The interview which took place between Feather and Lord Coombe a few
days later had its own special character.
“A governess will come here tomorrow at eleven o’clock,” he said. “She
is a Mademoiselle Vallé. She is accustomed to the educating of young
children. She will present herself for your approval. Benby has done
all the rest.”
Feather flushed to her fine-spun ash-gold hair.
“What on earth can it matter!” she cried.
“It does not matter to you,” he answered; “it chances—for the time
being—to matter to _me_.”
“Chances!” she flamed forth—it was really a queer little flame of
feeling. “That’s it. You don’t really care! It’s a caprice—just because
you see she is going to be pretty.”
“I’ll own,” he admitted, “that has a great deal to do with it.”
“It has everything to do with it,” she threw out. “If she had a snub
nose and thick legs you wouldn’t care for her at all.”
“I don’t say that I do care for her,” without emotion. “The situation
interests me. Here is an extraordinary little being thrown into the
world. She belongs to nobody. She will have to fight for her own hand.
And she will have to _fight_, by God! With that dewy lure in her eyes
and her curved pomegranate mouth! She will not know, but she will draw
disaster!”
“Then she had better not be taught anything at all,” said Feather. “It
would be an amusing thing to let her grow up without learning to read
or write at all. I know numbers of men who would like the novelty of
it. Girls who know so much are a bore.”
“There are a few minor chances she ought to have,” said Coombe. “A
governess is one. Mademoiselle Vallé will be here at eleven.”
“I can’t see that she promises to be such a beauty,” fretted Feather.
“She’s the kind of good looking child who might grow up into a fat girl
with staring black eyes like a barmaid.”
“Occasionally pretty women do abhor their growing up daughters,”
commented Coombe letting his eyes rest on her interestedly.
“I don’t abhor her,” with pathos touched with venom. “But a big,
lumping girl hanging about ogling and wanting to be ogled when she is
passing through that silly age! And sometimes you speak to me as a man
speaks to his wife when he is tired of her.”
“I beg your pardon,” Coombe said. “You make me feel like a person who
lives over a shop at Knightsbridge, or in bijou mansion off Regent’s
Park.”
But he was deeply aware that, as an outcome of the anomalous position
he occupied, he not infrequently felt exactly this.
That a governess chosen by Coombe—though he would seem not to appear in
the matter—would preside over the new rooms, Feather knew without a
shadow of doubt.
A certain almost silent and always high-bred dominance over her
existence she accepted as the inevitable, even while she fretted
helplessly. Without him, she would be tossed, a broken butterfly, into
the gutter. She knew her London. No one would pick her up unless to
break her into smaller atoms and toss her away again. The freedom he
allowed her after all was wonderful. It was because he disdained
interference.
But there was a line not to be crossed—there must not even be an
attempt at crossing it. Why he cared about that she did not know.
“You must be like Cæsar’s wife,” he said rather grimly, after an
interview in which he had given her a certain unsparing warning.
“And I am nobody’s wife. What did Cæsar’s wife do?” she asked.
“Nothing.” And he told her the story and, when she had heard him tell
it, she understood certain things clearly.
Mademoiselle Vallé was an intelligent, mature Frenchwoman. She
presented herself to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless for inspection and, in ten
minutes, realized that the power to inspect and sum up existed only on
her own side. This pretty woman neither knew what inquiries to make nor
cared for such replies as were given. Being swift to reason and
practical in deduction, Mademoiselle Vallé did not make the blunder of
deciding that this light presence argued that she would be under no
supervision more serious. The excellent Benby, one was made aware,
acted and the excellent Benby, one was made aware, acted under clearly
defined orders. Milord Coombe—among other things the best dressed and
perhaps the least comprehended man in London—was concerned in this,
though on what grounds practical persons could not explain to
themselves. His connection with the narrow house on the right side of
the right street was entirely comprehensible. The lenient felt nothing
blatant or objectionable about it. Mademoiselle Vallé herself was not
disturbed by mere rumour. The education, manner and morals of the
little girl she could account for. These alone were to be her affair,
and she was competent to undertake their superintendence.
Therefore, she sat and listened with respectful intelligence to the
birdlike chatter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. (What a pretty woman! The
silhouette of a _jeune fille!_)
Mrs. Gareth-Lawless felt that, on her part, she had done all that was
required of her.
“I’m afraid she’s rather a dull child, Mademoiselle,” she said in
farewell. “You know children’s ways and you’ll understand what I mean.
She has a trick of staring and saying nothing. I confess I wish she
wasn’t dull.”
“It is impossible, madame, that she should be dull,” said Mademoiselle,
with an agreeably implicating smile. “Oh, but quite impossible! We
shall see.”
