Itwas not till some evenings after this that Mr. Charles Meredith made his appearance again.
To tell the truth, he had been a little alarmed by his position in respect to Miss Harwood. The applause they had received at the concert, which somehow enveloped both of them in a sort of unity—a oneness which was embarrassing, and provoked inquiries and looks of intelligence, glances and hints of all sorts—had given him a little shock. It had not affected Gussy in the same way, for Gussy was far more deeply and truly touched than her partner in that success. She had given up her whole being to him with the unreasonable confidence which is sometimes to be seen in an otherwise unimaginative and unemotional woman, never doubting from the first the object of his attentions, feeling that he could have but one reason for his frequent visits, and that the gradual manner in which she herself had been separated and swept up, as it were, into his identity, was the natural result of a strongand certain desire on his part to attract and appropriate her—an unquestionable feeling to which her gradually elicited responses were natural and fitting. It never occurred to Gussy, who was a little narrow, as was natural to her education and circumstances, but very sensible and just, that Meredith’s sentiments, which had been so distinctly shown, could be anything but definite and certain. To her there appeared nothing accidental, nothing fortuitous, in the way in which it had all come about. Gradually he had secured theentréeand the complete freedom of intercourse which is not very common in English houses. There had been a break during his absence in the country, but this break had been followed by a return to all the old habits, by the resumption of all his claims upon her attention and sympathy, those claims to which she had already responded in all sincerity and good faith. Gussy had no sensation of having gone a step further than she had been led and persuaded to go. She had no doubt whatever that of this intercourse, which he had so sought, so organized, so firmly established, every step was intended. He had set himself, she believed, to win her love, to gain her heart. What other reason could there be? It was all his doing. He it was who had pressed for each new extension of privilege: for what?—for no conceivable reason save one, that he loved her, and desired to make her love him.
Such was Gussy’s theory. She had been first flattered, then touched by these assiduities, and finally, there being no reason whatever against it, she had yielded to the gradually growing response in her own bosom. She was not unaware that this might attain to greater potency than the demand which had evoked it, for he was a man, about in the world, and having a great many things to distract him, whereas she was a woman with nothing particular in her mind save this new interest which filled her thoughts night and day. There was no doubt that it might grow more engrossing than his love. She was aware of the danger, and quite reasonable about it; but his had been the first—his had been the foundation of all. She was not ashamed of loving him, nor even of the impatience that now devoured her to have him speak and put the whole on the footing of a known and established certainty. It wanted that, at the point to which the matter had now reached. As soon as they had once understood each other, all would be well. Understood each other! Yes, they did so already; but it was necessary that it should be clear—spoken out—settled. Gussy could not tell what it was that restrained her lover. But she was restless and a little impatient, knowing that, bythis time, the certainty ought to be fully comprehended of all, and the result known.
It had not been anything in the nature of jealousy which had made her unwilling to take advantage of Janet’s services, but only an indisposition to let any third party come in—to have another associated in the already long-lingering duet which she had every reason to believe was to continue all her life. He had chosen that way of drawing her to him which, in the circumstances of the family, was the most effectual way, the easiest—perhaps the only manner in which he could have secured the attention which was due to her mother and sister first, and which it would otherwise have been so difficult to obtain. And it had become a method dear to her—and she did not like to have any one come in, to disturb the isolation in which their music wrapped them. This was all—no fear of a new face or attraction for him—no feeling of rivalry.
Janet was perhaps incapable of comprehending how very far the young woman, so much less clever, less instructed in the usual course of affairs, perhaps less intelligent than herself, was from thinking of any such danger.
But all this was quite apart from Mr. Charles Meredith and his sentiments, which had not at any time been those believed in by Gussy. He had found it amusing and piquant to make his way into that secluded, but most respectably secluded, house in St. John’s Wood. A little curiosity of his own, the secret of a something to be found out even in the heart of that respectability, had for a moment mingled with his other motives; but that had found little encouragement in anything he saw or heard, and had gradually died out, leaving behind a pleasurable privilege—an amusing variety to his other engagements, an ever-ready way of spending an evening in which he had nothing else to do. He had known the Harwoods almost all his life, and this familiarity, to begin with, had made the domestic circle the more easily comprehensible to him: the unmanageable child, Ju, who lost no opportunity of showing how undesirable she thought his presence; the mother, mysteriously incapable of leaving her chair, though her children frankly declared their disbelief in her inability; the room so bright and full of comfort with that shadowy background which seemed made for a romance, tickled the fancy of the young man. He had an inclination towards Gussy Harwood—liked her—felt that, if he were ever to come the length of marrying, she would be a very suitable wife for him, and her respectable fortune a very comfortable foundation on which to begin life. And then he was very fond of music—music, that is, representedby new songs and duets in which his own fine tenor might be enhanced by a gentle soprano acknowledged to be very sweet, yet in no way capable of eclipsing the richer tones it accompanied.
All these mingled sentiments had led him to the course of conduct which he had pursued for some time before Janet’s appearance, but into which her sudden appearance had imported a little difference. It will be seen that these vague and mingled sentiments were entirely unlike that for which he had credit in the mind of Augusta Harwood—the steady and serious love by which she supposed him to be moved. The foregone conclusion of a happy marriage, a household equally respectable, and still more bright than that in which the preliminaries took place had no existence. It was always on the cards, of course, that Gussy Harwood and he might marry and settle down together. It would not be a very romantic conclusion, still Meredith was aware that he himself was not at all a romantic personage, and it would not in any way be a bad arrangement. But where was the need of going so far as that? He liked to know where he could spend an evening pleasantly when he pleased; he liked to hear the sound of his own voice, and even to feel that the voice of the other performer was not likely to beguile the applauses of their audience away from himself—when they had an audience; he liked to have those excellent dinners from time to time, with the other man who could not help perceiving how entirely the entertainment was for Meredith’s gratification. All these things were very pleasant, and Mrs. Harwood was quite able, no doubt, to take care of her own daughter and all theconvenances, and it was none of his business to watch over Gussy in case his continual visits should be misunderstood.
But the concert had certainly made a little crisis in this easy intercourse—the concert and Janet’s appearance on the scene, and the little excitement she had produced, and the additional signs of regard it had been necessary to lavish upon Gussy, to make her feel herself always the first person, notwithstanding any interest that another might call forth. He had felt that a great step had been taken in that concert. To be sure it could not, strictly speaking, be asserted to mean anything at all. A duet between a soprano and a tenor—what more innocent? Their voices suited; what had their persons or their lives to do with it? Charles Meredith knew, however, that though this might be true enough in the case of most tenors and sopranos, it would not be true as between Gussy Harwood and himself. The audience was not an audience drawn from the larger public, which might have known nothing further, but a St. John’s Wood audience, which knew everything about him, and that he visited the Harwoods “every day of his life.” This was not exactly true, but it was how he heard it stated in the dark, outside the concert-room, by one of the departing hearers. All those present knew them, and knew all about them, and naturally made their remarks: “Of course it will be a match; he is there every day of his life.”
