His Excellency’s English
Governess
By
SYDNEY C. GRIER
AUTHOR OF “A CROWNED QUEEN,”
“LIKE ANOTHER HELEN,” “THE
WARDEN OF THE MARCHES,” Etc.
(_Fourth in the Modern East series_)
BOSTON
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
_MDCCCCII_
COPYRIGHT.
_Copyright, 1902_
By L. C. Page & Company
(Incorporated)
Published June, 1902
CONTENTS.
I. A GIRL GRADUATE
II. “THERE WAS A SOUND OF REVELRY BY NIGHT”
III. A MOST ADVANTAGEOUS OFFER
IV. THE SHINING EAST
V. A NEW EXPERIENCE
VI. A PERIOD OF PROBATION
VII. “IN INMOST BAGDAT”
VIII. A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
IX. LITERATURE AND POLITICS
X. A CUP OF COFFEE
XI. A DIPLOMATIC INCIDENT
XII. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH
XIII. INSTRUCTION AND INTROSPECTION
XIV. A SPOKE IN HIS WHEEL
XV. AFTER ALL----
XVI. A MURDEROUS INTENT
XVII. AN IDYLL, AND ITS ENDING
XVIII. GATHERING CLOUDS
XIX. “BETWIXT MY LOVE AND ME”
XX. INTERCEPTED LETTERS
XXI. CONFEDERATES
XXII. A TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION
XXIII. THE END OF EVERYTHING
XXIV. PRISONERS
XXV. “THE VOICE OF ENGLAND IN THE EAST”
XXVI. A DREAD TRIBUNAL
XXVII. PRACTICAL JOKES
HIS EXCELLENCY’S ENGLISH
GOVERNESS
CHAPTER I.
A GIRL GRADUATE.
It was Presentation-day at the University of London. The date was
somewhere in the latter half of the present century,--not this year,
nor last year, nor the year before that, when you, dear reader, or
your brother or cousin, may have graced the scene in cap and gown--but
so long ago that the graduates and undergraduates of to-day were still
in the nursery taking practical lessons as to the value of tactual
perception, or forcing an undesired entrance into the realms of
knowledge by way of the spelling-book and the Latin Primer. The day
was a lovely one in May, and the spring sunshine poured in through the
high windows of the theatre on the Chancellor in his Court suit and
gold-embroidered gown, on the members of the Senate in their crimson
and scarlet robes, and on the reporters scribbling away for dear life
at their table. There was the usual throng of admiring friends and
relations in the gallery and the back seats, and the usual inner
semicircle of presentees, looking like a bed of gorgeous and not
always harmonious flowers, from the vivid colours of their gowns and
hoods. A modern observer would have noted only one point of marked
difference from a similar scene to-day, and this was the absence of
the serried ranks of lady graduates. There were only two or three
women to be presented, and they looked pale and nervous, but
dauntlessly resolved to do their duty to the end. In those days it was
an achievement to gain possession of a London degree, and these girls
felt that the eyes of England and of the world were upon them. They
were conscious also of furnishing the sensation of the day, for a
woman had obtained the prize for French in the B.A. Final, and the
second place in Honours for Mental and Moral Science, for the first
time on record, and the friends of female education were jubilant.
Miss Arbuthnot, the principal of the South Central High School, in
which Cecil Anstruther had received her education, looked fully two
inches taller than usual as she led her pupil up to the Chancellor’s
dais, and the little knot of friends and teachers in the gallery
applauded frantically, while even the men who had been ignominiously
left behind in the race were magnanimous enough to do their share of
clapping. The parliamentary representative of the University referred
especially to Miss Anstruther in his regulation speech, and the noble
Chancellor himself pressed her hand and congratulated her with even
more than his ordinary paternal suavity of manner. As for Cecil’s own
feelings, she was so much embarrassed by the cheering, the publicity,
and the difficulty of carrying her cap, her diploma, and her prize,
and finding a hand to give the Chancellor at the same time, that she
did not breathe freely until she was safely back in her seat, with her
companions in misfortune eagerly inspecting her new possessions.
A little later, and the grand function was over. The Chancellor and
the members of the Senate had filed off solemnly, like the chorus of a
Greek play, the reporters had closed their note-books and decamped
with much less ceremony, and the theatre was deserted, save by a few
presentees who were displaying their medals and diplomas to impatient
friends. Cecil paused at the door on her way to the robing-room with
Miss Arbuthnot.
“I’m quite sorry to say good-bye to the dear old place,” she said; “I
have been here for the Matriculation, the Intermediate, and the B.A.,
and now again to-day, and I know the pattern of the ceiling and all
the mouldings on the walls by heart.”
