Little Novels Part 10

THE next day I was on my way to the north. My narrative brightens again--but let us not forget Sir Gervase Damian.

I ask permission to introduce some persons of distinction:--Mrs.

Fosd.y.k.e, of Carsham Hall, widow of General Fosd.y.k.e; also Master Frederick, Miss Ellen, and Miss Eva, the pupils of the new governess; also two ladies and three gentlemen, guests staying in the house.

Discreet and dignified; handsome and well-bred--such was my impression of Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e, while she harangued me on the subject of her children, and communicated her views on education. Having heard the views before from others, I a.s.sumed a listening position, and privately formed my opinion of the schoolroom. It was large, lofty, perfectly furnished for the purpose; it had a big window and a balcony looking out over the garden terrace and the park beyond--a wonderful schoolroom, in my limited experience. One of the two doors which it possessed was left open, and showed me a sweet little bedroom, with amber draperies and maplewood furniture, devoted to myself. Here were wealth and liberality, in the harmonious combination so seldom discovered by the spectator of small means. I controlled my first feeling of bewilderment just in time to answer Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e on the subject of reading and recitation--viewed as minor accomplishments which a good governess might be expected to teach.

"While the organs are young and pliable," the lady remarked, "I regard it as of great importance to practice children in the art of reading aloud, with an agreeable variety of tone and correctness of emphasis.

Trained in this way, they will produce a favorable impression on others, even in ordinary conversation, when they grow up. Poetry, committed to memory and recited, is a valuable means toward this end. May I hope that your studies have enabled you to carry out my views?"

Formal enough in language, but courteous and kind in manner. I relieved Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e from anxiety by informing her that we had a professor of elocution at school. And then I was left to improve my acquaintance with my three pupils.

They were fairly intelligent children; the boy, as usual, being slower than the girls. I did my best--with many a sad remembrance of the far dearer pupils whom I had left--to make them like me and trust me; and I succeeded in winning their confidence. In a week from the time of my arrival at Carsham Hall, we began to understand each other.

The first day in the week was one of our days for reciting poetry, in obedience to the instructions with which I had been favored by Mrs.

Fosd.y.k.e. I had done with the girls, and had just opened (perhaps I ought to say profaned) Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," in the elocutionary interests of Master Freddy. Half of Mark Antony's first glorious speech over Caesar's dead body he had learned by heart; and it was now my duty to teach him, to the best of my small ability, how to speak it. The morning was warm. We had our big window open; the delicious perfume of flowers in the garden beneath filled the room.

I recited the first eight lines, and stopped there feeling that I must not exact too much from the boy at first. "Now, Freddy," I said, "try if you can speak the poetry as I have spoken it."

"Don't do anything of the kind, Freddy," said a voice from the garden; "it's all spoken wrong."

Who was this insolent person? A man unquestionably--and, strange to say, there was something not entirely unfamiliar to me in his voice.

The girls began to giggle. Their brother was more explicit. "Oh," says Freddy, "it's only Mr. Sax."

The one becoming course to pursue was to take no notice of the interruption. "Go on," I said. Freddy recited the lines, like a dear good boy, with as near an imitation of my style of elocution as could be expected from him.

"Poor devil!" cried the voice from the garden, insolently pitying my attentive pupil.

I imposed silence on the girls by a look--and then, without stirring from my chair, expressed my sense of the insolence of Mr. Sax in clear and commanding tones. "I shall be obliged to close the window if this is repeated." Having spoken to that effect, I waited in expectation of an apology. Silence was the only apology. It was enough for me that I had produced the right impression. I went on with my recitation.

"Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest (For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men), Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me--"

"Oh, good heavens, I can't stand _that!_ Why don't you speak the last line properly? Listen to me."

Dignity is a valuable quality, especially in a governess. But there are limits to the most highly trained endurance. I bounced out into the balcony--and there, on the terrace, smoking a cigar, was my lost stranger in the streets of Sandwich!

He recognized me, on his side, the instant I appeared. "Oh, Lord!" he cried in tones of horror, and ran round the corner of the terrace as if my eyes had been mad bulls in close pursuit of him. By this time it is, I fear, useless for me to set myself up as a discreet person in emergencies. Another woman might have controlled herself. I burst into fits of laughter. Freddy and the girls joined me. For the time, it was plainly useless to pursue the business of education. I shut up Shakespeare, and allowed--no, let me tell the truth, encouraged--the children to talk about Mr. Sax.

They only seemed to know what Mr. Sax himself had told them. His father and mother and brothers and sisters had all died in course of time.

He was the sixth and last of the children, and he had been christened "s.e.xtus" in consequence, which is Latin (here Freddy interposed) for sixth. Also christened "Cyril" (here the girls recovered the lead) by his mother's request; "s.e.xtus" being such a hideous name. And which of his Christian names does he use? You wouldn't ask if you knew him!

"s.e.xtus," of course, because it is the ugliest. s.e.xtus Sax? Not the romantic sort of name that one likes, when one is a woman. But I have no right to be particular. My own name (is it possible that I have not mentioned it in these pages yet?) is only Nancy Morris. Do not despise me--and let us return to Mr. Sax.

Is he married? The eldest girl thought not. She had heard mamma say to a lady, "An old German family, my dear, and, in spite of his oddities, an excellent man; but so poor--barely enough to live on--and blurts out the truth, if people ask his opinion, as if he had twenty thousand a year!"

