The Smile of the Stranger

by Joan Aiken

  However she soon found that her polite questions and comments about the villages they passed through met with but a brusque reception; the necessities or Captain Pagers rather dismal profession took him traveling about the country for large parts of every week, on horseback or by coach; landscape was of no interest to him, and his only present wish was to reach home and inaugurate the new period of connubial comfort with as little delay as possible; sharply, ignoring Fanny’s polite remarks, he ordered the coachman to flog up his brutes of horses and get them to Petworth before the rain turned to a deluge.

  Fanny prudently resolved to keep silent; but after a few moments a wish to learn something about the house toward which they were bound made her forget her resolution, and she inquired wistfully:

  “Will your cousin Julianna be there to greet us, sir, when we arrive?”

  A cousin, such a kindly, well-disposed cousin, would, she thought, be more inclined to be friendly than those three rather daunting unknown figures, her stepdaughters, whose presence their father had not considered necessary at his wedding.

  “Juliana? No, no, she is halfway across the Atlantic already, she and that fancy Dutch husband of hers.”

  Considering the benefactions that Countess van Welcker had heaped upon him, Mr. Paget’s tone did not sound particularly cordial, Fanny thought; it is much harder to receive gracefully than to give, and perhaps he was already discovering that to be the recipient of such generosity posed its own problems.

  “What is the name of your cousin’s house, sir?”

  “It is called the Hermitage,” he replied shortly, his tone suggesting that he considered this name far too fanciful and would, if it lay within his power, change it to something plainer. He added, “I believe there was once some monastic foundation upon the site; no doubt the name derives from that.”

  “The Hermitage!” Fanny shivered; to her the name had a chill and dreary sound. She pulled the carriage rug more closely around her shoulders. “And what is the house like, sir?”

  “Like? Like? Why, it is just a house.”

  “No, but I mean, is it old or new? Does it lie within the town of Petworth or in the country outside?”

  Captain Paget replied briefly that the house was a new one built within the last twenty years, he understood, and that it lay on the edge of the town, which numbered about three thousand inhabitants.

  “It will be very strange to live in a town,” murmured Fanny, and added in what she hoped was a cheerful and lively manner, “I greatly look forward to seeing the shops and warehouses and the stalls in the marketplace.”

  “I trust your recourse to them will be infrequent. A good housewife contrives all that she may without quitting her own home,” was her husband’s somewhat discouraging rejoinder.

  Fanny had learned already that there were to be four servants in her new home: a cook, a housemaid, a knife- and bootboy, and an outside man who would sleep over the stable and attend to the garden and the horses; she found the prospect of responsibility for ordering such a large establishment an alarming one and said timidly:

  “And shall you continue in your profession, sir, now that you have bought the mill?” For she had been told that, with part of his cousin’s gift, Captain Paget had been able to acquire a small flour mill at Haslingbourne, a mile outside the town of Petworth, the revenues from which would make a comfortable addition to his income.

  “Continue in my profession? Certainly I shall!” he said sharply. “What can have given you the notion that I should not?”

  “I did not—I had not meant—” Fanny knew that she must never, at any cost, betray how odious she thought her husband’s calling; she faltered out something about regretting that it required him to be so much from home.

  Thomas Paget glanced impatiently out of the carriage window—they were slowly descending a steep hill and the driver had been obliged to put on the drag, or the vehicle would have rattled away faster and faster, out of control. Fanny, looking out in the other direction, over a wide prospect of blue-gray, misty weald without a house in sight, battled desperately with the onset of tears. Her throat felt tight and choking; she swallowed and clenched her hands together. For the thousandth time she remembered an afternoon during haymaking—the peak and pinnacle of her flirtation with Barnaby, as it turned out, though at the time she had thought it but a prelude to greater and greater happiness. He had encountered her behind a new-made rick and rained a shower of light, laughing, impudent kisses on her face and neck, until the voices of two other approaching haymakers made them fly guiltily apart. Dizzy with joy, her blood sparkling in her veins like home-brewed cider, she had believed during that moment that a life containing unimaginable radiance and bliss lay stretched ahead of her.