Not many days had passed before she had seen much. At the outset, she
recognized the effect of the little girl with the slender legs and feet
and the dozen or so of points which go to make a beauty. The intense
eyes first and the deeps of them. They gave one furiously to think
before making up one’s mind. Then she noted the perfection of the rooms
added to the smartly inconvenient little house. Where had the child
lived before the addition had been built? Thought and actual
architectural genius only could have done this. Light and even as much
sunshine as London will vouchsafe, had been arranged for. Comfort,
convenience, luxury, had been provided. Perfect colour and excellent
texture had evoked actual charm. Its utter unlikeness to the quarters
London usually gives to children, even of the fortunate class, struck
Mademoiselle Vallé at once. Madame Gareth-Lawless had not done this.
Who then, had?
The good Dowson she at once affiliated with. She knew the excellence of
her type as it had revealed itself to her in the best peasant class.
Trustworthy, simple, but of kindly, shrewd good sense and with the
power to observe. Dowson was not a chatterer or given to gossip, but,
as a silent observer, she would know many things and, in time, when
they had become friendly enough to be fully aware that each might trust
the other, gentle and careful talk would end in unconscious revelation
being made by Dowson.
That the little girl was almost singularly attached to her nurse, she
had marked early. There was something unusual in her manifestations of
her feeling. The intense eyes followed the woman often, as if making
sure of her presence and reality. The first day of Mademoiselle’s
residence in the place she saw the little thing suddenly stop playing
with her doll and look at Dowson earnestly for several moments. Then
she left her seat and went to the kind creature’s side.
“I want to _kiss_ you, Dowie,” she said.
“To be sure, my lamb,” answered Dowson, and, laying down her mending,
she gave her a motherly hug. After which Robin went back contentedly to
her play.
The Frenchwoman thought it a pretty bit of childish affectionateness.
But it happened more than once during the day, and at night
Mademoiselle commented upon it.
“She has an affectionate heart, the little one,” she remarked. “Madame,
her mother, is so pretty and full of gaieties and pleasures that I
should not have imagined she had much time for caresses and the
nursery.”
Even by this time Dowson had realized that with Mademoiselle she was
upon safe ground and was in no danger of betraying herself to a gossip.
She quietly laid down her sewing and looked at her companion with grave
eyes.
“Her mother has never kissed her in her life that I am aware of,” she
said.
“Has never—!” Mademoiselle ejaculated. “Never!”
“Just as you see her, she is, Mademoiselle,” Dowson said. “Any sensible
woman would know, when she heard her talk about her child. I found it
all out bit by bit when first I came here. I’m going to talk plain and
have done with it. Her first six years she spent in a sort of dog
kennel on the top floor of this house. No sun, no real fresh air. Two
little holes that were dingy and gloomy enough to dull a child’s
senses. Not a toy or a bit of colour or a picture, but clothes fine
enough for Buckingham Palace children—and enough for six. Fed and
washed and taken out every day to be shown off. And a bad nurse, Miss—a
bad one that kept her quiet by pinching her black and blue.”
“_Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_ That little angel!” cried Mademoiselle, covering
her eyes.
Dowson hastily wiped her own eyes. She had shed many a motherly tear
over the child. It was a relief to her to open her heart to a
sympathizer.
“Black and blue!” she repeated. “And laughing and dancing and all sorts
of fast fun going on in the drawing-rooms.” She put out her hand and
touched Mademoiselle’s arm quite fiercely. “The little thing didn’t
know she _had_ a mother! She didn’t know what the word meant. I found
that out by her innocent talk. She used to call _her_ ‘The Lady
Downstairs’.”
“_Mon Dieu!_” cried the Frenchwoman again. “What a woman!”
“She first heard of mothers from a little boy she met in the Square
Gardens. He was the first child she had been allowed to play with. He
was a nice child and he had a good mother. I only got it bit by bit
when she didn’t know how much she was telling me. He told her about
mothers and he kissed her—for the first time in her life. She didn’t
understand but it warmed her little heart. She’s never forgotten.”
Mademoiselle even started slightly in her chair. Being a clever
Frenchwoman she felt drama and all its subtle accompaniments.
“Is that why——” she began.
“It is,” answered Dowson, stoutly. “A kiss isn’t an ordinary thing to
her. It means something wonderful. She’s got into the way of loving me,
bless her, and every now and then, it’s my opinion, she suddenly
remembers her lonely days when she didn’t know what love was. And it
just wells up in her little heart and she wants to kiss me. She always
says it that way, ‘Dowie, I want to _kiss_ you,’ as if it was something
strange and, so to say, _sacred_. She doesn’t know it means almost
nothing to most people. That’s why I always lay down my work and hug
her close.”
“You have a good heart—a _good_ one!” said Mademoiselle with strong
feeling.
Then she put a question:
“Who was the little boy?”
“He was a relation of—his lordship’s.”
“His lordship’s?” cautiously.
“The Marquis. Lord Coombe.”
