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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p class="noindent">Title: What Maisie Knew</p> +<p class="noindent">Author: Henry James</p> +<p class="noindent">Release Date: March 12, 2003 [eBook #7118]<br /> +[Most recently updated and HTML version added: November 9, 2005]</p> +<p class="noindent">Language: English</p> +<p class="noindent">Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p class="noindent">***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT MAISIE KNEW***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Eve Sobol, South Bend, Indiana, USA<br /> + and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.<br /> + <br /> + HTML version prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>WHAT MAISIE KNEW</h1> + +<h4>by</h4> + +<h2>Henry James</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<table cellpadding="2"> +<tr><td><a href="#0" >Introduction</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#1" >Chapter I</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#2" >Chapter II</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#3" >Chapter III</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#4" >Chapter IV</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#5" >Chapter V</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#6" >Chapter VI</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#7" >Chapter VII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#8" >Chapter VIII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#9" >Chapter IX</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#10" >Chapter X</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#11" >Chapter XI</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#12" >Chapter XII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#13" >Chapter XIII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#14" >Chapter XIV</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#15" >Chapter XV</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#16" >Chapter XVI</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#17" >Chapter XVII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#18" >Chapter XVIII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#19" >Chapter XIX</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#20" >Chapter XX</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#21" >Chapter XXI</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#22" >Chapter XXII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#23" >Chapter XXIII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#24" >Chapter XXIV</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#25" >Chapter XXV</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#26" >Chapter XXVI</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#27" >Chapter XXVII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#28" >Chapter XXVIII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#29" >Chapter XXIX</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#30" >Chapter XXX</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#31" >Chapter XXXI</a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> + +<p> <a name="0"></a></p> +<p> </p> + + +<p>The litigation seemed interminable and had in fact been +complicated; but by the decision on the appeal the judgement of +the divorce-court was confirmed as to the assignment of the child. +The father, who, though bespattered from head to foot, had made +good his case, was, in pursuance of this triumph, appointed to +keep her: it was not so much that the mother's character had been +more absolutely damaged as that the brilliancy of a lady's +complexion (and this lady's, in court, was immensely remarked) +might be more regarded as showing the spots. Attached, however, to +the second pronouncement was a condition that detracted, for Beale +Farange, from its sweetness—an order that he should refund to his +late wife the twenty-six hundred pounds put down by her, as it was +called, some three years before, in the interest of the child's +maintenance and precisely on a proved understanding that he would +take no proceedings: a sum of which he had had the administration +and of which he could render not the least account. The obligation +thus attributed to her adversary was no small balm to Ida's +resentment; it drew a part of the sting from her defeat and +compelled Mr. Farange perceptibly to lower his crest. He was +unable to produce the money or to raise it in any way; so that +after a squabble scarcely less public and scarcely more decent +than the original shock of battle his only issue from his +predicament was a compromise proposed by his legal advisers and +finally accepted by hers.</p> + +<p>His debt was by this arrangement remitted to him and the little +girl disposed of in a manner worthy of the judgement-seat of +Solomon. She was divided in two and the portions tossed +impartially to the disputants. They would take her, in rotation, +for six months at a time; she would spend half the year with each. +This was odd justice in the eyes of those who still blinked in the +fierce light projected from the tribunal—a light in which neither +parent figured in the least as a happy example to youth and +innocence. What was to have been expected on the evidence was the +nomination, <i>in loco parentis</i>, of some proper third person, +some respectable or at least some presentable friend. Apparently, +however, the circle of the Faranges had been scanned in vain for +any such ornament; so that the only solution finally meeting all +the difficulties was, save that of sending Maisie to a Home, the +partition of the tutelary office in the manner I have mentioned. +There were more reasons for her parents to agree to it than there +had ever been for them to agree to anything; and they now prepared +with her help to enjoy the distinction that waits upon vulgarity +sufficiently attested. Their rupture had resounded, and after +being perfectly insignificant together they would be decidedly +striking apart. Had they not produced an impression that warranted +people in looking for appeals in the newspapers for the rescue of +the little one—reverberation, amid a vociferous public, of the +idea that some movement should be started or some benevolent +person should come forward? A good lady came indeed a step or two: +she was distantly related to Mrs. Farange, to whom she proposed +that, having children and nurseries wound up and going, she should +be allowed to take home the bone of contention and, by working it +into her system, relieve at least one of the parents. This would +make every time, for Maisie, after her inevitable six months with +Beale, much more of a change.</p> + +<p>"More of a change?" Ida cried. "Won't it be enough of a change for +her to come from that low brute to the person in the world who +detests him most?"</p> + +<p>"No, because you detest him so much that you'll always talk to her +about him. You'll keep him before her by perpetually abusing him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farange stared. "Pray, then, am I to do nothing to counteract +his villainous abuse of <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>The good lady, for a moment, made no reply: her silence was a grim +judgement of the whole point of view. "Poor little monkey!" she at +last exclaimed; and the words were an epitaph for the tomb of +Maisie's childhood. She was abandoned to her fate. What was clear +to any spectator was that the only link binding her to either +parent was this lamentable fact of her being a ready vessel for +bitterness, a deep little porcelain cup in which biting acids +could be mixed. They had wanted her not for any good they could do +her, but for the harm they could, with her unconscious aid, do +each other. She should serve their anger and seal their revenge, +for husband and wife had been alike crippled by the heavy hand of +justice, which in the last resort met on neither side their +indignant claim to get, as they called it, everything. If each was +only to get half this seemed to concede that neither was so base +as the other pretended, or, to put it differently, offered them +both as bad indeed, since they were only as good as each other. +The mother had wished to prevent the father from, as she said, "so +much as looking" at the child; the father's plea was that the +mother's lightest touch was "simply contamination." These were the +opposed principles in which Maisie was to be educated—she was to +fit them together as she might. Nothing could have been more +touching at first than her failure to suspect the ordeal that +awaited her little unspotted soul. There were persons horrified to +think what those in charge of it would combine to try to make of +it: no one could conceive in advance that they would be able to +make nothing ill.</p> + +<p>This was a society in which for the most part people were +occupied only with chatter, but the disunited couple had +at last grounds for expecting a time of high activity. They +girded their loins, they felt as if the quarrel had only begun. +They felt indeed more married than ever, inasmuch as what marriage +had mainly suggested to them was the unbroken opportunity to +quarrel. There had been "sides" before, and there were sides as +much as ever; for the sider too the prospect opened out, taking +the pleasant form of a superabundance of matter for desultory +conversation. The many friends of the Faranges drew together to +differ about them; contradiction grew young again over teacups and +cigars. Everybody was always assuring everybody of something very +shocking, and nobody would have been jolly if nobody had been +outrageous. The pair appeared to have a social attraction which +failed merely as regards each other: it was indeed a great deal to +be able to say for Ida that no one but Beale desired her blood, +and for Beale that if he should ever have his eyes scratched out +it would be only by his wife. It was generally felt, to begin +with, that they were awfully good-looking—they had really not +been analysed to a deeper residuum. They made up together for +instance some twelve feet three of stature, and nothing was more +discussed than the apportionment of this quantity. The sole flaw +in Ida's beauty was a length and reach of arm conducive perhaps to +her having so often beaten her ex-husband at billiards, a game in +which she showed a superiority largely accountable, as she +maintained, for the resentment finding expression in his physical +violence. Billiards was her great accomplishment and the +distinction her name always first produced the mention of. +Notwithstanding some very long lines everything about her that +might have been large and that in many women profited by the +licence was, with a single exception, admired and cited for its +smallness. The exception was her eyes, which might have been of +mere regulation size, but which overstepped the modesty of nature; +her mouth, on the other hand, was barely perceptible, and odds +were freely taken as to the measurement of her waist. She was a +person who, when she was out—and she was always out—produced +everywhere a sense of having been seen often, the sense indeed of +a kind of abuse of visibility, so that it would have been, in the +usual places rather vulgar to wonder at her. Strangers only did +that; but they, to the amusement of the familiar, did it very +much: it was an inevitable way of betraying an alien habit. Like +her husband she carried clothes, carried them as a train carries +passengers: people had been known to compare their taste and +dispute about the accommodation they gave these articles, though +inclining on the whole to the commendation of Ida as less +overcrowded, especially with jewellery and flowers. Beale Farange +had natural decorations, a kind of costume in his vast fair beard, +burnished like a gold breastplate, and in the eternal glitter of +the teeth that his long moustache had been trained not to hide and +that gave him, in every possible situation, the look of the joy of +life. He had been destined in his youth for diplomacy and +momentarily attached, without a salary, to a legation which +enabled him often to say "In <i>my</i> time in the East": but +contemporary history had somehow had no use for him, had hurried +past him and left him in perpetual Piccadilly. Every one knew what +he had—only twenty-five hundred. Poor Ida, who had run through +everything, had now nothing but her carriage and her paralysed +uncle. This old brute, as he was called, was supposed to have a lot +put away. The child was provided for, thanks to a crafty +godmother, a defunct aunt of Beale's, who had left her something +in such a manner that the parents could appropriate only the +income.</p> + + +<p> <a name="1"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>I<br /> </h3> + + +<p>The child was provided for, but the new arrangement was inevitably +confounding to a young intelligence intensely aware that something +had happened which must matter a good deal and looking anxiously +out for the effects of so great a cause. It was to be the fate of +this patient little girl to see much more than she at first +understood, but also even at first to understand much more than +any little girl, however patient, had perhaps ever understood +before. Only a drummer-boy in a ballad or a story could have been +so in the thick of the fight. She was taken into the confidence of +passions on which she fixed just the stare she might have had for +images bounding across the wall in the slide of a magic-lantern. +Her little world was phantasmagoric—strange shadows dancing on a +sheet. It was as if the whole performance had been given for +her—a mite of a half-scared infant in a great dim theatre. She +was in short introduced to life with a liberality in which the +selfishness of others found its account, and there was nothing to +avert the sacrifice but the modesty of her youth.</p> + +<p>Her first term was with her father, who spared her only in not +letting her have the wild letters addressed to her by her mother: +he confined himself to holding them up at her and shaking them, +while he showed his teeth, and then amusing her by the way he +chucked them, across the room, bang into the fire. Even at that +moment, however, she had a scared anticipation of fatigue, a +guilty sense of not rising to the occasion, feeling the charm of +the violence with which the stiff unopened envelopes, whose big +monograms—Ida bristled with monograms—she would have liked to +see, were made to whizz, like dangerous missiles, through the air. +The greatest effect of the great cause was her own greater +importance, chiefly revealed to her in the larger freedom with +which she was handled, pulled hither and thither and kissed, and +the proportionately greater niceness she was obliged to show. Her +features had somehow become prominent; they were so perpetually +nipped by the gentlemen who came to see her father and the smoke +of whose cigarettes went into her face. Some of these gentlemen +made her strike matches and light their cigarettes; others, +holding her on knees violently jolted, pinched the calves of her +legs till she shrieked—her shriek was much admired—and +reproached them with being toothpicks. The word stuck in her mind +and contributed to her feeling from this time that she was +deficient in something that would meet the general desire. She +found out what it was: it was a congenital tendency to the +production of a substance to which Moddle, her nurse, gave a short +ugly name, a name painfully associated at dinner with the part of +the joint that she didn't like. She had left behind her the time +when she had no desires to meet, none at least save Moddle's, who, +in Kensington Gardens, was always on the bench when she came back +to see if she had been playing too far. Moddle's desire was merely +that she shouldn't do that, and she met it so easily that the only +spots in that long brightness were the moments of her wondering +what would become of her if, on her rushing back, there should be +no Moddle on the bench. They still went to the Gardens, but there +was a difference even there; she was impelled perpetually to look +at the legs of other children and ask her nurse if <i>they</i> were +toothpicks. Moddle was terribly truthful; she always said: "Oh my +dear, you'll not find such another pair as your own." It seemed to +have to do with something else that Moddle often said: "You feel +the strain—that's where it is; and you'll feel it still worse, +you know."</p> + +<p>Thus from the first Maisie not only felt it, but knew she felt it. +A part of it was the consequence of her father's telling her he +felt it too, and telling Moddle, in her presence, that she must +make a point of driving that home. She was familiar, at the age of +six, with the fact that everything had been changed on her +account, everything ordered to enable him to give himself up to +her. She was to remember always the words in which Moddle +impressed upon her that he did so give himself: "Your papa wishes +you never to forget, you know, that he has been dreadfully put +about." If the skin on Moddle's face had to Maisie the air of +being unduly, almost painfully, stretched, it never presented that +appearance so much as when she uttered, as she often had occasion +to utter, such words. The child wondered if they didn't make it +hurt more than usual; but it was only after some time that she was +able to attach to the picture of her father's sufferings, and more +particularly to her nurse's manner about them, the meaning for +which these things had waited. By the time she had grown sharper, +as the gentlemen who had criticised her calves used to say, she +found in her mind a collection of images and echoes to which +meanings were attachable—images and echoes kept for her in the +childish dusk, the dim closet, the high drawers, like games she +wasn't yet big enough to play. The great strain meanwhile was that +of carrying by the right end the things her father said about her +mother—things mostly indeed that Moddle, on a glimpse of them, as +if they had been complicated toys or difficult books, took out of +her hands and put away in the closet. A wonderful assortment of +objects of this kind she was to discover there later, all tumbled +up too with the things, shuffled into the same receptacle, that +her mother had said about her father.</p> + +<p>She had the knowledge that on a certain occasion which every day +brought nearer her mother would be at the door to take her away, +and this would have darkened all the days if the ingenious Moddle +hadn't written on a paper in very big easy words ever so many +pleasures that she would enjoy at the other house. These promises +ranged from "a mother's fond love" to "a nice poached egg to your +tea," and took by the way the prospect of sitting up ever so late +to see the lady in question dressed, in silks and velvets and +diamonds and pearls, to go out: so that it was a real support to +Maisie, at the supreme hour, to feel how, by Moddle's direction, +the paper was thrust away in her pocket and there clenched in her +fist. The supreme hour was to furnish her with a vivid +reminiscence, that of a strange outbreak in the drawing-room on +the part of Moddle, who, in reply to something her father had just +said, cried aloud: "You ought to be perfectly ashamed of +yourself—you ought to blush, sir, for the way you go on!" The +carriage, with her mother in it, was at the door; a gentleman who +was there, who was always there, laughed out very loud; her +father, who had her in his arms, said to Moddle: "My dear woman, +I'll settle you presently!"—after which he repeated, showing his +teeth more than ever at Maisie while he hugged her, the words for +which her nurse had taken him up. Maisie was not at the moment so +fully conscious of them as of the wonder of Moddle's sudden +disrespect and crimson face; but she was able to produce them in +the course of five minutes when, in the carriage, her mother, all +kisses, ribbons, eyes, arms, strange sounds and sweet smells, said +to her: "And did your beastly papa, my precious angel, send any +message to your own loving mamma?" Then it was that she found the +words spoken by her beastly papa to be, after all, in her little +bewildered ears, from which, at her mother's appeal, they passed, +in her clear shrill voice, straight to her little innocent lips. +"He said I was to tell you, from him," she faithfully reported, +"that you're a nasty horrid pig!"</p> + + +<p> <a name="2"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>II<br /> </h3> + + +<p>In that lively sense of the immediate which is the very air of a +child's mind the past, on each occasion, became for her as +indistinct as the future: she surrendered herself to the actual +with a good faith that might have been touching to either parent. +Crudely as they had calculated they were at first justified by the +event: she was the little feathered shuttlecock they could +fiercely keep flying between them. The evil they had the gift of +thinking or pretending to think of each other they poured into her +little gravely-gazing soul as into a boundless receptacle, and +each of them had doubtless the best conscience in the world as to +the duty of teaching her the stern truth that should be her +safeguard against the other. She was at the age for which all +stories are true and all conceptions are stories. The actual was +the absolute, the present alone was vivid. The objurgation for +instance launched in the carriage by her mother after she had at +her father's bidding punctually performed was a missive that +dropped into her memory with the dry rattle of a letter falling +into a pillar-box. Like the letter it was, as part of the contents +of a well-stuffed post-bag, delivered in due course at the right +address. In the presence of these overflowings, after they had +continued for a couple of years, the associates of either party +sometimes felt that something should be done for what they called +"the real good, don't you know?" of the child. The only thing +done, however, in general, took place when it was sighingly +remarked that she fortunately wasn't all the year round where she +happened to be at the awkward moment, and that, furthermore, +either from extreme cunning or from extreme stupidity, she +appeared not to take things in.</p> + +<p>The theory of her stupidity, eventually embraced by her parents, +corresponded with a great date in her small still life: the +complete vision, private but final, of the strange office she +filled. It was literally a moral revolution and accomplished in +the depths of her nature. The stiff dolls on the dusky shelves +began to move their arms and legs; old forms and phrases began to +have a sense that frightened her. She had a new feeling, the +feeling of danger; on which a new remedy rose to meet it, the idea +of an inner self or, in other words, of concealment. She puzzled +out with imperfect signs, but with a prodigious spirit, that she +had been a centre of hatred and a messenger of insult, and that +everything was bad because she had been employed to make it so. +Her parted lips locked themselves with the determination to be +employed no longer. She would forget everything, she would repeat +nothing, and when, as a tribute to the successful application of +her system, she began to be called a little idiot, she tasted a +pleasure new and keen. When therefore, as she grew older, her +parents in turn announced before her that she had grown shockingly +dull, it was not from any real contraction of her little stream of +life. She spoiled their fun, but she practically added to her own. +She saw more and more; she saw too much. It was Miss Overmore, her +first governess, who on a momentous occasion had sown the seeds of +secrecy; sown them not by anything she said, but by a mere roll of +those fine eyes which Maisie already admired. Moddle had become at +this time, after alternations of residence of which the child had +no clear record, an image faintly embalmed in the remembrance of +hungry disappearances from the nursery and distressful lapses in +the alphabet, sad embarrassments, in particular, when invited to +recognise something her nurse described as "the important letter +haitch." Miss Overmore, however hungry, never disappeared: this +marked her somehow as of higher rank, and the character was +confirmed by a prettiness that Maisie supposed to be +extraordinary. Mrs. Farange had described her as almost too +pretty, and some one had asked what that mattered so long as Beale +wasn't there. "Beale or no Beale," Maisie had heard her mother +reply, "I take her because she's a lady and yet awfully poor. +Rather nice people, but there are seven sisters at home. What do +people mean?"</p> + +<p>Maisie didn't know what people meant, but she knew very soon all +the names of all the sisters; she could say them off better than +she could say the multiplication-table. She privately wondered +moreover, though she never asked, about the awful poverty, of +which her companion also never spoke. Food at any rate came up by +mysterious laws; Miss Overmore never, like Moddle, had on an +apron, and when she ate she held her fork with her little finger +curled out. The child, who watched her at many moments, watched +her particularly at that one. "I think you're lovely," she often +said to her; even mamma, who was lovely too, had not such a pretty +way with the fork. Maisie associated this showier presence with +her now being "big," knowing of course that nursery-governesses +were only for little girls who were not, as she said, "really" +little. She vaguely knew, further, somehow, that the future was +still bigger than she, and that a part of what made it so was the +number of governesses lurking in it and ready to dart out. +Everything that had happened when she was really little was +dormant, everything but the positive certitude, bequeathed from +afar by Moddle, that the natural way for a child to have her +parents was separate and successive, like her mutton and her +pudding or her bath and her nap.</p> + +<p>"<i>Does</i> he know he lies?"—that was what she had vivaciously +asked Miss Overmore on the occasion which was so suddenly to lead +to a change in her life.</p> + +<p>"Does he know—" Miss Overmore stared; she had a stocking pulled +over her hand and was pricking at it with a needle which she +poised in the act. Her task was homely, but her movement, like all +her movements, graceful.</p> + +<p>"Why papa."</p> + +<p>"That he 'lies'?"</p> + +<p>"That's what mamma says I'm to tell him—'that he lies and he +knows he lies.'" Miss Overmore turned very red, though she laughed +out till her head fell back; then she pricked again at her muffled +hand so hard that Maisie wondered how she could bear it. "<i>Am</i> +I to tell him?" the child went on. It was then that her companion +addressed her in the unmistakeable language of a pair of eyes of +deep dark grey. "I can't say No," they replied as distinctly as +possible; "I can't say No, because I'm afraid of your mamma, don't +you see? Yet how can I say Yes after your papa has been so kind to +me, talking to me so long the other day, smiling and flashing his +beautiful teeth at me the time we met him in the Park, the time +when, rejoicing at the sight of us, he left the gentlemen he was +with and turned and walked with us, stayed with us for half an +hour?" Somehow in the light of Miss Overmore's lovely eyes that +incident came back to Maisie with a charm it hadn't had at the +time, and this in spite of the fact that after it was over her +governess had never but once alluded to it. On their way home, +when papa had quitted them, she had expressed the hope that the +child wouldn't mention it to mamma. Maisie liked her so, and had +so the charmed sense of being liked by her, that she accepted this +remark as settling the matter and wonderingly conformed to it. The +wonder now lived again, lived in the recollection of what papa had +said to Miss Overmore: "I've only to look at you to see you're a +person I can appeal to for help to save my daughter." Maisie's +ignorance of what she was to be saved from didn't diminish the +pleasure of the thought that Miss Overmore was saving her. It +seemed to make them cling together as in some wild game of "going +round."</p> + + +<p> <a name="3"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>III<br /> </h3> + + +<p>She was therefore all the more startled when her mother said to +her in connexion with something to be done before her next +migration: "You understand of course that she's not going with +you."</p> + +<p>Maisie turned quite faint. "Oh I thought she was."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't in the least matter, you know, what you think," Mrs. +Farange loudly replied; "and you had better indeed for the future, +miss, learn to keep your thoughts to yourself." This was exactly +what Maisie had already learned, and the accomplishment was just +the source of her mother's irritation. It was of a horrid little +critical system, a tendency, in her silence, to judge her elders, +that this lady suspected her, liking as she did, for her own part, +a child to be simple and confiding. She liked also to hear the +report of the whacks she administered to Mr. Farange's character, +to his pretensions to peace of mind: the satisfaction of dealing +them diminished when nothing came back. The day was at hand, and +she saw it, when she should feel more delight in hurling Maisie at +him than in snatching her away; so much so that her conscience +winced under the acuteness of a candid friend who had remarked +that the real end of all their tugging would be that each parent +would try to make the little girl a burden to the other—a sort of +game in which a fond mother clearly wouldn't show to advantage. +The prospect of not showing to advantage, a distinction in which +she held she had never failed, begot in Ida Farange an ill humour +of which several persons felt the effect. She determined that +Beale at any rate should feel it; she reflected afresh that in the +study of how to be odious to him she must never give way. Nothing +could incommode him more than not to get the good, for the child, +of a nice female appendage who had clearly taken a fancy to her. +One of the things Ida said to the appendage was that Beale's was a +house in which no decent woman could consent to be seen. It was +Miss Overmore herself who explained to Maisie that she had had a +hope of being allowed to accompany her to her father's, and that +this hope had been dashed by the way her mother took it. "She says +that if I ever do such a thing as enter his service I must never +expect to show my face in this house again. So I've promised not +to attempt to go with you. If I wait patiently till you come back +here we shall certainly be together once more."</p> + +<p>Waiting patiently, and above all waiting till she should come back +there, seemed to Maisie a long way round—it reminded her of all +the things she had been told, first and last, that she should have +if she'd be good and that in spite of her goodness she had never +had at all. "Then who'll take care of me at papa's?"</p> + +<p>"Heaven only knows, my own precious!" Miss Overmore replied, +tenderly embracing her. There was indeed no doubt that she was +dear to this beautiful friend. What could have proved it better +than the fact that before a week was out, in spite of their +distressing separation and her mother's prohibition and Miss +Overmore's scruples and Miss Overmore's promise, the beautiful +friend had turned up at her father's? The little lady already +engaged there to come by the hour, a fat dark little lady with a +foreign name and dirty fingers, who wore, throughout, a bonnet +that had at first given her a deceptive air, too soon dispelled, +of not staying long, besides asking her pupil questions that had +nothing to do with lessons, questions that Beale Farange himself, +when two or three were repeated to him, admitted to be awfully +low—this strange apparition faded before the bright creature who +had braved everything for Maisie's sake. The bright creature told +her little charge frankly what had happened—that she had really +been unable to hold out. She had broken her vow to Mrs. Farange; +she had struggled for three days and then had come straight to +Maisie's papa and told him the simple truth. She adored his +daughter; she couldn't give her up; she'd make for her any +sacrifice. On this basis it had been arranged that she should +stay; her courage had been rewarded; she left Maisie in no doubt +as to the amount of courage she had required. Some of the things +she said made a particular impression on the child—her +declaration for instance that when her pupil should get older +she'd understand better just how "dreadfully bold" a young lady, +to do exactly what she had done, had to be.</p> + +<p>"Fortunately your papa appreciates it; he appreciates it +<i>immensely</i>"—that was one of the things Miss Overmore also +said, with a striking insistence on the adverb. Maisie herself was +no less impressed with what this martyr had gone through, especially +after hearing of the terrible letter that had come from Mrs. +Farange. Mamma had been so angry that, in Miss Overmore's own +words, she had loaded her with insult—proof enough indeed that +they must never look forward to being together again under mamma's +roof. Mamma's roof, however, had its turn, this time, for the +child, of appearing but remotely contingent, so that, to reassure +her, there was scarce a need of her companion's secret, solemnly +confided—the probability there would be no going back to mamma at +all. It was Miss Overmore's private conviction, and a part of the +same communication, that if Mr. Farange's daughter would only show +a really marked preference she would be backed up by "public +opinion" in holding on to him. Poor Maisie could scarcely grasp +that incentive, but she could surrender herself to the day. She +had conceived her first passion, and the object of it was her +governess. It hadn't been put to her, and she couldn't, or at any +rate she didn't, put it to herself, that she liked Miss Overmore +better than she liked papa; but it would have sustained her under +such an imputation to feel herself able to reply that papa too +liked Miss Overmore exactly as much. He had particularly told her +so. Besides she could easily see it.</p> + + +<p> <a name="4"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>IV<br /> </h3> + + +<p>All this led her on, but it brought on her fate as well, the day +when her mother would be at the door in the carriage in which +Maisie now rode on no occasions but these. There was no question +at present of Miss Overmore's going back with her: it was +universally recognised that her quarrel with Mrs. Farange was much +too acute. The child felt it from the first; there was no hugging +nor exclaiming as that lady drove her away—there was only a +frightening silence, unenlivened even by the invidious enquiries +of former years, which culminated, according to its stern nature, +in a still more frightening old woman, a figure awaiting her on +the very doorstep. "You're to be under this lady's care," said her +mother. "Take her, Mrs. Wix," she added, addressing the figure +impatiently and giving the child a push from which Maisie gathered +that she wished to set Mrs. Wix an example of energy. Mrs. Wix +took her and, Maisie felt the next day, would never let her go. +She had struck her at first, just after Miss Overmore, as +terrible; but something in her voice at the end of an hour touched +the little girl in a spot that had never even yet been reached. +Maisie knew later what it was, though doubtless she couldn't have +made a statement of it: these were things that a few days' talk +with Mrs. Wix quite lighted up. The principal one was a matter +Mrs. Wix herself always immediately mentioned: she had had a +little girl quite of her own, and the little girl had been killed +on the spot. She had had absolutely nothing else in all the world, +and her affliction had broken her heart. It was comfortably +established between them that Mrs. Wix's heart was broken. What +Maisie felt was that she had been, with passion and anguish, a +mother, and that this was something Miss Overmore was not, +something (strangely, confusingly) that mamma was even less.</p> + +<p>So it was that in the course of an extraordinarily short time she +found herself as deeply absorbed in the image of the little dead +Clara Matilda, who, on a crossing in the Harrow Road, had been +knocked down and crushed by the cruellest of hansoms, as she had ever +found herself in the family group made vivid by one of seven. "She's +your little dead sister," Mrs. Wix ended by saying, and Maisie, all +in a tremor of curiosity and compassion, addressed from that moment a +particular piety to the small accepted acquisition. Somehow she +wasn't a real sister, but that only made her the more romantic. It +contributed to this view of her that she was never to be spoken of in +that character to any one else—least of all to Mrs. Farange, who +wouldn't care for her nor recognise the relationship: it was to be +just an unutterable and inexhaustible little secret with Mrs. Wix. +Maisie knew everything about her that could be known, everything she +had said or done in her little mutilated life, exactly how lovely she +was, exactly how her hair was curled and her frocks were trimmed. Her +hair came down far below her waist—it was of the most wonderful +golden brightness, just as Mrs. Wix's own had been a long time +before. Mrs. Wix's own was indeed very remarkable still, and Maisie +had felt at first that she should never get on with it. It played a +large part in the sad and strange appearance, the appearance as of a +kind of greasy greyness, which Mrs. Wix had presented on the child's +arrival. It had originally been yellow, but time had turned that +elegance to ashes, to a turbid sallow unvenerable white. Still +excessively abundant, it was dressed in a manner of which the poor +lady appeared not yet to have recognised the supersession, with a +glossy braid, like a large diadem, on the top of the head, and +behind, at the nape of the neck, a dingy rosette like a large button. +She wore glasses which, in humble reference to a divergent obliquity +of vision, she called her straighteners, and a little ugly +snuff-coloured dress trimmed with satin bands in the form of scallops +and glazed with antiquity. The straighteners, she explained to Maisie, +were put on for the sake of others, whom, as she believed, they +helped to recognise the bearing, otherwise doubtful, of her regard; +the rest of the melancholy garb could only have been put on for +herself. With the added suggestion of her goggles it reminded her +pupil of the polished shell or corslet of a horrid beetle. At first +she had looked cross and almost cruel; but this impression passed +away with the child's increased perception of her being in the eyes +of the world a figure mainly to laugh at. She was as droll as a +charade or an animal toward the end of the "natural history"—a +person whom people, to make talk lively, described to each other and +imitated. Every one knew the straighteners; every one knew the diadem +and the button, the scallops and satin bands; every one, though +Maisie had never betrayed her, knew even Clara Matilda.</p> + +<p>It was on account of these things that mamma got her for such low +pay, really for nothing: so much, one day when Mrs. Wix had +accompanied her into the drawing-room and left her, the child +heard one of the ladies she found there—a lady with eyebrows +arched like skipping-ropes and thick black stitching, like ruled +lines for musical notes on beautiful white gloves—announce to +another. She knew governesses were poor; Miss Overmore was +unmentionably and Mrs. Wix ever so publicly so. Neither this, +however, nor the old brown frock nor the diadem nor the button, +made a difference for Maisie in the charm put forth through +everything, the charm of Mrs. Wix's conveying that somehow, in her +ugliness and her poverty, she was peculiarly and soothingly safe; +safer than any one in the world, than papa, than mamma, than the +lady with the arched eyebrows; safer even, though so much less +beautiful, than Miss Overmore, on whose loveliness, as she +supposed it, the little girl was faintly conscious that one +couldn't rest with quite the same tucked-in and +kissed-for-good-night feeling. Mrs. Wix was as safe as Clara +Matilda, who was in heaven and yet, embarrassingly, also in Kensal +Green, where they had been together to see her little huddled +grave. It was from something in Mrs. Wix's tone, which in spite of +caricature remained indescribable and inimitable, that Maisie, +before her term with her mother was over, drew this sense of a +support, like a breast-high banister in a place of "drops," that +would never give way. If she knew her instructress was poor and +queer she also knew she was not nearly so "qualified" as Miss +Overmore, who could say lots of dates straight off (letting you +hold the book yourself), state the position of Malabar, play six +pieces without notes and, in a sketch, put in beautifully the +trees and houses and difficult parts. Maisie herself could play +more pieces than Mrs. Wix, who was moreover visibly ashamed of her +houses and trees and could only, with the help of a smutty +forefinger, of doubtful legitimacy in the field of art, do the +smoke coming out of the chimneys. They dealt, the governess and +her pupil, in "subjects," but there were many the governess put +off from week to week and that they never got to at all: she only +used to say "We'll take that in its proper order." Her order was a +circle as vast as the untravelled globe. She had not the spirit of +adventure—the child could perfectly see how many subjects she was +afraid of. She took refuge on the firm ground of fiction, through +which indeed there curled the blue river of truth. She knew swarms +of stories, mostly those of the novels she had read; relating them +with a memory that never faltered and a wealth of detail that was +Maisie's delight. They were all about love and beauty and +countesses and wickedness. Her conversation was practically an +endless narrative, a great garden of romance, with sudden vistas +into her own life and gushing fountains of homeliness. These were +the parts where they most lingered; she made the child take with +her again every step of her long, lame course and think it beyond +magic or monsters. Her pupil acquired a vivid vision of every one +who had ever, in her phrase, knocked against her—some of them oh +so hard!—every one literally but Mr. Wix, her husband, as to whom +nothing was mentioned save that he had been dead for ages. He had +been rather remarkably absent from his wife's career, and Maisie +was never taken to see his grave.</p> + + +<p> <a name="5"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>V<br /> </h3> + + +<p>The second parting from Miss Overmore had been bad enough, but +this first parting from Mrs. Wix was much worse. The child had +lately been to the dentist's and had a term of comparison for the +screwed-up intensity of the scene. It was dreadfully silent, as it +had been when her tooth was taken out; Mrs. Wix had on that +occasion grabbed her hand and they had clung to each other with +the frenzy of their determination not to scream. Maisie, at the +dentist's, had been heroically still, but just when she felt most +anguish had become aware of an audible shriek on the part of her +companion, a spasm of stifled sympathy. This was reproduced by the +only sound that broke their supreme embrace when, a month later, +the "arrangement," as her periodical uprootings were called, +played the part of the horrible forceps. Embedded in Mrs. Wix's +nature as her tooth had been socketed in her gum, the operation of +extracting her would really have been a case for chloroform. It +was a hug that fortunately left nothing to say, for the poor +woman's want of words at such an hour seemed to fall in with her +want of everything. Maisie's alternate parent, in the outermost +vestibule—he liked the impertinence of crossing as much as that +of his late wife's threshold—stood over them with his open watch +and his still more open grin, while from the only corner of an eye +on which something of Mrs. Wix's didn't impinge the child saw at +the door a brougham in which Miss Overmore also waited. She +remembered the difference when, six months before, she had been +torn from the breast of that more spirited protectress. Miss +Overmore, then also in the vestibule, but of course in the other +one, had been thoroughly audible and voluble; her protest had rung +out bravely and she had declared that something—her pupil didn't +know exactly what—was a regular wicked shame. That had at the +time dimly recalled to Maisie the far-away moment of Moddle's +great outbreak: there seemed always to be "shames" connected in +one way or another with her migrations. At present, while Mrs. +Wix's arms tightened and the smell of her hair was strong, she +further remembered how, in pacifying Miss Overmore, papa had made +use of the words "you dear old duck!"—an expression which, by its +oddity, had stuck fast in her young mind, having moreover a place +well prepared for it there by what she knew of the governess whom +she now always mentally characterised as the pretty one. She +wondered whether this affection would be as great as before: that +would at all events be the case with the prettiness Maisie could +see in the face which showed brightly at the window of the +brougham.</p> + +<p>The brougham was a token of harmony, of the fine conditions papa +would this time offer: he had usually come for her in a hansom, +with a four-wheeler behind for the boxes. The four-wheeler with +the boxes on it was actually there, but mamma was the only lady +with whom she had ever been in a conveyance of the kind always of +old spoken of by Moddle as a private carriage. Papa's carriage +was, now that he had one, still more private, somehow, than +mamma's; and when at last she found herself quite on top, as she +felt, of its inmates and gloriously rolling away, she put to Miss +Overmore, after another immense and talkative squeeze, a question +of which the motive was a desire for information as to the +continuity of a certain sentiment. "Did papa like you just the +same while I was gone?" she enquired—full of the sense of how +markedly his favour had been established in her presence. She had +bethought herself that this favour might, like her presence and as +if depending on it, be only intermittent and for the season. Papa, +on whose knee she sat, burst into one of those loud laughs of his +that, however prepared she was, seemed always, like some trick in +a frightening game, to leap forth and make her jump. Before Miss +Overmore could speak he replied: "Why, you little donkey, when +you're away what have I left to do but just to love her?" Miss +Overmore hereupon immediately took her from him, and they had a +merry little scrimmage over her of which Maisie caught the +surprised perception in the white stare of an old lady who passed +in a victoria. Then her beautiful friend remarked to her very +gravely: "I shall make him understand that if he ever again says +anything as horrid as that to you I shall carry you straight off +and we'll go and live somewhere together and be good quiet little +girls." The child couldn't quite make out why her father's speech +had been horrid, since it only expressed that appreciation which +their companion herself had of old described as "immense." To +enter more into the truth of the matter she appealed to him again +directly, asked if in all those months Miss Overmore hadn't been +with him just as she had been before and just as she would be now. +"Of course she has, old girl—where else could the poor dear be?" +cried Beale Farange, to the still greater scandal of their +companion, who protested that unless he straightway "took back" +his nasty wicked fib it would be, this time, not only him she +would leave, but his child too and his house and his tiresome +trouble—all the impossible things he had succeeded in putting on +her. Beale, under this frolic menace, took nothing back at all; he +was indeed apparently on the point of repeating his extravagance, +but Miss Overmore instructed her little charge that she was not to +listen to his bad jokes: she was to understand that a lady +couldn't stay with a gentleman that way without some awfully +proper reason.</p> + +<p>Maisie looked from one of her companions to the other; this was +the freshest gayest start she had yet enjoyed, but she had a shy +fear of not exactly believing them. "Well, what reason <i>is</i> +proper?" she thoughtfully demanded.</p> + +<p>"Oh a long-legged stick of a tomboy: there's none so good as +that." Her father enjoyed both her drollery and his own and tried +again to get possession of her—an effort deprecated by their +comrade and leading again to something of a public scuffle. Miss +Overmore declared to the child that she had been all the while +with good friends; on which Beale Farange went on: "She means good +friends of mine, you know—tremendous friends of mine. There has +been no end of <i>them</i> about—that I <i>will</i> say for her!" +Maisie felt bewildered and was afterwards for some time conscious +of a vagueness, just slightly embarrassing, as to the subject of so +much amusement and as to where her governess had really been. She +didn't feel at all as if she had been seriously told, and no such +feeling was supplied by anything that occurred later. Her +embarrassment, of a precocious instinctive order, attached itself +to the idea that this was another of the matters it was not for +her, as her mother used to say, to go into. Therefore, under her +father's roof during the time that followed, she made no attempt +to clear up her ambiguity by an ingratiating way with housemaids; +and it was an odd truth that the ambiguity itself took nothing +from the fresh pleasure promised her by renewed contact with Miss +Overmore. The confidence looked for by that young lady was of the +fine sort that explanation can't improve, and she herself at any +rate was a person superior to any confusion. For Maisie moreover +concealment had never necessarily seemed deception; she had grown +up among things as to which her foremost knowledge was that she +was never to ask about them. It was far from new to her that the +questions of the small are the peculiar diversion of the great: +except the affairs of her doll Lisette there had scarcely ever +been anything at her mother's that was explicable with a grave +face. Nothing was so easy to her as to send the ladies who +gathered there off into shrieks, and she might have practised upon +them largely if she had been of a more calculating turn. +Everything had something behind it: life was like a long, long +corridor with rows of closed doors. She had learned that at these +doors it was wise not to knock—this seemed to produce from within +such sounds of derision. Little by little, however, she understood +more, for it befell that she was enlightened by Lisette's +questions, which reproduced the effect of her own upon those for +whom she sat in the very darkness of Lisette. Was she not herself +convulsed by such innocence? In the presence of it she often +imitated the shrieking ladies. There were at any rate things she +really couldn't tell even a French doll. She could only pass on +her lessons and study to produce on Lisette the impression of +having mysteries in her life, wondering the while whether she +succeeded in the air of shading off, like her mother, into the +unknowable. When the reign of Miss Overmore followed that of Mrs. +Wix she took a fresh cue, emulating her governess and bridging +over the interval with the simple expectation of trust. Yes, there +were matters one couldn't "go into" with a pupil. There were for +instance days when, after prolonged absence, Lisette, watching her +take off her things, tried hard to discover where she had been. +Well, she discovered a little, but never discovered all. There was +an occasion when, on her being particularly indiscreet, Maisie +replied to her—and precisely about the motive of a +disappearance—as she, Maisie, had once been replied to by Mrs. +Farange: "Find out for yourself!" She mimicked her mother's +sharpness, but she was rather ashamed afterwards, though as to +whether of the sharpness or of the mimicry was not quite clear.</p> + + +<p> <a name="6"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>VI<br /> </h3> + + +<p>She became aware in time that this phase wouldn't have shone by +lessons, the care of her education being now only one of the many +duties devolving on Miss Overmore; a devolution as to which she +was present at various passages between that lady and her +father—passages significant, on either side, of dissent and even +of displeasure. It was gathered by the child on these occasions +that there was something in the situation for which her mother +might "come down" on them all, though indeed the remark, always +dropped by her father, was greeted on his companion's part with +direct contradiction. Such scenes were usually brought to a climax +by Miss Overmore's demanding, with more asperity than she applied +to any other subject, in what position under the sun such a person +as Mrs. Farange would find herself for coming down. As the months +went on the little girl's interpretations thickened, and the more +effectually that this stretch was the longest she had known +without a break. She got used to the idea that her mother, for +some reason, was in no hurry to reinstate her: that idea was +forcibly expressed by her father whenever Miss Overmore, differing +and decided, took him up on the question, which he was always +putting forward, of the urgency of sending her to school. For a +governess Miss Overmore differed surprisingly; far more for +instance than would have entered into the bowed head of Mrs. Wix. +She observed to Maisie many times that she was quite conscious of +not doing her justice, and that Mr. Farange equally measured and +equally lamented this deficiency. The reason of it was that she +had mysterious responsibilities that interfered—responsibilities, +Miss Overmore intimated, to Mr. Farange himself and to the +friendly noisy little house and those who came there. Mr. +Farange's remedy for every inconvenience was that the child should +be put at school—there were such lots of splendid schools, as +everybody knew, at Brighton and all over the place. That, however, +Maisie learned, was just what would bring her mother down: from +the moment he should delegate to others the housing of his little +charge he hadn't a leg to stand on before the law. Didn't he keep +her away from her mother precisely because Mrs. Farange was one of +these others?