And if rising in the morning she felt in place of dread the tingle of anticipation and conjectured in the coming day possibilities that she did not stay to analyse? No odd moment at which he might not appear! Now with a gentle “I ventured to bring you — but I see I am interrupting you,” now with a brisker “Ha! ha! I see we wear our stand-off air to-day! We are proud, we are not to be trespassed on!” He brought her franks and she might now write to the Cottage without thought of the cost. And by and by he brought her a more startling surprise. He, or curiosity, or possibly ennui — but Rachel gave him the credit. For early in the afternoon two days later who should appear to break in on the governess’s solitude but my lady.
She nodded negligently to Rachel, who rose and curtsied as became her. The Countess walked with studied calmness to the window and gazed out. “You look to this side?” she said. “It is not the brighter side. Have you,” she went on, evidently for the sake of saying something, “all the books you need? All that you want?” And when Rachel explained that she had made a list, “Very good, Miss South, let Mr. Girardot have it. He will see to it.”
The girl, fingering her pen, continued to stand. “Pray go on with what you are doing,” the Countess said, graciously inclining her head; and she turned to inspect the old foxed prints that adorned the wall. A tarnished mirror hung among them. Before this she lingered, and had Rachel been at her ease, the girl would have seen that she was herself the real object under inspection — a cold inspection that omitted no detail of face or figure. Presently, to Rachel’s relief — for she found the silence both trying and ambiguous — her visitor moved towards the table. “You find the change excessive?” she said more gently.
“I have been used to a quiet life, ma’am.”
“And you are content?”
“I shall be more than content if — if I am successful with my pupil.”
“And that is your only anxiety?”
“I think so.”
Lady Ellingham nodded. She turned again to the door. “Well, I hope that Ann will take to you.
Perhaps not at once, but—”
The thud of a closing door stayed the words. A quick step outside, a hasty knock and the tutor entered, his face radiant. He clapped his hands. “Caught on the place, dear lady!” he cried. “The penalty is old, known, established! And Miss South will join with me, I am sure, in enforcing it, and humbly crave the honour of your presence at the schoolroom tea.” But Lady Ellingham’s manner made it plain that she was not prepared for this. “Not to-day, Mr. Girardot,” she said soberly.
The words went by him as if she had not spoken. “The tea,” he announced with an exaggerated bow, “is even now mounting the stairs.”
“No,” my lady repeated, and this time more coldly. “Not to-day, if you please.” She signed to him to open the door.
Rachel thought that that was the end of the matter, and felt that she was the obstacle. But she did not yet know the tutor, much less did she expect to hear her thought put into words. Instead of giving place, he stepped forward and with a smiling face he set his back to the door. “No, ma’am, not so!” he said. “I cannot let you, I cannot suffer you to belie your kind heart. You have not considered, I know that you have not considered that to refuse to do this to-day — to refuse to grant a favour that you have so often granted before, is to—”
“Really, Mr. Girardot,” the Countess broke in, colouring with annoyance, “I do not understand what you mean.”
“You do not know that to refuse to-day is to” — he dropped his voice to a tone of confidence—” is to hurt the sensibilities of one who still feels herself a little homeless, a little strange, ma’am? Ah, no, I know you too well. I know that you have not considered that, or—”
“You are too absurd!” Lady Ellingham cried warmly. “You must let me pass, if you please!”
But he still persisted. “No!” he said, and to Rachel’s surprise, who watched the scene with profound astonishment, he held the door, though my lady put her hand on it. “No, I appeal to the kindness of your heart! I know you, ma’am, to be generous, amiable, that you would not hurt a fly! And that rather than hurt one who — but here come more powerful intercessors! They may succeed where I fail!”
And with a submissive gesture he opened the door and admitted the children. They flung themselves upon their mother with cries of glee. “You will stay, mother, won’t you?” they pleaded. “You will stay? Mr. Girardot promised us that you would!”