What a vulgar definiteness there is in these criticisms! People who pretend to be one’s friends, yet speak of one without a gleam of understanding, as if all one’s intentions were cut and dry. Meredith felt angry, but he dared not show it, for it was clearly his duty to escort Gussy home, and to tell Mrs. Harwood what a success it had been. But after that he was seized with a panic, and did not come back. He saw that a crisis had come, as well as any one—a crisis which seemed to him very premature, and for which he was unprepared.
I think there is some allowance to be made for young men who in these days hesitate about taking the last step which makes marriage inevitable. We are not now discussing the so-called “smart” people, who live after their kind, and afford no rule for the rest of the world, but young men of occupations, who have, as people say, their own way to make. A small income very often represents a great deal more than it is to an unmarried man, with all the luxury of the clubs behind him: and it represents a great deal less than it is to the man who is going to marry—witness all the foolish statistics periodically placed before the world. It is rather surprising how, when the moment and the impulse comes, all these precautions are so easily thrown to the winds: but there is nobody in modern society so well off as the young man with a small competency, a good club, and a tolerable acquaintance. It is heroic of him to risk all his comforts and immunities, the things he can do, and the things nobody expects him to do, for the sake of a young woman who on her side is much better off at home, if she would only think so. But, fortunately for the race if not for the individual, nature scorns all such judicious reflections, and follows its own impulse at whatsoever expense.
Meredith, however, who was not in love, but only amiably, pleasurably inclined towards Gussy Harwood, felt their full force when he was thus pulled up and brought face to face with inevitable consequences. In his present circumstances he was very well off indeed: he had all that a young man could desire. He knew a number of people, and was civil to them, and derived from this a little benefit of dinner-parties,dances, and invitations from Saturday till Monday, for which he was not expected to do anything except to continue to be civil in return. And he could also entertain at his club a friend or two when he pleased. I do not know whether the dinners at the more modest clubs are as good as those of which we read in novels, at which the very fine gentlemen dispense and enjoy hospitality; but they are almost sure to be better than those which a Mrs. Charles Meredith, in a little villa in the suburbs, or in a little flat high up in the district styled W., could produce with great trouble, a completebouleversementof the small household, and a greengrocer from round the corner to wait. The servants at the club are real servants, the dinners quite genuine, and giving no extra trouble. If Charles Meredith had been in love, it would have been unpardonable in him to have made any such reflection. But then he was not in love. And he was startled, and paused in the face of fate.
He might not perhaps have done so with quite so much perturbation if there had not been at the same time a little point of interest in his mind about the other little girl who had appeared so inopportunely in St. John’s Wood. He was not in the least in love with Janet. But she was amusing—a great deal more amusing than Gussy, with all whose opinions and inclinations he was acquainted, and who changed little from any standing-point she had once taken. It amused him to get possession of the governess, to make her play, to watch her looks, and communicate with her telegraphically, nobody being aware of that intercourse. That Janet did not respond, or, at least, did not willingly respond, made it all the more piquant, for even a glance of indignation now and then, a flash of anger, was a reply, and he could read in the involuntary movement of her little shoulders, as she played, a hundred little criticisms and signs of what she was thinking; the thrill of displeasure at a false note made him laugh, and the clang of accompaniment with which she would suddenly drown a failure—all this imported a new element into the evening with which he was delighted. But all these amusements would have to be put a stop to if he married and settled down to domestic felicity and the enjoyment of a sensible companion and a comfortable life at home.
All of which things made Charles Meredith pause; but after a week or so he began to feel that his hesitation, if too prolonged, would in its way produce a decision which he desired as little as the other. And then he remembered that Dolff was at home, which would always make a diversion andstave off explanations. These deliberations have seemed to occupy a long period; yet it was not, after all, a very long period. About ten days after the concert, the door being open to admit of the exit of Dolff, who, in all the glories of evening costume, was stepping forth towards a waiting hansom, ready to convey him to some evening festivity, Charles Meredith slipped in unheard, with his usual little roll of music, but less than his usual confidence and calm. He was met in the hall by Julia, who had come out to superintend her brother’s departure, and whose pleasure in Dolff’s entertainment and finery was brought to a sudden pause by the apparition of a figure less beloved. She gave vent, having no watch upon her, to that sound which had died from her lips, or rather from her teeth, for so long, but with which she had been wont to welcome Meredith.
“Oh!” or rather “S—s!” said Julia, “so this is you—again——”
“Yes, my dear child, it is I—again,” he replied, with a mocking bow and smile.
Meredithpaused at the door inspecting the quiet interior thus thrown open to him—in which he was not looked for, and where, accordingly, his arrival remained unobserved—the doors being all open still for the exit of Dolff. It startled him a little to find in how like its ordinary condition everything was, and how little sign of the absence of a habitual visitor was about the place. There were a hundred signs of Dolff, but even the place near Gussy usually though tacitly reserved for himself was filled up, and Gussy sat at the eternal woman’s work which, in some circumstances, is so exasperating to a man, as composed as if he had never crossed her horizon. They were all at it, Mrs. Harwood with her crewels, Janet with something else. He wondered, half-angrily, if they would go on forever with their heads bowed over that infernal sewing whatever might happen, even that quick little thing, that creature born under more variable skies, the governess. She, however, was the first to find him out. A consciousness of some new element in the warm atmosphere, something that had not been there a minute before, moved Janet. She looked up and uttered a faint exclamation.
Ah! he had thought there was no difference, but there had been a difference. Gussy had been sitting like a statue, quite still, but not the faintest thrill of movement in her. She didnot expect him, or anyone, she was not thinking of him, or anyone, quite self-contained, self-absorbed. He was almost ashamed to think how he had been thinking of her, complacently realizing her suspense, and disappointment, and wonder at his non-appearance. The extreme composure of her aspect gave Meredith a shock which would have done much to redress the balance between them. She did not even raise her head at Janet’s exclamation. It was Mrs. Harwood who did that, crying out, “God bless me! Charley!” with a pleasure of which there could be no doubt. And a sort of shock passed over Gussy, electric, spasmodic, he could not tell what it was, something that moved her from the crown of light hair on her head to the tip of the shoe which was visible under her gown. It all passed in a minute, nay, in a second, as so many a crisis does. He could see it go over her; had not his eyes been opened by a sense of guilt, and by various other convictions, he might have known nothing of it; but he did, and suddenly became aware that he had something more to deal with than a girl’s momentary annoyance at the absence of the man whom she was beginning to care for. At the end of that moment, when he had come forward to shake hands with Mrs. Harwood, Gussy rose, and gave him her hand with perfect composure. On her side she was quite sure that she had betrayed nothing, not even the mere surprise which would have been so natural.
“You have been a great stranger, Charley,” said Mrs. Harwood.
“Yes, indeed,” he said, “no one can know that so well as I. I have been driven to the end of my patience. I kept hoping that one of you would take a little interest, and ask what I was about.”
He kept his eyes on Gussy, but Gussy never moved or gave sign of consciousness.