</p> + +<p>There was also the solution of a second governess, a young person +to come in by the day and really do the work; but to this Miss +Overmore wouldn't for a moment listen, arguing against it with +great public relish and wanting to know from all comers—she put +it even to Maisie herself—they didn't see how frightfully it +would give her away. "What am I supposed to be at all, don't you +see, if I'm not here to look after her?" She was in a false +position and so freely and loudly called attention to it that it +seemed to become almost a source of glory. The way out of it of +course was just to do her plain duty; but that was unfortunately +what, with his excessive, his exorbitant demands on her, which +every one indeed appeared quite to understand, he practically, he +selfishly prevented. Beale Farange, for Miss Overmore, was now +never anything but "he," and the house was as full as ever of +lively gentlemen with whom, under that designation, she chaffingly +talked about him. Maisie meanwhile, as a subject of familiar +gossip on what was to be done with her, was left so much to +herself that she had hours of wistful thought of the large loose +discipline of Mrs. Wix; yet she none the less held it under her +father's roof a point of superiority that none of his visitors +were ladies. It added to this odd security that she had once heard +a gentleman say to him as if it were a great joke and in obvious +reference to Miss Overmore: "Hanged if she'll let another woman +come near you—hanged if she ever will. She'd let fly a stick at +her as they do at a strange cat!" Maisie greatly preferred +gentlemen as inmates in spite of their also having their +way—louder but sooner over—of laughing out at her. They pulled +and pinched, they teased and tickled her; some of them even, as +they termed it, shied things at her, and all of them thought it +funny to call her by names having no resemblance to her own. The +ladies on the other hand addressed her as "You poor pet" and +scarcely touched her even to kiss her. But it was of the ladies +she was most afraid.</p> + +<p>She was now old enough to understand how disproportionate a stay +she had already made with her father; and also old enough to enter +a little into the ambiguity attending this excess, which oppressed +her particularly whenever the question had been touched upon in +talk with her governess. "Oh you needn't worry: she doesn't care!" +Miss Overmore had often said to her in reference to any fear that +her mother might resent her prolonged detention. "She has other +people than poor little <i>you</i> to think about, and has gone +abroad with them; so you needn't be in the least afraid she'll +stickle this time for her rights." Maisie knew Mrs. Farange had gone +abroad, for she had had weeks and weeks before a letter from her +beginning "My precious pet" and taking leave of her for an +indeterminate time; but she had not seen in it a renunciation of +hatred or of the writer's policy of asserting herself, for the +sharpest of all her impressions had been that there was nothing +her mother would ever care so much about as to torment Mr. +Farange. What at last, however, was in this connexion bewildering +and a little frightening was the dawn of a suspicion that a better +way had been found to torment Mr. Farange than to deprive him of +his periodical burden. This was the question that worried our +young lady and that Miss Overmore's confidences and the frequent +observations of her employer only rendered more mystifying. It was +a contradiction that if Ida had now a fancy for waiving the rights +she had originally been so hot about her late husband shouldn't +jump at the monopoly for which he had also in the first instance +so fiercely fought; but when Maisie, with a subtlety beyond her +years, sounded this new ground her main success was in hearing her +mother more freshly abused. Miss Overmore had up to now rarely +deviated from a decent reserve, but the day came when she +expressed herself with a vividness not inferior to Beale's own on +the subject of the lady who had fled to the Continent to wriggle +out of her job. It would serve this lady right, Maisie gathered, +if that contract, in the shape of an overgrown and underdressed +daughter, should be shipped straight out to her and landed at her +feet in the midst of scandalous excesses.</p> + +<p>The picture of these pursuits was what Miss Overmore took refuge +in when the child tried timidly to ascertain if her father were +disposed to feel he had too much of her. She evaded the point and +only kicked up all round it the dust of Ida's heartlessness and +folly, of which the supreme proof, it appeared, was the fact that +she was accompanied on her journey by a gentleman whom, to be +painfully plain on it, she had—well, "picked up." The terms on +which, unless they were married, ladies and gentlemen might, as +Miss Overmore expressed it, knock about together, were the terms +on which she and Mr. Farange had exposed themselves to possible +misconception. She had indeed, as has been noted, often explained +this before, often said to Maisie: "I don't know what in the +world, darling, your father and I should do without you, for you +just make the difference, as I've told you, of keeping us +perfectly proper." The child took in the office it was so +endearingly presented to her that she performed a comfort that +helped her to a sense of security even in the event of her +mother's giving her up. Familiar as she had grown with the fact of +the great alternative to the proper, she felt in her governess and +her father a strong reason for not emulating that detachment. At +the same time she had heard somehow of little girls—of exalted +rank, it was true—whose education was carried on by instructors +of the other sex, and she knew that if she were at school at +Brighton it would be thought an advantage to her to be more or +less in the hands of masters. She turned these things over and +remarked to Miss Overmore that if she should go to her mother +perhaps the gentleman might become her tutor.</p> + +<p>"The gentleman?" The proposition was complicated enough to make +Miss Overmore stare.</p> + +<p>"The one who's with mamma. Mightn't that make it right—as right +as your being my governess makes it for you to be with papa?"</p> + +<p>Miss Overmore considered; she coloured a little; then she embraced +her ingenious friend. "You're too sweet! I'm a <i>real</i> +governess."</p> + +<p>"And couldn't he be a real tutor?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. He's ignorant and bad."</p> + +<p>"Bad—?" Maisie echoed with wonder.</p> + +<p>Her companion gave a queer little laugh at her tone. "He's ever +so much younger—" But that was all.</p> + +<p>"Younger than you?"</p> + +<p>Miss Overmore laughed again; it was the first time Maisie had seen +her approach so nearly to a giggle.</p> + +<p>"Younger than—no matter whom. I don't know anything about him and +don't want to," she rather inconsequently added. "He's not my +sort, and I'm sure, my own darling, he's not yours." And she +repeated the free caress into which her colloquies with Maisie +almost always broke and which made the child feel that <i>her</i> +affection at least was a gage of safety. Parents had come to seem +vague, but governesses were evidently to be trusted. Maisie's +faith in Mrs. Wix for instance had suffered no lapse from the fact +that all communication with her had temporarily dropped. During +the first weeks of their separation Clara Matilda's mamma had +repeatedly and dolefully written to her, and Maisie had answered +with an enthusiasm controlled only by orthographical doubts; but +the correspondence had been duly submitted to Miss Overmore, with +the final effect of its not suiting her. It was this lady's view +that Mr. Farange wouldn't care for it at all, and she ended by +confessing—since her pupil pushed her—that she didn't care for +it herself. She was furiously jealous, she said; and that weakness +was but a new proof of her disinterested affection. She pronounced +Mrs. Wix's effusions moreover illiterate and unprofitable; she +made no scruple of declaring it monstrous that a woman in her +senses should have placed the formation of her daughter's mind in +such ridiculous hands. Maisie was well aware that the proprietress +of the old brown dress and the old odd headgear was lower in the +scale of "form" than Miss Overmore; but it was now brought home to +her with pain that she was educationally quite out of the +question. She was buried for the time beneath a conclusive remark +of her critic's: "She's really beyond a joke!" This remark was +made as that charming woman held in her hand the last letter that +Maisie was to receive from Mrs. Wix; it was fortified by a decree +proscribing the preposterous tie. "Must I then write and tell +her?" the child bewilderedly asked: she grew pale at the dreadful +things it appeared involved for her to say. "Don't dream of it, my +dear—I'll write: you may trust me!" cried Miss Overmore; who +indeed wrote to such purpose that a hush in which you could have +heard a pin drop descended upon poor Mrs. Wix. She gave for weeks +and weeks no sign whatever of life: it was as if she had been as +effectually disposed of by Miss Overmore's communication as her +little girl, in the Harrow Road, had been disposed of by the +terrible hansom. Her very silence became after this one of the +largest elements of Maisie's consciousness; it proved a warm and +habitable air, into which the child penetrated further than she +dared ever to mention to her companions. Somewhere in the depths +of it the dim straighteners were fixed upon her; somewhere out of +the troubled little current Mrs. Wix intensely waited.</p> + + +<p> <a name="7"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>VII<br /> </h3> + + +<p>It quite fell in with this intensity that one day, on returning +from a walk with the housemaid, Maisie should have found her in +the hall, seated on the stool usually occupied by the +telegraph-boys who haunted Beale Farange's door and kicked their +heels while, in his room, answers to their missives took form with +the aid of smoke-puffs and growls. It had seemed to her on their +parting that Mrs. Wix had reached the last limits of the squeeze, +but she now felt those limits to be transcended and that the +duration of her visitor's hug was a direct reply to Miss +Overmore's veto. She understood in a flash how the visit had come +to be possible—that Mrs. Wix, watching her chance, must have +slipped in under protection of the fact that papa, always +tormented in spite of arguments with the idea of a school, had, +for a three days' excursion to Brighton, absolutely insisted on +the attendance of her adversary. It was true that when Maisie +explained their absence and their important motive Mrs. Wix wore +an expression so peculiar that it could only have had its origin +in surprise. This contradiction indeed peeped out only to vanish, +for at the very moment that, in the spirit of it, she threw +herself afresh upon her young friend a hansom crested with neat +luggage rattled up to the door and Miss Overmore bounded out. The +shock of her encounter with Mrs. Wix was less violent than Maisie +had feared on seeing her and didn't at all interfere with the +sociable tone in which, under her rival's eyes, she explained to +her little charge that she had returned, for a particular reason, +a day sooner than she first intended. She had left papa—in such +nice lodgings—at Brighton; but he would come back to his dear +little home on the morrow. As for Mrs. Wix, papa's companion +supplied Maisie in later converse with the right word for the +attitude of this personage: Mrs. Wix "stood up" to her in a manner +that the child herself felt at the time to be astonishing. This +occurred indeed after Miss Overmore had so far raised her +interdict as to make a move to the dining-room, where, in the +absence of any suggestion of sitting down, it was scarcely more +than natural that even poor Mrs. Wix should stand up. Maisie at +once enquired if at Brighton, this time, anything had come of the +possibility of a school; to which, much to her surprise, Miss +Overmore, who had always grandly repudiated it, replied after an +instant, but quite as if Mrs. Wix were not there:</p> + +<p>"It may be, darling, that something <i>will</i> come. The +objection, I must tell you, has been quite removed."</p> + +<p>At this it was still more startling to hear Mrs. Wix speak out +with great firmness. "I don't think, if you'll allow me to say so, +that there's any arrangement by which the objection <i>can</i> be +'removed.' What has brought me here to-day is that I've a message +for Maisie from dear Mrs. Farange."</p> + +<p>The child's heart gave a great thump. "Oh mamma's come back?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet, sweet love, but she's coming," said Mrs. Wix, "and she +has—most thoughtfully, you know—sent me on to prepare you."</p> + +<p>"To prepare her for what, pray?" asked Miss Overmore, whose first +smoothness began, with this news, to be ruffled.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix quietly applied her straighteners to Miss Overmore's +flushed beauty. "Well, miss, for a very important communication."</p> + +<p>"Can't dear Mrs. Farange, as you so oddly call her, make her +communications directly? Can't she take the trouble to write to +her only daughter?" the younger lady demanded. "Maisie herself +will tell you that it's months and months since she has had so +much as a word from her."</p> + +<p>"Oh but I've written to mamma!" cried the child as if this would +do quite as well.</p> + +<p>"That makes her treatment of you all the greater scandal," the +governess in possession promptly declared.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Farange is too well aware," said Mrs. Wix with sustained +spirit, "of what becomes of her letters in this house."</p> + +<p>Maisie's sense of fairness hereupon interposed for her visitor. +"You know, Miss Overmore, that papa doesn't like everything of +mamma's."</p> + +<p>"No one likes, my dear, to be made the subject of such language as +your mother's letters contain. They were not fit for the innocent +child to see," Miss Overmore observed to Mrs. Wix.</p> + +<p>"Then I don't know what you complain of, and she's better without +them. It serves every purpose that I'm in Mrs. Farange's +confidence."</p> + +<p>Miss Overmore gave a scornful laugh. "Then you must be mixed up +with some extraordinary proceedings!"</p> + +<p>"None so extraordinary," cried Mrs. Wix, turning very pale, "as to +say horrible things about the mother to the face of the helpless +daughter!"</p> + +<p>"Things not a bit more horrible, I think," Miss Overmore returned, +"than those you, madam, appear to have come here to say about the +father!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix looked for a moment hard at Maisie, and then, turning +again to this witness, spoke with a trembling voice. "I came to +say nothing about him, and you must excuse Mrs. Farange and me if +we're not so above all reproach as the companion of his travels."</p> + +<p>The young woman thus described stared at the apparent breadth of +the description—she needed a moment to take it in. Maisie, +however, gazing solemnly from one of the disputants to the other, +noted that her answer, when it came, perched upon smiling lips. +"It will do quite as well, no doubt, if you come up to the +requirements of the companion of Mrs. Farange's!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix broke into a queer laugh; it sounded to Maisie an +unsuccessful imitation of a neigh. "That's just what I'm here to +make known—how perfectly the poor lady comes up to them herself." +She held up her head at the child. "You must take your mamma's +message, Maisie, and you must feel that her wishing me to come to +you with it this way is a great proof of interest and affection. +She sends you her particular love and announces to you that she's +engaged to be married to Sir Claude."</p> + +<p>"Sir Claude?" Maisie wonderingly echoed. But while Mrs. Wix +explained that this gentleman was a dear friend of Mrs. Farange's, +who had been of great assistance to her in getting to Florence and +in making herself comfortable there for the winter, she was not +too violently shaken to perceive her old friend's enjoyment of the +effect of this news on Miss Overmore. That young lady opened her +eyes very wide; she immediately remarked that Mrs. Farange's +marriage would of course put an end to any further pretension to +take her daughter back. Mrs. Wix enquired with astonishment why it +should do anything of the sort, and Miss Overmore gave as an +instant reason that it was clearly but another dodge in a system +of dodges. She wanted to get out of the bargain: why else had she +now left Maisie on her father's hands weeks and weeks beyond the +time about which she had originally made such a fuss? It was vain +for Mrs. Wix to represent—as she speciously proceeded to do—that +all this time would be made up as soon as Mrs. Farange returned: +she, Miss Overmore, knew nothing, thank heaven, about her +confederate, but was very sure any person capable of forming that +sort of relation with the lady in Florence would easily agree to +object to the presence in his house of the fruit of a union that +his dignity must ignore. It was a game like another, and Mrs. +Wix's visit was clearly the first move in it. Maisie found in this +exchange of asperities a fresh incitement to the unformulated +fatalism in which her sense of her own career had long since taken +refuge; and it was the beginning for her of a deeper prevision +that, in spite of Miss Overmore's brilliancy and Mrs. Wix's +passion, she should live to see a change in the nature of the +struggle she appeared to have come into the world to produce. It +would still be essentially a struggle, but its object would now be +<i>not</i> to receive her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix, after Miss Overmore's last demonstration, addressed +herself wholly to the little girl, and, drawing from the pocket of +her dingy old pelisse a small flat parcel, removed its envelope +and wished to know if <i>that</i> looked like a gentleman who wouldn't +be nice to everybody—let alone to a person he would be so sure to +find so nice. Mrs. Farange, in the candour of new-found happiness, +had enclosed a "cabinet" photograph of Sir Claude, and Maisie lost +herself in admiration of the fair smooth face, the regular +features, the kind eyes, the amiable air, the general glossiness +and smartness of her prospective stepfather—only vaguely puzzled +to suppose herself now with two fathers at once. Her researches +had hitherto indicated that to incur a second parent of the same +sex you had usually to lose the first. "<i>Isn't</i> he sympathetic?" +asked Mrs. Wix, who had clearly, on the strength of his charming +portrait, made up her mind that Sir Claude promised her a future. +"You can see, I hope," she added with much expression, "that +<i>he's</i> a perfect gentleman!" Maisie had never before heard the +word "sympathetic" applied to anybody's face; she heard it with +pleasure and from that moment it agreeably remained with her. She +testified moreover to the force of her own perception in a small +soft sigh of response to the pleasant eyes that seemed to seek her +acquaintance, to speak to her directly. "He's quite lovely!" she +declared to Mrs. Wix. Then eagerly, irrepressibly, as she still +held the photograph and Sir Claude continued to fraternise, "Oh +can't I keep it?" she broke out. No sooner had she done so than +she looked up from it at Miss Overmore: this was with the sudden +instinct of appealing to the authority that had long ago impressed +on her that she mustn't ask for things. Miss Overmore, to her +surprise, looked distant and rather odd, hesitating and giving her +time to turn again to Mrs. Wix. Then Maisie saw that lady's long +face lengthen; it was stricken and almost scared, as if her young +friend really expected more of her than she had to give. The +photograph was a possession that, direly denuded, she clung to, +and there was a momentary struggle between her fond clutch of it +and her capability of every sacrifice for her precarious pupil. +With the acuteness of her years, however, Maisie saw that her own +avidity would triumph, and she held out the picture to Miss +Overmore as if she were quite proud of her mother. "Isn't he just +lovely?" she demanded while poor Mrs. Wix hungrily wavered, her +straighteners largely covering it and her pelisse gathered about +her with an intensity that strained its ancient seams.</p> + +<p>"It was to <i>me</i>, darling," the visitor said, "that your mamma +so generously sent it; but of course if it would give you particular +pleasure—" she faltered, only gasping her surrender.</p> + +<p>Miss Overmore continued extremely remote. "If the photograph's +your property, my dear, I shall be happy to oblige you by looking +at it on some future occasion. But you must excuse me if I decline +to touch an object belonging to Mrs. Wix."</p> + +<p>That lady had by this time grown very red. "You might as well see +him this way, miss," she retorted, "as you certainly never will, I +believe, in any other! Keep the pretty picture, by all means, my +precious," she went on: "Sir Claude will be happy himself, I dare +say, to give me one with a kind inscription." The pathetic quaver +of this brave boast was not lost on Maisie, who threw herself so +gratefully on the speaker's neck that, when they had concluded +their embrace, the public tenderness of which, she felt, made up +for the sacrifice she imposed, their companion had had time to lay +a quick hand on Sir Claude and, with a glance at him or not, whisk +him effectually out of sight. Released from the child's arms Mrs. +Wix looked about for the picture; then she fixed Miss Overmore +with a hard dumb stare; and finally, with her eyes on the little +girl again, achieved the grimmest of smiles. "Well, nothing +matters, Maisie, because there's another thing your mamma wrote +about. She has made sure of me." Even after her loyal hug Maisie +felt a bit of a sneak as she glanced at Miss Overmore for +permission to understand this. But Mrs. Wix left them in no doubt +of what it meant. "She has definitely engaged me—for her return +and for yours. Then you'll see for yourself." Maisie, on the spot, +quite believed she should; but the prospect was suddenly thrown +into confusion by an extraordinary demonstration from Miss +Overmore.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Wix," said that young lady, "has some undiscoverable reason +for regarding your mother's hold on you as strengthened by the +fact that she's about to marry. I wonder then—on that +system—what our visitor will say to your father's."</p> + +<p>Miss Overmore's words were directed to her pupil, but her face, +lighted with an irony that made it prettier even than ever before, +was presented to the dingy figure that had stiffened itself for +departure. The child's discipline had been bewildering—had ranged +freely between the prescription that she was to answer when spoken +to and the experience of lively penalties on obeying that +prescription. This time, nevertheless, she felt emboldened for +risks; above all as something portentous seemed to have leaped +into her sense of the relations of things. She looked at Miss +Overmore much as she had a way of looking at persons who treated +her to "grown up" jokes. "Do you mean papa's hold on me—do you +mean <i>he's</i> about to marry?"</p> + +<p>"Papa's not about to marry—papa <i>is</i> married, my dear. Papa +was married the day before yesterday at Brighton." Miss Overmore +glittered more gaily; meanwhile it came over Maisie, and quite +dazzlingly, that her "smart" governess was a bride. "He's my +husband, if you please, and I'm his little wife. So <i>now</i> +we'll see who's your little mother!" She caught her pupil to her +bosom in a manner that was not to be outdone by the emissary of her +predecessor, and a few moments later, when things had lurched back +into their places, that poor lady, quite defeated of the last +word, had soundlessly taken flight.</p> + + +<p> <a name="8"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>VIII<br /> </h3> + + +<p>After Mrs. Wix's retreat Miss Overmore appeared to recognise that +she was not exactly in a position to denounce Ida Farange's second +union; but she drew from a table-drawer the photograph of Sir +Claude and, standing there before Maisie, studied it at some +length.</p> + +<p>"Isn't he beautiful?" the child ingenuously asked.</p> + +<p>Her companion hesitated. "No—he's horrid," she, to Maisie's +surprise, sharply returned. But she debated another minute, after +which she handed back the picture. It appeared to Maisie herself +to exhibit a fresh attraction, and she was troubled, having never +before had occasion to differ from her lovely friend. So she only +could ask what, such being the case, she should do with it: should +she put it quite away—where it wouldn't be there to offend? On +this Miss Overmore again cast about; after which she said +unexpectedly: "Put it on the schoolroom mantelpiece."</p> + +<p>Maisie felt a fear. "Won't papa dislike to see it there?"</p> + +<p>"Very much indeed; but that won't matter <i>now</i>." Miss +Overmore spoke with peculiar significance and to her pupil's +mystification.</p> + +<p>"On account of the marriage?" Maisie risked.</p> + +<p>Miss Overmore laughed, and Maisie could see that in spite of the +irritation produced by Mrs. Wix she was in high spirits. "Which +marriage do you mean?"</p> + +<p>With the question put to her it suddenly struck the child she +didn't know, so that she felt she looked foolish. So she took +refuge in saying: "Shall <i>you</i> be different—" This was a +full implication that the bride of Sir Claude would be.</p> + +<p>"As your father's wedded wife? Utterly!" Miss Overmore replied. +And the difference began of course in her being addressed, even by +Maisie, from that day and by her particular request, as Mrs. +Beale. It was there indeed principally that it ended, for except +that the child could reflect that she should presently have four +parents in all, and also that at the end of three months the +staircase, for a little girl hanging over banisters, sent up the +deepening rustle of more elaborate advances, everything made the +same impression as before. Mrs. Beale had very pretty frocks, but +Miss Overmore's had been quite as good, and if papa was much +fonder of his second wife than he had been of his first Maisie had +foreseen that fondness, had followed its development almost as +closely as the person more directly involved. There was little +indeed in the commerce of her companions that her precocious +experience couldn't explain, for if they struck her as after all +rather deficient in that air of the honeymoon of which she had so +often heard—in much detail, for instance, from Mrs. Wix—it was +natural to judge the circumstance in the light of papa's proved +disposition to contest the empire of the matrimonial tie. His +honeymoon, when he came back from Brighton—not on the morrow of +Mrs. Wix's visit, and not, oddly, till several days later—his +honeymoon was perhaps perceptibly tinged with the dawn of a later +stage of wedlock. There were things dislike of which, as the child +knew it, wouldn't matter to Mrs. Beale now, and their number +increased so that such a trifle as his hostility to the photograph +of Sir Claude quite dropped out of view. This pleasing object +found a conspicuous place in the schoolroom, which in truth Mr. +Farange seldom entered and in which silent admiration formed, +during the time I speak of, almost the sole scholastic exercise of +Mrs. Beale's pupil.</p> + +<p>Maisie was not long in seeing just what her stepmother had meant +by the difference she should show in her new character. If she was +her father's wife she was not her own governess, and if her +presence had had formerly to be made regular by the theory of a +humble function she was now on a footing that dispensed with all +theories and was inconsistent with all servitude. That was what +she had meant by the drop of the objection to a school; her small +companion was no longer required at home as—it was Mrs. Beale's +own amusing word—a little duenna. The argument against a +successor to Miss Overmore remained: it was composed frankly of +the fact, of which Mrs. Beale granted the full absurdity, that she +was too awfully fond of her stepdaughter to bring herself to see +her in vulgar and mercenary hands. The note of this particular +danger emboldened Maisie to put in a word for Mrs. Wix, the modest +measure of whose avidity she had taken from the first; but Mrs. +Beale disposed afresh and effectually of a candidate who would be +sure to act in some horrible and insidious way for Ida's interest +and who moreover was personally loathsome and as ignorant as a +fish. She made also no more of a secret of the awkward fact that a +good school would be hideously expensive, and of the further +circumstance, which seemed to put an end to everything, that when +it came to the point papa, in spite of his previous clamour, was +really most nasty about paying. "Would you believe," Mrs. Beale +confidentially asked of her little charge, "that he says I'm a +worse expense than ever, and that a daughter and a wife together +are really more than he can afford?" It was thus that the splendid +school at Brighton lost itself in the haze of larger questions, +though the fear that it would provoke Ida to leap into the breach +subsided with her prolonged, her quite shameless non-appearance. +Her daughter and her successor were therefore left to gaze in +united but helpless blankness at all Maisie was not learning.</p> + +<p>This quantity was so great as to fill the child's days with a +sense of intermission to which even French Lisette gave no +accent—with finished games and unanswered questions and dreaded +tests; with the habit, above all, in her watch for a change, of +hanging over banisters when the door-bell sounded. This was the +great refuge of her impatience, but what she heard at such times +was a clatter of gaiety downstairs; the impression of which, from +her earliest childhood, had built up in her the belief that the +grown-up time was the time of real amusement and above all of real +intimacy. Even Lisette, even Mrs. Wix had never, she felt, in +spite of hugs and tears, been so intimate with her as so many +persons at present were with Mrs. Beale and as so many others of +old had been with Mrs. Farange. The note of hilarity brought +people together still more than the note of melancholy, which was +the one exclusively sounded, for instance, by poor Mrs. Wix. +Maisie in these days preferred none the less that domestic revels +should be wafted to her from a distance: she felt sadly +unsupported for facing the inquisition of the drawing-room. That +was a reason the more for making the most of Susan Ash, who in her +quality of under-housemaid moved at a very different level and +who, none the less, was much depended upon out of doors. She was a +guide to peregrinations that had little in common with those +intensely definite airings that had left with the child a vivid +memory of the regulated mind of Moddle. There had been under +Moddle's system no dawdles at shop-windows and no nudges, in +Oxford Street, of "I <i>say</i>, look at <i>'er</i>!" There had +been an inexorable treatment of crossings and a serene exemption +from the fear that—especially at corners, of which she was yet +weakly fond—haunted the housemaid, the fear of being, as she +ominously said, "spoken to." The dangers of the town equally with +its diversions added to Maisie's sense of being untutored and +unclaimed.</p> + +<p>The situation however, had taken a twist when, on another of her +returns, at Susan's side, extremely tired, from the pursuit of +exercise qualified by much hovering, she encountered another +emotion. She on this occasion learnt at the door that her instant +attendance was requested in the drawing-room. Crossing the +threshold in a cloud of shame she discerned through the blur Mrs. +Beale seated there with a gentleman who immediately drew the pain +from her predicament by rising before her as the original of the +photograph of Sir Claude. She felt the moment she looked at him +that he was by far the most shining presence that had ever made +her gape, and her pleasure in seeing him, in knowing that he took +hold of her and kissed her, as quickly throbbed into a strange shy +pride in him, a perception of his making up for her fallen state, +for Susan's public nudges, which quite bruised her, and for all +the lessons that, in the dead schoolroom, where at times she was +almost afraid to stay alone, she was bored with not having. It was +as if he had told her on the spot that he belonged to her, so that +she could already show him off and see the effect he produced. No, +nothing else that was most beautiful ever belonging to her could +kindle that particular joy—not Mrs. Beale at that very moment, +not papa when he was gay, nor mamma when she was dressed, nor +Lisette when she was new. The joy almost overflowed in tears when +he laid his hand on her and drew her to him, telling her, with a +smile of which the promise was as bright as that of a +Christmas-tree, that he knew her ever so well by her mother, but +had come to see her now so that he might know her for himself. She +could see that his view of this kind of knowledge was to make her +come away with him, and, further, that it was just what he was +there for and had already been some time: arranging it with Mrs. +Beale and getting on with that lady in a manner evidently not at +all affected by her having on the arrival of his portrait thought +of him so ill. They had grown almost intimate—or had the air of +it—over their discussion; and it was still further conveyed to +Maisie that Mrs. Beale had made no secret, and would make yet less +of one, of all that it cost to let her go. "You seem so +tremendously eager," she said to the child, "that I hope you're at +least clear about Sir Claude's relation to you. It doesn't appear +to occur to him to give you the necessary reassurance."</p> + +<p>Maisie, a trifle mystified, turned quickly to her new friend. "Why +it's of course that you're <i>married</i> to her, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Her anxious emphasis started them off, as she had learned to call +it; this was the echo she infallibly and now quite resignedly +produced; moreover Sir Claude's laughter was an indistinguishable +part of the sweetness of his being there. "We've been married, my +dear child, three months, and my interest in you is a consequence, +don't you know? of my great affection for your mother. In coming +here it's of course for your mother I'm acting."</p> + +<p>"Oh I know," Maisie said with all the candour of her competence. +"She can't come herself—except just to the door." Then as she +thought afresh: "Can't she come even to the door now?"</p> + +<p>"There you are!" Mrs. Beale exclaimed to Sir Claude. She spoke as +if his dilemma were ludicrous.</p> + +<p>His kind face, in a hesitation, seemed to recognise it; but he +answered the child with a frank smile. "No—not very well."</p> + +<p>"Because she has married you?"</p> + +<p>He promptly accepted this reason. "Well, that has a good deal to +do with it."</p> + +<p>He was so delightful to talk to that Maisie pursued the subject. +"But papa—<i>he</i> has married Miss Overmore."</p> + +<p>"Ah you'll see that he won't come for you at your mother's," that +lady interposed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but that won't be for a long time," Maisie hastened to +respond.</p> + +<p>"We won't talk about it now—you've months and months to put in +first." And Sir Claude drew her closer.</p> + +<p>"Oh that's what makes it so hard to give her up!" Mrs. Beale made +this point with her arms out to her stepdaughter. Maisie, quitting +Sir Claude, went over to them and, clasped in a still tenderer +embrace, felt entrancingly the extension of the field of +happiness. "<i>I'll</i> come for you," said her stepmother, "if Sir +Claude keeps you too long: we must make him quite understand that! +Don't talk to me about her ladyship!" she went on to their visitor +so familiarly that it was almost as if they must have met before. +"I know her ladyship as if I had made her. They're a pretty pair +of parents!" cried Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>Maisie had so often heard them called so that the remark diverted +her but an instant from the agreeable wonder of this grand new +form of allusion to her mother; and that, in its turn, presently +left her free to catch at the pleasant possibility, in connexion +with herself, of a relation much happier as between Mrs. Beale and +Sir Claude than as between mamma and papa. Still the next thing +that happened was that her interest in such a relation brought to +her lips a fresh question.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen papa?" she asked of Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>It was the signal for their going off again, as her small stoicism +had perfectly taken for granted that it would be. All that Mrs. +Beale had nevertheless to add was the vague apparent sarcasm: "Oh +papa!"</p> + +<p>"I'm assured he's not at home," Sir Claude replied to the child; +"but if he had been I should have hoped for the pleasure of seeing +him."</p> + +<p>"Won't he mind your coming?" Maisie asked as with need of the +knowledge.</p> + +<p>"Oh you bad little girl!" Mrs. Beale humorously protested.</p> + +<p>The child could see that at this Sir Claude, though still moved to +mirth, coloured a little; but he spoke to her very kindly. "That's +just what I came to see, you know—whether your father <i>would</i> +mind. But Mrs. Beale appears strongly of the opinion that he +won't."</p> + +<p>This lady promptly justified that view to her stepdaughter. "It +will be very interesting, my dear, you know, to find out what it +is to-day that your father does mind. I'm sure <i>I</i> don't +know!"—and she seemed to repeat, though with perceptible +resignation, her plaint of a moment before. "Your father, darling, +is a very odd person indeed." She turned with this, smiling, to +Sir Claude. "But perhaps it's hardly civil for me to say that of +his not objecting to have <i>you</i> in the house. If you knew +some of the people he does have!"</p> + +<p>Maisie knew them all, and none indeed were to be compared to Sir +Claude. He laughed back at Mrs. Beale; he looked at such moments +quite as Mrs. Wix, in the long stories she told her pupil, always +described the lovers of her distressed beauties—"the perfect +gentleman and strikingly handsome." He got up, to the child's +regret, as if he were going. "Oh I dare say we should be all +right!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale once more gathered in her little charge, holding her +close and looking thoughtfully over her head at their visitor. +"It's so charming—for a man of your type—to have wanted her so +much!"</p> + +<p>"What do you know about my type?" Sir Claude laughed. "Whatever it +may be I dare say it deceives you. The truth about me is simply +that I'm the most unappreciated of—what do you call the +fellows?—'family-men.' Yes, I'm a family-man; upon my honour I +am!"</p> + +<p>"Then why on earth," cried Mrs. Beale, "didn't you marry a +family-woman?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude looked at her hard. "<i>You</i> know who one marries, +I think. Besides, there <i>are</i> no family-women—hanged if there +are! None of them want any children—hanged if they do!"</p> + +<p>His account of the matter was most interesting, and Maisie, as if +it were of bad omen for her, stared at the picture in some dismay. +At the same time she felt, through encircling arms, her +protectress hesitate. "You do come out with things! But you mean +her ladyship doesn't want any—really?"</p> + +<p>"Won't hear of them—simply. But she can't help the one she +<i>has</i> got." And with this Sir Claude's eyes rested on the +little girl in a way that seemed to her to mask her mother's +attitude with the consciousness of his own. "She must make the best +of her, don't you see? If only for the look of the thing, don't you +know? one wants one's wife to take the proper line about her +child."</p> + +<p>"Oh I know what one wants!" Mrs. Beale cried with a competence +that evidently impressed her interlocutor.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you keep <i>him</i> up—and I dare say you've had +worry enough—why shouldn't I keep Ida? What's sauce for the goose +is sauce for the gander—or the other way round, don't you know? I +mean to see the thing through."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale, for a minute, still with her eyes on him as he leaned +upon the chimneypiece, appeared to turn this over. "You're just a +wonder of kindness—that's what you are!" she said at last. "A +lady's expected to have natural feelings. But <i>your</i> horrible +sex—! Isn't it a horrible sex, little love?" she demanded with her +cheek upon her stepdaughter's.</p> + +<p>"Oh I like gentlemen best," Maisie lucidly replied.</p> + +<p>The words were taken up merrily. "That's a good one for +<i>you</i>!" Sir Claude exclaimed to Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>"No," said that lady: "I've only to remember the women she sees at +her mother's."</p> + +<p>"Ah they're very nice now," Sir Claude returned.</p> + +<p>"What do you call 'nice'?"</p> + +<p>"Well, they're all right."</p> + +<p>"That doesn't answer me," said Mrs. Beale; "but I dare say you do +take care of them. That makes you more of an angel to want this +job too." And she playfully whacked her smaller companion.</p> + +<p>"I'm not an angel—I'm an old grandmother," Sir Claude declared. +"I like babies—I always did. If we go to smash I shall look for a +place as responsible nurse."</p> + +<p>Maisie, in her charmed mood, drank in an imputation on her years +which at another moment might have been bitter; but the charm was +sensibly interrupted by Mrs. Beale's screwing her round and gazing +fondly into her eyes, "You're willing to leave me, you wretch?"</p> + +<p>The little girl deliberated; even this consecrated tie had become +as a cord she must suddenly snap. But she snapped it very gently. +"Isn't it my turn for mamma?"</p> + +<p>"You're a horrible little hypocrite! The less, I think, now said +about 'turns' the better," Mrs. Beale made answer. "<i>I</i> know +whose turn it is. You've not such a passion for your mother!"</p> + +<p>"I say, I say: <i>do</i> look out!" Sir Claude quite amiably +protested.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing she hasn't heard. But it doesn't +matter—it hasn't spoiled her. If you knew what it costs me to part +with you!" she pursued to Maisie.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude watched her as she charmingly clung to the child. "I'm +so glad you really care for her. That's so much to the good."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale slowly got up, still with her hands on Maisie, but +emitting a soft exhalation. "Well, if you're glad, that may help +us; for I assure you that I shall never give up any rights in her +that I may consider I've acquired by my own sacrifices. I shall +hold very fast to my interest in her. What seems to have happened +is that she has brought you and me together."</p> + +<p>"She has brought you and me together," said Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>His cheerful echo prolonged the happy truth, and Maisie broke out +almost with enthusiasm: "I've brought you and her together!"</p> + +<p>Her companions of course laughed anew and Mrs. Beale gave her an +affectionate shake. "You little monster—take care what you do! +But that's what she does do," she continued to Sir Claude. "She +did it to me and Beale."</p> + +<p>"Well then," he said to Maisie, "you must try the trick at +<i>our</i> place." He held out his hand to her again. "Will you +come now?"</p> + +<p>"Now—just as I am?" She turned with an immense appeal to her +stepmother, taking a leap over the mountain of "mending," the +abyss of packing that had loomed and yawned before her. "Oh +<i>may</i> I?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale addressed her assent to Sir Claude. "As well so as any +other way. I'll send on her things to-morrow." Then she gave a tug +to the child's coat, glancing at her up and down with some +ruefulness.</p> + +<p>"She's not turned out as I should like—her mother will pull her +to pieces. But what's one to do—with nothing to do it on? And +she's better than when she came—you can tell her mother that. I'm +sorry to have to say it to you—but the poor child was a sight."</p> + +<p>"Oh I'll turn her out myself!" the visitor cordially said.</p> + +<p>"I shall like to see how!"—Mrs. Beale appeared much amused. "You +must bring her to show me—we can manage that. Good-bye, little +fright!" And her last word to Sir Claude was that she would keep +him up to the mark.</p> + + +<p> <a name="9"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>IX<br /> </h3> + + +<p>The idea of what she was to make up and the prodigious total it +came to were kept well before Maisie at her mother's. These things +were the constant occupation of Mrs. Wix, who arrived there by the +back stairs, but in tears of joy, the day after her own arrival. +The process of making up, as to which the good lady had an immense +deal to say, took, through its successive phases, so long that it +heralded a term at least equal to the child's last stretch with +her father. This, however, was a fuller and richer time: it +bounded along to the tune of Mrs. Wix's constant insistence on the +energy they must both put forth. There was a fine intensity in the +way the child agreed with her that under Mrs. Beale and Susan Ash +she had learned nothing whatever; the wildness of the rescued +castaway was one of the forces that would henceforth make for a +career of conquest. The year therefore rounded itself as a +receptacle of retarded knowledge—a cup brimming over with the +sense that now at least she was learning. Mrs. Wix fed this sense +from the stores of her conversation and with the immense bustle of +her reminder that they must cull the fleeting hour. They were +surrounded with subjects they must take at a rush and perpetually +getting into the attitude of triumphant attack. They had certainly +no idle hours, and the child went to bed each night as tired as +from a long day's play. This had begun from the moment of their +reunion, begun with all Mrs. Wix had to tell her young friend of +the reasons of her ladyship's extraordinary behaviour at the very +first.</p> + +<p>It took the form of her ladyship's refusal for three days to see +her little girl—three days during which Sir Claude made hasty +merry dashes into the schoolroom to smooth down the odd situation, +to say "She'll come round, you know; I assure you she'll come +round," and a little even to compensate Maisie for the indignity +he had caused her to suffer. There had never in the child's life +been, in all ways, such a delightful amount of reparation. It came +out by his sociable admission that her ladyship had not known of +his visit to her late husband's house and of his having made that +person's daughter a pretext for striking up an acquaintance with +the dreadful creature installed there. Heaven knew she wanted her +child back and had made every plan of her own for removing her; +what she couldn't for the present at least forgive any one +concerned was such an officious underhand way of bringing about +the transfer. Maisie carried more of the weight of this resentment +than even Mrs. Wix's confidential ingenuity could lighten for her, +especially as Sir Claude himself was not at all ingenious, though +indeed on the other hand he was not at all crushed. He was amused +and intermittent and at moments most startling; he impressed on +his young companion, with a frankness that agitated her much more +than he seemed to guess, that he depended on her not letting her +mother, when she should see her, get anything out of her about +anything Mrs. Beale might have said to him. He came in and out; he +professed, in joke, to take tremendous precautions; he showed a +positive disposition to romp. He chaffed Mrs. Wix till she was +purple with the pleasure of it, and reminded Maisie of the +reticence he expected of her till she set her teeth like an Indian +captive. Her lessons these first days and indeed for long after +seemed to be all about Sir Claude, and yet she never really +mentioned to Mrs. Wix that she was prepared, under his inspiring +injunction, to be vainly tortured. This lady, however, had +formulated the position of things with an acuteness that showed +how little she needed to be coached. Her explanation of everything +that seemed not quite pleasant—and if her own footing was +perilous it met that danger as well—that her ladyship was +passionately in love. Maisie accepted this hint with infinite awe +and pressed upon it much when she was at last summoned into the +presence of her mother.</p> + +<p>There she encountered matters amid which it seemed really to help +to give her a clue—an almost terrifying strangeness, full, none +the less, after a little, of reverberations of Ida's old fierce +and demonstrative recoveries of possession. They had been some +time in the house together, and this demonstration came late. +Preoccupied, however, as Maisie was with the idea of the sentiment +Sir Claude had inspired, and familiar, in addition, by Mrs. Wix's +anecdotes, with the ravages that in general such a sentiment could +produce, she was able to make allowances for her ladyship's +remarkable appearance, her violent splendour, the wonderful colour +of her lips and even the hard stare, the stare of some gorgeous +idol described in a story-book, that had come into her eyes in +consequence of a curious thickening of their already rich +circumference. Her professions and explanations were mixed with +eager challenges and sudden drops, in the midst of which Maisie +recognised as a memory of other years the rattle of her trinkets +and the scratch of her endearments, the odour of her clothes and +the jumps of her conversation. She had all her old clever +way—Mrs. Wix said it was "aristocratic"—of changing the subject +as she might have slammed the door in your face. The principal +thing that was different was the tint of her golden hair, which +had changed to a coppery red and, with the head it profusely +covered, struck the child as now lifted still further aloft. This +picturesque parent showed literally a grander stature and a nobler +presence, things which, with some others that might have been +bewildering, were handsomely accounted for by the romantic state +of her affections. It was her affections, Maisie could easily see, +that led Ida to break out into questions as to what had passed at +the other house between that horrible woman and Sir Claude; but it +was also just here that the little girl was able to recall the +effect with which in earlier days she had practised the pacific +art of stupidity. This art again came to her aid: her mother, in +getting rid of her after an interview in which she had achieved a +hollowness beyond her years, allowed her fully to understand she +had not grown a bit more amusing.</p> + +<p>She could bear that; she could bear anything that helped her to +feel she had done something for Sir Claude. If she hadn't told +Mrs. Wix how Mrs. Beale seemed to like him she certainly couldn't +tell her ladyship. In the way the past revived for her there was a +queer confusion. It was because mamma hated papa that she used to +want to know bad things of him; but if at present she wanted to +know the same of Sir Claude it was quite from the opposite motive. +She was awestruck at the manner in which a lady might be affected +through the passion mentioned by Mrs. Wix; she held her breath +with the sense of picking her steps among the tremendous things of +life. What she did, however, now, after the interview with her +mother, impart to Mrs. Wix was that, in spite of her having had +her "good" effect, as she called it—the effect she studied, the +effect of harmless vacancy—her ladyship's last words had been +that her ladyship's duty by her would be thoroughly done. Over +this announcement governess and pupil looked at each other in +silent profundity; but as the weeks went by it had no consequences +that interfered gravely with the breezy gallop of making up. Her +ladyship's duty took at times the form of not seeing her child for +days together, and Maisie led her life in great prosperity between +Mrs. Wix and kind Sir Claude. Mrs. Wix had a new dress and, as she +was the first to proclaim, a better position; so it all struck +Maisie as a crowded brilliant life, with, for the time, Mrs. Beale +and Susan Ash simply "left out" like children not invited to a +Christmas party. Mrs. Wix had a secret terror which, like most of +her secret feelings, she discussed with her little companion, in +great solemnity, by the hour: the possibility of her ladyship's +coming down on them, in her sudden highbred way, with a school. +But she had also a balm to this fear in a conviction of the +strength of Sir Claude's grasp of the situation. He was too +pleased—didn't he constantly say as much?—with the good +impression made, in a wide circle, by Ida's sacrifices; and he +came into the schoolroom repeatedly to let them know how +beautifully he felt everything had gone off and everything would +go on.