JANET had no very strong curiosity about Dolff. What she had heard of him had not been calculated to rouse her interest, and still less the photographs about the house in which Dolff appeared in every phase of boyhood and early manhood: for he was still very young, only two and-twenty, and consequently a mere boy to Janet, who was closely approaching her twentieth birthday. She had no interest in young boys. Manhood, in Janet’s estimation, did not begin till twenty-five at earliest, and before that period the male youth, who could not in any way be taken seriously, was always more or less objectionable, she lingered a little in the hall, and then she said to herself that it would be better to go upstairs at once, and not disturb the family reunion. Sounds of a loudish voice, bass and rough, an altogether new tone in this feminine house, and of a laugh still louder, came from the dining-room, when Julia rushed in. Priscilla, when she came out, had a demure smile upon her face. There was a little air of excitement about the house, a portmanteau still standing in a corner of the hall, greatcoats and railway-rugs, and railway-novels thrown about.
“I don’t think I shall go in to-night,” Janet said to the parlor-maid. “Mrs. Harwood must want to have her son to herself. Will you send me up some little thing by Jane, and I shall not come down again to-night.”
“Oh, miss,” said Priscilla, “I hope you will go in. Mr. Dolff is a most affable young gentleman, he wouldn’t wish to keep anybody away.”
“Please do as I say,” said Janet, running upstairs.
It may be supposed that the description of Dolff as an affable young gentleman who would not mind the governess’s appearance did not mend matters. When she went in with her candle into her room to take off her hat and the large shawl which she had wrapped round her over her evening dress, Janet could not help seeing a piquante little face, which glanced at her carelessly from the dark depths of the glass. Her black dress was a little open at the throat, and amid all the surrounding dark her throat was of a dazzling whiteness, and her eyes shone with the excitement of the evening, and many thoughts that were careering through her mind. Janet did not stop to admire herself, but the glance made her realize more deeply the contrast of her circumstances with those of Gussy, who would come in presently accompanied by Charley Meredith and receive all the applause.
“Though she would never have done it but for me,” Janet said to herself.
She had much wanted to see them after they came home, to watch how they looked at each other, and whether they would take any notice of the good effect of her teaching. And, therefore, it was with a little sigh that she sat down at the school-room fire, and contented herself with the solitude which was her legitimate surrounding, and in which she was far more safe from any snubs or disappointments than elsewhere.
She was prepared not to like Dolff. Even Mr. Meredith’s malicious prophecy of what “would happen” had increased her prejudice against the son of the house. Janet had not that admiration of an Oxford man which is common among young ladies. He was of the least agreeable kind which that refined university produces, she judged by the sound of his voice; and to have him hanging about “paying attention” to the governess, for something to occupy the spare time that would hang heavily on his hands, was an anticipation that made Janet furious. When Julia came up, full of excitement and news of her brother, Janet was so deeply occupied with the book she was reading as to pay scarcely any attention.
“Why didn’t you come in,” said the girl. “Dolff wanted to see you much more than me. He has heard so much about you. He was so disappointed. He wanted me to go up and bring you down.”
“How good that was of Mr. Harwood; but I can’t be brought down to be shown like a new cat,” said Janet, glancing over the top of her book.
“Oh, Janet, how unkind!” said Julia; “Dolff is not a boy like that. He may not be quite serious, nor work as he ought, but he always was a nice boy. And Gussy came back all in a glow. They had been praising her so. But mamma said you ought to get at least half the credit, and so Charley Meredith thinks too.”
“Oh!” said Janet, coldly.
She relapsed into her book, which she declared to herself was far more interesting than all the Harwoods put together. What a thing it is to have a book to retire into when you are a little out of humor with your surroundings—a book full of romantic conditions in which you can compare how you would yourself have behaved with the manner in which the heroine behaved! Janet sat up till midnight reading, till the fire went out, and all was silent in the house. Her candles, too, were nearly exhausted before she perceived and started up in dismay to find one flickering in the socket, and to feel that the room was very chilly and the silence very eerie. It suddenly came into her mind how terrible it would be if at that moment, in the dead of night, the cry should come again which had scared her so twice before. When an idea of this kind gets into one’s mind at such an inappropriate moment it is very difficult to shake it off. Janet hurried into her room to prepare for bed, to get rid of the alarming suggestion. Her room was next door to the school-room, and she stole out very quietly, not to disturb the dead silence. But when she came out upon the corridor with her little remnant of candle, she was startled to find that the house was not so dead asleep as she believed it to be. A light was visible downstairs in the hall, and a stealthy sound as of some one moving about.