“I think Mr. Girardot,” the Countess said, with a reproachful glance, “takes too much upon himself. I am to have no will of my own, it seems! Still, as you—”
“You will, won’t you? Say yes!” they cried, hugging her.
She gave way. “I suppose I must,” she said.
“Children,” he cried briskly, “clear the table! Room, room for the Sunday pound cake! It comes! It comes!”
And within three minutes Rachel, dumbfounded by the audacity of this strange man, found herself seated at the table with the great lady. She found that she was expected to preside and to pour out — with nervous hands and a flushed face. Fortunately the jests and horse-play of the children, who never rested in their seats for a moment, robbed the meal of formality, and though Lady Ellingham rarely addressed her, and might almost have been suspected of shyness, and Lady Ann turned a cold and repelling shoulder, the ice was broken and a step, a perceptible step, was gained. The once dull room rang with shrieks and laughter, and if she was not of it, she sat amidst it — admiring.
And when, left again to herself, she was free to think of what had passed, of what did she think? Inevitably of the actor who had played so strange a role in the scene and dominated it — of his audacity, his mastery, his cleverness. Equally impossible was it for her not to reflect with a thrill of gratitude on the purpose to which he had devoted his powers. To helping her, lonely and insignificant as she was, to winning a footing for her, to making things a little easier for her!
And — and to think in such a case, to think long and gratefully was coming near to — but Rachel was not as yet awake to that. If she was tending in a certain direction she did not perceive whither she was tending; nor understand why, when she was again alone, she sat for minutes, lost in a pleasant dream, why the future seemed to be more full of interest, of life, of possibilities, than it had seemed an hour or two before. She had come to Queen’s Folly vowed to a cloistered life, into which certain things did not enter, or at any rate were not supposed to enter; and she did not yet discern that even a governess’s close bonnet is not proof against nature, an elf that has a way of stealing in by the keyhole, be the door ever so strongly barred.
But she suspected where credit was due when Black Monday arrived, and the dreaded hour of ten came, and passed without open disaster. Lady Ann came sulkily in, sat lumpily down at the table, and scowled at her governess from under black brows, that said as plainly as if she had spoken, “I shan’t learn from you!” But she did not openly rebel, did not put out her tongue at her teacher, was not utterly dumb when addressed. Rachel felt, indeed, as if she were dealing with a barrel of gunpowder, and every question that she put were a spark. But she hid her fears, like the gallant little soul that she was, did nine-tenths of the work herself, and turned a blind eye to shrugs and grimaces. She looked to use and wont to help her, hoped by sheer gentleness to appeal to the good that was in the child — if good there was — and in the meantime she was content to get through the morning without an outburst.
Somewhat emboldened, she ventured on the morrow to set a French copy, and Ann showed herself unexpectedly compliant. She produced a packet of quills dyed all the colours of the rainbow and enclosed in a fancy box, and choosing one, fell pretty willingly to work, her pleasure in the gaudy pen reconciling her, as it seemed, to the task.
So for some days things went tolerably, Rachel doing the greater part of the work and her pupil lolling and fidgeting. But on the Friday Ann came to the schoolroom in a black mood. It was a
fine morning, the sun shone gaily, the air laden with the scents of the forest came in at the window, and the child rebelled. “I shan’t work to-day!” she said, scowling, and refusing to take her seat. “So there!”
“Nonsense, Ann!” Rachel replied briskly. “You will have the afternoon for play.”
“It will rain. Bowles says it will.”
“Well, we must take our chance of that.”
Ann lumped herself heavily on her chair. “I shan’t work, anyway,” she persisted.
Rachel summoned all her firmness though her heart beat unpleasantly. “You must not say that,” she said. “You will have a holiday to-morrow, and if you do not work to-day—”
“What’ll you do?” the child asked defiantly.
“There will be no tea at the Stag’s Brook tomorrow,” Rachel decided. She felt that she could no longer capitulate.
“Oh, there won’t, won’t there!” Ann cried, and bounced up from her seat. “I’ll see about that, you horrid thing! You white-faced thing!” And before Rachel could interpose the child had flung out of the room.