</p> + +<p>He disappeared at times for days, when his patient friends +understood that her ladyship would naturally absorb him; but he +always came back with the drollest stories of where he had been, a +wonderful picture of society, and even with pretty presents that +showed how in absence he thought of his home. Besides giving Mrs. +Wix by his conversation a sense that they almost themselves "went +out," he gave her a five-pound note and the history of France and +an umbrella with a malachite knob, and to Maisie both +chocolate-creams and story-books, besides a lovely greatcoat +(which he took her out all alone to buy) and ever so many games in +boxes, with printed directions, and a bright red frame for the +protection of his famous photograph. The games were, as he said, +to while away the evening hour; and the evening hour indeed often +passed in futile attempts on Mrs. Wix's part to master what "it +said" on the papers. When he asked the pair how they liked the +games they always replied "Oh immensely!" but they had earnest +discussions as to whether they hadn't better appeal to him frankly +for aid to understand them. This was a course their delicacy +shrank from; they couldn't have told exactly why, but it was a +part of their tenderness for him not to let him think they had +trouble. What dazzled most was his kindness to Mrs. Wix, not only +the five-pound note and the "not forgetting" her, but the perfect +consideration, as she called it with an air to which her sounding +of the words gave the only grandeur Maisie was to have seen her +wear save on a certain occasion hereafter to be described, an +occasion when the poor lady was grander than all of them put +together. He shook hands with her, he recognised her, as she said, +and above all, more than once, he took her, with his stepdaughter, +to the pantomime and, in the crowd, coming out, publicly gave her +his arm. When he met them in sunny Piccadilly he made merry and +turned and walked with them, heroically suppressing his +consciousness of the stamp of his company, a heroism +that—needless for Mrs. Wix to sound <i>those</i> words—her +ladyship, though a blood-relation, was little enough the woman +to be capable of. Even to the hard heart of childhood there was +something tragic in such elation at such humanities: it brought +home to Maisie the way her humble companion had sidled and +ducked through life. But it settled the question of the degree +to which Sir Claude was a gentleman: he was more of one than +anybody else in the world—"I don't care," Mrs. Wix +repeatedly remarked, "whom you may meet in +grand society, nor even to whom you may be contracted in +marriage." There were questions that Maisie never asked; so her +governess was spared the embarrassment of telling her if he were +more of a gentleman than papa. This was not moreover from the want +of opportunity, for there were no moments between them at which +the topic could be irrelevant, no subject they were going into, +not even the principal dates or the auxiliary verbs, in which it +was further off than the turn of the page. The answer on the +winter nights to the puzzle of cards and counters and little +bewildering pamphlets was just to draw up to the fire and talk +about him; and if the truth must be told this edifying interchange +constituted for the time the little girl's chief education.</p> + +<p>It must also be admitted that he took them far, further perhaps +than was always warranted by the old-fashioned conscience, the dingy +decencies, of Maisie's simple instructress. There were hours when +Mrs. Wix sighingly testified to the scruples she surmounted, +seemed to ask what other line one <i>could</i> take with a young +person whose experience had been, as it were, so peculiar. "It isn't +as if you didn't already know everything, is it, love?" and "I can't +make you any worse than you <i>are</i>, can I, darling?"—these were +the terms in which the good lady justified to herself and her pupil +her pleasant conversational ease. What the pupil already knew was +indeed rather taken for granted than expressed, but it performed +the useful function of transcending all textbooks and supplanting +all studies. If the child couldn't be worse it was a comfort even +to herself that she was bad—a comfort offering a broad firm +support to the fundamental fact of the present crisis: the fact +that mamma was fearfully jealous. This was another side of the +circumstance of mamma's passion, and the deep couple in the +schoolroom were not long in working round to it. It brought them +face to face with the idea of the inconvenience suffered by any +lady who marries a gentleman producing on other ladies the +charming effect of Sir Claude. That such ladies wouldn't be able +to help falling in love with him was a reflexion naturally +irritating to his wife. One day when some accident, some crash of +a banged door or some scurry of a scared maid, had rendered this +truth particularly vivid, Maisie, receptive and profound, suddenly +said to her companion: "And you, my dear, are you in love with him +too?" Even her profundity had left a margin for a laugh; so she +was a trifle startled by the solemn promptitude with which Mrs. +Wix plumped out: "Over head and ears. I've <i>never</i> since you +ask me, been so far gone."</p> + +<p>This boldness had none the less no effect of deterrence for her +when, a few days later—it was because several had elapsed without +a visit from Sir Claude—her governess turned the tables. "May I +ask you, miss, if <i>you</i> are?" Mrs. Wix brought it out, she +could see, with hesitation, but clearly intending a joke. "Why +<i>rather</i>!" the child made answer, as if in surprise +at not having long ago seemed sufficiently to commit +herself; on which her friend gave a sigh of apparent +satisfaction. It might in fact have expressed positive +relief. Everything was as it should be.</p> + +<p>Yet it was not with them, they were very sure, that her ladyship +was furious, nor because she had forbidden it that there befell at +last a period—six months brought it round—when for days together +he scarcely came near them. He was "off," and Ida was "off," and +they were sometimes off together and sometimes apart; there were +seasons when the simple students had the house to themselves, when +the very servants seemed also to be "off" and dinner became a +reckless forage in pantries and sideboards. Mrs. Wix reminded her +disciple on such occasions—hungry moments often, when all the +support of the reminder was required—that the "real life" of +their companions, the brilliant society in which it was inevitable +they should move and the complicated pleasures in which it was +almost presumptuous of the mind to follow them, must offer +features literally not to be imagined without being seen. At one +of these times Maisie found her opening it out that, though the +difficulties were many, it was Mrs. Beale who had now become the +chief. Then somehow it was brought fully to the child's knowledge +that her stepmother had been making attempts to see her, that her +mother had deeply resented it, that her stepfather had backed her +stepmother up, that the latter had pretended to be acting as the +representative of her father, and that her mother took the whole +thing, in plain terms, very hard. The situation was, as Mrs. Wix +declared, an extraordinary muddle to be sure. Her account of it +brought back to Maisie the happy vision of the way Sir Claude and +Mrs. Beale had made acquaintance—an incident to which, with her +stepfather, though she had had little to say about it to Mrs. Wix, +she had during the first weeks of her stay at her mother's found +more than one opportunity to revert. As to what had taken place +the day Sir Claude came for her, she had been vaguely grateful to +Mrs. Wix for not attempting, as her mother had attempted, to put +her through. That was what Sir Claude had called the process when +he warned her of it, and again afterwards when he told her she was +an awfully good "chap" for having foiled it. Then it was that, +well aware Mrs. Beale hadn't in the least really given her up, she +had asked him if he remained in communication with her and if for +the time everything must really be held to be at an end between +her stepmother and herself. This conversation had occurred in +consequence of his one day popping into the schoolroom and finding +Maisie alone.</p> + + +<p> <a name="10"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>X<br /> </h3> + + +<p>He was smoking a cigarette and he stood before the fire and looked +at the meagre appointments of the room in a way that made her +rather ashamed of them. Then before (on the subject of Mrs. Beale) +he let her "draw" him—that was another of his words; it was +astonishing how many she gathered in—he remarked that really +mamma kept them rather low on the question of decorations. Mrs. +Wix had put up a Japanese fan and two rather grim texts; she had +wished they were gayer, but they were all she happened to have. +Without Sir Claude's photograph, however, the place would have +been, as he said, as dull as a cold dinner. He had said as well +that there were all sorts of things they ought to have; yet +governess and pupil, it had to be admitted, were still divided +between discussing the places where any sort of thing would look +best if any sort of thing should ever come and acknowledging that +mutability in the child's career which was naturally unfavourable +to accumulation. She stayed long enough only to miss things, not +half long enough to deserve them. The way Sir Claude looked about +the schoolroom had made her feel with humility as if it were not +very different from the shabby attic in which she had visited +Susan Ash. Then he had said in abrupt reference to Mrs. Beale: "Do +you think she really cares for you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh awfully!" Maisie had replied.</p> + +<p>"But, I mean, does she love you for yourself, as they call it, +don't you know? Is she as fond of you, now, as Mrs. Wix?"</p> + +<p>The child turned it over. "Oh I'm not every bit Mrs. Beale has!"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude seemed much amused at this. "No; you're not every bit +she has!"</p> + +<p>He laughed for some moments, but that was an old story to Maisie, +who was not too much disconcerted to go on: "But she'll never give +me up."</p> + +<p>"Well, I won't either, old boy: so that's not so wonderful, and +she's not the only one. But if she's so fond of you, why doesn't +she write to you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh on account of mamma." This was rudimentary, and she was almost +surprised at the simplicity of Sir Claude's question.</p> + +<p>"I see—that's quite right," he answered. "She might get at +you—there are all sorts of ways. But of course there's Mrs. Wix."</p> + +<p>"There's Mrs. Wix," Maisie lucidly concurred. "Mrs. Wix can't +abide her."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude seemed interested. "Oh she can't abide her? Then what +does she say about her?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all—because she knows I shouldn't like it. Isn't it +sweet of her?" the child asked.</p> + +<p>"Certainly; rather nice. Mrs. Beale wouldn't hold her tongue for +any such thing as that, would she?"</p> + +<p>Maisie remembered how little she had done so; but she desired to +protect Mrs. Beale too. The only protection she could think of, +however, was the plea: "Oh at papa's, you know, they don't mind!"</p> + +<p>At this Sir Claude only smiled. "No, I dare say not. But here we +mind, don't we?—we take care what we say. I don't suppose it's a +matter on which I ought to prejudice you," he went on; "but I +think we must on the whole be rather nicer here than at your +father's. However, I don't press that; for it's the sort of +question on which it's awfully awkward for you to speak. Don't +worry, at any rate: I assure you I'll back you up." Then after a +moment and while he smoked he reverted to Mrs. Beale and the +child's first enquiry. "I'm afraid we can't do much for her just +now. I haven't seen her since that day—upon my word I haven't +seen her." The next instant, with a laugh the least bit foolish, +the young man slightly coloured: he must have felt this profession +of innocence to be excessive as addressed to Maisie. It was +inevitable to say to her, however, that of course her mother +loathed the lady of the other house. He couldn't go there again +with his wife's consent, and he wasn't the man—he begged her to +believe, falling once more, in spite of himself, into the scruple +of showing the child he didn't trip—to go there without it. He +was liable in talking with her to take the tone of her being also +a man of the world. He had gone to Mrs. Beale's to fetch away +Maisie, but that was altogether different. Now that she was in her +mother's house what pretext had he to give her mother for paying +calls on her father's wife? And of course Mrs. Beale couldn't come +to Ida's—Ida would tear her limb from limb. Maisie, with this +talk of pretexts, remembered how much Mrs. Beale had made of her +being a good one, and how, for such a function, it was her fate +to be either much depended on or much missed. Sir Claude moreover +recognised on this occasion that perhaps things would take a turn +later on; and he wound up by saying: "I'm sure she does sincerely +care for you—how can she possibly help it? She's very young and +very pretty and very clever: I think she's charming. But we must +walk very straight. If you'll help me, you know, I'll help +<i>you</i>," he concluded in the pleasant fraternising, +equalising, not a bit patronising way which made the child ready +to go through anything for him and the beauty of which, as she +dimly felt, was that it was so much less a deceitful descent to +her years than a real indifference to them.</p> + +<p>It gave her moments of secret rapture—moments of believing she +might help him indeed. The only mystification in this was the +imposing time of life that her elders spoke of as youth. For Sir +Claude then Mrs. Beale was "young," just as for Mrs. Wix Sir +Claude was: that was one of the merits for which Mrs. Wix most +commended him. What therefore was Maisie herself, and, in another +relation to the matter, what therefore was mamma? It took her some +time to puzzle out with the aid of an experiment or two that it +wouldn't do to talk about mamma's youth. She even went so far one +day, in the presence of that lady's thick colour and marked lines, +as to wonder if it would occur to any one but herself to do so. +Yet if she wasn't young then she was old; and this threw an odd +light on her having a husband of a different generation. Mr. +Farange was still older—that Maisie perfectly knew; and it +brought her in due course to the perception of how much more, +since Mrs. Beale was younger than Sir Claude, papa must be older +than Mrs. Beale. Such discoveries were disconcerting and even a +trifle confounding: these persons, it appeared, were not of the +age they ought to be. This was somehow particularly the case with +mamma, and the fact made her reflect with some relief on her not +having gone with Mrs. Wix into the question of Sir Claude's +attachment to his wife. She was conscious that in confining their +attention to the state of her ladyship's own affections they had +been controlled—Mrs. Wix perhaps in especial—by delicacy and +even by embarrassment. The end of her colloquy with her stepfather +in the schoolroom was her saying: "Then if we're not to see Mrs. +Beale at all it isn't what she seemed to think when you came for +me."</p> + +<p>He looked rather blank. "What did she seem to think?"</p> + +<p>"Why that I've brought you together."</p> + +<p>"She thought that?" Sir Claude asked.</p> + +<p>Maisie was surprised at his already forgetting it. "Just as I had +brought papa and her. Don't you remember she said so?"</p> + +<p>It came back to Sir Claude in a peal of laughter. "Oh yes—she +said so!"</p> + +<p>"And <i>you</i> said so," Maisie lucidly pursued.</p> + +<p>He recovered, with increasing mirth, the whole occasion. "And +<i>you</i> said so!" he retorted as if they were playing a game.</p> + +<p>"Then were we all mistaken?"</p> + +<p>He considered a little. "No, on the whole not. I dare say it's +just what you <i>have</i> done. We <i>are</i> together—it's really +most odd. She's thinking of us—of you and me—though we don't +meet. And I've no doubt you'll find it will be all right when you +go back to her."</p> + +<p>"Am I going back to her?" Maisie brought out with a little gasp +which was like a sudden clutch of the happy present.</p> + +<p>It appeared to make Sir Claude grave a moment; it might have made +him feel the weight of the pledge his action had given. "Oh some +day, I suppose! We've plenty of time."</p> + +<p>"I've such a tremendous lot to make up," Maisie said with a sense +of great boldness.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, and you must make up every hour of it. Oh I'll +<i>see</i> that you do!"</p> + +<p>This was encouraging; and to show cheerfully that she was +reassured she replied: "That's what Mrs. Wix sees too."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," said Sir Claude; "Mrs. Wix and I are shoulder to +shoulder."</p> + +<p>Maisie took in a little this strong image; after which she +exclaimed: "Then I've done it also to you and her—I've brought +<i>you</i> together!"</p> + +<p>"Blest if you haven't!" Sir Claude laughed. "And more, upon my +word, than any of the lot. Oh you've done for <i>us</i>! Now if you +could—as I suggested, you know, that day—only manage me and your +mother!"</p> + +<p>The child wondered. "Bring you and <i>her</i> together?"</p> + +<p>"You see we're not together—not a bit. But I oughtn't to tell you +such things; all the more that you won't really do it—not you. +No, old chap," the young man continued; "there you'll break down. +But it won't matter—we'll rub along. The great thing is that you +and I are all right."</p> + +<p>"<i>We're</i> all right!" Maisie echoed devoutly. But the next +moment, in the light of what he had just said, she asked: "How +shall I ever leave you?" It was as if she must somehow take care +of him.</p> + +<p>His smile did justice to her anxiety. "Oh well, you needn't! It +won't come to that."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that when I do go you'll go with me?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude cast about. "Not exactly 'with' you perhaps; but I +shall never be far off."</p> + +<p>"But how do you know where mamma may take you?"</p> + +<p>He laughed again. "I don't, I confess!" Then he had an idea, +though something too jocose. "That will be for you to see—that +she shan't take me too far."</p> + +<p>"How can I help it?" Maisie enquired in surprise. "Mamma doesn't +care for me," she said very simply. "Not really." Child as she +was, her little long history was in the words; and it was as +impossible to contradict her as if she had been venerable.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude's silence was an admission of this, and still more the +tone in which he presently replied: "That won't prevent her +from—some time or other—leaving me with you."</p> + +<p>"Then we'll live together?" she eagerly demanded.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," said Sir Claude, smiling, "that that will be Mrs. +Beale's real chance."</p> + +<p>Her eagerness just slightly dropped at this; she remembered Mrs. +Wix's pronouncement that it was all an extraordinary muddle. "To +take me again? Well, can't you come to see me there?"</p> + +<p>"Oh I dare say!"</p> + +<p>Though there were parts of childhood Maisie had lost she had all +childhood's preference for the particular promise. "Then you +<i>will</i> come—you'll come often, won't you?" she insisted; while +at the moment she spoke the door opened for the return of Mrs. Wix. +Sir Claude hereupon, instead of replying, gave her a look which left +her silent and embarrassed.</p> + +<p>When he again found privacy convenient, however—which happened to +be long in coming—he took up their conversation very much where +it had dropped. "You see, my dear, if I shall be able to go to you +at your father's it yet isn't at all the same thing for Mrs. Beale +to come to you here." Maisie gave a thoughtful assent to this +proposition, though conscious she could scarcely herself say just +where the difference would lie. She felt how much her stepfather +saved her, as he said with his habitual amusement, the trouble of +that. "I shall probably be able to go to Mrs. Beale's without your +mother's knowing it."</p> + +<p>Maisie stared with a certain thrill at the dramatic element in +this. "And she couldn't come here without mamma's—" She was +unable to articulate the word for what mamma would do.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, Mrs. Wix would tell of it."</p> + +<p>"But I thought," Maisie objected, "that Mrs. Wix and you—"</p> + +<p>"Are such brothers-in-arms?"—Sir Claude caught her up. "Oh yes, +about everything but Mrs. Beale. And if you should suggest," he +went on, "that we might somehow or other hide her peeping in from +Mrs. Wix—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't suggest <i>that</i>!" Maisie in turn cut him +short.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude looked as if he could indeed quite see why. "No; it +would really be impossible." There came to her from this glance at +what they might hide the first small glimpse of something in him +that she wouldn't have expected. There had been times when she had +had to make the best of the impression that she was herself +deceitful; yet she had never concealed anything bigger than a +thought. Of course she now concealed this thought of how strange +it would be to see <i>him</i> hide; and while she was so actively +engaged he continued: "Besides, you know, I'm not afraid of your +father."</p> + +<p>"And you are of my mother?"</p> + +<p>"Rather, old man!" Sir Claude returned.</p> + + +<p> <a name="11"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XI<br /> </h3> + + +<p>It must not be supposed that her ladyship's intermissions were not +qualified by demonstrations of another order—triumphal entries +and breathless pauses during which she seemed to take of +everything in the room, from the state of the ceiling to that of +her daughter's boot-toes, a survey that was rich in intentions. +Sometimes she sat down and sometimes she surged about, but her +attitude wore equally in either case the grand air of the +practical. She found so much to deplore that she left a great deal +to expect, and bristled so with calculation that she seemed to +scatter remedies and pledges. Her visits were as good as an +outfit; her manner, as Mrs. Wix once said, as good as a pair of +curtains; but she was a person addicted to extremes—sometimes +barely speaking to her child and sometimes pressing this tender +shoot to a bosom cut, as Mrs. Wix had also observed, remarkably +low. She was always in a fearful hurry, and the lower the bosom +was cut the more it was to be gathered she was wanted elsewhere. +She usually broke in alone, but sometimes Sir Claude was with her, +and during all the earlier period there was nothing on which these +appearances had had so delightful a bearing as on the way her +ladyship was, as Mrs. Wix expressed it, under the spell. "But +<i>isn't</i> she under it!" Maisie used in thoughtful but familiar +reference to exclaim after Sir Claude had swept mamma away in +peals of natural laughter. Not even in the old days of the +convulsed ladies had she heard mamma laugh so freely as in these +moments of conjugal surrender, to the gaiety of which even a +little girl could see she had at last a right—a little girl whose +thoughtfulness was now all happy selfish meditation on good omens +and future fun.</p> + +<p>Unaccompanied, in subsequent hours, and with an effect of changing +to meet a change, Ida took a tone superficially disconcerting and +abrupt—the tone of having, at an immense cost, made over +everything to Sir Claude and wishing others to know that if +everything wasn't right it was because Sir Claude was so +dreadfully vague. "He has made from the first such a row about +you," she said on one occasion to Maisie, "that I've told him to +do for you himself and try how he likes it—see? I've washed my +hands of you; I've made you over to him; and if you're +discontented it's on him, please, you'll come down. So don't haul +poor <i>me</i> up—I assure you I've worries enough." One of these, +visibly, was that the spell rejoiced in by the schoolroom fire was +already in danger of breaking; another was that she was finally +forced to make no secret of her husband's unfitness for real +responsibilities. The day came indeed when her breathless auditors +learnt from her in bewilderment that what ailed him was that he +was, alas, simply not serious. Maisie wept on Mrs. Wix's bosom +after hearing that Sir Claude was a butterfly; considering +moreover that her governess but half-patched it up in coming out +at various moments the next few days with the opinion that it was +proper to his "station" to be careless and free. That had been +proper to every one's station that she had yet encountered save +poor Mrs. Wix's own, and the particular merit of Sir Claude had +seemed precisely that he was different from every one. She talked +with him, however, as time went on, very freely about her mother; +being with him, in this relation, wholly without the fear that had +kept her silent before her father—the fear of bearing tales and +making bad things worse. He appeared to accept the idea that he +had taken her over and made her, as he said, his particular lark; +he quite agreed also that he was an awful fraud and an idle beast +and a sorry dunce. And he never said a word to her against her +mother—he only remained dumb and discouraged in the face of her +ladyship's own overtopping earnestness. There were occasions when +he even spoke as if he had wrenched his little charge from the +arms of a parent who had fought for her tooth and nail.</p> + +<p>This was the very moral of a scene that flashed into vividness one +day when the four happened to meet without company in the +drawing-room and Maisie found herself clutched to her mother's +breast and passionately sobbed and shrieked over, made the subject +of a demonstration evidently sequent to some sharp passage just +enacted. The connexion required that while she almost cradled the +child in her arms Ida should speak of her as hideously, as fatally +estranged, and should rail at Sir Claude as the cruel author of +the outrage. "He has taken you <i>from</i> me," she cried; "he has +set you <i>against</i> me, and you've been won away and your horrid +little mind has been poisoned! You've gone over to him, you've given +yourself up to side against me and hate me. You never open your +mouth to me—you know you don't; and you chatter to him like a +dozen magpies. Don't lie about it—I hear you all over the place. +You hang about him in a way that's barely decent—he can do what +he likes with you. Well then, let him, to his heart's content: he +has been in such a hurry to take you that we'll see if it suits +him to keep you. I'm very good to break my heart about it when +you've no more feeling for me than a clammy little fish!" She +suddenly thrust the child away and, as a disgusted admission of +failure, sent her flying across the room into the arms of Mrs. +Wix, whom at this moment and even in the whirl of her transit +Maisie saw, very red, exchange a quick queer look with Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>The impression of the look remained with her, confronting her with +such a critical little view of her mother's explosion that she +felt the less ashamed of herself for incurring the reproach with +which she had been cast off. Her father had once called her a +heartless little beast, and now, though decidedly scared, she was +as stiff and cold as if the description had been just. She was not +even frightened enough to cry, which would have been a tribute to +her mother's wrongs: she was only, more than anything else, +curious about the opinion mutely expressed by their companions. +Taking the earliest opportunity to question Mrs. Wix on this +subject she elicited the remarkable reply: "Well, my dear, it's +her ladyship's game, and we must just hold on like grim death."</p> + +<p>Maisie could interpret at her leisure these ominous words. Her +reflexions indeed at this moment thickened apace, and one of them +made her sure that her governess had conversations, private, +earnest and not infrequent, with her denounced stepfather. She +perceived in the light of a second episode that something beyond +her knowledge had taken place in the house. The things beyond her +knowledge—numerous enough in truth—had not hitherto, she +believed, been the things that had been nearest to her: she had +even had in the past a small smug conviction that in the domestic +labyrinth she always kept the clue. This time too, however, she at +last found out—with the discreet aid, it had to be confessed, of +Mrs. Wix. Sir Claude's own assistance was abruptly taken from her, +for his comment on her ladyship's game was to start on the spot, +quite alone, for Paris, evidently because he wished to show a +spirit when accused of bad behaviour. He might be fond of his +stepdaughter, Maisie felt, without wishing her to be after all +thrust on him in such a way; his absence therefore, it was clear, +was a protest against the thrusting. It was while this absence +lasted that our young lady finally discovered what had happened in +the house to be that her mother was no longer in love.</p> + +<p>The limit of a passion for Sir Claude had certainly been reached, +she judged, some time before the day on which her ladyship burst +suddenly into the schoolroom to introduce Mr. Perriam, who, as she +announced from the doorway to Maisie, wouldn't believe his ears that +one had a great hoyden of a daughter. Mr. Perriam was short and +massive—Mrs. Wix remarked afterwards that he was "too fat for the +pace"; and it would have been difficult to say of him whether his +head were more bald or his black moustache more bushy. He seemed also +to have moustaches over his eyes, which, however, by no means +prevented these polished little globes from rolling round the room as +if they had been billiard-balls impelled by Ida's celebrated stroke. +Mr. Perriam wore on the hand that pulled his moustache a diamond of +dazzling lustre, in consequence of which and of his general weight +and mystery our young lady observed on his departure that if he had +only had a turban he would have been quite her idea of a heathen +Turk.</p> + +<p>"He's quite my idea," Mrs. Wix replied, "of a heathen Jew."</p> + +<p>"Well, I mean," said Maisie, "of a person who comes from the +East."</p> + +<p>"That's where he <i>must</i> come from," her governess opined—"he +comes from the City." In a moment she added as if she knew all about +him. "He's one of those people who have lately broken out. He'll be +immensely rich."</p> + +<p>"On the death of his papa?" the child interestedly enquired.</p> + +<p>"Dear no—nothing hereditary. I mean he has made a mass of money."</p> + +<p>"How much, do you think?" Maisie demanded.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix reflected and sketched it. "Oh many millions."</p> + +<p>"A hundred?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix was not sure of the number, but there were enough of them +to have seemed to warm up for the time the penury of the +schoolroom—to linger there as an afterglow of the hot heavy light +Mr. Perriam sensibly shed. This was also, no doubt, on his part, +an effect of that enjoyment of life with which, among her elders, +Maisie had been in contact from her earliest years—the sign of +happy maturity, the old familiar note of overflowing cheer. "How +d'ye do, ma'am? How d'ye do, little miss?"—he laughed and nodded +at the gaping figures. "She has brought me up for a peep—it's +true I wouldn't take you on trust. She's always talking about you, +but she'd never produce you; so to-day I challenged her on the +spot. Well, you ain't a myth, my dear—I back down on that," the +visitor went on to Maisie; "nor you either, miss, though you might +be, to be sure!"</p> + +<p>"I bored him with you, darling—I bore every one," Ida said, "and +to prove that you <i>are</i> a sweet thing, as well as a fearfully +old one, I told him he could judge for himself. So now he sees that +you're a dreadful bouncing business and that your poor old Mummy's +at least sixty!"—and her ladyship smiled at Mr. Perriam with the +charm that her daughter had heard imputed to her at papa's by the +merry gentlemen who had so often wished to get from him what they +called a "rise." Her manner at that instant gave the child a +glimpse more vivid than any yet enjoyed of the attraction that +papa, in remarkable language, always denied she could put forth.</p> + +<p>Mr. Perriam, however, clearly recognised it in the humour with +which he met her. "I never said you ain't wonderful—did I ever +say it, hey?" and he appealed with pleasant confidence to the +testimony of the schoolroom, about which itself also he evidently +felt something might be expected of him. "So this is their little +place, hey? Charming, charming, charming!" he repeated as he +vaguely looked round. The interrupted students clung together as +if they had been personally exposed; but Ida relieved their +embarrassment by a hunch of her high shoulders. This time the +smile she addressed to Mr. Perriam had a beauty of sudden sadness. +"What on earth is a poor woman to do?"</p> + +<p>The visitor's grimace grew more marked as he continued to look, +and the conscious little schoolroom felt still more like a cage at +a menagerie. "Charming, charming, charming!" Mr. Perriam insisted; +but the parenthesis closed with a prompt click. "There you are!" +said her ladyship. "By-bye!" she sharply added. The next minute +they were on the stairs, and Mrs. Wix and her companion, at the +open door and looking mutely at each other, were reached by the +sound of the large social current that carried them back to their +life.</p> + +<p>It was singular perhaps after this that Maisie never put a +question about Mr. Perriam, and it was still more singular that by +the end of a week she knew all she didn't ask. What she most +particularly knew—and the information came to her, unsought, +straight from Mrs. Wix—was that Sir Claude wouldn't at all care +for the visits of a millionaire who was in and out of the upper +rooms. How little he would care was proved by the fact that under +the sense of them Mrs. Wix's discretion broke down altogether; she +was capable of a transfer of allegiance, capable, at the altar of +propriety, of a desperate sacrifice of her ladyship. As against +Mrs. Beale, she more than once intimated, she had been willing to +do the best for her, but as against Sir Claude she could do +nothing for her at all. It was extraordinary the number of things +that, still without a question, Maisie knew by the time her +stepfather came back from Paris—came bringing her a splendid +apparatus for painting in water-colours and bringing Mrs. Wix, by +a lapse of memory that would have been droll if it had not been a +trifle disconcerting, a second and even a more elegant umbrella. +He had forgotten all about the first, with which, buried in as +many wrappers as a mummy of the Pharaohs, she wouldn't for the +world have done anything so profane as use it. Maisie knew above +all that though she was now, by what she called an informal +understanding, on Sir Claude's "side," she had yet not uttered a +word to him about Mr. Perriam. That gentleman became therefore a +kind of flourishing public secret, out of the depths of which +governess and pupil looked at each other portentously from the +time their friend was restored to them. He was restored in great +abundance, and it was marked that, though he appeared to have felt +the need to take a stand against the risk of being too roughly +saddled with the offspring of others, he at this period exposed +himself more than ever before to the presumption of having created +expectations.</p> + +<p>If it had become now, for that matter, a question of sides, there +was at least a certain amount of evidence as to where they all +were. Maisie of course, in such a delicate position, was on +nobody's; but Sir Claude had all the air of being on hers. If +therefore Mrs. Wix was on Sir Claude's, her ladyship on Mr. +Perriam's and Mr. Perriam presumably on her ladyship's, this left +only Mrs. Beale and Mr. Farange to account for. Mrs. Beale clearly +was, like Sir Claude, on Maisie's, and papa, it was to be +supposed, on Mrs. Beale's. Here indeed was a slight ambiguity, as +papa's being on Mrs. Beale's didn't somehow seem to place him +quite on his daughter's. It sounded, as this young lady thought it +over, very much like puss-in-the-corner, and she could only wonder +if the distribution of parties would lead to a rushing to and fro +and a changing of places. She was in the presence, she felt, of +restless change: wasn't it restless enough that her mother and her +stepfather should already be on different sides? That was the +great thing that had domestically happened. Mrs. Wix, besides, had +turned another face: she had never been exactly gay, but her +gravity was now an attitude as public as a posted placard. She +seemed to sit in her new dress and brood over her lost delicacy, +which had become almost as doleful a memory as that of poor Clara +Matilda. "It <i>is</i> hard for him," she often said to her +companion; and it was surprising how competent on this point Maisie +was conscious of being to agree with her. Hard as it was, however, +Sir Claude had never shown to greater advantage than in the gallant +generous sociable way he carried it off: a way that drew from Mrs. +Wix a hundred expressions of relief at his not having suffered it +to embitter him. It threw him more and more at last into the +schoolroom, where he had plainly begun to recognise that if he was +to have the credit of perverting the innocent child he might also +at least have the amusement. He never came into the place without +telling its occupants that they were the nicest people in the +house—a remark which always led them to say to each other "Mr. +Perriam!" as loud as ever compressed lips and enlarged eyes could +make them articulate. He caused Maisie to remember what she had +said to Mrs. Beale about his having the nature of a good nurse, +and, rather more than she intended before Mrs. Wix, to bring the +whole thing out by once remarking to him that none of her good +nurses had smoked quite so much in the nursery. This had no more +effect than it was meant to on his cigarettes: he was always +smoking, but always declaring that it was death to him not to lead +a domestic life.</p> + +<p>He led one after all in the schoolroom, and there were hours of +late evening, when she had gone to bed, that Maisie knew he sat +there talking with Mrs. Wix of how to meet his difficulties. His +consideration for this unfortunate woman even in the midst of them +continued to show him as the perfect gentleman and lifted the +subject of his courtesy into an upper air of beatitude in which +her very pride had the hush of anxiety. "He leans on me—he leans +on me!" she only announced from time to time; and she was more +surprised than amused when, later on, she accidentally found she +had given her pupil the impression of a support literally supplied +by her person. This glimpse of a misconception led her to be +explicit—to put before the child, with an air of mourning indeed +for such a stoop to the common, that what they talked about in the +small hours, as they said, was the question of his taking right +hold of life. The life she wanted him to take right hold of was +the public: "she" being, I hasten to add, in this connexion, not +the mistress of his fate, but only Mrs. Wix herself. She had +phrases about him that were full of easy understanding, yet full +of morality. "He's a wonderful nature, but he can't live like the +lilies. He's all right, you know, but he must have a high +interest." She had more than once remarked that his affairs were +sadly involved, but that they must get him—Maisie and she +together apparently—into Parliament. The child took it from her +with a flutter of importance that Parliament was his natural +sphere, and she was the less prepared to recognise a hindrance as +she had never heard of any affairs whatever that were not +involved. She had in the old days once been told by Mrs. Beale +that her very own were, and with the refreshment of knowing that +she <i>had</i> affairs the information hadn't in the least +overwhelmed her. It was true and perhaps a little alarming that she +had never heard of any such matters since then. Full of charm at any +rate was the prospect of some day getting Sir Claude in; especially +after Mrs. Wix, as the fruit of more midnight colloquies, once went +so far as to observe that she really believed it was all that was +wanted to save him. This critic, with these words, struck her +disciple as cropping up, after the manner of mamma when mamma talked, +quite in a new place. The child stared as at the jump of a kangaroo. +"Save him from what?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix debated, then covered a still greater distance. "Why just +from awful misery."</p> + + +<p> <a name="12"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XII<br /> </h3> + + +<p>She had not at the moment explained her ominous speech, but the +light of remarkable events soon enabled her companion to read it. +It may indeed be said that these days brought on a high quickening +of Maisie's direct perceptions, of her sense of freedom to make +out things for herself. This was helped by an emotion +intrinsically far from sweet—the increase of the alarm that had +most haunted her meditations. She had no need to be told, as on +the morrow of the revelation of Sir Claude's danger she was told +by Mrs. Wix, that her mother wanted more and more to know why the +devil her father didn't send for her: she had too long expected +mamma's curiosity on this point to express itself sharply. Maisie +could meet such pressure so far as meeting it was to be in a +position to reply, in words directly inspired, that papa would be +hanged before he'd again be saddled with her. She therefore +recognised the hour that in troubled glimpses she had long +foreseen, the hour when—the phrase for it came back to her from +Mrs. Beale—with two fathers, two mothers and two homes, six +protections in all, she shouldn't know "wherever" to go. Such +apprehension as she felt on this score was not diminished by the +fact that Mrs. Wix herself was suddenly white with terror: a +circumstance leading Maisie to the further knowledge that this +lady was still more scared on her own behalf than on that of her +pupil. A governess who had only one frock was not likely to have +either two fathers or two mothers: accordingly if even with these +resources Maisie was to be in the streets, where in the name of +all that was dreadful was poor Mrs. Wix to be? She had had, it +appeared, a tremendous brush with Ida, which had begun and ended +with the request that she would be pleased on the spot to +"bundle." It had come suddenly but completely, this signal of +which she had gone in fear. The companions confessed to each other +the dread each had hidden the worst of, but Mrs. Wix was better +off than Maisie in having a plan of defence. She declined indeed +to communicate it till it was quite mature; but meanwhile, she +hastened to declare, her feet were firm in the schoolroom. They +could only be loosened by force: she would "leave" for the police +perhaps, but she wouldn't leave for mere outrage. That would be to +play her ladyship's game, and it would take another turn of the +screw to make her desert her darling. Her ladyship had come down +with extraordinary violence: it had been one of many symptoms of a +situation strained—"between them all," as Mrs. Wix said, "but +especially between the two"—to the point of God only knew what.</p> + +<p>Her description of the crisis made the child blanch. "Between +which two?—papa and mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Dear no. I mean between your mother and <i>him</i>."</p> + +<p>Maisie, in this, recognised an opportunity to be really deep. +"'Him'?—Mr. Perriam?"</p> + +<p>She fairly brought a blush to the scared face. "Well, my dear, I +must say what you <i>don't</i> know ain't worth mentioning. That it +won't go on for ever with Mr. Perriam—since I <i>must</i> meet +you—you can suppose? But I meant dear Sir Claude."</p> + +<p>Maisie stood corrected rather than abashed. "I see. But it's about +Mr. Perriam he's angry?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix waited. "He says he's not."</p> + +<p>"Not angry? He has told you so?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix looked at her hard. "Not about <i>him</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Then about some one else?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix looked at her harder. "About some one else."</p> + +<p>"Lord Eric?" the child promptly brought forth.</p> + +<p>At this, of a sudden, her governess was more agitated. "Oh why, +little unfortunate, should we discuss their dreadful names?"—and +she threw herself for the millionth time on Maisie's neck. It took +her pupil but a moment to feel that she quivered with insecurity, +and, the contact of her terror aiding, the pair in another instant +were sobbing in each other's arms. Then it was that, completely +relaxed, demoralised as she had never been, Mrs. Wix suffered her +wound to bleed and her resentment to gush. Her great bitterness +was that Ida had called her false, denounced her hypocrisy and +duplicity, reviled her spying and tattling, her lying and +grovelling to Sir Claude. "Me, <i>me</i>!" the poor woman wailed, +"who've seen what I've seen and gone through everything only to +cover her up and ease her off and smooth her down? If I've been an +'ipocrite it's the other way round: I've pretended, to him and to +her, to myself and to you and to every one, <i>not</i> to see! It +serves me right to have held my tongue before such horrors!"</p> + +<p>What horrors they were her companion forbore too closely to +enquire, showing even signs not a few of an ability to take them +for granted. That put the couple more than ever, in this troubled +sea, in the same boat, so that with the consciousness of ideas on +the part of her fellow mariner Maisie could sit close and wait. +Sir Claude on the morrow came in to tea, and then the ideas were +produced. It was extraordinary how the child's presence drew out +their full strength. The principal one was startling, but Maisie +appreciated the courage with which her governess handled it. It +simply consisted of the proposal that whenever and wherever they +should seek refuge Sir Claude should consent to share their +asylum. On his protesting with all the warmth in nature against +this note of secession she asked what else in the world was left +to them if her ladyship should stop supplies.</p> + +<p>"Supplies be hanged, my dear woman!" said their delightful friend. +"Leave supplies to me—I'll take care of supplies."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix rose to it. "Well, it's exactly because I knew you'd be +so glad to do so that I put the question before you. There's a way +to look after us better than any other. The way's just to come +along with us."</p> + +<p>It hung before Maisie, Mrs. Wix's way, like a glittering picture, +and she clasped her hands in ecstasy. "Come along, come along, +come along!"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude looked from his stepdaughter back to her governess. "Do +you mean leave this house and take up my abode with you?"</p> + +<p>"It will be the right thing—if you feel as you've told me you +feel." Mrs. Wix, sustained and uplifted, was now as clear as a +bell.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude had the air of trying to recall what he had told her; +then the light broke that was always breaking to make his face +more pleasant. "It's your happy thought that I shall take a house +for you?"</p> + +<p>"For the wretched homeless child. Any roof—over <i>our</i> +heads—will do for us; but of course for you it will have to be +something really nice."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude's eyes reverted to Maisie, rather hard, as she thought; +and there was a shade in his very smile that seemed to show +her—though she also felt it didn't show Mrs. Wix—that the +accommodation prescribed must loom to him pretty large. The next +moment, however, he laughed gaily enough. "My dear lady, you +exaggerate tremendously <i>my</i> poor little needs." Mrs. Wix had +once mentioned to her young friend that when Sir Claude called her +his dear lady he could do anything with her; and Maisie felt a +certain anxiety to see what he would do now. Well, he only addressed +her a remark of which the child herself was aware of feeling the +force. "Your plan appeals to me immensely; but of course—don't you +see—I shall have to consider the position I put myself in by leaving +my wife."</p> + +<p>"You'll also have to remember," Mrs. Wix replied, "that if you +don't look out your wife won't give you time to consider. Her +ladyship will leave <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"Ah my good friend, I do look out!" the young man returned while +Maisie helped herself afresh to bread and butter. "Of course if +that happens I shall have somehow to turn round; but I hope with +all my heart it won't. I beg your pardon," he continued to his +stepdaughter, "for appearing to discuss that sort of possibility +under your sharp little nose. But the fact is I <i>forget</i> half +the time that Ida's your sainted mother."</p> + +<p>"So do I!" said Maisie, her mouth full of bread and butter and to +put him the more in the right.</p> + +<p>Her protectress, at this, was upon her again. "The little desolate +precious pet!" For the rest of the conversation she was enclosed +in Mrs. Wix's arms, and as they sat there interlocked Sir Claude, +before them with his tea-cup, looked down at them in deepening +thought. Shrink together as they might they couldn't help, Maisie +felt, being a very large lumpish image of what Mrs. Wix required +of his slim fineness. She knew moreover that this lady didn't make +it better by adding in a moment: "Of course we shouldn't dream of +a whole house. Any sort of little lodging, however humble, would +be only too blest."</p> + +<p>"But it would have to be something that would hold us all," said +Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," Mrs. Wix concurred; "the whole point's our being +together. While you're waiting, before you act, for her ladyship +to take some step, our position here will come to an impossible +pass. You don't know what I went through with her for you +yesterday—and for our poor darling; but it's not a thing I can +promise you often to face again. She cast me out in horrible +language—she has instructed the servants not to wait on me."</p> + +<p>"Oh the poor servants are all right!" Sir Claude eagerly cried.</p> + +<p>"They're certainly better than their mistress. It's too dreadful +that I should sit here and say of your wife, Sir Claude, and of +Maisie's own mother, that she's lower than a domestic; but my +being betrayed into such remarks is just a reason the more for our +getting away. I shall stay till I'm taken by the shoulders, but +that may happen any day. What also may perfectly happen, you must +permit me to repeat, is that she'll go off to get rid of us."</p> + +<p>"Oh if she'll only do that!" Sir Claude laughed. "That would be +the very making of us!"</p> + +<p>"Don't say it—don't say it!" Mrs. Wix pleaded. "Don't speak of +anything so fatal. You know what I mean. We must all cling to the +right. You mustn't be bad."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude set down his tea-cup; he had become more grave and he +pensively wiped his moustache. "Won't all the world say I'm awful +if I leave the house before—before she has bolted? They'll say it +was my doing so that made her bolt."</p> + +<p>Maisie could grasp the force of this reasoning, but it offered no +check to Mrs. Wix. "Why need you mind that—if you've done it for +so high a motive? Think of the beauty of it," the good lady +pressed.</p> + +<p>"Of bolting with <i>you</i>?" Sir Claude ejaculated.</p> + +<p>She faintly smiled—she even faintly coloured. "So far from doing +you harm it will do you the highest good. Sir Claude, if you'll +listen to me, it will save you."</p> + +<p>"Save me from what?"</p> + +<p>Maisie, at this question, waited with renewed suspense for an +answer that would bring the thing to some finer point than their +companion had brought it to before. But there was on the contrary +only more mystification in Mrs. Wix's reply. "Ah from you know +what!"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean from some other woman!"</p> + +<p>"Yes—from a real bad one."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude at least, the child could see, was not mystified; so +little indeed that a smile of intelligence broke afresh in his +eyes. He turned them in vague discomfort to Maisie, and then +something in the way she met them caused him to chuck her +playfully under the chin. It was not till after this that he +good-naturedly met Mrs. Wix. "You think me much worse than I am."</p> + +<p>"If that were true," she returned, "I wouldn't appeal to you. I +do, Sir Claude, in the name of all that's good in you—and oh so +earnestly! We can help each other. What you'll do for our young +friend here I needn't say. That isn't even what I want to speak of +now. What I want to speak of is what you'll <i>get</i>—don't you +see?—from such an opportunity to take hold. Take hold of +<i>us</i>—take hold of <i>her</i>. Make her your duty—make her your +life: she'll repay you a thousand-fold!"</p> + +<p>It was to Mrs. Wix, during this appeal, that Maisie's +contemplation transferred itself: partly because, though her heart +was in her throat for trepidation, her delicacy deterred her from +appearing herself to press the question; partly from the coercion +of seeing Mrs. Wix come out as Mrs. Wix had never come before—not +even on the day of her call at Mrs. Beale's with the news of +mamma's marriage. On that day Mrs. Beale had surpassed her in +dignity, but nobody could have surpassed her now. There was in +fact at this moment a fascination for her pupil in the hint she +seemed to give that she had still more of that surprise behind. So +the sharpened sense of spectatorship was the child's main support, +the long habit, from the first, of seeing herself in discussion +and finding in the fury of it—she had had a glimpse of the game +of football—a sort of compensation for the doom of a peculiar +passivity. It gave her often an odd air of being present at her +history in as separate a manner as if she could only get at +experience by flattening her nose against a pane of glass. Such +she felt to be the application of her nose while she waited for +the effect of Mrs. Wix's eloquence. Sir Claude, however, didn't +keep her long in a position so ungraceful: he sat down and opened +his arms to her as he had done the day he came for her at her +father's, and while he held her there, looking at her kindly, but +as if their companion had brought the blood a good deal to his +face, he said:</p> + +<p>"Dear Mrs. Wix is magnificent, but she's rather too grand about +it. I mean the situation isn't after all quite so desperate or +quite so simple. But I give you my word before her, and I give it +to her before you, that I'll never, never, forsake you. Do you +hear that, old fellow, and do you take it in? I'll stick to you +through everything."