Mrs Bowater's departure from England--and it seemed as if its very map
in my mind had become dismally empty--was not my only anxiety. My
solicitors had hitherto been prompt; their remittances almost
monotonously identical in amount. But my quarterly allowance on
Midsummer Day, had been followed by a letter a week or two after her
good-bye. It seemed to be in excellent English, and yet it was all but
unintelligible to me. Every re-reading of it--the paper had apparently
been dipped in water and dried--increased its obscurity and my alarm. I
knew nothing about money matters, and the encyclopaedia I consulted only
made me more dejected and confused. I remembered with remorse my poor
father's last troubles. To answer the Harrises was impossible, and
further study of their letter soon became unnecessary, for I had learned
it by heart.
The one thing certain was that Fanny's wolf had begun scratching at my
door: that my income was in imminent danger. I had long since squandered
the greater part of what remained out of my savings (after Fanny had
helped herself) on presents and fal-lals; merely, I am afraid, to show
Mrs Monnerie that I, too, could be extravagant. How much I owed her I
could not even conjecture, and had not dared to inquire. To ask her
counsel was equally impossible. She was almost as remote from me in this
respect as Mrs Bowater, now in the centre of the Atlantic. As for Fanny,
I had returned her postal orders and had heard no more.
For days and days gloom hung over me like a thundercloud. Wherever I
went I was followed by the spectres of the Harrises. Then, for a time,
as do all things, foreboding and anxiety gradually faded off. I plunged
back into the cream-bowl with the deliberate intention of drowning
trouble.
Meanwhile, I had not forgotten Fanny's "sinecure." One mackerel-skied
afternoon, Mrs Monnerie and I and Susan were returning across the Park
from an "At Home"--"to meet Miss M." A small child of the house had
richly entertained the company by howling with terror at sight of me,
until he had been removed by his nurse. I bear him no grudge; he made a
peg on which to hang Fanny's proposal.
"And what can Miss Bowater do? What are her qualifications?" Mrs
Monnerie inquired pleasantly.
"She is--dark and--pale," I replied, staring a little giddily out of the
carriage at the sheep munching their way over the London grass.
"Dark and pale?" mused Mrs Monnerie. "Well, that goes nearer the bone,
perhaps, than medals and certificates and that sort of thing. Still, a
rather Jane Eyreish kind of governess, eh, Susan?"
Unfortunately I was acquainted with only one of the Miss Brontes, and
that not Charlotte.
"Miss Bowater is immensely _clever_, Mrs Monnerie," I hurried on, "and
extremely popular with--with the other mistresses, and that sort of
thing. She's not a bit what you might guess from what you might
suppose."
"Which means, I gather," commented Mrs Monnerie affably, "that Miss
Bowater is the typical landlady's daughter. A perfect angel in--or out
of--the house, eh, Miss Innocent?"
"No," said I, "I don't think Miss Bowater is an angel. She is so
interesting, so _herselfish_, you know. She simply couldn't be happy at
Miss Stebbings's--the school where she's teaching now. It's not salary,
Mrs Monnerie, she is thinking of--just two nice children and their
mother, that's all."
This vindication of Fanny left me uncomfortably hot; I continued to gaze
fixedly into the green distances of the park.
Yet all was well. Mrs Monnerie appeared to be satisfied with my
testimonial. "You shall give me her address, little Binbin; and we'll
have a look at the young lady," she decided.
Yet I was none too happy at my success. Those familiar old friends of
mine--motives--began worrying me. Would the change be really good for
Fanny? Would it--and I had better confess that this troubled me the
most--would it be really good for me? I wanted to help her; I wanted
also to show her off. And what a joy it would be if she should change
into the Fanny of my dreams. On the other hand, supposing she didn't On
the whole, I rather dreaded the thought of her appearance at No. 2.
Susan followed me into my room. "Who _is_ this Miss Bowater?" she
inquired, "besides, I mean, being your landlady's daughter, and that
kind of thing?"
But my further little confidences failed to satisfy her.
"But why is she so _not_ an angel, then? Clever and lovely--it's a
rather unusual combination, you know. And yet"--she reflectively smiled
at me, all candour and gentleness--"well not unique."
I ran away as fast as ever I could with so endearing a compliment--and
tossed it back again over my shoulder: "You don't mean, Susan, that
_you_ are not clever?"
"I do, my dear; indeed I do. I am so stupid that unless things are as
plain and open as the nose on my face, I feel like suffocating. I'm
dreadfully out of the fashion--a horrible discredit to my sex. As for
Miss Bowater, I was merely being odious, that was all. To be quite
honest and hateful--I didn't like the sound of her. And Aunt Alice is so
easily carried away by any new scent. If a thing's a novelty, or just
good to look at, or what they call a work of art--why, the hunt's up.
There wouldn't have been any use for the Serpent in _her_ Eden. Mere
things, of course, don't matter much: except that they rather lumber up
one's rooms; and I prefer not to live in a museum. It's when it comes to
persons. Still, it isn't as if Miss Bowater was coming here."
I remained silent, thinking this speech over. Had it, I speculated,
"come to" being a "person" in my own case?
