IT was certainly impossible that any communication could take place in words between Janet and Meredith on the evening above recorded. He squeezed her hand significantly indeed, and looked volumes at her from under his eyebrows—but looks, though they may express volumes of tenderness and sentiment, are not much to be relied upon as regards facts, and explanations cannot be given in them nor appointments made. Janet was accordingly more tantalized and excited than satisfied by these glances; and she found that when Meredith drew Gussy as usual to the piano, and the ordinary duet began, it was with feelings considerably changed that she regarded this pair, who the last time they performed together she had watched with a half-comic, satirical sense that the woman was much more deeply moved than the man, and a mischievous half pleasure in perceiving how he played with her.
But now Janet was conscious of other feelings; not all the confidential glances he could bestow upon her could keep her from feeling a keen pang as she watched the two together, the close approach of his head to hers, the caressing gesture with which he would bend over Gussy. She had smiled at all that before with a kittenish amusement, half guilty yet undisturbed by any pain, thinking if Gussy only knew what her lover’s looks said to the looker-on! But now Janet had ceased to be a looker-on. She was one of the players in the drama, the one secretly preferred, to whom all those sweetnesses were due. She felt a silent pang rise in her instead of the amusement. She was very angry, not sorry, for Gussy, the deluded, and angry beyond words with him. How did he dare to do it? What was his motive? If it was she, Janet, whom he loved, what was the use of keeping up this pretence and flattering Gussy with the vain imagination that she was the object of his thoughts?
It was a great change to have been made in a single night, and it altered Janet’s views of many things. She had no longer the feeling of superiority which her spectator position gave her, and from which she had despised Gussy for her easy subjugation and delusion, as well as pitied her. Now Gussy had become her enemy, stealing what belonged to her, since she could talk to him freely, go away with him into the background, where they were comparatively alone, and could say what they pleased to each other.
Thus the evening was full of torture to Janet. She began to pay the penalty. She could not endure Dolff, who came to her perpetually with some little remark or reference, and whom she repulsed with an impatience which took him entirely by surprise; nor Julia, whose retirement from the scene necessitated also the withdrawal of the governess. Julia was very tired after the dissipations of the previous night. She yawned “her head off,” as Dolff eloquently said; her eyes would not keep open.
“You had better go to bed, Ju,” said her mother; “you were up so late last night.”
Julia, after the inevitable resistance which every child, even of fifteen, and however sleepy, offers to that suggestion, rose at last to obey it.
“Are you coming, Janet?” she said; “you must be tired too.”
Janet rose after a struggle with herself. She had the greatest mind to rebel, to break the bondage of custom, to ask whether she might not stay. But what was the use? only to have another look perhaps, or squeeze of the hand, as he went away, more exasperating than consolatory. As she followed Julia out of the room she gave a glance, at the pair and saw that Meredith was stooping over Gussy’s chair, saying something in her ear, at which she, leaning back almost upon his shoulder, smiled with her face half turned towards the door. Was he carrying it so far, false and cruel as he was, as to make a jest at Janet’s expense after all that had happened? Janet felt herself stung to the heart. She ran upstairs with a burning sensation in her breast, as if a knife had gone through her, and flung herself upon her bed in a paroxysm of anger and misery. To make confidences to her on the subject of Gussy was one thing—it made her laugh, though no doubt it was bad of him (yet humorous) to do it, but to make confidences to Gussy about her—this idea fired Janet with anguish and rage beyond words.
It was the custom in the Harwood family, as in many other virtuous houses, that the letters should be placed by the side of the plates at breakfast, each member of the family finding his or her correspondence when he or she appeared—a custom which has its inconveniences if any individual of the family has anything to conceal. It had never occurred to Janet before to receive any letter which had not the Clover postmark, or at least came from some one in that old home; and it was an object of curiosity to Julia to see a litter of letters lying by the governess’s plate.
“Oh, what a lot of letters Janet has to-day,” she said.
Dolff, who sat on Janet’s side of the table, cast an involuntary look at them as he passed. She was herself a little late that morning, not yet downstairs, and it gave the foolish boy pleasure even to read her name. But as he glanced a look of consternation came upon Dolff’s face. He uttered a suppressed exclamation, and looked again, then flushed crimson, an effect which was not so pretty on his boyish bearded face as it is on a girl’s.
“What is the matter, Dolff?”
“What a cad I am! I am looking at Miss Summerhayes’ letters,” he said.
“I daresay,” said Gussy, “you won’t do much harm. She has no letters but from the vicarage and her old friends where she came from.”
Dolff did not say anything more, but he was very watchful till Janet appeared, which she did immediately after, with many apologies. He saw her, too, look at the address on the envelope that was uppermost with a start, and then she put her letters hastily away in her pocket.
“You know we all read our letters, Janet,” said Gussy, “and stand on no ceremony.”
“I know, thanks; but it does not matter. My Clover news will keep: it is much diluted generally, and I am so late this morning. I cannot think what has made me so late.”
