1
THE weeks dragged on; Colonel Ogden might recover, but his illness would
of necessity be a long one, for his heart, already weak, was now
disposed to stop beating on the least provocation.
Joan worked with furious energy. Elizabeth, confident of her pupil,
protested that this cramming was unnecessary, but Joan, stubborn as
always, took her own line. She felt that work was her only refuge, the
only drug that, temporarily at all events, brought relief.
It was now the veriest torture to her to be in her mother's presence, to
be forced to see the tired body going on its daily rounds, to hear the
repeated appeals for sympathy, to see the reproach in the watchful eyes.
But if the days were unendurable, how much worse were the nights, the
nights when she would wake with a sudden start in a cold sweat of
terror. Why was she terrified? She was terrified because she feared that
she did not love her mother, and one night she knew that she was
terrified because, if she could not love her mother, she might grow to
love someone else instead--Elizabeth for instance. The hydra grew
another head that night.
Elizabeth, the ever watchful, became alarmed at her condition. Joan,
haggard and pale, distressed her; she could not get at the bottom of the
thing, for now Joan seemed to avoid her. Yet she felt instinctively that
this avoidance did not ring true; there was something very like dumb
appeal in the girl's eyes as they followed her about. What was it she
wanted? There was something unnatural about Joan these days--when she
talked now, she always seemed to have a motive for what she said, she
seemed to hope for something from Elizabeth, from Milly even; to hang on
their words. Elizabeth got the impression that she was for ever skirting
some subject of which she never came to the point. She felt that
something was being demanded of her, she did not know what.
There were good days sometimes, when Joan would get up in the morning
feeling restored after a peaceful night. Her troubles would seem vague
like a ship on a far horizon. Then the reaction would be exaggerated.
Elizabeth was not reassured by a boisterously happy Joan, and was never
surprised when a few hours would exhaust this blissful condition.
Something, usually a mere trifle, would crop up to suggest the old
Horror. Very quietly, as a rule, Joan's torments would begin, a
thought--flimsy as a bit of thistledown, would light for an instant in
her brain to be quickly brushed aside, but like thistledown it would
alight again and cling. Gradually it would become more concrete; now it
was not thistledown, it was a little stone, very cold and hard, that
pressed and was not so easy to brush aside. And the stone would grow
until it seemed to Joan to become a physical burden, crushing her under
an unendurable load, more horrible than ever now because of those hours
of respite.
Elizabeth coaxed and cajoled; she wanted at all hazards to stop Joan
from working. She let down the barrier of her calm aloofness and showed
a new aspect of herself to her pupil. She entreated, she begged, for it
seemed to her that things were becoming desperate. At last she played
her trump card, she played it suddenly without warning and without tact,
in a way that was characteristic of her in moments of deep feeling. One
day she closed her book, folded her hands and said:
"Joan! If you loved me you couldn't make me unhappy about you as you do.
Joan, don't you love me?"
For answer Joan fled from the room as if pursued by a fiend.
"Do I love her? Do I? Do I?" There it was again--this time for
Elizabeth. Did she love Elizabeth and was that why she did not love her
mother? Here was a new and fruitful source of self-analysis; if she
loved Elizabeth she could not love her mother, for one could not really
love more than one person at a time, at least Joan was sure that she
could not.
2
Alone in the schoolroom Elizabeth clasped her slim hands on her lap; she
sat very upright in her chair. Suddenly she rose to her feet; she knew
what was the matter with her pupil, she had had an illuminating thought
and meant to lose no time in acting upon it. She went upstairs and
knocked softly on the door of Colonel Ogden's bedroom. Mrs. Ogden opened
it; she looked surprised.
"May I speak to you for a moment, Mrs. Ogden?"
Mrs. Ogden glanced at the bed to make certain that this intrusion had
not wakened the sleeping patient, then she closed the door noiselessly
behind her and the two faced each other on the landing. Something in
Elizabeth's eyes startled her.
"Is anything wrong?" she faltered.
"I think we had better talk in the dining-room," was all that Elizabeth
would say.
