Agnes Grey (12 page)

The advertisement was quickly written and despatched. Of the two parties who answered it, but one would consent to give me fifty pounds,
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the sum my mother bade me name as the salary I should require; and here, I hesitated about engaging myself, as I feared the children would be too old, and their parents would require some one more showy, or more experienced, if not more accomplished than I; but my mother dissuaded me from declining it on that account: I should do vastly well, she said, if I would only throw aside my diffidence, and acquire a little more confidence in myself. I was just to give a plain, true statement of my acquirements and qualifications, and name what stipulations I chose to make, and then await the result.

The only stipulation I ventured to propose, was that I might be allowed two months holidays during the year to visit my friends, at Midsummer and Christmas. The unknown lady, in her reply, made no objection to this, and stated that, as to my acquirements, she had no doubt I should be able to give satisfaction; but in the engagement of governesses, she considered those things as but subordinate points, as, being situated in the neighbourhood of 0-,
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she could get masters to supply any deficiencies in that respect, but, in her opinion, next to unimpeachable morality, a mild and cheerful temper, and obliging disposition were the most essential requisites.

My mother did not relish this at all, and now made many objections to my accepting the situation, in which my sister warmly supported her; but, unwilling to be baulked again, I overruled them all; and, having first obtained the consent of my father, who had, a short time previously, been apprised of these transactions, I wrote a most obliging epistle to my unknown correspondent, and, finally, the bargain was concluded.

It was decreed that, on the last day of January, I was to enter upon my new office, as governess in the family of Mr. Murray, of Horton Lodge, near 0-, about seventy miles from our village—a formidable distance to me, as I had never been above twenty miles from home in all the course of my twenty years sojourn on earth, and as, moreover, every individual, in that family and in the neighbourhood, was utterly unknown to myself and all my acquaintances. But this rendered it only the more piquant to me: I had now, in some measure, got rid of the
mauvaise honte
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that had formerly oppressed me so much; there was a pleasing excitement in the idea of entering these unknown regions, and making my way alone among its strange inhabitants; I now flattered myself I was going to see somethingof the world; Mr. Murray’s residence was near a large town, and not in a manufacturing district, where the people had nothing to do but to make money; his rank, from what I could gather, appeared to be higher than that of Mr. Bloomfield, and, doubtless, he was one of those genuine thorough-bred gentry my mother spoke of, who would treat his governess with due consideration as a respectable, well educated lady, the instructor and guide of his children, and not a mere upper servant, then, my pupils, being older, would be more rational, more teachable, and less troublesome than the last, they would be less confined to the school-room, and not require that constant labour and incessant watching; and, finally—bright visions mingled with my hopes, with which, the care of children, and the mere duties of a governess had little or nothing to do; so that the reader will see I had no claim to be regarded as a martyr to filial piety, going forth to sacrifice peace and liberty for the sole purpose of laying up stores for the comfort and support of my parents; though, certainly, the comfort of my father, and the future support of my mother had a large share in my calculations, and fifty pounds appeared to me no ordinary sum. I must have decent clothes becoming my station, I must, it seemed, put out my washing,
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and also pay for my four annual journeys between Horton Lodge and home; but, with strict attention to economy, surely twenty pounds, or little more, would cover those expenses, and then there would be thirty for the bank, or little less; what a valuable addition to our stock! Oh! I
must
struggle to keep this situation, whatever it might be! both for my own honour among my friends, and for the solid services I might render them by my continuance there.

T
he thirty-first of January was a wild, tempestuous day; there was a strong north wind, with a continual storm of snow drifting on the ground, and whirling through the air. My friends would have had me delay my departure, but fearful of prejudicing my employers against me by such want of punctuality at the commencement of my undertaking, I persisted in keeping the appointment.

I will not inflict upon my readers an account of my leaving home on that dark winter morning, the fond farewells, the long—long journey to 0-, the solitary waitings in inns for coaches or trains—for there were some railways then
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-and, finally the meeting at O—, with Mr. Murray’s servant, who had been sent, with the phaeton, to drive me from thence to Horton Lodge.

