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It's degrading. Miss Pillby, be good enough to call over the various articles which you have found in Ida Palliser's desk. Miss Pillby rose to do her employer's bidding. She was a dull piece of human machinery to which the idea of resistance to authority was impossible. There was no dirty work she would not have done meekly, willingly even, at Miss Pew's bidding.
It was so apt to sting her with the reminder of her own poverty, the life of drudgery and dependence that was to be her portion till the end of her days. She did not, in the Mauleverer phraseology, 'take to' the new girls. She left them to be courted by Miss Pillby, and petted by Miss Dulcibella. She felt as lonely as one who has outlived her generation.
Miss Pillby, who never opened a book for her own pleasure, who cared nothing for music, and whose highest notion of art was all blacklead pencil and bread-crumbs, had plenty of vacant space in her mind for other people's business. She was a sharp observer of the fiddle-faddle of daily life; she had a keen scent for evil motives underlying simple actions.
Miss Pew was no less exacting than of old. Miss Pillby, for whose orphaned and friendless existence there had been no such thing as a holiday, and who had spent the vacation at Mauleverer diligently employed in mending the house-linen, resented Ida's visit to The Knoll as if it were a personal injury, and vented her envy in sneers and innuendoes of the coarsest character.
Strong in the sense of these favours, Miss Pillby put it upon the boy as a duty which he owed to her and to society to watch Ida Palliser's proceedings in the river-meadow. She also promised him sixpence if he found out anything bad. The influence of the Church Catechism, learned by rote, parrot fashion, had not awakened in the laundress's boy any keen sense of honour.
'Lawks, miss, that would be cheap at a shilling, said the boy. 'It would freeze my blood to have to stand up to talk before Miss Pew. 'Nonsense, Sam, you will be only telling the truth, and there can be nothing to frighten you. However, I dare say she will be satisfied with my statement. She won't want confirmation from you. 'Confirmation from me, muttered Sam, as Miss Pillby left his den.
Miss Pillby declared that the sight of that snuff-coloured stranger would be her death. 'I've a weak 'art, you know, said Miss Pillby, who was not mistress of her aspirates, she managed them sometimes, but they often evaded her, 'the doctor said so when I was quite a little thing.
Ida detested Miss Pillby and despised Miss Motley; and the greatest relief she knew to the dismal monotony of her days was a lonely walk by the river, with a shabby Wordsworth or a battered little volume of Shelley's minor poems for her companions. She possessed so few books that it was only natural for her to read those she had until love ripened with familiarity.
When they left the church, Miss Pillby was perfectly aware of the stranger following the Mauleverer flock, evidently in the hope of getting speech with Miss Palliser. He hung on the pathway near them, he shot ahead of them, and then turned and strolled slowly back. All in vain.
The governesses, Miss Motley, Miss Pillby, and Mademoiselle were always on duty on fine afternoons, in attendance upon the pupils' regulation walks long dusty perambulations of dull high roads; and thus it happened that Ida and the Fraeulein had the meadow path to themselves. Nothing occurred during the space of a fortnight to disturb their sense of security.
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