A Holiday Governess
When Easter drew near, Lesbia began to be very anxious as to where she
was to spend her holidays. From various hints thrown out by the
Pattersons, she gathered that they wanted to use her bedroom, and were
making arrangements for her to go away. She sincerely hoped it would not
be to Mrs. Newton's. The remembrance of Christmas was hardly enlivening.
Another three weeks in that elderly mid-Victorian atmosphere was
certainly not a tempting prospect to a girl of sixteen. At last, only a
few days before the vacation began, Mrs. Patterson, putting on her
pince-nez and, taking a letter from her bag, announced to Lesbia that
she had some news for her.
"You're to go as holiday governess to a little boy," she began; then,
noticing her young cousin's look of utter consternation, "now, don't be
absurd, Lesbia! It's the very thing for you. Mr. and Mrs. Stockton are
friends of ours. They live in the country--quite a pretty place. A
change of air will do you good, especially to be out-of-doors the whole
day with Terry after stuffing in school all the term. You'll look after
him while his own governess has her holiday, but he won't need any
lessons except music, so it will be a holiday for you too. As I was
saying, it's pretty country, and I dare say Joan would lend you her
bicycle to take with you. You'll be interested in Mr. Stockton's
pictures. He's really quite a good artist."
An artist! Lesbia pricked up her ears at this piece of information. The
desolate prospect suddenly seemed to blossom. Moreover, she was very
fond of the country. A change from town would be a great relief.
"Perhaps I'd like a boy better than girls," she ventured, thinking of
the juniors, who had been particularly outrageous of late. "It won't be
so bad if I haven't to teach him."
"I've no doubt you'll get along very well, so it's quite decided,"
decreed Mrs. Patterson promptly. "I shall write to Mrs. Stockton to-day
and say you'll arrive next Tuesday."
Feeling rather a pawn in the hands of Fate, but somewhat consoled by the
loan of Joan's bicycle, Lesbia was duly seen off from the station by
Kitty, who popped a packet of chocolates in her pocket as she bid her
good-bye and added:
"Take a firm stand with Terry from the first. Don't let him think he's
going to have it all his own way or----"
"What do you mean?" asked Lesbia agitatedly, but the porter was already
slamming the door and waving back non-passengers from the edge of the
platform, and the train started before Kitty could complete her
sentence.
Such a disquieting hint did not present her future pupil in a favourable
light. Lesbia ate her chocolates to try and banish the uneasy
forebodings.
"After all, I don't suppose he _can_ be worse than Allie Pearson and
Edie Browne," she thought, as she flung the empty case out of the
window. "They're the absolute limit in the way of fidgets."
Mr. Stockton met her at Tunbury Station, and drove her home in a little
trap drawn by a fat lazy pony. It was already dark, so she only had
glimpses of fleeting hedgerows as they jogged along the muddy country
road. The air felt fresh though, with a bracing exhilarating quality
that made her think of soda-water. There was a faint scent of flowers,
fragrant after rain. A thin crescent moon shone in the sky, close to a
bright planet.
"It's going to be a fine Easter, we hope," volunteered Mr. Stockton,
grasping at the well-worn topic of the weather to assist him in the
difficult task of making conversation with a shy girl of sixteen,
evidently unused to small talk.
Terry was in bed when Lesbia arrived, but not asleep. His room led out
of hers, and she was taken in by candle-light to be introduced to him.
She got an impression of a pair of round blue eyes, that stared at her
as if taking her all in, and a crop of short chestnut curls. He could
not be induced to speak a single word.
"He'll talk quite enough to-morrow," volunteered his mother, settling
him down again on his pillow. "Now, Terry, remember you're _not_ to wake
too early. We don't want to hear anything of you till the hot water
comes."
Lesbia, tired after her journey and the excitement of her exodus from
Kingfield, was too weary to sleep. The bed, though comfortable enough,
felt strange, and she tossed about uneasily for hours, with brain racing
in a whirl of galloping thoughts. A clock on the landing, chiming the
quarters, roused her every time she dozed, and it had struck half-past
three before she finally lost consciousness. She slept lightly, with
confused dreams. Suddenly--in the midst of a heated argument with Miss
Pratt--she woke with a start to find something cold on her face. The
dawn was just glinting through the Venetian blinds, and a small
red-headed figure was dancing like an imp beside her bed, brandishing a
wet sponge.