I will just state that the heavy snow had thrown such impediments in the way of both horses and steam-engines, that it was dark some hours before I reached my journey’s end, and that a most bewildering storm came on at last, which made the few miles’ space between 0- and Horton Lodge a long and formidable passage. I sat resigned, with the cold, sharp snow drifting through my veil, and filling my lap, seeing nothing, and wondering how the unfortunate horse and driver could make their way even as well as they did, and indeed it was but a toilsome, creeping style of progression to say the best of it.

At length we paused; and, at the call of the driver, some one unlatched and rolled back upon their creaking hinges, what appeared to be, the park
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gates. Then we proceeded along a smoother road, whence, occasionally, I perceived some huge, hoary mass gleaming through the darkness, which I took to be a portion of a snow-clad tree.

After a considerable time, we paused again, before the stately portico of a large house with long windows descending to the ground.

I rose with some difficulty from under the superincumbent snowdrift, and alighted from the carriage, expecting a kind and hospitable reception would indemnify me for the toils and hardships of the day. A gentlemanly person in black opened the door, and admitted me into a spacious hall lighted by an amber-coloured lamp suspended from the ceiling; he led me through this, along a passage, and, opening the door of a back room, told me that was the school-room. I entered, and found two young ladies and two young gentlemen, my future pupils, I supposed. After a formal greeting, the elder girl, who was trifling over a piece of canvass and a basket of German wools,
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asked if I should like to go up-stairs.

I replied in the affirmative, of course.

“Matilda, take a candle, and show her her room,” said she.

Miss Matilda, a strapping hoyden, of about fourteen, with a short frock and trousers, shrugged her shoulders, and made a slight grimace, but took a candle and proceeded before me, up the back stairs, a long, steep, double flight, and through a long, narrow passage, to a small, but tolerably comfortable room. She then asked me if I would take some tea or coffee. I was about to answer no, but, remembering that I had taken nothing since seven o’clock that morning, and feeling faint in consequence, I said I would take a cup of tea. Saying she would tell “Brown,” the young lady departed; and by the time I had divested myself of my heavy, wet cloak, shawl, bonnet, &c., a mincing damsel came to say, the young ladies desired to know whether I would take my tea up there or in the school-room. Under the plea of fatigue, I chose to take it there. She withdrew; and, after a while, returned again with a small tea-tray, and placed it on the chest of drawers which served as a dressing-table.Having civilly thanked her, I asked at what time I should be expected to rise in the morning.

“The young ladies and gentlemen breakfast at half-past eight, ma’am,” said she; “they rise early; but, as they seldom do any lessons before breakfast, I should think it will do if you rise soon after seven.”

I desired her to be so kind as to call me at seven; and, promising to do so she withdrew. Then, having broken my long fast on a cup of tea, and a little thin bread and butter, I sat down beside the small, smouldering fire, and amused myself with a hearty fit of crying; after which, I said my prayers, and then, feeling considerably relieved, began to prepare for bed; but, finding that none of my luggage was brought up, I instituted a search for the bell; and failing to discover any signs of such a convenience in any corner of the room, I took my candle, and ventured through the long passage, and down the steep stairs, on a voyage of discovery. Meeting a well-dressed female on the way, I told her what I wanted, but not without considerable hesitation, as I was not quite sure whether it was one of the upper servants, or Mrs. Murray herself. It happened, however, to be the lady’s-maid.

With the air of one conferring an unusual favour, she vouchsafed to undertake the sending up of my things; and when I had re-entered my room, and waited and wondered a long time, greatly fearing that she had forgotten, or neglected to perform her promise, and doubting whether to keep waiting, or go to bed, or go down again, my hopes, at length, were revived by the sound of voices and laughter, accompanied by a tramp of feet along the passage, and, presently, the luggage was brought in by a rough-looking maid and a man, neither of them very respectful in their demeanour to me.

Having shut the door upon their retiring footsteps, and unpacked a few of my things, I, at length, betook myself to rest, gladly enough, for I was weary in body and mind.

