Janet found after this experience was over that she had perhaps
discounted too quickly the excitement of her position. She had gone too
fast, as was the impulse of her nature. Julia Harwood, who had been used
to continued “nagging,” which never came to anything, a continual and
frivolous demand to which obedience was never exacted, had been taken
entirely by surprise by the rapid movements of the little governess.
Reason, which had never before been applied to her case, had made a
considerable impression upon her; but still more the conviction that
Miss Summerhayes would “stand no nonsense,” the wholesome sense of a
force which she could not overcome: and between the two the temporary
effect produced had been great. And a certain amount of order had
followed in the school-room. When the two were alone, Julia replied when
she was spoken to, and did more or less what she was told. There was a
frame-work created of lessons and rules which helped the hours along,
and to which the girl gave a sort of submission. But apart from this,
which occupied the mornings of her new existence, poor Janet found
herself immersed, submerged, drowned in a sort of tepid bath of
Harwoodism which was an experience quite unlooked-for and unthought-of.
Some families, and those perhaps the most amiable in existence, have
this tendency so strong that there is no escape from it; they compare
everything, judge everything, estimate everything by the rule of their
own case--“in our family we do,” or “we don’t do,” so and so, were words
continually on Augusta Harwood’s lips. She was a very good, considerate,
kind young woman, trying to make everybody comfortable about her, eager
to anticipate every want, to see that the stranger was warm enough, cool
enough, had just the right amount of sugar in her tea, was not
over-tired, did not have damp feet or wear too thin a dress, or get the
sun or the firelight in her eyes. Gussy achieved the difficult feat of
making a dependent perfectly at her ease, and obliterating almost every
trace of that embarrassment which attends the position of a governess.
It was not that she fell into one of those sudden enthusiastic
friendships which sometimes unites the daughter of the house with the
stranger in it, but only that she was constitutionally kind, thoroughly
good-hearted and good-natured. It would seem difficult to say any more
in her favor than this. And yet, from her gentle, amiable, and
good-humored sway there arose one fixed impression: and in her pleasant
person there breathed out, embracing all things, one mild, universal
atmosphere of the family.
It was as if she knew nothing but Harwoods in the world. Church--even
Church!--and State, and laws and governments, and business and books
were outside of the oasis in which she dwelt--the universe in general
lay beyond, as great London lay beyond the brick walls of the garden in
St. John’s Wood. London existed for the advantage of that house, and so
did the universe in which London is but a point. But they were outside,
and of secondary importance. The Harwoods, their habits, their ways,
their ancestors, their relationships, and, above all, their
characteristics were within, and everything without took a tinge from
this prevailing atmosphere.
It might be some time before the spectators found out what it was. It
was like the transparent veil of tarlatan which is sometimes stretched
between a drawing-room assembly of spectators and an exhibition of
_tableaux vivants_, to give distance and softness to the mimic scene; it
was like the tint sometimes supposed to be becoming to the complexion,
which faintly rose-colored glass gives to the air of a boudoir: it was a
medium, an atmosphere, all pervading, something from which there was no
escape.
Janet had been prepared, as has been seen, for many of the deprivations
of a governess, none of which she was called upon to bear. The letters
she received from her old friends at Clover, to whom she had narrated
her first experiences, were almost enthusiastic in their
congratulations.
“You seem to have been fortunate above anything that could be hoped
for,” Mrs. Bland wrote. “I never heard of such kind people.”
And so they were, Janet assured herself. Never were people so kind; they
cared for her comfort as if she had been a favored visitor; they never
allowed her to feel herself _de trop_. They accepted her into the bosom
of the family with the most open as well as the most considerate
kindness. Nevertheless, it was not very long before Janet began to feel
the creeping in of something not strong enough to be called miasma, a
sort of closeness in the air. She felt the heavens contracting round
her, and the horizon closing up. These sensations were more or less
physically justified by the fact that there is a great deal of
vegetation in St. John’s Wood; that the trees grew too close in a
hundred gardens, and that though their foliage and greenness were
delightful in summer, the fall of the leaf was attended with
disagreeables there as in other leafy places; but that was not the heart
of the matter.
Janet began to feel herself drawing long breaths of relief when she got
outside the garden gate. This was generally in company with Julia, who
did not share in the family worship, and whose conversation was very
jerky and irregular, leaving the governess free either to lead the
dialogue or to refrain from any. And when Janet escaped altogether by
herself, as sometimes she did, to go to church, sometimes to the
circulating library to get a book, sometimes to the nearest repository
of art needlework to match some silk or crewels for Mrs. Harwood, she
was still more delighted and relieved.
To escape for an hour from the Harwoods--to become once more conscious
of her own individuality, and of the existence of crowds, nay, worlds of
people who did not bear that respectable name, became the greatest
refreshment to her. She would run out even in the wet if anything was
wanted in the most cheerful and, as the family thought, self-denying
way.