"Done you!" he triumphed. "Done you brown! I told Miss Gordon I'd give
you cold pig. She said I daren't, but I dare! I'm not a bit afraid of
you. You're only sixteen! I heard Mummie say so. No, I _won't_ go back!
I tell you I _won't_!"
For Lesbia had bounced out of bed, wrenched away the sponge, and was
bundling the young man in the direction of his own room. She stopped,
turned him to face her, and glared at him solemnly.
"You'll do what you're told, so I warn you at the beginning. If ever you
come into my room again without asking you'll get more than you bargain
for. I'm not going to stand any disrespect. Now fly! And don't let me
hear another sound, or I'll have to go and fetch your mother. Do you
understand?"
Apparently Terry did, for his bare legs beat a retreat. Once back in his
own quarters, though, he did not keep the rule of silence imposed upon
him. He began to sing in a rather ostentatious voice, and to rattle
something about that made a noise. Lesbia shut the door between the two
rooms and took no further notice; but sleep was banished, for though
Terry did not intrude again, he continued at intervals to treat her to
selections of whistling, comic songs, and even verses of hymns, all of
which were extremely disturbing.
"Little wretch!" she soliloquized. "I'm afraid I'm in for a bad time
with him. He's pretty; but he's evidently most outrageously spoilt."
Lesbia's anticipations with regard to Terry were partly fulfilled, but
not altogether. He seemed an equal mixture of angel and elf. In his
celestial moods he could be really sweet, and most affectionate. She was
fond of him when he sat on her knee begging for stories, or when he
asked sudden, old-fashioned questions on astounding subjects, but she
groaned when she noticed the gleam in his eye which always betokened the
quest for mischief. He was a stubborn, unruly little boy, indulged by
adoring parents till their patience failed, then his mother would
confiscate his chocolates, and his father would operate with a bedroom
slipper.
Lesbia's duties were to superintend his toilet, take him for walks, and
give him a short daily lesson on the piano.
"You see he's just begun music with Miss Gordon," explained Mrs.
Stockton, "and it would be such a pity if he were to forget all he's
learnt."
Though Lesbia had instructed the juniors at Kingfield High School in the
elements of arithmetic, history, and other subjects, she had never in
her life before taught music. She felt decidedly nervous as she led
Terry, with newly-washed hands, to the piano.
"He'll tell you what he has to do," volunteered Mrs. Stockton, vanishing
gladly from the room.
Terry, whose fingers were still rather damp, opened the instruction book
in the middle, and twisted the music-stool round and round with quite
unnecessary zeal.
"That's enough. It won't go any higher," commanded Lesbia. "Have you got
as far as this duet? All in half a term? I suppose you play the treble
part? And Miss Gordon takes the bass?"
Terry nodded. He was staring hard at Lesbia as if evolving an idea.
Suddenly he burst out:
"When you talk you keep your nose still, and when Miss Gordon talks hers
wobbles about just like my rabbit's when it wants a lettuce."
"'Sh, 'sh! That's nothing to do with music," suppressed Lesbia. "Now
we're going to try this duet. I'll play the bass. Are you ready? I shall
count a whole bar first. One--two--three--four."
They began, Lesbia playing what was before her, but Terry improvising
out of his head. He did it so cleverly that his teacher, a little
nervous at reading her own part, did not notice for a bar or two that
the thumpings in the treble had nothing to do with the instruction book.
She stopped him reproachfully. His blue eyes looked as innocent as a
child-cherub's.
"I'm very fond of music," he bragged. "I like to play it my own way."
"I don't believe you've ever got as far as the middle of this book,"
declared Lesbia. "I shall begin at the beginning and see how much you
really know."
Master Terence Stockton either knew nothing of the elements of the piano
or he was not going to give away his information. He did not seem yet to
have grasped the value of the various notes. Lesbia set to work to try
and explain the functions of a minim, a crotchet, and a quaver. It was
so long since she had learnt such details in her own childhood that she
was a little at a loss how to express adequately in words what had
become a matter almost of instinct.
"This big note with a hole in it is a semibreve and it counts four of
these black notes, which are called crotchets. Now suppose we're
counting four crotchets to a bar, one--two--three--four; how long is
this semibreve?"
