JANET was not moved either by Gussy’s rapture or Dolff’s rage. To say that she was not relieved would be untrue, for it was, no doubt, a great relief to know that she was not in any way responsible for a man’s death. But beyond this her strongest feeling was annoyance, a painful sense that she was not quit of the consequences, that he was still there to be reckoned with, more near than ever, under the same roof. Would he be changed as she was by the catastrophe which had nearly cut off his life? or would he, returning to life from his unconsciousness, and probably knowing much less about it than any of those round him, take up everything from the moment the thread had dropped from his hands and expect her to do the same?
Janet had got a tremendous lesson, such a lesson as not one foolish girl in a million is ever exposed to: and all her lighter feelings—the mischievous pleasure of taking another woman’s lover from her, which is so often merely a piece of fun to an unthinking girl; the excitement of being made love to; the fascination of contact with the first man who had ventured to seize upon her attention, to take her interest for granted, to draw her, as it were, into the current of his own being—all these sensations had died in the horror with which that sudden murderous assault had filled her, and the double horror of being mixed up in it, held up before the world as the cause, with a stigma upon her forever. Janet had liked to amuse herself all her life, and it was irresistible to triumph over the composed and self-confident Gussy, to take her lover from her, and watch sarcastically behind backs the self-exposure of the victim, and laugh internally, though never without a half shame, at the “silliness,” which wounded Julia’s sharp perception, in her sister. Julia saw it as well as Janet, though she did not know the cause. And she had liked the bold love-making, the wicked looks aside which had at once placed her on a platform above Gussy; those confidences which Meredith had begun to make to her from the first, and which had at once established a secret link between them. He had been the interest and amusement of the dull life which Janet had never had time to get tired of, so interesting was the drama he had played for her and made her play; and she had liked to be made love to in that bold, presumptuous way. There was something piquant in it, especially in contrast with the clumsy devotion of Dolff. It had carried her at last a little out of her own control, in the hurrying sensations of the night of the ball: and the touch of jealousy after, and the complication of the events of that night—of the discovery of the papers which she was compelled to send him, and the meeting she was compelled to grant him for the sake of clearing up that mystery—had all added an impetus to the downward stream upon which Janet was going.
Had it not been interrupted so abruptly, it is probable that she might have been floated on beyond her own control, carried to depths beyond her anticipation, and become Meredith’s slave and victim, if not his wife. But it had scarcely got beyond the stage of amusement to Janet when it was thus cut in a moment, the link which was twisting round her severed at a blow. And now how glad she would have been to be done with it, to hear of him no more, to wipe it entirely out of her life! It had occurred to her, indeed, that she might do that by leaving the Harwoods; but she was too young, although so independent and self-sustaining, to make up her mind easily to such a trenchant proceeding. She would have to explain to her friends at Clover why, after all her praises of the Harwoods, she left them so soon. She would have to take a great deal of trouble, probably to sacrifice much of her comfort—for Janet was not so entirely inexperienced as not to know that few governesses were treated so well as she was. Therefore, she rejected the idea of going away, or rather, it but flew through her mind as a suggestion which was much too decided and important to be adopted on her own responsibility.
But to hear of Meredith’s progress towards recovery troubled Janet extremely. It was like thrusting him upon her again, recommencing a business which she had been glad to believe concluded. She was annoyed and impatient—scornful of Gussy’s rapture, indisposed to hear anything further of the matter. When she left the room with her pupil, leaving the mother and daughter going over and over the minutest details—of how the patient had opened his eyes; how he had looked around with a bewildered glance; how his face had lighted up at the sight of Gussy, etc., Janet was almost angry at the fuss they were making, and provoked beyond description by their delight and endless anticipations.
“After this he’ll make progress every day,” Mrs. Harwood said.
“And oh, mamma, to think he is himself again—to think that he recognized me!” cried Gussy.
