“Wanted, a Governess; must be young.” I cut out the advertisement thus headed eagerly from the Times. I was eighteen, and my youth had been the great obstacle to my getting an engagement; now here was some delightful advertiser who considered it an advantage. I wrote to the address given, enclosing my photograph and the list of my qualifications. Within a week I was travelling down to Geldham, Norfolk, engaged to teach “one little girl, aged six, ” at a salary of thirty-five pounds a year. The correspondence had been carried on by my future pupil’s father, who said he would meet me at the station at Beaconsburgh, the market-town nearest to Geldham.
It was about five o’clock on an afternoon in early August that I sat, trembling with excitement and fright, at the window of the railway-carriage, as the train steamed slowly into Beaconsburgh station. I looked out on to the platform. There were very few people on it, and there was no one who appeared at all like the gentleman I had pictured to myself as my future employer. There were two or three red-faced men who gave one the impression of being farmers, and at one end there were two young men engaged in securing a large mastiff, which was bounding about in great excitement at sight of the train. I got out and spoke to the station-master.
“There is Mr. Rayner himself, ma’am, ” said he, pointing towards the two young men with the dog.
One of them was now looking about, as if in search of somebody; and I walked timidly towards him. He seemed puzzled as his eyes fell upon me; then suddenly he raised his hat.