They went into the dining-room and shut the door; neither of them sat
down.
"It's about Joan," Elizabeth began, "I'm worried about her."
"Why, is anything the matter?"
"I think," said Elizabeth, "that a great deal is going to be the matter
unless something is done very soon."
"You frighten me, Elizabeth; for goodness' sake explain yourself."
"I don't want to frighten you, but I'm beginning to be frightened myself
about Joan; she's been very queer for weeks, she looks terribly ill, and
I think something is preying on her mind."
"Preying on her mind?"
"I think so--she seems unnatural--she isn't like Joan, somehow."
"But, I haven't noticed all this!" Mrs. Ogden's voice was cold. "Are you
sure that you're not over-anxious, Elizabeth?"
"I'm sure I'm right. If you haven't noticed that Joan's ill, it must be
because you have been so worried about Colonel Ogden."
"Really, Elizabeth, I cannot think it possible that I, the child's
mother, should not have noticed what you say, were it true."
"Still, you haven't noticed it," said Elizabeth stubbornly.
"No, I have not noticed it, but I'm glad to have an opportunity of
telling you what I have noticed; and that is that you systematically
encourage the child to overwork."
Elizabeth stiffened. "She does overwork, though I have begged her not
to, but I don't think it's that, entirely."
"Then what do you think it is?"
"Do you really want me to tell you?"
"Certainly--why not?"
"Because, when I do tell you, you'll get angry. Because it is a
presumption on my part, I suppose, to say what I am going to say;
because--oh! because after all I'm only the governess and you are her
mother, but for all that I ought to tell you what I think."
"You bewilder me, Elizabeth, I can't imagine what all this means; I
didn't know, you see, that Joan made you her confidante."
"She doesn't, and possibly that's a pity; I've never encouraged her to
confide in me, and now I'm beginning to wonder whether I haven't been a
fool."
"I think that I, and not you, Elizabeth, would be the person in whom
Joan would confide."
"Yes, of course," said Elizabeth, but her voice lacked conviction.
"Elizabeth! I don't like all this; I should be sorry if we couldn't get
on together; it would, I frankly admit, be a disadvantage for the
children to lose you, but you must understand at once that I cannot,
will not, allow you to usurp my prerogatives."
"I've never done so, knowingly, Mrs. Ogden."
"But you are doing it now. You appear to want to call me to book, at
least your manner suggests it. I cannot understand what it is you are
driving at; I wish you would speak out, I detest veiled hints."
"You don't like me, Mrs. Ogden; if I speak out you will like me even
less----" Elizabeth's mind was working quickly; this might mean losing
Joan--still, she must speak.
She continued: "Well, then, I think it's a mistake to play on the
child's emotions as you do; Joan's not so staid and quiet as she seems.
You may not realize how deeply she feels things, but she feels them
horribly deeply--when you do them. I've watched you together and I know.
You've done it for years, Mrs. Ogden, perhaps unconsciously, I don't
know, but for years Joan has had a constant strain on her emotions. She
loves you in the only way that Joan knows how to love, that is with
every ounce of herself; there aren't any half tones about Joan, she sees
things black or white but never grey, and I think, I feel, that she
loves you too much. Oh, I know that what I'm saying must seem
inexcusable, perhaps even ridiculous, but that's just it: I think Joan
loves you too much. I think that underneath her quiet outside there is
something very big and rather dangerous; an almost abnormally developed
capacity for affection, and I think that it is this on which you play
without cease, day in and day out. I feel as if you were always poking
the fire, feeding it, blowing it until it's red hot, and I can't think
it's right, Mrs. Ogden, that's all; I think it will be Joan's ruin."
"_Elizabeth!_"
"Wait, I _must_ speak. Joan is brilliant, you know that she's brilliant,
and that she ought to do something with her life. You must surely feel
that she can't stay here in Seabourne for ever? She must--oh! if I could
only find the right words--she must fulfil herself in some way--either
marriage or work, at all events some interest outside of and beyond you.