  And it had all ended so soon!

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  May 1859

  “You would consider parting with Miss Paget?”

  Lady Morningquest was a tall, impressive personage, with a commanding air, an aristocratically curved nose, and a high, incisive voice; her tone indicated disapproval, such as might be displayed by the donor of a handsome and valuable gift, on discovering that the recipient intended to pass it on to a charity bazaar.

  Her companion, however, wholly undisturbed by the note of censure, replied equably, “Well, you see, ma chère amie, this is how it is: certainly I am devoted to la petite Elène Paget, I regard her as I might my own daughter (if I had one)—and that, my friend, is the very reason why I would not wish to stand in the way of her advancement. In the city of Paris, how much wider a vista would open before her. Without doubt, as your protégée, dear madame, she would have the opportunity to hear the words of savants, of philosophers—there is the Comédie, the Opera—whereas, here in Brussels—pfah! What a narrow, provincial scene!”

  Nevertheless, Madame Bosschère glanced with some complacency about the room in which the two ladies were standing. It was the salle, or largest classroom, of her school for young ladies, a handsome spacious chamber with double glass doors opening on one side into a hallway tiled with black and white marble, on the other into a garden half screened by a large grape arbor. Everything in sight glittered with cleanliness and prosperity.

  Lady Morningquest also turned to survey the room benignly through her lorgnon, before repeating in a tone of perplexity, “You are really offering me Ellen Paget? But, ma chère, I thought she was your right hand in the school, your première maîtresse? I fear she might be wasted in the post I am seeking to fill; though, of course, I should be happy to have my dear little goddaughter in Paris! But I had hoped merely for some worthy person—steady, sober, not prone to agitations or high flights—perhaps a young teacher who found large classes too formidable; or an older one, approaching retirement, wishful to secure a less exacting position in a quiet household—”

  Here Lady Morningquest paused, possibly arrested by the recollection that no stretch of truth could designate the Hôtel Caudebec a quiet household.

  But Madame Bosschère had not noticed her hesitation.

  “My dear friend, Mademoiselle Paget is as steady, as sober, as could possibly be desired, I assure you: imbued with sense and integrity, she has the head on her shoulders of a person three times her age! Elle est pleine de caractère—formidable, indeed—honest as the day, wise as an advocate, upright as a judge!”

  Madame spoke in rapid French, which had the effect of making these qualities seem, somehow, less reliable. But she added with vehement sincerity, “I say all this to you in full confidence, I who know her thoroughly, and have done since she was a petite fille. She is ruled by conscience—your English Calvinist conscience! She would not knowingly commit the slightest fault, she would bitterly repen
t the most trifling error.”

  In that case, and if she has all these virtues, I wonder why you wish to be rid of her? reflected Lady Morningquest, intently regarding her chère amie, who bore the scrutiny with aplomb. Usually, at this time of day, late morning, Madame Bosschère would not yet have assumed her full toilette; she would be comfortable, though perfectly businesslike, in wrapper, muslin nightcap, shawl, and felt slippers, bustling about the administrative duties of her school. But in honor of her august friend and patron she had today dressed early and appeared convenable, if not downright elegant, in dark-brown silk, admirably fitted to her plump figure, and a Brussels lace fichu. Madame was not tall, but she possessed immense dignity; she neither flushed nor paled under the thoughtful gaze of the ambassador’s wife. Indeed a skeptical observer might have wondered how her face could remain so unmarked by the traces of care and authority; was this due to an untroubled conscience, or a lack of scruple and sensibility?

  “Let me see,” said Lady Morningquest, “how long has the child been with you?”

