“WELL,” said Janet, when she found herself looking into the blurred and flushed countenance of the passionate girl. Julia had given vent, in spite of herself, to some tears, and had dashed them away with her hand or her sleeve, leaving a smear, and her hair was hanging wildly round her face, and there was a general air of dilapidation and ruin, though accompanied by few actual signs of warfare. She ought to have torn her frock from top to bottom to justify the general aspect of affairs, but she had not done so, and the smeared cheek and the ragged hair were the only physical certainties of the conflict past. There was still a pucker over each eye, but it was not an assured and dauntless pucker. The fortunes of war, for once, had not turned the usual way.
“Well—you have been behaving like a fool, but a fool has no meaning. When one can behave like a fool with a meaning I think there must be some sense at the bottom. If I am right, nothing matters that has happened; but if I am wrong——”
Julia stared with faint comprehension and much impatience. She said—
“Don’t palaver. What do you want with me?”
Now, Janet had expected to exercise a little feminine philosophy upon the girl when she had got her in hand—a little banter, a little seriousness—to make her ashamed of herself in the first place, and then to make her see. She was taken a little aback. If she could not make her ashamed nor make her see, what was to be done? The question grew a great deal more serious thus than when it concerned only a locked door. She ran over the circumstances rapidly in her mind, and she saw it would not do to answer according as it at first occurred to her, that she (Janet) personally wanted nothing at all with Julia, except as little to do with her as might be.
“What I want is simple,” she said, with a smile. “I want to do the work I have been engaged to do, and that is to educate you for as many hours as your mother has fixed for your education. How am I to get that done? for, you may be sure, I mean to do it one way or other. I want to talk it over and discover how it is to be done.”
“I don’t want it to be done at all”
“Neither do I,” said Janet, facing the rebel bravely, and bursting into a laugh. “But if you will reflect,” she said, “that does not get us a bit further on, for it must be done. Unless it is done you will grow up like the tramp woman I was telling you of—not at all an interesting person—and I shall break my word. Now, I don’t like to break my word. You don’t care at present about becoming like a tramp, but you will later on.”
“How dare you say——”
“Julia,” said the little governess, “I dare to say anything I think proper, or to do anything, so you had better make up your mind to that at once. Such questions are silly. I am not afraid of anyone or anything.”
Janet threw back her head, which was smaller—as she was smaller in every part—than that of her tall pupil. There is nothing so fearless in life as a girl who is without fear. It is true that the kind of dauntless courage she possesses is largely made up of ignorance, and also comes a little perhaps from the conventional precautions which defend her, though she does not know it. However, the quality is absolute, and Janet had it. She feared nothing, as she said.
Julia, from under her puckered eyebrows, glared into the clear brown eyes, which had something in them like the sparkle of a Highland stream, and admired the valor which she did not possess: for she was afraid of the coercion which she was always fighting against. She stared, but she said nothing in reply.
“You see,” said Janet, “I will do what I’ve promised: and if I were you I’d say I will too. It’s much nicer than to have to say I must——”
Still Julia stared; her lips moved as if she would have spoken, but she uttered no sound.
“Downstairs,” said Janet, “they expect us to fight. I am afraid you have been so silly that they think you are a fool, and don’t understand anything about what is expected from a gentlewoman. That’s not my opinion, as I told you: but as I shall not give in, whatever you do, it would be very silly to go on fighting forever. We can make something better of it: if you will be convinced that I never shall be afraid of you—no, nor of anyone else,” Janet repeated, with the color mounting in her cheeks.
Julia continued silent for some time; then, with a sudden burst of harsh sound, asked, “What do you want of me?” and was abruptly silent again, as if a spring had been touched to give forth that voice.
“I want you to speak when you are spoken to,” said Janet.
The girl, who evidently expected something of much larger scope, cried “Oh!” but said no more.
“I want you to do as I tell you—for so many hours in the day—from ten to one, is it? That’s not very long. You can be a demon after that, if you please, and dance your war-dance.”
“What do you mean by—dancing my war-dance?”
“Behaving like a fiend, or a Red Indian, or a tramp in the roads: so long as you are in your senses from ten to one.”
Julia stared again, but made no reply.
“But you must remember,” said Janet, “that in the place I come from, where there are no Red Indians, there is a point of honor; and whatever one undertakes to do one does. If you see the sense of what I say, and give me your word, it is once and forever; not promise one day and break it the next. That is a sort of thing I don’t understand. One promises, and it is for life and death. It does not matter what comes in the way. If you were to be killed for it, it would have to be done.”
Julia stared for a few moments more, and then——
“I can see the sense of that,” she said.
“To be sure. I knew you would when you gave yourself time to look at it. Well, then, you can see that to call in other people or other considerations is of no use between you and me. At the last we should always have to talk it over between ourselves. If you like, you can make it quite easy and rather pleasant; if you don’t, I must think of some other way.”