“My dear boy,” said Mrs. Harwood, “women never like to interfere—to ask what a young man is about. You are so much more your own masters than we are. We know very well that if you want to come you will come, and if you don’t——”
“How unjust you are with your general principles! Here is one poor miserable exception, then, to the rule—who has tried to come, and thought he could manage it evening after evening. Well, it is all in the way of business. You have always been afraid I was idle. What will you say when I tell you that I have been in chambers—sometimes till eight and nine o’clock every night?”
“I shall hope it means a lot of new clients, Charley,” the old lady said.
“Well, I think it does.”
He did not wink at Janet—oh, no! that would have been vulgarity itself—the sort of communication which takes place between the footman in a play and the chamber-maid who is in his confidence. Mr. Charles Meredith’s manners were irreproachable, and vulgarity in that kind of way impossible to him. But he did catch Janet’s attention with a corner of his eye, as it were, which expressed something a little different from the open look which was bent on Mrs. Harwood—or, rather, on Gussy, at whom he glanced as he spoke. And then he entered into certain details. Mrs. Harwood, though she was disabled and incapable of getting out of her chair, was an excellent woman of business, and she entered into the particulars of his narrative with great interest. She said at the end, with a satisfied nod of her head,
“Well, Charley, I hope we may now feel that you are beginning to catch the rising tide.”
“I hope so, too,” said the young man. And then it seemed to dawn upon him that these agreeable auguries might lead him too far. “A little time will tell,” he said, “whether it’s a real beginning or only a flash in the pan. I am afraid to calculate upon anything too soon. In three months or so, if all goes on well——”
Janet asked herself, with a keenness of inquiry which took her by surprise, what, oh, what did he mean by three months? Was that said for Gussy? Was it said for anyone else? Did he, by any possibility, think thatshecared—that it pleased her to know that he was deceiving Mrs. Harwood and her daughter? She felt very angry at the whole matter, which she thought she saw through so completely, but which, after all, she did not in the least see through. Janet thought that for some reason or other this young man was “amusing himself,” according to the ordinary jargon, with Miss Harwood’s too-little concealed devotion, that he secretly made fun of the woman who loved him, and was preparing, when the time came, a disenchantment for her and revelation of his own sentiments, which would probably break Gussy’s heart. It can scarcely be said that Janet felt those sentiments of moral indignation which such a deliberate treachery ought to have called forth. She was still so far in the kitten stage that it half amused her to see Mr. Meredith “taking in” Miss Harwood. It amused her to think that probably he had been having some wild party of his young men friends (a party of young men alwaysseems wild, riotous, full of inconceivable frolic and enjoyment to a girl’s fancy) in his chambers, on some of those evenings which he so demurely represented to the old lady as full of business. She could not help an inclination to laugh at that. It is the kind of deceit which has always been laughed at from the beginning of time. But she felt angry about the three months. What did he mean by three months? Was it for Gussy to lull her suspicions? Was it for—anyone else? Janet felt as if she were being made a party to some unkind scheme which had not merely fun for its purpose. Why should he look at her in that comic way when he said anything particularly grave? Janet turned round her little shoulder to Mr. Meredith, and became more and more engrossed in her needlework. But yet it was strange that whatever she did he succeeded in catching her eye.
“Some one has been singing,” he said, presently, with a little start of surprise. “I brought something with me I thought Gussy would like—but you have been singing without me?”
He turned round upon her suddenly at this point. Gussy had been very quiet; she had said scarcely anything. She had allowed him to go through all those explanations with her mother. At first she had closed her heart, as she thought, against them; but it is not so easy to close a heart when it is suddenly melted by a touch of thaw after a frost. Gussy had been frozen up hard as December—or even February—could do it. But what is frost when there comes that indescribable, that subtle, invisible breath which in a moment undoes what it has taken nights and days of black frost to do? What a good thing it is to think that the frost which works underhand and throws its ribs across the streams, and its icicles from the roofs by degrees, takes days to make ice that will “bear,” and that the sweeter influence can bring all that bondage to ruin in an hour or two! Gussy’s heart had frozen up, putting on an additional layer of ice every day; but in a moment it was all gone, sliding away in blocks, in shapeless masses, upon the irresistible flood. The flood, of course, is all the stronger from that mass of melted stuff that sweeps into it, giving an impetus to every swollen current. Gussy made an effort to feel as if this melting and softening had not been, as if she were as she had been an hour before; but what attempt could be more ineffectual? Frost may counterfeit a thaw on the surface when the sun shines; but what thaw can counterfeit frost. It was not among the things that are possible.
“I have not been singing,” she said, softly, her eyes wandering, in spite of her, to the little roll in his hand. “You forget we have had something else to amuse us all these evenings. It is Dolff who has been singing.”
“And a very nice voice he has got, now that it has been trained a little, poor boy,” said his mother, “though I am not very sure that I like his taste in songs.”
“And Miss Summerhayes plays for him,” said Meredith, turning round upon Janet with a laugh. He faced her this time, looking at her frankly, not trying to catch any corner of her eye. His look had a gleam of merriment and saucy satisfaction which make Janet glow with anger. “Didn’t I tell you so?” he seemed to say with his raised eyebrows. He laughed out with a genial roar of amusement. “I knew Miss Summerhayes would play for him,” he cried.
How did he know anything of the kind? How dared he laugh in that meaning way? How dared he look at Janet as if he had found her out; as if she, too, had a scheme like himself? Janet gave him a look in return which might have turned a more sensitive man to stone, and she said, with great dignity, wrapping herself up in the humility of her governess-state as in a mantle:
“I am here to play for anyone who wishes for my services, Mr. Meredith, as I think you ought to know.”
“Good heavens,” cried Mrs. Harwood, “my dear child! I hope you don’t take it in that serious way. If it is so disagreeable to you, my dear, you shall never be asked to humor poor Dolff again.”
“Oh, Mrs. Harwood, that is not what I meant! I am very glad to do it for anyone, but I don’t like to hear people talk—to hear people laugh——”
“The little thing is in a temper,” said Meredith, aside to Gussy, “have I said anything so very dreadful? Come and try whether they have thumped the piano all to pieces, and then we can talk.”
“I don’t know that you have said anything dreadful. And we can talk very well here,” said Gussy, in the same undertone.
“She is like a little turkey-cock,” said Meredith. “What has been going on? To think that something should always turn up, a farce or a tragedy, when one is out of the way for a few days.”
Gussy asked herself, with a catching of the breath, if it were a farce or a tragedy? How true that was! No, it would not be a tragedy now—now that he had come back.
“Nothing has been going on—except some silly songs,” she said.
It did not occur to her that her own songs were silly, or that there might be two meanings to the word, but Meredith was more ready in his comprehension.
“Ah, some silly songs!” he said.
Upon which Gussy, feeling more and more the soft welling-up from under the crackling frost, of the warmer waters, felt a compunction.
“Poor Dolff,” she said, “is not altogether exalted in his tastes, you know. And he has taken a music-hall craze. I suppose it is from the music-hall they come, all those wonderful performances. But he likes them, it appears, as well—as well——”
“As we like ours,” said Meredith.