</p> + +<p>Maisie did take it in—took it with a long tremor of all her +little being; and then as, to emphasise it, he drew her closer she +buried her head on his shoulder and cried without sound and +without pain. While she was so engaged she became aware that his +own breast was agitated, and gathered from it with rapture that +his tears were as silently flowing. Presently she heard a loud sob +from Mrs. Wix—Mrs. Wix was the only one who made a noise.</p> + +<p>She was to have made, for some time, none other but this, though +within a few days, in conversation with her pupil, she described +her intercourse with Ida as little better than the state of being +battered. There was as yet nevertheless no attempt to eject her by +force, and she recognised that Sir Claude, taking such a stand as +never before, had intervened with passion and with success. As +Maisie remembered—and remembered wholly without disdain—that he +had told her he was afraid of her ladyship, the little girl took +this act of resolution as a proof of what, in the spirit of the +engagement sealed by all their tears, he was really prepared to +do. Mrs. Wix spoke to her of the pecuniary sacrifice by which she +herself purchased the scant security she enjoyed and which, if it +was a defence against the hand of violence, yet left her exposed +to incredible rudeness. Didn't her ladyship find every hour of the +day some artful means to humiliate and trample upon her? There was +a quarter's salary owing her—a great name, even Maisie could +suspect, for a small matter; she should never see it as long as +she lived, but keeping quiet about it put her ladyship, thank +heaven, a little in one's power. Now that he was doing so much +else she could never have the grossness to apply for it to Sir +Claude. He had sent home for schoolroom consumption a huge frosted +cake, a wonderful delectable mountain with geological strata of +jam, which might, with economy, see them through many days of +their siege; but it was none the less known to Mrs. Wix that his +affairs were more and more involved, and her fellow partaker +looked back tenderly, in the light of these involutions, at the +expression of face with which he had greeted the proposal that he +should set up another establishment. Maisie felt that if their +maintenance should hang by a thread they must still demean +themselves with the highest delicacy. What he was doing was simply +acting without delay, so far as his embarrassments permitted, on +the inspiration of his elder friend. There was at this season a +wonderful month of May—as soft as a drop of the wind in a gale +that had kept one awake—when he took out his stepdaughter with a +fresh alacrity and they rambled the great town in search, as Mrs. +Wix called it, of combined amusement and instruction.</p> + +<p>They rode on the top of 'buses; they visited outlying parks; they +went to cricket-matches where Maisie fell asleep; they tried a +hundred places for the best one to have tea. This was his direct +way of rising to Mrs. Wix's grand lesson—of making his little +accepted charge his duty and his life. They dropped, under +incontrollable impulses, into shops that they agreed were too big, +to look at things that they agreed were too small, and it was +during these hours that Mrs. Wix, alone at home, but a subject of +regretful reference as they pulled off their gloves for +refreshment, subsequently described herself as least sheltered +from the blows her ladyship had achieved such ingenuity in +dealing. She again and again repeated that she wouldn't so much +have minded having her "attainments" held up to scorn and her +knowledge of every subject denied, hadn't she been branded as +"low" in character and tone. There was by this time no pretence on +the part of any one of denying it to be fortunate that her +ladyship habitually left London every Saturday and was more and +more disposed to a return late in the week. It was almost equally +public that she regarded as a preposterous "pose," and indeed as a +direct insult to herself, her husband's attitude of staying behind +to look after a child for whom the most elaborate provision had +been made. If there was a type Ida despised, Sir Claude +communicated to Maisie, it was the man who pottered about town of +a Sunday; and he also mentioned how often she had declared to him +that if he had a grain of spirit he would be ashamed to accept a +menial position about Mr. Farange's daughter. It was her +ladyship's contention that he was in craven fear of his +predecessor—otherwise he would recognise it as an obligation of +plain decency to protect his wife against the outrage of that +person's barefaced attempt to swindle her. The swindle was that +Mr. Farange put upon her the whole intolerable burden; "and even +when I pay for you myself," Sir Claude averred to his young +friend, "she accuses me the more of truckling and grovelling." It +was Mrs. Wix's conviction, they both knew, arrived at on +independent grounds, that Ida's weekly excursions were feelers for +a more considerable absence. If she came back later each week the +week would be sure to arrive when she wouldn't come back at all. +This appearance had of course much to do with Mrs. Wix's actual +valour. Could they but hold out long enough the snug little home +with Sir Claude would find itself informally established.</p> + + +<p> <a name="13"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XIII<br /> </h3> + + +<p>This might moreover have been taken to be the sense of a remark +made by her stepfather as—one rainy day when the streets were all +splash and two umbrellas unsociable and the wanderers had sought +shelter in the National Gallery—Maisie sat beside him staring +rather sightlessly at a roomful of pictures which he had mystified +her much by speaking of with a bored sigh as a "silly +superstition." They represented, with patches of gold and +cataracts of purple, with stiff saints and angular angels, with +ugly Madonnas and uglier babies, strange prayers and prostrations; +so that she at first took his words for a protest against +devotional idolatry—all the more that he had of late often come +with her and with Mrs. Wix to morning church, a place of worship +of Mrs. Wix's own choosing, where there was nothing of that sort; +no haloes on heads, but only, during long sermons, beguiling backs +of bonnets, and where, as her governess always afterwards +observed, he gave the most earnest attention. It presently +appeared, however, that his reference was merely to the +affectation of admiring such ridiculous works—an admonition that +she received from him as submissively as she received everything. +What turn it gave to their talk needn't here be recorded: the +transition to the colourless schoolroom and lonely Mrs. Wix was +doubtless an effect of relaxed interest in what was before them. +Maisie expressed in her own way the truth that she never went home +nowadays without expecting to find the temple of her studies empty +and the poor priestess cast out. This conveyed a full appreciation +of her peril, and it was in rejoinder that Sir Claude uttered, +acknowledging the source of that peril, the reassurance at which I +have glanced. "Don't be afraid, my dear: I've squared her." It +required indeed a supplement when he saw that it left the child +momentarily blank. "I mean that your mother lets me do what I want +so long as I let her do what <i>she</i> wants."</p> + +<p>"So you <i>are</i> doing what you want?" Maisie asked.</p> + +<p>"Rather, Miss Farange!"</p> + +<p>Miss Farange turned it over. "And she's doing the same?"</p> + +<p>"Up to the hilt!"</p> + +<p>Again she considered. "Then, please, what may it be?"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't tell you for the whole world."</p> + +<p>She gazed at a gaunt Madonna; after which she broke into a slow +smile. "Well, I don't care, so long as you do let her."</p> + +<p>"Oh you monster!"—and Sir Claude's gay vehemence brought him to +his feet.</p> + +<p>Another day, in another place—a place in Baker Street where at a +hungry hour she had sat down with him to tea and buns—he brought +out a question disconnected from previous talk. "I say, you know, +what do you suppose your father <i>would</i> do?"</p> + +<p>Maisie hadn't long to cast about or to question his pleasant eyes. +"If you were really to go with us? He'd make a great complaint."</p> + +<p>He seemed amused at the term she employed. "Oh I shouldn't mind a +'complaint'!"</p> + +<p>"He'd talk to every one about it," said Maisie.</p> + +<p>"Well, I shouldn't mind that either."</p> + +<p>"Of course not," the child hastened to respond. "You've told me +you're not afraid of him."</p> + +<p>"The question is are you?" said Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>Maisie candidly considered; then she spoke resolutely. "No, not of +papa."</p> + +<p>"But of somebody else?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, of lots of people."</p> + +<p>"Of your mother first and foremost of course."</p> + +<p>"Dear, yes; more of mamma than of—than of—"</p> + +<p>"Than of what?" Sir Claude asked as she hesitated for a +comparison.</p> + +<p>She thought over all objects of dread. "Than of a wild elephant!" +she at last declared. "And you are too," she reminded him as he +laughed.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I am too."</p> + +<p>Again she meditated. "Why then did you marry her?"</p> + +<p>"Just because I <i>was</i> afraid."</p> + +<p>"Even when she loved you?"</p> + +<p>"That made her the more alarming."</p> + +<p>For Maisie herself, though her companion seemed to find it droll, +this opened up depths of gravity. "More alarming than she is now?"</p> + +<p>"Well, in a different way. Fear, unfortunately, is a very big +thing, and there's a great variety of kinds."</p> + +<p>She took this in with complete intelligence. "Then I think I've +got them all."</p> + +<p>"You?" her friend cried. "Nonsense! You're thoroughly 'game.'"</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully afraid of Mrs. Beale," Maisie objected.</p> + +<p>He raised his smooth brows. "That charming woman?"</p> + +<p>"Well," she answered, "you can't understand it because you're not +in the same state."</p> + +<p>She had been going on with a luminous "But" when, across the +table, he laid his hand on her arm. "I <i>can</i> understand it," +he confessed. "I <i>am</i> in the same state."</p> + +<p>"Oh but she likes you so!" Maisie promptly pleaded.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude literally coloured. "That has something to do with it."</p> + +<p>Maisie wondered again. "Being liked with being afraid?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, when it amounts to adoration."</p> + +<p>"Then why aren't you afraid of <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Because with you it amounts to that?" He had kept his hand on her +arm. "Well, what prevents is simply that you're the gentlest +spirit on earth. Besides—" he pursued; but he came to a pause.</p> + +<p>"Besides—?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>should</i> be in fear if you were older—there! See—you +already make me talk nonsense," the young man added. "The question's +about your father. Is he likewise afraid of Mrs. Beale?"</p> + +<p>"I think not. And yet he loves her," Maisie mused.</p> + +<p>"Oh no—he doesn't; not a bit!" After which, as his companion +stared, Sir Claude apparently felt that he must make this oddity +fit with her recollections. "There's nothing of that sort +<i>now</i>."</p> + +<p>But Maisie only stared the more. "They've changed?"</p> + +<p>"Like your mother and me."</p> + +<p>She wondered how he knew. "Then you've seen Mrs. Beale +again?"</p> + +<p>He demurred. "Oh no. She has written to me," he presently +subjoined. "<i>She's</i> not afraid of your father either. No one at +all is—really." Then he went on while Maisie's little mind, with its +filial spring too relaxed from of old for a pang at this want of +parental majesty, speculated on the vague relation between Mrs. +Beale's courage and the question, for Mrs. Wix and herself, of a neat +lodging with their friend. "She wouldn't care a bit if Mr. Farange +should make a row."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean about you and me and Mrs. Wix? Why should she care? +It wouldn't hurt <i>her</i>."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude, with his legs out and his hand diving into his +trousers-pocket, threw back his head with a laugh just perceptibly +tempered, as she thought, by a sigh. "My dear stepchild, you're +delightful! Look here, we must pay. You've had five buns?"</p> + +<p>"How <i>can</i> you?" Maisie demanded, crimson under the eye of +the young woman who had stepped to their board. "I've had three."</p> + +<p>Shortly after this Mrs. Wix looked so ill that it was to be feared +her ladyship had treated her to some unexampled passage. Maisie +asked if anything worse than usual had occurred; whereupon the +poor woman brought out with infinite gloom: "He has been seeing +Mrs. Beale."</p> + +<p>"Sir Claude?" The child remembered what he had said. "Oh no—not +<i>seeing</i> her!"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon. I absolutely know it." Mrs. Wix was as +positive as she was dismal.</p> + +<p>Maisie nevertheless ventured to challenge her. "And how, please, +do you know it?"</p> + +<p>She faltered a moment. "From herself. I've been to see her."</p> + +<p>Then on Maisie's visible surprise: "I went yesterday while you +were out with him. He has seen her repeatedly."</p> + +<p>It was not wholly clear to Maisie why Mrs. Wix should be prostrate +at this discovery; but her general consciousness of the way things +could be both perpetrated and resented always eased off for her +the strain of the particular mystery. "There may be some mistake. +He says he hasn't."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix turned paler, as if this were a still deeper ground for +alarm. "He says so?—he denies that he has seen her?"</p> + +<p>"He told me so three days ago. Perhaps she's mistaken," Maisie +suggested.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean perhaps she lies? She lies whenever it suits her, I'm +very sure. But I know when people lie—and that's what I've loved +in you, that <i>you</i> never do. Mrs. Beale didn't yesterday at any +rate. He <i>has</i> seen her."</p> + +<p>Maisie was silent a little. "He says not," she then repeated. +"Perhaps—perhaps—" Once more she paused.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean perhaps <i>he</i> lies?"</p> + +<p>"Gracious goodness, no!" Maisie shouted.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix's bitterness, however, again overflowed. "He does, he +does," she cried, "and it's that that's just the worst of it! +They'll take you, they'll take you, and what in the world will +then become of me?" She threw herself afresh upon her pupil and +wept over her with the inevitable effect of causing the child's +own tears to flow. But Maisie couldn't have told you if she had +been crying at the image of their separation or at that of Sir +Claude's untruth. As regards this deviation it was agreed between +them that they were not in a position to bring it home to him. +Mrs. Wix was in dread of doing anything to make him, as she said, +"worse"; and Maisie was sufficiently initiated to be able to +reflect that in speaking to her as he had done he had only wished +to be tender of Mrs. Beale. It fell in with all her inclinations +to think of him as tender, and she forbore to let him know that +the two ladies had, as <i>she</i> would never do, betrayed him.</p> + +<p>She had not long to keep her secret, for the next day, when she +went out with him, he suddenly said in reference to some errand he +had first proposed: "No, we won't do that—we'll do something else." +On this, a few steps from the door, he stopped a hansom and helped +her in; then following her he gave the driver over the top an +address that she lost. When he was seated beside her she asked him +where they were going; to which he replied "My dear child, you'll +see." She saw while she watched and wondered that they took the +direction of the Regent's Park; but she didn't know why he should +make a mystery of that, and it was not till they passed under a +pretty arch and drew up at a white house in a terrace from which +the view, she thought, must be lovely that, mystified, she +clutched him and broke out: "I shall see papa?"</p> + +<p>He looked down at her with a kind smile. "No, probably not. I +haven't brought you for that."</p> + +<p>"Then whose house is it?"</p> + +<p>"It's your father's. They've moved here."</p> + +<p>She looked about: she had known Mr. Farange in four or five +houses, and there was nothing astonishing in this except that it +was the nicest place yet. "But I shall see Mrs. Beale?"</p> + +<p>"It's to see her that I brought you."</p> + +<p>She stared, very white, and, with her hand on his arm, though they +had stopped, kept him sitting in the cab. "To leave me, do you +mean?"</p> + +<p>He could scarce bring it out. "It's not for me to say if you +<i>can</i> stay. We must look into it."</p> + +<p>"But if I do I shall see papa?"</p> + +<p>"Oh some time or other, no doubt." Then Sir Claude went on: "Have +you really so very great a dread of that?"</p> + +<p>Maisie glanced away over the apron of the cab—gazed a minute at +the green expanse of the Regent's Park and, at this moment +colouring to the roots of her hair, felt the full, hot rush of an +emotion more mature than any she had yet known. It consisted of an +odd unexpected shame at placing in an inferior light, to so +perfect a gentleman and so charming a person as Sir Claude, so +very near a relative as Mr. Farange. She remembered, however, her +friend's telling her that no one was seriously afraid of her +father, and she turned round with a small toss of her head. "Oh I +dare say I can manage him!"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude smiled, but she noted that the violence with which she +had just changed colour had brought into his own face a slight +compunctious and embarrassed flush. It was as if he had caught his +first glimpse of her sense of responsibility. Neither of them made +a movement to get out, and after an instant he said to her: "Look +here, if you say so we won't after all go in."</p> + +<p>"Ah but I want to see Mrs. Beale!" the child gently wailed.</p> + +<p>"But what if she does decide to take you? Then, you know, you'll +have to remain."</p> + +<p>Maisie turned it over. "Straight on—and give you up?"</p> + +<p>"Well—I don't quite know about giving me up."</p> + +<p>"I mean as I gave up Mrs. Beale when I last went to mamma's. I +couldn't do without you here for anything like so long a time as +that." It struck her as a hundred years since she had seen Mrs. +Beale, who was on the other side of the door they were so near and +whom she yet had not taken the jump to clasp in her arms.</p> + +<p>"Oh I dare say you'll see more of me than you've seen of Mrs. +Beale. It isn't in <i>me</i> to be so beautifully discreet," Sir +Claude said. "But all the same," he continued, "I leave the thing, +now that we're here, absolutely <i>with</i> you. You must settle it. +We'll only go in if you say so. If you don't say so we'll turn right +round and drive away."</p> + +<p>"So in that case Mrs. Beale won't take me?"</p> + +<p>"Well—not by any act of ours."</p> + +<p>"And I shall be able to go on with mamma?" Maisie asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh I don't say that!"</p> + +<p>She considered. "But I thought you said you had squared her?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude poked his stick at the splashboard of the cab. "Not, my +dear child, to the point she now requires."</p> + +<p>"Then if she turns me out and I don't come here—"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude promptly took her up. "What do I offer you, you +naturally enquire? My poor chick, that's just what I ask myself. I +don't see it, I confess, quite as straight as Mrs. Wix."</p> + +<p>His companion gazed a moment at what Mrs. Wix saw. "You mean +<i>we</i> can't make a little family?"</p> + +<p>"It's very base of me, no doubt, but I can't wholly chuck your +mother."</p> + +<p>Maisie, at this, emitted a low but lengthened sigh, a slight sound +of reluctant assent which would certainly have been amusing to an +auditor. "Then there isn't anything else?"</p> + +<p>"I vow I don't quite see what there is."</p> + +<p>Maisie waited; her silence seemed to signify that she too had no +alternative to suggest. But she made another appeal. "If I come +here you'll come to see me?"</p> + +<p>"I won't lose sight of you."</p> + +<p>"But how often will you come?" As he hung fire she pressed him. +"Often and often?"</p> + +<p>Still he faltered. "My dear old woman—" he began. Then he paused +again, going on the next moment with a change of tone. "You're too +funny! Yes then," he said; "often and often."</p> + +<p>"All right!" Maisie jumped out. Mrs. Beale was at home, but not in +the drawing-room, and when the butler had gone for her the child +suddenly broke out: "But when I'm here what will Mrs. Wix do?"</p> + +<p>"Ah you should have thought of that sooner!" said her companion +with the first faint note of asperity she had ever heard him +sound.</p> + + +<p> <a name="14"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XIV<br /> </h3> + + +<p>Mrs Beale fairly swooped upon her and the effect of the whole hour +was to show the child how much, how quite formidably indeed, after +all, she was loved. This was the more the case as her stepmother, +so changed—in the very manner of her mother—that she really +struck her as a new acquaintance, somehow recalled more +familiarity than Maisie could feel. A rich strong expressive +affection in short pounced upon her in the shape of a handsomer, +ampler, older Mrs. Beale. It was like making a fine friend, and +they hadn't been a minute together before she felt elated at the +way she had met the choice imposed on her in the cab. There was a +whole future in the combination of Mrs. Beale's beauty and Mrs. +Beale's hug. She seemed to Maisie charming to behold, and also to +have no connexion at all with anybody who had once mended +underclothing and had meals in the nursery. The child knew one of +her father's wives was a woman of fashion, but she had always +dimly made a distinction, not applying that epithet without +reserve to the other. Mrs. Beale had since their separation +acquired a conspicuous right to it, and Maisie's first flush of +response to her present delight coloured all her splendour with +meanings that this time were sweet. She had told Sir Claude she +was afraid of the lady in the Regent's Park; but she had +confidence enough to break on the spot, into the frankest +appreciation. "Why, aren't you beautiful? Isn't she beautiful, Sir +Claude, <i>isn't</i> she?"</p> + +<p>"The handsomest woman in London, simply," Sir Claude gallantly +replied. "Just as sure as you're the best little girl!"</p> + +<p>Well, the handsomest woman in London gave herself up, with tender +lustrous looks and every demonstration of fondness, to a happiness +at last clutched again. There was almost as vivid a bloom in her +maturity as in mamma's, and it took her but a short time to give +her little friend an impression of positive power—an impression +that seemed to begin like a long bright day. This was a perception +on Maisie's part that neither mamma, nor Sir Claude, nor Mrs. Wix, +with their immense and so varied respective attractions, had +exactly kindled, and that made an immediate difference when the +talk, as it promptly did, began to turn to her father. Oh yes, Mr. +Farange was a complication, but she saw now that he wouldn't be +one for his daughter. For Mrs. Beale certainly he was an immense +one—she speedily made known as much; but Mrs. Beale from this +moment presented herself to Maisie as a person to whom a great +gift had come. The great gift was just for handling complications. +Maisie felt how little she made of them when, after she had +dropped to Sir Claude some recall of a previous meeting, he made +answer, with a sound of consternation and yet an air of relief, +that he had denied to their companion their having, since the day +he came for her, seen each other till that moment.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale could but vaguely pity it. "Why did you do anything so +silly?"</p> + +<p>"To protect your reputation."</p> + +<p>"From Maisie?" Mrs. Beale was much amused. "My reputation with +Maisie is too good to suffer."</p> + +<p>"But you believed me, you rascal, didn't you?" Sir Claude asked of +the child.</p> + +<p>She looked at him; she smiled. "Her reputation did suffer. I +discovered you had been here."</p> + +<p>He was not too chagrined to laugh. "The way, my dear, you talk of +that sort of thing!"</p> + +<p>"How should she talk," Mrs. Beale wanted to know, "after all this +wretched time with her mother?"</p> + +<p>"It was not mamma who told me," Maisie explained. "It was only +Mrs. Wix." She was hesitating whether to bring out before Sir +Claude the source of Mrs. Wix's information; but Mrs. Beale, +addressing the young man, showed the vanity of scruples.</p> + +<p>"Do you know that preposterous person came to see me a day or two +ago?—when I told her I had seen you repeatedly."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude, for once in a way, was disconcerted. "The old cat! She +never told me. Then you thought I had lied?" he demanded of +Maisie.</p> + +<p>She was flurried by the term with which he had qualified her +gentle friend, but she took the occasion for one to which she must +in every manner lend herself. "Oh I didn't mind! But Mrs. Wix +did," she added with an intention benevolent to her governess.</p> + +<p>Her intention was not very effective as regards Mrs. Beale. "Mrs. +Wix is too idiotic!" that lady declared.</p> + +<p>"But to you, of all people," Sir Claude asked, "what had she to +say?"</p> + +<p>"Why that, like Mrs. Micawber—whom she must, I think, rather +resemble—she will never, never, never desert Miss Farange."</p> + +<p>"Oh I'll make that all right!" Sir Claude cheerfully returned.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I hope so, my dear man," said Mrs. Beale, while Maisie +wondered just how he would proceed. Before she had time to ask +Mrs. Beale continued: "That's not all she came to do, if you +please. But you'll never guess the rest."</p> + +<p>"Shall <i>I</i> guess it?" Maisie quavered.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale was again amused. "Why you're just the person! It must +be quite the sort of thing you've heard at your awful mother's. +Have you never seen women there crying to her to 'spare' the men +they love?"</p> + +<p>Maisie, wondering, tried to remember; but Sir Claude was freshly +diverted. "Oh they don't trouble about Ida! Mrs. Wix cried to you +to spare <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>"She regularly went down on her knees to me."</p> + +<p>"The darling old dear!" the young man exclaimed.</p> + +<p>These words were a joy to Maisie—they made up for his previous +description of Mrs. Wix. "And <i>will</i> you spare him?" she asked +of Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>Her stepmother, seizing her and kissing her again, seemed charmed +with the tone of her question. "Not an inch of him! I'll pick him +to the bone!"</p> + +<p>"You mean that he'll really come often?" Maisie pressed.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale turned lovely eyes to Sir Claude. "That's not for me to +say—its for him."</p> + +<p>He said nothing at once, however; with his hands in his pockets +and vaguely humming a tune—even Maisie could see he was a little +nervous—he only walked to the window and looked out at the +Regent's Park. "Well, he has promised," Maisie said. "But how will +papa like it?"</p> + +<p>"His being in and out? Ah that's a question that, to be frank with +you, my dear, hardly matters. In point of fact, however, Beale +greatly enjoys the idea that Sir Claude too, poor man, has been +forced to quarrel with your mother."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude turned round and spoke gravely and kindly. "Don't be +afraid, Maisie; you won't lose sight of me."</p> + +<p>"Thank you so much!" Maisie was radiant. "But what I meant—don't +you know?—was what papa would say to <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh I've been having that out with him," said Mrs. Beale. "He'll +behave well enough. You see the great difficulty is that, though +he changes every three days about everything else in the world, he +has never changed about your mother. It's a caution, the way he +hates her."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude gave a short laugh. "It certainly can't beat the way +she still hates <i>him</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Well," Mrs. Beale went on obligingly, "nothing can take the place +of that feeling with either of them, and the best way they can +think of to show it is for each to leave you as long as possible +on the hands of the other. There's nothing, as you've seen for +yourself, that makes either so furious. It isn't, asking so little +as you do, that you're much of an expense or a trouble; it's only +that you make each feel so well how nasty the other wants to be. +Therefore Beale goes on loathing your mother too much to have any +great fury left for any one else. Besides, you know, I've squared +him."</p> + +<p>"Oh Lord!" Sir Claude cried with a louder laugh and turning again +to the window.</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> know how!" Maisie was prompt to proclaim. "By letting +him do what he wants on condition that he lets you also do it."</p> + +<p>"You're too delicious, my own pet!"—she was involved in another +hug. "How in the world have I got on so long without you? I've not +been happy, love," said Mrs. Beale with her cheek to the child's.</p> + +<p>"Be happy now!"—she throbbed with shy tenderness.</p> + +<p>"I think I shall be. You'll save me."</p> + +<p>"As I'm saving Sir Claude?" the little girl asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale, a trifle at a loss, appealed to her visitor, "Is she +really?"</p> + +<p>He showed high amusement at Maisie's question. "It's dear Mrs. +Wix's idea. There may be something in it."</p> + +<p>"He makes me his duty—he makes me his life," Maisie set forth to +her stepmother.</p> + +<p>"Why that's what <i>I</i> want to do!"—Mrs. Beale, so +anticipated, turned pink with astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Well, you can do it together. Then he'll <i>have</i> to +come!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale by this time had her young friend fairly in her lap and +she smiled up at Sir Claude. "Shall we do it together?"</p> + +<p>His laughter had dropped, and for a moment he turned his handsome +serious face not to his hostess, but to his stepdaughter. "Well, +it's rather more decent than some things. Upon my soul, the way +things are going, it seems to me the only decency!" He had the air +of arguing it out to Maisie, of presenting it, through an impulse +of conscience, as a connexion in which they could honourably see +her participate; though his plea of mere "decency" might well have +appeared to fall below her rosy little vision. "If we're not good +for <i>you</i>" he exclaimed, "I'll be hanged if I know who we shall +be good for!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale showed the child an intenser light. "I dare say you +<i>will</i> save us—from one thing and another."</p> + +<p>"Oh I know what she'll save <i>me</i> from!" Sir Claude roundly +asserted. "There'll be rows of course," he went on.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale quickly took him up. "Yes, but they'll be nothing—for +you at least—to the rows your wife makes as it is. I can bear +what <i>I</i> suffer—I can't bear what you go through."</p> + +<p>"We're doing a good deal for you, you know, young woman," Sir +Claude went on to Maisie with the same gravity.</p> + +<p>She coloured with a sense of obligation and the eagerness of her +desire it should be remarked how little was lost on her. "Oh I +know!"</p> + +<p>"Then you must keep us all right!" This time he laughed.</p> + +<p>"How you talk to her!" cried Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>"No worse than you!" he gaily answered.</p> + +<p>"Handsome is that handsome does!" she returned in the same spirit. +"You can take off your things," she went on, releasing Maisie.</p> + +<p>The child, on her feet, was all emotion. "Then I'm just to +stop—this way?"</p> + +<p>"It will do as well as any other. Sir Claude, to-morrow, will have +your things brought."</p> + +<p>"I'll bring them myself. Upon my word I'll see them packed!" Sir +Claude promised. "Come here and unbutton."</p> + +<p>He had beckoned his young companion to where he sat, and he helped +to disengage her from her coverings while Mrs. Beale, from a +little distance, smiled at the hand he displayed. "There's a +stepfather for you! I'm bound to say, you know, that he makes up +for the want of other people."</p> + +<p>"He makes up for the want of a nurse!" Sir Claude laughed. "Don't +you remember I told you so the very first time?"</p> + +<p>"Remember? It was exactly what made me think so well of you!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing would induce me," the young man said to Maisie, "to tell +you what made me think so well of <i>her</i>." Having divested the +child he kissed her gently and gave her a little pat to make her +stand off. The pat was accompanied with a vague sigh in which his +gravity of a moment before came back. "All the same, if you hadn't +had the fatal gift of beauty—"</p> + +<p>"Well, what?" Maisie asked, wondering why he paused. It was the +first time she had heard of her beauty.</p> + +<p>"Why, we shouldn't all be thinking so well of each other!"</p> + +<p>"He isn't speaking of personal loveliness—you've not <i>that</i> +vulgar beauty, my dear, at all," Mrs. Beale explained. "He's just +talking of plain dull charm of character."</p> + +<p>"Her character's the most extraordinary thing in all the world," +Sir Claude stated to Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>"Oh I know all about that sort of thing!"—she fairly bridled with +the knowledge.</p> + +<p>It gave Maisie somehow a sudden sense of responsibility from which +she sought refuge. "Well, you've got it too, 'that sort of +thing'—you've got the fatal gift: you both really have!" she +broke out.</p> + +<p>"Beauty of character? My dear boy, we haven't a pennyworth!" Sir +Claude protested.</p> + +<p>"Speak for yourself, sir!" she leaped lightly from Mrs. Beale. +"I'm good and I'm clever. What more do you want? For you, I'll +spare your blushes and not be personal—I'll simply say that +you're as handsome as you can stick together."</p> + +<p>"You're both very lovely; you can't get out of it!"—Maisie felt +the need of carrying her point. "And it's beautiful to see you +side by side."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude had taken his hat and stick; he stood looking at her a +moment. "You're a comfort in trouble! But I must go home and pack +you."</p> + +<p>"And when will you come back?—to-morrow, to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"You see what we're in for!" he said to Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>"Well, I can bear it if you can."</p> + +<p>Their companion gazed from one of them to the other, thinking that +though she had been happy indeed between Sir Claude and Mrs. Wix +she should evidently be happier still between Sir Claude and Mrs. +Beale. But it was like being perched on a prancing horse, and she +made a movement to hold on to something. "Then, you know, shan't I +bid goodbye to Mrs. Wix?"</p> + +<p>"Oh I'll make it all right with her," said Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>Maisie considered. "And with mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Ah mamma!" he sadly laughed.</p> + +<p>Even for the child this was scarcely ambiguous; but Mrs. Beale +endeavoured to contribute to its clearness. "Your mother will +crow, she'll crow—"</p> + +<p>"Like the early bird!" said Sir Claude as she looked about for a +comparison.</p> + +<p>"She'll need no consolation," Mrs. Beale went on, "for having made +your father grandly blaspheme."</p> + +<p>Maisie stared. "Will he grandly blaspheme?" It was impressive, it +might have been out of the Bible, and her question produced a +fresh play of caresses, in which Sir Claude also engaged. She +wondered meanwhile who, if Mrs. Wix was disposed of, would +represent in her life the element of geography and anecdote; and +she presently surmounted the delicacy she felt about asking. +"Won't there be any one to give me lessons?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale was prepared with a reply that struck her as absolutely +magnificent. "You shall have such lessons as you've never had in +all your life. You shall go to courses."</p> + +<p>"Courses?" Maisie had never heard of such things.</p> + +<p>"At institutions—on subjects."</p> + +<p>Maisie continued to stare. "Subjects?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale was really splendid. "All the most important ones. +French literature—and sacred history. You'll take part in +classes—with awfully smart children."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to look thoroughly into the whole thing, you know." And +Sir Claude, with characteristic kindness, gave her a nod of +assurance accompanied by a friendly wink.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Beale went much further. "My dear child, you shall attend +lectures."</p> + +<p>The horizon was suddenly vast and Maisie felt herself the smaller +for it. "All alone?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no; I'll attend them with you," said Sir Claude. "They'll +teach me a lot I don't know."</p> + +<p>"So they will me," Mrs. Beale gravely admitted. "We'll go with her +together—it will be charming. It's ages," she confessed to +Maisie, "since I've had any time for study. That's another sweet +way in which you'll be a motive to us. Oh won't the good she'll do +us be immense?" she broke out uncontrollably to Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>He weighed it; then he replied: "That's certainly our idea."</p> + +<p>Of this idea Maisie naturally had less of a grasp, but it inspired +her with almost equal enthusiasm. If in so bright a prospect there +would be nothing to long for it followed that she wouldn't long +for Mrs. Wix; but her consciousness of her assent to the absence +of that fond figure caused a pair of words that had often sounded +in her ears to ring in them again. It showed her in short what her +father had always meant by calling her mother a "low sneak" and +her mother by calling her father one. She wondered if she herself +shouldn't be a low sneak in learning to be so happy without Mrs. +Wix. What would Mrs. Wix do?—where would Mrs. Wix go? Before +Maisie knew it, and at the door, as Sir Claude was off, these +anxieties, on her lips, grew articulate and her stepfather had +stopped long enough to answer them. "Oh I'll square her!" he +cried; and with this he departed.</p> + +<p>Face to face with Mrs. Beale, Maisie, giving a sigh of relief, +looked round at what seemed to her the dawn of a higher order. +"Then <i>every one</i> will be squared!" she peacefully said. On +which her stepmother affectionately bent over her again.</p> + + +<p> <a name="15"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XV<br /> </h3> + + +<p>It was Susan Ash who came to her with the news: "He's downstairs, +miss, and he do look beautiful."</p> + +<p>In the schoolroom at her father's, which had pretty blue curtains, +she had been making out at the piano a lovely little thing, as +Mrs. Beale called it, a "Moonlight Berceuse" sent her through the +post by Sir Claude, who considered that her musical education had +been deplorably neglected and who, the last months at her +mother's, had been on the point of making arrangements for regular +lessons. She knew from him familiarly that the real thing, as he +said, was shockingly dear and that anything else was a waste of +money, and she therefore rejoiced the more at the sacrifice +represented by this composition, of which the price, five +shillings, was marked on the cover and which was evidently the +real thing. She was already on her feet. "Mrs. Beale has sent up +for me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no—it's not that," said Susan Ash. "Mrs. Beale has been out +this hour."</p> + +<p>"Then papa!"</p> + +<p>"Dear no—not papa. You'll do, miss, all but them wandering +'airs," Susan went on. "Your papa never came 'ome at all," she +added.</p> + +<p>"Home from where?" Maisie responded a little absently and very +excitedly. She gave a wild manual brush to her locks.</p> + +<p>"Oh that, miss, I should be very sorry to tell you! I'd rather +tuck away that white thing behind—though I'm blest if it's my +work."</p> + +<p>"Do then, please. I know where papa was," Maisie impatiently +continued.</p> + +<p>"Well, in your place I wouldn't tell."</p> + +<p>"He was at the club—the Chrysanthemum. So!"</p> + +<p>"All night long? Why the flowers shut up at night, you know!" +cried Susan Ash.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't care"—he child was at the door. "Sir Claude asked +for me <i>alone</i>?"</p> + +<p>"The same as if you was a duchess."</p> + +<p>Maisie was aware on her way downstairs that she was now quite as +happy as one, and also, a moment later, as she hung round his neck, +that even such a personage would scarce commit herself more grandly. +There was moreover a hint of the duchess in the infinite point with +which, as she felt, she exclaimed: "And this is what you call coming +<i>often</i>?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude met her delightfully and in the same fine spirit. "My +dear old man, don't make me a scene—I assure you it's what every +woman I look at does. Let us have some fun—it's a lovely day: +clap on something smart and come out with me; then we'll talk it +over quietly."</p> + +<p>They were on their way five minutes later to Hyde Park, and +nothing that even in the good days at her mother's they had ever +talked over had more of the sweetness of tranquillity than his +present prompt explanations. He was at his best in such an office +and with the exception of Mrs. Wix the only person she had met in +her life who ever explained. With him, however, the act had an +authority transcending the wisdom of woman. It all came back—the +plans that always failed, all the rewards and bribes that she was +perpetually paying for in advance and perpetually out of pocket by +afterwards—the whole great stress to be dealt with introduced her +on each occasion afresh to the question of money. Even she herself +almost knew how it would have expressed the strength of his empire +to say that to shuffle away her sense of being duped he had only, +from under his lovely moustache, to breathe upon it. It was +somehow in the nature of plans to be expensive and in the nature +of the expensive to be impossible. To be "involved" was of the +essence of everybody's affairs, and also at every particular +moment to be more involved than usual. This had been the case with +Sir Claude's, with papa's, with mamma's, with Mrs. Beale's and +with Maisie's own at the particular moment, a moment of several +weeks, that had elapsed since our young lady had been +re-established at her father's. There wasn't "two-and-tuppence" +for anything or for any one, and that was why there had been no +sequel to the classes in French literature with all the smart +little girls. It was devilish awkward, didn't she see? to try, +without even the limited capital mentioned, to mix her up with a +remote array that glittered before her after this as the children +of the rich. She was to feel henceforth as if she were flattening +her nose upon the hard window-pane of the sweet-shop of knowledge. +If the classes, however, that were select, and accordingly the +only ones, were impossibly dear, the lectures at the +institutions—at least at some of them—were directly addressed to +the intelligent poor, and it therefore had to be easier still to +produce on the spot the reason why she had been taken to none. +This reason, Sir Claude said, was that she happened to be just +going to be, though they had nothing to do with that in now +directing their steps to the banks of the Serpentine. Maisie's own +park, in the north, had been nearer at hand, but they rolled +westward in a hansom because at the end of the sweet June days +this was the direction taken by every one that any one looked at. +They cultivated for an hour, on the Row and by the Drive, this +opportunity for each observer to amuse and for one of them indeed, +not a little hilariously, to mystify the other, and before the +hour was over Maisie had elicited, in reply to her sharpest +challenge, a further account of her friend's long absence.</p> + +<p>"Why I've broken my word to you so dreadfully—promising so +solemnly and then never coming? Well, my dear, that's a question +that, not seeing me day after day, you must very often have put to +Mrs. Beale."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," the child replied; "again and again."</p> + +<p>"And what has she told you?"</p> + +<p>"That you're as bad as you're beautiful."</p> + +<p>"Is that what she says?"</p> + +<p>"Those very words."</p> + +<p>"Ah the dear old soul!" Sir Claude was much diverted, and his +loud, clear laugh was all his explanation. Those were just the +words Maisie had last heard him use about Mrs. Wix. She clung to +his hand, which was encased in a pearl-grey glove ornamented with +the thick black lines that, at her mother's, always used to strike +her as connected with the way the bestitched fists of the long +ladies carried, with the elbows well out, their umbrellas upside +down. The mere sense of his grasp in her own covered the ground of +loss just as much as the ground of gain. His presence was like an +object brought so close to her face that she couldn't see round +its edges. He himself, however, remained showman of the spectacle +even after they had passed out of the Park and begun, under the +charm of the spot and the season, to stroll in Kensington Gardens. +What they had left behind them was, as he said, only a pretty bad +circus, and, through prepossessing gates and over a bridge, they +had come in a quarter of an hour, as he also remarked, a hundred +miles from London. A great green glade was before them, and high +old trees, and under the shade of these, in the fresh turf, the +crooked course of a rural footpath. "It's the Forest of Arden," +Sir Claude had just delightfully observed, "and I'm the banished +duke, and you're—what was the young woman called?—the artless +country wench. And there," he went on, "is the other girl—what's +her name, Rosalind?—and (don't you know?) the fellow who was +making up to her. Upon my word he <i>is</i> making up to her!"</p> + +<p>His allusion was to a couple who, side by side, at the end of the +glade, were moving in the same direction as themselves. These +distant figures, in their slow stroll (which kept them so close +together that their heads, drooping a little forward, almost +touched), presented the back of a lady who looked tall, who was +evidently a very fine woman, and that of a gentleman whose left +hand appeared to be passed well into her arm while his right, +behind him, made jerky motions with the stick that it grasped. +Maisie's fancy responded for an instant to her friend's idea that +the sight was idyllic; then, stopping short, she brought out with +all her clearness: "Why mercy—if it isn't mamma!"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude paused with a stare. "Mamma? But mamma's at Brussels."</p> + +<p>Maisie, with her eyes on the lady, wondered. "At Brussels?"</p> + +<p>"She's gone to play a match."</p> + +<p>"At billiards? You didn't tell me."</p> + +<p>"Of course I didn't!" Sir Claude ejaculated. "There's plenty I +don't tell you. She went on Wednesday."</p> + +<p>The couple had added to their distance, but Maisie's eyes more +than kept pace with them. "Then she has come back."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude watched the lady. "It's much more likely she never +went!"</p> + +<p>"It's mamma!" the child said with decision.</p> + +<p>They had stood still, but Sir Claude had made the most of his +opportunity, and it happened that just at this moment, at the end +of the vista, the others halted and, still showing only their +backs, seemed to stay talking. "Right you are, my duck!" he +exclaimed at last. "It's my own sweet wife!"</p> + +<p>He had spoken with a laugh, but he had changed colour, and Maisie +quickly looked away from him. "Then who is it with her?"</p> + +<p>"Blest if I know!" said Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>"Is it Mr. Perriam?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear no—Perriam's smashed."</p> + +<p>"Smashed?"</p> + +<p>"Exposed—in the City. But there are quantities of others!" Sir +Claude smiled.</p> + +<p>Maisie appeared to count them; she studied the gentleman's back. +"Then is this Lord Eric?"</p> + +<p>For a moment her companion made no answer, and when she turned her +eyes again to him he was looking at her, she thought, rather +queerly. "What do you know about Lord Eric?"</p> + +<p>She tried innocently to be odd in return. "Oh I know more than you +think! Is it Lord Eric?" she repeated.</p> + +<p>"It maybe. Blest if I care!"</p> + +<p>Their friends had slightly separated and now, as Sir Claude spoke, +suddenly faced round, showing all the splendour of her ladyship +and all the mystery of her comrade. Maisie held her breath. +"They're coming!"</p> + +<p>"Let them come." And Sir Claude, pulling out his cigarettes, began +to strike a light.</p> + +<p>"We shall meet them!"</p> + +<p>"No. They'll meet <i>us</i>."</p> + +<p>Maisie stood her ground. "They see us. Just look."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude threw away his match. "Come straight on." The others, +in the return, evidently startled, had half-paused again, keeping +well apart. "She's horribly surprised and wants to slope," he +continued. "But it's too late."</p> + +<p>Maisie advanced beside him, making out even across the interval +that her ladyship was ill at ease. "Then what will she do?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude puffed his cigarette. "She's quickly thinking." He +appeared to enjoy it.</p> + +<p>Ida had wavered but an instant; her companion clearly gave her +moral support. Maisie thought he somehow looked brave, and he had +no likeness whatever to Mr. Perriam. His face, thin and rather +sharp, was smooth, and it was not till they came nearer that she +saw he had a remarkably fair little moustache. She could already +see that his eyes were of the lightest blue. He was far nicer than +Mr. Perriam. Mamma looked terrible from afar, but even under her +guns the child's curiosity flickered and she appealed again to Sir +Claude. "Is it—<i>is</i> it Lord Eric?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude smoked composedly enough. "I think it's the Count."</p> + +<p>This was a happy solution—it fitted her idea of a count. But what +idea, as she now came grandly on, did mamma fit?—unless that of +an actress, in some tremendous situation, sweeping down to the +footlights as if she would jump them. Maisie felt really so +frightened that before she knew it she had passed her hand into +Sir Claude's arm. Her pressure caused him to stop, and at the +sight of this the other couple came equally to a stand and, beyond +the diminished space, remained a moment more in talk. This, +however, was the matter of an instant; leaving the Count +apparently to come round more circuitously—an outflanking +movement, if Maisie had but known—her ladyship resumed the onset. +"What <i>will</i> she do now?" her daughter asked.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude was at present in a position to say: "Try to pretend +it's me."</p> + +<p>"You?"</p> + +<p>"Why that I'm up to something."</p> + +<p>In another minute poor Ida had justified this prediction, erect +there before them like a figure of justice in full dress. There +were parts of her face that grew whiter while Maisie looked, and +other parts in which this change seemed to make other colours +reign with more intensity. "What are you doing with my daughter?" +she demanded of her husband; in spite of the indignant tone of +which Maisie had a greater sense than ever in her life before of +not being personally noticed. It seemed to her Sir Claude also +grew pale as an effect of the loud defiance with which Ida twice +repeated this question. He put her, instead of answering it, an +enquiry of his own: "Who the devil have you got hold of <i>now</i>?" +and at this her ladyship turned tremendously to the child, glaring at +her as at an equal plotter of sin. Maisie received in petrifaction +the full force of her mother's huge painted eyes—they were like +Japanese lanterns swung under festal arches. But life came back to +her from a tone suddenly and strangely softened. "Go straight to +that gentleman, my dear; I've asked him to take you a few minutes. +He's charming—go. I've something to say to <i>this</i> +creature."</p> + +<p>Maisie felt Sir Claude immediately clutch her. "No, no—thank you: +that won't do. She's mine."</p> + +<p>"Yours?" It was confounding to Maisie to hear her speak quite as +if she had never heard of Sir Claude before.</p> + +<p>"Mine. You've given her up. You've not another word to say about +her. I have her from her father," said Sir Claude—a statement +that startled his companion, who could also measure its lively +action on her mother.</p> + +<p>There was visibly, however, an influence that made Ida consider; +she glanced at the gentleman she had left, who, having strolled +with his hands in his pockets to some distance, stood there with +unembarrassed vagueness. She directed to him the face that was +like an illuminated garden, turnstile and all, for the +frequentation of which he had his season-ticket; then she looked +again at Sir Claude. "I've given her up to her father to +<i>keep</i>—not to get rid of by sending about the town either +with you or with any one else. If she's not to mind me let +<i>him</i> come and tell me so. I decline to take it from another +person, and I like your pretending that with your humbug of +'interest' you've a leg to stand on. I know your game and have +something now to say to you about it."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude gave a squeeze of the child's arm. "Didn't I tell you +she'd have, Miss Farange?"