"How long? An inch! An inch and a half! Two inches!" exclaimed Terry
excitedly, as if he were playing a game at guessing. "There's a
foot-rule in my new joinering box if you'll let me go and fetch it!"
Lesbia nearly collapsed, for her own explanations were so clearly at
fault. She began again, and tried to make them a little more lucid. It
was uphill work, however; for though Terry would gaze at her, apparently
drinking in everything she said, he would suddenly come out with a
remark which showed that his mind was wandering elsewhere. Poor Lesbia
at the end of the half-hour felt they had made little progress. She
resolved privately to study the instruction book before to-morrow's
lesson, and to prepare some very plain and adequate plan of imprinting
musical notation on the grey pulp of Terry's unwilling brain.
Despite the fact that her pupil was decidedly a handful, the time at
Tunbury was nevertheless a holiday. They went beautiful walks in the
fields to pick primroses and dog violets, there was a wood where she
played robbers with Terry, and where one day they had a picnic tea and
boiled a kettle on a camp fire, there were occasional drives in the pony
trap, and a few bicycle rides, with Terry on the luggage-carrier because
she could not leave him at home. She felt rather like "Sindbad the
Sailor" laden with his "Old Man of the Sea" as she rode along with a
pair of small arms clutched tightly round her waist, but she found the
treat an excellent bribe for good behaviour and certainly a means of
keeping her frisky youth out of mischief. There was one delight in her
visit which compensated for many drawbacks. Mr. Stockton was painting a
picture of his little son, and every morning Terry had a sitting in the
studio. Lesbia came also, and the good-natured artist lent her a canvas,
tubes, palette, and brushes, and let her try her 'prentice hand at
portraiture in oils. To sit close to Mr. Stockton and watch him paint
was a revelation. Lesbia took to the work like a duck to water, and
produced something really so very like Terry that her effort won words
of warm approval.
"It's wonderfully good," declared Mr. Stockton. "You've evidently got
some notion of drawing in you. You ought to go and study at a school of
art. How old are you? Only sixteen? What you want is to join a life
class. You'd soon get on. It isn't everybody who can catch a likeness.
The colour of that background is not at all bad for a beginner. My
advice is 'Go ahead!'"
It was kind advice, and made Lesbia blush with pleasure, but, as she
thought privately, it was all very well to say "go ahead" when she had
absolutely no prospect of joining a life class. She did not possess an
oil paint-box, and even had she one there would be no time among her
multitudinous lessons for the practice of portraiture. If her future was
to consist of studying, passing exams, and afterwards teaching, Art
would have little chance to develop.
"It's a pity," sighed Lesbia. "Because people work so much better at
things they really and truly like. I hold with the Montessori system in
that. If Miss Tatham gave me my choice I'd never look at Latin or Maths
again. No! I'd just paint, paint, paint, from morning till night, and be
absolutely happy. That's my ideal of life. But I shall never get
it--never! So I suppose it's no use grousing. Marion's got an oil
paint-box by the by. I wonder if she'd swop it for my camera? That's
rather a brain-wave. I'll ask her when I get back. If Joan would sit for
me on Saturdays I'd try and paint her. She has a pretty side face and
her fluffy hair would look nice against a blue background. Perhaps Mrs.
Patterson wouldn't scold if it was Joan's portrait I was doing. Oh dear!
How I wish Kingfield High School was a school of art."
Lesbia returned to 28 Park Road at the end of the three weeks with
relief and regret about equally balanced. She treasured the remembrance
of a quite tearful good-bye hug from Terry, but rejoiced that she had no
longer to put him to bed, to comb his curls, or to keep his mischievous
fingers from doing damage. She did not covet Miss Gordon's post, and
decided that if she had to teach it should be at a day school, where she
could be free from the small fry from 4 p.m. till 9 o'clock on the next
morning.
"The fact is," she confessed to herself, "I adore children to look at or
to romp with. It's that abominable keeping order I hate so. I'm not what
Miss Tatham calls 'a good disciplinarian'. The young scamps know it, and
they take advantage of me. I suppose I'm a round peg in a square hole,
or a square peg in a round hole, whichever it is; I don't seem quite to
fit somehow. Well, it can't be helped anyway, and I shall just have to
worry along as best I can to the end of the chapter."