“Well, ours——” she colored a little as she said the word; but why should she not say it, seeing he had thus given her the cue? “Ours are better worth liking. At the same time,” said Gussy, returning to her old self, “we are all so silly in this family that we can’t do anything without doing a great deal too much of it. We can’t, I fear, take anything moderately. We do it with all our heart.”
“That is why you do it so well,” said Meredith.
His voice had a slight quaver in it, which might have been taken in more senses than one. It might have meant emotion, and again it might have meant a suppressed laugh, for to imagine that Dolff sang his music-hall songs exceptionally well because he sang them with all his heart was a little trying to the gravity. But now that he had set up a conversationsotto voce, and now that Gussy had been brought back to talking of what was habitually done “in the family,” Mr. Meredith felt that he had got back upon the old ground.
As for Janet, she packed up her sewing things in her little basket, and begged Mrs. Harwood’s permission to retire.
“I have a little headache,” she said.
Good Mrs. Harwood was much concerned and very sorry, but agreed that quiet and going to bed early was the best thing for a headache. And when the lovers—were they the lovers?—went to the other room, Janet rose and stole away. She was not gone so soon but that she heard Meredith burst into a laugh over Dolff’s songs, which were all scattered about. He sang a snatch of one of them mockingly as she was going out, and caught her with a wave of his hand, an elevation of his eyebrows, and a slight nod of his head. He would not let her escape, he who had so easily made up his own difficulties, but must discharge that arrow at her, hold that whip of mockery over her. Janet closed the door upon herself with a studiedquiet, which was even more demonstrative of her state of mind than had she shut it with a violent slam, as Julia would have done; but it was more hard to suppress the pants of her laboring, angry breath.
Janetsent out before her into the hall a bursting sigh, a hot wave of impatient fiery breath, which seemed to raise a little mist before her eyes as she emerged into the silence and found herself alone, leaving mockery and music, and sentiment true or false, behind. What did he mean, what did he want, that visitor whose non-appearance had held the household in suspense, whose coming had introduced so many elements of disturbance? It cannot be said that Janet herself had been uninfluenced by his absence. It had been a fact of which she could not get rid, always present with her as with Gussy, though in a different way. Certainly he had taken away much of the salt of life with him—the interest, the drama. And now that he had come back the salt had not lost its savor; it was almost too keen: it affected sharply not only the chief personage in the piece, but the audience. He was now more than actor—he was audience also; and that look of intelligence which had conveyed so many confidences on his own part now expressed the most daring suggestions as to hers. Janet burst out of the room with a sense that her period of peace was over. His looks would put motives to the most trifling actions. What had he to do with her? How dared he to suggest that this booby, this music-hall hero, this cherished only son, could in any way affect the life of Janet? “Miss Summerhayes plays his accompaniments.” The tone was light enough, the laugh as light; but it stung Janet to the very depths of her heart.
Something cold and fresh blowing in her face made her turn to the door, which had been left inadvertently open, filling the house with the chill of December. Outside it was a beautiful night—the moon shining full, the stars sparkling with that keen glitter which is given by frost, the shadows of the leafless trees standing as if engraved upon the whiteness, not a breath stirring. Moonlight is always an attraction to a girl, and the outer air the best calmer of feverish thoughts. She caught a shawl from the stand, and wrapping it round her, went softly out. Everything was very still. Talk of the silence of the hills! The hills have sounds innumerable that can never be silenced—movements of birds, of insects, of living creatures of all kinds; rustlings among the heather; tinklings of water; the air itself, occupying vast fields of space, has a breath—which means silence, but is not. But, if you like, the silence, in St. John’s Wood! That is something worth speaking of. There was not a sound. At long intervals, when anybody moved in the world outside, you could hear the distant footstep walk out of the unknown, advance step by step as if it had been that of a messenger of doom, diverge, pass away again, grow fainter and fainter till it went out in the stillness like the withdrawal of a light. That mystic, unseen passage occurred from time to time, but faintly at a distance. Sometimes there came into the absolute stillness a distant jar of wheels, increasing and diminishing in the same manner, going out in space.
When Janet stole out, in her little thin evening shoes that made no sound, the house stood surrounded by that intense quiet and moonlight like a house in a dream. Like its own enclosure of humble human garden soil, that mystic atmosphere isolated and surrounded it from everything else in the world. It was almost an awe to steal round the white path, and cross the branching shadows that lay over it in all the complication of their elaborate anatomy, and watch the dark and solid dwelling standing in the midst, surrounded by all that reverence of nature, with a touch of yellow light here and there in its windows, and such foolish evanescent fret and jar of feelings and thoughts within! Janet’s own little step, which was scarcely so much as the stir of a bird, struck, she felt, a half-guilty little broken note into the profound calm. The chill of the air cooled her little head. She was so small, so insignificant an atom in that silent world, troubled about matters so infinitesimally little, so unworthy to be breathed in the all-listening ear of night.
She had made the round of the garden, which was a long piece of ground, more than half of it grass, and of a very woodland aspect for anything so near London, and was about passing the side of the house on her way back, when Janet’s attention was suddenly roused in a very extraordinary way. The house was square, of the commonest comfortable form, but on the western side there had been built on to it, at some previous period, a wing, which projected in front, making a gable, and slightly outpassing thecorps du logis. This wing, however, was not, so far as Janet knew, ever used at all. If used, it was as a lodging or workshop, whatever his employment might be, for the mysterious Vicars, who yet was not mysterious at all—the man-servant of whom more had beenseen since Dolff’s return home, and who, Janet had vaguely understood, lived in some corner of the house, carrying on his own avocations, whatever they were, but at hand when he was wanted for any special service—a privilege given by the kindness of Mrs. Harwood to an old servant, but also a convenience to herself. It was after Janet had seen this personage carrying through an open door, which had all the appearance at other times of being hermetically closed, a tray covered with dainties, that Mrs. Harwood herself had explained the position of Vicars to the governess, thus settling the question.
Nothing could possibly be more uninhabited, more shut-up and empty, than the wing. It had two long windows on the upper floor, facing the garden, which were so grown over with ivy that it was clearly apparent no light could enter, or human uses be served by them. The ivy was carefully trained, and perhaps a little thinner than usual at this time of the year. As Janet came opposite the windows, something—she could not tell what—made her look up. The moonlight was streaming full upon them, showing white crevices and reflections in the half-covered window-panes which never showed by day. She stopped short, struck by an alarm and horror which seemed to freeze the blood in her veins. At the nearest window, in an opening made by the curvature of a great ivy branch half denuded of leaves, there appeared to her the face of an old man with white hair and a long, white beard—a white image so like the moonlight that, after the first dreadful realization of what she saw as a face, Janet, in her terror, tried to persuade herself that it was only some effect of the white light shining upon the panes, which were covered by dust and the droppings of the heavy foliage. If she had hurried away then, flying indoors, as was her first impulse, no doubt she would have been able to persuade herself that this was the case. But she was, on the other hand, too much frightened, too much excited, to fly. She stood still, scarcely able to draw her breath.