“I only wish you would come here again for the M.A. and the D.Lit.,”
said Miss Arbuthnot. “That is my one sorrow with regard to you, Cecil,
that you are ending your academical course at this point.”
“But, you see, I have really no choice,” said Cecil. “The children at
home are getting older, and I must either teach them myself or earn
money to help with their education. And you know, Miss Arbuthnot, I do
so much dread going among strangers, and I want to stay at home if I
possibly can. If I could have got a post in the School, of course----”
“That would not be good enough,” replied Miss Arbuthnot with decision.
“Public opinion has yet to be roused on the subject of High School
teachers’ salaries. No, Cecil, what I should like for you would be
something quite different. As for teaching your little brothers and
sisters, I believe it is a task at once beyond and beneath your
powers. You are much better fitted to instruct older children, and you
are not at all suited to cope with very naughty ones, such as I
understand them to be. I can’t prophesy success for you.”
“But what could I do?” asked Cecil.
“I think you should try for a post as finishing governess in some good
family, where you would be properly treated,” said Miss Arbuthnot.
“Abroad, perhaps; I believe the Russians treat their governesses very
well. You are not a specialist, Cecil--that is another thing I regret,
you would have gained the University scholarship for Mental and Moral
Science if you had been--but you are good all round. Well, we mustn’t
stay talking here. I will see you to Victoria, and then I must hurry
back to the School. Only remember, if you do not succeed with the
children, let me know. I am often asked to recommend thoroughly
first-class governesses, and I will do my best for you, dear child.”
Miss Arbuthnot’s voice trembled a little as she concluded, for she had
grown very fond of her head pupil, and honestly believed that she
could have done anything she liked in the way of passing examinations.
It had been a great pleasure to the elder lady to have this ardent
young disciple always at hand, to sympathise with her plans and to
become imbued with her views, nor was Miss Arbuthnot at all unmindful
of the honour reflected on the School by the girl’s success. The cause
of female education in general, and the South Central High School in
particular, were the objects to which Miss Arbuthnot’s life was
devoted, and the cause gained no small lustre from the ovation Cecil
had received at the Presentation, and the comments which had been made
thereon in the various speeches, and which might be looked for from
the Press.
The principal’s expectations in this respect were not disappointed.
The London dailies remarked on Cecil’s success in a style
half-flattering, half-contemptuous, and at greater or less length
according to their interest in the subject, and the country papers
took up the strain, and carried it on in their several ways. In
particular, the ‘Whitcliffe Argus,’ the chief organ of Cecil’s native
place, devoted nearly half a column to setting forth, rather late in
the day, in a dialect of journalese peculiarly its own, the honours
gained by the “daughter of our esteemed fellow-townsman the much
respected Vicar of St Barnabas’.” The paper was pounced upon, and the
paragraph read aloud in a stentorian voice by one of Cecil’s younger
brothers, a particularly rampant specimen of that troublesome race,
when the ‘Argus’ was delivered at St Barnabas’ Vicarage. No subject
had been further from Cecil’s mind as she sat at the head of the
dinner-table, with flushed cheeks and rather dishevelled hair, and a
worried look which contrasted sadly with the hopeful aspect she had
worn when she bade farewell to Miss Arbuthnot little more than a month
before. Mrs Anstruther was away on a visit, and to Cecil had fallen a
task sufficient to appal the stoutest heart, that of keeping in order
the seven small half-brothers and sisters who sat round the table, and
whom no one but their own genial, boisterous Irish mother had ever
succeeded in managing.
The Anstruther children were the terror of Whitcliffe. Their mother
said that they had excellent hearts, and this was very possibly true,
but it was also painfully evident that they had no manners, and a very
small amount of conscience. Add to this the possession of tremendous
animal spirits, splendid lungs, and most inventive brains, and it will
be seen that the life of a conscientious elder sister, who held
pronounced views of her own on the subject of education, was not
likely to be an easy one among them. Of all those who tried to govern
them Cecil was perhaps the least successful, for she was gentle,
methodical, and somewhat old-maidish in her ways, and each of these
tendencies militated strongly against her. She got on very well with
Mrs Anstruther (indeed, no one who knew that stout, untidy little
lady, with her blue-grey eyes and her soft, drawling brogue, could do
otherwise), and loved her almost as much as if she had been her own
mother, but the children did not take to her. Even now, after a
morning spent in wild efforts to clear away the things they left
about, undo the mischief they had done, and efface generally the
traces of their baleful existence, she could not eat her dinner in
peace. Patsy was spilling his pudding on the carpet, Loey feeding the
cat from his plate, and when Cecil leaned across the table to rescue
Eily’s glass of water from imminent peril of destruction, Terry seized
the opportunity of pulling out all her hair-pins. And all this time
Fitz was roaring out the paragraph from the ‘Argus’ in his loudest
tones.
