This little incident could not be said to have much effect upon Janet’s
relations with the family in which she was living, but yet it was not
without some influence on the new order of things. She had an interview
next morning with Mrs. Harwood, who complimented her very much on the
beneficial influence she was exercising over Julia.
“I begin to hope that, after all, she will become a reasonable creature,
and like other people,” said the mother. “I need not tell you that she
has been a great trouble to me, and nobody we have had has ever got such
command of her before. She is growing very fond of you, Miss
Summerhayes, and I hope nothing will occur to disturb this good
understanding,” she continued, with a little significance in her tone.
Then, after a pause, she resumed, as with an afterthought, “Oh! there is
just one thing I wanted to speak to you about. I am afraid, my dear,
from what happened last night, that you are a little fanciful,
easily-frightened, terrified, they tell me,” she said, with a little
laugh, “for ghosts, and that sort of nonsense.”
“No--oh, no! indeed, indeed I never was.”
“Then, my dear,” said Mrs. Harwood, laying her hand, not unkindly, on
Janet’s arm, “don’t begin now. They told me you heard something that
frightened you. Be quite sure that there’s always a perfectly natural
explanation of anything you may hear. There is nothing whatever in this
house to be frightened about. Make yourself quite sure on that point,
and we shall always get on perfectly well, I am convinced. Now run away,
you and her. I won’t keep you longer. I am sure it is time for your
walk.”
“But, Mrs. Harwood----” said Janet, with some timidity.
“No,” said the old lady, “I won’t keep you any longer. You must not lose
the sunshiny part of the day.”
Janet lingered a moment longer, but her courage failed her. How could
she insist upon a thing which nobody paid any attention to but herself?
Perhaps, indeed, nobody but herself heard it at all. It might be
something which was addressed to herself alone; some mysterious warning;
something which could not find any other utterance. The little
governess, however, was so sensible and so perfectly modern in her
views that, though such a flattering and thrilling idea did occur to
her, she did not entertain the notion. Why should she have a ghostly
voice all to herself? What could there be that she required to be warned
about in such a way? Janet knew very little of her family, but they were
not distinguished enough to possess a ghost. She did not believe that it
was a ghost at all; it was something in trouble, something that had been
caught in a trap, or perhaps the cry of some one who was mad, which was
a very terrible suggestion. To see a ghost would be exciting indeed,
though even the youthful imagination of the nineteenth century has
overcome these kind of terrors--and there would be a distinction in the
vision of something supernatural which would more than make up for the
strain upon the nerves; but to encounter a madman about the house or
garden would be very different, a horror which would have no
compensating superiority. How could she ask, however, of that calm old
lady in her chair whether she was quite sure there was no dangerous
madman about? Such a suggestion might bring on something terrible; it
might produce a fit, or something; it might kill Mrs. Harwood. Janet
made up her mind it was better to forbear, to wait a little longer, to
see what might happen. And she had not been insensible to the
significance of Mrs. Harwood’s tone when she hoped that nothing would
occur to disturb their good understanding. Janet was very quick-witted,
and the tone was not lost upon her. It brought before her very
distinctly the fact that Mrs. Harwood, if she pleased, could send her
away, and that it would not be pleasant to be sent away. To go of her
own accord might be supportable, though she did not by any means desire
it: but to be sent away would not do at all. She knew what all the
gossips at Clover would say. They would say they knew from the beginning
that Janet Summerhayes never would do in a situation; that she had been
too much spoiled ever to get on in a place where she had to consider
other people and not herself, and that they were quite convinced she
would soon turn up to be a burden on the good Blands, who were foolishly
kind to her. Rather any self-denial, Janet said to herself, than
encounter this? So she restrained her alarms, kept a careful eye upon
all the dark corners when she went up or downstairs, always carried a
light with her wherever she went, and determined to say nothing,
whatever might happen, so long as she could bear it. In this way she
kept herself calm, although she could not divest herself of an alarmed
expectation and sense that at any moment she might be startled into
overpowering terror again.
