Meantime Janet, who had nothing to do with dinner-parties or anything of
the kind, and who in the agitated state of the house appeared but
little, and did not linger a moment longer than could be helped
downstairs, had been passing through a period of suspense which was
intolerable to her--far more terrible to bear than all the burdens,
involving so much, which were on the accustomed shoulders of Mrs.
Harwood. It was on Tuesday that she had written that momentous
letter--that appeal of her impatient young soul to fate. She had written
begging that she might be delivered at once from the position which she
could not bear.
“All that I was threatened with before I left Clover has come true,” she
said, “though not in the way they thought: and I can’t bear it any
longer; and, if you meant what you said, come--come and take me away at
once. If you don’t come I will know that you didn’t mean it, or that
you have changed your mind: and I will do what I can for myself.”
On Tuesday! Thursday at the latest should have brought a letter--though
what she had expected was, that on Wednesday, the very day he received
hers, he would come at once, answering it in person. This was the
natural thing to expect. He would come--full of that ardor which had
made Janet laugh when in October he had pleaded with her not to go away,
to let him take care of her, provide for her. It had seemed to Janet the
most ridiculous of suggestions that she should give her hand to the old
doctor, and settle down for life in the familiar place where she knew
everybody and everything, and where novelty was not, nor change of any
kind.
And it was only January, the end of January, not much more than three
months! was it possible that life had so disgusted this little neophyte,
who had faced it so valiantly, that she gave up the battle already? She
had asked herself that question as soon as her letter was in the
post-office and beyond her control. What was there to hinder her from
going on to another chapter, from spurning from her this prelude in
which she had not come off a conqueror--three months only, and to throw
down her arms!
The moment that Janet had dropped her letter into the box at Mimpriss’s
that place which had played so large a part in her life, her heart made
a great leap, a sort of sickening rebound against what she had done. Oh
no; her first beginning had not been a success. She had betrayed people
who had been so good to her; her quick wit had seen too much, known too
much, in the house where she ought to have been a grateful spectator
only, making no discoveries. She had not been unwilling, by way of mere
fun and distraction, to take Gussy’s lover from her. She had not been
unwilling “to make a fool of” the son of the house. She had been there
like a little free lance to get what amusement and advantage she could
out of them, without giving anything in return.
But Janet, though she had succeeded in the most remarkable way in both
cases, had come to such a failure in the end as made her loathe herself.
She had been met by her match, she had been deluded by a stronger
practitioner of those arts, intent upon fun and distraction too, and
with as little intention of promoting Janet as of anything else that
would involve trouble to himself. How could she ever have thought it? A
man who betrayed the woman who loved him to her, a stranger, how could
she have supposed that he would be true to her and give up his own
interest to proclaim his devotion to the governess! And Dolff, the dolt
whom she had said to herself that she could turn round her little
finger--Dolff, who had nearly killed the other man who had played with
her; but not even that for Janet’s sake. For his sister’s sake, whom
Janet had never taken into consideration--Dolff, too, had thrown her off
as easily as an old glove when he got into trouble, and more serious
matters occupied his mind.
These extraordinary failures had altogether overset Janet’s moral
equilibrium. Had she been driven out of the house by the jealousy of the
women, with the secret sympathy and support of the men, a victim to the
spitefulness of her own sex, but assured in her power of attracting and
subjugating the other, Janet would have felt this to be quite natural--a
thing that is in all the stories, the natural fate of the too attractive
dependent. But this was not at all her case. The ladies had been very
kind to her; they had never discovered her misdoings. Even Gussy, if she
suspected anything, had taken no notice, which was to Janet very
humiliating, an immense mortification, though the thing most to be
desired by anyone who had retained a morsel of sense.
Janet had a great deal of sense, but in this emergency it forsook
her--the kindness of the ladies had added a sting to the humiliating
insincerity of Meredith and the indignant self-emancipation of Dolff.