</p> + +<p>"You're uncommonly afraid to hear it," Ida went on; "but if you +think she'll protect you from it you're mightily mistaken." She +gave him a moment. "I'll give her the benefit as soon as look at +you. Should you like her to know, my dear?" Maisie had a sense of +her launching the question with effect; yet our young lady was +also conscious of hoping that Sir Claude would declare that +preference. We have already learned that she had come to like +people's liking her to "know." Before he could reply at all, none +the less, her mother opened a pair of arms of extraordinary +elegance, and then she felt the loosening of his grasp. "My own +child," Ida murmured in a voice—a voice of sudden confused +tenderness—that it seemed to her she heard for the first time. +She wavered but an instant, thrilled with the first direct appeal, +as distinguished from the mere maternal pull, she had ever had +from lips that, even in the old vociferous years, had always been +sharp. The next moment she was on her mother's breast, where, amid +a wilderness of trinkets, she felt as if she had suddenly been +thrust, with a smash of glass, into a jeweller's shop-front, but +only to be as suddenly ejected with a push and the brisk +injunction: "Now go to the Captain!"</p> + +<p>Maisie glanced at the gentleman submissively, but felt the want of +more introduction. "The Captain?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude broke into a laugh. "I told her it was the Count."</p> + +<p>Ida stared; she rose so superior that she was colossal. "You're +too utterly loathsome," she then declared. "Be off!" she repeated +to her daughter.</p> + +<p>Maisie started, moved backward and, looking at Sir Claude, "Only +for a moment," she signed to him in her bewilderment. But he was +too angry to heed her—too angry with his wife; as she turned away +she heard his anger break out. "You damned old +b––––"—she couldn't quite hear all. It +was enough, it was too much: she fled before it, rushing even to +a stranger for the shock of such a change of tone.</p> + + +<p> <a name="16"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XVI<br /> </h3> + + +<p>As she met the Captain's light blue eyes the greatest marvel +occurred; she felt a sudden relief at finding them reply with +anxiety to the horror in her face. "What in the world has he +done?" He put it all on Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>"He has called her a damned old brute." She couldn't help bringing +that out.</p> + +<p>The Captain, at the same elevation as her ladyship, gaped wide; +then of course, like every one else, he was convulsed. But he +instantly caught himself up, echoing her bad words. "A damned old +brute—your mother?"</p> + +<p>Maisie was already conscious of her second movement. "I think she +tried to make him angry."</p> + +<p>The Captain's stupefaction was fine. "Angry—<i>she</i>? Why +she's an angel!"</p> + +<p>On the spot, as he said this, his face won her over; it was so +bright and kind, and his blue eyes had such a reflexion of some +mysterious grace that, for him at least, her mother had put forth. +Her fund of observation enabled her as she gazed up at him to +place him: he was a candid simple soldier; very grave—she came +back to that—but not at all terrible. At any rate he struck a +note that was new to her and that after a moment made her say: "Do +you like her very much?"</p> + +<p>He smiled down at her, hesitating, looking pleasanter and +pleasanter. "Let me tell you about your mother."</p> + +<p>He put out a big military hand which she immediately took, and +they turned off together to where a couple of chairs had been +placed under one of the trees. "She told me to come to you," +Maisie explained as they went; and presently she was close to him +in a chair, with the prettiest of pictures—the sheen of the lake +through other trees—before them, and the sound of birds, the +plash of boats, the play of children in the air. The Captain, +inclining his military person, sat sideways to be closer and +kinder, and as her hand was on the arm of her seat he put his own +down on it again to emphasise something he had to say that would +be good for her to hear. He had already told her how her mother, +from the moment of seeing her so unexpectedly with a person who +was—well, not at all the right person, had promptly asked him to +take charge of her while she herself tackled, as she said, the +real culprit. He gave the child the sense of doing for the time +what he liked with her; ten minutes before she had never seen him, +but she could now sit there touching him, touched and impressed by +him and thinking it nice when a gentleman was thin and +brown—brown with a kind of clear depth that made his +straw-coloured moustache almost white and his eyes resemble little +pale flowers. The most extraordinary thing was the way she didn't +appear just then to mind Sir Claude's being tackled. The Captain +wasn't a bit like him, for it was an odd part of the pleasantness +of mamma's friend that it resided in a manner in this friend's +having a face so informally put together that the only kindness +could be to call it funny. An odder part still was that it finally +made our young lady, to classify him further, say to herself that, +of all people in the world, he reminded her most insidiously of +Mrs. Wix. He had neither straighteners nor a diadem, nor, at least +in the same place as the other, a button; he was sun-burnt and +deep-voiced and smelt of cigars, yet he marvellously had more in +common with her old governess than with her young stepfather. What +he had to say to her that was good for her to hear was that her +poor mother (didn't she know?) was the best friend he had ever had +in all his life. And he added: "She has told me ever so much about +you. I'm awfully glad to know you."</p> + +<p>She had never, she thought, been so addressed as a young lady, not +even by Sir Claude the day, so long ago, that she found him with +Mrs. Beale. It struck her as the way that at balls, by delightful +partners, young ladies must be spoken to in the intervals of +dances; and she tried to think of something that would meet it at +the same high point. But this effort flurried her, and all she +could produce was: "At first, you know, I thought you were Lord +Eric."</p> + +<p>The Captain looked vague. "Lord Eric?"</p> + +<p>"And then Sir Claude thought you were the Count."</p> + +<p>At this he laughed out. "Why he's only five foot high and as red +as a lobster!" Maisie laughed, with a certain elegance, in +return—the young lady at the ball certainly would—and was on the +point, as conscientiously, of pursuing the subject with an +agreeable question. But before she could speak her companion +challenged her. "Who in the world's Lord Eric?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you know him?" She judged her young lady would say that +with light surprise.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean a fat man with his mouth always open?" She had to +confess that their acquaintance was so limited that she could only +describe the bearer of the name as a friend of mamma's; but a +light suddenly came to the Captain, who quickly spoke as knowing +her man. "What-do-you-call-him's brother, the fellow that owned +Bobolink?" Then, with all his kindness, he contradicted her flat. +"Oh dear no; your mother never knew <i>him</i>."</p> + +<p>"But Mrs. Wix said so," the child risked.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Wix?"</p> + +<p>"My old governess."</p> + +<p>This again seemed amusing to the Captain. "She mixed him up, your +old governess. He's an awful beast. Your mother never looked at +him."</p> + +<p>He was as positive as he was friendly, but he dropped for a minute +after this into a silence that gave Maisie, confused but +ingenious, a chance to redeem the mistake of pretending to know +too much by the humility of inviting further correction. "And +doesn't she know the Count?"</p> + +<p>"Oh I dare say! But he's another ass." After which abruptly, with +a different look, he put down again on the back of her own the +hand he had momentarily removed. Maisie even thought he coloured a +little. "I want tremendously to speak to you. You must never +believe any harm of your mother."</p> + +<p>"Oh I assure you I <i>don't</i>!" cried the child, blushing, +herself, up to her eyes in a sudden surge of deprecation of such +a thought.</p> + +<p>The Captain, bending his head, raised her hand to his lips with a +benevolence that made her wish her glove had been nicer. "Of +course you don't when you know how fond she is of <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"She's fond of me?" Maisie panted.</p> + +<p>"Tremendously. But she thinks you don't like her. You <i>must</i> +like her. She has had too much to put up with."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—I know!" She rejoiced that she had never denied it.</p> + +<p>"Of course I've no right to speak of her except as a particular +friend," the Captain went on. "But she's a splendid woman. She has +never had any sort of justice."</p> + +<p>"Hasn't she?"—his companion, to hear the words, felt a thrill +altogether new.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I oughtn't to say it to you, but she has had everything +to suffer."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—you can <i>say</i> it to me!" Maisie hastened to +profess.</p> + +<p>The Captain was glad. "Well, you needn't tell. It's all for +<i>you</i>—do you see?"</p> + +<p>Serious and smiling she only wanted to take it from him. "It's +between you and me! Oh there are lots of things I've never told!"</p> + +<p>"Well, keep this with the rest. I assure you she has had the most +infernal time, no matter what any one says to the contrary. She's +the cleverest woman I ever saw in all my life. She's too +charming." She had been touched already by his tone, and now she +leaned back in her chair and felt something tremble within her. +"She's tremendous fun—she can do all sorts of things better than +I've ever seen any one. She has the pluck of fifty—and I know; I +assure you I do. She has the nerve for a tiger-shoot—by Jove I'd +<i>take</i> her! And she is awfully open and generous, don't you +know? there are women that are such horrid sneaks. She'll go through +anything for any one she likes." He appeared to watch for a moment +the effect on his companion of this emphasis; then he gave a small +sigh that mourned the limits of the speakable. But it was almost +with the note of a fresh challenge that he wound up: "Look here, +she's <i>true</i>!"</p> + +<p>Maisie had so little desire to assert the contrary that she found +herself, in the intensity of her response, throbbing with a joy +still less utterable than the essence of the Captain's admiration. +She was fairly hushed with the sense that he spoke of her mother +as she had never heard any one speak. It came over her as she sat +silent that, after all, this admiration and this respect were +quite new words, which took a distinction from the fact that +nothing in the least resembling them in quality had on any +occasion dropped from the lips of her father, of Mrs. Beale, of +Sir Claude or even of Mrs. Wix. What it appeared to her to come to +was that on the subject of her ladyship it was the first real +kindness she had heard, so that at the touch of it something +strange and deep and pitying surged up within her—a revelation +that, practically and so far as she knew, her mother, apart from +this, had only been disliked. Mrs. Wix's original account of Sir +Claude's affection seemed as empty now as the chorus in a +children's game, and the husband and wife, but a little way off at +that moment, were face to face in hatred and with the dreadful +name he had called her still in the air. What was it the Captain +on the other hand had called her? Maisie wanted to hear that +again. The tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, which +burned under them with the rush of a consciousness that for her +too, five minutes before, the vivid towering beauty whose assault +she awaited had been, a moment long, an object of pure dread. She +became on the spot indifferent to her usual fear of showing what +in children was notoriously most offensive—presented to her +companion, soundlessly but hideously, her wet distorted face. She +cried, with a pang, straight <i>at</i> him, cried as she had never +cried at any one in all her life. "Oh do you love her?" she +brought out with a gulp that was the effect of her trying not to +make a noise.</p> + +<p>It was doubtless another consequence of the thick mist through +which she saw him that in reply to her question the Captain gave +her such a queer blurred look. He stammered, yet in his voice +there was also the ring of a great awkward insistence. "Of course +I'm tremendously fond of her—I like her better than any woman I +ever saw. I don't mind in the least telling you that," he went on, +"and I should think myself a great beast if I did." Then to show +that his position was superlatively clear he made her, with a +kindness that even Sir Claude had never surpassed, tremble again +as she had trembled at his first outbreak. He called her by her +name, and her name drove it home. "My dear Maisie, your mother's +an angel!"</p> + +<p>It was an almost unbelievable balm—it soothed so her impression +of danger and pain. She sank back in her chair, she covered her +face with her hands. "Oh mother, mother, mother!" she sobbed. She +had an impression that the Captain, beside her, if more and more +friendly, was by no means unembarrassed; in a minute, however, +when her eyes were clearer, he was erect in front of her, very red +and nervously looking about him and whacking his leg with his +stick. "Say you love her, Mr. Captain; say it, say it!" she +implored.</p> + +<p>Mr. Captain's blue eyes fixed themselves very hard. "Of course I +love her, damn it, you know!"</p> + +<p>At this she also jumped up; she had fished out somehow her +pocket-handkerchief. "So do I then. I do, I do, I do!" she +passionately asseverated.</p> + +<p>"Then will you come back to her?"</p> + +<p>Maisie, staring, stopped the tight little plug of her handkerchief +on the way to her eyes. "She won't have me."</p> + +<p>"Yes she will. She wants you."</p> + +<p>"Back at the house—with Sir Claude?"</p> + +<p>Again he hung fire. "No, not with him. In another place."</p> + +<p>They stood looking at each other with an intensity unusual as +between a Captain and a little girl. "She won't have me in any +place."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes she will if <i>I</i> ask her!"</p> + +<p>Maisie's intensity continued. "Shall you be there?"</p> + +<p>The Captain's, on the whole, did the same. "Oh yes—some day."</p> + +<p>"Then you don't mean now?"</p> + +<p>He broke into a quick smile. "Will you come now?—go with us for +an hour?"</p> + +<p>Maisie considered. "She wouldn't have me even now." She could see +that he had his idea, but that her tone impressed him. That +disappointed her a little, though in an instant he rang out again.</p> + +<p>"She will if I ask her," he repeated. "I'll ask her this minute."</p> + +<p>Maisie, turning at this, looked away to where her mother and her +stepfather had stopped. At first, among the trees, nobody was +visible; but the next moment she exclaimed with expression: "It's +over—here he comes!"</p> + +<p>The Captain watched the approach of her ladyship's husband, who +lounged composedly over the grass, making to Maisie with his +closed fingers a little movement in the air. "I've no desire to +avoid him."</p> + +<p>"Well, you mustn't see him," said Maisie.</p> + +<p>"Oh he's in no hurry himself!" Sir Claude had stopped to light +another cigarette.</p> + +<p>She was vague as to the way it was proper he should feel; but she +had a sense that the Captain's remark was rather a free reflexion +on it. "Oh he doesn't care!" she replied.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't care for what?"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't care who you are. He told me so. Go and ask mamma," she +added.</p> + +<p>"If you can come with us? Very good. You really want me not to +wait for him?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Please</i> don't." But Sir Claude was not yet near, and the +Captain had with his left hand taken hold of her right, which he +familiarly, sociably swung a little. "Only first," she continued, +"tell me this. Are you going to <i>live</i> with mamma?"</p> + +<p>The immemorial note of mirth broke out at her seriousness. "One of +these days."</p> + +<p>She wondered, wholly unperturbed by his laughter. "Then where will +Sir Claude be?"</p> + +<p>"He'll have left her of course."</p> + +<p>"Does he really intend to do that?"</p> + +<p>"You've every opportunity to ask him."</p> + +<p>Maisie shook her head with decision. "He won't do it. Not first."</p> + +<p>Her "first" made the Captain laugh out again. "Oh he'll be sure to +be nasty! But I've said too much to you."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know, I'll never tell," said Maisie.</p> + +<p>"No, it's all for yourself. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye." Maisie kept his hand long enough to add: "I like you +too." And then supremely: "You <i>do</i> love her?"</p> + +<p>"My dear child—!" The Captain wanted words.</p> + +<p>"Then don't do it only for just a little."</p> + +<p>"A little?"</p> + +<p>"Like all the others."</p> + +<p>"All the others?"—he stood staring.</p> + +<p>She pulled away her hand. "Do it always!" She bounded to meet Sir +Claude, and as she left the Captain she heard him ring out with +apparent gaiety:</p> + +<p>"Oh I'm in for it!"</p> + +<p>As she joined Sir Claude she noted her mother in the distance move +slowly off, and, glancing again at the Captain, saw him, swinging +his stick, retreat in the same direction.</p> + +<p>She had never seen Sir Claude look as he looked just then; flushed +yet not excited—settled rather in an immoveable disgust and at once +very sick and very hard. His conversation with her mother had clearly +drawn blood, and the child's old horror came back to her, begetting +the instant moral contraction of the days when her parents had looked +to her to feed their love of battle. Her greatest fear for the +moment, however, was that her friend would see she had been crying. +The next she became aware that he had glanced at her, and it +presently occurred to her that he didn't even wish to be looked at. +At this she quickly removed her gaze, while he said rather curtly: +"Well, who in the world <i>is</i> the fellow?"</p> + +<p>She felt herself flooded with prudence. "Oh <i>I</i> haven't +found out!" This sounded as if she meant he ought to have done so +himself; but she could only face doggedly the ugliness of seeming +disagreeable, as she used to face it in the hours when her father, +for her blankness, called her a dirty little donkey, and her +mother, for her falsity, pushed her out of the room.</p> + +<p>"Then what have you been doing all this time?"</p> + +<p>"Oh I don't know!" It was of the essence of her method not to be +silly by halves.</p> + +<p>"Then didn't the beast say anything?" They had got down by the +lake and were walking fast.</p> + +<p>"Well, not very much."</p> + +<p>"He didn't speak of your mother?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, a little!"</p> + +<p>"Then what I ask you, please, is <i>how</i>?" She kept +silence—so long that he presently went on: "I say, you know—don't +you hear me?" At this she produced: "Well, I'm afraid I didn't attend +to him very much."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude, smoking rather hard, made no immediate rejoinder; but +finally he exclaimed: "Then my dear—with such a chance—you were +the perfection of a dunce!" He was so irritated—or she took him +to be—that for the rest of the time they were in the Gardens he +spoke no other word; and she meanwhile subtly abstained from any +attempt to pacify him. That would only lead to more questions. At +the gate of the Gardens he hailed a four-wheeled cab and, in +silence, without meeting her eyes, put her into it, only saying +"Give him <i>that</i>" as he tossed half a crown upon the seat. Even +when from outside he had closed the door and told the man where to +go he never took her departing look. Nothing of this kind had ever +yet happened to them, but it had no power to make her love him +less; so she could not only bear it, she felt as she drove +away—she could rejoice in it. It brought again the sweet sense of +success that, ages before, she had had at a crisis when, on the +stairs, returning from her father's, she had met a fierce question +of her mother's with an imbecility as deep and had in consequence +been dashed by Mrs. Farange almost to the bottom.</p> + + +<p> <a name="17"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XVII<br /> </h3> + + +<p>If for reasons of her own she could bear the sense of Sir Claude's +displeasure her young endurance might have been put to a serious +test. The days went by without his knocking at her father's door, +and the time would have turned sadly to waste if something hadn't +conspicuously happened to give it a new difference. What took +place was a marked change in the attitude of Mrs. Beale—a change +that somehow, even in his absence, seemed to bring Sir Claude +again into the house. It began practically with a conversation +that occurred between them the day Maisie, came home alone in the +cab. Mrs. Beale had by that time returned, and she was more +successful than their friend in extracting from our young lady an +account of the extraordinary passage with the Captain. She came +back to it repeatedly, and on the very next day it grew distinct +to the child that she was already in full possession of what at +the same moment had been enacted between her ladyship and Sir +Claude. This was the real origin of her final perception that +though he didn't come to the house her stepmother had some rare +secret for not being quite without him. This led to some rare +passages with Mrs. Beale, the promptest of which had been—not on +Maisie's part—a wonderful outbreak of tears. Mrs. Beale was not, +as she herself said, a crying creature: she hadn't cried, to +Maisie's knowledge, since the lowly governess days, the grey dawn +of their connexion. But she wept now with passion, professing +loudly that it did her good and saying remarkable things to her +charge, for whom the occasion was an equal benefit, an addition to +all the fine precautionary wisdom stored away. It somehow hadn't +violated that wisdom, Maisie felt, for her to have told Mrs. Beale +what she had not told Sir Claude, inasmuch as the greatest strain, +to her sense, was between Sir Claude and Sir Claude's wife, and +his wife was just what Mrs. Beale was unfortunately not. He sent +his stepdaughter three days after the incident in Kensington +Gardens a message as frank as it was tender, and that was how Mrs. +Beale had had to bring out in a manner that seemed half an appeal, +half a defiance: "Well yes, hang it—I <i>do</i> see him!"</p> + +<p>How and when and where, however, were just what Maisie was not to +know—an exclusion moreover that she never questioned in the light of +a participation large enough to make him, while she shared the ample +void of Mrs. Beale's rather blank independence, shine in her yearning +eye like the single, the sovereign window-square of a great dim +disproportioned room. As far as her father was concerned such hours +had no interruption; and then it was clear between them that each was +thinking of the absent and thinking the other thought, so that he was +an object of conscious reference in everything they said or did. The +wretched truth, Mrs. Beale had to confess, was that she had hoped +against hope and that in the Regent's Park it was impossible Sir +Claude should really be in and out. Hadn't they at last to look the +fact in the face?—it was too disgustingly evident that no one after +all had been squared. Well, if no one had been squared it was because +every one had been vile. No one and every one were of course Beale +and Ida, the extent of whose power to be nasty was a thing that, to a +little girl, Mrs. Beale simply couldn't give chapter and verse for. +Therefore it was that to keep going at all, as she said, that lady +had to make, as she also said, another arrangement—the arrangement +in which Maisie was included only to the point of knowing it existed +and wondering wistfully what it was. Conspicuously at any rate it +had a side that was responsible for Mrs. Beale's sudden emotion and +sudden confidence—a demonstration this, however, of which the +tearfulness was far from deterrent to our heroine's thought of how +happy she should be if she could only make an arrangement for +herself. Mrs. Beale's own operated, it appeared, with regularity +and frequency; for it was almost every day or two that she was +able to bring Maisie a message and to take one back. It had been +over the vision of what, as she called it, he did for her that she +broke down; and this vision was kept in a manner before Maisie by +a subsequent increase not only of the gaiety, but literally—it +seemed not presumptuous to perceive—of the actual virtue of her +friend. The friend was herself the first to proclaim it: he had +pulled her up immensely—he had quite pulled her round. She had +charming tormenting words about him: he was her good fairy, her +hidden spring—above all he was just her "higher" conscience. That +was what had particularly come out with her startling tears: he +had made her, dear man, think ever so much better of herself. It +had been thus rather surprisingly revealed that she had been in a +way to think ill, and Maisie was glad to hear of the corrective at +the same time that she heard of the ailment.</p> + +<p>She presently found herself supposing, and in spite of her envy +even hoping, that whenever Mrs. Beale was out of the house Sir +Claude had in some manner the satisfaction of it. This was now of +more frequent occurrence than ever before—so much so that she +would have thought of her stepmother as almost extravagantly +absent had it not been that, in the first place, her father was a +superior specimen of that habit: it was the frequent remark of his +present wife, as it had been, before the tribunals of their +country, a prominent plea of her predecessor, that he scarce came +home even to sleep. In the second place Mrs. Beale, when she +<i>was</i> on the spot, had now a beautiful air of longing to make up +for everything. The only shadow in such bright intervals was that, +as Maisie put it to herself, she could get nothing by questions. It +was in the nature of things to be none of a small child's +business, even when a small child had from the first been deluded +into a fear that she might be only too much initiated. Things then +were in Maisie's experience so true to their nature that questions +were almost always improper; but she learned on the other hand +soon to recognise how at last, sometimes, patient little silences +and intelligent little looks could be rewarded by delightful +little glimpses. There had been years at Beale Farange's when the +monosyllable "he" meant always, meant almost violently, the +master; but all that was changed at a period at which Sir Claude's +merits were of themselves so much in the air that it scarce took +even two letters to name him. "He keeps me up splendidly—he does, +my own precious," Mrs. Beale would observe to her comrade; or else +she would say that the situation at the other establishment had +reached a point that could scarcely be believed—the point, +monstrous as it sounded, of his not having laid eyes upon her for +twelve days. "She" of course at Beale Farange's had never meant +any one but Ida, and there was the difference in this case that it +now meant Ida with renewed intensity. Mrs. Beale—it was +striking—was in a position to animadvert more and more upon her +dreadfulness, the moral of all which appeared to be how abominably +yet blessedly little she had to do with her husband. This flow of +information came home to our two friends because, truly, Mrs. +Beale had not much more to do with her own; but that was one of +the reflexions that Maisie could make without allowing it to break +the spell of her present sympathy. How could such a spell be +anything but deep when Sir Claude's influence, operating from +afar, at last really determined the resumption of his +stepdaughter's studies? Mrs. Beale again took fire about them and +was quite vivid for Maisie as to their being the great matter to +which the dear absent one kept her up.</p> + +<p>This was the second source—I have just alluded to the first—of +the child's consciousness of something that, very hopefully, she +described to herself as a new phase; and it also presented in the +brightest light the fresh enthusiasm with which Mrs. Beale always +reappeared and which really gave Maisie a happier sense than she +had yet had of being very dear at least to two persons. That she +had small remembrance at present of a third illustrates, I am +afraid, a temporary oblivion of Mrs. Wix, an accident to be +explained only by a state of unnatural excitement. For what was +the form taken by Mrs. Beale's enthusiasm and acquiring relief in +the domestic conditions still left to her but the delightful form +of "reading" with her little charge on lines directly prescribed +and in works profusely supplied by Sir Claude? He had got hold of +an awfully good list—"mostly essays, don't you know?" Mrs. Beale +had said; a word always august to Maisie, but henceforth to be +softened by hazy, in fact by quite languorous edges. There was at +any rate a week in which no less than nine volumes arrived, and +the impression was to be gathered from Mrs. Beale that the obscure +intercourse she enjoyed with Sir Claude not only involved an +account and a criticism of studies, but was organised almost for +the very purpose of report and consultation. It was for Maisie's +education in short that, as she often repeated, she closed her +door—closed it to the gentlemen who used to flock there in such +numbers and whom her husband's practical desertion of her would +have made it a course of the highest indelicacy to receive. Maisie +was familiar from of old with the principle at least of the care +that a woman, as Mrs. Beale phrased it, attractive and exposed +must take of her "character," and was duly impressed with the +rigour of her stepmother's scruples. There was literally no one of +the other sex whom she seemed to feel at liberty to see at home, +and when the child risked an enquiry about the ladies who, one by +one, during her own previous period, had been made quite loudly +welcome, Mrs. Beale hastened to inform her that, one by one, they +had, the fiends, been found out, after all, to be awful. If she +wished to know more about them she was recommended to approach her +father.</p> + +<p>Maisie had, however, at the very moment of this injunction much +livelier curiosities, for the dream of lectures at an institution +had at last become a reality, thanks to Sir Claude's now unbounded +energy in discovering what could be done. It stood out in this +connexion that when you came to look into things in a spirit of +earnestness an immense deal could be done for very little more +than your fare in the Underground. The institution—there was a +splendid one in a part of the town but little known to the +child—became, in the glow of such a spirit, a thrilling place, +and the walk to it from the station through Glower Street (a +pronunciation for which Mrs. Beale once laughed at her little +friend) a pathway literally strewn with "subjects." Maisie +imagined herself to pluck them as she went, though they thickened +in the great grey rooms where the fountain of knowledge, in the +form usually of a high voice that she took at first to be angry, +plashed in the stillness of rows of faces thrust out like empty +jugs. "It <i>must</i> do us good—it's all so hideous," Mrs. Beale +had immediately declared; manifesting a purity of resolution that +made these occasions quite the most harmonious of all the many on +which the pair had pulled together. Maisie certainly had never, in +such an association, felt so uplifted, and never above all been so +carried off her feet, as at the moments of Mrs. Beale's +breathlessly re-entering the house and fairly shrieking upstairs +to know if they should still be in time for a lecture. Her +stepdaughter, all ready from the earliest hours, almost leaped +over the banister to respond, and they dashed out together in +quest of learning as hard as they often dashed back to release +Mrs. Beale for other preoccupations. There had been in short no +bustle like these particular spasms, once they had broken out, +since that last brief flurry when Mrs. Wix, blowing as if she were +grooming her, "made up" for everything previously lost at her +father's.</p> + +<p>These weeks as well were too few, but they were flooded with a new +emotion, part of which indeed came from the possibility that, +through the long telescope of Glower Street, or perhaps between +the pillars of the institution—which impressive objects were what +Maisie thought most made it one—they should some day spy Sir +Claude. That was what Mrs. Beale, under pressure, had +said—doubtless a little impatiently: "Oh yes, oh yes, some day!" +His joining them was clearly far less of a matter of course than +was to have been gathered from his original profession of desire +to improve in their company his own mind; and this sharpened our +young lady's guess that since that occasion either something +destructive had happened or something desirable hadn't. Mrs. Beale +had thrown but a partial light in telling her how it had turned +out that nobody had been squared. Maisie wished at any rate that +somebody <i>would</i> be squared. However, though in every approach +to the temple of knowledge she watched in vain for Sir Claude, there +was no doubt about the action of his loved image as an incentive +and a recompense. When the institution was most on pillars—or, as +Mrs. Beale put it, on stilts—when the subject was deepest and the +lecture longest and the listeners ugliest, then it was they both +felt their patron in the background would be most pleased with +them. One day, abruptly, with a glance at this background, Mrs. +Beale said to her companion: "We'll go to-night to the thingumbob +at Earl's Court"; an announcement putting forth its full lustre +when she had made known that she referred to the great Exhibition +just opened in that quarter, a collection of extraordinary foreign +things in tremendous gardens, with illuminations, bands, +elephants, switchbacks and side-shows, as well as crowds of people +among whom they might possibly see some one they knew. Maisie flew +in the same bound at the neck of her friend and at the name of Sir +Claude, on which Mrs. Beale confessed that—well, yes, there was +just a chance that he would be able to meet them. He never of +course, in his terrible position, knew what might happen from hour +to hour; but he hoped to be free and he had given Mrs. Beale the +tip. "Bring her there on the quiet and I'll try to turn up"—this +was clear enough on what so many weeks of privation had made of +his desire to see the child: it even appeared to represent on his +part a yearning as constant as her own. That in turn was just +puzzling enough to make Maisie express a bewilderment. She +couldn't see, if they were so intensely of the same mind, why the +theory on which she had come back to Mrs. Beale, the general +reunion, the delightful trio, should have broken down so in fact. +Mrs. Beale furthermore only gave her more to think about in saying +that their disappointment was the result of his having got into +his head a kind of idea.</p> + +<p>"What kind of idea?"</p> + +<p>"Oh goodness knows!" She spoke with an approach to asperity. "He's +so awfully delicate."</p> + +<p>"Delicate?"—that was ambiguous.</p> + +<p>"About what he does, don't you know?" said Mrs. Beale. She +fumbled. "Well, about what <i>we</i> do."</p> + +<p>Maisie wondered. "You and me?"</p> + +<p>"Me and <i>him</i>, silly!" cried Mrs. Beale with, this time, a +real giggle.</p> + +<p>"But you don't do any harm—<i>you</i> don't," said Maisie, +wondering afresh and intending her emphasis as a decorous allusion +to her parents.</p> + +<p>"Of course we don't, you angel—that's just the ground <i>I</i> +take!" her companion exultantly responded. "He says he doesn't want +you mixed up."</p> + +<p>"Mixed up with what?"</p> + +<p>"That's exactly what <i>I</i> want to know: mixed up with what, +and how you are any more mixed—?" Mrs. Beale paused without ending +her question. She ended after an instant in a different way. "All +you can say is that it's his fancy."</p> + +<p>The tone of this, in spite of its expressing a resignation, the +fruit of weariness, that dismissed the subject, conveyed so +vividly how much such a fancy was not Mrs. Beale's own that our +young lady was led by the mere fact of contact to arrive at a dim +apprehension of the unuttered and the unknown. The relation +between her step-parents had then a mysterious residuum; this was +the first time she really had reflected that except as regards +herself it was not a relationship. To each other it was only what +they might have happened to make it, and she gathered that this, +in the event, had been something that led Sir Claude to keep away +from her. Didn't he fear she would be compromised? The perception +of such a scruple endeared him the more, and it flashed over her +that she might simplify everything by showing him how little she +made of such a danger. Hadn't she lived with her eyes on it from +her third year? It was the condition most frequently discussed at +the Faranges', where the word was always in the air and where at +the age of five, amid rounds of applause, she could gabble it off. +She knew as well in short that a person could be compromised as +that a person could be slapped with a hair-brush or left alone in +the dark, and it was equally familiar to her that each of these +ordeals was in general held to have too little effect. But the +first thing was to make absolutely sure of Mrs. Beale. This was +done by saying to her thoughtfully: "Well, if you don't mind—and +you really don't, do you?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale, with a dawn of amusement, considered. "Mixing you up? +Not a bit. For what does it mean?"</p> + +<p>"Whatever it means I don't in the least mind <i>being</i> mixed. +Therefore if you don't and I don't," Maisie concluded, "don't you +think that when I see him this evening I had better just tell him +we don't and ask him why in the world <i>he</i> should?"</p> + + +<p> <a name="18"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XVIII<br /> </h3> + + +<p>The child, however, was not destined to enjoy much of Sir Claude +at the "thingumbob," which took for them a very different turn +indeed. On the spot Mrs. Beale, with hilarity, had urged her to +the course proposed; but later, at the Exhibition, she withdrew +this allowance, mentioning as a result of second thoughts that +when a man was so sensitive anything at all frisky usually made +him worse. It would have been hard indeed for Sir Claude to be +"worse," Maisie felt, as, in the gardens and the crowd, when the +first dazzle had dropped, she looked for him in vain up and down. +They had all their time, the couple, for frugal wistful wandering: +they had partaken together at home of the light vague +meal—Maisie's name for it was a "jam-supper"—to which they were +reduced when Mr. Farange sought his pleasure abroad. It was abroad +now entirely that Mr. Farange pursued this ideal, and it was the +actual impression of his daughter, derived from his wife, that he +had three days before joined a friend's yacht at Cowes.</p> + +<p>The place was full of side-shows, to which Mrs. Beale could +introduce the little girl only, alas, by revealing to her so +attractive, so enthralling a name: the side-shows, each time, were +sixpence apiece, and the fond allegiance enjoyed by the elder of our +pair had been established from the earliest time in spite of a +paucity of sixpences. Small coin dropped from her as half-heartedly +as answers from bad children to lessons that had not been looked at. +Maisie passed more slowly the great painted posters, pressing with a +linked arm closer to her friend's pocket, where she hoped for the +audible chink of a shilling. But the upshot of this was but to deepen +her yearning: if Sir Claude would only at last come the shillings +would begin to ring. The companions paused, for want of one, before +the Flowers of the Forest, a large presentment of bright brown +ladies—they were brown all over—in a medium suggestive of tropical +luxuriance, and there Maisie dolorously expressed her belief that he +would never come at all. Mrs. Beale hereupon, though discernibly +disappointed, reminded her that he had not been promised as a +certainty—a remark that caused the child to gaze at the Flowers +through a blur in which they became more magnificent, yet oddly more +confused, and by which moreover confusion was imparted to the aspect +of a gentleman who at that moment, in the company of a lady, came out +of the brilliant booth. The lady was so brown that Maisie at first +took her for one of the Flowers; but during the few seconds that this +required—a few seconds in which she had also desolately given up Sir +Claude—she heard Mrs. Beale's voice, behind her, gather both wonder +and pain into a single sharp little cry.</p> + +<p>"Of all the wickedness—<i>Beale!</i>"</p> + +<p>He had already, without distinguishing them in the mass of +strollers, turned another way—it seemed at the brown lady's +suggestion. Her course was marked, over heads and shoulders, by an +upright scarlet plume, as to the ownership of which Maisie was +instantly eager. "Who is she—who is she?"</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Beale for a moment only looked after them. "The liar—the +liar!"</p> + +<p>Maisie considered. "Because he's not—where one thought?" That was +also, a month ago in Kensington Gardens, where her mother had not +been. "Perhaps he has come back," she was quick to contribute.</p> + +<p>"He never went—the hound!"</p> + +<p>That, according to Sir Claude, had been also what her mother had +not done, and Maisie could only have a sense of something that in +a maturer mind would be called the way history repeats itself.</p> + +<p>"Who <i>is</i> she?" she asked again.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale, fixed to the spot, seemed lost in the vision of an +opportunity missed. "If he had only seen me!"—it came from +between her teeth. "She's a brand-new one. But he must have been +with her since Tuesday."</p> + +<p>Maisie took it in. "She's almost black," she then reported.</p> + +<p>"They're always hideous," said Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>This was a remark on which the child had again to reflect. "Oh not +his <i>wives</i>!" she remonstrantly exclaimed. The words at another +moment would probably have set her friend "off," but Mrs. Beale was +now, in her instant vigilance, too immensely "on." "Did you ever in +your life see such a feather?" Maisie presently continued.</p> + +<p>This decoration appeared to have paused at some distance, and in +spite of intervening groups they could both look at it. "Oh that's +the way they dress—the vulgarest of the vulgar!"</p> + +<p>"They're coming back—they'll see us!" Maisie the next moment +cried; and while her companion answered that this was exactly what +she wanted and the child returned "Here they are—here they are!" +the unconscious subjects of so much attention, with a change of +mind about their direction, quickly retraced their steps and +precipitated themselves upon their critics. Their unconsciousness +gave Mrs. Beale time to leap, under her breath, to a recognition +which Maisie caught.</p> + +<p>"It must be Mrs. Cuddon!"</p> + +<p>Maisie looked at Mrs. Cuddon hard—her lips even echoed the name. +What followed was extraordinarily rapid—a minute of livelier +battle than had ever yet, in so short a span at least, been waged +round our heroine. The muffled shock—lest people should +notice—was violent, and it was only for her later thought that +the steps fell into their order, the steps through which, in a +bewilderment not so much of sound as of silence, she had come to +find herself, too soon for comprehension and too strangely for +fear, at the door of the Exhibition with her father. He thrust her +into a hansom and got in after her, and then it was—as she drove +along with him—that she recovered a little what had happened. +Face to face with them in the gardens he had seen them, and there +had been a moment of checked concussion during which, in a glare +of black eyes and a toss of red plumage, Mrs. Cuddon had +recognised them, ejaculated and vanished. There had been another +moment at which she became aware of Sir Claude, also poised there +in surprise, but out of her father's view, as if he had been +warned off at the very moment of reaching them. It fell into its +place with all the rest that she had heard Mrs. Beale say to her +father, but whether low or loud was now lost to her, something +about his having this time a new one; on which he had growled +something indistinct but apparently in the tone and of the sort +that the child, from her earliest years, had associated with +hearing somebody retort to somebody that somebody was "another." +"Oh I stick to the old!" Mrs. Beale had then quite loudly +pronounced; and her accent, even as the cab got away, was still in +the air, Maisie's effective companion having spoken no other word +from the moment of whisking her off—none at least save the +indistinguishable address which, over the top of the hansom and +poised on the step, he had given the driver. Reconstructing these +things later Maisie theorised that she at this point would have +put a question to him had not the silence into which he charmed +her or scared her—she could scarcely tell which—come from his +suddenly making her feel his arm about her, feel, as he drew her +close, that he was agitated in a way he had never yet shown her. +It struck her he trembled, trembled too much to speak, and this +had the effect of making her, with an emotion which, though it had +begun to throb in an instant, was by no means all dread, conform +to his portentous hush. The act of possession that his pressure in +a manner advertised came back to her after the longest of the long +intermissions that had ever let anything come back. They drove and +drove, and he kept her close; she stared straight before her, +holding her breath, watching one dark street succeed another and +strangely conscious that what it all meant was somehow that papa +was less to be left out of everything than she had supposed. It +took her but a minute to surrender to this discovery, which, in +the form of his present embrace, suggested a purpose in him +prodigiously reaffirmed and with that a confused confidence. She +neither knew exactly what he had done nor what he was doing; she +could only, altogether impressed and rather proud, vibrate with +the sense that he had jumped up to do something and that she had +as quickly become a part of it. It was a part of it too that here +they were at a house that seemed not large, but in the fresh white +front of which the street-lamp showed a smartness of flower-boxes. +The child had been in thousands of stories—all Mrs. Wix's and her +own, to say nothing of the richest romances of French Elise—but +she had never been in such a story as this. By the time he had +helped her out of the cab, which drove away, and she heard in the +door of the house the prompt little click of his key, the Arabian +Nights had quite closed round her.</p> + +<p>From this minute that pitch of the wondrous was in everything, +particularly in such an instant "Open Sesame" and in the departure +of the cab, a rattling void filled with relinquished step-parents; +it was, with the vividness, the almost blinding whiteness of the +light that sprang responsive to papa's quick touch of a little +brass knob on the wall, in a place that, at the top of a short +soft staircase, struck her as the most beautiful she had ever seen +in her life. The next thing she perceived it to be was the +drawing-room of a lady—of a lady, she could see in a moment, and +not of a gentleman, not even of one like papa himself or even like +Sir Claude—whose things were as much prettier than mamma's as it +had always had to be confessed that mamma's were prettier than +Mrs. Beale's. In the middle of the small bright room and the +presence of more curtains and cushions, more pictures and mirrors, +more palm-trees drooping over brocaded and gilded nooks, more +little silver boxes scattered over little crooked tables and +little oval miniatures hooked upon velvet screens than Mrs. Beale +and her ladyship together could, in an unnatural alliance, have +dreamed of mustering, the child became aware, with a sharp +foretaste of compassion, of something that was strangely like a +relegation to obscurity of each of those women of taste. It was a +stranger operation still that her father should on the spot be +presented to her as quite advantageously and even grandly at home +in the dazzling scene and himself by so much the more separated +from scenes inferior to it. She spent with him in it, while +explanations continued to hang back, twenty minutes that, in their +sudden drop of danger, affected her, though there were neither +buns nor ginger-beer, like an extemporised expensive treat.</p> + +<p>"Is she very rich?" He had begun to strike her as almost +embarrassed, so shy that he might have found himself with a young +lady with whom he had little in common. She was literally moved by +this apprehension to offer him some tactful relief.</p> + +<p>Beale Farange stood and smiled at his young lady, his back to the +fanciful fireplace, his light overcoat—the very lightest in +London—wide open, and his wonderful lustrous beard completely +concealing the expanse of his shirt-front. It pleased her more +than ever to think that papa was handsome and, though as high +aloft as mamma and almost, in his specially florid evening-dress, +as splendid, of a beauty somehow less belligerent, less terrible.</p> + +<p>"The Countess? Why do you ask me that?"</p> + +<p>Maisie's eyes opened wider. "Is she a Countess?"</p> + +<p>He seemed to treat her wonder as a positive tribute. "Oh yes, my +dear, but it isn't an English title."</p> + +<p>Her manner appreciated this. "Is it a French one?"</p> + +<p>"No, nor French either. It's American."</p> + +<p>She conversed agreeably. "Ah then of course she must be rich." She +took in such a combination of nationality and rank. "I never saw +anything so lovely."</p> + +<p>"Did you have a sight of her?" Beale asked.</p> + +<p>"At the Exhibition?" Maisie smiled. "She was gone too quick."</p> + +<p>Her father laughed. "She did slope!" She had feared he would say +something about Mrs. Beale and Sir Claude, yet the way he spared +them made her rather uneasy too. All he risked was, the next +minute, "She has a horror of vulgar scenes."</p> + +<p>This was something she needn't take up; she could still continue +bland. "But where do you suppose she went?"</p> + +<p>"Oh I thought she'd have taken a cab and have been here by this +time. But she'll turn up all right."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I <i>hope</i> she will," Maisie said; she spoke with +an earnestness begotten of the impression of all the beauty about +them, to which, in person, the Countess might make further +contribution. "We came awfully fast," she added.</p> + +<p>Her father again laughed loud. "Yes, my dear, I made you step +out!" He waited an instant, then pursued: "I want her to see you."</p> + +<p>Maisie, at this, rejoiced in the attention that, for their evening +out, Mrs. Beale, even to the extent of personally "doing up" her +old hat, had given her appearance. Meanwhile her father went on: +"You'll like her awfully."</p> + +<p>"Oh I'm sure I shall!" After which, either from the effect of +having said so much or from that of a sudden glimpse of the +impossibility of saying more, she felt an embarrassment and sought +refuge in a minor branch of the subject. "I thought she was Mrs. +Cuddon."</p> + +<p>Beale's gaiety rather increased than diminished. "You mean my wife +did? My dear child, my wife's a damned fool!" He had the oddest +air of speaking of his wife as of a person whom she might scarcely +have known, so that the refuge of her scruple didn't prove +particularly happy. Beale on the other hand appeared after an +instant himself to feel a scruple. "What I mean is, to speak +seriously, that she doesn't really know anything about anything." +He paused, following the child's charmed eyes and tentative step +or two as they brought her nearer to the pretty things on one of +the tables. "She thinks she has good things, don't you know!" He +quite jeered at Mrs. Beale's delusion.</p> + +<p>Maisie felt she must confess that it <i>was</i> one; everything +she had missed at the side-shows was made up to her by the Countess's +luxuries. "Yes," she considered; "she does think that."</p> + +<p>There was again a dryness in the way Beale replied that it didn't +matter what she thought; but there was an increasing sweetness for +his daughter in being with him so long without his doing anything +worse. The whole hour of course was to remain with her, for days +and weeks, ineffaceably illumined and confirmed; by the end of +which she was able to read into it a hundred things that had been +at the moment mere miraculous pleasantness. What they at the +moment came to was simply that her companion was still in a good +deal of a flutter, yet wished not to show it, and that just in +proportion as he succeeded in this attempt he was able to +encourage her to regard him as kind. He moved about the room after +a little, showed her things, spoke to her as a person of taste, +told her the name, which she remembered, of the famous French lady +represented in one of the miniatures, and remarked, as if he had +caught her wistful over a trinket or a trailing stuff, that he +made no doubt the Countess, on coming in, would give her something +jolly. He spied a pink satin box with a looking-glass let into the +cover, which he raised, with a quick facetious flourish, to offer +her the privilege of six rows of chocolate bonbons, cutting out +thereby Sir Claude, who had never gone beyond four rows. "I can do +what I like with these," he said, "for I don't mind telling you I +gave 'em to her myself." The Countess had evidently appreciated +the gift; there were numerous gaps, a ravage now quite unchecked, +in the array. Even while they waited together Maisie had her +sense, which was the mark of what their separation had become, of +her having grown for him, since the last time he had, as it were, +noticed her, and by increase of years and of inches if by nothing +else, much more of a little person to reckon with. Yes, this was a +part of the positive awkwardness that he carried off by being +almost foolishly tender. There was a passage during which, on a +yellow silk sofa under one of the palms, he had her on his knee, +stroking her hair, playfully holding her off while he showed his +shining fangs and let her, with a vague affectionate helpless +pointless "Dear old girl, dear little daughter," inhale the +fragrance of his cherished beard. She must have been sorry for +him, she afterwards knew, so well could she privately follow his +difficulty in being specific to her about anything. She had such +possibilities of vibration, of response, that it needed nothing +more than this to make up to her in fact for omissions. The tears +came into her eyes again as they had done when in the Park that +day the Captain told her so "splendidly" that her mother was good. +What was this but splendid too—this still directer goodness of +her father and this unexampled shining solitude with him, out of +which everything had dropped but that he was papa and that he was +magnificent? It didn't spoil it that she finally felt he must +have, as he became restless, some purpose he didn't quite see his +way to bring out, for in the freshness of their recovered +fellowship she would have lent herself gleefully to his +suggesting, or even to his pretending, that their relations were +easy and graceful. There was something in him that seemed, and +quite touchingly, to ask her to help him to pretend—pretend he +knew enough about her life and her education, her means of +subsistence and her view of himself, to give the questions he +couldn't put her a natural domestic tone. She would have pretended +with ecstasy if he could only have given her the cue. She waited +for it while, between his big teeth, he breathed the sighs she +didn't know to be stupid. And as if, though he was so stupid all +through, he had let the friendly suffusion of her eyes yet tell +him she was ready for anything, he floundered about, wondering +what the devil he could lay hold of.