There was a few minutes’ silence. Both women were thinking of a number
of things and each was asking herself how much it would be wise to say.
It was Dowson who made her decision first, and this time, as before,
she laid down her work. What she had to convey was the thing which,
above all others, the Frenchwoman must understand if she was to be able
to use her power to its best effect.
“A woman in my place hears enough talk,” was her beginning. “Servants
are given to it. The Servants’ Hall is their theatre. It doesn’t matter
whether tales are true or not, so that they’re spicy. But it’s been my
way to credit just as much as I see and know and to say little about
that. If a woman takes a place in a house, let her go or stay as suits
her best, but don’t let her stay and either complain or gossip. My
business here is Miss Robin, and I’ve found out for myself that there’s
just one person that, in a queer, unfeeling way of his own, has a fancy
for looking after her. I say ‘unfeeling’ because he never shows any
human signs of caring for the child himself. But if there’s a thing
that ought to be done for her and a body can contrive to let him know
it’s needed, it’ll be done. Downstairs’ talk that I’ve seemed to pay no
attention to has let out that it was him that walked quietly upstairs
to the Nursery, where he’d never set foot before, and opened the door
on Andrews pinching the child. She packed her box and left that night.
He inspected the nurseries and, in a few days, an architect was
planning these rooms,—for Miss Robin and for no one else, though there
was others wanted them. It was him that told me to order her books and
playthings—and not let her know it because she hates him. It was him I
told she needed a governess. And he found you.”
Mademoiselle Vallé had listened with profound attention. Here she
spoke.
“You say continually ‘he’ or ‘him’. He is—?”
“Lord Coombe. I’m not saying I’ve seen much of him. Considering—”
Dowson paused—“it’s queer how seldom he comes here. He goes abroad a
good deal. He’s mixed up with the highest and it’s said he’s in favour
because he’s satirical and clever. He’s one that’s gossiped about and
he cares nothing for what’s said. What business of mine is it whether
or not he has all sorts of dens on the Continent where he goes to
racket. He might be a bishop for all I see. And he’s the only creature
in this world of the Almighty’s that remembers that child’s a human
being. Just him—Lord Coombe. There, Mademoiselle,—I’ve said a good
deal.”
More and more interestedly had the Frenchwoman listened and with an
increasing hint of curiosity in her intelligent eyes. She pressed
Dowson’s needle-roughened fingers warmly.
“You have not said too much. It is well that I should know this of this
gentleman. As you say, he is a man who is much discussed. I myself have
heard much of him—but of things connected with another part of his
character. It is true that he is in favour with great personages. It is
because they are aware that he has observed much for many years. He is
light and ironic, but he tells truths which sometimes startle those who
hear them.”
“Jennings tells below stairs that he says things it’s queer for a lord
to say. Jennings is a sharp young snip and likes to pick up things to
repeat. He believes that his lordship’s idea is that there’s a time
coming when the high ones will lose their places and thrones and kings
will be done away with. I wouldn’t like to go that far myself,” said
Dowson, gravely, “but I must say that there’s not that serious respect
paid to Royalty that there was in my young days. My word! When Queen
Victoria was in her prime, with all her young family around her,—their
little Royal Highnesses that were princes in their Highland kilts and
the princesses in their crinolines and hats with drooping ostrich
feathers and broad satin streamers—the people just went wild when she
went to a place to unveil anything!”
“When the Empress Eugenie and the Prince Imperial appeared, it was the
same thing,” said Mademoiselle, a trifle sadly. “One recalls it now as
a dream passed away—the Champs Élysées in the afternoon sunlight—the
imperial carriage and the glittering escort trotting gaily—the
beautiful woman with the always beautiful costumes—her charming
smile—the Emperor, with his waxed moustache and saturnine face! It
meant so much and it went so quickly. One moment,” she made a little
gesture, “and it is gone—forever! An Empire and all the splendour of
it! Two centuries ago it could not have disappeared so quickly. But now
the world is older. It does not need toys so much. A Republic is the
people—and there are more people than kings.”
“It’s things like that his lordship says, according to Jennings,” said
Dowson. “Jennings is never quite sure he’s in earnest. He has a
satirical way—And the company always laugh.”
Mademoiselle had spoken thoughtfully and as if half to her inner self
instead of to Dowson. She added something even more thoughtfully now.
“The same kind of people laughed before the French Revolution,” she
murmured.
“I’m not scholar enough to know much about that—that was a long time
ago, wasn’t it?” Dowson remarked.
“A long time ago,” said Mademoiselle.
Dowson’s reply was quite free from tragic reminiscence.
“Well, I must say, I like a respectable Royal Family myself,” she
observed. “There’s something solid and comfortable about it—besides the
coronations and weddings and procession with all the pictures in the
_Illustrated London News_. Give me a nice, well-behaved Royal Family.”