A pale, very pale face, with a long, white beard—patriarchal, like the beard of a prophet—white hair, deep-sunken, aged eyes, looking up towards the moon. A sort of frenzy of terror caught hold upon Janet, so that she could not move. Who was it? Who was it? Vague recollections flew across her mind of things she had read—of an old, blind, mad king whom she remembered in her history—of—she knew not what. The thoughts thronged over her mind like clouds o’er the sky, and she could take no count of them. For there could be no king, no martyr, no prison, no madhouse here. Whowas it? Who was it? In a house in St. John’s Wood, the most respectable, the most perfectly well-known and well-established, in the midst of the quiet, within the tranquil garden, surrounded by all the decorums of society. Who—oh, who could it be?
She stood transfixed, not thinking that she herself in the midst of that white light, a little dark figure, all surrounded and isolated by the brightness, was more clearly distinguishable than anything about her, and, indeed, could scarcely fail to catch the eye of any one that might be looking. Janet did not think of this, her whole mind being occupied with her extraordinary discovery. She was afraid of being seen. She never realized the possibility—until suddenly, all in a moment as she stood and gazed, her whole bewildered being lost in wonder and amaze, she discovered, with a second shock even more potent than the first, that the face in the window had changed its direction and turned towards herself. Whether it was that Janet was too terrified to have the strength to fly, or whether that she was not so terrified as she thought, and more eager, more curious than she was frightened, it is certain that, though she shrank back a step upon herself, she did not run away, but stood there gazing with her heart in her mouth, and the sensation tingling through and through her that not only did she see this extraordinary being, a real person, whoever he was, but that he saw her. The head, with its white hair, turned slowly from contemplating the sky to contemplating her. He began to make signs to her, beckoning, bending forward, till the crown of white hair was pressed against the pane, and seemed to sparkle and reflect, as if those patriarchal locks had been spun glass, the hard white blaze of the moon. Janet felt as if she could neither move nor breathe. It was real—it was not a dream—it was a man shut up there, who saw her, made signs, called for her help—an old man—a man in trouble. Her head seemed to go round, though her feet were planted on the path as if they had grown to it, or frozen there. What was she to do? What could she do?
At this moment there came from within, from the room whence there stole a ray or two of yellow lamp-light out into the whiteness of the moon, the sound of music—a few notes—tremulous notes—with which she was very familiar; and then rising together the two voices, also so familiar, every tone of which she could have anticipated. The sound made a diversion in her thoughts. She turned her head for a minute that way with a thrill of sensation, wondering if they could but see what she saw—if they only knew! It was so strange to realize,as she did, with a sudden flash of consciousness, the tranquil room, the mother in her chair with her mild face full of gratification and reflected pleasure turned towards the pair at the piano in perfect composure and ease—the two singers busy with their music, with themselves, thinking of nothing else. She took her eyes from the window in her startled realization of all this, and turned her head for a moment in the direction of those unconscious people, who did not know—— In that moment, while her eyes were averted, the air was suddenly rent, torn asunder, cleft by the same wild, unnatural, and awful cry which Janet had twice heard before. Her feet, which had seemed growing to the path, were loosened with a spring, and Janet too uttered a scream which she could not restrain. Where was it? Though she was wild with terror, she had yet sense enough left to see that the figure at the window had altered its position, and that it was from thence that the sound came. But her strength was equal to no more. She fled, forgetting all precautions, her feet flying over the hard path to the open door. She was dimly aware that the music had wavered, half stopped, and then gone on again, Gussy’s voice coming out loudly upon the night. After that Janet knew no more. She burst into the house, and stood panting in the hall, recovering her breath, not knowing what to do.
What was she to do? She stood leaning against the wall inside, safe from pursuit. And it was not till some time later that it occurred to her that, instead of being safe from pursuit, she was within the very walls of the house which inclosed the mystery, and that the prisoner, the maniac, whoever he was, the pale old man with the white hair, was an inmate of the same dwelling, and therefore she was within his reach far more easily than she had been outside. But this in her panic she did not think of. For the moment she felt securely sheltered, and stood gasping, recovering her breath, asking herself what she should do. They were singing in the drawing-room, singing as if all was right, as if nothing could ever be wrong. Had they not heard it? Did they not care? They had not seen as she had, but how could they remain unconscious after that cry? Should she walk in and tell them—tell them? What should she tell them? That there was some one shut up in the wing—an old man with white hair, with his pallid face pressed against the window between the branches of the ivy? How could she go and tell them this? “Mrs. Harwood, there is a man—an old man—at the window—in the wing——” Was that what she should say? Some door might have been open and some madman got in. But then it was notthe first time she had heard that cry. He must have been there for some time—he must have been there before she herself came. Perhaps—perhaps—how could she tell?—perhaps Mrs. Harwood already knew—perhaps—— Janet panted and gasped, but after a time got back her breath. But still she stood there thinking, wondering over her problem. What was she to do? Was it, perhaps, her part to do nothing—to ignore this sight she had seen—to try to forget it? Was it none of her business to interfere? Was it her duty to tell at once her appalling discovery? What was she to do?
In the meantime she had not closed the door, which still stood open, letting in the cold air of the night; and presently, while she still stood trembling, steps approached from the servants’ quarters. It was Vicars who made his appearance, and Janet almost had a new shock of terror as the man to whom she had never spoken before came up and looked at her severely with suspicious eyes. He asked, in a tone as severe as his look,
“Was it you, miss, as left the hall door open, to give everybody their death?”
“I—I found it open,” Janet said, faltering.
“If a person finds a door open of a cold night it’s their part, if they’ve any sense, to shut it,” said Vicars. He never removed his look from her, fixing her with the eyes of a judge. “May I ask, miss, if it’s your custom to go ranging about the grounds at this hour of the night?”
“Oh, no,” said Janet, “it was only an accident. I never did it before.”
“I am only a servant,” said Vicars, “but if I was the master I wouldn’t hold with folks going round and round of my house in the middle of the night looking things up.”
“I have not been looking anything up,” said Janet, indignantly. She stood by while he closed the door; but when he turned to go away, made a step after him timidly. “Oh!” she said, “if you would only let me speak to you for a moment. Mr. Vicars, you said you were a servant——”
“Did you take me for the master, miss?” he said, with a low laugh.
“Oh!” said Janet, “if you would but tell me. Who is the old gentleman at the window with the white hair? And why does he cry so? I will never, never say a word if you will but tell me. I am so frightened, I don’t know what to do.”
“There is no gentleman at the window—and he don’t cry,” said Vicars, fixing her once more with keen eyes.
“But I saw him—and I’ve heard him, oh! three times. Mr. Vicars, tell me, for goodness’ sake, does Mrs. Harwood know?”
“You’d best go and tell her, and see what she’ll say. You’ll not stop another night in this house if you bother the missus with what you hear and see. You may take my word for it, Miss Peep and Pry.”
“You are very impertinent,” said Janet, indignantly, “and I do not care in the least whether I stop here another night or not. Does Mrs. Harwood know?”
