Janet had no very strong curiosity about Dolff. What she had heard of
him had not been calculated to rouse her interest, and still less the
photographs about the house in which Dolff appeared in every phase of
boyhood and early manhood: for he was still very young, only two
and-twenty, and consequently a mere boy to Janet, who was closely
approaching her twentieth birthday. She had no interest in young boys.
Manhood, in Janet’s estimation, did not begin till twenty-five at
earliest, and before that period the male youth, who could not in any
way be taken seriously, was always more or less objectionable, she
lingered a little in the hall, and then she said to herself that it
would be better to go upstairs at once, and not disturb the family
reunion. Sounds of a loudish voice, bass and rough, an altogether new
tone in this feminine house, and of a laugh still louder, came from the
dining-room, when Julia rushed in. Priscilla, when she came out, had a
demure smile upon her face. There was a little air of excitement about
the house, a portmanteau still standing in a corner of the hall,
greatcoats and railway-rugs, and railway-novels thrown about.
“I don’t think I shall go in to-night,” Janet said to the parlor-maid.
“Mrs. Harwood must want to have her son to herself. Will you send me up
some little thing by Jane, and I shall not come down again to-night.”
“Oh, miss,” said Priscilla, “I hope you will go in. Mr. Dolff is a most
affable young gentleman, he wouldn’t wish to keep anybody away.”
“Please do as I say,” said Janet, running upstairs.
It may be supposed that the description of Dolff as an affable young
gentleman who would not mind the governess’s appearance did not mend
matters. When she went in with her candle into her room to take off her
hat and the large shawl which she had wrapped round her over her evening
dress, Janet could not help seeing a piquante little face, which glanced
at her carelessly from the dark depths of the glass. Her black dress was
a little open at the throat, and amid all the surrounding dark her
throat was of a dazzling whiteness, and her eyes shone with the
excitement of the evening, and many thoughts that were careering through
her mind. Janet did not stop to admire herself, but the glance made her
realize more deeply the contrast of her circumstances with those of
Gussy, who would come in presently accompanied by Charley Meredith and
receive all the applause.
“Though she would never have done it but for me,” Janet said to herself.
She had much wanted to see them after they came home, to watch how they
looked at each other, and whether they would take any notice of the good
effect of her teaching. And, therefore, it was with a little sigh that
she sat down at the school-room fire, and contented herself with the
solitude which was her legitimate surrounding, and in which she was far
more safe from any snubs or disappointments than elsewhere.
She was prepared not to like Dolff. Even Mr. Meredith’s malicious
prophecy of what “would happen” had increased her prejudice against the
son of the house. Janet had not that admiration of an Oxford man which
is common among young ladies. He was of the least agreeable kind which
that refined university produces, she judged by the sound of his voice;
and to have him hanging about “paying attention” to the governess, for
something to occupy the spare time that would hang heavily on his hands,
was an anticipation that made Janet furious. When Julia came up, full of
excitement and news of her brother, Janet was so deeply occupied with
the book she was reading as to pay scarcely any attention.
“Why didn’t you come in,” said the girl. “Dolff wanted to see you much
more than me. He has heard so much about you. He was so disappointed.
He wanted me to go up and bring you down.”
“How good that was of Mr. Harwood; but I can’t be brought down to be
shown like a new cat,” said Janet, glancing over the top of her book.
“Oh, Janet, how unkind!” said Julia; “Dolff is not a boy like that. He
may not be quite serious, nor work as he ought, but he always was a nice
boy. And Gussy came back all in a glow. They had been praising her so.
But mamma said you ought to get at least half the credit, and so Charley
Meredith thinks too.”
“Oh!” said Janet, coldly.
She relapsed into her book, which she declared to herself was far more
interesting than all the Harwoods put together. What a thing it is to
have a book to retire into when you are a little out of humor with your
surroundings--a book full of romantic conditions in which you can
compare how you would yourself have behaved with the manner in which the
heroine behaved! Janet sat up till midnight reading, till the fire went
out, and all was silent in the house. Her candles, too, were nearly
exhausted before she perceived and started up in dismay to find one
flickering in the socket, and to feel that the room was very chilly and
the silence very eerie. It suddenly came into her mind how terrible it
would be if at that moment, in the dead of night, the cry should come
again which had scared her so twice before. When an idea of this kind
gets into one’s mind at such an inappropriate moment it is very
difficult to shake it off. Janet hurried into her room to prepare for
bed, to get rid of the alarming suggestion. Her room was next door to
the school-room, and she stole out very quietly, not to disturb the dead
silence. But when she came out upon the corridor with her little remnant
of candle, she was startled to find that the house was not so dead
asleep as she believed it to be. A light was visible downstairs in the
hall, and a stealthy sound as of some one moving about.