</p> + + +<p> <a name="19"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XIX<br /> </h3> + + +<p>When he had lighted a cigarette and begun to smoke in her face it +was as if he had struck with the match the note of some queer +clumsy ferment of old professions, old scandals, old duties, a dim +perception of what he possessed in her and what, if everything had +only—damn it!—been totally different, she might still be able to +give him. What she was able to give him, however, as his blinking +eyes seemed to make out through the smoke, would be simply what he +should be able to get from her. To give something, to give here on +the spot, was all her own desire. Among the old things that came +back was her little instinct of keeping the peace; it made her +wonder more sharply what particular thing she could do or not do, +what particular word she could speak or not speak, what particular +line she could take or not take, that might for every one, even +for the Countess, give a better turn to the crisis. She was ready, +in this interest, for an immense surrender, a surrender of +everything but Sir Claude, of everything but Mrs. Beale. The +immensity didn't include <i>them</i>; but if he had an idea at the +back of his head she had also one in a recess as deep, and for a +time, while they sat together, there was an extraordinary mute +passage between her vision of this vision of his, his vision of her +vision, and her vision of his vision of her vision. What there was +no effective record of indeed was the small strange pathos on the +child's part of an innocence so saturated with knowledge and so +directed to diplomacy. What, further, Beale finally laid hold of +while he masked again with his fine presence half the flounces of +the fireplace was: "Do you know, my dear, I shall soon be off to +America?" It struck his daughter both as a short cut and as the +way he wouldn't have said it to his wife. But his wife figured +with a bright superficial assurance in her response.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean with Mrs. Beale?"</p> + +<p>Her father looked at her hard. "Don't be a little ass!"</p> + +<p>Her silence appeared to represent a concentrated effort not to be. +"Then with the Countess?"</p> + +<p>"With her or without her, my dear; that concerns only your poor +daddy. She has big interests over there, and she wants me to take +a look at them."</p> + +<p>Maisie threw herself into them. "Will that take very long?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; they're in such a muddle—it may take months. Now what I +want to hear, you know, is whether you'd like to come along?"</p> + +<p>Planted once more before him in the middle of the room she felt +herself turning white. "I?" she gasped, yet feeling as soon as she +had spoken that such a note of dismay was not altogether pretty. +She felt it still more while her father replied, with a shake of +his legs, a toss of his cigarette-ash and a fidgety look—he was +for ever taking one—all the length of his waistcoat and trousers, +that she needn't be quite so disgusted. It helped her in a few +seconds to appear more as he would like her that she saw, in the +lovely light of the Countess's splendour, exactly, however she +appeared, the right answer to make. "Dear papa, I'll go with you +anywhere."</p> + +<p>He turned his back to her and stood with his nose at the glass of +the chimneypiece while he brushed specks of ash out of his beard. +Then he abruptly said: "Do you know anything about your brute of a +mother?"</p> + +<p>It was just of her brute of a mother that the manner of the +question in a remarkable degree reminded her: it had the free +flight of one of Ida's fine bridgings of space. With the sense of +this was kindled for Maisie at the same time an inspiration. "Oh +yes, I know everything!" and she became so radiant that her +father, seeing it in the mirror, turned back to her and presently, +on the sofa, had her at his knee again and was again particularly +affecting. Maisie's inspiration instructed her, pressingly, that +the more she should be able to say about mamma the less she would +be called upon to speak of her step-parents. She kept hoping the +Countess would come in before her power to protect them was +exhausted; and it was now, in closer quarters with her companion, +that the idea at the back of her head shifted its place to her +lips. She told him she had met her mother in the Park with a +gentleman who, while Sir Claude had strolled with her ladyship, +had been kind and had sat and talked to her; narrating the scene +with a remembrance of her pledge of secrecy to the Captain quite +brushed away by the joy of seeing Beale listen without profane +interruption. It was almost an amazement, but it was indeed all a +joy, thus to be able to guess that papa was at last quite tired of +his anger—of his anger at any rate about mamma. He was only bored +with her now. That made it, however, the more imperative that his +spent displeasure shouldn't be blown out again. It charmed the +child to see how much she could interest him; and the charm +remained even when, after asking her a dozen questions, he +observed musingly and a little obscurely: "Yes, damned if she +won't!" For in this too there was a detachment, a wise weariness +that made her feel safe. She had had to mention Sir Claude, though +she mentioned him as little as possible and Beale only appeared to +look quite over his head. It pieced itself together for her that +this was the mildness of general indifference, a source of profit +so great for herself personally that if the Countess was the +author of it she was prepared literally to hug the Countess. She +betrayed that eagerness by a restless question about her, to which +her father replied: "Oh she has a head on her shoulders. I'll back +her to get out of anything!" He looked at Maisie quite as if he +could trace the connexion between her enquiry and the impatience +of her gratitude. "Do you mean to say you'd really come with +me?"</p> + +<p>She felt as if he were now looking at her very hard indeed, and +also as if she had grown ever so much older. "I'll do anything in +the world you ask me, papa."</p> + +<p>He gave again, with a laugh and with his legs apart, his +proprietary glance at his waistcoat and trousers. "That's a way, +my dear, of saying 'No, thank you!' You know you don't want to go +the least little mite. You can't humbug <i>me</i>!" Beale Farange +laid down. "I don't want to bully you—I never bullied you in my +life; but I make you the offer, and it's to take or to leave. Your +mother will never again have any more to do with you than if you +were a kitchenmaid she had turned out for going wrong. Therefore +of course I'm your natural protector and you've a right to get +everything out of me you can. Now's your chance, you know—you +won't be half-clever if you don't. You can't say I don't put it +before you—you can't say I ain't kind to you or that I don't play +fair. Mind you never say that, you know—it <i>would</i> bring me +down on you. I know what's proper. I'll take you again, just as I +<i>have</i> taken you again and again. And I'm much obliged to +you for making up such a face."</p> + +<p>She was conscious enough that her face indeed couldn't please him +if it showed any sign—just as she hoped it didn't—of her sharp +impression of what he now really wanted to do. Wasn't he trying to +turn the tables on her, embarrass her somehow into admitting that +what would really suit her little book would be, after doing so +much for good manners, to leave her wholly at liberty to arrange +for herself? She began to be nervous again: it rolled over her +that this was their parting, their parting for ever, and that he +had brought her there for so many caresses only because it was +important such an occasion should look better for him than any +other. For her to spoil it by the note of discord would certainly +give him ground for complaint; and the child was momentarily +bewildered between her alternatives of agreeing with him about her +wanting to get rid of him and displeasing him by pretending to +stick to him. So she found for the moment no solution but to +murmur very helplessly: "Oh papa—oh papa!"</p> + +<p>"I know what you're up to—don't tell <i>me</i>!" After which +he came straight over and, in the most inconsequent way in the +world, clasped her in his arms a moment and rubbed his beard against +her cheek. Then she understood as well as if he had spoken it that +what he wanted, hang it, was that she should let him off with all the +honours—with all the appearance of virtue and sacrifice on his side. +It was exactly as if he had broken out to her: "I say, you little +booby, help me to be irreproachable, to be noble, and yet to have +none of the beastly bore of it. There's only impropriety enough for +one of us; so <i>you</i> must take it all. <i>Repudiate</i> your dear +old daddy—in the face, mind you, of his tender supplications. He +can't be rough with you—it isn't in his nature: therefore you'll +have successfully chucked him because he was too generous to be as +firm with you, poor man, as was, after all, his duty." This was what +he communicated in a series of tremendous pats on the back; that +portion of her person had never been so thumped since Moddle thumped +her when she choked. After a moment he gave her the further +impression of having become sure enough of her to be able very +gracefully to say out: "You know your mother loathes you, loathes you +simply. And I've been thinking over your precious man—the fellow you +told me about."</p> + +<p>"Well," Maisie replied with competence, "I'm sure of +<i>him</i>."</p> + +<p>Her father was vague for an instant. "Do you mean sure of his +liking you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no; of his liking <i>her</i>!"</p> + +<p>Beale had a return of gaiety. "There's no accounting for tastes! +It's what they all say, you know."</p> + +<p>"I don't care—I'm sure of him!" Maisie repeated.</p> + +<p>"Sure, you mean, that she'll bolt?"</p> + +<p>Maisie knew all about bolting, but, decidedly, she <i>was</i> +older, and there was something in her that could wince at the way her +father made the ugly word—ugly enough at best—sound flat and low. +It prompted her to amend his allusion, which she did by saying: "I +don't know what she'll do. But she'll be happy."</p> + +<p>"Let us hope so," said Beale—almost as for edification. "The more +happy she is at any rate the less she'll want you about. That's +why I press you," he agreeably pursued, "to consider this handsome +offer—I mean seriously, you know—of your sole surviving parent." +Their eyes, at this, met again in a long and extraordinary +communion which terminated in his ejaculating: "Ah you little +scoundrel!" She took it from him in the manner it seemed to her he +would like best and with a success that encouraged him to go on: +"You <i>are</i> a deep little devil!" Her silence, ticking like a +watch, acknowledged even this, in confirmation of which he finally +brought out: "You've settled it with the other pair!"</p> + +<p>"Well, what if I have?" She sounded to herself most bold.</p> + +<p>Her father, quite as in the old days, broke into a peal. "Why, +don't you know they're awful?"</p> + +<p>She grew bolder still. "I don't care—not a bit!"</p> + +<p>"But they're probably the worst people in the world and the very +greatest criminals," Beale pleasantly urged. "I'm not the man, my +dear, not to let you know it."</p> + +<p>"Well, it doesn't prevent them from loving me. They love me +tremendously." Maisie turned crimson to hear herself.</p> + +<p>Her companion fumbled; almost any one—let alone a daughter—would +have seen how conscientious he wanted to be. "I dare say. But do +you know why?" She braved his eyes and he added: "You're a jolly +good pretext."</p> + +<p>"For what?" Maisie asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, for their game. I needn't tell you what that is."</p> + +<p>The child reflected. "Well then that's all the more reason."</p> + +<p>"Reason for what, pray?"</p> + +<p>"For their being kind to me."</p> + +<p>"And for your keeping in with them?" Beale roared again; it was as +if his spirits rose and rose. "Do you realise, pray, that in +saying that you're a monster?"</p> + +<p>She turned it over. "A monster?"</p> + +<p>"They've <i>made</i> one of you. Upon my honour it's quite awful. +It shows the kind of people they are. Don't you understand," Beale +pursued, "that when they've made you as horrid as they can—as horrid +as themselves—they'll just simply chuck you?"</p> + +<p>She had at this a flicker of passion. "They <i>won't</i> chuck +me!"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," her father courteously insisted; "it's my +duty to put it before you. I shouldn't forgive myself if I didn't +point out to you that they'll cease to require you." He spoke as +if with an appeal to her intelligence that she must be ashamed not +adequately to meet, and this gave a real distinction to his +superior delicacy.</p> + +<p>It cleared the case as he had wished. "Cease to require me because +they won't care?" She paused with that sketch of her idea.</p> + +<p>"<i>Of course</i> Sir Claude won't care if his wife bolts. That's +his game. It will suit him down to the ground."</p> + +<p>This was a proposition Maisie could perfectly embrace, but it +still left a loophole for triumph. She turned it well over. "You +mean if mamma doesn't come back ever at all?" The composure with +which her face was presented to that prospect would have shown a +spectator the long road she had travelled. "Well, but that won't +put Mrs. Beale—"</p> + +<p>"In the same comfortable position—?" Beale took her up with +relish; he had sprung to his feet again, shaking his legs and +looking at his shoes. "Right you are, darling! Something more will +be wanted for Mrs. Beale." He just paused, then he added: "But she +may not have long to wait for it."</p> + +<p>Maisie also for a minute looked at his shoes, though they were not +the pair she most admired, the laced yellow "uppers" and +patent-leather complement. At last, with a question, she raised +her eyes. "Aren't you coming back?"</p> + +<p>Once more he hung fire; after which he gave a small laugh that in +the oddest way in the world reminded her of the unique sounds she +had heard emitted by Mrs. Wix. "It may strike you as extraordinary +that I should make you such an admission; and in point of fact +you're not to understand that I do. But we'll put it that way to +help your decision. The point is that that's the way my wife will +presently be sure to put it. You'll hear her shrieking that she's +deserted, so that she may just pile up her wrongs. She'll be as +free as she likes then—as free, you see, as your mother's muff of +a husband. They won't have anything more to consider and they'll +just put you into the street. Do I understand," Beale enquired, +"that, in the face of what I press on you, you still prefer to +take the risk of that?" It was the most wonderful appeal any +gentleman had ever addressed to his daughter, and it had placed +Maisie in the middle of the room again while her father moved +slowly about her with his hands in his pockets and something in +his step that seemed, more than anything else he had done, to show +the habit of the place. She turned her fevered little eyes over +his friend's brightnesses, as if, on her own side, to press for +some help in a quandary unexampled. As if also the pressure +reached him he after an instant stopped short, completing the +prodigy of his attitude and the pride of his loyalty by a supreme +formulation of the general inducement. "You've an eye, love! Yes, +there's money. No end of money."</p> + +<p>This affected her at first in the manner of some great flashing +dazzle in one of the pantomimes to which Sir Claude had taken her: +she saw nothing in it but what it directly conveyed. "And shall I +never, never see you again—?"</p> + +<p>"If I do go to America?" Beale brought it out like a man. "Never, +never, never!"</p> + +<p>Hereupon, with the utmost absurdity, she broke down; everything +gave way, everything but the horror of hearing herself definitely +utter such an ugliness as the acceptance of that. So she only +stiffened herself and said: "Then I can't give you up."</p> + +<p>She held him some seconds looking at her, showing her a strained +grimace, a perfect parade of all his teeth, in which it seemed to +her she could read the disgust he didn't quite like to express at +this departure from the pliability she had practically promised. +But before she could attenuate in any way the crudity of her +collapse he gave an impatient jerk which took him to the window. +She heard a vehicle stop; Beale looked out; then he freshly faced +her. He still said nothing, but she knew the Countess had come +back. There was a silence again between them, but with a different +shade of embarrassment from that of their united arrival; and it +was still without speaking that, abruptly repeating one of the +embraces of which he had already been so prodigal, he whisked her +back to the lemon sofa just before the door of the room was thrown +open. It was thus in renewed and intimate union with him that she +was presented to a person whom she instantly recognised as the +brown lady.</p> + +<p>The brown lady looked almost as astonished, though not quite as +alarmed, as when, at the Exhibition, she had gasped in the face of +Mrs. Beale. Maisie in truth almost gasped in her own; this was +with the fuller perception that she was brown indeed. She +literally struck the child more as an animal than as a "real" +lady; she might have been a clever frizzled poodle in a frill or a +dreadful human monkey in a spangled petticoat. She had a nose that +was far too big and eyes that were far too small and a moustache +that was, well, not so happy a feature as Sir Claude's. Beale +jumped up to her; while, to the child's astonishment, though as if +in a quick intensity of thought, the Countess advanced as gaily as +if, for many a day, nothing awkward had happened for any one. +Maisie, in spite of a large acquaintance with the phenomenon, had +never seen it so promptly established that nothing awkward was to +be mentioned. The next minute the Countess had kissed her and +exclaimed to Beale with bright tender reproach: "Why, you never +told me <i>half</i>! My dear child," she cried, "it was awfully +nice of you to come!"</p> + +<p>"But she hasn't come—she won't come!" Beale answered. "I've put +it to her how much you'd like it, but she declines to have +anything to do with us."</p> + +<p>The Countess stood smiling, and after an instant that was mainly +taken up with the shock of her weird aspect Maisie felt herself +reminded of another smile, which was not ugly, though also +interested—the kind light thrown, that day in the Park, from the +clean fair face of the Captain. Papa's Captain—yes—was the +Countess; but she wasn't nearly so nice as the other: it all came +back, doubtless, to Maisie's minor appreciation of ladies. +"Shouldn't you like me," said this one endearingly, "to take you +to Spa?"</p> + +<p>"To Spa?" The child repeated the name to gain time, not to show +how the Countess brought back to her a dim remembrance of a +strange woman with a horrid face who once, years before, in an +omnibus, bending to her from an opposite seat, had suddenly +produced an orange and murmured "Little dearie, won't you have +it?" She had felt then, for some reason, a small silly terror, +though afterwards conscious that her interlocutress, unfortunately +hideous, had particularly meant to be kind. This was also what the +Countess meant; yet the few words she had uttered and the smile +with which she had uttered them immediately cleared everything up. +Oh no, she wanted to go nowhere with <i>her</i>, for her presence +had already, in a few seconds, dissipated the happy impression of +the room and put an end to the pleasure briefly taken in Beale's +command of such elegance. There was no command of elegance in his +having exposed her to the approach of the short fat wheedling +whiskered person in whom she had now to recognise the only figure +wholly without attraction involved in any of the intimate +connexions her immediate circle had witnessed the growth of. She +was abashed meanwhile, however, at having appeared to weigh in the +balance the place to which she had been invited; and she added as +quickly as possible: "It isn't to America then?" The Countess, at +this, looked sharply at Beale, and Beale, airily enough, asked +what the deuce it mattered when she had already given him to +understand she wanted to have nothing to do with them. There +followed between her companions a passage of which the sense was +drowned for her in the deepening inward hum of her mere desire to +get off; though she was able to guess later on that her father +must have put it to his friend that it was no use talking, that +she was an obstinate little pig and that, besides, she was really +old enough to choose for herself. It glimmered back to her indeed +that she must have failed quite dreadfully to seem ideally other +than rude, inasmuch as before she knew it she had visibly given +the impression that if they didn't allow her to go home she should +cry. Oh if there had ever been a thing to cry about it was being +so consciously and gawkily below the handsomest offers any one +could ever have received. The great pain of the thing was that she +could see the Countess liked her enough to wish to be liked in +return, and it was from the idea of a return she sought utterly to +flee. It was the idea of a return that after a confusion of loud +words had broken out between the others brought to her lips with +the tremor preceding disaster: "Can't I, please, be sent home in a +cab?" Yes, the Countess wanted her and the Countess was wounded +and chilled, and she couldn't help it, and it was all the more +dreadful because it only made the Countess more coaxing and more +impossible. The only thing that sustained either of them perhaps +till the cab came—Maisie presently saw it would come—was its +being in the air somehow that Beale had done what he wanted. He +went out to look for a conveyance; the servants, he said, had gone +to bed, but she shouldn't be kept beyond her time. The Countess +left the room with him, and, alone in the possession of it, Maisie +hoped she wouldn't come back. It was all the effect of her +face—the child simply couldn't look at it and meet its expression +halfway. All in a moment too that queer expression had leaped into +the lovely things—all in a moment she had had to accept her +father as liking some one whom she was sure neither her mother, +nor Mrs. Beale, nor Mrs. Wix, nor Sir Claude, nor the Captain, nor +even Mr. Perriam and Lord Eric could possibly have liked. Three +minutes later, downstairs, with the cab at the door, it was +perhaps as a final confession of not having much to boast of that, +on taking leave of her, he managed to press her to his bosom +without her seeing his face. For herself she was so eager to go +that their parting reminded her of nothing, not even of a single +one of all the "nevers" that above, as the penalty of not cleaving +to him, he had attached to the question of their meeting again. +There was something in the Countess that falsified everything, +even the great interests in America and yet more the first flush +of that superiority to Mrs. Beale and to mamma which had been +expressed in Sèvres sets and silver boxes. These were still +there, but perhaps there were no great interests in America. Mamma +had known an American who was not a bit like this one. She was not, +however, of noble rank; her name was only Mrs. Tucker. Maisie's +detachment would none the less have been more complete if she had not +suddenly had to exclaim: "Oh dear, I haven't any money!"</p> + +<p>Her father's teeth, at this, were such a picture of appetite +without action as to be a match for any plea of poverty. "Make +your stepmother pay."</p> + +<p>"Stepmothers <i>don't</i> pay!" cried the Countess. "No +stepmother ever paid in her life!" The next moment they were in the +street together, and the next the child was in the cab, with the +Countess, on the pavement, but close to her, quickly taking money +from a purse whisked out of a pocket. Her father had vanished and +there was even yet nothing in that to reawaken the pang of loss. +"Here's money," said the brown lady: "go!" The sound was +commanding: the cab rattled off. Maisie sat there with her hand +full of coin. All that for a cab? As they passed a street-lamp she +bent to see how much. What she saw was a cluster of sovereigns. +There <i>must</i> then have been great interests in America. It was +still at any rate the Arabian Nights.</p> + + +<p> <a name="20"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XX<br /> </h3> + + +<p>The money was far too much even for a fee in a fairy-tale, and in +the absence of Mrs. Beale, who, though the hour was now late, had +not yet returned to the Regent's Park, Susan Ash, in the hall, as +loud as Maisie was low and as bold as she was bland, produced, on +the exhibition offered under the dim vigil of the lamp that made +the place a contrast to the child's recent scene of light, the +half-crown that an unsophisticated cabman could pronounce to be +the least he would take. It was apparently long before Mrs. Beale +would arrive, and in the interval Maisie had been induced by the +prompt Susan not only to go to bed like a darling dear, but, in +still richer expression of that character, to devote to the +repayment of obligations general as well as particular one of the +sovereigns in the ordered array that, on the dressing-table +upstairs, was naturally not less dazzling to a lone orphan of a +housemaid than to the subject of the manœuvres of a quartette. +This subject went to sleep with her property gathered into a +knotted handkerchief, the largest that could be produced and +lodged under her pillow; but the explanations that on the morrow +were inevitably more complete with Mrs. Beale than they had been +with her humble friend found their climax in a surrender also more +becomingly free. There were explanations indeed that Mrs. Beale +had to give as well as to ask, and the most striking of these was +to the effect that it was dreadful for a little girl to take money +from a woman who was simply the vilest of their sex. The +sovereigns were examined with some attention, the result of which, +however, was to make the author of that statement desire to know +what, if one really went into the matter, they could be called but +the wages of sin. Her companion went into it merely so far as the +question of what then they were to do with them; on which Mrs. +Beale, who had by this time put them into her pocket, replied with +dignity and with her hand on the place: "We're to send them back +on the spot!" Susan, the child soon afterwards learnt, had been +invited to contribute to this act of restitution her one +appropriated coin; but a closer clutch of the treasure showed in +her private assurance to Maisie that there was a limit to the way +she could be "done." Maisie had been open with Mrs. Beale about +the whole of last night's transaction; but she now found herself +on the part of their indignant inferior a recipient of remarks +that were so many ringing tokens of that lady's own suppressions. +One of these bore upon the extraordinary hour—it was three in the +morning if she really wanted to know—at which Mrs. Beale had +re-entered the house; another, in accents as to which Maisie's +criticism was still intensely tacit, characterised her appeal as +such a "gime," such a "shime," as one had never had to put up +with; a third treated with some vigour the question of the +enormous sums due belowstairs, in every department, for gratuitous +labour and wasted zeal. Our young lady's consciousness was indeed +mainly filled for several days with the apprehension created by +the too slow subsidence of her attendant's sense of wrong. These +days would become terrific like the Revolutions she had learnt by +heart in Histories if an outbreak in the kitchen should crown +them; and to promote that prospect she had through Susan's eyes +more than one glimpse of the way in which Revolutions are +prepared. To listen to Susan was to gather that the spark applied +to the inflammables and already causing them to crackle would +prove to have been the circumstance of one's being called a horrid +low thief for refusing to part with one's own. The redeeming point +of this tension was, on the fifth day, that it actually appeared +to have had to do with a breathless perception in our heroine's +breast that scarcely more as the centre of Sir Claude's than as +that of Susan's energies she had soon after breakfast been +conveyed from London to Folkestone and established at a lovely +hotel. These agents, before her wondering eyes, had combined to +carry through the adventure and to give it the air of having owed +its success to the fact that Mrs. Beale had, as Susan said, but +just stepped out. When Sir Claude, watch in hand, had met this +fact with the exclamation "Then pack Miss Farange and come off +with us!" there had ensued on the stairs a series of gymnastics of +a nature to bring Miss Farange's heart into Miss Farange's mouth. +She sat with Sir Claude in a four-wheeler while he still held his +watch; held it longer than any doctor who had ever felt her pulse; +long enough to give her a vision of something like the ecstasy of +neglecting such an opportunity to show impatience. The ecstasy had +begun in the schoolroom and over the Berceuse, quite in the manner +of the same foretaste on the day, a little while back, when Susan +had panted up and she herself, after the hint about the duchess, +had sailed down; for what harm then had there been in drops and +disappointments if she could still have, even only a moment, the +sensation of such a name "brought up"? It had remained with her +that her father had foretold her she would some day be in the +street, but it clearly wouldn't be this day, and she felt +justified of the preference betrayed to that parent as soon as her +visitor had set Susan in motion and laid his hand, while she +waited with him, kindly on her own. This was what the Captain, in +Kensington Gardens, had done; her present situation reminded her a +little of that one and renewed the dim wonder of the fashion after +which, from the first, such pats and pulls had struck her as the +steps and signs of other people's business and even a little as +the wriggle or the overflow of their difficulties. What had failed +her and what had frightened her on the night of the Exhibition +lost themselves at present alike in the impression that any +"surprise" now about to burst from Sir Claude would be too big to +burst all at once. Any awe that might have sprung from his air of +leaving out her stepmother was corrected by the force of a general +rule, the odd truth that if Mrs. Beale now never came nor went +without making her think of him, it was never, to balance that, +the main mark of his own renewed reality to appear to be a +reference to Mrs. Beale. To be with Sir Claude was to think of Sir +Claude, and that law governed Maisie's mind until, through a +sudden lurch of the cab, which had at last taken in Susan and ever +so many bundles and almost reached Charing Cross, it popped again +somehow into her dizzy head the long-lost image of Mrs. Wix.</p> + +<p>It was singular, but from this time she understood and she +followed, followed with the sense of an ample filling-out of any +void created by symptoms of avoidance and of flight. Her ecstasy +was a thing that had yet more of a face than of a back to turn, a +pair of eyes still directed to Mrs. Wix even after the slight +surprise of their not finding her, as the journey expanded, either +at the London station or at the Folkestone hotel. It took few +hours to make the child feel that if she was in neither of these +places she was at least everywhere else. Maisie had known all +along a great deal, but never so much as she was to know from this +moment on and as she learned in particular during the couple of +days that she was to hang in the air, as it were, over the sea +which represented in breezy blueness and with a summer charm a +crossing of more spaces than the Channel. It was granted her at +this time to arrive at divinations so ample that I shall have no +room for the goal if I attempt to trace the stages; as to which +therefore I must be content to say that the fullest expression we +may give to Sir Claude's conduct is a poor and pale copy of the +picture it presented to his young friend. Abruptly, that morning, +he had yielded to the action of the idea pumped into him for weeks +by Mrs. Wix on lines of approach that she had been capable of the +extraordinary art of preserving from entanglement in the fine +network of his relations with Mrs. Beale. The breath of her +sincerity, blowing without a break, had puffed him up to the +flight by which, in the degree I have indicated, Maisie too was +carried off her feet. This consisted neither in more nor in less +than the brave stroke of his getting off from Mrs. Beale as well +as from his wife—of making with the child straight for some such +foreign land as would give a support to Mrs. Wix's dream that she +might still see his errors renounced and his delinquencies +redeemed. It would all be a sacrifice—under eyes that would miss +no faintest shade—to what even the strange frequenters of her +ladyship's earlier period used to call the real good of the little +unfortunate. Maisie's head held a suspicion of much that, during +the last long interval, had confusedly, but quite candidly, come +and gone in his own; a glimpse, almost awe-stricken in its +gratitude, of the miracle her old governess had wrought. That +functionary could not in this connexion have been more impressive, +even at second-hand, if she had been a prophetess with an open +scroll or some ardent abbess speaking with the lips of the Church. +She had clung day by day to their plastic associate, plying him +with her deep, narrow passion, doing her simple utmost to convert +him, and so working on him that he had at last really embraced his +fine chance. That the chance was not delusive was sufficiently +guaranteed by the completeness with which he could finally figure +it out that, in case of his taking action, neither Ida nor Beale, +whose book, on each side, it would only too well suit, would make +any sort of row.</p> + +<p>It sounds, no doubt, too penetrating, but it was not all as an +effect of Sir Claude's betrayals that Maisie was able to piece +together the beauty of the special influence through which, for +such stretches of time, he had refined upon propriety by keeping, +so far as possible, his sentimental interests distinct. She had +ever of course in her mind fewer names than conceptions, but it +was only with this drawback that she now made out her companion's +absences to have had for their ground that he was the lover of her +stepmother and that the lover of her stepmother could scarce +logically pretend to a superior right to look after her. Maisie +had by this time embraced the implication of a kind of natural +divergence between lovers and little girls. It was just this +indeed that could throw light on the probable contents of the +pencilled note deposited on the hall-table in the Regent's Park +and which would greet Mrs. Beale on her return. Maisie freely +figured it as provisionally jocular in tone, even though to +herself on this occasion Sir Claude turned a graver face than he +had shown in any crisis but that of putting her into the cab when +she had been horrid to him after her parting with the Captain. He +might really be embarrassed, but he would be sure, to her view, to +have muffled in some bravado of pleasantry the disturbance +produced at her father's by the removal of a valued servant. Not +that there wasn't a great deal too that wouldn't be in the note—a +great deal for which a more comfortable place was Maisie's light +little brain, where it hummed away hour after hour and caused the +first outlook at Folkestone to swim in a softness of colour and +sound. It became clear in this medium that her stepfather had +really now only to take into account his entanglement with Mrs. +Beale. Wasn't he at last disentangled from every one and every +thing else? The obstacle to the rupture pressed upon him by Mrs. +Wix in the interest of his virtue would be simply that he was in +love, or rather, to put it more precisely, that Mrs. Beale had +left him no doubt of the degree in which <i>she</i> was. She was +so much so as to have succeeded in making him accept for a time her +infatuated grasp of him and even to some extent the idea of what +they yet might do together with a little diplomacy and a good deal +of patience. I may not even answer for it that Maisie was not +aware of how, in this, Mrs. Beale failed to share his all but +insurmountable distaste for their allowing their little charge to +breathe the air of their gross irregularity—his contention, in a +word, that they should either cease to be irregular or cease to be +parental. Their little charge, for herself, had long ago adopted +the view that even Mrs. Wix had at one time not thought +prohibitively coarse—the view that she was after all, <i>as</i> a +little charge, morally at home in atmospheres it would be appalling +to analyse. If Mrs. Wix, however, ultimately appalled, had now set +her heart on strong measures, Maisie, as I have intimated, could +also work round both to the reasons for them and to the quite +other reasons for that lady's not, as yet at least, appearing in +them at first-hand.</p> + +<p>Oh decidedly I shall never get you to believe the number of things +she saw and the number of secrets she discovered! Why in the +world, for instance, couldn't Sir Claude have kept it from +her—except on the hypothesis of his not caring to—that, when you +came to look at it and so far as it was a question of vested +interests, he had quite as much right in her as her stepmother, +not to say a right that Mrs. Beale was in no position to dispute? +He failed at all events of any such successful ambiguity as could +keep her, when once they began to look across at France, from +regarding even what was least explained as most in the spirit of +their old happy times, their rambles and expeditions in the easier +better days of their first acquaintance. Never before had she had +so the sense of giving him a lead for the sort of treatment of +what was between them that would best carry it off, or of his +being grateful to her for meeting him so much in the right place. +She met him literally at the very point where Mrs. Beale was most +to be reckoned with, the point of the jealousy that was sharp in +that lady and of the need of their keeping it as long as possible +obscure to her that poor Mrs. Wix had still a hand. Yes, she met +him too in the truth of the matter that, as her stepmother had had +no one else to be jealous of, she had made up for so gross a +privation by directing the sentiment to a moral influence. Sir +Claude appeared absolutely to convey in a wink that a moral +influence capable of pulling a string was after all a moral +influence exposed to the scratching out of its eyes; and that, +this being the case, there was somebody they couldn't afford to +leave unprotected before they should see a little better what Mrs. +Beale was likely to do. Maisie, true enough, had not to put it +into words to rejoin, in the coffee-room, at luncheon: "What +<i>can</i> she do but come to you if papa does take a step +that will amount to legal desertion?" Neither had he then, +in answer, to articulate anything but the jollity of their +having found a table at a window from which, as they partook +of cold beef and apollinaris—for he hinted they would have +to save lots of money—they could let their eyes hover +tenderly on the far-off white cliffs that so often had +signalled to the embarrassed English a promise of safety. Maisie +stared at them as if she might really make out after a little a +queer dear figure perched on them—a figure as to which she had +already the subtle sense that, wherever perched, it would be the +very oddest yet seen in France. But it was at least as exciting to +feel where Mrs. Wix wasn't as it would have been to know where she +was, and if she wasn't yet at Boulogne this only thickened the +plot.</p> + +<p>If she was not to be seen that day, however, the evening was +marked by an apparition before which, none the less, overstrained +suspense folded on the spot its wings. Adjusting her respirations +and attaching, under dropped lashes, all her thoughts to a +smartness of frock and frill for which she could reflect that she +had not appealed in vain to a loyalty in Susan Ash triumphant over +the nice things their feverish flight had left behind, Maisie +spent on a bench in the garden of the hotel the half-hour before +dinner, that mysterious ceremony of the <i>table d'hôte</i> +for which she had prepared with a punctuality of flutter. Sir Claude, +beside her, was occupied with a cigarette and the afternoon papers; +and though the hotel was full the garden shewed the particular void +that ensues upon the sound of the dressing-bell. She had almost +had time to weary of the human scene; her own humanity at any +rate, in the shape of a smutch on her scanty skirt, had held her +so long that as soon as she raised her eyes they rested on a high +fair drapery by which smutches were put to shame and which had +glided toward her over the grass without her noting its rustle. +She followed up its stiff sheen—up and up from the ground, where +it had stopped—till at the end of a considerable journey her +impression felt the shock of the fixed face which, surmounting it, +seemed to offer the climax of the dressed condition. "Why mamma!" +she cried the next instant—cried in a tone that, as she sprang to +her feet, brought Sir Claude to his own beside her and gave her +ladyship, a few yards off, the advantage of their momentary +confusion. Poor Maisie's was immense; her mother's drop had the +effect of one of the iron shutters that, in evening walks with +Susan Ash, she had seen suddenly, at the touch of a spring, rattle +down over shining shop-fronts. The light of foreign travel was +darkened at a stroke; she had a horrible sense that they were +caught; and for the first time of her life in Ida's presence she +so far translated an impulse into an invidious act as to clutch +straight at the hand of her responsible confederate. It didn't +help her that he appeared at first equally hushed with horror; a +minute during which, in the empty garden, with its long shadows on +the lawn, its blue sea over the hedge and its startled peace in +the air, both her elders remained as stiff as tall tumblers filled +to the brim and held straight for fear of a spill.</p> + +<p>At last, in a tone that enriched the whole surprise by its +unexpected softness, her mother said to Sir Claude: "Do you mind +at all my speaking to her?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no; <i>do</i> you?" His reply was so long in coming that +Maisie was the first to find the right note.</p> + +<p>He laughed as he seemed to take it from her, and she felt a +sufficient concession in his manner of addressing their visitor. +"How in the world did you know we were here?"</p> + +<p>His wife, at this, came the rest of the way and sat down on the +bench with a hand laid on her daughter, whom she gracefully drew +to her and in whom, at her touch, the fear just kindled gave a +second jump, but now in quite another direction. Sir Claude, on +the further side, resumed his seat and his newspapers, so that the +three grouped themselves like a family party; his connexion, in +the oddest way in the world, almost cynically and in a flash +acknowledged, and the mother patting the child into conformities +unspeakable. Maisie could already feel how little it was Sir +Claude and she who were caught. She had the positive sense of +their catching their relative, catching her in the act of getting +rid of her burden with a finality that showed her as +unprecedentedly relaxed. Oh yes, the fear had dropped, and she had +never been so irrevocably parted with as in the pressure of +possession now supremely exerted by Ida's long-gloved and +much-bangled arm. "I went to the Regent's Park"—this was +presently her ladyship's answer to Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to-day?"</p> + +<p>"This morning, just after your own call there. That's how I found +you out; that's what has brought me."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude considered and Maisie waited. "Whom then did you see?"</p> + +<p>Ida gave a sound of indulgent mockery. "I like your scare. I know +your game. I didn't see the person I risked seeing, but I had been +ready to take my chance of her." She addressed herself to Maisie; +she had encircled her more closely. "I asked for <i>you</i>, my +dear, but I saw no one but a dirty parlourmaid. She was red in the +face with the great things that, as she told me, had just happened in +the absence of her mistress; and she luckily had the sense to have +made out the place to which Sir Claude had come to take you. If he +hadn't given a false scent I should find you here: that was the +supposition on which I've proceeded." Ida had never been so explicit +about proceeding or supposing, and Maisie, drinking this in, noted +too how Sir Claude shared her fine impression of it. "I wanted to see +you," his wife continued, "and now you can judge of the trouble I've +taken. I had everything to do in town to-day, but I managed to get +off."</p> + +<p>Maisie and her companion, for a moment, did justice to this +achievement; but Maisie was the first to express it. "I'm glad you +wanted to see me, mamma." Then after a concentration more deep and +with a plunge more brave: "A little more and you'd have been too +late." It stuck in her throat, but she brought it out: "We're +going to France."</p> + +<p>Ida was magnificent; Ida kissed her on the forehead. "That's just +what I thought likely; it made me decide to run down. I fancied +that in spite of your scramble you'd wait to cross, and it added +to the reason I have for seeing you."</p> + +<p>Maisie wondered intensely what the reason could be, but she knew +ever so much better than to ask. She was slightly surprised indeed +to perceive that Sir Claude didn't, and to hear him immediately +enquire: "What in the name of goodness can you have to say to +her?"</p> + +<p>His tone was not exactly rude, but it was impatient enough to make +his wife's response a fresh specimen of the new softness. "That, +my dear man, is all my own business."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean," Sir Claude asked, "that you wish me to leave you +with her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you'll be so good; that's the extraordinary request I +take the liberty of making." Her ladyship had dropped to a +mildness of irony by which, for a moment, poor Maisie was +mystified and charmed, puzzled with a glimpse of something that in +all the years had at intervals peeped out. Ida smiled at Sir +Claude with the strange air she had on such occasions of defying +an interlocutor to keep it up as long; her huge eyes, her red +lips, the intense marks in her face formed an <i>éclairage</i> +as distinct and public as a lamp set in a window. The child seemed +quite to see in it the very beacon that had lighted her path; she +suddenly found herself reflecting that it was no wonder the +gentlemen were guided. This must have been the way mamma had first +looked at Sir Claude; it brought back the lustre of the time they +had outlived. It must have been the way she looked also at Mr. +Perriam and Lord Eric; above all it contributed in Maisie's mind +to a completer view of that satisfied state of the Captain. Our +young lady grasped this idea with a quick lifting of the heart; +there was a stillness during which her mother flooded her with a +wealth of support to the Captain's striking tribute. This +stillness remained long enough unbroken to represent that Sir +Claude too might but be gasping again under the spell originally +strong for him; so that Maisie quite hoped he would at least say +something to show a recognition of how charming she could be.</p> + +<p>What he presently said was: "Are you putting up for the night?"</p> + +<p>His wife cast grandly about. "Not here—I've come from Dover."</p> + +<p>Over Maisie's head, at this, they still faced each other. "You +spend the night there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I brought some things. I went to the hotel and hastily +arranged; then I caught the train that whisked me on here. You see +what a day I've had of it."</p> + +<p>The statement may surprise, but these were really as obliging if +not as lucid words as, into her daughter's ears at least, Ida's +lips had ever dropped; and there was a quick desire in the +daughter that for the hour at any rate they should duly be +welcomed as a ground of intercourse. Certainly mamma had a charm +which, when turned on, became a large explanation; and the only +danger now in an impulse to applaud it would be that of appearing +to signalise its rarity. Maisie, however, risked the peril in the +geniality of an admission that Ida had indeed had a rush; and she +invited Sir Claude to expose himself by agreeing with her that the +rush had been even worse than theirs. He appeared to meet this +appeal by saying with detachment enough: "You go back there +to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—there are plenty of trains." Again Sir Claude hesitated; +it would have been hard to say if the child, between them, more +connected or divided them. Then he brought out quietly: "It will +be late for you to knock about. I'll see you over."</p> + +<p>"You needn't trouble, thank you. I think you won't deny that I can +help myself and that it isn't the first time in my dreadful life +that I've somehow managed it." Save for this allusion to her +dreadful life they talked there, Maisie noted, as if they were +only rather superficial friends; a special effect that she had +often wondered at before in the midst of what she supposed to be +intimacies. This effect was augmented by the almost casual manner +in which her ladyship went on: "I dare say I shall go abroad."</p> + +<p>"From Dover do you mean, straight?"</p> + +<p>"How straight I can't say. I'm excessively ill."</p> + +<p>This for a minute struck Maisie as but a part of the conversation; +at the end of which time she became aware that it ought to strike +her—though it apparently didn't strike Sir Claude—as a part of +something graver. It helped her to twist nearer. "Ill, mamma—really +ill?"</p> + +<p>She regretted her "really" as soon as she had spoken it; but there +couldn't be a better proof of her mother's present polish than +that Ida showed no gleam of a temper to take it up. She had taken +up at other times much tinier things. She only pressed Maisie's +head against her bosom and said: "Shockingly, my dear. I must go +to that new place."</p> + +<p>"What new place?" Sir Claude enquired.</p> + +<p>Ida thought, but couldn't recall it. "Oh 'Chose,' don't you +know?—where every one goes. I want some proper treatment. It's +all I've ever asked for on earth. But that's not what I came to +say."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude, in silence, folded one by one his newspapers; then he +rose and stood whacking the palm of his hand with the bundle. +"You'll stop and dine with us?"</p> + +<p>"Dear no—I can't dine at this sort of hour. I ordered dinner at +Dover."</p> + +<p>Her ladyship's tone in this one instance showed a certain +superiority to those conditions in which her daughter had +artlessly found Folkestone a paradise. It was yet not so crushing +as to nip in the bud the eagerness with which the latter broke +out: "But won't you at least have a cup of tea?"</p> + +<p>Ida kissed her again on the brow. "Thanks, love. I had tea before +coming." She raised her eyes to Sir Claude. "She <i>is</i> sweet!" +He made no more answer than if he didn't agree; but Maisie was at +ease about that and was still taken up with the joy of this +happier pitch of their talk, which put more and more of a meaning +into the Captain's version of her ladyship and literally kindled a +conjecture that such an admirer might, over there at the other +place, be waiting for her to dine. Was the same conjecture in Sir +Claude's mind? He partly puzzled her, if it had risen there, by +the slight perversity with which he returned to a question that +his wife evidently thought she had disposed of.</p> + +<p>He whacked his hand again with his paper. "I had really much +better take you."</p> + +<p>"And leave Maisie here alone?"