“I’d advise you, miss, not to offer her no information,” said Vicars, “about things as happen in her own house;” and with this he turned his back on Janet, and went deliberately away.
Should she go and tell Mrs. Harwood what she had seen? She turned towards the drawing-room door, which was so close at hand; but she paused again before she had opened it. Had Vicars remained there she would certainly have done it; but as he was gone, and as there was nobody to see, Janet hesitated, pondered—and, finally, though with a beating heart, and every nerve in her body thrilling, went away in the other direction, and very softly and slowly, hesitating at every second step, retired upstairs.
Everyfamily has a skeleton in some closet. So says the proverb; but is it true? We are all of us aware of many cases in which it is not true. To half of the world perhaps it is a foolish fiction. They have troubles, but they are above-board, straightforward troubles upon which their neighbors can offer sympathy. Thackeray speaks of the wife or the husband in their intimate domesticity going back secretly, each unknown to the other, perhaps upon a youthful past which contained another image than that of the legitimate partner of their days, but that is a gentle sort of a skeleton, its bones all covered in soft rounded outlines of imagination. The real skeleton is very different: it haunts the house in the form perhaps of a ruined son, a debased and degraded brother, still more dreadful a woman disgraced. Or it is an incipient madness—a dreadful disease of which the miserable people never know at what moment it may blaze forth? It is always in the minds of those to whom it belongs. In the midst of laughter, in the happiest moment, it gives a tug at their hearts, as if it held them in a chain, and the smile fades, and the sweetest tints grow gray.
But how could there be anything like this in the house in St.John’s Wood? The Harwoods were people not given to excitement of any kind. They were too orderly in mind, too calm and well-balanced, for any emotion. Their daily round of life was comfort itself, unbroken by any pangs of anxiety. No, Mrs. Harwood was a little anxious lest Dolff should stay out too late, and showed it in a natural, motherly way. Her brow got a little pucker in it when he did not return at the time he was expected; and Gussy had a way of going upstairs to the staircase window, from which she could see, over the garden wall, the road outside, to look out for him. This was visible enough to those who had eyes to see. But a mystery in the house, a secret inhabitant, a prisoner—— It was incredible; it was a thing that could not be.
Janet lay awake for a great part of the night tossing and trembling in her bed. She had locked her door, and she kept her light burning, frightened, she knew not for what, for the old man with the pale face, who might appear at any moment, and congeal the blood in her veins. Janet, of course, argued with herself in every way, that if there was any old man in the wing he was evidently shut up there and guarded and very unlikely to be seen outside; that there was no reason to suppose that he would know where her room was and come to her; that perhaps it was no old man at all, or a mere visitor to Vicars, or a hallucination, or—she knew not what. But all these reflections were not enough to calm the beating of her heart. She heard Dolff come in from his ball and was comforted by the sound of voices, which gave a feeling of security: but these sounds died away again after a few minutes, and the silence and the darkness settled down. It seemed to Janet that the night had endured for ages before she got to sleep. Perhaps, however, it was not so very late, after all, for she was quite unused to watching.
It was, however, late when she sprang up in the morning, finding that she had overslept herself and too busy in her hurry to think of anything for the first half-hour. Then all that she had seen suddenly flashed over her mind again, and she uttered an involuntary cry. She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, and saw again in her mind’s eye the apparition of the previous night. Janet started up again and gave a wild look round her, wondering whether she should not pack up at once and go away. If she had been one of the happy girls who have a mother to go to!—but all the possibilities rushed through her mind in a moment. The explanations she would have to give, the mild suspicion at the vicarage, the milder remonstrances, “But, my dear!—when you were so happy; aface at the window! There might be a dozen ways of explaining it; and what had she to do with it, when all was said?
“Janet, what’s the matter? Janet, let me in. Why, you have your door locked! Janet, Janet, are you ill? You’re late for breakfast and everybody’s down. Ja—anet!”
This was Julia beating a tattoo upon the door.
“There is nothing the matter,” said Janet, faltering; “I have overslept myself. I shall be down directly. Go away, Julia, please.”
“I sha’n’t go away. I’ll wait here for you. I suppose Dolff woke you up coming home in the middle of the night. Make haste, make haste, Janet, or Gussy will say something nasty about people who are so easily put out.”
“Julia, please go away. I am coming; I—have got a headache.”
It was not often that Janet had recourse to a headache, which is always the most ready of excuses. But Julia, though she had been subdued by her governess, was not yet a model of subordination. Janet could hear her seat herself noisily on the other side of the door to wait. She could hear her foot drumming impatiently upon the floor, and then Ju, by way of amusing herself, began to give forth discordantly one of Dolff’s not very lovely songs. It was quite true that Julia was never likely to do much in music. Her voice was something like that of a crow. She chanted Dolff’s song with a very perverted reminiscence of the air, but a perfect memory for the words, which were not admirable. Janet was called back by this performance to the recollection of her duties. It was not possible now to pack up and hurry off. And then she became conscious of a great many threads that held her, as well as this sentinel with her song keeping watch over her door.
They went down together, though Julia did not fail to impress upon the governess a due sense of the fact that she herself had been ready nearly an hour ago.
“You should always get up the moment you’re called, or you are done for,” said Julia; “one says just five minutes more, and when one wakes one finds it’s an hour. I’ve learned all that about the kings, which is rubbish. What do I want with all those old kings? I shall just forget them the moment I’ve said them. I learned it not because I approved of it, but merely to please you.”
“Thank you, my dear, that was a very kind motive,” said Janet, recalling herself to her duties, “but if there is one thing that you ought to know it is the history of your own country. Everybody will tell you that.”
“Well!” said Julia, “if it’s all about one putting out another, till you don’t know which is which, or who’s king and who’s not, I don’t call that the history of anybody’s country. So long as it’s just to say off the Henrys and the Edwards I don’t mind; but to learn whose sons they all were, and what right they had, and why they fought each other about it, I do it to please you, Janet, but I don’t care tuppence.”
Janet also did not care tuppence either, nor a fraction of tuppence; but she knew, and feebly tried to do her duty.
“You can’t understand how they succeed, or which is right and which is wrong, unless you know about their families,” she said. “It is all very complicated in the Wars of the Roses, but it is plain sailing for a long time after that.”
“It ought always to be plain sailing,” said Julia. “The Prince of Wales comes after the Queen, and Prince George of York after him—any one can understand that. If it went quite straight—father and son, or mother and son when there’s a queen—I shouldn’t mind; but they just inverted things to make history difficult, with no other reason. If they had only let Richard the Second alone, he would have had a son after a while—Richard the Third, perhaps—and we could have skipped all that nasty bit. But those old people had no consideration. Of course, it stands to nature that the son should always come after the father.”
“This is most edifying,” said Gussy, for by this time they had arrived at the breakfast-table. “You are late, young ladies, but if you come in discussing historical questions it is clear you must have been making a good use of your time. Good-morning, Janet; I hear you were disturbed—by Dolff or something last night.”
“No!” said Janet, faltering a little, “I heard Mr. Harwood come in, but I was not disturbed. It is pleasant to hear voices and people stirring when one can’t sleep.”