She had failed every way. It was she who was jealous--the one to be
thrown aside; the legitimate sentiment had triumphed all along the line,
and the little interloper had failed in everything. She had thought that
to prove to them at last that she had no need of them, that she had but
to hold up a finger to bring her deliverer flying to the rescue, to be
carried off triumphant to her own house, to her own people, would be a
triumph which would make up for all, while still Meredith was in the
house, while Dolff was at home, while everyone could see how little
necessity she had to care what they thought! Janet knew, she was
certain, that the moment she held up a finger---- And she had held it
up--she had summoned her deliverer--without pausing to think.
But when she dropped the letter in the letter-box at the window of
Mimpriss’s there suddenly came over Janet a vision of Dr. Harding as she
had seen him last, rusty, splashed with mud, his hat pushed back on a
forehead that was a little bald, his coat-collar rubbed with hair that
was iron-gray. He was nearly as old as Meredith and Dolff added up
together; a country doctor, called out day and night by whoever pleased
to send for him, not even rich. Oh, the agitated night Janet had after
that rash step of hers! She had called him to her, and he would come
flying on wings of love--_i. e._, by the quickest express train that
never stopped between Clover and London, which flew even past the
junction--that terrible train which frightened all the Clover ladies; as
quick as the telegraph almost would he be here.
Janet held her breath and asked herself how she could have done it? And
what if, when he came, holding out his arms to her as he would be sure
to do, her heart should fail and she should turn away--turn her back on
him after she had summoned him? Oh, that was what she must not, dare not
do. She had settled her fate; she had committed herself beyond remedy.
If Meredith and Dolff should repent, and fling themselves one after
another at her feet, it would do no good now. He might be ready to
sacrifice Gussy to her, but she could not sacrifice Dr. Harding to him.
Oh, not now--she had settled her fate now!
All Wednesday morning Janet was in a state of suspense which defies
description. She expected every moment to be called downstairs, to be
told that a gentleman had come asking for her. The train arrived at
half-past ten, just half-an-hour after the hour at which she sat down
with Julia to lessons. Lessons, good heavens! They had never, perhaps,
been very excellent of their kind, these lessons, though they had been
gone through with steadily enough; but Julia had been quite well aware
from the first that Janet’s heart was not in them, just as Janet had
discovered from the first that Julia would learn no more than she could
possibly help learning. And it may be supposed that, with this
indifferent mutual foundation, the agitated state of the house, and of
the minds of both instructress and instructed, had not improved the
seriousness of the studies. Janet calculated that half-an-hour would be
wanted to get from the station to St. John’s Wood; half-an-hour would be
enough, for of course he would take a hansom, the quickest to be had,
instead of the slow four-wheeler which had conveyed her and her luggage
on the occasion of her arrival. Then at eleven o’clock! Oh, what should
she do, what could she do? There were but two things she could do--run
downstairs at the first summons, and rush into Dr. Harding’s arms--or
fly away, somewhere, she knew not where, before he came.
Sitting dazed by this suspense, her heart beating in her ears, taking no
notice of Julia’s proceedings, which were very erratic, listening for
the sound of Priscilla’s steps on the stair with the summons feared yet
desired, Janet came to herself with a shock at the sound of twelve,
struck upon the little French clock on the mantelpiece, and by the
larger church clock in St. John’s Wood, at a minute’s interval. Twelve
o’clock! It must be eleven, it could not be twelve! It was impossible,
impossible! But, like so many other impossible things, it was true. Her
heart seemed to sink down into her slippers, and a horrible stillness
took the place of all that beating. He had not come! Could such a thing
be? He had not come! Then he had not meant it, or he meant it no longer.
Dr. Harding, who had been her slave since she was a child, who had
pleaded, oh! how he had looked at her, what tones his voice had taken,
how he had implored her as if his life depended upon it! while she--had
laughed. Her voice had trembled, too, but it was with laughter. She had
not given a moment’s consideration to that proposal. She, before whom
the world lay open, full of triumphs, she marry the old doctor! It was
ludicrous, too absurd to be thought of; she had not been unkind, but she
had let him know this very completely; there had been no hesitation, no
relenting in her reply.
And now he had done the same to her.
But Janet could not believe it--she went on expecting him all day.
