"Hang the brats!" exclaimed Dr. Brudenell, angrily. "If this goes on
for long they'll drive me mad, I swear!"
He was annoyed, chafed, irritated, more out of temper than he had ever
been before. The preceding week had been to him a period of purgatory;
the calm of his house was broken; his study was no longer a sanctuary;
the maids were flurried; Mrs. Jessop spoiled the soup. The bachelor,
transformed suddenly into a family-man without any preliminary steps,
was amazed and bewildered; the sufferings of his married acquaintances
filled him with a grotesque feeling of pity, with the sincerest
sympathy. He especially commiserated Laura's husband--for the three
children had turned out to be three emphatic editions of Laura--with
additions.
Just now the uproar which had caused the master of the house to spring
up from his dinner was more than usually vociferous. The three had
escaped from their extemporized nursery, and had shouted and tumbled
tumultuously down the staircase and into the hall. The street door
happened to be open, and the consequences were disastrous. One rushed
down the steps with a scream of triumph, which changed into a shrill
shriek of anger as he was pursued, captured, and brought back by
Patrick, in spite of violent kicking and struggling; another, backing
unconsciously toward the kitchen staircase, overbalanced, and,
descending with a succession of startling bumps, fell into a tray of
glasses with a terrific crash; while the third and youngest, not
precisely comprehending what was the matter, but being of a highly
sympathetic temperament, threw herself upon the devoted Patrick,
screaming, kicking, and scratching furiously; which, added to the
shouts of the youth whom Patrick carried upside down, and the wails of
the unfortunate whom Mrs. Jessop had just rescued from the _débris_ of
the glasses, swelled the uproar into a chorus that was almost deafening.
The Doctor sat down again, and took up his knife and fork with an
energy which sent the gravy flying over the snowy cloth.
"Confound the little wretches! I'll advertise to-morrow!" he said.
The noise outside subsided a little as Mrs. Jessop appeared upon the
scene, but the next moment it broke out again, growing louder as the
staircase was mounted. Evidently Mrs. Jessop intended to put the rebels
to bed--a resolution which did not apparently please them, for Doctor
Brudenell distinctly heard his elder nephew threaten to punch the head
of that worthy woman, while his brother and sister appeared to be
trying to dance upon her toes. Then came a cessation of the hubbub,
sudden and soothing, and the Doctor finished his dinner in peace.
Crossing the hall toward his study a little later, with the intention
of getting a book to add to the enjoyment of a very fine-flavored
cigar, he encountered Mrs. Jessop, somewhat flushed and tumbled, coming
down-stairs, and stopped to speak to her.
"Well, Mrs. Jessop, got rid of your charges for to-night--eh?" he said,
good-humoredly.
"That I haven't, sir, for to go to bed they wouldn't! I've seen a good
many children, but never did I see children so set upon their own way
as them children!" declared Mrs. Jessop, emphatically.
The Doctor felt that this was correct; his opinion being that any
children in the least degree resembling Laura's luckily did not exist
anywhere.
"Oh, spoilt, Mrs. Jessop," he remarked, judicially--"spoilt--that's it!
They'll be better, you'll find, when we get a good strict governess for
them; and that reminds me, I must certainly advertise for one
to-morrow. I don't know how it is that it has slipped my memory for so
long. So they're not in bed, the young rogues--eh?"
"No, sir--they're with Miss Boucheafen."
"With her? You should not have allowed it--you should not have let them
go in?" said the Doctor, quickly and peremptorily.
"I couldn't help it, sir," returned the housekeeper, stolidly. "They
started making such a racket of stamping and screaming outside her door
that she heard and opened it to ask what was the matter. Of course,
they were for rushing in before I could keep them back, and so she
said, Let them stay awhile, and she would keep them still; and so there
they are, and she telling them some fairy-tale nonsense."
"Well, well!" exclaimed the Doctor; and then added, "How does Miss
Boucheafen seem to-day?"
"Better, I think, sir--she seems so. She asked me to say that if you
were at liberty she would be glad if you could spare her a few minutes."
"Tell her I will come up presently," said Doctor Brudenell, going on to
the study. "Don't let those young torments stay there long enough to
tire her, Mrs. Jessop, if you please. She is still very weak."