Rachel stood and looked at the door in dismay. What could she do with such a pupil? So wilful, so stubborn, so rude? She could only go to Lady Ellingham and ask for support, and she felt that to resort to her at this early stage was to own defeat, and to confess that she was unequal to the task. She could have cried. But there seemed to be nothing else for it, and with a sinking heart she was preparing to seek the Countess when she heard lagging steps returning. Ann sneaked in with a gloomy face, rubbing one leg against the other. She left the door open, and dumped herself down in her seat.
“Be good enough to close the door!” Rachel said in her coldest tone.
To her surprise, the child obeyed.
“I am glad,” Rachel continued, looking at her with all the severity that she could assume, “that you have thought better of it, Lady Ann. I should certainly have kept my word.”
“I don’t care,” sullenly. “I don’t care whether we go to Stag’s Brook or no! But I — I promised him when he gave me the pens — that’s all!”
“Well, I am glad that you have one virtue — you keep your word. So it was the pens, was it?” Rachel went on in a cutting tone, but she felt her face flame.
“Then you had better take that one out of your mouth and begin your French dictation. But understand, Ann, that it is a matter of no moment to me whether you like me or not. I may not like you; but it is my duty to teach you, and I intend to do so. Now we will begin.”
And it really seemed as if her words made some impression. Ann scowled, indeed, as if she could kill her governess, but she took the pen out of her mouth and wrote.
So that was the secret of the quills! They were his present. He had foreseen, planned, schemed, and secured at least a beginning for her. Rachel’s face was still warm. Ann could no longer have called her a white-faced thing. Her face was warm but her heart also swelled — with gratitude.
CHAPTER VIII
THE VEIL RENT
DURING those first weeks nothing struck Rachel more than the stately loneliness in which they lived. She had pictured the splendour and bustle of a great establishment, the coming and going of guests, the hum of carriages, music, laughter, the swish of silken trains on polished floors. But the long reception rooms at Queen’s Folly lay day after day silent in sunshine, or faded into November gloom. The only train that swept them was my lady’s as, proud and still, she sought the gardens, or of an afternoon passed out through bowing servants to her solitary drive with her four horses and her outrider. At long intervals a visitor appeared and now and again the children broke loose from their guardians, wrangled and clattered across the hall, slid shrieking down the broad balusters.
There were reasons why Queen’s Folly saw little company. It was Lady Ellingham’s pleasure. But to some extent it was the same with many great houses in that day. Travelling was fatiguing as well as costly, and guests, when they came, came in large parties and stayed for long periods. Between times, the Squire and his lady sat down day after day with some led captain or chaplain, who was cunning in wine and patient of old stories; or with some mature spinster, who of mornings grounded the lady’s tambour-work and nursed her Raton.
Towards the end of November, however, Rachel, now pretty well established, felt a little stir in the house.
She came on maids in strange places and saw doors ajar that were usually closed. And, “Uncle George is coming,” Ann announced, sucking her pen defiantly. “I shan’t work while he is here.”
“He’s bringing me a gun!” her brother bragged. “I’m to shoot with him. I shall shoot all day.”
“It’s only a boy’s gun,” the girl cried jealously. “It’s not a real gun, silly.”
“It is!”
“It isn’t!”
“You’re a liar!” On which battle was joined and the fight rolled tumultuously out of the room, a whirl of arms and legs and shrill abuse. Rachel stopped her ears.
The news was nothing to her. The memory of Captain Dunstan was far from pleasant — a rude brusque man who had regarded her feelings no more than if she had been a kitchen-maid. But in the housekeeper’s room, where a little break in the monotony was welcome, it provided a text on which Mrs. Jemmett had something to say.
“Now we shall see,” the housekeeper commented, her face thoughtful. “The Captain has eyes as well as us. And it’s my thinking he’ll not like what he sees.”
“You’re suspicious, suspicious, ma’am,” Bowles retorted. “Do you think as I’ve stood twice a day behind her ladyship’s chair and not know her?”