"Your mamma knows him well, of course?" "I should think so, and so do we. He often comes here. They say he's not good company among grown-up people. _We_ think him jolly. He understands dolls, and he's the best back at leap-frog in the whole of England." Thus far we had advanced in the praise of s.e.xtus Sax, when one of the maids came in with a note for me. She smiled mysteriously, and said, "I'm to wait for an answer, miss."

I opened the note, and read these lines:--

"I am so ashamed of myself, I daren't attempt to make my apologies personally. Will you accept my written excuses? Upon my honor, n.o.body told me when I got here yesterday that you were in the house. I heard the recitation, and--can you excuse my stupidity?--I thought it was a stage-struck housemaid amusing herself with the children. May I accompany you when you go out with the young ones for your daily walk?

One word will do. Yes or no. Penitently yours--S. S."

In my position, there was but one possible answer to this. Governesses must not make appointments with strange gentlemen--even when the children are present in the capacity of witnesses. I said, No. Am I claiming too much for my readiness to forgive injuries, when I add that I should have preferred saying Yes?

We had our early dinner, and then got ready to go out walking as usual.

These pages contain a true confession. Let me own that I hoped Mr. Sax would understand my refusal, and ask Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e's leave to accompany us. Lingering a little as we went downstairs, I heard him in the hall--actually speaking to Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e! What was he saying? That darling boy, Freddy, got into a difficulty with one of his boot-laces exactly at the right moment. I could help him, and listen--and be sadly disappointed by the result. Mr. Sax was offended with me.

"You needn't introduce me to the new governess," I heard him say. "We have met on a former occasion, and I produced a disagreeable impression on her. I beg you will not speak of me to Miss Morris."

Before Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e could say a word in reply, Master Freddy changed suddenly from a darling boy to a detestable imp. "I say, Mr. Sax!" he called out, "Miss Morris doesn't mind you a bit--she only laughs at you."

The answer to this was the sudden closing of a door. Mr. Sax had taken refuge from me in one of the ground-floor rooms. I was so mortified, I could almost have cried.

Getting down into the hall, we found Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e with her garden hat on, and one of the two ladies who were staying in the house (the unmarried one) whispering to her at the door of the morning-room. The lady--Miss Melbury--looked at me with a certain appearance of curiosity which I was quite at a loss to understand, and suddenly turned away toward the further end of the hall.

"I will walk with you and the children," Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e said to me.

"Freddy, you can ride your tricycle if you like." She turned to the girls. "My dears, it's cool under the trees. You may take your skipping-ropes."

She had evidently something special to say to me; and she had adopted the necessary measures for keeping the children in front of us, well out of hearing. Freddy led the way on his horse on three wheels; the girls followed, skipping merrily. Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e opened the business by the most embarra.s.sing remark that she could possibly have made under the circ.u.mstances.

"I find that you are acquainted with Mr. Sax," she began; "and I am surprised to hear that you dislike him."

She smiled pleasantly, as if my supposed dislike of Mr. Sax rather amused her. What "the ruling pa.s.sion" may be among men, I cannot presume to consider. My own s.e.x, however, I may claim to understand. The ruling pa.s.sion among women is Conceit. My ridiculous notion of my own consequence was wounded in some way. I a.s.sumed a position of the loftiest indifference.

"Really, ma'am," I said, "I can't undertake to answer for any impression that Mr. Sax may have formed. We met by the merest accident. I know nothing about him."

Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e eyed me slyly, and appeared to be more amused than ever.

"He is a very odd man," she admitted, "but I can tell you there is a fine nature under that strange surface of his. However," she went on, "I am forgetting that he forbids me to talk about him in your presence.

When the opportunity offers, I shall take my own way of teaching you two to understand each other: you will both be grateful to me when I have succeeded. In the meantime, there is a third person who will be sadly disappointed to hear that you know nothing about Mr. Sax."

"May I ask, ma'am, who the person is?"

"Can you keep a secret, Miss Morris? Of course you can! The person is Miss Melbury."

(Miss Melbury was a dark woman. It cannot be because I am a fair woman myself--I hope I am above such narrow prejudices as that--but it is certainly true that I don't admire dark women.)

"She heard Mr. Sax telling me that you particularly disliked him," Mrs.

Fosd.y.k.e proceeded. "And just as you appeared in the hall, she was asking me to find out what your reason was. My own opinion of Mr. Sax, I ought to tell you, doesn't satisfy her; I am his old friend, and I present him of course from my own favorable point of view. Miss Melbury is anxious to be made acquainted with his faults--and she expected you to be a valuable witness against him."

Thus far we had been walking on. We now stopped, as if by common consent, and looked at one another.

In my previous experience of Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e, I had only seen the more constrained and formal side of her character. Without being aware of my own success, I had won the mother's heart in winning the goodwill of her children. Constraint now seized its first opportunity of melting away; the latent sense of humor in the great lady showed itself, while I was inwardly wondering what the nature of Miss Melbury's extraordinary interest in Mr. Sax might be. Easily penetrating my thoughts, she satisfied my curiosity without committing herself to a reply in words.

Her large gray eyes sparkled as they rested on my face, and she hummed the tune of the old French song, _"C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour!"_ There is no disguising it--something in this disclosure made me excessively angry. Was I angry with Miss Melbury? or with Mr. Sax? or with myself? I think it must have been with myself.

Finding that I had nothing to say on my side, Mrs. Fosd.y.k.e looked at her watch, and remembered her domestic duties. To my relief, our interview came to an end.

"I have a dinner-party to-day," she said, "and I have not seen the housekeeper yet. Make yourself beautiful, Miss Morris, and join us in the drawing-room after dinner."

V.