But, when he went up-stairs half an hour later, he found that Mrs.
Jessop had not yet succeeded in getting the "young torments" out of
Miss Boucheafen's room. Miss Boucheafen was sitting in a great chair by
the fire, her dark hair streaming over her shoulders, and with the
children grouped about her--Floss on her knee, Maggie perched on the
arm of her chair, and Tom kneeling at her feet, all three listening
intently to what she was telling them. What it was the Doctor did not
hear, for the group broke up at his entrance; Tom sprang to his feet,
Maggie jumped down, and Miss Boucheafen let Floss slip from her knees
to the floor.
"Oh, uncle, I wish you hadn't come!" cried Tom.
"It was such a yuvly 'tory!" lamented Maggie, whose five-year-old
vocabulary was but limited; while Floss, whose name was short for
Ferdinand, and who had perhaps not yet fully recovered from the shock
of his tumble down the kitchen stairs, contented himself with surveying
his relative with an implacable expression as he sucked his thumb.
"I will finish the story to-morrow, perhaps," said Miss Boucheafen,
quietly; "go to bed now. See--Mrs. Jessop is waiting for you."
They went without a murmur--indeed, they hardly looked sulky, but
walked off in the wake of Mrs. Jessop, very unlike Laura's children,
the Doctor thought. He was amazed, and stood for a few moments, after
the door had closed behind them, quite silent, and looking at Alexia
Boucheafen.
A month had passed since the night of the attempted murder in Rockmore
Street, and, although during that time she had lived under his roof,
George Brudenell knew no more of this girl than her name. One thing,
however, he did know, and was growing to know better day by day--that
she was beautiful, with a beauty that was to him unique, startling; he
had seen none like it before. She had risen as the children left the
room, and stood with her hand resting upon the mantel-shelf, her eyes
gazing downward at the fire, her head above the level of his. He looked
at her, thinking how beautiful she was, and thinking--not for the first
time either--that he was not sure whether that very beauty did not
repel rather than charm him. For it seemed to have at once the glitter
of ice and the hardness of stone; her large, dark, bright eyes seemed
to pierce him, but they never touched his heart; a smile sometimes
broke the perfect lines of her lips, but never reached those eyes; the
natural play of her features seemed to be checked; she appeared to be
as incapable of tears as of laughter, of grief as of joy; no rush of
warm blood ever tinted the strange pallor of her cheeks with crimson;
her voice was rich and full, but there was a jarring note in its
melancholy music; the girl was like marble--breathing, moving, living,
but marble still.
The Doctor waited for her to speak; but, either from perversity or
indifference, she stood like a statue, and would not even raise her
eyes. He was forced to break the silence, which embarrassed him, and he
knew that he spoke awkwardly.
"I think," he said, "that you wished to speak to me?"
"Yes, sir, if you please."
This was another anomaly--her words were always of a meek and
submissive character, but her voice, her look, her gestures were those
of a queen. The Doctor felt this, but hardly its incongruity, as she
slowly resumed her seat and signed to him to be seated also.
"I am quite at your service, of course," he replied, as he sat down;
"but first let me ask how you are feeling?"
"I am well," she answered, gravely. "A little weak, still, perhaps, but
it will pass. I wish--ah, pardon me, I am forgetting that I am not to
thank you, sir!"
She had attempted to thank him before, when she first recovered her
senses and realized her position, but he had sensitively deprecated
that. On that same day she had told him her name, told him that she was
French, that in England she was friendless, and that of what little she
possessed she had been robbed by the man whom he had seen attack her--a
man whom she had never seen before; and this was all that he knew about
her. He wanted to know more, but he sat before her wondering how to
phrase his questions. In spite of his curiosity he would have deferred
them had it been possible, but it was not possible; and he broke the
silence timidly, for as he spoke she looked at him full in the face
with her dark eyes.
"Miss Boucheafen, if you are strong enough to allow of it--"
"As I said, sir, I am well."
"I must, with your permission, ask you a few questions." He hesitated,
almost confused under her steady gaze. "I am presuming that you would
rather reply to me than be questioned by a police-officer?"
"I do prefer it, sir."
"Then," said the Doctor, "this man who so murderously attacked you--you
can tell nothing about him?"
"Nothing, sir--I know nothing."