Janet looked over the bannisters with her heart beating, instantly asking herself what she should do if it turned out to be burglars robbing the house. It was, however, something quite different. It was the respectable man-servant whom she had already seen at long intervals, whose presence nobody explained, and whom Julia, the only one of the family who had ever referred to him, called Vicars. He was going across the hall towards the part of the house which was called the wing, carrying a large tray. The candle which was on the tray shed its light upon sundry articles of food and a bottle or two of wine, which he was carrying very carefully, steadying as much as he could the little jar and tinkle of the dishes. Janet looked down in great consternation at this unexpected scene. He went straight across the hall to a door which Janet had been told was done away with—the door that led to some rooms which were never used—but which opened to Vicars at a touch, closing again upon him and his trayful of food and his twinkling candle.
Janet watched him disappear with a chill of horror. What did it mean? Was he a thief who kept his spoils there? Was he some secret enemy hanging about the house pillaging it in the dead of night? And what, oh, what ought she to do? Should she rush into Mrs. Harwood’s room and rouse her, or, at least, her maid? Should she communicate at once the fact that there was a thief in the house? The thing that Janet did eventually was to retire hastily into her room and lock the door. While the bit of candle lasted she made a hurried investigation, feeling it quite possible that some accomplice might be lurking under her own bed or behind her dresses in the wardrobe. And then she jumped hastily into bed, and covered herself over, so that at least, whatever dreadful thing might happen, she should not see.
But nothing happened, dreadful or otherwise, and Janet awoke in the morning in her usual spirits, not remembering at first that anything had ailed her on the previous night. She only came by degrees to recollect the last incident at the end of the others which occurred to her one by one as she opened her eyes upon the foggy, wintry December morning. First of all, the concert, Gussy’s singing, and the applause, which she felt was due to herself half as much at least as to the singer, and then the return home, Dolff’s arrival, her own withdrawal upstairs, and then——
She sat suddenly bolt upright in her bed, with something of the shock of the previous night, and made up her mind that she would tell Mrs. Harwood, that it was her duty to prevent the house from being robbed; and, in the force of this idea, jumped out of bed and got through her morning preparations hastily, that no time might be lost. But before Janet saw Mrs. Harwood the impression once more had been effaced. She forgot in the morning aspect of the house that anything could happen in it that was not commonplace and ordinary. Gussy, who was the housekeeper, and must know everything, had her keys in their little basket on the table before her, and Janet felt that to suggest any trickery in the house would be to offend that perfectly competent domestic ruler; and after all, what had the governess to do with it? So once more she held her peace.
The breakfast-table was, as usual, surrounded by the three active members of the household—Miss Harwood, Julia, and the governess. The new-comer did not appear.
“My brother is always late, especially at first when he comes home,” said Gussy. “I don’t suppose they get up very early at Oxford; but he behaves as if they did, as if he had to take a long rest when he gets beyond the reach of lectures. Young men are all lazy in the morning. They sit up half the night and waste their health. They never can stand the fatigue that women do.”
“Dolff is always at his football and things—he is very strong; he is as strong as all of us put together,” said Julia.
“Oh, yes, in that way,” said Gussy. “I hope you liked the concert, Janet. It went off very well, don’t you think, on the whole?”
“Your duet went off very well. You sang delightfully. I was so pleased, so happy.”
A little flush came over Gussy’s face.
“It is very nice of you to say so. I saw you looking at me, and it kept me up, for you looked as if you were pleased. It was once suggested to ask you to come and play, but I thought it would only make a fuss, and that you would not like it. A fuss is what I cannot bear.”
“Oh! I should not have minded,” said Janet; “but,” she added, generously, “it did not matter; it went very well as it was.”
It was once suggested! Janet retired with her pupil to their lessons with this little revelation in her mind. It continued in hers that sense of being in the confidence of Mr. Charles Meredith, and knowing more about him than Gussy did, to whom he was paying his court in all the forms, which was half-agreeable and half-humiliating to the governess. She would have no more of it, she said to herself. He ought to ask Gussy to marry him, and be done with it. He ought not to give those side glances, those unspoken avowals, to any one. It had been “fun” that first time to think that he had upset all the arrangements, and disregarded everybody’s convenience, and deceived his friends with smiling assurance for the sake of Janet. It was wrong, but it was amusing, and at twenty a mischievous pleasure in a trick of this sort is not out of date. But Janet felt now that it must not go on. She made up her mind not to go down to the drawing-room in the evening, or, at least, not to be beguiled to the piano, nor to take any part. If the accompaniment was spoiled, if Gussy did not do justice to her voice, if the duets were unsuccessful, what was that to Janet, any more than Vicars with his laden tray going across the hall! She had thought that one of the amusing things in the life of a governess, as she had pictured it to herself, would be this very spectatorship, the glimpses behind the scenes which she could not help having, seeing more of the game than the players did. But now it appeared that there were great inconveniences in the rôle, and Janet made up her mind that she would play it no more.
