“I know,” said Polly, “you used to have slates and think it was economy—poor child!—but the best for me: the best is always the cheapest in the end. If anyone thinks as I will put up with seconds, either coals or bread!—but since we’re on the subject of money,” continued Polly, “I’ll tell you my mind, Miss, and I don’t mean it unfriendly. The thing as eats up my husband’s money, it ain’t a bright fire or a good dinner, as is his right to have; it’s your brother Law, Miss, and you.”
“You have told me that before,” Lottie said, with a strenuous effort at self-control.
“And I’ll tell it you again—and again—till it has its effect,” cried Polly: “it’s true. I don’t mean to be unfriendly. I wonder how you can live upon your Pa at your age. Why, long before I was your age I was doing for myself. My Pa was very respectable, and everybody belonging to us; but do you think I’d have stayed at home and eat up what the old folks had for themselves? They’d have kept me and welcome, but I wouldn’t hear of it. And do you mean to say,” said Polly, folding her arms and fixing her eyes upon her step-daughter, “as you think yourself better than me?”
Lottie returned the stare with glowing eyes, her lips falling apart from very wonder. She gave a kind of gasp of bewilderment, but made no reply.
“I don’t suppose as you’ll say so,” said Polly; “and why shouldn’t you think of your family as I did of mine? You mightn’t be able to work as I did, but there’s always things you could do to save your Pa a little money. There’s lessons. There’s nothing ungenteel in lessons. I am not one as would be hard upon a girl just starting in the world. You’ve got your room here, that don’t cost you nothing; and what’s a daily governess’s work? Nothing to speak of—two or three hours’ teaching (or you might as well call it playing), and your dinner with the children, and mostly with the lady of the house—and all the comforts of ’ome after, just as if you wasn’t out in the world at all; a deal different from sitting at your needle, working, working, as I’ve done, from morning to night.”
“But I don’t know anything,” said Lottie. “I almost think you are quite right. Perhaps it is all true; it doesn’t matter nowadays, and ladies ought to work as well as men. But—I don’t know anything.” A half-smile came over her face. Notwithstanding that she was angry with Rollo, still—he who would have carried her away on the spot rather than that she should bear the shadow of a humiliation at home—was it likely——? Lottie’s mind suddenly leaped out of its anger and resentment with a sudden rebound. He did not deserve that she should be so angry with him. Was it his fault? and in forgiving him her temper and her heart got suddenly right again, and all was well. She even woke to a little amusement in the consciousness that Polly was advising her for her good. The extravagant coals, the extravagant meals, would soon bring their own punishment; and though Lottie could not quite free herself from irritation on these points, yet she was amused by the thought of all this good advice.
“That’s nonsense,” said Polly promptly. “Now here’s a way you could begin at once, and it would be practice for you, and it would show at least that you was willing. I’ve been very careless,” she said, getting up from her chair and opening the old piano. She had to push off the cover first, and the noise and commotion of this complicated movement filled Lottie with alarm. “I’ve done as a many young ladies do before they see how silly it is. I’ve left off my music. You mayn’t believe it, but it’s true. I can’t tell even if I know my notes,” said Polly, jauntily but clumsily placing her hands upon the keyboard and letting one finger fall heavily here and there like a hammer. “I don’t remember a bit. It’s just like a great silly, isn’t it? But you never think when you are young, when your head’s full of your young man and all that sort of thing. It’s when you’ve settled down, and got married, and have time to think, that you find it out.”
Polly was a great deal less careful of her language as she became accustomed to her new surroundings. She was fully herself by this time, and at her ease. She sat down before the piano and ran her finger along the notes. “It’s scandalous,” she said. “We’re taught when we’re young, and then we thinks no more of it. Now, Miss, if you was willing to do something for your living, if you was really well disposed and wanted to make a return, you might just look up some of your old lesson-books and begin with me. I’d soon pick up,” said Polly, making a run of sound up and down the keys with the back of her fingers, and thinking it beautiful; “it would come back to me in two or three lessons. You needn’t explain nothing about it; we might just say as we were learning some duets together. It would all come back to me if you would take a little trouble; and I shouldn’t forget it. I never forget it when anyone’s of use to me.”
“But,” cried Lottie, who had been vainly endeavouring to break in, “I cannot play.”
“Cannot play!” Polly turned round upon the piano-stool with a countenance of horror. Even to turn round upon that stool was something delightful to her, like a lady in a book, like one of the heroines in the Family Herald; but this intimation chilled the current of her blood.