"Absolutely nothing?"
"Absolutely!"
"You do not know his motive?"
"Ah, sir--you forget! He robbed me."
"True, true!" the Doctor returned, a slight flush tinting his cheeks,
for he fancied that he detected a mocking gleam in her eyes, a
suspicion of a smile curving her lips.
"True--I had forgotten. Pray pardon me," he said, "but the attack was
so violent, the blow so savage, the weapon must have been so keen, that
it is almost impossible to connect it with a mere attempt to commit a
paltry robbery. I thought, and the police thought, that it was a case
of intended murder."
"Ah, sir, they are clever, your police, but they sometimes make
mistakes! Is it not so?"
Doctor Brudenell's face flushed crimson. Was she laughing at him? It
looked like it. He was taken aback, discomfited. He did not know how to
go on, but she gave him no chance, for she spoke herself, emphasizing
her words by rapid gestures and much energetic waving of her white
hands.
"Listen, then, sir. This is all I know--that this man followed me--why,
I have no idea--that he came upon me suddenly in the solitary street
and asked me for money; that, when I refused it, he tore my purse away;
that, as I seized his arm and screamed, he wrenched it free, and struck
me with what you tell me was a dagger. I know no more but what you tell
me--nothing."
George Brudenell, listening and looking, believed after all his own
fancy was but a fancy. The theory of the sergeant and the inspector was
only a theory, a mere empty possibility, unsupported by fact. He
abandoned both ideas forthwith.
"Miss Boucheafen, could you recognize this man?"
"I think not--I am sure not." She shook her head, her eyes fixed
musingly upon the fire. "It was dark. No--I could not recognize him."
"Nor could I, unfortunately."
"And yet you saw him?"
"I saw him, yes--but only well enough to know that he was young, tall
and dark. And such a description would apply equally well to a hundred
men within a stone's throw of the house at the present moment."
"True," admitted Alexia Boucheafen, calmly.
"Since you can give me absolutely no clue, I am afraid that the chances
of capturing him, particularly after the lapse of a month, are so small
as to be worth nothing."
"Less than nothing," she assented. "It would be better to abandon the
endeavor."
"I am afraid that is what will have to be done, from sheer lack of
ground to work upon. But it is horrible," said the Doctor, rising with
an unusual display of excitement--"absolutely horrible to think of this
scoundrel's going scot free! It is abominable that such things should
be possible in the heart of a great city such as this!"
A smile parted the girl's lips, but it did not light up her drooping
eyes. The smile seemed to imply that such a city held secret stranger
things than that. Doctor Brudenell did not see the smile; he was a
clever man, but it would have been far beyond his fathoming if he had
seen it. He returned to his chair and sat down again.
"In asking my questions, Miss Boucheafen, I have forgotten yours. I
assume that you wished to ask me some."
"Yes." She looked straight into his eyes again, and her slender hands
were clasped firmly together; he fancied he detected an expression of
doubt and anxiety in her glance. "Sir, I have said that I am almost
strong--you know that I am so. It follows, then, that I shall be able
soon to leave here."
Yes, it certainly followed that such an event would take place--the
Doctor acknowledged it, but at the very thought he experienced a
strange sense of loss. She was so young, so beautiful, so friendless.
Where would she go? What would she do? He was silent, and waited for
her to continue speaking. It seemed that she drew courage from his
look, for, after she had glanced at him with eager scrutiny, she went
on abruptly:
"I shall be able to leave, but I do not desire it. I am alone, I am
friendless, penniless. Doctor Brudenell, I beg you, let me remain!"
"Remain?" he echoed in bewilderment.
"Yes. Why should I not? I have been a governess; it was to be a
governess that I came to this England of yours--it is a governess that
you require for the children, your nephews and niece-- Your housekeeper
told me so but a little while ago. I should be industrious; I could
teach them well. Suffer me, then, to remain."
The Doctor hesitated, feeling uneasy, astonished, puzzled. Did she mean
it? Did she fully realize what she was doing--she, young, beautiful,
talented--in pleading to be tied down to the dull routine of a
nursery-governess? Did she remember that beneath his roof her position
might be questioned by carping feminine tongues? He remembered it--not
for his own sake, but for hers; but he only answered, overcoming his
first feeling of surprise:
"But my dear young lady, you must be perfectly aware that your
attainments are far beyond those required for the teaching of such
young children as these."