“You left us in a great hurry last night,” said Gussy. “I am afraid something put you out. You must not think you are neglected if, when a visitor happens to come—— I am sure there was no such intention. We always like, in this family, to see everybody comfortable, but sometimes, you know, there are circumstances——”
“Indeed, indeed, I was not put out by anything,” said Janet. She had really forgotten all about Meredith and the small commotions of the drawing-room. “I had—a headache,” she added, by an afterthought.
“I don’t wonder, after thumping out all those accompaniments for Dolff. We must not let you be victimized somuch. And you ran out to have a turn in the garden. It is very tempting on a moonlight night, but there is nothing that gives cold so easily. You must really take care. You look,” said Gussy, raising her eyes full upon Janet, “rather pale, and shivering as if you had caught cold.”
What was this in Gussy’s eyes? something more than their usual placidity—an inquiry, an examination, almost a menace—they seemed to ask where the other had been, what she had been doing, what she had seen. Janet felt herself shiver under the look.
“I am sure you have caught cold; you ought to stay in and take care of yourself to-day. I am sure my mother would wish you to nurse yourself up. Ju, you must see there is a good fire in the school-room, and if Janet would keep to one room, without exposing herself to any draughts to-day, she will probably be quite well to-morrow. That’s what I always do when I feel a cold coming on.”
“But I don’t think I have any cold——”
“Oh, yes, I can see it in your eyes; they are beginning to run. You must take care of yourself, my dear. And you really must promise to give up this habit of running out into the garden on a cold night.”
“Indeed,” said Janet, “I never did it before. The door was open, and the moon was shining so brightly——”
“Oh, the door was open! I wonder, now, who could be so silly as to leave the door open in December? I must ask about that.”
“It was me, I suppose,” said Julia. “I was standing there when Charley Meredith came. And I wasn’t at all glad to see him. So I turned round in disgust, and forgot all about the door.”
“You are very impertinent to say so!”
“Oh, I’ve just as good a right to my own opinion as you have, Gussy; as much as you like him, so much I don’t; and I should never open the door at all to him if I had my will. He’s not nice at all, or true. He has always mocked at me and made eyes, and I can’t bear him,” said Julia, through her teeth.
“Ju! I thought you had learned a little sense. I thought Miss Summerhayes had taught you how to behave, though your own family never could.”
“Oh, I am quite sick and tired of my own family,” cried Julia. “Mamma does whatever you please, Gussy. And you’re so silly, I could shake you sometimes. And Dolff—Dolff——”
“What of Dolff? It must be delightful for a stranger to hear what we think of each other.”
“What do you mean by calling her Miss Summerhayes and a stranger, when you know it was settled she was to be like one of ourselves—and by far the best of us?” cried Julia, with flushed cheeks and blazing eyes.
“Miss Summerhayes,” said Gussy, turning again upon Janet, with a wave of her hand towards the indignant Julia, “I think your pupil is not doing you much credit to-day.”
Janet had more command of herself in the family squabble than she had in the previous question.
“Julia has forgotten herself,” she said. “She will be very sorry for it by-and-bye. I hope you will forgive her. She cannot quite get over her quick temper all at once.”
“I hope she won’t wear out our patience altogether before she does so,” Gussy said, with significant calm.
“Janet! she means she’ll persuade my mother to send me to school. Mamma would never do it of her own will. But if Gussy goes on nagging and nagging—— But I’ll not go. I’ll run away. I am too old to be packed off like a child. I’ll——”
“It would do you a great deal of good, Julia, to go to school,” said Janet, sedately.
“I have always said so,” said Gussy, “and it’s very good of you, Janet, to back me up. I have a temper, perhaps, too, and I say what I don’t mean when I’m angry. But please don’t think that I have ever changed about you. I liked you from the first, and I shall always like you. That little vixen makes one say things—but I know that we owe a great deal to you.”
“Oh, no,” cried Janet, with a compunction in her heart.
She was not sure that she could return the kind words and declare that she would never change. She felt as if involuntarily she was a traitor to Gussy—in a complot against her—or at least in the confidence of the plotter. And she was glad to retire into the shelter of her supposed cold and withdraw for the day to the school-room, carrying the excited Julia with her, to whom Miss Summerhayes set forth her offences against good taste and decorum with an incisiveness and distinctness which soon reduced that young lady to the depths of self-contempt.
Theday had been rainy, some time after these occurrences, and the governess and her pupil were taking their needful exercise in the garden—up one side and down the other under the bare trees. They trudged along, making a sharp noise upon the wet gravel with their heels, occasionally very fast when they thought of it in the true spirit of a constitutional, occasionally lingering when they got into a discussion, and their tongues went faster than their feet.
Things had fallen into comparative tranquillity, and Janet, though far from at ease in more respects than one, was drawn on from day to day with the force of the current, and had no idea, whatever mysteries there might lie under the surface or troubles might be to come, of packing up in a hurry and rushing away. She wanted to see what was going to happen—very curious, a little disturbed, with more things going on in her little mind than were known to any philosophy. Julia was the greatest talker when the two were alone, and Janet carried on her thoughts and the thread of many a reflection through the girl’s chatter at her ease—for Julia answered her own questions in a great many cases, or forgot that she asked any, and a very small response on the part of Janet sufficed to keep her satisfied.
What had happened, however, on this particular afternoon was that Dolff had seen them from a window, and had sallied forth to join them. Dolff had a very comfortable little study to which he retired for certain hours in the day “to work”—as everybody said. Perhaps in her heart Mrs. Harwood had not very much more confidence than other people in Dolff’s work. But she liked to say she had—to deceive, perhaps, a family friend now and then, or, what was more likely, herself.
Dolff, however, smoking a cigarette over his work—which in this case was an old French novel—saw the two figures in the garden, and threw aside his book with as much alacrity as if it had been Aristotle. He did not much care even for a French novel: literature of any kind was not his forte. And it was the afternoon, in which no man, nor woman either, has any call to work. It is going against the very rules of Providence to work between four and five o’clock, and you cannot disregard these laws with impunity. Nothing that is done between these hours is ever good. If it is reading, it runs out of yourmemory as fast as you put it in; if it is writing, it is so bad that next morning you tear the paper across and throw it into the fire. Dolff was deeply sensible of this penalty of untimely labor. He threw his book aside, picked up his cap, and went downstairs. A walk in the garden before tea, which was a refreshment his mother liked him to share, was exactly what was needed to keep him up to the mark.
It is difficult to say how these things happen; but after Dolff joined the pair, Julia separated herself with an instinct which need not be defined. She found that two was company and three was none. She was a little impatient at the sight of her brother when he first appeared, but afterwards accepted the situation, and began to find that she had a great many things to distract her attention. She wanted to speak to the gardener. She wanted to see whether the snowdrops were appearing which grew in the grass under the trees. She wished to look how the primulas were coming on in the little conservatory. It was well, on the whole, that Dolff had appeared to leave her free, for she could not have allowed Janet to walk alone, and yet she had all these things to do.