</p> + +<p>Mamma so clearly didn't want it that Maisie leaped at the vision +of a Captain who had seen her on from Dover and who, while he +waited to take her back, would be hovering just at the same +distance at which, in Kensington Gardens, the companion of his +walk had herself hovered. Of course, however, instead of breathing +any such guess she let Sir Claude reply; all the more that his +reply could contribute so much to her own present grandeur. "She +won't be alone when she has a maid in attendance."</p> + +<p>Maisie had never before had so much of a retinue, and she waited +also to enjoy the action of it on her ladyship. "You mean the +woman you brought from town?" Ida considered. "The person at the +house spoke of her in a way that scarcely made her out company for +my child." Her tone was that her child had never wanted, in her +hands, for prodigious company. But she as distinctly continued to +decline Sir Claude's. "Don't be an old goose," she said +charmingly. "Let us alone."</p> + +<p>In front of them on the grass he looked graver than Maisie at all +now thought the occasion warranted. "I don't see why you can't say +it before me."</p> + +<p>His wife smoothed one of her daughter's curls. "Say what, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Why what you came to say."</p> + +<p>At this Maisie at last interposed: she appealed to Sir Claude. "Do +let her say it to me."</p> + +<p>He looked hard for a moment at his little friend. "How do you know +what she may say?"</p> + +<p>"She must risk it," Ida remarked.</p> + +<p>"I only want to protect you," he continued to the child.</p> + +<p>"You want to protect yourself—that's what you mean," his wife +replied. "Don't be afraid. I won't touch you."</p> + +<p>"She won't touch you—she <i>won't</i>!" Maisie declared. She +felt by this time that she could really answer for it, and something +of the emotion with which she had listened to the Captain came back +to her. It made her so happy and so secure that she could +positively patronise mamma. She did so in the Captain's very +language. "She's good, she's good!" she proclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Oh Lord!"—Sir Claude, at this, let himself go. He appeared to +have emitted some sound of derision that was smothered, to +Maisie's ears, by her being again embraced by his wife. Ida +released her and held her off a little, looking at her with a very +queer face. Then the child became aware that their companion had +left them and that from the face in question a confirmatory remark +had proceeded.</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> good, love," said her ladyship.</p> + + +<p> <a name="21"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XXI<br /> </h3> + + +<p>A good deal of the rest of Ida's visit was devoted to explaining, +as it were, so extraordinary a statement. This explanation was +more copious than any she had yet indulged in, and as the summer +twilight gathered and she kept her child in the garden she was +conciliatory to a degree that let her need to arrange things a +little perceptibly peep out. It was not merely that she explained; +she almost conversed; all that was wanting was that she should +have positively chattered a little less. It was really the +occasion of Maisie's life on which her mother was to have most to +say to her. That alone was an implication of generosity and +virtue, and no great stretch was required to make our young lady +feel that she should best meet her and soonest have it over by +simply seeming struck with the propriety of her contention. They +sat together while the parent's gloved hand sometimes rested +sociably on the child's and sometimes gave a corrective pull to a +ribbon too meagre or a tress too thick; and Maisie was conscious +of the effort to keep out of her eyes the wonder with which they +were occasionally moved to blink. Oh there would have been things +to blink at if one had let one's self go; and it was lucky they +were alone together, without Sir Claude or Mrs. Wix or even Mrs. +Beale to catch an imprudent glance. Though profuse and prolonged +her ladyship was not exhaustively lucid, and her account of her +situation, so far as it could be called descriptive, was a muddle +of inconsequent things, bruised fruit of an occasion she had +rather too lightly affronted. None of them were really thought out +and some were even not wholly insincere. It was as if she had +asked outright what better proof could have been wanted of her +goodness and her greatness than just this marvellous consent to +give up what she had so cherished. It was as if she had said in so +many words: "There have been things between us—between Sir Claude +and me—which I needn't go into, you little nuisance, because you +wouldn't understand them." It suited her to convey that Maisie had +been kept, so far as <i>she</i> was concerned or could imagine, in +a holy ignorance and that she must take for granted a supreme +simplicity. She turned this way and that in the predicament she +had sought and from which she could neither retreat with grace nor +emerge with credit: she draped herself in the tatters of her +impudence, postured to her utmost before the last little triangle of +cracked glass to which so many fractures had reduced the polished +plate of filial superstition. If neither Sir Claude nor Mrs. Wix was +there this was perhaps all the more a pity: the scene had a style of +its own that would have qualified it for presentation, especially at +such a moment as that of her letting it betray that she quite did +think her wretched offspring better placed with Sir Claude than in +her own soiled hands. There was at any rate nothing scant either in +her admissions or her perversions, the mixture of her fear of what +Maisie might undiscoverably think and of the support she at the same +time gathered from a necessity of selfishness and a habit of +brutality. This habit flushed through the merit she now made, in +terms explicit, of not having come to Folkestone to kick up a vulgar +row. She had not come to box any ears or to bang any doors or even to +use any language: she had come at the worst to lose the thread of her +argument in an occasional dumb disgusted twitch of the toggery in +which Mrs. Beale's low domestic had had the impudence to serve up +Miss Farange. She checked all criticism, not committing herself even +so far as for those missing comforts of the schoolroom on which Mrs. +Wix had presumed.</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> good—I'm crazily, I'm criminally good. But it won't +do for <i>you</i> any more, and if I've ceased to contend with him, +and with you too, who have made most of the trouble between us, it's +for reasons that you'll understand one of these days but too +well—one of these days when I hope you'll know what it is to have +lost a mother. I'm awfully ill, but you mustn't ask me anything about +it. If I don't get off somewhere my doctor won't answer for the +consequences. He's stupefied at what I've borne—he says it has +been put on me because I was formed to suffer. I'm thinking of +South Africa, but that's none of your business. You must take your +choice—you can't ask me questions if you're so ready to give me +up. No, I won't tell you; you can find out for yourself. South +Africa's wonderful, they say, and if I do go it must be to give it +a fair trial. It must be either one thing or the other; if he +takes you, you know, he takes you. I've struck my last blow for +you; I can follow you no longer from pillar to post. I must live +for myself at last, while there's still a handful left of me. I'm +very, very ill; I'm very, very tired; I'm very, very determined. +There you have it. Make the most of it. Your frock's too filthy; +but I came to sacrifice myself." Maisie looked at the peccant +places; there were moments when it was a relief to her to drop her +eyes even on anything so sordid. All her interviews, all her +ordeals with her mother had, as she had grown older, seemed to +have, before any other, the hard quality of duration; but longer +than any, strangely, were these minutes offered to her as so +pacific and so agreeably winding up the connexion. It was her +anxiety that made them long, her fear of some hitch, some check of +the current, one of her ladyship's famous quick jumps. She held +her breath; she only wanted, by playing into her visitor's hands, +to see the thing through. But her impatience itself made at +instants the whole situation swim; there were things Ida said that +she perhaps didn't hear, and there were things she heard that Ida +perhaps didn't say. "You're all I have, and yet I'm capable of +this. Your father wishes you were dead—that, my dear, is what +your father wishes. You'll have to get used to it as I've done—I +mean to his wishing that <i>I'm</i> dead. At all events you see for +yourself how wonderful I am to Sir Claude. He wishes me dead quite +as much; and I'm sure that if making me scenes about <i>you</i> +could have killed me—!" It was the mark of Ida's eloquence that she +started more hares than she followed, and she gave but a glance in +the direction of this one; going on to say that the very proof of +her treating her husband like an angel was that he had just stolen +off not to be fairly shamed. She spoke as if he had retired on +tiptoe, as he might have withdrawn from a place of worship in +which he was not fit to be present. "You'll never know what I've +been through about you—never, never, never. I spare you +everything, as I always have; though I dare say you know things +that, if I did (I mean if I knew them) would make me—well, no +matter! You're old enough at any rate to know there are a lot of +things I don't say that I easily might; though it would do me +good, I assure you, to have spoken my mind for once in my life. I +don't speak of your father's infamous wife: that may give you a +notion of the way I'm letting you off. When I say 'you' I mean +your precious friends and backers. If you don't do justice to my +forbearing, out of delicacy, to mention, just as a last word, +about your stepfather, a little fact or two of a kind that really +I should only <i>have</i> to mention to shine myself in comparison, +and after every calumny, like pure gold: if you don't do me +<i>that</i> justice you'll never do me justice at all!"</p> + +<p>Maisie's desire to show what justice she did her had by this time +become so intense as to have brought with it an inspiration. The +great effect of their encounter had been to confirm her sense of +being launched with Sir Claude, to make it rich and full beyond +anything she had dreamed, and everything now conspired to suggest +that a single soft touch of her small hand would complete the good +work and set her ladyship so promptly and majestically afloat as +to leave the great seaway clear for the morrow. This was the more +the case as her hand had for some moments been rendered free by a +marked manœuvre of both of her mother's. One of these capricious +members had fumbled with visible impatience in some backward depth +of drapery and had presently reappeared with a small article in +its grasp. The act had a significance for a little person trained, +in that relation, from an early age, to keep an eye on manual +motions, and its possible bearing was not darkened by the memory +of the handful of gold that Susan Ash would never, never believe +Mrs. Beale had sent back—"not she; she's too false and too +greedy!"—to the munificent Countess. To have guessed, none the +less, that her ladyship's purse might be the real figure of the +object extracted from the rustling covert at her rear—this +suspicion gave on the spot to the child's eyes a direction +carefully distant. It added moreover to the optimism that for an +hour could ruffle the surface of her deep diplomacy, ruffle it to +the point of making her forget that she had never been safe unless +she had also been stupid. She in short forgot her habitual caution +in her impulse to adopt her ladyship's practical interests and +show her ladyship how perfectly she understood them. She saw +without looking that her mother pressed a little clasp; heard, +without wanting to, the sharp click that marked the closing +portemonnaie from which something had been taken. What +this was she just didn't see; it was not too substantial to be +locked with ease in the fold of her ladyship's fingers. Nothing +was less new to Maisie than the art of not thinking singly, so +that at this instant she could both bring out what was on her +tongue's end and weigh, as to the object in her mother's palm, the +question of its being a sovereign against the question of its +being a shilling. No sooner had she begun to speak than she saw +that within a few seconds this question would have been settled: +she had foolishly checked the rising words of the little speech of +presentation to which, under the circumstances, even such a high +pride as Ida's had had to give some thought. She had checked it +completely—that was the next thing she felt: the note she sounded +brought into her companion's eyes a look that quickly enough +seemed at variance with presentations.</p> + +<p>"That was what the Captain said to me that day, mamma. I think it +would have given you pleasure to hear the way he spoke of you."</p> + +<p>The pleasure, Maisie could now in consternation reflect, would +have been a long time coming if it had come no faster than the +response evoked by her allusion to it. Her mother gave her one of +the looks that slammed the door in her face; never in a career of +unsuccessful experiments had Maisie had to take such a stare. It +reminded her of the way that once, at one of the lectures in +Glower Street, something in a big jar that, amid an array of +strange glasses and bad smells, had been promised as a beautiful +yellow was produced as a beautiful black. She had been sorry on +that occasion for the lecturer, but she was at this moment sorrier +for herself. Oh nothing had ever made for twinges like mamma's +manner of saying: "The Captain? What Captain?"</p> + +<p>"Why when we met you in the Gardens—the one who took me to sit +with him. That was exactly what <i>he</i> said."</p> + +<p>Ida let it come on so far as to appear for an instant to pick up a +lost thread. "What on earth did he say?"</p> + +<p>Maisie faltered supremely, but supremely she brought it out. "What +you say, mamma—that you're so good."</p> + +<p>"What 'I' say?" Ida slowly rose, keeping her eyes on her child, +and the hand that had busied itself in her purse conformed at her +side and amid the folds of her dress to a certain stiffening of +the arm. "I say you're a precious idiot, and I won't have you put +words into my mouth!" This was much more peremptory than a mere +contradiction. Maisie could only feel on the spot that everything +had broken short off and that their communication had abruptly +ceased. That was presently proved. "What business have you to +speak to me of him?"</p> + +<p>Her daughter turned scarlet. "I thought you liked him."</p> + +<p>"Him!—the biggest cad in London!" Her ladyship towered again, and +in the gathering dusk the whites of her eyes were huge.</p> + +<p>Maisie's own, however, could by this time pretty well match them; +and she had at least now, with the first flare of anger that had +ever yet lighted her face for a foe, the sense of looking up quite +as hard as any one could look down. "Well, he was kind about you +then; he <i>was</i>, and it made me like him. He said things—they +were beautiful, they were, they were!" She was almost capable of the +violence of forcing this home, for even in the midst of her surge +of passion—of which in fact it was a part—there rose in her a +fear, a pain, a vision ominous, precocious, of what it might mean +for her mother's fate to have forfeited such a loyalty as that. +There was literally an instant in which Maisie fully saw—saw +madness and desolation, saw ruin and darkness and death. "I've +thought of him often since, and I hoped it was with him—with +him—" Here, in her emotion, it failed her, the breath of her +filial hope.</p> + +<p>But Ida got it out of her. "You hoped, you little horror—?"</p> + +<p>"That it was he who's at Dover, that it was he who's to take you. +I mean to South Africa," Maisie said with another drop.</p> + +<p>Ida's stupefaction, on this, kept her silent unnaturally long, so +long that her daughter could not only wonder what was coming, but +perfectly measure the decline of every symptom of her liberality. +She loomed there in her grandeur, merely dark and dumb; her wrath +was clearly still, as it had always been, a thing of resource and +variety. What Maisie least expected of it was by this law what now +occurred. It melted, in the summer twilight, gradually into pity, +and the pity after a little found a cadence to which the renewed +click of her purse gave an accent. She had put back what she had +taken out. "You're a dreadful dismal deplorable little thing," she +murmured. And with this she turned back and rustled away over the +lawn.</p> + +<p>After she had disappeared, Maisie dropped upon the bench again and +for some time, in the empty garden and the deeper dusk, sat and +stared at the image her flight had still left standing. It had +ceased to be her mother only, in the strangest way, that it might +become her father, the father of whose wish that she were dead the +announcement still lingered in the air. It was a presence with +vague edges—it continued to front her, to cover her. But what +reality that she need reckon with did it represent if Mr. Farange +were, on his side, also going off—going off to America with the +Countess, or even only to Spa? That question had, from the house, +a sudden gay answer in the great roar of a gong, and at the same +moment she saw Sir Claude look out for her from the wide lighted +doorway. At this she went to him and he came forward and met her +on the lawn. For a minute she was with him there in silence as, +just before, at the last, she had been with her mother.</p> + +<p>"She's gone?"</p> + +<p>"She's gone."</p> + +<p>Nothing more, for the instant, passed between them but to move +together to the house, where, in the hall, he indulged in one of +those sudden pleasantries with which, to the delight of his +stepdaughter, his native animation overflowed. "Will Miss Farange +do me the honour to accept my arm?"</p> + +<p>There was nothing in all her days that Miss Farange had accepted +with such bliss, a bright rich element that floated them together +to their feast; before they reached which, however, she uttered, +in the spirit of a glad young lady taken in to her first dinner, a +sociable word that made him stop short. "She goes to South +Africa."</p> + +<p>"To South Africa?" His face, for a moment, seemed to swing for a +jump; the next it took its spring into the extreme of hilarity. +"Is that what she said?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I didn't <i>mistake</i>!" Maisie took to herself +<i>that</i> credit. "For the climate."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude was now looking at a young woman with black hair, a red +frock and a tiny terrier tucked under her elbow. She swept past +them on her way to the dining-room, leaving an impression of a +strong scent which mingled, amid the clatter of the place, with +the hot aroma of food. He had become a little graver; he still +stopped to talk. "I see—I see." Other people brushed by; he was +not too grave to notice them. "Did she say anything else?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, a lot more."</p> + +<p>On this he met her eyes again with some intensity, but only +repeating: "I see—I see."</p> + +<p>Maisie had still her own vision, which she brought out. "I thought +she was going to give me something."</p> + +<p>"What kind of a thing?"</p> + +<p>"Some money that she took out of her purse and then put back."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude's amusement reappeared. "She thought better of it. Dear +thrifty soul! How much did she make by that manœuvre?"</p> + +<p>Maisie considered. "I didn't see. It was very small."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude threw back his head. "Do you mean very little? +Sixpence?"</p> + +<p>Maisie resented this almost as if, at dinner, she were already +bandying jokes with an agreeable neighbour. "It may have been a +sovereign."</p> + +<p>"Or even," Sir Claude suggested, "a ten-pound note." She flushed +at this sudden picture of what she perhaps had lost, and he made +it more vivid by adding: "Rolled up in a tight little ball, you +know—her way of treating banknotes as if they were curl-papers!" +Maisie's flush deepened both with the immense plausibility of this +and with a fresh wave of the consciousness that was always there +to remind her of his cleverness—the consciousness of how +immeasurably more after all he knew about mamma than she. She had +lived with her so many times without discovering the material of +her curl-papers or assisting at any other of her dealings with +banknotes. The tight little ball had at any rate rolled away from +her for ever—quite like one of the other balls that Ida's cue +used to send flying. Sir Claude gave her his arm again, and by the +time she was seated at table she had perfectly made up her mind as +to the amount of the sum she had forfeited. Everything about her, +however—the crowded room, the bedizened banquet, the savour of +dishes, the drama of figures—ministered to the joy of life. After +dinner she smoked with her friend—for that was exactly what she +felt she did—on a porch, a kind of terrace, where the red tips of +cigars and the light dresses of ladies made, under the happy +stars, a poetry that was almost intoxicating. They talked but +little, and she was slightly surprised at his asking for no more +news of what her mother had said; but she had no need of +talk—there were a sense and a sound in everything to which words +had nothing to add. They smoked and smoked, and there was a +sweetness in her stepfather's silence. At last he said: "Let us +take another turn—but you must go to bed soon. Oh you know, we're +going to have a system!" Their turn was back into the garden, +along the dusky paths from which they could see the black masts +and the red lights of boats and hear the calls and cries that +evidently had to do with happy foreign travel; and their system +was once more to get on beautifully in this further lounge without +a definite exchange. Yet he finally spoke—he broke out as he +tossed away the match from which he had taken a fresh light: "I +must go for a stroll. I'm in a fidget—I must walk it off." She +fell in with this as she fell in with everything; on which he went +on: "You go up to Miss Ash"—it was the name they had started; +"you must see she's not in mischief. Can you find your way alone?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes; I've been up and down seven times." She positively +enjoyed the prospect of an eighth.</p> + +<p>Still they didn't separate; they stood smoking together under the +stars. Then at last Sir Claude produced it. "I'm free—I'm free."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him; it was the very spot on which a couple of +hours before she had looked up at her mother. "You're free—you're +free."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow we go to France." He spoke as if he hadn't heard her; +but it didn't prevent her again concurring.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow we go to France."</p> + +<p>Again he appeared not to have heard her; and after a moment—it +was an effect evidently of the depth of his reflexions and the +agitation of his soul—he also spoke as if he had not spoken +before. "I'm free—I'm free!"</p> + +<p>She repeated her form of assent. "You're free—you're free."</p> + +<p>This time he did hear her; he fixed her through the darkness with +a grave face. But he said nothing more; he simply stooped a little +and drew her to him—simply held her a little and kissed her +goodnight; after which, having given her a silent push upstairs to +Miss Ash, he turned round again to the black masts and the red +lights. Maisie mounted as if France were at the top.</p> + + +<p> <a name="22"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XXII<br /> </h3> + + +<p>The next day it seemed to her indeed at the bottom—down too far, +in shuddering plunges, even to leave her a sense, on the Channel +boat, of the height at which Sir Claude remained and which had +never in every way been so great as when, much in the wet, though +in the angle of a screen of canvas, he sociably sat with his +stepdaughter's head in his lap and that of Mrs. Beale's housemaid +fairly pillowed on his breast. Maisie was surprised to learn as +they drew into port that they had had a lovely passage; but this +emotion, at Boulogne, was speedily quenched in others, above all +in the great ecstasy of a larger impression of life. She was +"abroad" and she gave herself up to it, responded to it, in the +bright air, before the pink houses, among the bare-legged +fishwives and the red-legged soldiers, with the instant certitude +of a vocation. Her vocation was to see the world and to thrill +with enjoyment of the picture; she had grown older in five minutes +and had by the time they reached the hotel recognised in the +institutions and manners of France a multitude of affinities and +messages. Literally in the course of an hour she found her +initiation; a consciousness much quickened by the superior part +that, as soon as they had gobbled down a French breakfast—which +was indeed a high note in the concert—she observed herself to +play to Susan Ash. Sir Claude, who had already bumped against +people he knew and who, as he said, had business and letters, sent +them out together for a walk, a walk in which the child was +avenged, so far as poetic justice required, not only for the loud +giggles that in their London trudges used to break from her +attendant, but for all the years of her tendency to produce +socially that impression of an excess of the queer something which +had seemed to waver so widely between innocence and guilt. On the +spot, at Boulogne, though there might have been excess there was +at least no wavering; she recognised, she understood, she adored +and took possession; feeling herself attuned to everything and +laying her hand, right and left, on what had simply been waiting +for her. She explained to Susan, she laughed at Susan, she towered +over Susan; and it was somehow Susan's stupidity, of which she had +never yet been so sure, and Susan's bewilderment and ignorance and +antagonism, that gave the liveliest rebound to her immediate +perceptions and adoptions. The place and the people were all a +picture together, a picture that, when they went down to the wide +sands, shimmered, in a thousand tints, with the pretty +organisation of the <i>plage</i>, with the gaiety of spectators +and bathers, with that of the language and the weather, and above +all with that of our young lady's unprecedented situation. For it +appeared to her that no one since the beginning of time could have +had such an adventure or, in an hour, so much experience; as a +sequel to which she only needed, in order to feel with conscious +wonder how the past was changed, to hear Susan, inscrutably +aggravated, express a preference for the Edgware Road. The past +was so changed and the circle it had formed already so overstepped +that on that very afternoon, in the course of another walk, she +found herself enquiring of Sir Claude—without a single +scruple—if he were prepared as yet to name the moment at which +they should start for Paris. His answer, it must be said, gave her +the least little chill.</p> + +<p>"Oh Paris, my dear child—I don't quite know about Paris!"</p> + +<p>This required to be met, but it was much less to challenge him +than for the rich joy of her first discussion of the details of a +tour that, after looking at him a minute, she replied: "Well, +isn't that the <i>real</i> thing, the thing that when one does +come abroad—?"</p> + +<p>He had turned grave again, and she merely threw that out: it +was a way of doing justice to the seriousness of their life. She +couldn't moreover be so much older since yesterday without +reflecting that if by this time she probed a little he would +recognise that she had done enough for mere patience. There was in +fact something in his eyes that suddenly, to her own, made her +discretion shabby. Before she could remedy this he had answered +her last question, answered it in the way that, of all ways, she +had least expected. "The thing it doesn't do not to do? Certainly +Paris is charming. But, my dear fellow, Paris eats your head off. +I mean it's so beastly expensive."</p> + +<p>That note gave her a pang—it suddenly let in a harder light. Were +they poor then, that is was <i>he</i> poor, really poor beyond the +pleasantry of apollinaris and cold beef? They had walked to the +end of the long jetty that enclosed the harbour and were looking +out at the dangers they had escaped, the grey horizon that was +England, the tumbled surface of the sea and the brown smacks that +bobbed upon it. Why had he chosen an embarrassed time to make this +foreign dash? unless indeed it was just the dash economic, of +which she had often heard and on which, after another look at the +grey horizon and the bobbing boats, she was ready to turn round +with elation. She replied to him quite in his own manner: "I see, +I see." She smiled up at him. "Our affairs are involved."</p> + +<p>"That's it." He returned her smile. "Mine are not quite so bad as +yours; for yours are really, my dear man, in a state I can't see +through at all. But mine will do—for a mess."</p> + +<p>She thought this over. "But isn't France cheaper than England?"</p> + +<p>England, over there in the thickening gloom, looked just then +remarkably dear. "I dare say; some parts."</p> + +<p>"Then can't we live in those parts?"</p> + +<p>There was something that for an instant, in satisfaction of this, +he had the air of being about to say and yet not saying. What he +presently said was: "This very place is one of them."</p> + +<p>"Then we shall live here?"</p> + +<p>He didn't treat it quite so definitely as she liked. "Since we've +come to save money!"</p> + +<p>This made her press him more. "How long shall we stay?"</p> + +<p>"Oh three or four days."</p> + +<p>It took her breath away. "You can save money in that time?"</p> + +<p>He burst out laughing, starting to walk again and taking her under +his arm. He confessed to her on the way that she too had put a +finger on the weakest of all his weaknesses, the fact, of which he +was perfectly aware, that he probably might have lived within his +means if he had never done anything for thrift. "It's the happy +thoughts that do it," he said; "there's nothing so ruinous as +putting in a cheap week." Maisie heard afresh among the pleasant +sounds of the closing day that steel click of Ida's change of +mind. She thought of the ten-pound note it would have been +delightful at this juncture to produce for her companion's +encouragement. But the idea was dissipated by his saying +irrelevantly, in presence of the next thing they stopped to +admire: "We shall stay till she arrives."</p> + +<p>She turned upon him. "Mrs. Beale?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Wix. I've had a wire," he went on. "She has seen your +mother."</p> + +<p>"Seen mamma?" Maisie stared. "Where in the world?"</p> + +<p>"Apparently in London. They've been together."</p> + +<p>For an instant this looked ominous—a fear came into her +eyes. "Then she hasn't gone?"</p> + +<p>"Your mother?—to South Africa? I give it up, dear boy," Sir +Claude said; and she seemed literally to see him give it up as he +stood there and with a kind of absent gaze—absent, that is, from +<i>her</i> affairs—followed the fine stride and shining limbs of a +young fishwife who had just waded out of the sea with her basketful +of shrimps. His thought came back to her sooner than his eyes. "But +I dare say it's all right. She wouldn't come if it wasn't, poor old +thing: she knows rather well what she's about."</p> + +<p>This was so reassuring that Maisie, after turning it over, could +make it fit into her dream. "Well, what <i>is</i> she about?"</p> + +<p>He finally stopped looking at the fishwife—he met his companion's +enquiry. "Oh you know!" There was something in the way he said it +that made, between them, more of an equality than she had yet +imagined; but it had also more the effect of raising her up than +of letting him down, and what it did with her was shown by the +sound of her assent.</p> + +<p>"Yes—I know!" What she knew, what she <i>could</i> know is by +this time no secret to us: it grew and grew at any rate, the rest of +that day, in the air of what he took for granted. It was better he +should do that than attempt to test her knowledge; but there at +the worst was the gist of the matter: it was open between them at +last that their great change, as, speaking as if it had already +lasted weeks, Maisie called it, was somehow built up round Mrs. +Wix. Before she went to bed that night she knew further that Sir +Claude, since, as <i>he</i> called it, they had been on the rush, +had received more telegrams than one. But they separated again +without speaking of Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>Oh what a crossing for the straighteners and the old brown +dress—which latter appurtenance the child saw thriftily revived +for the possible disasters of travel! The wind got up in the night +and from her little room at the inn Maisie could hear the noise of +the sea. The next day it was raining and everything different: +this was the case even with Susan Ash, who positively crowed over +the bad weather, partly, it seemed, for relish of the time their +visitor would have in the boat, and partly to point the moral of +the folly of coming to such holes. In the wet, with Sir Claude, +Maisie went to the Folkestone packet, on the arrival of which, +with many signs of the fray, he made her wait under an umbrella by +the quay; whence almost ere the vessel touched, he was to be +descried, in quest of their friend, wriggling—that had been his +word—through the invalids massed upon the deck. It was long till +he reappeared—it was not indeed till every one had landed; when +he presented the object of his benevolence in a light that Maisie +scarce knew whether to suppose the depth of prostration or the +flush of triumph. The lady on his arm, still bent beneath her late +ordeal, was muffled in such draperies as had never before offered +so much support to so much woe. At the hotel, an hour later, this +ambiguity dropped: assisting Mrs. Wix in private to refresh and +reinvest herself, Maisie heard from her in detail how little she +could have achieved if Sir Claude hadn't put it in her power. It +was a phrase that in her room she repeated in connexions +indescribable: he had put it in her power to have "changes," as +she said, of the most intimate order, adapted to climates and +occasions so various as to foreshadow in themselves the stages of +a vast itinerary. Cheap weeks would of course be in their place +after so much money spent on a governess; sums not grudged, +however, by this lady's pupil, even on her feeling her own +appearance give rise, through the straighteners, to an attention +perceptibly mystified. Sir Claude in truth had had less time to +devote to it than to Mrs. Wix's; and moreover she would rather be +in her own shoes than in her friend's creaking new ones in the +event of an encounter with Mrs. Beale. Maisie was too lost in the +idea of Mrs. Beale's judgement of so much newness to pass any +judgement herself. Besides, after much luncheon and many +endearments, the question took quite another turn, to say nothing +of the pleasure of the child's quick view that there were other +eyes than Susan Ash's to open to what she could show. She couldn't +show much, alas, till it stopped raining, which it declined to do +that day; but this had only the effect of leaving more time for +Mrs. Wix's own demonstration. It came as they sat in the little +white and gold salon which Maisie thought the loveliest place she +had ever seen except perhaps the apartment of the Countess; it +came while the hard summer storm lashed the windows and blew in +such a chill that Sir Claude, with his hands in his pockets and +cigarettes in his teeth, fidgeting, frowning, looking out and +turning back, ended by causing a smoky little fire to be made in +the dressy little chimney. It came in spite of something that +could only be named his air of wishing to put it off; an air that +had served him—oh as all his airs served him!—to the extent of +his having for a couple of hours confined the conversation to +gratuitous jokes and generalities, kept it on the level of the +little empty coffee-cups and <i>petits verres</i> (Mrs. Wix had +two of each!) that struck Maisie, through the fumes of the French +fire and the English tobacco, as a token more than ever that they +were launched. She felt now, in close quarters and as clearly as +if Mrs. Wix had told her, that what this lady had come over for +was not merely to be chaffed and to hear her pupil chaffed; not +even to hear Sir Claude, who knew French in perfection, imitate +the strange sounds emitted by the English folk at the hotel. It +was perhaps half an effect of her present renovations, as if her +clothes had been somebody's else: she had at any rate never +produced such an impression of high colour, of a redness +associated in Maisie's mind at <i>that</i> pitch either with +measles or with "habits." Her heart was not at all in the gossip +about Boulogne; and if her complexion was partly the result of +the déjeuner and the <i>petits verres</i> it was also the +brave signal of what she was there to say. Maisie knew when this did +come how anxiously it had been awaited by the youngest member of the +party. "Her ladyship packed me off—she almost put me into the cab!" +That was what Mrs. Wix at last brought out.</p> + + +<p> <a name="23"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XXIII<br /> </h3> + + +<p>Sir Claude was stationed at the window; he didn't so much as turn +round, and it was left to the youngest of the three to take up the +remark. "Do you mean you went to see her yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"She came to see <i>me</i>. She knocked at my shabby door. She +mounted my squalid stair. She told me she had seen you at +Folkestone."</p> + +<p>Maisie wondered. "She went back that evening?"</p> + +<p>"No; yesterday morning. She drove to me straight from the station. +It was most remarkable. If I had a job to get off she did nothing +to make it worse—she did a great deal to make it better." Mrs. +Wix hung fire, though the flame in her face burned brighter; then +she became capable of saying: "Her ladyship's kind! She did what I +didn't expect."</p> + +<p>Maisie, on this, looked straight at her stepfather's back; it +might well have been for her at that hour a monument of her +ladyship's kindness. It remained, as such, monumentally still, and +for a time that permitted the child to ask of their companion: +"Did she really help you?"</p> + +<p>"Most practically." Again Mrs. Wix paused; again she quite +resounded. "She gave me a ten-pound note."</p> + +<p>At that, still looking out, Sir Claude, at the window, laughed +loud. "So you see, Maisie, we've not quite lost it!"</p> + +<p>"Oh no," Maisie responded. "Isn't that too charming?" She smiled +at Mrs. Wix. "We know all about it." Then on her friend's showing +such blankness as was compatible with such a flush she pursued: +"She does want me to have you?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix showed a final hesitation, which, however, while Sir +Claude drummed on the window-pane, she presently surmounted. It +came to Maisie that in spite of his drumming and of his not +turning round he was really so much interested as to leave himself +in a manner in her hands; which somehow suddenly seemed to her a +greater proof than he could have given by interfering. "She wants +me to have <i>you</i>!" Mrs. Wix declared.</p> + +<p>Maisie answered this bang at Sir Claude. "Then that's nice for all +of us."</p> + +<p>Of course it was, his continued silence sufficiently admitted +while Mrs. Wix rose from her chair and, as if to take more of a +stand, placed herself, not without majesty, before the fire. The +incongruity of her smartness, the circumference of her stiff +frock, presented her as really more ready for Paris than any of +them. She also gazed hard at Sir Claude's back. "Your wife was +different from anything she had ever shown me. She recognises +certain proprieties."</p> + +<p>"Which? Do you happen to remember?" Sir Claude asked.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix's reply was prompt. "The importance for Maisie of a +gentlewoman, of some one who's not—well, so bad! She objects to +a mere maid, and I don't in the least mind telling you what she +wants me to do." One thing was clear—Mrs. Wix was now bold enough +for anything. "She wants me to persuade you to get rid of the +person from Mrs. Beale's."</p> + +<p>Maisie waited for Sir Claude to pronounce on this; then she +could only understand that he on his side waited, and she felt +particularly full of common sense as she met her responsibility. +"Oh I don't want Susan with <i>you</i>!" she said to Mrs. Wix.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude, always from the window, approved. "That's quite +simple. I'll take her back."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix gave a positive jump; Maisie caught her look of alarm. +"'Take' her? You don't mean to go over on purpose?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude said nothing for a moment; after which, "Why shouldn't +I leave you here?" he enquired.</p> + +<p>Maisie, at this, sprang up. "Oh do, oh do, oh do!" The next moment +she was interlaced with Mrs. Wix, and the two, on the hearth-rug, +their eyes in each other's eyes, considered the plan with +intensity. Then Maisie felt the difference of what they saw in it.</p> + +<p>"She can surely go back alone: why should you put yourself out?" +Mrs. Wix demanded.</p> + +<p>"Oh she's an idiot—she's incapable. If anything should happen to +her it would be awkward: it was I who brought her—without her +asking. If I turn her away I ought with my own hand to place her +again exactly where I found her."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix's face appealed to Maisie on such folly, and her manner, +as directed to their companion, had, to her pupil's surprise, an +unprecedented firmness. "Dear Sir Claude, I think you're perverse. +Pay her fare and give her a sovereign. She has had an experience +that she never dreamed of and that will be an advantage to her +through life. If she goes wrong on the way it will be simply +because she wants to, and, with her expenses and her +remuneration—make it even what you like!—you'll have treated her +as handsomely as you always treat every one."</p> + +<p>This was a new tone—as new as Mrs. Wix's cap; and it could strike +a young person with a sharpened sense for latent meanings as the +upshot of a relation that had taken on a new character. It brought +out for Maisie how much more even than she had guessed her friends +were fighting side by side. At the same time it needed so definite +a justification that as Sir Claude now at last did face them she +at first supposed him merely resentful of excessive familiarity. +She was therefore yet more puzzled to see him show his serene +beauty untroubled, as well as an equal interest in a matter quite +distinct from any freedom but her ladyship's. "Did my wife come +alone?" He could ask even that good-humouredly.</p> + +<p>"When she called on me?" Mrs. Wix <i>was</i> red now: his good +humour wouldn't keep down her colour, which for a minute glowed +there like her ugly honesty. "No—there was some one in the cab." +The only attenuation she could think of was after a minute to add: +"But they didn't come up."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude broke into a laugh—Maisie herself could guess what it +was at: while he now walked about, still laughing, and at the +fireplace gave a gay kick to a displaced log, she felt more vague +about almost everything than about the drollery of such a "they." +She in fact could scarce have told you if it was to deepen or to +cover the joke that she bethought herself to observe: "Perhaps it +was her maid."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix gave her a look that at any rate deprecated the wrong +tone. "It was not her maid."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean there are this time two?" Sir Claude asked as if he +hadn't heard.</p> + +<p>"Two maids?" Maisie went on as if she might assume he had.</p> + +<p>The reproach of the straighteners darkened; but Sir Claude cut +across it with a sudden: "See here; what do you mean? And what do +you suppose <i>she</i> meant?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix let him for a moment, in silence, understand that the +answer to his question, if he didn't take care, might give him +more than he wanted. It was as if, with this scruple, she measured +and adjusted all she gave him in at last saying: "What she meant +was to make me know that you're definitely free. To have that +straight from her was a joy I of course hadn't hoped for: it made +the assurance, and my delight at it, a thing I could really +proceed upon. You already know now certainly I'd have started even +if she hadn't pressed me; you already know what, so long, we've +been looking for and what, as soon as she told me of her step +taken at Folkestone, I recognised with rapture that we <i>have</i>. +It's your freedom that makes me right"—she fairly bristled with +her logic. "But I don't mind telling you that it's her action that +makes me happy!"</p> + +<p>"Her action?" Sir Claude echoed. "Why, my dear woman, her action +is just a hideous crime. It happens to satisfy our sympathies in a +way that's quite delicious; but that doesn't in the least alter +the fact that it's the most abominable thing ever done. She has +chucked our friend here overboard not a bit less than if she had +shoved her shrieking and pleading, out of that window and down two +floors to the paving-stones."</p> + +<p>Maisie surveyed serenely the parties to the discussion. "Oh your +friend here, dear Sir Claude, doesn't plead and shriek!"</p> + +<p>He looked at her a moment. "Never. Never. That's one, only one, +but charming so far as it goes, of about a hundred things we love +her for." Then he pursued to Mrs. Wix: "What I can't for the life +of me make out is what Ida is <i>really</i> up to, what game she was +playing in turning to you with that cursed cheek after the beastly +way she has used you. Where—to explain her at all—does she fancy +she can presently, when we least expect it, take it out of us?"</p> + +<p>"She doesn't fancy anything, nor want anything out of any one. Her +cursed cheek, as you call it, is the best thing I've ever seen in +her. I don't care a fig for the beastly way she used me—I forgive +it all a thousand times over!" Mrs. Wix raised her voice as she +had never raised it; she quite triumphed in her lucidity. "I +understand her, I almost admire her!" she quavered. She spoke as +if this might practically suffice; yet in charity to fainter +lights she threw out an explanation. "As I've said, she was +different; upon my word I wouldn't have known her. She had a +glimmering, she had an instinct; they brought her. It was a kind +of happy thought, and if you couldn't have supposed she would ever +have had such a thing, why of course I quite agree with you. But +she did have it! There!"</p> + +<p>Maisie could feel again how a certain rude rightness in this plea +might have been found exasperating; but as she had often watched +Sir Claude in apprehension of displeasures that didn't come, so +now, instead of saying "Oh hell!" as her father used, she observed +him only to take refuge in a question that at the worst was +abrupt.</p> + +<p>"Who <i>is</i> it this time, do you know?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix tried blind dignity. "Who is what, Sir Claude?"</p> + +<p>"The man who stands the cabs. Who was in the one that waited at +your door?"</p> + +<p>At this challenge she faltered so long that her young friend's +pitying conscience gave her a hand. "It wasn't the Captain."</p> + +<p>This good intention, however, only converted the excellent woman's +scruple to a more ambiguous stare; besides of course making Sir +Claude go off. Mrs. Wix fairly appealed to him. "Must I really +tell you?"</p> + +<p>His amusement continued. "Did she make you promise not to?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix looked at him still harder. "I mean before Maisie."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude laughed again. "Why <i>she</i> can't hurt him!"</p> + +<p>Maisie felt herself, as it passed, brushed by the light humour of +this. "Yes, I can't hurt him."</p> + +<p>The straighteners again roofed her over; after which they seemed +to crack with the explosion of their wearer's honesty. Amid the +flying splinters Mrs. Wix produced a name. "Mr. Tischbein."</p> + +<p>There was for an instant a silence that, under Sir Claude's +influence and while he and Maisie looked at each other, suddenly +pretended to be that of gravity. "We don't know Mr. Tischbein, do +we, dear?"</p> + +<p>Maisie gave the point all needful thought. "No, I can't place Mr. +Tischbein."</p> + +<p>It was a passage that worked visibly on their friend. "You must +pardon me, Sir Claude," she said with an austerity of which the +note was real, "if I thank God to your face that he has in his +mercy—I mean his mercy to our charge—allowed me to achieve this +act." She gave out a long puff of pain. "It was time!" Then as if +still more to point the moral: "I said just now I understood your +wife. I said just now I admired her. I stand to it: I did both of +those things when I saw how even <i>she</i>, poor thing, saw. If +you want the dots on the i's you shall have them. What she came +to me for, in spite of everything, was that I'm just"—she +quavered it out—"well, just clean! What she saw for her daughter +was that there must at last be a <i>decent</i> person!"</p> + +<p>Maisie was quick enough to jump a little at the sound of this +implication that such a person was what Sir Claude was not; the +next instant, however, she more profoundly guessed against whom +the discrimination was made. She was therefore left the more +surprised at the complete candour with which he embraced the +worst. "If she's bent on decent persons why has she given her to +<i>me</i>? You don't call me a decent person, and I'll do Ida the +justice that <i>she</i> never did. I think I'm as indecent as any +one and that there's nothing in my behaviour that makes my wife's +surrender a bit less ignoble!"</p> + +<p>"Don't speak of your behaviour!" Mrs. Wix cried. "Don't say such +horrible things; they're false and they're wicked and I forbid +you! It's to <i>keep</i> you decent that I'm here and that I've +done everything I have done. It's to save you—I won't say from +yourself, because in yourself you're beautiful and good! It's to +save you from the worst person of all. I haven't, after all, come +over to be afraid to speak of her! That's the person in whose +place her ladyship wants such a person as even me; and if she +thought herself, as she as good as told me, not fit for Maisie's +company, it's not, as you may well suppose, that she may make room +for Mrs. Beale!"</p> + +<p>Maisie watched his face as it took this outbreak, and the most she +saw in it was that it turned a little white. That indeed made him +look, as Susan Ash would have said, queer; and it was perhaps a +part of the queerness that he intensely smiled. "You're too hard +on Mrs. Beale. She has great merits of her own."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix, at this, instead of immediately replying, did what Sir +Claude had been doing before: she moved across to the window and +stared a while into the storm. There was for a minute, to Maisie's +sense, a hush that resounded with wind and rain. Sir Claude, in +spite of these things, glanced about for his hat; on which Maisie +spied it first and, making a dash for it, held it out to him. He +took it with a gleam of a "thank-you" in his face, and then +something moved her still to hold the other side of the brim; so +that, united by their grasp of this object, they stood some +seconds looking many things at each other. By this time Mrs. Wix +had turned round. "Do you mean to tell me," she demanded, "that +you are going back?"</p> + +<p>"To Mrs. Beale?" Maisie surrendered his hat, and there was +something that touched her in the embarrassed, almost humiliated +way their companion's challenge made him turn it round and round. +She had seen people do that who, she was sure, did nothing else +that Sir Claude did. "I can't just say, my dear thing. We'll see +about I—we'll talk of it to-morrow. Meantime I must get some +air."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix, with her back to the window, threw up her head to a +height that, still for a moment, had the effect of detaining him. +"All the air in France, Sir Claude, won't, I think, give you the +courage to deny that you're simply afraid of her!"</p> + +<p>Oh this time he did look queer; Maisie had no need of Susan's +vocabulary to note it! It would have come to her of itself as, +with his hand on the door, he turned his eyes from his +stepdaughter to her governess and then back again. Resting on +Maisie's, though for ever so short a time, there was something +they gave up to her and tried to explain. His lips, however, +explained nothing; they only surrendered to Mrs. Wix. "Yes. I'm +simply afraid of her!" He opened the door and passed out. It +brought back to Maisie his confession of fear of her mother; it +made her stepmother then the second lady about whom he failed of +the particular virtue that was supposed most to mark a gentleman. +In fact there were three of them, if she counted in Mrs. Wix, +before whom he had undeniably quailed. Well, his want of valour +was but a deeper appeal to her tenderness. To thrill with response +to it she had only to remember all the ladies she herself had, as +they called it, funked.