When I went to be governess at Mrs Durham’s I was quite young. I had been “out” before, but only as nursery governess. Mine was not a very regular or, perhaps, a very good kind of education. My mother had been a governess before me, and not one of very high pretensions, as governesses are nowadays. I don’t think she ever knew anything herself, except a little music and a little French, which she had forgotten before my time. How my father and she met, and, still more wonderful, how they took to each other, is a thing I never could make out. Perhaps I was most fond of her, but certainly I was most proud of him, and liked to copy his ways, and to believe what my mother often said--that I was a Martindale every inch of me. This, poor soul, she meant as a reproach, but to me it sounded like a compliment. I was very silly and rather cruel, as young people are so often. My father had a great deal of contempt for her, and not much affection; and though I had a great deal of affection, I borrowed unconsciously his contempt, and thought myself justified in treating her as he did. She was wordy and weak in argument, and never knew when to stop. But he--when he had stated what he intended to do--would never answer any of her objections, or indeed take any notice of them, but listened to her with a contemptuous silence. I took to doing the same; and though I know better now, and am sorry I ever could have been so foolish and so unkind, yet the habit remains with me--not to take the trouble to reply to foolish arguments, but to do what I think right without saying anything about it. This habit, I may as well confess, has got me into trouble more than once; but I do not say that I am prepared to give it up, though I know I have taken harm by it, and no good, so far as I am aware.
We were very poor, and I had been a nursery governess and a daily governess when I was little more than a child. When my poor mother died a little money came, and then I got a few lessons to improve me in one or two different accomplishments; and then I took Mrs Durham’s situation. My father was one of the wandering men who live a great deal abroad; and I had learned French and enough German to make a show, in the best way, by practice rather than by book. “French acquired abroad”--that was what was put for me in the advertisement, and this I think was my principal recommendation to Mrs Durham. Her eldest son was at home at the time--a young man just a little older than myself. She was a kind woman, and unsuspicious. She thought George only a boy, and perhaps about me she never thought at all--in connection with him, at least. I used to be encouraged at first to make him talk French, and great was the amusement in the school-room over his pronunciation and his mistakes. They were all very kind when I come to think of it. They were as fearless and trustful with me as if I had belonged to them. And then by degrees I found out that George had fallen in love with me. I think I may say quite certainly that I never was in love with him, but I was a little excited and pleased, as one always is, you know, when that happens for the first time. It is so odd--so pleasant to feel that you have that power. It seems so kind of the man--one thinks so when one is young--and it is amusing and flattering, and a thing which occupies your mind, and gives you something agreeable to think of. I do not say this is the right way of thinking on such a subject, but it is how a great many girls feel, and I was one of them. I had never thought seriously of it at all. It seemed so much more like fun than anything else; and then it is always pleasant to have people fond of you. I liked it; and I am afraid I never thought of what it might come to, and did not take up any lofty ground, but let him talk, and let him follow me about, and steal out after me, and waylay me in the passages. I did this without thinking, and more than half for the amusement of it. I liked him, and I liked the place he took up in my life, and the things he said, without really responding to his feelings at all.