Another consequence, however, followed, which she did not become aware
of at once, yet which was of more practical importance--and that was
that her presence in the drawing-room in the long evenings was not so
much a matter of course as it had been. The little dinner-parties, at
which the guests consisted only of Mr. Charles Meredith and one other
man, or sometimes of Mr. Charles Meredith (as she discovered) alone,
took place more frequently, and it was occasionally discovered by Miss
Harwood or her mother that Julia ought to prepare her lessons better in
the evening, which meant, of course, the exclusion of Miss Summerhayes
too. When Janet saw that this had become a system she was, of course,
disturbed by it; but she was so reasonable that she did not take
offence, as some young women might do. She concluded, on the whole,
after the first prick of annoyance, that it was quite a natural thing,
and one that she had no right to complain of. Miss Harwood liked to have
her suitor (if he was her suitor) to herself. She did not want a third
person coming in between them, especially a third person who, in one
particular at least, surpassed herself. Janet acknowledged that it was
quite natural. In such circumstances she too, she felt, would invent
reasons why the other girl should not come downstairs, why she should
not be allowed to interfere. It was a pity, and she did not like it. It
was dull with Julia in the school-room, and not to be able to note how
the play was going was a disappointment. But she behaved herself like a
little heroine, and did not complain. It certainly did not occur to her,
at this period of her history, that to be prevented from improving her
acquaintance with Charles Meredith was a grievance of which, even to
herself, she could complain.
It happened to her, however, during this period, when again she had
volunteered to match crewels for Mrs. Harwood, on a day when nobody else
was going out, to meet Meredith exactly as she had done when she saw him
first. She had run into the little shop on her mission--the St. John’s
Wood shop, with all its little merchandises, like a superior village
repository: and there, once more, exactly in the same spot, looking over
the music, was the now well-known figure, correct yet easy in his
morning suit, with his black hair and dark eyes and waxen bloom. The old
ladies in the shop thought Mr. Meredith a model of manly beauty, and
even Janet could not refrain from an involuntary glance of satisfaction.
She was half-ashamed this time of having thought that he was like a
barber’s block. And his eyes lighted up with such evident pleasure at
the sight of her that it would have been impossible for a little girl
long abstracted from any look of admiration not to be pleased.
“Come and help me to choose a new song for to-night,” he said, after a
warm greeting. “I have not seen you for a fortnight, Miss Summerhayes. I
hope we shall meet to-night.”
“Not if you are coming to dinner,” said Janet, demurely; “we do not come
down to dinner when there is company, Julia and I.”
“Oh, that is the explanation?” said Meredith, and, with a widening of
his eyes and elevation of his eyebrows, he added, “Then I shall not come
to dinner to-night.”
Janet said nothing, for what had she to say? She had no part in these
arrangements of her superiors. She gave a glance at the song he held in
his hand.
“It would be better to practise those you have than to bring anything
new.”
“Ah, if you could persuade her of that! and if we singers could be left
free to think of the song without hammering at the accompaniment! How
well you play, Miss Summerhayes.”
“I can do nothing else,” said Janet; “I was taught only for that.”
“Yes,” said Meredith, “that is the right way--to do one thing well, and
stick to it; but, unfortunately, everybody is not of that opinion. Most
ladies think that they can do anything--or, at least, try.”
“No more than most men,” said Janet, quickly.
“Oh, don’t you think so? I think you’ll allow we’ve a different way of
setting to work. We do what we can, what we have studied; but you ladies
try a little of everything without having studied at all. Miss Harwood
has a nice little voice, but no science even in that, and she knows no
more of the piano than of the steam-engine. Don’t contradict me, Miss
Summerhayes, for I am sure I must know best. I have suffered from it too
much.”
“You have no appearance of suffering at all,” said Janet.