Her first sight of Dolff was in this wise. When she came in with Julia from their morning walk, blooming with health and fresh air, she found the Harwood family in the hall. Mrs. Harwood, in her chair, looking on with maternal smiles; Gussy on her knees before the opened portmanteau, which had been left there on the previous night; and a young man with his hat on, perched on the back of his head, seated upon the edge of a table, swinging his legs, and directing the process of unpacking. He was evidently in the happy position of one who was monarch of all he surveyed. He had come home to his kingdom: his vassals were ministering to him in various ways. Priscilla, the parlor-maid, was gathering up an armful of books to carry them away. Mrs. Harwood had got some gloves in her hand, which had evidently been given to her to mend. Dolff, with his hat on his head, and the suspicion of a cigar in the air, gave his orders lightly from his throne.
But when the closing of the hall door, done somewhat loudly by Julia, aroused his attention, and he looked up to see a young lady unknown, with a bloom unknown to the house of Harwood on her cheeks, coming in, Dolff started from that presiding seat, or, rather, slid from it, with a movement of consternation, and his hand stole up to his hat, removing it with evident embarrassment and confusion. It is to be supposed that he had no idea at first that this was the governess of whom he had heard much, but only officially under that name. His hat disappeared as if by magic, and he himself would have disappeared too, had that been possible in his abashed and troubled state. He looked at his mother helplessly, falling half behind her for protection. Janet, it may be believed, was not abashed at all.
“Oh, this is Miss Summerhayes,” said Mrs. Harwood. She thought, perhaps, that her son required no introduction in his own house.
“And that’s Dolff,” said Julia, who was more conscious of the claims of the governess.
The young man himself stood and grinned feebly, an image of confusion and shamefacedness. Janet gave him a bow, a bow which was half a curtsey, with a sweep of grandeur in humility, excessive politeness intended to accentuate the informality of the presentation—and, having said her good-morning to Mrs. Harwood, hurried upstairs. That was all so far as she was concerned, but it was far from being all for the unfortunate Dolff.
“Mother,” he said, “why didn’t you tell me she was a swell like that?”
“You silly boy! She is no swell at all; but a nice little girl with, now that I think of it, a well-bred air.”
“Excessively formal—for her situation in the world,” said Gussy.
“Well—I never thought of it before—she has very nice manners; but she has been used to a good deal of attention, and perhaps——”
“You always spoil everybody, mamma. Janet is very nice, but she does not quite know her own place.”
“That’s not the sort of person a fellow expects to see when he’s told there’s a new governess,” said Dolff. “You might have said something not to let me in for it like this. She’ll think me a regular know-nothing, an ignorant cad; everything that’s stupid.”
Gussy looked up from the unpacking of the portmanteau, now nearly finished, with widely-opened eyes.
“What can it possibly matter what Miss Summerhayes thinks of you?” she said.
“Oh,” said Dolff, “I don’t see that! Why, she’s a—— You mayn’t mind, but I do. Let a fellow in for looking as stupid as an owl, and as if he didn’t know what’s what, and then ask him what does it matter! It does matter to me. I say, Ju, why didn’t you tell me she was that sort? I never felt more small in my life.”
“I don’t think there is any occasion for it, Dolff,” said Mrs. Harwood. “Janet’s a very sensible girl; she knows exactly what to expect. She is not one of those that are always taking offence. Besides, I don’t see that any harm has been done. You took off your hat at once. You’re very careless keeping it on and thinking no manners are necessary for your own people, Dolff, that I must say; but so far as concerns Miss Summerhayes——”
“Oh, of course she thinks me a cad, and that’s all about it,” said the young man; “and you don’t care. But, as it happens, I do. What is the good of having people belonging to you, if they can’t keep you straight in a business like that? Oh, put the confounded things where you like,” said the young man, waving the books away which Priscilla held in her arms waiting for directions; “on the floor, or anywhere; I don’t mind anything about your tidiness, but I do mind being shown off as a dashed cad.”
He took up his hat, and looked at it, as if that was the cause of offence, then flung it on his head, and stalked out, careless of the calls that followed him.
“Where are you going, Dolff?” his mother said, with a sudden shade of anxiety on her face.
“Mind that you are not late for lunch,” said Gussy.
Julia put her arm through his, and accompanied him to the garden door.
“Don’t be long; oh, don’t be long,” said Julia. “Come out for a walk in the afternoon, Dolff, with her and me.”
“I don’t suppose she’ll ever speak to me,” said Dolff, shaking his sister off: and he paused to take his pipe from his pocket, and light it before he went forth, while all the ladies looked on through the open hall door. That he should go out with a round hat and a pipe in his mouth was a trial of Gussy’s patience, such as was very difficult to endure; and the knowledge that Dolff, when he disappeared in this way, might not, perhaps, come back till midnight wrung the heart of his mother. The first day, too! He was not very much to look at, nor remarkable in any way, but he was of great importance to them.
“It is a mere pretext to get away to follow his own devices,” said Gussy, as she rose, red and angry, from her knees.
“Oh, Gussy, the first morning!” said Mrs. Harwood. “I wish some one had told him; he is so particular about being well-bred, poor boy.”
“Oh, I have no patience with him,” said Gussy, “it is merely a pretence to get away.”