  “She is hardly a child any longer, chère amie! She came to us when she was fifteen; her elder sister Eugénie was still with us at that time; non—I mistake—it was Catherine, the middle one. Eugénie had already left to wed her baronet. Two years la petite studied here as a pupil; one, by her own request, as pupil-teacher; and now three as full teacher. During which time, as you say, she has become my right hand.”

  “Has she never been home during that time?”

  “Oh, mais oui, bien sûr, plusieurs fois. The father, who is a very correct English gentleman, as you know, madame, requested permission for her to attend her sisters’ weddings, and the christening of a niece; and his own wedding…but each time she returned, and I believe was happy to do so. I understand that la petite is not loved by the father’s second wife.”

  “Six years in all.” Lady Morningquest counted thoughtfully on her thin, beringed fingers. “So she is now twenty-one.”

  “And how deeply indebted I am to you, dear friend, for introducing me to the Paget family; for giving me the chance to acquire such a treasure! Indeed all three Paget girls were amiable, well-disposed, serious young ladies—”

  “You would hardly call Kitty Paget serious?”

  Madame gave an indescribable grimace, half moue, half shrug.

  “Serious when it came to her own interests! A light heart, but a hard head. I understand she married an exceedingly wealthy bourgeois—how do you call him?—an ironmaster.”

  Madame pronounced it irrenmastaire. There was considerable irony in her tone; bourgeoise herself to her blunt fingertips, she nevertheless had the same dispassionate regard for her friend’s aristocratic connections that she would have for a piece of fine Meissen or Dresden; it was plain that she deplored the social aspect of Catherine Paget’s marriage while admitting its utility.

  “You think Ellen would be less hardheaded? Less regardful of her own interests?”

  “Douce comme une ange!”

  The benevolent Directrice seemed to be assigning some rather contradictory characteristics to her young assistant, reflected Lady Morningquest. But she merely remarked, “Ellen will need more than gentleness, I fear, if she is to hold her own at the Hôtel Caudebec. She had need, rather, to be a female Metternich.”

  “And she can be that too,” responded Madame Bosschère without a blink. “But are matters, then, come to such a pass in your niece’s establishment?”

  “They could hardly be worse! That young man is behaving like a monster to my poor Louise. He neglects her atrociously—gambles all day and most of the night; his companions are drawn from the worst sections of society. And the wretched Louise, instead of trying to grapple with the situation, merely reclines in her boudoir and reads philosophy! As for the child—I am in despair. A village brat would get more care. I tell you, madame, the ménage is a disaster—I have a migraine for two days after each visit.”

  The widow looked suitably horrified by these revelations. “Tiens! It will be difficult, I concede. But I do believe you have found the right person for the task, my friend. I am certain that such a situation would not daunt la petite Elène. See, here she comes now.”

  The two ladies were standing on the estrade, or teacher’s dais. Leaning on its balustrade, they surveyed the bustle of activity now commencing in the long classroom, as the young-lady pupils prepared the establishment for an evening’s festivity. Today, May 5th, was the feast of St. Annodoc, the school’s patron saint, and was traditionally celebrated by a collation in the school garden, a dramatic performance, and a dance, to which parents and selected friends were invited. Hence the arrival of Lady Morningquest from Paris. Her daughter Charlotte was to play Ophelia in a heavily edited version of Hamlet, and though Lady Morningquest, a realist, expected small pleasure from the performance, she had traveled to Brussels since she had her own reasons for consulting Madame Bosschère.

  Now she turned with interest to follow the direction of the headmistress’s glance.

  Although drawn from the cream of Brussels society, the young-lady pupils at the Pensionnat, many of whom continued their education till the age of twenty or beyond, were, in general, tall, big-boned, and brawny. Exuberant today, and unrestrained, since it was a holiday, they laughed and screamed like herring gulls, energetically lugging the furniture so as to clear the floor. Some brought in vases of flowers, others directed the aged gardener where to place blossoming orange trees in pots, and palms in tubs—all this without the least embarrassment, despite the fact that most were en deshabille, clad in calico print wrappers, their long flaxen hair in curlpapers, their large feet in list slippers. Every now and then a shout would come from the salle à manger, where the hairdresser was established with his curling tongs: “Mademoiselle Eeklop au coiffeur!” The few English or French girls in the group were instantly recognizable because of their smaller stature, darker coloring, and greater modesty of demeanor.

