Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman,and till now her habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any other light than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deep notes with satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my half-effaced thought instantly revived.
“A new servitude!There is something in that,” I soliloquised (mentally,be it understood; I did not talk aloud).“I know there is, because it does not sound too sweet;it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement,Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly;but no more than sounds for me;and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude!That must be matter of fact. Any one may serve:I have served here eight years;now all I want is to serve elsewhere.Can I not get so much of my own will?Is not the thing feasible?Yes—yes—the end is not so difficult;if I had only a brain active enough to ferret out the means of attaining it. ”
I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain:it was a chilly night;I covered my shoulders with a shawl,and then I proceeded _to think_ again with all my might.
“What do I want?A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces,under new circumstances:I want this because it is of no use wanting anything better.How do people do to get a new place?They apply to friends, I suppose: I have no friends.There are many others who have no friends,who must look about for themselves and be their own helpers;and what is their resource?”
I could not tell: nothing answered me;I then ordered my brain to find a response,and quickly. It worked and worked faster:I felt the pulses throb in my head and temples;but for nearly an hour it worked in chaos;and no result came of its efforts.Feverish with vain labour,I got up and took a turn in the room;undrew the curtain, noted a star or two,shivered with cold, and again crept to bed.
A kind fairy, in my absence,had surely dropped the required suggestion on my pillow;for as I lay down, it came quietly and naturally to my mind:—“Those who want situations advertise;you must advertise in the _——shire Herald_.”
“How?I know nothing about advertising.”
Replies rose smooth and prompt now:—
“You must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it under a cover directed to the editor of the _Herald_; you must put it, the first opportunity you have, into the post at Lowton; answers must be addressed to J.E., at the post-office there; you can go and inquire in about a week after you send your letter, if any are come, and act accordingly.”
This scheme I went over twice, thrice;it was then digested in my mind;I had it in a clear practical form: I felt satisfied, and fell asleep.
With earliest day, I was up:I had my advertisement written, enclosed,and directed before the bell rang to rouse the school; it ran thus:—
“A young lady accustomed to tuition” (had I not been a teacher two years?) “is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private family where the children are under fourteen” (I thought that as I was barely eighteen, it would not do to undertake the guidance of pupils nearer my own age). “She is qualified to teach the usual branches of a good English education, together with French, Drawing, and Music” (in those days, reader, this now narrow catalogue of accomplishments, would have been held tolerably comprehensive). “Address, J.E., Post-office, Lowton, ——shire.”
This document remained locked in my drawer all day:after tea, I asked leave of the new superintendent to go to Lowton,in order to perform some small commissions for myself and one or two of my fellow-teachers; permission was readily granted; I went. It was a walk of two miles, and the evening was wet, but the days were still long; I visited a shop or two, slipped the letter into the post-office, and came back through heavy rain, with streaming garments, but with a relieved heart.
The succeeding week seemed long:it came to an end at last, however,like all sublunary things, and once more,towards the close of a pleasant autumn day,I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton.A picturesque track it was, by the way;lying along the side of the beck and through the sweetest curves of the dale:but that day I thought more of the letters,that might or might not be awaiting me at the little burgh whither I was bound,than of the charms of lea and water.
My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of shoes;so I discharged that business first,and when it was done,I stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the shoemaker’s to the post-office: it was kept by an old dame, who wore horn spectacles on her nose, and black mittens on her hands.
“Are there any letters for J.E.?” I asked.
She peered at me over her spectacles,and then she opened a drawer and fumbled among its contents for a long time,so long that my hopes began to falter. At last,having held a document before her glasses for nearly five minutes,she presented it across the counter,accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance—it was for J.E.
“Is there only one?” I demanded.
“There are no more,” said she;and I put it in my pocket and turned my face homeward:I could not open it then;rules obliged me to be back by eight,and it was already half-past seven.
Various duties awaited me on my arrival:I had to sit with the girls during their hour of study;then it was my turn to read prayers;to see them to bed:afterwards I supped with the other teachers.Even when we finally retired for the night,the inevitable Miss Gryce was still my companion:we had only a short end of candle in our candlestick,and I dreaded lest she should talk till it was all burnt out;fortunately, however,the heavy supper she had eaten produced a soporific effect:she was already snoring before I had finished undressing.There still remained an inch of candle:I now took out my letter; the seal was an initial F.;I broke it; the contents were brief.
“If J.E., who advertised in the _——shire Herald_ of last Thursday,possesses the acquirements mentioned,and if she is in a position to give satisfactory references as to character and competency, a situation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little girl, under ten years of age; and where the salary is thirty pounds per annum. J.E. is requested to send references, name, address, and all particulars to the direction:—
“Mrs. Fairfax, Thornfield, near Millcote, ——shire.”
I examined the document long:the writing was old-fashioned and rather uncertain,like that of an elderly lady.This circumstance was satisfactory:a private fear had haunted me,that in thus acting for myself, and by my own guidance,I ran the risk of getting into some scrape; and,above all things, I wished the result of my endeavours to be respectable,proper, _en règle_.I now felt that an elderly lady was no bad ingredient in the business I had on hand. Mrs. Fairfax!I saw her in a black gown and widow’s cap; frigid,perhaps, but not uncivil:a model of elderly English respectability. Thornfield!that, doubtless, was the name of her house:a neat orderly spot, I was sure;though I failed in my efforts to conceive a correct plan of the premises. Millcote, ——shire; I brushed up my recollections of the map of England;yes, I saw it; both the shire and the town. ——shire was seventy miles nearer London than the remote county where I now resided: that was a recommendation to me. I longed to go where there was life and movement: Millcote was a large manufacturing town on the banks of the A——: a busy place enough, doubtless: so much the better;it would be a complete change at least.Not that my fancy was much captivated by the idea of long chimneys and clouds of smoke—“but,” I argued, “Thornfield will, probably, be a good way from the town.”
Here the socket of the candle dropped,and the wick went out.