"Ah, sir, yes! But are beggars then choosers?"
Doctor Brudenell got up, walked to the window and back again.
"It is a fact," he said, slowly, "that in London you have no friends?"
"Yourself," she replied.
"And beyond?"
"Not one."
"Then, until you wish to leave, or until some more suitable and
congenial sphere of work is opened for you, remain, my child."
George Brudenell, speaking thus, had forgotten her beauty, her
queen-like dignity, and remembered only her youth and helplessness. He
went down-stairs with an odd feeling, thinking how quickly, with what
almost disconcerting rapidity, she had, after her point was gained,
recovered that icy composure of manner; remembering, too, how cold and
lifeless her hand had lain in his when she gave it in saying
good-night. But he was glad that she was going to stay; he had that
curious sense of relief from tension which is the result of anxiety
removed, as though to protect her, to befriend and keep her safe, were
an object which had long lain near his heart. He was a little
astonished, but he explained his feeling to himself. She was too young
and far too beautiful to live friendless in the modern Babylon called
London.
He rang for Mrs. Jessop, and explained to that excellent woman this new
phase of affairs. Mrs. Jessop, respectfully listening, received the
news in a manner which could hardly be termed gracious, but prudently
gave but small expression to her opinions. Mrs. Jessop's situation in
the Doctor's household was a very comfortable one, and she did not
desire to lose it; but Mrs. Jessop's eyes were as keen as those of most
women, a fact which she often insisted upon when talking to various
confidential friends--so keen, indeed, that they sometimes descried
things which did not exist. At present, however, Mrs. Jessop merely
told herself that, if Miss Boucheafen had not been quite so handsome,
her chance of remaining in her present quarters would not have been by
any means so great.
Mrs. Jessop, having formed this astute conviction, walked out of the
dining-room, and went down to her snug sitting-room, where, sitting
down by the fire, she fell to darning a table-cloth while she thought
things over. She had arrived at a conclusion that would have astonished
her master, and she chanced to want more cotton, and rose to get it
from her work-box. And among the reels and hanks of tape she saw
something that astonished her.
"I declare," said Mrs. Jessop to herself, "if I haven't forgot to give
it to her after all!"
"It" was the only thing which had been found upon Alexia Boucheafen,
the tiny roll of paper, covered with its grotesque red characters and
tied with its piece of faded silk. Rather ashamed of her forgetfulness
and neglect, the housekeeper took it and went up-stairs at once to the
new governess's room.
Alexia was sitting by the fire, almost as Doctor Brudenell had left
her, her chin drooping upon her hands, her face almost hidden by her
hair. She started at Mrs. Jessop's entrance, flung back the black
tresses, and looked up.
"What is it?"
"I'm sure I'm very sorry, miss," Mrs. Jessop faltered, finding herself
forced into somewhat reluctant respect before the bright gaze of the
imperious eyes, "and I hope you'll excuse my forgetfulness. I quite
forgot until just this moment to give you this."
For a moment the girl stared languidly at the extended hand, then with
a cry sprang suddenly from her chair, seized the little packet, and
pressed it passionately to her lips and to her breast.
"Ah," she cried, "he did not take it--he did not take it--he did not
take it"--incoherently repeating the words and redoubling her strange
caresses.
"Take it, miss!" exclaimed the astonished Mrs. Jessop. "Why, what
should he want to take it for, the murdering villain? And how could he
take it, seeing that it was fast inside the bosom of your gown?"
"Go!" cried Alexia, pointing to the door with an imperious gesture.
"Leave me to myself!"
The housekeeper went with the impression that Miss Boucheafen had
fallen upon her knees beside her chair, and that she was sobbing harsh
suffocating sobs beneath the shining veil of her streaming hair.
* * * * * * *
Peace returned to the Doctor's household; the children were calmed,
manageable; they stood in awe of their governess, but they liked her;
in the staid Canonbury house Miss Boucheafen was popular. Her name was
the only stumbling-block. Her pupils could not pronounce it, the
servants blundered over it, and Mrs. Jessop declared it "heathenish."
By slow degrees it was dropped, and she became merely "Mademoiselle."