Janet looked over the bannisters with her heart beating, instantly
asking herself what she should do if it turned out to be burglars
robbing the house. It was, however, something quite different. It was
the respectable man-servant whom she had already seen at long intervals,
whose presence nobody explained, and whom Julia, the only one of the
family who had ever referred to him, called Vicars. He was going across
the hall towards the part of the house which was called the wing,
carrying a large tray. The candle which was on the tray shed its light
upon sundry articles of food and a bottle or two of wine, which he was
carrying very carefully, steadying as much as he could the little jar
and tinkle of the dishes. Janet looked down in great consternation at
this unexpected scene. He went straight across the hall to a door which
Janet had been told was done away with--the door that led to some rooms
which were never used--but which opened to Vicars at a touch, closing
again upon him and his trayful of food and his twinkling candle.
Janet watched him disappear with a chill of horror. What did it mean?
Was he a thief who kept his spoils there? Was he some secret enemy
hanging about the house pillaging it in the dead of night? And what, oh,
what ought she to do? Should she rush into Mrs. Harwood’s room and rouse
her, or, at least, her maid? Should she communicate at once the fact
that there was a thief in the house? The thing that Janet did eventually
was to retire hastily into her room and lock the door. While the bit of
candle lasted she made a hurried investigation, feeling it quite
possible that some accomplice might be lurking under her own bed or
behind her dresses in the wardrobe. And then she jumped hastily into
bed, and covered herself over, so that at least, whatever dreadful thing
might happen, she should not see.
But nothing happened, dreadful or otherwise, and Janet awoke in the
morning in her usual spirits, not remembering at first that anything had
ailed her on the previous night. She only came by degrees to recollect
the last incident at the end of the others which occurred to her one by
one as she opened her eyes upon the foggy, wintry December morning.
First of all, the concert, Gussy’s singing, and the applause, which she
felt was due to herself half as much at least as to the singer, and then
the return home, Dolff’s arrival, her own withdrawal upstairs, and
then----
She sat suddenly bolt upright in her bed, with something of the shock of
the previous night, and made up her mind that she would tell Mrs.
Harwood, that it was her duty to prevent the house from being robbed;
and, in the force of this idea, jumped out of bed and got through her
morning preparations hastily, that no time might be lost. But before
Janet saw Mrs. Harwood the impression once more had been effaced. She
forgot in the morning aspect of the house that anything could happen in
it that was not commonplace and ordinary. Gussy, who was the
housekeeper, and must know everything, had her keys in their little
basket on the table before her, and Janet felt that to suggest any
trickery in the house would be to offend that perfectly competent
domestic ruler; and after all, what had the governess to do with it? So
once more she held her peace.
The breakfast-table was, as usual, surrounded by the three active
members of the household--Miss Harwood, Julia, and the governess. The
new-comer did not appear.
“My brother is always late, especially at first when he comes home,”
said Gussy. “I don’t suppose they get up very early at Oxford; but he
behaves as if they did, as if he had to take a long rest when he gets
beyond the reach of lectures. Young men are all lazy in the morning.
They sit up half the night and waste their health. They never can stand
the fatigue that women do.”
“Dolff is always at his football and things--he is very strong; he is as
strong as all of us put together,” said Julia.
“Oh, yes, in that way,” said Gussy. “I hope you liked the concert,
Janet. It went off very well, don’t you think, on the whole?”
“Your duet went off very well. You sang delightfully. I was so pleased,
so happy.”
A little flush came over Gussy’s face.
“It is very nice of you to say so. I saw you looking at me, and it kept
me up, for you looked as if you were pleased. It was once suggested to
ask you to come and play, but I thought it would only make a fuss, and
that you would not like it. A fuss is what I cannot bear.”
“Oh! I should not have minded,” said Janet; “but,” she added,
generously, “it did not matter; it went very well as it was.”
It was once suggested! Janet retired with her pupil to their lessons
with this little revelation in her mind. It continued in hers that sense
of being in the confidence of Mr. Charles Meredith, and knowing more
about him than Gussy did, to whom he was paying his court in all the
forms, which was half-agreeable and half-humiliating to the governess.
She would have no more of it, she said to herself. He ought to ask Gussy
to marry him, and be done with it. He ought not to give those side
glances, those unspoken avowals, to any one. It had been “fun” that
first time to think that he had upset all the arrangements, and
disregarded everybody’s convenience, and deceived his friends with
smiling assurance for the sake of Janet. It was wrong, but it was
amusing, and at twenty a mischievous pleasure in a trick of this sort is
not out of date. But Janet felt now that it must not go on. She made up
her mind not to go down to the drawing-room in the evening, or, at
least, not to be beguiled to the piano, nor to take any part. If the
accompaniment was spoiled, if Gussy did not do justice to her voice, if
the duets were unsuccessful, what was that to Janet, any more than
Vicars with his laden tray going across the hall! She had thought that
one of the amusing things in the life of a governess, as she had
pictured it to herself, would be this very spectatorship, the glimpses
behind the scenes which she could not help having, seeing more of the
game than the players did. But now it appeared that there were great
inconveniences in the _rôle_, and Janet made up her mind that she would
play it no more.