It was with a strange feeling of desolation mingled with a strong sense of the novelty of my situation, and a joyless kind of curiosity concerning what was yet unknown, that I awoke the next morning feeling like one whirled away by enchantment, and suddenly dropped from the clouds into a remote and unknown land, widely and completely isolated from all he had ever seen or known before; or like a thistle-seed borne on the wind to some strange nook of uncongenial soil, where it must lie long enough before it can take root and germinate, extracting nourishment from what appears so alien to its nature, if indeed, it ever can; but this gives no proper idea of my feelings at all; and no one, that has not lived such a retired, stationary life as mine, can possibly imagine what they were—hardly even if he has known what it is to awake some morning and find himself in Port Nelson in New Zealand,
²
with a world of waters between himself and all that knew him.

I shall not soon forget the peculiar feeling with which I raised my blind and looked out upon the unknown world—a wide, white wilderness was all that met my gaze, a waste of—

I descended to the school-room with no remarkable eagerness to join my pupils, though not without some feeling of curiosity respecting what a further acquaintance would reveal. One thing, among others of more obvious importance, I determined with myself; I must begin with calling them Miss and Master. It seemed to me, a chilling and unnatural piece of punctilio between the children of a family and their instructor and daily companion, especially where the former were in their early childhood, as at Wellwood House; but even there, my calling the little Bloomfields by their simple names had been regarded as an offensive liberty, as their parents had taken care to show me, by carefully designating them Master and Miss Bloomfield, &c., in speaking to me. I had been very slow to take the hint, because the whole affair struck me as so very absurd; but now, I determined to be wiser, and begin at once with as much form and ceremony as any member of the family would be likely to require; and indeed, the children being so much older, there would be less difficulty; though the little words Miss and Master seemed to have a surprising effect in repressing all familiar, open-hearted kindness, and extinguishing every gleam of cordiality that might arise between us.

As I cannot, like Dogberry,
^ab
find it in my heart to bestow all my tediousness upon the reader, I will not go on to bore him with a minute detail of all the discoveries and proceedings of this and the following day. No doubt he will be amply satisfied with a slight sketch of the different members of the family, and a general view of the first year or two of my sojourn among them.

To begin with the head, Mr. Murray was, by all accounts, a blustering, roystering
^ac
country squire, a devoted fox-hunter, a skilful horse-jockey and farrier, an active, practical farmer, and a hearty
bon-vivant
^ad
—by all accounts I say, for, except on Sundays when he went to church, I never saw him from month to month, unless, in crossing the hall or walking in the grounds, the figure of a tall, stout gentleman, with scarlet cheeks and crimson nose, happened to come across me; on which occasions, if he passed near enough to speak, an unceremonious nod, accompanied by a “Morning Miss Grey,” or some such brief salutation was usually vouchsafed. Frequently indeed, his loud laugh reached me from afar, and oftener still, I heard him swearing and blaspheming against the footmen, groom, coachman, or some other hapless dependent.

Mrs. Murray was a handsome, dashing lady of forty, who certainly required neither rouge nor padding to add to her charms, and whose chief enjoyments were, or seemed to be, in giving or frequenting parties, and in dressing at the very top of the fashion.

I did not see her till eleven o’clock on the morning after my arrival, when she honoured me with a visit, just as my mother might step into the kitchen to see a new servant girl—yet not so, either, for my mother would have seen her immediately after her arrival, and not waited till the next day; and moreover, she would have addressed her in a more kind and friendly manner, and given her some words of comfort as well as a plain exposition of her duties; but Mrs. Murray did neither the one nor the other. She just stepped into the school-room, on her return from ordering dinner in the house-keeper’s room, bid me good morning, stood for two minutes by the fire, said a few words about the weather and the “rather rough” journey I must have had yesterday, petted her youngest child—a boy of ten, who had just been wiping his mouth and hands on her gown, after indulging in some savoury morsel from the house-keeper’s stores—told me what a sweet, good boy he was, and then sailed out, with a self-complacent smile upon her face, thinking, no doubt, that she had done quite enough for the present, and had been delightfully condescending
^ae
into the bargain. Her children evidently held the same opinion, and I alone, thought otherwise.