“I don’t say it’s right, and I don’t say it’s wrong. I say it’s very strange. Clergymen know very queer things sometimes. They can’t help it. Indeed, people who do queer things are very apt in my experience to tell a clergyman. It seems like getting a sanction to it. If he tells them not to do it, they don’t mind; they take their own way: but they always feel a satisfaction in thinking he knows. It shares the responsibility. He can’t be so very hard upon them after if he has known all the time: and I daresay some of them think they can persuade God it’s all right, because the clergyman knows.”
“Oh, Miss Hofland!” cried Hetty again.
“My dear, I know you are shocked by what I say; and I wouldn’t speak to you in this way if I had any one else to speak to. It is more than human nature is equal to, to keep quite silent. One can’t help noticing, you know. I’ve been in a great many houses, and known a great many family secrets. There is almost always something to find out, but generally it is quite on the surface; either it is a son who is making them unhappy, or a girl who has a love affair, or husband and wife don’t get on: these are the common things. But this place is full of mystery. Don’t you feel it in the air?”
“I should never have thought of anything——” said Hetty: and paused, afraid to seem to reproach her companion, or to say anything that was not quite true.
“If I had not put it in your head? I shouldn’t wonder. When I was like you, I never took any notice. You are not what I call governessy, my dear: but you would be the same as I am if you went in for my kind of life. I can’t help noticing now. I find out things without meaning to; you do when you are in a family without belonging to it, and have no occupation for your mind but to watch, and nobody to say it to. Then every little thing is an interest, and to put two and two together—— But I won’t frighten you. Do your people intend you to be a governess, my dear?”
This question gave Hetty a still greater shock than all the rest. She cried, “Oh, I hope not!” in instinctive alarm; then grew very red, and looked wistfully at her companion, feeling that to repudiate Miss Holland’s profession in this eager way might be an offence.
“You would always have your family to fall back upon,” said Miss Hofland, “and you would be able to help them. If there are so many of you, it would be your duty to do that. And though it’s not Paradise, it’s better than marrying a poor curate, and bringing dozens of children into the world to misery, which is probably what you would do if you were not a governess. I am not fond of this way of living, but it’s better than that; at least you have nobody but yourself, and when you die there’s an end of it. The first money I ever laid by was just enough to bury me. I’ve always kept that safe. I should like to have things decent, and not to be thrown on charity for my last expenses. And when that comes, there’s an end of it: that’s a great comfort; nobody else will be left to trouble and toil on account of me.”
The governess delivered this little monologue in quite a cheerful tone of voice, without any appearance of being deeply moved by it; her dismal philosophy was so unaffected that it had ceased to touch her feeling. She described this desolate mental condition in tones of steady matter of fact, while the young creature beside her gazed at her with a dismay which was speechless. A thousand thoughts ran through Hetty’s mind as she spoke. To be a governess! would not that be her duty? ought not that to be her life too? She had never been called on to think of such questions. There was so much to do at home. It had not occurred to her that she could even be spared. To help mamma seemed the natural use of the eldest girl. Now there swept through Hetty’s mind a tumult of confused thoughts and newly-awakened alarms. Ah! who could doubt it? This was what must, what ought to be, that she who was the eldest should go out into the world and help the rest. How often had she heard mamma wondering, calculating how to get the boys the needful indispensable education, which would be necessary to fit them for making their way; and it had never occurred to Hetty to say, “Of course I must go and be a governess, and send home the money.” Was it perhaps because she did not know enough to teach? But she knew enough for the nursery. She did teach the little ones at home. And now another thought suddenly leaped into her young soul. Her mother had sent her because of the “advantages,” advantages to which Hetty had given so little thought. She perceived it all now. This was why mamma wanted her to have advantages, that she might be fitted for the life she would have to adopt, that she might be clever enough to be a governess! The discovery (as she thought it) fell into Hetty’s little heart like lead, and then a flush of shame swept over her—that she should not have divined it for herself; that she should not have seen that as the eldest it was her duty to help, and to help steadily. This was quite different from the little romance of paying the bills secretly, which had so much delighted her imagination; as much different as the actual burden of life is from the enthusiasm of the ideal. It did not inspire her as that had done; on the contrary, it fell upon her like something crushing and terrible. Not for this year only, as she had thought—not to go back triumphant with her fifty pounds, and buy mamma a sealskin, and settle forever at home. Ah, no! very different. She had left home for good, Hetty said to herself; she must never think of home again but as a holiday refuge. Her destiny was like Miss Hofland’s—to live in other people’s houses, to teach other people’s children, to lay up carefully out of her first earnings enough to bury her. Oh, dreadful, dreadful thought! All this while Miss Hofland went on quietly with her talk, not distressed at all by the miserable provision which she had thought it right to make.
“You should get up a little earlier to practise, my dear. I shall always be willing to give you a little more time. Rhoda could do very well without you for an hour in the afternoon, after dinner, you know. And if you liked to take up any subject after she has gone to bed?—We might read a little French, for instance; or German. You don’t know German at all, do you? I never grudge a little trouble when it’s for a purpose, and to help on one who has an object. One has more satisfaction in doing that—helping a comrade, as the men would say—than giving lessons to a pack of little girls who don’t want to learn, and never will do any good with it. Should you like to begin German? Well, my dear, I’ll look you out my old grammars, and we’ll begin to-morrow night.”
“You are very, very kind, Miss Hofland. What can I ever do for you, to show my gratitude? Mamma will be so thankful: so—happy.”