“OH, papa,” cried Joanna Huntley, bursting into Melmar’s study like a whirlwind, “they’re ill-using Desirée! they shut her out at the door among a crowd, and they threw stones at her, and she might have been killed but for Cosmo Livingstone. I’ll no’ stand it! I’ll rather go and take up a school and work for her mysel’.”
“What’s all this?” said Melmar, looking up in amazement from his newspaper; “another freak about this Frenchwoman—what is she to you?”
“She’s my friend,” said Joanna, “I never had a friend before, and I never want to have another. You never saw anybody like her in all your life; Melmar’s no’ good enough for her, if she could get it for her very own—but I think she would come here for me.”
“That would be kind,” said Mr. Huntley, taking a somewhat noisy pinch of snuff; “but if that’s all you have to tell me, it’ll keep. Go away and bother your mother; I’m busy to-day.”
“You know perfectly well that mamma’s no’ up,” said Joanna, “and if she was up, what’s the use of bothering her? Now, papa, I’ll tell you—I often think you’re a very, very ill man—and Patricia says you have a secret, and I know what keeps Oswald year after year away—but I’ll forgive you every thing if you’ll send for Desirée here.”
“You little monkey!” cried Melmar, swinging his arm through the air with a menaced blow. It did not fall on Joanna’s cheek, however, and perhaps was not meant to fall—which was all the better for the peace of the household—though feelings of honor or delicacy were not so transcendentally high in Melmar as to have made a parental chastisement a deadly affront to the young lady, even had it been inflicted. “You little brat!” repeated the incensed papa, growing red in the face, “how dare you come to me with such a speech—how dare you bother me with a couple of fools like Oswald and Patricia?—begone this moment, or I’ll—” “No, you will not, papa,” interrupted Joanna. “Oswald’s no’ a fool—and I’m no’ a monkey nor a brat, nor little either—and if any thing was to happen I would never forsake you, whatever you had done—but I like Desirée better than ever I liked any one—and she knows every thing—and she could teach me better than all the masters and mistresses in Edinburgh—and if you don’t send for her here to be my governess, I may go to school, but I’ll never learn a single thing again!”
Melmar was perfectly accustomed to be bullied by his youngest child; he had no ideal of feminine excellence to be shocked by Joanna’s rudeness, and in general rather enjoyed it, and took a certain pleasure in the disrespectful straightforwardness of the girl, who in reality was the only member of his family who had any love for him. His momentary passion soon evaporated—he laughed and shook his closed hand at her, no longer threateningly.
“If you like to grow up a dunce, Joan,” he said, with a chuckle, “what the deevil matter is’t to me?”
“Oh, yes, but it is, though,” said Joanna. “I know better—you like people to come to Melmar as well as Patricia does—and Patricia never can be very good for any thing. She canna draw, though she pretends—and she canna play, and she canna sing, and I could even dance better myself. It’s aye like lessons to see her and hear her—and nobody cares to come to see mamma—it’s no’ her fault, for she’s always in bed or on the sofa; but if I like to learn—do you hear, papa?—and I would like if Desirée was here—I know what Melmar might be!”
It was rather odd to look at Joanna, with her long, angular, girl’s figure, her red hair, and her bearing which promised nothing so little as the furthest off approach to elegance, and to listen to the confidence and boldness of this self-assertion—even her father laughed—but, perhaps because he was her father, did not fully perceive the grotesque contrast between her appearance and her words; on the contrary, Melmar was considerably impressed with these last, and put faith in them, a great deal more faith than he had ever put in Patricia’s prettiness and gentility, cultivated as these had been in the refined atmosphere of the Clapham school.
“You are a vain little blockhead, Joan,” said Mr. Huntley, “which I scarcely looked for—but it’s in the nature of woman. When Aunt Jean leaves you her fortune, we’ll see what a grand figure you’ll make in the country. A French governess, forsooth! the bairn’s crazy. I’ll get her to teach me.”