"Did you meet any other interesting people there?" Miss Monnerie went
on, as if casually, turning off and on the while the little cluster of
coloured electric globes that was on my table. "I mean besides Miss
Bowater and that poor, dreadful--you know?"
"No," I said bluntly, "not many."
"You don't mind my asking these questions? And just in exchange, you
solemn thing, I'll tell _you_ a secret. It will be like shutting it up
in the delightfullest, delicatest little rosebud of a box!" In that
instant's pause, it was as if a dream had passed swiftly, entrancingly,
across the grave, smiling face.
"Look!" she said, stooping low, and laying her slim left hand, palm
downwards, across my table. I did look; and the first thing I noticed
was how like herself that hand was, and how much less vigorous and
formidable than Fanny's. And then I caught her meaning.
"Oh, Susan," I cried in a woeful voice, gazing at the smouldering stones
ringing that long slim third finger, "wherever I turn, I hear that."
"Hear what?"
"Why, of love, I mean."
"But why, why?" the narrow brows lifted in faint distress, "I am going
to be ever so happy."
"Ah, yes, I know, I know. But why can't you be happy alone?"
She looked at me, and a faint red dusked the delicate cheek. "Not _so_
happy. Not _me_, I mean."
"You do love him, then?" the words jerked out.
"Why, you strange thing, how curiously you speak to me. Of course I love
him. I am going to marry him."
"But how do you know?" I persisted. "Does it mean more to
you--well--than the secret of everything? I mean, what comes when one is
almost nothing? Does it make you more yourself? or just break you in
two? or melt you away?--oh, like a mist that is gone, and to every petal
and blade of grass its drop of burning water?"
A shade of dismay, almost of fear--the look a timid animal gives when
startled--stole into her eyes. "You ask such odd questions! How can I
answer them? I know this--I would rather die than _not_. Is that what
you mean?"
"Oh," my voice fainted away--disappointment, darkness, ennui; "only
that!"
"But what do you mean? What are you saying? Have you been told all this?
It disturbs me; your face is like----"
"Yes! what is it like?" I cried in distress, myself sinking back into
myself, as if hiding in a lair.
"I can't say," she faltered. "I didn't know...."
We talked on. But though I tried to blur over and withdraw what I had
said, she remained dissatisfied. A thin edge of formality had for the
moment pushed in between us.
That night I addressed a belated letter to Wanderslore, reproaching Mr
Anon for not writing to me, telling him of Mrs Bowater's voyage, and
begging him to assure the garden-house and the fading summer flowers
that they had not been deserted in my dreams.
At a quarter to twelve one morning, soon after this, I was sitting with
Mrs Monnerie on a stool beneath Chakka's cage, and Susan was just about
to leave us--was actually smoothing on the thumb of her glove; when
Marvell announced that a Miss Bowater had called. I turned cold all over
and held my breath.
"Ah," whispered Mrs Monnerie, "your future Mrs Rochester, my pet."
Every thought scuttled out of my head; my needle jerked and pricked my
thumb. I gazed at the door. Never had I seen anything so untransparent.
Then it opened; and--there was Fanny. She was in dark gray--a gown I had
never seen before. A tight little hat was set demurely on her hair. In
that first moment, she had not noticed me, and I could steal a long,
steady look at the still, light, vigilant eyes, drinking in at one
steady draught their new surroundings. Her features wore the thinnest,
unfamiliar mask, like a flower seen in an artificial light. What wonder
I had loved her. My hands went numb, and a sudden fatigue came over me.
Then her quiet, travelling glance descended and hovered in secret
colloquy with mine. She dropped me a little smiling, formal nod,
moistened her lips, and composed herself for Mrs Monnerie. And it was
then I became conscious that Susan had quietly slipped out of the room.
It was a peculiar experience to listen to the catechism that followed.
From the absorption of her attitude, the large, sidelong head, the
motionless hands, it was clear that Mrs Monnerie found a good deal to
interest her in the dark, attentive figure that stood before her. If
Fanny had been Joan of Arc, she could not have had a more single-minded
reception. Yet I was enjoying a duel: a duel not of wits, but of
intuitions, between the sagacious, sardonic, watchful old lady, soaked
in knowledge of humanity but, as far as I could discover, with
extraordinarily small respect for it, and--Fanny. And it seemed to me
that Fanny easily held her own; just by being herself, without revealing
herself. Face, figure, voice; that was all. I could not take my eyes
away. If only, I thought, my own ghost would keep as quiet and hidden as
that in the presence of others.
Perhaps I exaggerate. Love, living or dying, even if it is not blind,
cannot, I suppose, focus objects very precisely. It sees only itself or
disillusionment. Whether or not, the duel was interrupted. In the full
light of the window, Fanny turned softly at the opening of the door.
Marvell was announcing another caller. At his name my heart leapt up
like William Wordsworth's at the rainbow. It was Sir Walter Pollacke.
"This is _your_ visitor, Poppet," Mrs Monnerie waggishly assured me,
"you shall have half an hour's _tete-a-tete_."