“But, my dear, it rains. I couldn’t possibly let you go out in the rain,
to take all the stiffening out of your crape, and, perhaps, catch cold,
all because I want that book,” Mrs. Harwood would say, divided between
her desire for a new novel (which is so doubly acceptable on a wet day)
and her concern for Janet.
This was a thing that the gardener could not do, nor even her own
maid--could that functionary have been persuaded to wet her feet--for
maids and gardeners never know what books you have read, even though
they themselves have brought them from the library, and produce the same
three volumes again and again, as Mrs. Harwood complained, till you are
nearly driven out of your senses.
“If you really think you would like a run,” the old lady added, with a
sudden sense of the advantage. “I remember when I was your age I never
minded the rain--but it will take all the stiffening out of your crape.”
“She has no crape on that dress,” said Gussy, “which I very much approve
of, for what is the good of a thing you have always to be thinking of?
We never go in for mourning very much in our family. But, mamma, I do
think, what with your books and your crewels, and so forth, you impose
very much on Miss Summerhayes.”
“Oh, I like it,” cried Janet, “it gives me the greatest pleasure. I only
wish I could run on errands all day long, if I could be of any use--you
are all so good to me.”
“That is a grateful little thing, Gussy,” said Mrs. Harwood, as Janet,
wrapped in a mackintosh, with her skirts drawn up, and a little felt hat
upon her head which could not be spoilt, ran lightly along the
glistening path to the garden door.
“Yes,” said Gussy, sedately, “she is a kind little thing: and I am sure
she would do anything to please you, mamma. And such a good influence
over Ju. Dolff will not believe his eyes when he comes home and sees her
actually doing her lessons like any other girl.”
“I hope Miss Summerhayes does not humor her too much,” said Mrs.
Harwood, with a sigh.
In the meantime, Janet was running along with the rain in her face, and
a sense of freedom which made her heart dance. It was not an attractive
day to be out, and the long roads in St. John’s Wood, between the garden
walls, with here and there a little oasis formed by a few shops, were
not, perhaps, exhilarating to pedestrians generally. On a wet day there
was nothing at all to be seen or met with in these roads any more than
had they been the suburbs of a country town. On fine days the children
and their nurserymaids made a great deal of variety, and the old ladies
going out for their airings in their bath chairs. It is not, perhaps, a
very gay kind of traffic which is represented by bath chairs and
perambulators. But there were the tradesmen, too, and occasional cabs
passing to add to the effect. But when it rained everything was
desolate. The garden doors were closely shut: the houses invisible
behind among the bare branches of the trees from which the last shabby
leaves were tumbling like rags among the droppings of the rain. What it
is to be twenty, and to have a heart free of care! Janet ran along the
glistening pavement with her skirts held up, delighted, glad to be out,
though she breathed almost as much rain as air, glad to have escaped
from the all-enveloping Harwoods, and to be herself for a moment. She
was only going on an errand for her employer, and her return was
anxiously looked for, so that she knew that she must not be long: but
every moment was good. She carried her umbrella shut; she would not lose
the feeling of the soft rain on her forehead. A conviction that this was
against all the traditions of the Harwoods made it doubly agreeable.
They were all afraid of catching cold and getting wet, but not Janet.
She liked it. It meant a mark of freedom and independence. It meant
being herself without a thought of Harwoodism, as she had been in the
old days.
Janet skipped into the stationer’s shop to which she was bound, and
which stood only (alas!) about a quarter-of-a-mile off in one of the
oases already described. In St. John’s Wood there are a great many
stationers’ shops. They are doubled with a circulating library, usually
a branch of the all-pervading Mudie, and they sell all manner of “fancy”
articles, cardboarding of every description. There is a great sale for
menu cards, for little mounts and frames, for calendars and almanacs,
and every sort of little composition of paper, pictures, and mottoes in
pretty colors, in such districts. Pencils in boxes and out of them, with
little holders, with silver cases, and unadorned for drawing purposes:
writing materials in pretty colored covers: little books such as
innocent minds love, with texts for every day, or pretty verses, or
scraps of genteel philosophy. It would fill all my space if I were to
give a catalogue of half the things in these stationers’ shops. In
addition to all this and the library, with its rows of novels, a little
dilapidated, there was a counter for music in this particular example of
the stationers of St. John’s Wood, and another one for newspapers both
these things forming a portion of the well-established business carried
on by the Misses Mimpriss in Laburnum Place.
