The Eldest Son Part 28

"I'm bright in the house," said the girl.

Mrs. Clinton could not repress a smile. "I hope you will get a good place where your qualities will be valued," she said, and Miss Player left her.

The interview had only lasted five minutes, and Mrs. Clinton had allowed fifteen for each. She went to find her sister-in-law. "I think you had better come and support me," she said, "and I think you will be amused." So when Miss Janet Phipp was shown in she found herself confronted by two ladies instead of one, and both of them asked her questions.

Miss Phipp was thirty, very plain--there was no denying that--but also on her own showing very competent. She had been educated at a High School, and had taken the degree of Bachelor of Arts at the London University. She had taught in a High School ever since, but the work was rather too hard for her. Her doctor had advised her to go into the country and avoid the strain of night as well as day work. "I am not an invalid," she said quietly, "and my health would give you no trouble."

There was no doubt about her capacity, but she was quite uninspiring.

Mrs. Clinton hesitated. "Have you been used to living in the country?"

she asked.

"Oh no," said Miss Phipp. "I told you--I have been at the High School for eight years. In my holidays I went abroad mostly, or to my home in Manchester, as long as my parents were alive."

"I am afraid you would find it very dull," said Mrs. Clinton.

"I think not," she said. "But it wouldn't much matter if I did, would it, as long as I did my work well? I can teach, and I like teaching."

"My daughters are active young persons," said Mrs. Clinton. "They are out of doors a great deal. Do you play golf, or lawn tennis, or anything of that sort?"

Miss Phipp's face hardened a little. "I don't care about games," she said. "I have always put work first. I would undertake to make your girls work, and if I were to look after them in their play-time--wouldn't that be all that would be wanted?"

"I think not," said Mrs. Clinton. "I want them to work, but I want some one who would be a pleasant companion for them too, out of lesson hours."

"Did you find it easy to make friends with your pupils at the school?"

asked Lady Birkett.

"A few of them," said Miss Phipp. "The ones who wanted to get on. I used to have them in my rooms to help them. With the others I found it best to keep to work alone. I got more out of them that way. After school hours they went their own way and I went mine."

"But that is just what you couldn't do in a private family," urged Mrs.

Clinton. "You wouldn't have to be always with the children, but you would be much more with them than with girls you taught in a school."

"Yes. I know that," said Miss Phipp. "Only I don't want to give you a wrong impression of myself. I would do my best to make friends with your girls, only I fancy it would rest with them more than with me.

Some teachers find it quite easy to have girls hanging on to them and adoring them, and my experience is that work suffers on account of it.

I wouldn't go anywhere where work wasn't the chief thing."

When she had gone out Mrs. Clinton said, "It is really very puzzling.

I'm not at all sure that she wouldn't do, although she is far from being the sort of governess I had pictured."

"We shall do better," said Lady Birkett. "There are plenty more to see yet."

The next to arrive was Miss Judith Gay, twenty-three, pretty and rather shy, daughter of an admiral deceased, perfect French, good piano and singing, otherwise not up to the mark scholastically.

"If it were only a companion we wanted!" said Mrs. Clinton when she had gone out.

"The twins would love her," said Lady Birkett, "but they would twist her round their little fingers."

Miss Ella Charman was the next arrival. She was thirty-four, well dressed, and talked after the manner of a lady of fas.h.i.+on. It was apparently her object to set both Mrs. Clinton and Lady Birkett thoroughly at their ease, and establish intimate relations before coming to business. "I have never been in that part of the world," she said when she had enquired where Mrs. Clinton lived, "but I know the Palmers very well. I think they live in Meads.h.i.+re, don't they?"

"Not in our part of Meads.h.i.+re," replied Mrs. Clinton. "At least I do not know the name."

"Oh, you would know them, I should think, if they lived near you," said Miss Charman. "She was a daughter of Sir James Farley. Lady Farley was a sister of Mrs. Bingham, with whom I lived. Mr. Bingham, you know, is a brother of Lord Howley's. Little Edward, whom I taught until he went to school, will be Lord Howley some day. I was sorry to leave the Binghams, but Edward was the only child, and had to be sent to school, of course. Do you know Lord Dorman, Mrs. Clinton?"

"No," said that lady, taking up a letter, "you have not mentioned----"

"I thought you might," interrupted Miss Charman. "He is only a new creation, of course. He was Sir John Thompson, the engineer or contractor or something; Mrs. Cottering told me that he had paid a hundred thousand pounds into the funds of the Liberal Party, and got his peerage in that way. The Dormans were very anxious that I should go to them and take sole charge of their adopted niece. They have no children living of their own. Mrs. Dappering told me that it was a great sorrow to them. Their only son was killed in the war. Do you know Lady Edith Chippering?"