Dolff was not very great at conversation, as the reader may imagine; and it was very seldom that he had found a chance of talking to Janet alone, or so nearly alone as they were now. He began with the weather, as was natural. It had been very cold. That night he went to the ball he thought he should have been frozen walking home, coming out of the hot rooms after dancing all night. It was a beautiful moonlight night, indeed, as Miss Summerhayes remarked—but dreadfully cold.
“I hope it was a nice ball?” said Janet.
“Oh, yes; it was a nice enough ball, but I did not know very many people. I wish you had been there, Miss Summerhayes; but perhaps you don’t care for that sort of thing?”
“Indeed I do,” said Janet. “I am very fond of dancing. At least, I used to be when I was in the way of it.”
“I hope you are not out of the way of it now. We must have a dance at Christmas. I am sure you dance to perfection, Miss Summerhayes.”
“Oh, no,” said Janet, with a laugh. “I don’t do anything to perfection, but I confess I am fond of dancing.”
“And of music, too,” said the grateful Dolff. “I know you are—good music, not my sort. And yet you are so very kind as to play for me.”
“Oh, please don’t speak so. I am very glad to play—for anyone. Everybody is very kind to me. I am here to be of any use I can.”
“I hope, Miss Summerhayes,” said Dolff, growing very red, “that you don’t think I would presume to ask you—on that ground.”
“I don’t mean anything disagreeable,” said Janet. “I am sure you don’t ask me because I am the governess. But if your mother makes me like one of the family in other things, I must be so in this too.”
“How strange it is!” cried Dolff; and then he added, growing redder, “Don’t be angry with me, Miss Summerhayes. To think that being one of our family should be anything to you!”
“Why not?” said Janet. “It is always a great thing for a governess to have such a kind home.”
“A governess!” he said. “It hurts me to hear you call yourself a governess. Don’t, oh, don’t, please!”
“Why not?” she said again, and laughed. “It does not hurt me at all. I have no objection to being a governess. You need not be so careful of my feelings. I am quite contented to be what I am.”
“That is because you are——” Dolff murmured something in his young moustache, and grew redder than ever.
Janet was not sure that it was not ‘an angel’; and she was very much amused—not displeased either. There is no harm in being well thought of. She liked it on the whole.
“It is because I had—nothing else to look for,” she said; “and I am not a discontented person. One can always get a little fun out of everything. It was rather fun coming out like this upon the world, not knowing what sort of place one might find oneself in. It is the nearest to beginning a brand-new life of anything I know.”
“Well, about fun I can’t tell,” said Dolff, a little abashed. “I—I hope you think there is a little more in us than that.”
“There is a great deal more,” said Janet, “oh, a great deal more. You have all been so good. I mean before I came that it was fun imagining what my new family would be like, and how I should get on, and what sort of a pupil I should have, and all that.”
“I daresay,” said Dolff, “you never thought there would be a cub of a brother to bother you with his vulgar songs—oh, I know they’re vulgar—at least, I know now. A set of men, you know, is different. We bellow them out at each other’s rooms, and make an awful row in the chorus, and think them jolly.”
“And so they are, I suppose,” said Janet, with a smile.
“I assure you,” said Dolff, “I don’t think so now. I have been getting more and more ashamed of them, Miss Summerhayes. I’ve gone on singing them just for the pleasure of your playing. But I’ll not do it any more.”
“I cannot see why you should give up what is a pleasure to you,” said Janet. “If you think I dislike playing for you, it is not so at all.”
“That’s because you’re so good and charitable; they’re not fit for you to touch. I can see that now. In a roomful of men that are thinking of nothing but noise and diversion, such things are all very well; but for your hands to touch, no, no—I see it all now.”
There was in Dolff’s voice a tone of touching regret. He felt the sacrifice he was making, yet he was ready to lay it at the feet of his lady. Between amusement and a certain pleasure in his devotion Janet’s countenance shone.
“I can’t allow you,” she said, “to make such a sacrifice. You must have something to amuse you in the evenings; and your mother likes to hear you sing. Never mind if they are a little—well! some of them are quite nice—they are not all vulgar. I will show you the ones I like best.”
“Will you be so very, very kind to me, Miss Summerhayes? It is out of the goodness of your heart, I know. Yes, my mother likes it, and she has good reason. I used always to be going out of nights getting into bad company. I can tellyou, Miss Janet, though I could not tell anyone else. Poor mother was anxious about me, of course. But now I have no wish to go out at night. The Strand may be in Timbuctoo for anything I care. I never want to spend an evening away from home. So long as you will go on playing them—the best of them, don’t you know—you will make both mother and me happy.”
“Well,” said Janet, “it is very easily done: and there are some others that I think would suit your voice. We might go over them together.”
Dolff turned quickly round as if he would have seized her hand, but overawed by the imposing vision of Janet, who met his eager look with a slight elevation of her head and withdrawal from his side, drew back again a little shyly. But he was beaming with happiness and gratitude.
“If you will do that for me, Miss Summerhayes,” he said, “I can’t tell you how happy you will make me.” He paused a moment, and then gave vent to a laugh. “Gussy and Meredith may think they’re very grand,” he said; “they look down upon me as if I was a clown at the circus; but just you stand by me, Miss Summerhayes,” he said, with a little break in his voice; “by Jove, we’ll put them on their mettle!”
Dolff was so delighted with the future joys which he sawbefore him that he smote his manly thigh in exultation. His face was crimsoned with pleasure and satisfaction, shining behind the faint shadows thrown upon it by his colorless hair and light mustache. He was happy and he was proud, doubly repaid for the genuine humility which had prompted his sacrifice. Janet had made him feel his coarseness and imperfection. It was with all the greater exultation that he felt himself mounting up with her into a higher place.
“You must remember, Mr. Harwood,” said Janet, “that Mr. Meredith has a beautiful voice. There are not many people that have a voice like that.”
“Do you really think so?” said Dolff, somewhat crestfallen. “He thinks a deal of it himself, I know.”
“A man cannot have a voice like that,” said Janet, “without knowing it. I will do my very best for you, but no one can give you a voice like that. And your sister sings very well, too. I think I could help her a little—but she doesn’t think so, which is a pity. But you cannot do as well as that, Mr. Harwood—oh, no, whatever we may do.”
“I don’t mind,” said Dolff, magnanimously, “so long as you back me up, Miss Summerhayes. If you’re pleased, that’s all I care for. I know you don’t like Meredith, I’ve seen it in your eyes. We’ll have concerts of our own, and my mother will like it, for one, better than twenty Merediths. And Gussy can’t hold a candle to you—not in any way. Do you think I am so stupid that I can’t be trusted to see that?”
Janet’s mind was a little excited by this conversation. An uninterrupted course of adulation is not a disagreeable thing altogether: even if we do not have a very high opinion to begin with of the genius of the person who expresses it, our idea of his judgment will probably improve when we see how he appreciates our merits. Janet was no doubt more or less influenced by this natural sentiment; but she was also a little shaken by his confidence in respect to Meredith.