Sir Claude seemed much amused at this. "No; you're not every bit she
has!"
He laughed for some moments, but that was an old story to Maisie, who
was not too much disconcerted to go on: "But she'll never give me up."
"Well, I won't either, old boy: so that's not so wonderful, and she's
not the only one. But if she's so fond of you, why doesn't she write to
you?"
"Oh on account of mamma." This was rudimentary, and she was almost
surprised at the simplicity of Sir Claude's question.
"I see--that's quite right," he answered. "She might get at you--there
are all sorts of ways. But of course there's Mrs. Wix."
"There's Mrs. Wix," Maisie lucidly concurred. "Mrs. Wix can't abide
her."
Sir Claude seemed interested. "Oh she can't abide her? Then what does
she say about her?"
"Nothing at all--because she knows I shouldn't like it. Isn't it sweet
of her?" the child asked.
"Certainly; rather nice. Mrs. Beale wouldn't hold her tongue for any
such thing as that, would she?"
Maisie remembered how little she had done so; but she desired to protect
Mrs. Beale too. The only protection she could think of, however, was the
plea: "Oh at papa's, you know, they don't mind!"
At this Sir Claude only smiled. "No, I dare say not. But here we mind,
don't we?--we take care what we say. I don't suppose it's a matter on
which I ought to prejudice you," he went on; "but I think we must on the
whole be rather nicer here than at your father's. However, I don't press
that; for it's the sort of question on which it's awfully awkward for
you to speak. Don't worry, at any rate: I assure you I'll back you up."
Then after a moment and while he smoked he reverted to Mrs. Beale and
the child's first enquiry. "I'm afraid we can't do much for her just
now. I haven't seen her since that day--upon my word I haven't seen
her." The next instant, with a laugh the least bit foolish, the young
man slightly coloured: he must have felt this profession of innocence to
be excessive as addressed to Maisie. It was inevitable to say to her,
however, that of course her mother loathed the lady of the other house.
He couldn't go there again with his wife's consent, and he wasn't the
man--he begged her to believe, falling once more, in spite of himself,
into the scruple of showing the child he didn't trip--to go there
without it. He was liable in talking with her to take the tone of her
being also a man of the world. He had gone to Mrs. Beale's to fetch
away Maisie, but that was altogether different. Now that she was in
her mother's house what pretext had he to give her mother for paying
calls on her father's wife? And of course Mrs. Beale couldn't come to
Ida's--Ida would tear her limb from limb. Maisie, with this talk of
pretexts, remembered how much Mrs. Beale had made of her being a good
one, and how, for such a function, it was her fate to be either much
depended on or much missed. Sir Claude moreover recognised on this
occasion that perhaps things would take a turn later on; and he wound
up by saying: "I'm sure she does sincerely care for you--how can she
possibly help it? She's very young and very pretty and very clever: I
think she's charming. But we must walk very straight. If you'll help me,
you know, I'll help YOU," he concluded in the pleasant fraternising,
equalising, not a bit patronising way which made the child ready to go
through anything for him and the beauty of which, as she dimly felt, was
that it was so much less a deceitful descent to her years than a real
indifference to them.
It gave her moments of secret rapture--moments of believing she might
help him indeed. The only mystification in this was the imposing time of
life that her elders spoke of as youth. For Sir Claude then Mrs. Beale
was "young," just as for Mrs. Wix Sir Claude was: that was one of the
merits for which Mrs. Wix most commended him. What therefore was Maisie
herself, and, in another relation to the matter, what therefore was
mamma? It took her some time to puzzle out with the aid of an experiment
or two that it wouldn't do to talk about mamma's youth. She even went
so far one day, in the presence of that lady's thick colour and marked
lines, as to wonder if it would occur to any one but herself to do so.
Yet if she wasn't young then she was old; and this threw an odd light on
her having a husband of a different generation. Mr. Farange was still
older--that Maisie perfectly knew; and it brought her in due course
to the perception of how much more, since Mrs. Beale was younger than
Sir Claude, papa must be older than Mrs. Beale. Such discoveries were
disconcerting and even a trifle confounding: these persons, it appeared,
were not of the age they ought to be. This was somehow particularly
the case with mamma, and the fact made her reflect with some relief on
her not having gone with Mrs. Wix into the question of Sir Claude's
attachment to his wife. She was conscious that in confining their
attention to the state of her ladyship's own affections they had been
controlled--Mrs. Wix perhaps in especial--by delicacy and even by
embarrassment. The end of her colloquy with her stepfather in the
schoolroom was her saying: "Then if we're not to see Mrs. Beale at all
it isn't what she seemed to think when you came for me."