Oh, cried Janet to herself, if they but knew! She thought, like Dolff, of the last scene that had been present to his consciousness before that awakening, and Gussy’s kiss; of how he had stood laughing, holding her hands, not letting her go, making fun of Gussy; and the next thing he was aware of—a dim sick-room, a nurse in a white cap, and Gussy, who kissed him in her joy! It was all Janet could do not to burst out with something contradictory, something that would express all the contrariety of her feelings. It was a good thing to get out of the room, to be out of temptation. She did not remark Julia’s keen inspection of her in the vehemence of the perturbation in her own mind.
“Well,” said Julia as they went upstairs; “it’s a good thing he is better, though I wish Gussy would not be always so silly about him. Aren’t you glad he is better, Janet?”
“Did you think,” said Janet, “that I wished him to be worse?”
“Oh! I don’t know. I used to think you liked Charley Meredith; but I’m almost sure you don’t now.”
“One may not care for a man, and yet one may be glad he is better. I am sick,” cried Janet, unable to control herself, “of hearing his name.”
“Oh, so am I!” cried Julia. “Isn’t it enough to make one ill? And now there will be more of it than ever. We shall all be wanted to rejoice over him. I wish he had gone to his own chambers to be killed, and not here.”
By this time they had reached the school-room, which was their common property, and where no one could interfere with their talk. Julia threw herself into a chair before the fire and pursued her inquiries.
“Did you ever think to yourself,” she said, “Janet, how it was that Charley should have been assaulted like that?”
“Think!” said Janet, faltering. “I don’t know what good thinking would do.”
“That may be,” said Julia, “but one can’t help thinking, though it may do no good. I hate him so much myself that I understand it better than you can, who used to like him. It must have been some one who hated him—even more than me.”
“Don’t talk so about a—a crime, Julia: and don’t say me instead of I,” Janet cried, hoping to stop this embarrassing discussion.
“Oh, what does stupid grammar matter! My opinion is that it must have been something about a girl.”
“Julia!” cried the governess, taking refuge in the shock of conventional horror at such a suggestion from such a quarter.
“Oh, you know as well as I do what Charley was. I have heard even mamma say that he couldn’t resist making himself agreeable, whoever it was. That’s mamma’s way of putting it. Why, he has made eyes even at me—Gussy’s sister, and only fifteen, and hating him as I do! It stands to reason that he did it to everybody else. And suppose there was some silly girl who thought it meant something, and somebody belonging to her who wouldn’t put up with it? Oh, I’ve wished often I was a man and could knock him down!”
“When a man is lying so ill as he is, it is dreadful to talk of hating him.”
“Oh, but you can’t help it, however dreadful it may be! and, besides, he’s getting better. You don’t like him yourself.”
“I never said so,” said Janet.
“But I know. And you did like him once. What has made you change your mind? Do you know—but I won’t say it; you will be angry.”
“You had better say it—whatever you want to say.”
“Well, then, I think—you needn’t blaze out upon me, for of course I may be quite silly—Janet, I think you know something about it. There! Oh, you may kill me if you like with your eyes, but that won’t make any difference! I think you’ve known something about it all the time.”
Janet’s eyes gave forth a flash. If it had been Gussy who had made this charge instead of Julia, her mind was so excited and troubled that, in all likelihood, she would have burst forth with the secret which she had been so anxious hitherto to conceal. She stood looking at the girl, happy to feel that her blood did not rush to her cheeks as it had done already this evening. She said:
“I think you are mad, Julia, to ask me such a question.”
“Oh, I didn’t ask any question. I said I thought—and so I do, and nothing you can say will change me. Shall I tell you what I think? I think you were out at the door or at the staircase window—where Gussy always goes to watch for people—and that you saw it, and saw who did it, and won’t tell. I suppose it’s from a good motive,” said Julia, “to save somebody. I should do it myself, but that would be chiefly because I hate him, not to give him the satisfaction. However, only wait till Charley Meredith gets well. Oh! trust him to find it all out. He’ll not let anybody off. He’ll have no mercy. Now, that’s my opinion, Janet, if you like to know.”
