She had not at the moment explained her ominous speech, but the light of
remarkable events soon enabled her companion to read it. It may indeed
be said that these days brought on a high quickening of Maisie's direct
perceptions, of her sense of freedom to make out things for herself.
This was helped by an emotion intrinsically far from sweet--the increase
of the alarm that had most haunted her meditations. She had no need to
be told, as on the morrow of the revelation of Sir Claude's danger she
was told by Mrs. Wix, that her mother wanted more and more to know why
the devil her father didn't send for her: she had too long expected
mamma's curiosity on this point to express itself sharply. Maisie could
meet such pressure so far as meeting it was to be in a position to
reply, in words directly inspired, that papa would be hanged before he'd
again be saddled with her. She therefore recognised the hour that in
troubled glimpses she had long foreseen, the hour when--the phrase for
it came back to her from Mrs. Beale--with two fathers, two mothers and
two homes, six protections in all, she shouldn't know "wherever" to
go. Such apprehension as she felt on this score was not diminished
by the fact that Mrs. Wix herself was suddenly white with terror: a
circumstance leading Maisie to the further knowledge that this lady
was still more scared on her own behalf than on that of her pupil. A
governess who had only one frock was not likely to have either two
fathers or two mothers: accordingly if even with these resources Maisie
was to be in the streets, where in the name of all that was dreadful
was poor Mrs. Wix to be? She had had, it appeared, a tremendous brush
with Ida, which had begun and ended with the request that she would be
pleased on the spot to "bundle." It had come suddenly but completely,
this signal of which she had gone in fear. The companions confessed to
each other the dread each had hidden the worst of, but Mrs. Wix was
better off than Maisie in having a plan of defence. She declined indeed
to communicate it till it was quite mature; but meanwhile, she hastened
to declare, her feet were firm in the schoolroom. They could only be
loosened by force: she would "leave" for the police perhaps, but she
wouldn't leave for mere outrage. That would be to play her ladyship's
game, and it would take another turn of the screw to make her desert her
darling. Her ladyship had come down with extraordinary violence: it had
been one of many symptoms of a situation strained--"between them all,"
as Mrs. Wix said, "but especially between the two"--to the point of God
only knew what.
Her description of the crisis made the child blanch. "Between which
two?--papa and mamma?"
"Dear no. I mean between your mother and HIM."
Maisie, in this, recognised an opportunity to be really deep.
"'Him'?--Mr. Perriam?"
She fairly brought a blush to the scared face. "Well, my dear, I must
say what you DON'T know ain't worth mentioning. That it won't go on for
ever with Mr. Perriam--since I MUST meet you--you can suppose? But I
meant dear Sir Claude."
Maisie stood corrected rather than abashed. "I see. But it's about Mr.
Perriam he's angry?"