Something might have happened to detain him in the morning. He might
have gone out upon his rounds before the letter came--sometimes the
postman was very late, at Clover. She knew the life there so well that
she could calculate exactly when the letters would reach the doctor’s
house. The bag was always heavy in the beginning of the year. Clover was
one of those places where all the people hear from their friends in the
early part of the year. Perhaps there were still some belated Christmas
cards or premature valentines to give the postman more to do. And some
one might have been ill, and the doctor called out before his usual
time. All these things were possible--but not that he should have
received her letter and not come. But when Thursday passed without even
a letter in reply, and Friday--Friday, the third day!--Janet fell into a
state of depression that was miserable to see. She could think of
nothing else. Her doubts about the doctor’s age, about his appearance,
about his gray hair, and all his disadvantages, disappeared altogether
from her mind.
Astonishment, humiliation, the sense of having fallen altogether from
her high estate, of being a miserable little failure abandoned by
everybody, filled Janet’s mind. He had not come, though she had sent for
him; he had turned a deaf ear to her appeal. Where could she now go?
Never to Clover to give him the chance of exulting over her, though
Clover was the only place in which she could find a home. Oh, how
foolish, how foolish she had been! She might have gone back to the
vicarage with no more ado than saying that she was not happy in her
situation. The vicar and his wife had expected as much--they would not
have been surprised. But now she had closed in her own face that
friendly refuge. She had longed for a triumph, though it would be a
homely one, and again she had failed--again she had failed! Anything
more subdued, more troubled than Janet could not be. The doctor was no
longer in her eyes a makeshift, an expedient--something to restore her
_amour propre_, but whom she shrank from even in appealing to him. She
forgot his rusty gray hair, his bald forehead, the mud on his boots. Oh,
if he would but still come, if he would come! To let them see that she
had someone who cared for her, a man who thought her the first of women
while to them she was only the little governess. But when Friday came,
Janet gave up the hope. He too had decided against her. She was not the
first of women to anybody, but a poor little foolish girl who would not
when she might and now had to be said nay.
The lessons went on all the time, not, I fear, very profitable lessons,
and the two girls went out to have their walks as usual, with what
comfort they might, and everything continued like a feverish dream.
Janet sat upstairs and heard the sounds and commotion of the
dinner-party and did not care. What did it matter that they were
feasting below, while she was left all alone, neglected by everybody? By
everybody, yes! even by people who had loved her: nobody loved her now.
She was forgotten, both by those at home and those here. And what did it
matter? The school-room, that was the place for a governess. They ought
never to have brought her out of it. It was true she ought not to have
been deceived by any other thoughts--and it was true that she must
calculate on spending all the rest of her life, nobody to give her any
triumph, nobody to carry her away like a conqueror, nobody to vindicate
her importance so that the Harwoods would see their mistake, and Mr.
Meredith bite his lips with envy and dismay. No, that had all been a
dream; there was nobody to deliver Janet, and nothing for her but to
take a new situation, and perhaps go through the whole again, as poor
governesses so often do.
On Friday afternoon she had come in from her walk depressed beyond
description, feeling that everything had failed her. Julia had gone into
the drawing-room to her mother, while Janet, dragging a little behind,
as she had begun to do in the prostration of her being, lingered in the
hall, loitering by the umbrellas in the stand, untwining her boa from
her throat, the boa which Meredith had held, by which he had detained
her until she had thrown it upon his hands and escaped from him on their
last interview. She was very low; expectation was dead in her--she no
longer looked for an answer to her letter, nor for anything that could
happen. So dull, indeed, was she in her despondency that she did not
heed the ring at the bell, nor the hasty step upon the path when
Priscilla opened the door. It would be some visitor, some one for the
others--nobody any more for Janet. It was a noisy step which came in at
the door, firm, a little heavy, and very hurried and rapid.
It was almost twilight; the hall was dark, and Janet in the darkest
corner, with her back to the door, slowly untwisting the boa from her
neck, when--oh, what was this that burst upon her ear?
“No,” very hastily, with an impatient tone, “not Mrs. Harwood. I said
‘Miss Summerhayes.’ I want to see Miss Summerhayes.”