She's consuming herself even now, and what will she do later on? Yet,
how can she come to fruition if she's drained dry before she begins to
live at all? I don't know how I dare to speak to you like this, but I
want your help. Joan is such splendid material; don't let her worry
about you as she does, don't let her see that you are not a happy woman,
don't let her _spend_ herself on you!"
She paused, her knees shook a little, she felt that in another moment
she would begin to cry, and emotions with her came hard.
Mrs. Ogden blanched. So it had come at last! This was what she had
always known would happen; Elizabeth had dared to criticize her handling
of Joan. She felt a blind rage towards her, a sudden longing to strike
her. The barriers went down with a crash, primitive invectives sprang to
her lips and she barely checked them in time. She choked.
"You dare to say this, Elizabeth?"
"I love Joan."
"_What!_"
"I love Joan, and I must save her, Mrs. Ogden."
"_You_? How dare you suggest that the child is more to you than she is
to me; do you realize what Joan means to me?"
"Yes, it's because I do realize it----"
"Then be silent."
"I dare not."
Mrs. Ogden stamped her foot. "You _shall_ be silent. And understand,
please, that you will leave us when your notice expires; but in the
meantime you will not interfere again between Joan and me, I will not
tolerate it! I refuse to tolerate it!" She burst into a violent fit of
weeping.
Elizabeth grew calm at the sight of her tears. "I am going to ask you to
reconsider your decision to dismiss me," she said. "I want to go on
teaching Joan, I shall not accept my notice to leave unless you give it
me again, which I hope for my sake you will not do; what I have said, I
have said from a conviction that it was my duty to speak plainly." Then
she played skilfully in self-defence. "You see, Joan simply adores you."
Mrs. Ogden sobbed more quietly and became attentive. Elizabeth pressed
her advantage home; she could not endure to lose Joan, and she didn't
intend to lose her.
"Can't you see that Joan's love for you is no ordinary thing, that it's
the biggest thing about her, that it is her, and that's why everything
you do or say, however unintentional, plays on her feelings to an
abnormal extent?"
Mrs. Ogden drew herself up. "I hope," she said stiffly, "that I'm quite
capable of judging the depth of my child's affection. But I shall have
to think over your request to remain with us, Elizabeth. I hardly
think----" she paused.
"I am anxious to stay," said Elizabeth simply.
"Whether you stay or go, I consider that you owe me an apology."
"I'll give it very gladly, for a great deal that I've said must have
seemed to you unwarrantable," Elizabeth replied.
Mrs. Ogden was silent. She longed to tell Elizabeth to go now at once,
but her rage was subsiding. Colonel Ogden was still ill and governesses
were not to be found easily or cheaply in Seabourne, at least not with
Elizabeth's qualifications. There were many things to consider, so many
that they rushed in upon her, submerging her mind in a tide of
difficulties--perhaps, after all, she would accept the apology for the
moment, and bide her time, but forgive Elizabeth? _Never_!
Elizabeth left the room. "She won't dismiss me," she thought, "I'm
cheap, and she won't find anyone else to take my post at my salary; but
I shall have to be more careful in future, it won't do to play with
cards on the table. I behaved like an impetuous fool this afternoon.
What is it about Joan that makes a fool of one? I shall stop on here
until Joan breaks free--I must help her to break free when the time
comes."
3
That night when the doctor called to see the colonel, Mrs. Ogden asked
him to examine Joan.
"My governess is rather inclined to overwork the child," she told him,
"but I don't think you will find much wrong with her."
Joan, dutifully stripping to the waist, was sounded and pronounced by
the doctor to be in practically normal health. Too thin and a little
anæmic, perhaps, and the heart action just a little nervous, but Mrs.
Ogden was assured that she had no grounds for anxiety. The doctor
advised less study and more open air; he patted Joan's shoulder and
remarked comfortingly that he only wished all his patients were such
healthy specimens. Then he gave her a mild nerve tonic, told her to eat
well and go to bed early, shook hands cordially with Mrs. Ogden and
departed.