“Now, Bowles, did I say a word against her ladyship? Not that she’s not a woman after all, and water wears away a stone. And some excuse in her case, poor lady, and I’d say that if I was dying l But it’s him I’m thinking of.”
“Girardot? Well, you may take it from me,” with a chuckle, “that he’s otherwise employed, ma’am. If I saw my lady grow pink when he come into the room, and her ladyship’s hand shake when he spoke sudden, and her ladyship look out of the window and sigh when he’s not there, and her ladyship walk as if the gravel was springy moss under her feet when she started to Stag’s Brook with him — if I see all that—”
Mrs. Jemmett’s eyes glittered. “But you don’t see that, Bowles, do you?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t! But I see all that — or it’s reported to me by them as does — in another quarter.”
“Quick work, then!” decided the housekeeper.
“She’s young, ma’am, she’s young. And he — well, you know what he is.”
“Poor thing!”
“Oh, she’ll not be the first by a many,” Bowles answered, rubbing his nose. “And he’s the looks, and he may mean it this time. So I don’t know as she is so much to be pitied, Mrs. J.”
“Pooh! man.” The housekeeper was scornful. “He’s only playing with her. I don’t see so much of her ladyship as you do. But I’ve seen enough of him.”
“Well, I don’t know. I’m not so certain sure, Mrs. J. It may have been as you say to begin, ma’am. But I’m not so sure now.”
“Then he’s just a donkey between two bundles of hay,” Mrs. Jemmett retorted. “And if I were sure, I declare I’d speak to her ladyship. It’d open her eyes, anyway.”
“You’d lose the young woman her place that minute,” Bowles replied in alarm. “Her ladyship’s never got over the way the girl came. No, ma’am, nor ever been sure that what she thought at the first was wrong. She’d jump at the chance of getting rid of her.”
Mrs. Jemmett looked sharply at the butler. “Well, I never, Bowles! I do believe you’ve a weakness for the wench yourself.”
Bowles preened himself. “No, ma’am, no,” he said. “My wishes, as you know, is otherwise placed, Mrs. J.” — with a languishing look at the housekeeper. “I like some substance, ma’am. But my motto is, ‘No interference!’”
“Well, you may be right,” Mrs. Jemmett admitted. “But I do
say that if her ladyship goes on sitting with him at every odd time right before the main door, the Captain will be blinder than I think him, if he don’t take notice.
“Then he’ll show himself a deal less wise than my lord.”
“Ah, my man, a Blenheim’s a good keeper, but it’s only an apple after all!” Mrs. Jemmett rejoined, and though Bowles tried to provoke her to plainer speech, it was in vain.
That Rachel, a player in the game, saw less than the onlookers was natural. She had prepared herself for a life from which certain feelings were supposed to be banished, and she took it for granted that they were banished. She had not taken the coif, indeed, and the world was still open to her. But to an extent, little less than if she had done so, she knew herself to be parted by her employment from the emotional side of a girl’s life. The baize door that shut off the schoolroom was her grille, and her views and her tastes were supposed to lie within it. If she read Cecilia, or The Sorrows of Werter, it must be in private; in public she must revel in the flowery pages of Rasselas, and for her the world must consist of only one sex.
This presumption, and her inexperience, closed her eyes a little longer than might have been expected to the path that she was treading. There were moments when she wondered why, with all her anxieties and with so much to depress her, she was content; why, with the thunder-cloud of her pupil constantly hanging over her, and with a pretty clear notion that Lady Ellingham looked coldly on her, she felt the drawbacks of her position so little; why, listening wakeful to the sough of the wind through the forest, and the cry of the screech owl in the night, she had still only cheerful thoughts, and rising in the morning anticipated the day with an appetite for its chances. Something there was that added brilliance to the sunshine and a tender beauty to the evening; that awoke in her a passionate love for the woodland, its winding paths and its green retreats. But what this was that thus lapped her in warmth and security, that lightened her heart and gave spring to her pulses, she was too inexperienced to inquire.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 715