When the hour of luncheon arrived, the respectable household in St. John’s Wood was considerably excited as to the fate of the new governess. Perhaps the servants had not been so completely out of hearing as had appeared. Perhaps some stray notes of the fray had been blown out of the open windows or conveyed through the chinks of the woodwork. At all events, there was a prevailing curiosity in the house, which became apparent almost as soon as the governess and her pupil left the shelter of those rooms in which already so many varied scenes in the life and education of Julia Harwood had taken place. Mrs. Harwood’s maid met them on the stairs, and gave Janet an inquiring look, to which the governess, you may be sure, made no reply. Half-way down they were again met by the parlor-maid, who, looking somewhat “flustered,” announced that Mrs. Harwood was afraid they might not have heard the bell.
“Oh, yes, we can hear the bell perfectly,” said Janet.
She went into the dining-room with Julia so close behind her that they formed one shadow. Mrs. Harwood’s face was turned anxiously towards the door. Gussy, more astute, had her eyes intent upon the mirror, in which everything was reflected. There was a long breath of relief drawn by both, not, perhaps, audible by any uninterested spectator, but affecting the entire atmosphere to Janet’s excited consciousness. She felt as if her triumph must be of more importance than the mere victory over a naughty child, and wondered, with a passing thrill, was there any mystery involved? But in face of the decorous, gentle household, so correct, so punctilious, which had not a fold awry, or a corner neglected in all its careful economy, it was ludicrous to think of any mystery. However, there could be no doubt that her entrance was greeted with extreme pleasure.
“Sit here, my dear Miss Summerhayes,” said the mistress of the house. “This is the warm corner; there is no draught at this side. Well, you have got over your first morning’s work. And how do you like teaching? It’s very tedious, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, not where there is intelligence and brains,” said Janet, with great composure. “Children who cannot keep up their attention are very trying; but not anyone who is old enough to understand. There has not been much teaching, however, this morning, we have been chiefly talking things over. Two strangers forced together without any mutual knowledge, I thought it best that we should understand each other first.”
This statement, which was given with the most natural air in the world, was listened to by all her audience with the most flattering interest, but perfect decorum, the only transgressor of which was the parlor-maid, from whose direction there came one or two faint muffled sounds, whether of painfully suppressed laughter, or of something giving way in the effort of controlling emotion, Janet could not tell. Gussy fixed the culprit with a glittering eye from behind the screen which sheltered her from the blazing fire, and Mrs. Harwood cast a cursory glance behind her. None of these things would have been noticed at all by a stranger who was less prepared than Janet, but she perceived everything in her own suppressed excitement. There was something amusing, however, in the comment made by the strain upon the parlor-maid’s stays.
“That is so sensible,” said Mrs. Harwood, “it is for want of getting to understand each other that so many relationships go wrong. Ju, push your chair back a little, the sun is in your face.”
Julia paid no attention to this command.
“Ju, the sun is in your face, sit nearer this way; your eye-sight will be gone before you are twenty. Child, do you hear me!” Mrs. Harwood cried.
“And her complexion: you will have none at all left, not a tint,” said Gussy, “before you come out.”
Julia did not betray by a movement that she had heard either speak, but put her head forward into a brilliant ray of sunshine which streamed across the table, so as to get the full glow upon her face. She had not much to boast of in the way of complexion. Whether it was the blaze of sunlight and firelight combined to which she loved to expose herself, or whether it was nature, her face thus brought into prominence was sallow and freckled, only relieved by the golden light in her gray eyes.
“The winter sun cannot do much harm,” said Janet, with a friendly impulse. “It makes a pretty picture.”
“Ah,” said Gussy, shaking her head, “you should have seen that child once; she had such a color. We have nothing to brag of in the way of complexion in our family, but I once thought Ju would redeem us in that respect. Alas!” and Miss Harwood shook her head.
“And did you find her very backward, Miss Summerhayes? and is there any special thing you think she is more fit for than others? I always like young people to have some particular turn. Do you remember, Gussy, how we used to try and try with Dolff to get him to say what he would like to be. But he never would take an attitude of his own. ‘Whatever you please, mother,’ he used to say.”
“That was all his goodness, mamma,” said Gussy. “What he wanted was travel and that sort of thing—and he knew you would not like it. We have never travelled much in this family. And then he knew he would not on any great occasion have to work for himself.”
“We never can tell that,” said the old lady. “Land’s gone down, and perhaps the Funds may soon go down. In these dreadful times, you never can know. Ju, take your elbows off the table. You sit like a washer-woman. I never saw such shoulders.”
“The Funds are the country,” said Gussy, “they can’t go down, or England will be ruined. Ju, do you hear what mamma says? Her shoulders are something dreadful. Take your elbows off the table, for goodness’ sake!”
Julia took not the slightest notice of these remarks. She sat with both elbows on the tablecloth, eating bread-and-butter at an elevation of many inches over her neglected plate.
“I have heard,” said Janet, “that the people who are called smart people do that now. It has become the fashion: so Julia is in advance of us instead of being behind, as you think.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Harwood, shaking her head, “bad manners are the fashion, and that is a dreadful thing to say. I remember in my young days—but fortunately we don’t know anything about smart people here.”
Julia’s elbows had disappeared with the rapidity of magic. She would not have it supposed that she meant to be smart or in the fashion whatever anyone might say.