“She could teach you a great many things, papa,” said Joanna, with gravity, “so you need not laugh. I’m going to write to her this moment, and say she’s to come here—and you’re to write to Mrs. Payne and tell her what you’ll give, and how she’s to come, and every thing. Desirée is not pleased with Mrs. Payne.”
“What a pity!” said Melmar, laughing; “and possibly, Joan—you ought to consider—Desirée might not be pleased with me.”
“You are kind whiles—when you like, papa,” said Joanna, taking this possibility into serious consideration, and fixing her sharp black eyes upon her father, with half an entreaty, half a defiance.
Somehow this appeal, which he did not expect, was quite a stroke of victory, and silenced Melmar. He laughed once more in his loud and not very mirthful fashion, and the end of the odd colloquy was, that Joanna conquered, and that, to the utter amazement of mother, sister, and Aunt Jean, the approaching advent of a French governess for Joanna became a recognized event in the house. Patricia spent one good long summer afternoon crying over it.
“No one ever thought of getting a governess for me!” sobbed Patricia, through a deluge of spiteful tears.
And Aunt Jean put up her spectacles from her eyes, and listened to the news which Joanna shouted into her ear, and shook her head.
“If she’s a Papist it’s a tempting of Providence,” said Aunt Jean, “and they’re a’ Papists, if they’re no’ infidels. She may be nice enough and bonnie enough, but I canna approve of it, Joan. I never had any broo of foreigners a’ my days. Deseery? fhat ca’ you her name? I like names to be Christian-like, for my part. Did ever ye hear that, or the like o’ that, in the Scriptures? Na, Joan, it’s very far from likely she should please me.”
“Her name is Desirée, and it means desired; it’s like a Bible name for that,” cried Joanna. “My name means nothing at all that ever I heard of—it’s just a copy of a boy’s—and I would not have copied a man if anybody had asked me.”
“What’s that the bairn says?” said Aunt Jean. “I like old-fashioned plain names, for my part, but that’s to be looked for in an old woman; but I can tell you, Joan, I’m never easy in my mind about French folk—and never can tell fha they may turn out to be; and ’deed in this house, it’s no canny; and I never have ony comfort in my mind about your brother Oswald, kenning faur he was.”
“Why is it not canny in this house, Aunt Jean?” asked Joanna.
“Eh, fhat’s that?” said the old woman, who heard perfectly, “fhat’s no canny? just the Pope o’ Rome, Joan, and a’ his devilries; and they’re as fu’ o’ wiles, every ane, as if ilka bairn was bred up a priest. Oh, fie, na! you ma ca’ her desired, if you like, but she’s no’ desired by me.”
“Desired!” cried Patricia; “a little creature of a governess, that is sure always to be scheming and trying to be taken notice of, and making herself as good as we are. It’s just a great shame! it’s nothing else! no one ever thought of a governess for me. But it’s strange how I always get slighted, whatever happens. I don’t think any one in the world cares for me!”
“Fhat’s Patricia greeting about?” said Aunt Jean, “eh, bairns! if I were as young as you I would save up a’ my tears for real troubles. You’ve never kent but good fortune a’ your days, but that’s no’ to say ill fortune can never come. Whisht then, ye silly thing! I can see you, though I canna hear you. Fhat’s she greeting for, Joan? eh! speak louder, I canna hear.”
“Because Desirée is coming,” shouted Joan.
“Aweel, aweel, maybe I’m little better mysel’,” said the old woman. “I’m just a prejudiced auld wife, I like my ain country best—but’s no malice and envie with me; fhat ails Patricia at her for a stranger she doesna ken? She’s keen enough about strangers when they come in her ain way. You’re a wild lassie, Joan, you’re no’ just fhat I would like to see you—but there’s nae malice in you, so far as I ken.”
“Oh, Auntie Jean,” cried Joanna, with enthusiasm, “wait till you see what I shall be when Desirée comes!”