Dolff was very silent at that morning meal. He scarcely spoke to anyone. He had none of the remarks to make which he was generally so anxious to expend upon Miss Summerhayes. If anybody had been specially interested in Dolff it would have been seen that he watched every movement Janet made—not as he usually did, but with a suspicious, anxious inspection. But his sisters were indifferent, and Janet herself too much excited to pay any attention to him. She did not know that he had seen her letter. When she saw it, she cast a quick glance at the other side of the table to see if by any chance Julia or Gussy had noted a handwriting which must have been familiar. But they were both entirely unconscious, at their ease; and she never thought of Dolff. It was unlikely that a man should have looked at her letters, but one of the girls might have done it with that more lively curiosity which girls have about little things. Julia might have done it “for fun;” but Janet did not think of Dolff. She was, therefore, quite at ease so far as they were concerned, though the letter burned her pocket, demanding to be read. As soon as she had an excuse to rise from the table she did so, still unaware of the spectator, full of heavy thoughts, who said to himself, “Now she is going to read it. She will not trust herself to read it before any of us.” He did not know that there was any special reason why Meredith should write to Janet. Had it been Julia who had seen it she would have said so, and Janet would doubtless have found an explanation. But Dolff said nothing. A letter in Meredith’s hand—Meredith, who was, or should be, his sister’s pledged and affianced lover—who could have nothing to do with Janet that was not clandestine and guilty. Dolff’s colorless countenance—with its light hair and light mustache, a face which was more foolish than comic, a half-innocent, half-jovial countenance—was stern as that of a judge. What had she to do with Meredith? What did she know of him, save as Gussy’s lover? Was she so far ignorant of honor and virtue that she should allow another woman’s lover to write to her? and what to Janet could Meredith have to say?
It was at once less, and more guilty than Dolff imagined—for it was touching the papers she had sent him that Meredith wrote—but the manner of the writing was not exactly that of a business communication. Meredith wrote as follows:—
“MY DEAREST—
“Do you know you have set me on the right track, as I believe, by your mad scraps of paper? They are mad, but there’s method in them. I am coming to your house to-night, but I shan’t dare, you know, to speak to you. Come to the library, where we have met before, at about four o’clock. You can make an excuse to change books or match worsted or something—any pretext you like, but come. It will be dark, and I can walk with you part of the way home. There is no telling what may come out of those papers of yours—freedom, I think, in the first place, and the power to decide upon my own life. Come, my little Janet, my sweet little girl, at four, to your devoted—C.”
While Janet read this her heart beat and thumped upon her bosom, and took away her breath. He had no right to write to her like that. It was abominable of him, a great liberty—“My dearest!” She was not his dearest, she was only an acquaintance whom he had known about two months. And to bid her come “where they had met before,” as if she had been in the habit of meeting him before—as if it had not been merely an accidental or chance meeting. Janet was very angry, and shed hot and bitter tears. But yet to be called his dearest, though it was false, was somehow sweet. “His little Janet!” She was not his little Janet; he had nothing to do with her. How dared he?—how dared he?
Janet went with scarlet cheeks to the school-room, when she heard Julia moving about there; and with her soul as much disturbed as her face. How difficult it is to attend to verbs and spelling when your heart is rent between two things—the good which you can barely see, and are doubtful of, and which as so painful; and the evil, which has everything to recommend it except that it is evil. Janet tried to put that conflict aside while she attended to Julia’s lessons, thinking all the time how trifling was the one in consideration of the other, what loss of time to worry concerning the way in which she spelt disappointed. It was just as miserable a word if you spelt it one way or the other; diss-apointed does not look so well, but Julia knew no difference. Poor little girl! it is perhaps as vain writing down the tale of Janet’s little troubles, while the narrator perhaps has a heart filled with things that hurt and wound a great deal more. But Julia could not fail to remark those scarlet cheeks.
“Why are you so red?” she said; “you look as if you had been scorching your cheeks, as mamma says I do, reading over the fire.”
“It is nothing,” said Janet; “have you got out all the books?”
“And your eyes look as if you had been crying,” said Julia.
How the lessons were got through it would have been difficult for Janet to tell. As it happened, in the afternoon things arranged themselves for her in the most wonderful way so as to leave her free. Julia went out with Gussy to another tea-party, which was a thing she detested, and an old friend of Mrs. Harwood’s came to call. The old lady liked to be left alone with her visitor when it was an old friend, so that Janet had perfect command of her time. It seemed done on purpose, she thought, by some spirit opposed to good resolutions, for she had thought that she could not, must not go. She would not, it was treachery to her present home, it was undignified on her own part, obeying a call which was really a careless command, which was given as if it would be beyond her power to resist it. She would not go!
But then came the other side of the question. It might, he had said, be very important to him to get the clue, and he had found it. He would wait for her, and be terribly disappointed when she did not come. He might have some other important question to ask her, something in which she could give him real help. The woman who deliberates is lost. After a great deal of self-discussion, Janet put on her hat hastily, as if by stealth, and went out. It was half dark already, though it was not four o’clock. It occurred to her vaguely that it was a happiness she could scarcely have anticipated not to have Dolff on her hands, who was almost always waiting for the opportunity of falling upon her. But she had scarcely seen Dolff all day.