"No," said Mrs. Clinton. "Are you still thinking of going to----"

"She was a daughter of the Earl of Havering. I thought you might. She was staying with the Binghams just before I left them. She did say something about my going to her. Of course the Dormans would be more---- By the way, do you know the Lodderings? Don't they live in Meads.h.i.+re?"

Mrs. Clinton did not answer this question. "I have a good many people to see, Miss Charman," she said. "I think we had better talk about--about our business, hadn't we?"

"Oh, certainly," said Miss Charman. "Should I have my meals with the family or not? That is rather a point with me. At the Cotterings' I had everything sent up and lived entirely in the schoolroom, which I don't think a good arrangement. One gets dull and mopy, you know. At the Binghams' I was one of the family, and used to help Mr. Bingham with his farm accounts after dinner; in fact, he used to call me his secretary. He _would_ look after everything on his property himself.

Would there be anything of that sort I could help Mr. Clinton in, do you think? I don't know whether he has landed property or not, but I should be delighted to do anything I could to help him."

"You were asking about meals," said Mrs. Clinton. "You would have breakfast and luncheon with us, and you would dine upstairs. Now will you kindly tell me what subjects you can teach?"

"Oh, the usual subjects," said Miss Charman. "I am a Bachelor of Arts of London University, you know, honours in French and mathematics. And there are the training certificates. You have all that, haven't you?

I got Hilda Cottering into Girton. Her father didn't want her to go.

With all that money coming he thought it was waste of time. But she was a clever girl, and we used to do a great deal of work, and have a great deal of fun besides. She married young Spencer-Morton, you know, the nephew of Lord Pickering. Do you know the Pickerings, by any chance?"

And so it went on, and would have gone on interminably had not Mrs.

Clinton at last risen and held out her hand as token of dismissal.

Miss Charman retired affably, saying that she supposed she should hear in a day or two. She knew Mrs. Clinton must get through her list first, but she should be glad to come to her, and she would no doubt let her know the date later on.

When she had left them the two ladies looked at one another and laughed. "How delighted Edward would be with that flow of conversation!" said Lady Birkett. "It would be worth while engaging her if only to see his face when she asked him if he knew the Potterings."

"Miss Phipp is the only possible one so far," said Mrs. Clinton.

Miss Margaret Cunningham was the next. Twenty-five, with an excellent record, nice-mannered and good-looking, but the unfortunate possessor of a c.o.c.kney accent of remarkably pungency. She had been a "dyly"

governess only, in "Straoud" Green, where she lived, but her father had married again and she was not happy at home. Her father was Scotch.

"I don't think I've got his accent, though," she said, with a smile.

If she had she might have beaten Miss Phipp out of the field. Her own made her impossible.

Miss Clara Weyerhauser was young, but spectacled, short-haired and mannishly clothed. "Edward would roar the house down if I took her to Kencote," said Mrs. Clinton, when the tale of her numerous attainments had been extracted from her and she had stamped out of the room.

"It seemed odd that she should keep her hat on in the house," said Lady Birkett.

Miss Mary Mansell was too nervous, Miss Gladys Whiting too delicate-looking to make it likely that they could cope successfully with the twins. Then came Miss Jessie Barton. She was forty-two, and looked older, a lady by birth and in speech and manner, but poorly dressed, thin and worn. She had been teaching for over twenty years in good families, and had the best of references to show from each, but admitted, with a flush on her pale cheeks, that she had left her last place, over a year before, because the girls she had taught wanted a finis.h.i.+ng governess.

"But that is just what I want for my girls," said Mrs. Clinton.

"Ah, but they are younger," she said eagerly. "Really, I am sure I could get them on well, Mrs. Clinton. And I am as strong and active as ever I was, and much more experienced. I am just coming to the time when it will be difficult to get work, and if I don't get work I must starve. I have no home to go to now, and very few friends."

"I know those are the hards.h.i.+ps of your calling," said Mrs. Clinton gently. "But I can't let them weigh with me, can I? I must do the best I can for my children."

"Well, I think a woman of my age can do better for them than a younger one with less experience," said the poor lady. "I _do_ hope you won't let my age stand in the way, Mrs. Clinton. I haven't taken a day off, as some women do. I am no older than I say."