"Dear, if you knew what tears they shed,
Who live apart from home and friend,
To pass my house, by pity led,
Your steps would tend."
He makes the acquaintance of the latter very shortly. But requires
no spoon to sup with her, as Miss Majendie's invitations to supper,
or indeed to luncheon, breakfast or dinner, are so few and rare that
it might be rash for a hungry man to count on them.
The professor, who has felt it to be his duty to call on his ward
regularly every week, has learned to know and (I regret to say) to
loathe that estimable spinster christened Jane Majendie.
After every visit to her house he has sworn to himself that _"this
one"_ shall be his last, and every Wednesday following he has gone
again. Indeed, to-day being Wednesday in the heart of June, he may
be seen sitting bolt upright in a hansom on his way to the unlovely
house that holds Miss Majendie.
As he enters the dismal drawing-room, where he finds Miss Majendie
and her niece, it becomes plain, even to his inexperienced brain,
that there has just been a row on, somewhere.
Perpetua is sitting on a distant lounge, her small vivacious face
one thunder-cloud. Miss Majendie, sitting on the hardest chair this
hideous room contains, is smiling. A terrible sign. The professor
pales before it.
"I am glad to see you, Mr. Curzon," says Miss Majendie, rising and
extending a bony hand. "As Perpetua's guardian, you may perhaps have
some influence over her. I say 'perhaps' advisedly, as I scarcely
dare to hope _anyone_ could influence a mind so distorted as hers."
"What is it?" asks the professor nervously--of Perpetua, not of Miss
Majendie.
"I'm dull," says Perpetua sullenly.
The professor glances keenly at the girl's downcast face, and then
at Miss Majendie. The latter glance is a question.
"You hear her," says Miss Majendie coldly--she draws her shawl round
her meagre shoulders, and a breath through her lean nostrils that
may be heard. "Perhaps _you_ may be able to discover her meaning."
"What is it?" asks the professor, turning to the girl, his tone
anxious, uncertain. Young women with "wrongs" are unknown to him, as
are all other sorts of young women for the matter of that. And
_this_ particular young woman looks a little unsafe at the present
moment.
"I have told you! I am tired of this life. I am dull--stupid. I want
to go out." Her lovely eyes are flashing, her face is white--her
lips trembling. _"Take_ me out," says she suddenly.
"Perpetua!" exclaims Miss Majendie. "How unmaidenly! How immodest!"
Perpetua looks at her with large, surprised eyes.
"Why," says she.
"I really think," interrupts the professor hurriedly, who see
breakers ahead, "if I were to take Perpetua for a walk--a
drive--to--er--to some place or other--it might destroy this _ennui_
of which she complains. If you will allow her to come out with me
for an hour or so, I----"
"If you are waiting for _my_ sanction, Mr. Curzon, to that
extraordinary proposal, you will wait some time," says Miss Majendie
slowly, frigidly. She draws the shawl still closer, and sniffs
again.
"But----"
"There is no 'But,' sir. The subject doesn't admit of argument. In
my young days, and I should think"--scrutinising him exhaustively
through her glasses--_"in yours_, it was not customary for a young
_gentlewoman _to go out walking, alone, with _'a man'!!"_ If she
had said with a famished tiger, she couldn't have thrown more horror
into her tone.
The professor had shrunk a little from that classing of her age with
his, but has now found matter for hope in it.
"Still--my age--as you suggest--so far exceeds Perpetua's--I am
indeed so much older than she is, that I might be allowed to escort
her wherever it may please her to go."
"The _real_ age of a man nowadays, sir, is a thing impossible to
know," says Miss Majendie. "You wear glasses--a capital disguise! I
mean nothing offensive--_so far_--sir, but it behoves me to be
careful, and behind those glasses, who can tell what demon lurks?
Nay! No offence! An _innocent_ man would _feel_ no offence!"
"Really, Miss Majendie!" begins the poor professor, who is as red as
though he were the guiltiest soul alive.
"Let me proceed, sir. We were talking of the ages of men."
_"We?"_
"Certainly! It was you who suggested the idea that, being so much
older than my niece, Miss Wynter, you could therefore escort her
here and there--in fact _everywhere_--in fact"--with awful
meaning--_"any_ where!"
"I assure you, madam," begins the professor, springing to his
feet--Perpetua puts out a white hand.
"Ah! let her talk," says she. _"Then_ you will understand."
"But men's ages, sir, are a snare and a delusion!" continues Miss
Majendie, who has now mounted her hobby, and will ride it to the
death. "Who can tell the age of any man in this degenerate age? We
look at their faces, and say _he_ must be so and so, and _he_ a few
years younger, but looks are vain, they tell us nothing. Some look
old, because they _are_ old, some look old--through _vice!"_
The professor makes an impatient gesture. But Miss Majendie is equal
to most things.
"'Who excuses himself _accuses_ himself,'" quotes she with
terrible readiness. "Why that gesture, Mr. Curzon? I made no mention
of _your_ name. And indeed, I trust your age would place you outside
of any such suspicion, still, I am bound to be careful where my
niece's interests are concerned. You, as her guardian if a
_faithful_ guardian" (with open doubt as to this, expressed in eye
and pointed finger), "should be the first to applaud my caution."
"You take an extreme view," begins the professor, a little feebly,
perhaps. That eye and that pointed finger have cowed him.