If ever man spent a miserable day it was Dolff upon this occasion, when all his faculties were roused to watch the girl whom he had thought so perfect. Poor boy, his mind was full of the most dolorous conflict. He was angry, jealous, wretched, longing to go down on his knees to ask her what the letter meant, to implore her to tell him that it was all right and there was no harm in it, yet not daring to betray that he knew anything at all, or that he had any suspicions, and all the time declaring to himself that he was a brute to suspect her that could do no wrong. If she was wronging anyone it was not him, to whom she had never given any hearing, but Gussy. And Dolff’s mind waxed fierce at the thought of the other, the man who was Gussy’s lover, yet had dared to write to Janet. Sometimes it gleamed upon him that there might be nothing wrong in Meredith’s letter to Janet, that it might be some question, something of no importance: but it was very hard for him to believe that there was nothing in it, and the desire in Dolff’s heart was to take the fellow by the throat, to knock him down, to kick him, to annihilate him. It was his fault. If Janet was in the wrong, it was he that had beguiled her and led her away.
“Let me but get my hands on the fellow!” Dolff said.
He kept up a very rigorous watch all day, and when in the afternoon he saw Janet steal forth alone, Dolff followed in the growing darkness, determined to see where she went. He kept her in sight along the line of garden walls to the little shop, such an innocent, feminine shop, and his heart was relieved at the sight of it. Surely there could be no harm there!
Dolff thought at first of following her in, his heart swelling with sudden relief. He would go in and ask leave to walk home with her, and forget all his evil thoughts. But as he passed the pretty shop-window, with all its Christmas cards laid out, and paused to look in for the pleasure of seeing her trim little figure with the big boa, looking, as he thought, like no one else he had ever seen before, distinguishable anywhere at any distance, something else struck his eye—a black coat, an uncovered head, a greeting, even the sound of the voices coming to him, recognizable, though he did not hear what they said. It was to arrange a meeting that the letter had come. Dolff’s heart swelled as if it would burst from his breast; the veins in his temple began to beat. The traitor! The false wretch—false to Gussy, false to everybody, disgracing and betraying the house in which he had been received!
Dolff’s passion ran in his veins like wine. He was drunk with the impulse of vengeance that came upon him. If he could but seize the fellow by the throat, dash out his brains against the stones, he thought he would be happy. He could not have spoken; he could scarcely breathe. Poor Gussy betrayed! And this—this little deceiver—— He stopped himself with a gasp in his throat. It could not be her fault—it was the villain’s fault—the intolerable wretch who deserved no mercy. She was his victim, too. Dolff stood with eyes of fire gazing at them through the trumpery little veil of painted papers, the Christmas cards and pictures that were stuck all over the window, taking hold of himself, so to speak, with both hands to keep his fury down. After all, it occurred to him, almost with a sense of disappointment, this might, it was possible, be a chance meeting. He must do nothing rashly. He must not strike till he knew. He stood and watched the conversation; how he smiled and advanced, and Janet looked up shyly with at first reluctant looks, withdrawing a little. No, she was unwilling, she drew back. God bless her! She did not, indeed, look up at all at first, only after a time, when he had flattered and cajoled her, the villain. No, she had not meant it, poor darling, he had been lying in wait for her. It was not she, not she, that was to blame!
Dolff followed every movement with blazing eyes; he pulled up the collar of his coat, and held his hat down over his brows, that they might not by any chance see and recognize him. Now they were coming out together. He turned half away with his shoulder to the pair, but his ears drinking in every sound, and Meredith did not seem afraid of being heard.
“You were a little angel to come,” he said, as he came down the steps. “I half fancied you would take fright.”
It was a settled thing; an arranged meeting. Dolff was almost glad, though with a sense of anguish in his heart. He had his arm thrown out to strike, when with the impulse of rage and jealousy which prefers to feed its flame, to hear a little more of the depravity it means to punish, he restrained himself once more and followed. How it was they did not hear him following almost in their footsteps close behind them he could never tell. They were entirely absorbed in each other. Meredith took that hand which Dolff scarcely dared to touch, and drew it familiarly within his arm.
“It is dark, nobody will see us,” said the well-known voice. “Just for this once.”
What did he mean by his “just for this once,” the shameless villain? If it was for once, should it not be forever? Dolff strode on behind close as their shadow; it was quite dark, and the few lamps in St. John’s Wood gave a very moderate light. They did not see him, they were too much absorbed in each other. But he could no longer make out what they said. Meredith was discoursing upon something which Janet did not seem to understand any more than Dolff did; but when he stooped down over her, holding the hand which was upon his arm in his, and said, “My little Janet,” both Janet and Dolff, with his supernatural hearing, understood very well. Thus they came in their temerity, trusting to the darkness and to the loneliness of the deserted, silent streets, close to Mrs. Harwood’s door.