Then on Maisie's visible surprise: "I went yesterday while you were out
with him. He has seen her repeatedly."
It was not wholly clear to Maisie why Mrs. Wix should be prostrate at
this discovery; but her general consciousness of the way things could be
both perpetrated and resented always eased off for her the strain of the
particular mystery. "There may be some mistake. He says he hasn't."
Mrs. Wix turned paler, as if this were a still deeper ground for alarm.
"He says so?--he denies that he has seen her?"
"He told me so three days ago. Perhaps she's mistaken," Maisie
suggested.
"Do you mean perhaps she lies? She lies whenever it suits her, I'm very
sure. But I know when people lie--and that's what I've loved in you,
that YOU never do. Mrs. Beale didn't yesterday at any rate. He HAS seen
her."
Maisie was silent a little. "He says not," she then repeated.
"Perhaps--perhaps--" Once more she paused.
"Do you mean perhaps HE lies?"
"Gracious goodness, no!" Maisie shouted.
Mrs. Wix's bitterness, however, again overflowed. "He does, he does,"
she cried, "and it's that that's just the worst of it! They'll take
you, they'll take you, and what in the world will then become of me?"
She threw herself afresh upon her pupil and wept over her with the
inevitable effect of causing the child's own tears to flow. But Maisie
couldn't have told you if she had been crying at the image of their
separation or at that of Sir Claude's untruth. As regards this deviation
it was agreed between them that they were not in a position to bring it
home to him. Mrs. Wix was in dread of doing anything to make him, as
she said, "worse"; and Maisie was sufficiently initiated to be able to
reflect that in speaking to her as he had done he had only wished to be
tender of Mrs. Beale. It fell in with all her inclinations to think of
him as tender, and she forbore to let him know that the two ladies had,
as SHE would never do, betrayed him.
She had not long to keep her secret, for the next day, when she went
out with him, he suddenly said in reference to some errand he had first
proposed: "No, we won't do that--we'll do something else." On this, a
few steps from the door, he stopped a hansom and helped her in; then
following her he gave the driver over the top an address that she lost.
When he was seated beside her she asked him where they were going; to
which he replied "My dear child, you'll see." She saw while she watched
and wondered that they took the direction of the Regent's Park; but
she didn't know why he should make a mystery of that, and it was not
till they passed under a pretty arch and drew up at a white house
in a terrace from which the view, she thought, must be lovely that,
mystified, she clutched him and broke out: "I shall see papa?"
He looked down at her with a kind smile. "No, probably not. I haven't
brought you for that."
"Then whose house is it?"
"It's your father's. They've moved here."
She looked about: she had known Mr. Farange in four or five houses, and
there was nothing astonishing in this except that it was the nicest
place yet. "But I shall see Mrs. Beale?"
"It's to see her that I brought you."
She stared, very white, and, with her hand on his arm, though they had
stopped, kept him sitting in the cab. "To leave me, do you mean?"
He could scarce bring it out. "It's not for me to say if you CAN stay.
We must look into it."
"But if I do I shall see papa?"
"Oh some time or other, no doubt." Then Sir Claude went on: "Have you
really so very great a dread of that?"
Maisie glanced away over the apron of the cab--gazed a minute at the
green expanse of the Regent's Park and, at this moment colouring to the
roots of her hair, felt the full, hot rush of an emotion more mature
than any she had yet known. It consisted of an odd unexpected shame at
placing in an inferior light, to so perfect a gentleman and so charming
a person as Sir Claude, so very near a relative as Mr. Farange. She
remembered, however, her friend's telling her that no one was seriously
afraid of her father, and she turned round with a small toss of her
head. "Oh I dare say I can manage him!"
Sir Claude smiled, but she noted that the violence with which she had
just changed colour had brought into his own face a slight compunctious
and embarrassed flush. It was as if he had caught his first glimpse of
her sense of responsibility. Neither of them made a movement to get out,
and after an instant he said to her: "Look here, if you say so we won't
after all go in."
"Ah but I want to see Mrs. Beale!" the child gently wailed.
"But what if she does decide to take you? Then, you know, you'll have to
remain."