“Fitzgerald!” came in a stern voice from the lower end of the table,
where sat Mr Anstruther, with a book propped up against the dish in
front of him; “don’t make that noise. Why don’t you keep the children
quiet, Cecil? My dear!” and Mr Anstruther’s eye-glasses went slowly
up, to be focussed on Cecil’s dishevelled tresses, “what have you been
doing to your hair? It is in a most disgraceful state. What is all
this row about?”
“Why, daddy,” cried Loey, otherwise Owen, “it’s what we’ll do with
Cissie’s money we’re talking about.”
“You will do nothing with it,” returned Mr Anstruther, severely, for
the point was rather a sore one with him. “Your sister will spend the
money as she likes, without consulting a set of little dunces like
you.”
“Oh, papa, but I mean to do something for them,” cried Cecil. “I have
been so glad ever since I heard I had got the prize to think that I
should be able to help you with it. The money will pay the boys’ fees
for one term, or help with their books, at any rate.”
“You are very good, my dear child, in wishing to be of use, but what
can fifteen pounds do towards educating four boys, who have not brains
enough among them all to get a ten-pound scholarship, nor steadiness
and sense of honour enough to go to and from the Grammar-School like
gentlemen? What with their school-fees, and the bills I have to pay
for the damage they do, it needs a millionaire to look after them.”
And Mr Anstruther rose abruptly from his seat, said grace, and
departed to his study. It was a constant disappointment to him that
only his eldest daughter had inherited his own scholarly tastes, and
that his younger children, although dowered with their mother’s
splendid bodily health, had inherited also her distaste for steady
mental work. Sometimes the disparity made him a little unjust to
Cecil, as if his disappointment were her fault, and the sense of this
struck her to-day so keenly that, worn-out and discouraged, she pushed
back her chair from the table and burst into tears. The children stood
around in impotent alarm; then, their consciences no doubt pricking
them, one after another crept softly from the room. For a little while
Cecil sobbed hopelessly; then a sudden resolution came to her, and she
started up. Miss Arbuthnot’s words had returned to her memory, and she
saw that if she could not be useful with the children at home, she
might at any rate help to provide the money necessary to give them the
education they so greatly needed. With ferocious haste she twisted her
soft auburn hair into a rough knot, secured it by sticking in the pins
in handfuls, and dashed away the tears from her brown eyes, now
blurred and piteous with crying. Without giving herself time to
repent, she sat down at the writing-table in the window, and began to
write. The chair and table shook with her sobs as she did so, but she
scrambled through her letter as fast as she could, sealed and stamped
it, and then, snatching up her hat, rushed across the road to the
pillar-box with the important missive, determined not to trust any of
the boys.
All this afternoon Cecil, to use Biblical language, “went softly in
the bitterness of her soul,” for the step she had just taken marked
the downfall of many hopes. Throughout her school career, which had
cost her father very little, owing to the number of prizes and
scholarships she had won, her aim had been to make use of her
knowledge in instructing her half-brothers and sisters. Recollections
of past failure in holiday-times had not deterred her from setting to
work again with enthusiasm, but after rather less than a month’s trial
she was compelled to admit that the result was unsatisfactory. She
knew that under ordinary circumstances she was an interesting teacher
and a good disciplinarian,--experience in teaching classes at the
South Central School had assured her of this,--and she had not
reckoned on the opposing influence which was to render all her efforts
nugatory. The children were the only subject on which Mrs Anstruther
and Cecil were gravely divided in opinion, but on this one point they
differed exceedingly. Mrs Anstruther insisted that Cecil was trying to
break the children’s spirits, and she made it her business to rescue
them from this untoward fate on every possible occasion. Derided by
her pupils and unsupported by their mother, her rules set aside, and
her punishments continually remitted, it is little wonder that Cecil
decided to give up the contest in despair. There seemed to be
something in her that aroused all the wickedness of which the children
were capable; and only this morning a final touch had been put to her
misery by a remark of her father’s, to the effect that he wished Cecil
would leave her brothers and sisters alone, for they were always far
worse with her than with any one else. That Mr Anstruther should say
this was the most unkindest cut of all, and Cecil felt that her last
support in the home was gone.