Her first sight of Dolff was in this wise. When she came in with Julia
from their morning walk, blooming with health and fresh air, she found
the Harwood family in the hall. Mrs. Harwood, in her chair, looking on
with maternal smiles; Gussy on her knees before the opened portmanteau,
which had been left there on the previous night; and a young man with
his hat on, perched on the back of his head, seated upon the edge of a
table, swinging his legs, and directing the process of unpacking. He was
evidently in the happy position of one who was monarch of all he
surveyed. He had come home to his kingdom: his vassals were ministering
to him in various ways. Priscilla, the parlor-maid, was gathering up an
armful of books to carry them away. Mrs. Harwood had got some gloves in
her hand, which had evidently been given to her to mend. Dolff, with his
hat on his head, and the suspicion of a cigar in the air, gave his
orders lightly from his throne.
But when the closing of the hall door, done somewhat loudly by Julia,
aroused his attention, and he looked up to see a young lady unknown,
with a bloom unknown to the house of Harwood on her cheeks, coming in,
Dolff started from that presiding seat, or, rather, slid from it, with a
movement of consternation, and his hand stole up to his hat, removing it
with evident embarrassment and confusion. It is to be supposed that he
had no idea at first that this was the governess of whom he had heard
much, but only officially under that name. His hat disappeared as if by
magic, and he himself would have disappeared too, had that been possible
in his abashed and troubled state. He looked at his mother helplessly,
falling half behind her for protection. Janet, it may be believed, was
not abashed at all.
“Oh, this is Miss Summerhayes,” said Mrs. Harwood. She thought, perhaps,
that her son required no introduction in his own house.
“And that’s Dolff,” said Julia, who was more conscious of the claims of
the governess.
The young man himself stood and grinned feebly, an image of confusion
and shamefacedness. Janet gave him a bow, a bow which was half a
curtsey, with a sweep of grandeur in humility, excessive politeness
intended to accentuate the informality of the presentation--and, having
said her good-morning to Mrs. Harwood, hurried upstairs. That was all so
far as she was concerned, but it was far from being all for the
unfortunate Dolff.
“Mother,” he said, “why didn’t you tell me she was a swell like that?”
“You silly boy! She is no swell at all; but a nice little girl with, now
that I think of it, a well-bred air.”
“Excessively formal--for her situation in the world,” said Gussy.
“Well--I never thought of it before--she has very nice manners; but she
has been used to a good deal of attention, and perhaps----”
“You always spoil everybody, mamma. Janet is very nice, but she does not
quite know her own place.”
“That’s not the sort of person a fellow expects to see when he’s told
there’s a new governess,” said Dolff. “You might have said something not
to let me in for it like this. She’ll think me a regular know-nothing,
an ignorant cad; everything that’s stupid.”
Gussy looked up from the unpacking of the portmanteau, now nearly
finished, with widely-opened eyes.
“What can it possibly matter what Miss Summerhayes thinks of you?” she
said.
“Oh,” said Dolff, “I don’t see that! Why, she’s a---- You mayn’t mind,
but I do. Let a fellow in for looking as stupid as an owl, and as if he
didn’t know what’s what, and then ask him what does it matter! It does
matter to me. I say, Ju, why didn’t you tell me she was that sort? I
never felt more small in my life.”
“I don’t think there is any occasion for it, Dolff,” said Mrs. Harwood.
“Janet’s a very sensible girl; she knows exactly what to expect. She is
not one of those that are always taking offence. Besides, I don’t see
that any harm has been done. You took off your hat at once. You’re very
careless keeping it on and thinking no manners are necessary for your
own people, Dolff, that I must say; but so far as concerns Miss
Summerhayes----”
“Oh, of course she thinks me a cad, and that’s all about it,” said the
young man; “and you don’t care. But, as it happens, I do. What is the
good of having people belonging to you, if they can’t keep you straight
in a business like that? Oh, put the confounded things where you like,”
said the young man, waving the books away which Priscilla held in her
arms waiting for directions; “on the floor, or anywhere; I don’t mind
anything about your tidiness, but I do mind being shown off as a dashed
cad.”
He took up his hat, and looked at it, as if that was the cause of
offence, then flung it on his head, and stalked out, careless of the
calls that followed him.
“Where are you going, Dolff?” his mother said, with a sudden shade of
anxiety on her face.
“Mind that you are not late for lunch,” said Gussy.
Julia put her arm through his, and accompanied him to the garden door.
“Don’t be long; oh, don’t be long,” said Julia. “Come out for a walk in
the afternoon, Dolff, with her and me.”
“I don’t suppose she’ll ever speak to me,” said Dolff, shaking his
sister off: and he paused to take his pipe from his pocket, and light it
before he went forth, while all the ladies looked on through the open
hall door. That he should go out with a round hat and a pipe in his
mouth was a trial of Gussy’s patience, such as was very difficult to
endure; and the knowledge that Dolff, when he disappeared in this way,
might not, perhaps, come back till midnight wrung the heart of his
mother. The first day, too! He was not very much to look at, nor
remarkable in any way, but he was of great importance to them.
“It is a mere pretext to get away to follow his own devices,” said
Gussy, as she rose, red and angry, from her knees.
“Oh, Gussy, the first morning!” said Mrs. Harwood. “I wish some one had
told him; he is so particular about being well-bred, poor boy.”
“Oh, I have no patience with him,” said Gussy, “it is merely a pretence
to get away.”