“Ah, that’s all my power of dissembling,” he said.
Janet had got her crewels by this time, and she had a vague
consciousness that it would be well not to continue this conversation,
so she said, “Good-morning!” and was about to pass him on her way home
when he put out his hand to detain her.
“Miss Summerhayes, don’t run away. I am going in the same direction. We
are prevented from making friends in the evening, but I should not like
to let an opportunity slip.”
“Who keeps us from making friends, Mr. Meredith? You are making a great
mistake.”
“Am I? If you think you know Gussy Harwood, it is you that are quite
mistaken, Miss Summerhayes. How quickly you walk; I can scarcely keep up
with you.” He laughed, and took a stride or two which made Janet’s
attempt to hurry away ridiculous. “There is no harm in walking along the
same pavement, even with a person you disapprove of.”
“I don’t disapprove of--any one,” said Janet.
“Oh, that is more than I bargained for. You must promise to play for me
to-night.”
“But you said you were not coming to-night,” said Janet.
“So I did,” he answered, laughing; “but never mind--not to dinner,
certainly. You must promise me to play, and not to stop short all at
once, as you did the other night, whatever you may hear.”
“Oh, did you hear it too?” Janet cried, clasping her hands.
“I don’t think I heard anything. There are queer sounds sometimes about
that Harwood house--and old Vicars is queer; don’t you think so? Never
mind, Miss Summerhayes, you and I have nothing to do with that.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Janet. “I have nothing at all
to do with it; but you, who are a great friend of the family, and have
known them so long, you ought not to talk like that.”
“What am I saying?” said Meredith; “that you and I have nothing to do
with the secrets of the family, if they have any. Isn’t that quite
true?”
“We are not at all in the same position,” said Janet, indignantly. “I am
a stranger and the governess. You are their--dear friend.”
Mr. Meredith laughed low, with vanity and self-complacence.
“Am I a ‘dear friend’?--you flatter me very much, Miss Summerhayes--of
Julia, for instance, who says the prettiest things about me. I see
you’ve been working in my favor, for she’s no longer so uncivil as she
used to be.”
“Oh, Mr. Meredith, she means no harm; she’s only so--so----”
“Sincere,” he said; “so she is, and I am half sorry you have taught her
to mend her ways: for she is less amusing when she behaves like other
people. The brother, too--but you’ve not yet made acquaintance with the
charming Dolff--I know what will happen to that young man before he has
been two days in the house.”
“What?” cried Janet.
She felt more than ever that the conversation was undesirable; but she
was full of curiosity, and her companion had ways and modes of securing
the feminine attention. He made great play with those eyes of his, which
expressed so much more than his words. Even now he answered her question
with them in a way which made Janet blush before he had said a word.
“What will happen to him? Oh, I know; but I will not forestall the
pleasure of the discovery. I suppose it’s always more or less a pleasure
to a young lady when she finds---- Oh, I am not going to say any more.
You need not blush, Miss Summerhayes.”
“I am not blushing,” cried Janet, angrily, feeling her countenance
blaze.
“Oh, no, I see; it is only the effect of walking so quickly, which
brings the most agreeable color to the cheek. About Mr. Dolff, we shall
see what we shall see. But keep your head, whatever you do, Miss
Summerhayes, and we shall have some fun. It will be as good as a play.”
“You are as good as a play,” cried Janet, indignant, eager to give him a
prick in return.
“Who, I?” He gave her a momentary stare, then laughed. “We,” he said; “I
don’t pretend not to understand. I daresay we give you a good deal of
amusement as you sit and make your remarks. I saw the very first night
what a keen pair of eyes had come into the scene. But do not be too sure
of anything. People who look on don’t always see the whole of the game.”
“I think I see a great deal of the game; and I don’t like it at all,”
Janet cried.
“You don’t like me at all, Miss Summerhayes. After that home-thrust I
have nothing for it but to make my bow and take my leave.”