The next morning, just as breakfast was over at St Barnabas’ Vicarage,
great excitement was caused among the children by the sight of a
telegraph-boy coming up to the house. Six of them met him at the door,
and conveyed the missive in triumph to Cecil, to whom it was
addressed, offering meanwhile various suggestions as to the nature of
the contents. It was with some difficulty that she succeeded in
rescuing the envelope untorn, and in acquainting herself with the
message.
“M. Arbuthnot to C. Anstruther.
“Come to me at once for two or three days. Have heard of something for
you.”
Cecil read the words in astonishment, with all the children dancing
and yelling round her like wild Indians. They were still in the hall,
and Cecil was too much engrossed by the telegram to try to calm them,
until the study door opened, and her father’s tired face looked out.
“Really, Cecil,” he began, “I think, when you know I am preparing my
sermon, you might----” But his voice was drowned by the children.
“Daddy, Cissie’s got a telegram. We wouldn’t go to school until she
would tell us what it was. She’s going to London, isn’t she?”
“What does all this mean, Cecil?” asked Mr Anstruther, wearily, and
his daughter put the telegram into his hand.
“Well,” he said, when he had read it, “you have asked Miss Arbuthnot
to find you a situation, I suppose? After all, perhaps it is the best
thing you can do.”
“And you must let me help with the boys then, papa,” said Cecil,
eagerly. “I think I am pretty sure to get a good salary, you know, and
I can take one of them, at any rate, off your hands.”
“Very well, my dear. It is impossible not to feel grateful for such a
proposal. Patrick, leave off teasing that cat, and go to school with
your brothers. If you can get your things ready for the 11.55 train,
Cecil, I will walk down to the station with you.”
Cecil dashed up-stairs, and spent the next hour in wild efforts to get
her box packed, which was a work of difficulty, with Eily, Norah, and
Geraldine standing around, advising, touching, criticising, meddling
in a way that nearly drove her mad. Happily Mrs Anstruther was to
return before lunch, and she therefore felt less compunction than she
would otherwise have done in leaving her flock to their own devices.
By dint of superhuman exertion she managed to be ready by the
appointed time, and kissed the children all round, admonished them not
to quarrel, rushed into the nursery to remind the nurse to put on
their clean pinafores before their mother’s return, and gave hasty
parting directions about lunch to the cook. Then there was a hurried
walk down to the station, in which she endeavoured vainly to keep up
with her father’s long strides, and a brief farewell on the platform.
Cecil shook hands with Mr Anstruther (he had an invincible objection
to being kissed in public, principally owing to the fact that his wife
and younger children were especially given to the practice), and he
put her into a ladies’ carriage just as the train was about to start.
Leaning back in her place, Cecil spent her time during the journey in
speculations as to the situation found for her. Was she to be
principal of some newly-founded High School, where the extent and
freshness of her acquirements would counterbalance the defects of her
youth and comparative inexperience? Or was she to be governess in a
private family, possibly on the Continent, possibly in some stately
English home, where she would be treated with frigid courtesy, and
shunned and criticised as a “learned lady”? She sighed as she revolved
these possibilities in her mind, and wished once more that she might
have remained at home. But regrets were vain, the train was nearing
Victoria, and on the platform stood Miss Arbuthnot, to whom Mr
Anstruther had telegraphed from Whitcliffe that Cecil was on her way.
“I am glad you have come at once, Cecil,” she said, as they left the
station in a cab, “for I can give you a rare treat for to-night. What
do you think of tickets for both of us for the Conversazione at
Burlington House, to meet all the great people?”
“How splendid!” cried Cecil, with sparkling eyes. “And the situation,
Miss Arbuthnot?”
“Oh--ah--the situation. Of course that is the chief thing, after all.
Well, you and I are to meet the lady and gentleman at Daridge’s Hotel
to-morrow, and lunch with them afterwards.”
“Oh, then it is a private family?” asked Cecil.
“Private? Oh, well--yes. Not a school at all.”
Miss Arbuthnot seemed not to wish to say anything more, but presently
she began to question Cecil as to her dress for the evening, betraying
a solicitude as to her appearance which surprised the girl.
“Of course, I ought to have told you to bring your best evening gown,”
she said, “but I never thought of it, and it would have been rather
awkward to mention it in a telegram. What have you? the black velvet
with your mother’s lace? It is rather old for you, but after all that
is no drawback. You see, Cecil,” smiling at her pupil’s puzzled face,
“we are all very proud of you. You have done the School great credit,
and I should not wonder if you were to find yourself a little bit of a
celebrity in a small way to-night. So you see why I want you to look
well, that you may uphold the honour of the South Central.”