"One's views _have_ to be extreme in these days if one would
continue in the paths of virtue," said Miss Majendie. _"Your_
views," with a piercing and condemnatory glance, "are evidently
_not_ extreme. One word for all, Mr. Curzon, and this argument is at
an end. I shall not permit my niece, with my permission, to walk
with you or any other man whilst under my protection."
"I daresay you are right--no doubt--no doubt" mumbles the professor,
incoherently, now thoroughly frightened and demoralized. Good
heavens! What an awful old woman! And to think that this poor child
is under her care. He happens at this moment to look at the poor
child, and the scorn _for him_ that gleams in her large eyes
perfects his rout. To say that she was _right!_
"If Perpetua wishes to go for a walk," says Miss Majendie, breaking
through a mist of angry feeling that is only half on the surface, "I
am here to accompany her."
"I don't want to go for a walk--with you," says Perpetua, rudely it
must be confessed, though her tone is low and studiously reserved.
"I don't want to go for a walk _at all."_ She pauses, and her voice
chokes a little, and then suddenly she breaks into a small passion
of vehemence. "I want to go somewhere, to _see_ something," she
cries, gazing imploringly at Curzon.
"To _see_ something!" says her aunt, "why it was only last Sunday I
took you to Westminster Abbey, where you saw the grandest edifice in
all the world."
"Most interesting place," says the professor, _sotto voce,_ with a
wild but mad hope of smoothing matters down for Perpetua's sake.
If it _was_ for Perpetua's sake, she proves herself singularly
ungrateful. She turns upon him a small vivid face, alight with
indignation.
"You support her," cries she. _"You!_ Well, I shall tell you!
I"--defiantly--"I don't want to go to churches at all. I want to go
to _theatres!_ There!"
There is an awful silence. Miss Marjorie's face is a picture! If the
girl had said she wanted to go to the devil instead of to the
theatre, she could hardly have looked more horrified. She takes a
step forward, closer to Perpetua.
"Go to your room! And pray--_pray_ for a purer mind!" says she.
"This is hereditary, all this! Only prayer can cast it out. And
remember, this is the last word upon this subject. As long as you
are under _my_ roof you shall never go to a sinful place of
amusement. I forbid you ever to speak of theatres again."
"I shall not be forbidden!" says Perpetua. She confronts her aunt with
flaming eyes and crimson cheeks. "I _do_ want to go to the theatre,
and to balls, and dances, and _everything_. I"--passionately, and
with a most cruel, despairing longing in her young voice, "want to
dance, to laugh, to sing, to amuse myself--to be the gayest thing in
all the world!"
She stops as if exhausted, surprised perhaps at her own daring, and
there is silence for a moment, a _little_ moment, and then Miss
Majendie looks at her.
"'The gayest thing in all the world!' _and your father only four
months dead!"_ says she, slowly, remorselessly.
All in a moment, as it were, the little crimson angry face grows
white--white as death itself. The professor, shocked beyond words,
stands staring, and marking the sad changes in it. Perpetua is
trembling from head to foot. A frightened look has come into her
beautiful eyes--her breath comes quickly. She is as a thing at
bay--hopeless, horrified. Her lips part as if she would say
something. But no words come. She casts one anguished glance at the
professor, and rushes from the room.
It was but a momentary glimpse into a heart, but it was terrible.
The professor turns upon Miss Majendie in great wrath.
"That was cruel--uncalled for!" says he, a strange feeling in his
heart that he has not time to stop and analyse _then_. "How could
you hurt her so? Poor child! Poor girl! She _loved_ him!"
"Then let her show respect to his memory," says Miss Majendie
vindictively. She is unmoved--undaunted.
"She was not wanting in respect." His tone is hurried. This woman
with the remorseless eye is too much for the gentle professor. "All
she _does_ want is change, amusement. She is young. Youth must
enjoy."
"In moderation--and in proper ways," says Miss Majendie stonily. "In
moderation," she repeats mechanically, almost unconsciously. And
then suddenly her wrath gets the better of her, and she breaks out
in a violent rage. That one should dare to question _her_ actions!
"Who are _you?"_ demands she fiercely, "that you should presume to
dictate right and wrong to _me."_
"I am Miss Wynter's guardian," says the professor, who begins to see
visions--and all the lower regions let loose at once. Could an
original Fury look more horrible than this old woman, with her grey
nodding head, and blind vindictive passion. He hears his voice
faltering, and knows that he is edging towards the door. After all,
what can the bravest man do with an angry old woman, except to get
away from her as quickly as possible? And the professor, through
brave enough in the usual ways, is not brave where women are
concerned.
"Guardian or no guardian, I will thank you to remember you are in
_my_ house!" cries Miss Majendie, in a shrill tone that runs through
the professor's head.
"Certainly. Certainly," says he, confusedly, and then he slips out
of the room, and having felt the door close behind him, runs
tumultuously down the staircase. For years he has not gone down any
staircase so swiftly. A vague, if unacknowledged, feeling that he is
literally making his escape from a vital danger, is lending wings to
his feet. Before him lies the hall-door, and that way safety lies,
safety from that old gaunt, irate figure upstairs. He is not allowed
to reach it, however--just yet.
A door on the right side of the hall is opened cautiously; a shapely
little head is as cautiously pushed through it, and two anxious red
lips whisper:--
"Mr. Curzon," first, and then, as he turns in answer to the whisper,
"Sh--_Sh!"_