When Janet skipped in, her face fresh from the rain and cold air, her
eyes dancing with freedom and satisfaction, she almost ran against a
gentleman who was standing inside turning over the music, and who turned
round quickly with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. He was a young
man and rather handsome, Janet thought; not very tall but strong and
well built, with dark hair and a fine complexion, a little like,
perhaps, the male beauties in the hairdressers’ shops. She was so much
taken by surprise to find a man in that feminine place that she was,
perhaps, a little severe in her hasty judgment. He interfered with her
satisfaction somehow, though he was perfectly well-bred, and after the
one glance of surprised attention--which was quite justifiable surely
when a girl came like a bombshell into a little shop, where no such
projectile could have been expected on a wet day--returned to his music
and took no further notice. The momentary shock, however, made Janet’s
fresh countenance blaze with its surprise and unexpectedness. She went
back into the further part of the shop to look over the novels and
choose one which Mrs. Harwood would like, which was no easy task. She
had to ask for the help of the disengaged sister, who presided over
that shrine of fiction, and had a long consultation with her to see
which books Mrs. Harwood had already read. Finally, she chose one with
much internal doubt, intensified, she could scarcely tell how, by the
presence of the man who stood with his back to her, certainly not
interfering in any way with that simple operation. And it happened to
make matters worse that the sister whom Janet was consulting was not the
sister whose business it was to enter the books. Accordingly, when
Janet’s Miss Mimpriss said to the other Miss Mimpriss “391,-121 for Mrs.
Harwood,” the gentleman who was buying music turned half round again,
exactly as if he had said, “Oh!” and gave Janet a look, not like the
former look, which was merely conventional, but one which was personal
to herself, and meant several things. It was a glance full of
understanding, as if he knew all about her, and of criticism, and
amusement. His eyebrows went up a little, and he seemed to say, “Oh! so
that is who you are? It is you, is it?” which made Janet very angry,
though for the life of her she could not have told why. She took her
three battered volumes in her hands and left the shop, feeling her
little expedition to be quite spoiled. She had meant to make an
investigation herself among the music and to look over the “fancy”
articles. She was only after all a country young lady; and she believed
that among the many pretty things which the Miss Mimprisses sold at a
cost of from one to two shillings, she could have found something which
Mrs. Bland would have set upon the drawing-room mantelpiece in the
vicarage, bidding her visitors look what a pretty thing Janet had sent
her from London, and was it not kind of the child?
Janet could not linger, however, to make any such purchase under that
man’s eye. She would not have liked to do it before anybody, and had,
indeed, jibed at the fancy articles when she had entered the shop with
Miss Harwood; but she felt much aggrieved to be so balked.
“Very like a barber’s block,” she said to herself; the sort of man whom
you might expect to see in that respectable part of St. John’s Wood,
buying music, which perhaps he was going to take with him to some
tea-party, to sing to the ladies.
When she had exhaled her annoyance in this angry criticism, Janet
recovered some portion of her pleasure, and walked home, but much more
slowly, in order that she might have the enjoyment of every moment of
her freedom, and not go in too soon. We are all much displeased when
maids and page-boys, and other light-hearted but slow-footed messengers,
do this, and keep our letters or our novels from us, forgetting that
these functionaries too might, like Janet, have need to feel themselves
now and then, and be able to think, as they walk along Acacia Road, that
they are John or Mary, and not mere officials executing our will.
That night began just as other evenings had begun after dinner. The
family group was very comfortable, warm and safe from all contention of
the elements which had settled into a downpour outside, from all
inharmonious noises or interruptions within. Mrs. Harwood and Gussy at
opposite sides of the fire, Miss Summerhayes seated at a little distance
with the book upon the table, the very book which she had got from the
library, and which she had volunteered to read aloud while the others
worked. Very comfortable, but rather dull, but for the book, which was
something, and lent an interest to the monotonous night.
When lo! all at once, in the midst of this monotony and unbroken calm,
the stillness was suddenly broken by the tingle of the house bell.
Somebody at the door! Late in the evening, nearly nine, an hour at which
no stranger step or sound ever disturbed the house. Janet stopped
reading involuntarily, and grew pale in her surprise, looking round upon
her companions with a sort of appeal.
“Bless us,” cried Mrs. Harwood, “who can this be so late at night?”
“It is, perhaps, a telegram,” said Gussy. And then she glanced at the
clock, and added, “It is not so very late. We have had people come later
than this.”
Gussy had a little light, not usually there, kindled in her eyes. She
let her work drop upon her knees and listened. The sound of the
unwilling parlor-maid sallying out in the wet to unlock the door, the
sound of a voice and another step, even of a dripping umbrella placed in
a stand, and an overcoat being taken off, were listened to by the ladies
with much unanimity of interest. Even Janet was glad that something was
coming to break the calm routine. When this last stage of suspense was
reached, Gussy said,
“It will be Charley Meredith and his songs,” and laughed a little, as it
were, under her breath.
And then the door opened, and there walked in, with the assured step of
one who knew himself welcome, the man of the music and the stationer’s
shop, the man who had looked round upon Janet as she got her novel,
saying, “Oh!” with his eyes.