and I determined to carry out my scheme without telling you of it till it was done.” And then she gave her cousin a full account of her interview with Lady Severn, and the arrangements proposed; and without giving Cissy time to make any remarks, or to urge any objections, she went on to show her how easily and naturally the thing might be managed without anyone’s ever being in their secret. How Lady Severn’s mistaking her name, and the fact of her being a perfect stranger in Altes, would effectually prevent her identity with the daughter of the well-known Mr. Vere ever being suspected.
“And after all,” she continued, “it is such a very thrilling thing. I shall only be away for a few hours in the morning, and often indeed shall be home almost before you are dressed. The work itself, such as it is, will be exceedingly good for me in every way. I am really looking forward to it with the greatest pleasure.”
“It is not that part of it I am thinking of so much,” said Cissy gravely, “it is the disadvantage it may be to you in a hundred indirect ways, which you are too childish to think of. Even supposing, as may be the case, that the truth is never suspected, there is something very anomalous and undesirable about the whole affair. Especially the being known under a name that is not yours. Fancy, in after life, if it came out in the queer way that things do, that you had spent six mouths abroad under an assumed name! You must own, Marion, that it is enough to startle me to think of what you may be exposing yourself to; and to think it is all for the sake of that wretched money! As if I would not twenty times rather have lent you six times as much, whether you ever repaid it or not.”
“But Cissy, you couldn’t, and that settles the matter. You couldn’t have lent it, and I certainly wouldn’t have borrowed it without repaying it properly. The choice lay between my doing what I have done, or applying to Papa; and rather than go to him for it, I really think I would be a governess all my life. Besides,” she added, “seeing that so much is done, can it be undone? It seems to me the attempting to undo it, would entail all manner of disagreeable things; explanations of private matters to Lady Severn, a perfect stranger to me, and personally hardly better known to you. One thing I am quite sure of, and that is, that she would not forgive the part I have acted in the matter. Indeed I myself should feel dreadfully small! As far as my chances of enjoying my visit to Altes are concerned, which you, dear Cissy, think so much of, I assure you I am more likely to do so, as Miss Freer, Lady Severn’s daily governess, than as Marion Vere. I couldn’t get over the mortification, at having appeared so cunning. If I really earn the money, I shall feel that I am working for Harry, and somehow that prevents my feeling as if I were deceitful or scheming.”