“They are very bold opinions,” said Janet; “scarcely what a girl should venture to express; but I was neither at the staircase-window nor at the door, and if all that you imagine besides is as true as what you say of me——”
Janet did not like to commit herself to an absolutely false statement, though she had no objection to deceive. She liked, when she could, to answer inconvenient questions au pied de la lettre in a way which might be true. Thus she was not at the door in Julia’s sense of the word, but standing outside the door, perilously near it. She concluded with herself that, in saying she was not at the door, she was saying the exact and formal truth.
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Julia; “you may convince me as much as you like, but I’ll be of the same opinion still. The only thing is, I just warn you how it will be when Charley Meredith gets well. He won’t forgive the man that did that. He won’t forgive you if you’re mixed up in it. Don’t be mixed up in Charley Meredith’s affairs, Janet. He’ll get to the bottom of it as soon as he is well.”
“You are a Daniel come to judgment,” said Janet, with a laugh.
How strange a thing a laugh was from her at such a moment! For, though Julia was only a child, what she said was true enough. Meredith, when he got well, was not a man who would blunder about as the policeman did, hearing every story, not knowing how to separate the grain from the chaff. Even, he was a lawyer too, she reflected, with a gleam of terror. He would know how to put things together. Perhaps—this was possible, too—Dolff’s face, white and distorted by passion, might have been revealed to him as he fell, as it was to Janet. He might remember as his faculties came back, and he would be able to follow it out.
Going back upon that evening, Janet began to trace with horror the evidence that might be got together. There were the people at the library who saw them meet and speak to each other, and who might have seen them walk off together, thus identifying her at least. And Meredith himself would know that she must have witnessed the attack upon him. Her anxieties had been quieted by this long want of cessation from all progress. But now that he was getting well! Oh, Julia was right. He would let no one off; he would take full vengeance for his injuries. All the world would know how she was mixed up in it! She would have to appear, to be cross-examined, to tell all she knew, and explain how she was there, and it would be in all the newspapers.
This was what chiefly struck Janet with anguish and terror unspeakable. Everybody would know it! Her friends would look upon her darkly; the vicarage—even that kind house would close its doors. To be traitor to the people who had been so kind to her—to meet another woman’s lover, the betrothed of the daughter of the house! Who would have anything to say to a governess who had done that? And though she might tell the episode of the papers, and thus account for her communications with Meredith, who would believe her? Janet had an hour or two of extreme anguish turning this all over in her mind.
After this, however, she grew a little more composed. Perhaps Meredith would be kept back by the fact that he himself would be affected as much as she by any such revelation. Probably he would not, for his own sake, like it to be known that he had clandestine meetings with the governess. This was of all others the thing that would damn him, not only in St. John’s Wood, but wherever there were families to which he might wish to recommend himself. If it all came out, Gussy would no doubt be lost to him (if he had ever cared for Gussy), and not only Gussy but every young lady in his own position, and the mother of every young lady. To have clandestine meetings with the governess—to make love behind backs to the governess! Janet’s heart calmed down in its tumultuous beating when this blessed thought came into her mind. No, he would not betray himself in that way. He might not care for betraying her, but he would not betray himself. He would not allow himself to be held up to the contempt of the world, put into all the papers, perhaps into Punch, with a shabby girl clinging to him in the dock.
Janet, who thought of everything in the sharply acute state of her perceptions, remembered too that, while the ladies would think it the blackest treachery to carry on a correspondence with the governess, the newspapers would take the other side, and would be chiefly indignant concerning the wrongs of the poor girl, blighted by her dependent position, whom this monster was endeavoring to beguile and lead astray. Ah, no! Meredith would not lay himself open to these critics. He would keep her out of it, since otherwise he himself would suffer. It calmed her entirely after a time to follow out this point of view.
But, oh! if he could but be spirited away to the other end of the world. Oh, if she could but be quit of him—but forget that she had ever seen him! Janet looked towards the room of the convalescent with a tremor. What would his feelings be? Would he expect to take up the thread where it had dropped? Would he go on telling her with his eyes what a fool Gussy was? how ridiculous was her confidence in herself! how much more he cared for herself, Janet, than for anybody else in the world! This, she thought, would be the most intolerable of all.