“Oh!” Janet turned round and came forward, feeling as if she had wings,
as if her feet touched the ground no longer. She called out of the
darkness, “Is it you, is it you?” as if she did not know who it was at
the first thrill of his voice!
“Janet,” he cried, and came forward and caught her--not exactly in his
arms, but with his hands upon her shoulders, clutching her with a sort
of hungry grasp (“as if he were going to eat me up,” she said
afterwards). She felt him trembling, thrilling all over, and perhaps it
was as well that it was dark, that she could see nothing of the gray
hair, etc., but only that the middle-aged doctor had a vibration of
haste, of anxiety, of emotion in his arms and hands, and the very
lappels of his coat which touched her breast, which was more real than
any words, convincing her in a moment, as no explanation from Meredith,
for instance, could have done, that the delay was none of his doing,
that he was here as quickly as if he had come by that express train.
“Janet! You mean that?” he asked, with eyes that glowed even through the
darkness, and a voice that thrilled and trembled too.
“Yes, Dr. Harding, if you do.”
“If _I_ do?” he said, with a sort of suppressed shout, “did you ever
have any doubt of me? My little darling! I’m like your father, ain’t I?
I’ll be father and mother and husband all together now you’ll have me,
child! If I do! How dare you say that, you little torment; you little
delight! as if I shouldn’t have rushed head over heels from the ends of
the earth!”
“You have taken your time about it, Dr. Harding,” Janet said, “you might
have been here on Wednesday, and now it is Friday afternoon.”
“You little love! Have you counted the days?” cried the poor man, who
was such a fool; and then he burst into his explanation, how he had
indeed come from the ends of the earth, from one of the great towns of
the North where he had found “a noble practice” awaiting him. “They’d
heard of me, dear, fancy that! How surprised the Clover people will be!
And there will be fine company and grand parties, and everything she
likes, for my little Janet,” he cried, with a sort of sobbing of joy and
triumph in his voice.
To tell the truth, Janet was as much bewildered by the thought that
Doctor Harding had been heard of, as anybody in Clover could have been.
But she concealed this with a throb of delight in her heart to hear of
the great town in the North, and the fine company and grand parties. No
Clover then and seclusion, but the world and all its delights. Janet’s
heart beat high with satisfaction in her own wise impulse, and the sense
of the triumph to come.
As they stood talking, the door of the drawing-room was thrown open,
and, looking up at the sound, they both had a view of the interior of
the room illuminated with its bright firelight and with the lamp, always
the first brought in, which stood on Mrs. Harwood’s table. She in her
white shawl, with her white hair and cap and the mass of white knitting
on her knees, stood out like a mass of whiteness made rosy by the light
from the fire, a most brilliant figure seen from the twilight of the
hall. The doctor started a little, and took his hands from Janet’s
shoulders.
“Mrs. Adolphus” he said.
“It is Mrs. Harwood; do you know her? But, indeed, her husband’s name is
Adolphus.”
“You mean was: don’t let us speak of him. She is an old friend of mine.
But if it had not been for Adolphus Harwood I should never have been
doctor at Clover, and perhaps never have seen my little Janet, so for
every trouble there is compensation, my dear.”
“What trouble?” she said, eagerly.
“Never mind. Come in and introduce me, Janet--though we know each other
very well.”
Janet took the arm he offered her and walked in, with all her spirit and
courage restored, to Mrs. Harwood’s room. She wished they had been all
there, every one to see that she was not the lonely creature they had
thought her. But there was nobody but the mistress of the house, with
Julia behind, telling her mother what they had seen during their walk.
Mrs. Harwood was smiling; she had the air of a contented and cheerful
mother with no trouble in her way. She looked up to receive the
new-comers, saying, “Why, Janet!” with a little surprise, quickly
divining from the girl’s attitude and the air of the pair that something
unusual had come in the governess’s way.
“I have brought an old friend to see you,” said Janet, faltering a
little.
“John Harding, at your service, Mrs. Harwood, now as long ago,” the
doctor said.
Mrs. Harwood uttered a low cry, the color went out of her face, and the
light out of her eyes. She sat and looked at him, with her under lip
falling and dismay in her heart.