The Dowager sent for her on Monday morning.
Hester went down to the sitting room expecting dismissal. She found instead a fire, a pot of chocolate, and the Dowager at her writing table with a sheet of paper before her and a small leather purse beside it.
"Sit down, Miss Bennett."
Hester sat.
"Lady Arabella has gone back to Kent," the Dowager said. "My son has opened his wife's rooms and spent Sunday in them with his daughter, going through her things. He has instructed Mrs. Pell to have the portrait of the late Duchess cleaned and hung in the nursery. I am told the servants' hall is of the opinion that you have bewitched him." She folded her hands. "I am of the opinion that you told him the truth, which is a rarer and more dangerous thing. I am grateful for what you did for the child. I want you to know that before I say what I am going to say."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I have made inquiries. I know about Messrs. Gale and Penruddock. I know the sum outstanding." She touched the paper. "This is a character, written in my own hand, describing you as the most capable and conscientious governess this house has ever employed, which is no more than the truth. Mrs. Carrow will be glad of it. And this" — she touched the purse — "is two hundred pounds. It will clear your father's note and see your brother articled, and leave something over. I ask nothing for it except that you take the Calcutta post and sail on the fourteenth."
Hester looked at the purse for a long moment. Two hundred pounds. Her mother sleeping through the night. Kit at a desk in Salisbury with his name painted on a brass plate one day.
"No, thank you, ma'am," she said.
The Dowager's brows rose a fraction.
"If I took it," Hester said, "I would be exactly what you are afraid the world will call me. A woman who could be bought. I would know it, and so would you, and some part of His Grace would always know it too." She stood. "I will take the character, ma'am, if you will still give it, because I have earned it. I will not take the purse. When I go, or if I stay, it will be on my own account."
For a moment the Dowager's face did something Hester had never seen it do. It looked old, and very tired, and almost afraid.
"My sister said something very like that to me once," she said. "In this house. A long time ago." Then the moment passed and her face closed again like a door. "Thank you, Miss Bennett. That will be all."