  A young lady differing from the rest in that she was already dressed, in a dark-gray gown whose Quakerish plainness of cut was mitigated by a decided elegance of line, appeared to be in charge of the proceedings, and was giving orders to pupils, gardener, and servants, in a low, clear, decisive voice which was immediately and unhesitatingly obeyed by everybody, despite the fact that she was several inches shorter than most of her charges.

  “Yes—that will do very well, Emilie—the pots in rows across below the estrade, and the ferns in those baskets along the side; non, Marie, together, not separately. We shall need a great many more. Clara, run and tell the little girls in the première classe to come, as many as can be spared, and they can act as porters running to and fro. That will keep them out of mischief, too.”

  At this point, looking up, Miss Paget perceived the headmistress and her guest. She smiled quickly at them, revealing an unsuspected dimple in her thin cheek, and curtseyed, saying in a friendly way, “Excuse me, madame, that I did not observe you before! There is so much to do that one need have eyes in the back of one’s head. Lady Morningquest, how do you do! Charlotte has been counting the hours to your arrival. She is going over her lines in the Green Room—shall I send her to you?”

  “No, no—leave her to con her part,” said the fond parent. “I had rather be sure she knows it by rote and will not disgrace the family. There will be plenty of time to talk to her after—and you, too, my dear, I hope, when you can be spared! I have messages from your father and your sister Eugenia, for I have been in Sussex recently. But I will not distract you now.”

  With another quick, smiling curtsey, Miss Paget availed herself of this dismissal to dart across the room, exclaiming, “Maude, Toinette, take care with that bench, or you will mark the plaster. Set it down away from the wall—so—then you can drape the baize over it.”

  “What a pure Parisian accent she has,” remarked Lady Morningquest approvingly. “Her speech has not been contaminated by your h
oydens of Flemings.”

  “She takes pains to converse every day with our dear old Mademoiselle Roussel, who has the diction of a truly cultivated person.”

  “She need do no more than listen to yourself and your cousin, my friend. Both your accents are exquisite. How is the Professor?”

  “He is well, I thank you, madame,” responded the Directrice; but a slight cloud became evident on her brow, and this was not missed by the alert eye of her guest.

  “I had no idea,” idly remarked Lady Morningquest, watching the activities of Miss Paget through her leveled lorgnon, “that Ellen Paget would turn out such a pretty girl. Her sisters were handsome creatures enough, but she was an ugly, skinny little shrimp of a thing when I saw her last, all hair and eyes and hollow cheeks. She is a credit to you now, my friend.”

  “Pretty? I would not go so far as to call her that,” replied the headmistress rather sharply. “One does not require prettiness in a teacher; in fact, it is a disadvantage, leading to unhealthy devotions among the pupils, and unsuitable regard from visiting teachers.”

  Aha, my friend, thought Lady Morningquest; so that’s where the wind sits? She remarked mildly, “Still, it is an engaging little face.”

  More fitted to the stage than the classroom, she reflected, surveying the expressive countenance of Miss Paget. If she had any theatrical gifts—and had not been a gentleman’s daughter—she could have made her way on the boards as a soubrette. Her face was piquante and pointed, with wide-set dark eyes and a neat, straight little nose. Dark, strongly marked brows kept her from insipidity, and so did a charmingly shaped mouth, always curved in what seemed the beginning of a smile even when she was serious. Dark hair, confined in a knot on the nape of her neck, was so fine and soft that tendrils escaped at the back and also curved down over her brow, giving her an air of childlike appeal. Viewed beside her massive pupils, she seemed more of a child than they—until her firm, confident voice made itself heard.