</p> + + +<p> <a name="24"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XXIV<br /> </h3> + + +<p>It continued to rain so hard that our young lady's private dream +of explaining the Continent to their visitor had to contain a +provision for some adequate treatment of the weather. At the +<i>table d'hôte</i> that evening she threw out a variety of +lights: this was the second ceremony of the sort she had sat through, +and she would have neglected her privilege and dishonoured her +vocabulary—which indeed consisted mainly of the names of dishes—if +she had not been proportionately ready to dazzle with +interpretations. Preoccupied and overawed, Mrs. Wix was apparently +dim: she accepted her pupil's version of the mysteries of the menu in +a manner that might have struck the child as the depression of a +credulity conscious not so much of its needs as of its dimensions. +Maisie was soon enough—though it scarce happened before +bedtime—confronted again with the different sort of programme for +which she reserved her criticism. They remounted together to their +sitting-room while Sir Claude, who said he would join them later, +remained below to smoke and to converse with the old acquaintances +that he met wherever he turned. He had proposed his companions, for +coffee, the enjoyment of the <i>salon de lecture</i>, but Mrs. Wix +had replied promptly and with something of an air that it struck her +their own apartments offered them every convenience. They offered the +good lady herself, Maisie could immediately observe, not only that of +this rather grand reference, which, already emulous, so far as it +went, of her pupil, she made as if she had spent her life in salons; +but that of a stiff French sofa where she could sit and stare at the +faint French lamp, in default of the French clock that had stopped, +as for some account of the time Sir Claude would so markedly +interpose. Her demeanour accused him so directly of hovering beyond +her reach that Maisie sought to divert her by a report of Susan's +quaint attitude on the matter of their conversation after lunch. +Maisie had mentioned to the young woman for sympathy's sake the plan +for her relief, but her disapproval of alien ways appeared, strange +to say, only to prompt her to hug her gloom; so that between Mrs. +Wix's effect of displacing her and the visible stiffening of her back +the child had the sense of a double office and enlarged play for +pacific powers.</p> + +<p>These powers played to no great purpose, it was true, in keeping +before Mrs. Wix the vision of Sir Claude's perversity, which hung +there in the pauses of talk and which he himself, after +unmistakeable delays, finally made quite lurid by bursting in—it +was near ten o'clock—with an object held up in his hand. She knew +before he spoke what it was; she knew at least from the underlying +sense of all that, since the hour spent after the Exhibition with +her father, had not sprung up to reinstate Mr. Farange—she knew +it meant a triumph for Mrs. Beale. The mere present sight of Sir +Claude's face caused her on the spot to drop straight through her +last impression of Mr. Farange a plummet that reached still deeper +down than the security of these days of flight. She had wrapped +that impression in silence—a silence that had parted with half +its veil to cover also, from the hour of Sir Claude's advent, the +image of Mr. Farange's wife. But if the object in Sir Claude's +hand revealed itself as a letter which he held up very high, so +there was something in his mere motion that laid Mrs. Beale again +bare. "Here we are!" he cried almost from the door, shaking his +trophy at them and looking from one to the other. Then he came +straight to Mrs. Wix; he had pulled two papers out of the envelope +and glanced at them again to see which was which. He thrust one +out open to Mrs. Wix. "Read that." She looked at him hard, as if +in fear: it was impossible not to see he was excited. Then she +took the letter, but it was not her face that Maisie watched while +she read. Neither, for that matter, was it this countenance that +Sir Claude scanned: he stood before the fire and, more calmly, now +that he had acted, communed in silence with his stepdaughter.</p> + +<p>The silence was in truth quickly broken; Mrs. Wix rose to her feet +with the violence of the sound she emitted. The letter had dropped +from her and lay upon the floor; it had made her turn ghastly +white and she was speechless with the effect of it. "It's too +abominable—it's too unspeakable!" she then cried.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it a charming thing?" Sir Claude asked. "It has just +arrived, enclosed in a word of her own. She sends it on to me with +the remark that comment's superfluous. I really think it is. +That's all you can say."</p> + +<p>"She oughtn't to pass such a horror about," said Mrs. Wix. "She +ought to put it straight in the fire."</p> + +<p>"My dear woman, she's not such a fool! It's much too precious." He +had picked the letter up and he gave it again a glance of +complacency which produced a light in his face. "Such a +document"—he considered, then concluded with a slight drop—"such a +document is, in fine, a basis!"</p> + +<p>"A basis for what?"</p> + +<p>"Well—for proceedings."</p> + +<p>"Hers?" Mrs. Wix's voice had become outright the voice of +derision. "How can <i>she</i> proceed?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude turned it over. "How can she get rid of him? Well—she +<i>is</i> rid of him."</p> + +<p>"Not legally." Mrs. Wix had never looked to her pupil so much as +if she knew what she was talking about.</p> + +<p>"I dare say," Sir Claude laughed; "but she's not a bit less +deprived than I!"</p> + +<p>"Of the power to get a divorce? It's just your want of the power +that makes the scandal of your connexion with her. Therefore it's +just her want of it that makes that of hers with you. That's all I +contend!" Mrs. Wix concluded with an unparalleled neigh of battle. +Oh she did know what she was talking about!</p> + +<p>Maisie had meanwhile appealed mutely to Sir Claude, who judged it +easier to meet what she didn't say than to meet what Mrs. Wix did.</p> + +<p>"It's a letter to Mrs. Beale from your father, my dear, written +from Spa and making the rupture between them perfectly +irrevocable. It lets her know, and not in pretty language, that, +as we technically say, he deserts her. It puts an end for ever to +their relations." He ran his eyes over it again, then appeared to +make up his mind. "In fact it concerns you, Maisie, so nearly and +refers to you so particularly that I really think you ought to see +the terms in which this new situation is created for you." And he +held out the letter.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix, at this, pounced upon it; she had grabbed it too soon +even for Maisie to become aware of being rather afraid of it. +Thrusting it instantly behind her she positively glared at Sir +Claude. "See it, wretched man?—the innocent child <i>see</i> such +a thing? I think you must be mad, and she shall not have a glimpse +of it while I'm here to prevent!"</p> + +<p>The breadth of her action had made Sir Claude turn red—he even +looked a little foolish. "You think it's too bad, eh? But it's +precisely because it's bad that it seemed to me it would have a +lesson and a virtue for her."</p> + +<p>Maisie could do a quick enough justice to his motive to be able +clearly to interpose. She fairly smiled at him. "I assure you I +can quite believe how bad it is!" She thought of something, kept +it back a moment, and then spoke. "I know what's in it!"</p> + +<p>He of course burst out laughing and, while Mrs. Wix groaned an "Oh +heavens!" replied: "You wouldn't say that, old boy, if you did! +The point I make is," he continued to Mrs. Wix with a blandness +now re-established—"the point I make is simply that it sets Mrs. +Beale free."</p> + +<p>She hung fire but an instant. "Free to live with <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Free not to live, not to pretend to live, with her husband."</p> + +<p>"Ah they're mighty different things!"—a truth as to which her +earnestness could now with a fine inconsequent look invite the +participation of the child.</p> + +<p>Before Maisie could commit herself, however, the ground was +occupied by Sir Claude, who, as he stood before their visitor with +an expression half rueful, half persuasive, rubbed his hand +sharply up and down the back of his head. "Then why the deuce do +you grant so—do you, I may even say, rejoice so—that by the +desertion of my own precious partner I'm free?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix met this challenge first with silence, then with a +demonstration the most extraordinary, the most unexpected. Maisie +could scarcely believe her eyes as she saw the good lady, with +whom she had associated no faintest shade of any art of +provocation, actually, after an upward grimace, give Sir Claude a +great giggling insinuating naughty slap. "You wretch—you +<i>know</i> why!" And she turned away. The face that with this +movement she left him to present to Maisie was to abide with his +stepdaughter as the very image of stupefaction; but the pair lacked +time to communicate either amusement or alarm before their admonisher +was upon them again. She had begun in fact to show infinite variety +and she flashed about with a still quicker change of tone. "Have you +brought me that thing as a pretext for your going over?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude braced himself. "I can't, after such news, in common +decency not go over. I mean, don't you know, in common courtesy +and humanity. My dear lady, you can't chuck a woman that way, +especially taking the moment when she has been most insulted and +wronged. A fellow must behave like a gentleman, damn it, dear good +Mrs. Wix. We didn't come away, we two, to hang right on, you know: +it was only to try our paces and just put in a few days that might +prove to every one concerned that we're in earnest. It's exactly +because we're in earnest that, dash it, we needn't be so awfully +particular. I mean, don't you know, we needn't be so awfully +afraid." He showed a vivacity, an intensity of argument, and if +Maisie counted his words she was all the more ready to swallow +after a single swift gasp those that, the next thing, she became +conscious he paused for a reply to. "We didn't come, old girl, did +we," he pleaded straight, "to stop right away for ever and put it +all in <i>now</i>?"</p> + +<p>Maisie had never doubted she could be heroic for him. "Oh no!" It +was as if she had been shocked at the bare thought. "We're just +taking it as we find it." She had a sudden inspiration, which she +backed up with a smile. "We're just seeing what we can afford." +She had never yet in her life made any claim for herself, but she +hoped that this time, frankly, what she was doing would somehow be +counted to her. Indeed she felt Sir Claude <i>was</i> counting it, +though she was afraid to look at him—afraid she should show him +tears. She looked at Mrs. Wix; she reached her maximum. "I don't +think I ought to be bad to Mrs. Beale."</p> + +<p>She heard, on this, a deep sound, something inarticulate and +sweet, from Sir Claude; but tears were what Mrs. Wix didn't +scruple to show. "Do you think you ought to be bad to <i>me</i>?" The +question was the more disconcerting that Mrs. Wix's emotion didn't +deprive her of the advantage of her effect. "If you see that woman +again you're lost!" she declared to their companion.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude looked at the moony globe of the lamp; he seemed to see +for an instant what seeing Mrs. Beale would consist of. It was also +apparently from this vision that he drew strength to return: "Her +situation, by what has happened, is completely changed; and it's no +use your trying to prove to me that I needn't take any account of +that."</p> + +<p>"If you see that woman you're lost!" Mrs. Wix with greater force +repeated.</p> + +<p>"Do you think she'll not let me come back to you? My dear lady, I +leave you here, you and Maisie, as a hostage to fortune, and I +promise you by all that's sacred that I shall be with you again at +the very latest on Saturday. I provide you with funds; I install +you in these lovely rooms; I arrange with the people here that you +be treated with every attention and supplied with every luxury. +The weather, after this, will mend; it will be sure to be +exquisite. You'll both be as free as air and you can roam all over +the place and have tremendous larks. You shall have a carriage to +drive you; the whole house shall be at your call. You'll have a +magnificent position." He paused, he looked from one of his +companions to the other as to see the impression he had made. +Whether or no he judged it adequate he subjoined after a moment: +"And you'll oblige me above all by not making a fuss."</p> + +<p>Maisie could only answer for the impression on herself, though +indeed from the heart even of Mrs. Wix's rigour there floated to +her sense a faint fragrance of depraved concession. Maisie had her +dumb word for the show such a speech could make, for the +irresistible charm it could take from his dazzling sincerity; and +before she could do anything but blink at excess of light she +heard this very word sound on Mrs. Wix's lips, just as if the poor +lady had guessed it and wished, snatching it from her, to blight +it like a crumpled flower. "You're dreadful, you're terrible, for +you know but too well that it's not a small thing to me that you +should address me in terms that are princely!" Princely was what +he stood there and looked and sounded; that was what Maisie for +the occasion found herself reduced to simple worship of him for +being. Yet strange to say too, as Mrs. Wix went on, an echo rang +within her that matched the echo she had herself just produced. +"How much you must <i>want</i> to see her to say such things as that +and to be ready to do so much for the poor little likes of Maisie and +me! She has a hold on you, and you know it, and you want to feel +it again and—God knows, or at least <i>I</i> do, what's your motive +and desire—enjoy it once more and give yourself up to it! It +doesn't matter if it's one day or three: enough is as good as a +feast and the lovely time you'll have with her is something you're +willing to pay for! I dare say you'd like me to believe that your +pay is to get her to give you up; but that's a matter on which I +strongly urge you not to put down your money in advance. Give +<i>her</i> up first. Then pay her what you please!"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude took this to the end, though there were things in it +that made him colour, called into his face more of the +apprehension than Maisie had ever perceived there of a particular +sort of shock. She had an odd sense that it was the first time she +had seen any one but Mrs. Wix really and truly scandalised, and +this fed her inference, which grew and grew from moment to moment, +that Mrs. Wix was proving more of a force to reckon with than +either of them had allowed so much room for. It was true that, +long before, she had obtained a "hold" of him, as she called it, +different in kind from that obtained by Mrs. Beale and originally +by her ladyship. But Maisie could quite feel with him now that he +had really not expected this advantage to be driven so home. Oh +they hadn't at all got to where Mrs. Wix would stop, for the next +minute she was driving harder than ever. It was the result of his +saying with a certain dryness, though so kindly that what most +affected Maisie in it was his patience: "My dear friend, it's +simply a matter in which I must judge for myself. You've judged +<i>for</i> me, I know, a good deal, of late, in a way that I +appreciate, I assure you, down to the ground. But you can't do it +always; no one can do that for another, don't you see, in every case. +There are exceptions, particular cases that turn up and that are +awfully delicate. It would be too easy if I could shift it all off on +you: it would be allowing you to incur an amount of responsibility +that I should simply become quite ashamed of. You'll find, I'm sure, +that you'll have quite as much as you'll enjoy if you'll be so good +as to accept the situation as circumstances happen to make it for you +and to stay here with our friend, till I rejoin you, on the footing +of as much pleasantness and as much comfort—and I think I have a +right to add, to both of you, of as much faith in <i>me</i>—as +possible."</p> + +<p>Oh he was princely indeed: that came out more and more with every +word he said and with the particular way he said it, and Maisie +could feel his monitress stiffen almost with anguish against the +increase of his spell and then hurl herself as a desperate defence +from it into the quite confessed poorness of violence, of +iteration. "You're afraid of her—afraid, afraid, afraid! Oh dear, +oh dear, oh dear!" Mrs. Wix wailed it with a high quaver, then +broke down into a long shudder of helplessness and woe. The next +minute she had flung herself again on the lean sofa and had burst +into a passion of tears.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude stood and looked at her a moment; he shook his head +slowly, altogether tenderly. "I've already admitted it—I'm in +mortal terror; so we'll let that settle the question. I think you +had best go to bed," he added; "you've had a tremendous day and +you must both be tired to death. I shall not expect you to concern +yourselves in the morning with my movements. There's an early boat +on; I shall have cleared out before you're up; and I shall +moreover have dealt directly and most effectively, I assure you, +with the haughty but not quite hopeless Miss Ash." He turned to +his stepdaughter as if at once to take leave of her and give her a +sign of how, through all tension and friction, they were still +united in such a way that she at least needn't worry. "Maisie +boy!"—he opened his arms to her. With her culpable lightness she +flew into them and, while he kissed her, chose the soft method of +silence to satisfy him, the silence that after battles of talk was +the best balm she could offer his wounds. They held each other +long enough to reaffirm intensely their vows; after which they +were almost forced apart by Mrs. Wix's jumping to her feet.</p> + +<p>Her jump, either with a quick return or with a final lapse of +courage, was also to supplication almost abject. "I beseech you +not to take a step so miserable and so fatal. I know her but too +well, even if you jeer at me for saying it; little as I've seen +her I know her, I know her. I know what she'll do—I see it as I +stand here. Since you're afraid of her it's the mercy of heaven. +Don't, for God's sake, be afraid to show it, to profit by it and +to arrive at the very safety that it gives you. <i>I'm</i> not +afraid of her, I assure you; you must already have seen for yourself +that there's nothing I'm afraid of now. Let me go to her—<i>I'll</i> +settle her and I'll take that woman back without a hair of her +touched. Let me put in the two or three days—let me wind up the +connexion. You stay here with Maisie, with the carriage and the +larks and the luxury; then I'll return to you and we'll go off +together—we'll live together without a cloud. Take me, take me," +she went on and on—the tide of her eloquence was high. "Here I am; +I know what I am and what I ain't; but I say boldly to the face of +you both that I'll do better for you, far, than ever she'll even +try to. I say it to yours, Sir Claude, even though I owe you the +very dress on my back and the very shoes on my feet. I owe you +everything—that's just the reason; and to pay it back, in +profusion, what can that be but what I want? Here I am, here I +am!"—she spread herself into an exhibition that, combined with +her intensity and her decorations, appeared to suggest her for +strange offices and devotions, for ridiculous replacements and +substitutions. She manipulated her gown as she talked, she +insisted on the items of her debt. "I have nothing of my own, I +know—no money, no clothes, no appearance, no anything, nothing +but my hold of this little one truth, which is all in the world I +can bribe you with: that the pair of you are more to me than all +besides, and that if you'll let me help you and save you, make +what you both want possible in the one way it <i>can</i> be, why, +I'll work myself to the bone in your service!"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude wavered there without an answer to this magnificent +appeal; he plainly cast about for one, and in no small agitation +and pain. He addressed himself in his quest, however, only to +vague quarters until he met again, as he so frequently and +actively met it, the more than filial gaze of his intelligent +little charge. That gave him—poor plastic and dependent male—his +issue. If she was still a child she was yet of the sex that could +help him out. He signified as much by a renewed invitation to an +embrace. She freshly sprang to him and again they inaudibly +conversed. "Be nice to her, be nice to her," he at last distinctly +articulated; "be nice to her as you've not even been to <i>me</i>!" +On which, without another look at Mrs. Wix, he somehow got out of the +room, leaving Maisie under the slight oppression of these words as +well as of the idea that he had unmistakeably once more dodged.</p> + + +<p> <a name="25"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XXV<br /> </h3> + + +<p>Every single thing he had prophesied came so true that it was +after all no more than fair to expect quite as much for what he +had as good as promised. His pledges they could verify to the +letter, down to his very guarantee that a way would be found with +Miss Ash. Roused in the summer dawn and vehemently squeezed by +that interesting exile, Maisie fell back upon her couch with a +renewed appreciation of his policy, a memento of which, when she +rose later on to dress, glittered at her from the carpet in the +shape of a sixpence that had overflowed from Susan's pride of +possession. Sixpences really, for the forty-eight hours that +followed, seemed to abound in her life; she fancifully computed +the number of them represented by such a period of "larks." The +number was not kept down, she presently noticed, by any scheme of +revenge for Sir Claude's flight which should take on Mrs. Wix's +part the form of a refusal to avail herself of the facilities he +had so bravely ordered. It was in fact impossible to escape them; +it was in the good lady's own phrase ridiculous to go on foot when +you had a carriage prancing at the door. Everything about them +pranced: the very waiters even as they presented the dishes to +which, from a similar sense of the absurdity of perversity, Mrs. +Wix helped herself with a freedom that spoke to Maisie quite as +much of her depletion as of her logic. Her appetite was a sign to +her companion of a great many things and testified no less on the +whole to her general than to her particular condition. She had +arrears of dinner to make up, and it was touching that in a +dinnerless state her moral passion should have burned so clear. +She partook largely as a refuge from depression, and yet the +opportunity to partake was just a mark of the sinister symptoms +that depressed her. The affair was in short a combat, in which the +baser element triumphed, between her refusal to be bought off and +her consent to be clothed and fed. It was not at any rate to be +gainsaid that there was comfort for her in the developments of +France; comfort so great as to leave Maisie free to take with her +all the security for granted and brush all the danger aside. That +was the way to carry out in detail Sir Claude's injunction to be +"nice"; that was the way, as well, to look, with her, in a survey +of the pleasures of life abroad, straight over the head of any +doubt.</p> + +<p>They shrank at last, all doubts, as the weather cleared up: it had +an immense effect on them and became quite as lovely as Sir Claude +had engaged. This seemed to have put him so into the secret of +things, and the joy of the world so waylaid the steps of his +friends, that little by little the spirit of hope filled the air +and finally took possession of the scene. To drive on the long +cliff was splendid, but it was perhaps better still to creep in +the shade—for the sun was strong—along the many-coloured and +many-odoured port and through the streets in which, to English +eyes, everything that was the same was a mystery and everything +that was different a joke. Best of all was to continue the creep +up the long Grand' Rue to the gate of the <i>haute ville</i> and, +passing beneath it, mount to the quaint and crooked rampart, with its +rows of trees, its quiet corners and friendly benches where brown old +women in such white-frilled caps and such long gold earrings sat and +knitted or snoozed, its little yellow-faced houses that looked like +the homes of misers or of priests and its dark château where +small soldiers lounged on the bridge that stretched across an empty +moat and military washing hung from the windows of towers. This was a +part of the place that could lead Maisie to enquire if it didn't just +meet one's idea of the middle ages; and since it was rather a +satisfaction than a shock to perceive, and not for the first time, +the limits in Mrs. Wix's mind of the historic imagination, that only +added one more to the variety of kinds of insight that she felt it +her own present mission to show. They sat together on the old grey +bastion; they looked down on the little new town which seemed to them +quite as old, and across at the great dome and the high gilt Virgin +of the church that, as they gathered, was famous and that pleased +them by its unlikeness to any place in which they had worshipped. +They wandered in this temple afterwards and Mrs. Wix confessed that +for herself she had probably made a fatal mistake early in life in +not being a Catholic. Her confession in its turn caused Maisie to +wonder rather interestedly what degree of lateness it was that shut +the door against an escape from such an error. They went back to the +rampart on the second morning—the spot on which they appeared to +have come furthest in the journey that was to separate them from +everything objectionable in the past: it gave them afresh the +impression that had most to do with their having worked round to a +confidence that on Maisie's part was determined and that she could +see to be on her companion's desperate. She had had for many hours +the sense of showing Mrs. Wix so much that she was comparatively +slow to become conscious of being at the same time the subject of +a like aim. The business went the faster, however, from the moment +she got her glimpse of it; it then fell into its place in her +general, her habitual view of the particular phenomenon that, had +she felt the need of words for it, she might have called her +personal relation to her knowledge. This relation had never been +so lively as during the time she waited with her old governess for +Sir Claude's reappearance, and what made it so was exactly that +Mrs. Wix struck her as having a new suspicion of it. Mrs. Wix had +never yet had a suspicion—this was certain—so calculated to +throw her pupil, in spite of the closer union of such adventurous +hours, upon the deep defensive. Her pupil made out indeed as many +marvels as she had made out on the rush to Folkestone; and if in +Sir Claude's company on that occasion Mrs. Wix was the constant +implication, so in Mrs. Wix's, during these hours, Sir Claude +was—and most of all through long pauses—the perpetual, the +insurmountable theme. It all took them back to the first flush of +his marriage and to the place he held in the schoolroom at that +crisis of love and pain; only he had himself blown to a much +bigger balloon the large consciousness he then filled out.</p> + +<p>They went through it all again, and indeed while the interval +dragged by the very weight of its charm they went, in spite of +defences and suspicions, through everything. Their intensified +clutch of the future throbbed like a clock ticking seconds; but +this was a timepiece that inevitably, as well, at the best, rang +occasionally a portentous hour. Oh there were several of these, +and two or three of the worst on the old city-wall where +everything else so made for peace. There was nothing in the world +Maisie more wanted than to be as nice to Mrs. Wix as Sir Claude +had desired; but it was exactly because this fell in with her +inveterate instinct of keeping the peace that the instinct itself +was quickened. From the moment it was quickened, however, it found +other work, and that was how, to begin with, she produced the very +complication she most sought to avert. What she had essentially +done, these days, had been to read the unspoken into the spoken; +so that thus, with accumulations, it had become more definite to +her that the unspoken was, unspeakably, the completeness of the +sacrifice of Mrs. Beale. There were times when every minute that +Sir Claude stayed away was like a nail in Mrs. Beale's coffin. +That brought back to Maisie—it was a roundabout way—the beauty +and antiquity of her connexion with the flower of the Overmores as +well as that lady's own grace and charm, her peculiar prettiness +and cleverness and even her peculiar tribulations. A hundred +things hummed at the back of her head, but two of these were +simple enough. Mrs. Beale was by the way, after all, just her +stepmother and her relative. She was just—and partly for that +very reason—Sir Claude's greatest intimate ("lady-intimate" was +Maisie's term) so that what together they were on Mrs. Wix's +prescription to give up and break short off with was for one of +them his particular favourite and for the other her father's wife. +Strangely, indescribably her perception of reasons kept pace with +her sense of trouble; but there was something in her that, without +a supreme effort not to be shabby, couldn't take the reasons for +granted. What it comes to perhaps for ourselves is that, +disinherited and denuded as we have seen her, there still lingered +in her life an echo of parental influence—she was still +reminiscent of one of the sacred lessons of home. It was the only +one she retained, but luckily she retained it with force. She +enjoyed in a word an ineffaceable view of the fact that there were +things papa called mamma and mamma called papa a low sneak for +doing or for not doing. Now this rich memory gave her a name that +she dreaded to invite to the lips of Mrs. Beale: she should +personally wince so just to hear it. The very sweetness of the +foreign life she was steeped in added with each hour of Sir +Claude's absence to the possibility of such pangs. She watched +beside Mrs. Wix the great golden Madonna, and one of the +ear-ringed old women who had been sitting at the end of their +bench got up and pottered away. "Adieu mesdames!" said the old +woman in a little cracked civil voice—a demonstration by which +our friends were so affected that they bobbed up and almost +curtseyed to her. They subsided again, and it was shortly after, +in a summer hum of French insects and a phase of almost somnolent +reverie, that Maisie most had the vision of what it was to shut +out from such a perspective so appealing a participant. It had not +yet appeared so vast as at that moment, this prospect of statues +shining in the blue and of courtesy in romantic forms.</p> + +<p>"Why after all should we have to choose between you? Why shouldn't +we be four?" she finally demanded.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix gave the jerk of a sleeper awakened or the start even of +one who hears a bullet whiz at the flag of truce. Her stupefaction +at such a breach of the peace delayed for a moment her answer. +"Four improprieties, do you mean? Because two of us happen to be +decent people! Do I gather you to wish that I should stay on with +you even if that woman <i>is</i> capable—?"</p> + +<p>Maisie took her up before she could further phrase Mrs. Beale's +capability. "Stay on as <i>my</i> companion—yes. Stay on as just +what you were at mamma's. Mrs. Beale <i>would</i> let you!" the +child said.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix had by this time fairly sprung to her arms. "And who, I'd +like to know, would let Mrs. Beale? Do you mean, little +unfortunate, that <i>you</i> would?"</p> + +<p>"Why not, if now she's free?"</p> + +<p>"Free? Are you imitating <i>him</i>? Well, if Sir Claude's old +enough to know better, upon my word I think it's right to treat you +as if you also were. You'll have to, at any rate—to know better—if +that's the line you're proposing to take." Mrs. Wix had never been +so harsh; but on the other hand Maisie could guess that she +herself had never appeared so wanton. What was underlying, +however, rather overawed than angered her; she felt she could +still insist—not for contradiction, but for ultimate calm. Her +wantonness meanwhile continued to work upon her friend, who caught +again, on the rebound, the sound of deepest provocation. "Free, +free, free? If she's as free as <i>you</i> are, my dear, she's free +enough, to be sure!"</p> + +<p>"As I am?"—Maisie, after reflexion and despite whatever of +portentous this seemed to convey, risked a critical echo.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. Wix, "nobody, you know, is free to commit a +crime."</p> + +<p>"A crime!" The word had come out in a way that made the child +sound it again.</p> + +<p>"You'd commit as great a one as their own—and so should I—if we +were to condone their immorality by our presence."</p> + +<p>Maisie waited a little; this seemed so fiercely conclusive. "Why +is it immorality?" she nevertheless presently enquired.</p> + +<p>Her companion now turned upon her with a reproach softer because +it was somehow deeper. "You're too unspeakable! Do you know what +we're talking about?"</p> + +<p>In the interest of ultimate calm Maisie felt that she must be +above all clear. "Certainly; about their taking advantage of their +freedom."</p> + +<p>"Well, to do what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, to live with us."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix's laugh, at this, was literally wild. "'Us?' Thank +you!"</p> + +<p>"Then to live with <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>The words made her friend jump. "You give me up? You break with me +for ever? You turn me into the street?"</p> + +<p>Maisie, though gasping a little, bore up under the rain of +challenges. "Those, it seems to me, are the things you do to +<i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix made little of her valour. "I can promise you that, +whatever I do, I shall never let you out of my sight! You ask me +why it's immorality when you've seen with your own eyes that Sir +Claude has felt it to be so to that dire extent that, rather than +make you face the shame of it, he has for months kept away from +you altogether? Is it any more difficult to see that the first +time he tries to do his duty he washes his hands of +<i>her</i>—takes you straight away from her?"</p> + +<p>Maisie turned this over, but more for apparent consideration than +from any impulse to yield too easily. "Yes, I see what you mean. +But at that time they weren't free." She felt Mrs. Wix rear up +again at the offensive word, but she succeeded in touching her +with a remonstrant hand. "I don't think you know how free they've +become."</p> + +<p>"I know, I believe, at least as much as you do!"</p> + +<p>Maisie felt a delicacy but overcame it. "About the Countess?"</p> + +<p>"Your father's—temptress?" Mrs. Wix gave her a sidelong squint. +"Perfectly. She pays him!"</p> + +<p>"Oh <i>does</i> she?" At this the child's countenance fell: it +seemed to give a reason for papa's behaviour and place it in a more +favourable light. She wished to be just. "I don't say she's not +generous. She was so to me."</p> + +<p>"How, to you?"</p> + +<p>"She gave me a lot of money."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix stared. "And pray what did you do with a lot of money?"</p> + +<p>"I gave it to Mrs. Beale."</p> + +<p>"And what did Mrs. Beale do with it?"</p> + +<p>"She sent it back."</p> + +<p>"To the Countess? Gammon!" said Mrs. Wix. She disposed of that +plea as effectually as Susan Ash.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't care!" Maisie replied. "What I mean is that you +don't know about the rest."</p> + +<p>"The rest? What rest?"</p> + +<p>Maisie wondered how she could best put it. "Papa kept me there an +hour."</p> + +<p>"I do know—Sir Claude told me. Mrs. Beale had told him."</p> + +<p>Maisie looked incredulity. "How could she—when I didn't speak of +it?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix was mystified. "Speak of what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of her being so frightful."</p> + +<p>"The Countess? Of course she's frightful!" Mrs. Wix returned. +After a moment she added: "That's why she pays him."</p> + +<p>Maisie pondered. "It's the best thing about her then—if she gives +him as much as she gave <i>me</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's not the best thing about <i>him</i>! Or rather +perhaps it <i>is</i> too!" Mrs. Wix subjoined.</p> + +<p>"But she's awful—really and truly," Maisie went on.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix arrested her. "You needn't go into details!" It was +visibly at variance with this injunction that she yet enquired: +"How does that make it any better?"</p> + +<p>"Their living with me? Why for the Countess—and for her +whiskers!—he has put me off on them. I understood him," Maisie +profoundly said.</p> + +<p>"I hope then he understood you. It's more than I do!" Mrs. Wix +admitted.</p> + +<p>This was a real challenge to be plainer, and our young lady +immediately became so. "I mean it isn't a crime."</p> + +<p>"Why then did Sir Claude steal you away?"</p> + +<p>"He didn't steal—he only borrowed me. I knew it wasn't for long," +Maisie audaciously professed.</p> + +<p>"You must allow me to reply to that," cried Mrs. Wix, "that you +knew nothing of the sort, and that you rather basely failed to +back me up last night when you pretended so plump that you did! +You hoped in fact, exactly as much as I did and as in my senseless +passion I even hope now, that this may be the beginning of better +things."</p> + +<p>Oh yes, Mrs. Wix was indeed, for the first time, sharp; so that +there at last stirred in our heroine the sense not so much of +being proved disingenuous as of being precisely accused of the +meanness that had brought everything down on her through her very +desire to shake herself clear of it. She suddenly felt herself +swell with a passion of protest. "I never, <i>never</i> hoped I +wasn't going again to see Mrs. Beale! I didn't, I didn't, I didn't!" +she repeated. Mrs. Wix bounced about with a force of rejoinder of +which she also felt that she must anticipate the concussion and +which, though the good lady was evidently charged to the brim, +hung fire long enough to give time for an aggravation. "She's +beautiful and I love her! I love her and she's beautiful!"</p> + +<p>"And I'm hideous and you hate <i>me</i>?" Mrs. Wix fixed her a +moment, then caught herself up. "I won't embitter you by absolutely +accusing you of that; though, as for my being hideous, it's hardly +the first time I've been told so! I know it so well that even if I +haven't whiskers—have I?—I dare say there are other ways in +which the Countess is a Venus to me! My pretensions must therefore +seem to you monstrous—which comes to the same thing as your not +liking me. But do you mean to go so far as to tell me that you +<i>want</i> to live with them in their sin?"</p> + +<p>"You know what I want, you know what I want!"—Maisie spoke with +the shudder of rising tears.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do; you want me to be as bad as yourself! Well, I won't. +There! Mrs. Beale's as bad as your father!" Mrs. Wix went on.</p> + +<p>"She's not!—she's not!" her pupil almost shrieked in retort.</p> + +<p>"You mean because Sir Claude at least has beauty and wit and +grace? But he pays just as the Countess pays!" Mrs. Wix, who now +rose as she spoke, fairly revealed a latent cynicism.</p> + +<p>It raised Maisie also to her feet; her companion had walked off a +few steps and paused. The two looked at each other as they had +never looked, and Mrs. Wix seemed to flaunt there in her finery. +"Then doesn't he pay <i>you</i> too?" her unhappy charge +demanded.</p> + +<p>At this she bounded in her place. "Oh you incredible little waif!" +She brought it out with a wail of violence; after which, with +another convulsion, she marched straight away.</p> + +<p>Maisie dropped back on the bench and burst into sobs.</p> + + +<p> <a name="26"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XXVI<br /> </h3> + + +<p>Nothing so dreadful of course could be final or even for many +minutes prolonged: they rushed together again too soon for either +to feel that either had kept it up, and though they went home in +silence it was with a vivid perception for Maisie that her +companion's hand had closed upon her. That hand had shown +altogether, these twenty-four hours, a new capacity for closing, +and one of the truths the child could least resist was that a +certain greatness had now come to Mrs. Wix. The case was indeed +that the quality of her motive surpassed the sharpness of her +angles; both the combination and the singularity of which things, +when in the afternoon they used the carriage, Maisie could borrow +from the contemplative hush of their grandeur the freedom to feel +to the utmost. She still bore the mark of the tone in which her +friend had thrown out that threat of never losing sight of her. +This friend had been converted in short from feebleness to force; +and it was the light of her new authority that showed from how far +she had come. The threat in question, sharply exultant, might have +produced defiance; but before anything so ugly could happen +another process had insidiously forestalled it. The moment at +which this process had begun to mature was that of Mrs. Wix's +breaking out with a dignity attuned to their own apartments and +with an advantage now measurably gained. They had ordered coffee +after luncheon, in the spirit of Sir Claude's provision, and it +was served to them while they awaited their equipage in the white +and gold saloon. It was flanked moreover with a couple of +liqueurs, and Maisie felt that Sir Claude could scarce have been +taken more at his word had it been followed by anecdotes and +cigarettes. The influence of these luxuries was at any rate in the +air. It seemed to her while she tiptoed at the chimney-glass, +pulling on her gloves and with a motion of her head shaking a +feather into place, to have had something to do with Mrs. Wix's +suddenly saying: "Haven't you really and truly <i>any</i> moral +sense?"</p> + +<p>Maisie was aware that her answer, though it brought her down to +her heels, was vague even to imbecility, and that this was the +first time she had appeared to practise with Mrs. Wix an +intellectual inaptitude to meet her—the infirmity to which she +had owed so much success with papa and mamma. The appearance did +her injustice, for it was not less through her candour than +through her playfellow's pressure that after this the idea of a +moral sense mainly coloured their intercourse. She began, the poor +child, with scarcely knowing what it was; but it proved something +that, with scarce an outward sign save her surrender to the swing +of the carriage, she could, before they came back from their +drive, strike up a sort of acquaintance with. The beauty of the +day only deepened, and the splendour of the afternoon sea, and the +haze of the far headlands, and the taste of the sweet air. It was +the coachman indeed who, smiling and cracking his whip, turning in +his place, pointing to invisible objects and uttering +unintelligible sounds—all, our tourists recognised, strict +features of a social order principally devoted to language: it was +this polite person, I say, who made their excursion fall so much +short that their return left them still a stretch of the long +daylight and an hour that, at his obliging suggestion, they spent +on foot by the shining sands. Maisie had seen the <i>plage</i> the +day before with Sir Claude, but that was a reason the more for +showing on the spot to Mrs. Wix that it was, as she said, another +of the places on her list and of the things of which she knew the +French name. The bathers, so late, were absent and the tide was +low; the sea-pools twinkled in the sunset and there were dry +places as well, where they could sit again and admire and +expatiate: a circumstance that, while they listened to the lap of +the waves, gave Mrs. Wix a fresh support for her challenge. "Have +you absolutely none at all?"</p> + +<p>She had no need now, as to the question itself at least, to be +specific; that on the other hand was the eventual result of their +quiet conjoined apprehension of the thing that—well, yes, since +they must face it—Maisie absolutely and appallingly had so little +of. This marked more particularly the moment of the child's +perceiving that her friend had risen to a level which might—till +superseded at all events—pass almost for sublime. Nothing more +remarkable had taken place in the first heat of her own departure, +no act of perception less to be overtraced by our rough method, +than her vision, the rest of that Boulogne day, of the manner in +which she figured. I so despair of courting her noiseless mental +footsteps here that I must crudely give you my word for its being +from this time forward a picture literally present to her. Mrs. +Wix saw her as a little person knowing so extraordinarily much +that, for the account to be taken of it, what she still didn't +know would be ridiculous if it hadn't been embarrassing. Mrs. Wix +was in truth more than ever qualified to meet embarrassment; I am +not sure that Maisie had not even a dim discernment of the queer +law of her own life that made her educate to that sort of +proficiency those elders with whom she was concerned. She +promoted, as it were, their development; nothing could have been +more marked for instance than her success in promoting Mrs. +Beale's. She judged that if her whole history, for Mrs. Wix, had +been the successive stages of her knowledge, so the very climax of +the concatenation would, in the same view, be the stage at which +the knowledge should overflow. As she was condemned to know more +and more, how could it logically stop before she should know Most? +It came to her in fact as they sat there on the sands that she was +distinctly on the road to know Everything. She had not had +governesses for nothing: what in the world had she ever done but +learn and learn and learn? She looked at the pink sky with a +placid foreboding that she soon should have learnt All. They +lingered in the flushed air till at last it turned to grey and she +seemed fairly to receive new information from every brush of the +breeze. By the time they moved homeward it was as if this +inevitability had become for Mrs. Wix a long, tense cord, twitched +by a nervous hand, on which the valued pearls of intelligence were +to be neatly strung.</p> + +<p>In the evening upstairs they had another strange sensation, as to +which Maisie couldn't afterwards have told you whether it was bang +in the middle or quite at the beginning that her companion sounded +with fresh emphasis the note of the moral sense. What mattered was +merely that she did exclaim, and again, as at first appeared, most +disconnectedly: "God help me, it does seem to peep out!" Oh the +queer confusions that had wooed it at last to such peeping! None +so queer, however, as the words of woe, and it might verily be +said of rage, in which the poor lady bewailed the tragic end of +her own rich ignorance. There was a point at which she seized the +child and hugged her as close as in the old days of partings and +returns; at which she was visibly at a loss how to make up to such +a victim for such contaminations: appealing, as to what she had +done and was doing, in bewilderment, in explanation, in +supplication, for reassurance, for pardon and even outright for +pity.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I've said to you, my own: I don't know what I'm +saying or what the turn you've given my life has rendered me, +heaven forgive me, capable of saying. Have I lost all delicacy, +all decency, all measure of how far and how bad? It seems to me +mostly that I have, though I'm the last of whom you would ever +have thought it. I've just done it for <i>you</i>, precious—not to +lose you, which would have been worst of all: so that I've had to +pay with my own innocence, if you do laugh! for clinging to you and +keeping you. Don't let me pay for nothing; don't let me have been +thrust for nothing into such horrors and such shames. I never knew +anything about them and I never wanted to know! Now I know too +much, too much!" the poor woman lamented and groaned. "I know so +much that with hearing such talk I ask myself where I am; and with +uttering it too, which is worse, say to myself that I'm far, too +far, from where I started! I ask myself what I should have thought +with my lost one if I had heard myself cross the line. There are +lines I've crossed with <i>you</i> where I should have fancied I had +come to a pretty pass—" She gasped at the mere supposition. "I've +gone from one thing to another, and all for the real love of you; +and now what would any one say—I mean any one but <i>them</i>—if +they were to hear the way I go on? I've had to keep up with you, +haven't I?—and therefore what could I do less than look to you to +keep up with <i>me</i>? But it's not <i>them</i> that are the +worst—by which I mean to say it's not <i>him</i>: it's your +dreadfully base papa and the one person in the world whom he could +have found, I do believe—and she's not the Countess, +duck—wickeder than himself. While they were about it at any rate, +since they <i>were</i> ruining you, they might have done it so as +to spare an honest woman. Then I shouldn't have +had to do whatever it is that's the worst: throw up at you the +badness you haven't taken in, or find my advantage in the vileness +you <i>have</i>! What I did lose patience at this morning was at +how it was that without your seeming to condemn—for you didn't, +you remember!—you yet did seem to <i>know</i>. Thank God, in his +mercy, at last, <i>if</i> you do!"</p> + +<p>The night, this time, was warm, and one of the windows stood open +to the small balcony over the rail of which, on coming back from +dinner, Maisie had hung a long time in the enjoyment of the +chatter, the lights, the life of the quay made brilliant by the +season and the hour. Mrs. Wix's requirements had drawn her in from +this pasture and Mrs. Wix's embrace had detained her even though +midway in the outpouring her confusion and sympathy had permitted, +or rather had positively helped, her to disengage herself. But the +casement was still wide, the spectacle, the pleasure were still +there, and from her place in the room, which, with its polished +floor and its panels of elegance, was lighted from without more +than from within, the child could still take account of them. She +appeared to watch and listen; after which she answered Mrs. Wix +with a question. "If I do know—?"</p> + +<p>"If you do condemn." The correction was made with some austerity.</p> + +<p>It had the effect of causing Maisie to heave a vague sigh of +oppression and then after an instant and as if under cover of this +ambiguity pass out again upon the balcony. She hung again over the +rail; she felt the summer night; she dropped down into the manners +of France. There was a café below the hotel, before which, +with little chairs and tables, people sat on a space enclosed by +plants in tubs; and the impression was enriched by the flash of the +white aprons of waiters and the music of a man and a woman who, from +beyond the precinct, sent up the strum of a guitar and the drawl +of a song about "amour." Maisie knew what "amour" meant too, and +wondered if Mrs. Wix did: Mrs. Wix remained within, as still as a +mouse and perhaps not reached by the performance. After a while, +but not till the musicians had ceased and begun to circulate with +a little plate, her pupil came back to her. "<i>Is</i> it a crime?" +Maisie then asked.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix was as prompt as if she had been crouching in a lair. +"Branded by the Bible."</p> + +<p>"Well, he won't commit a crime."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix looked at her gloomily. "He's committing one now."</p> + +<p>"Now?"</p> + +<p>"In being with her."</p> + +<p>Maisie had it on her tongue's end to return once more: "But now +he's free." She remembered, however, in time that one of the +things she had known for the last entire hour was that this made +no difference. After that, and as if to turn the right way, she +was on the point of a blind dash, a weak reversion to the reminder +that it might make a difference, might diminish the crime for Mrs. +Beale; till such a reflexion was in its order also quashed by the +visibility in Mrs. Wix's face of the collapse produced by her +inference from her pupil's manner that after all her pains her +pupil didn't even yet adequately understand. Never so much as when +confronted had Maisie wanted to understand, and all her thought +for a minute centred in the effort to come out with something +which should be a disproof of her simplicity. "Just <i>trust</i> +me, dear; that's all!"—she came out finally with that; and it was +perhaps a good sign of her action that with a long, impartial moan +Mrs. Wix floated her to bed.</p> + +<p>There was no letter the next morning from Sir Claude—which Mrs. +Wix let out that she deemed the worst of omens; yet it was just +for the quieter communion they so got with him that, when after +the coffee and rolls which made them more foreign than ever, it +came to going forth for fresh drafts upon his credit they wandered +again up the hill to the rampart instead of plunging into +distraction with the crowd on the sands or into the sea with the +semi-nude bathers. They gazed once more at their gilded Virgin; +they sank once more upon their battered bench; they felt once more +their distance from the Regent's Park. At last Mrs. Wix became +definite about their friend's silence. "He <i>is</i> afraid of her! +She has forbidden him to write." The fact of his fear Maisie +already knew; but her companion's mention of it had at this moment +two unexpected results. The first was her wondering in dumb +remonstrance how Mrs. Wix, with a devotion not after all inferior +to her own, could put into such an allusion such a grimness of +derision; the second was that she found herself suddenly drop into +a deeper view of it. She too had been afraid, as we have seen, of +the people of whom Sir Claude was afraid, and by that law she had +had her due measure of latest apprehension of Mrs. Beale. What +occurred at present, however, was that, whereas this sympathy +appeared vain as for him, the ground of it loomed dimly as a +reason for selfish alarm. That uneasiness had not carried her far +before Mrs. Wix spoke again and with an abruptness so great as +almost to seem irrelevant. "Has it never occurred to you to be +jealous of her?"</p> + +<p>It never had in the least; yet the words were scarce in the air +before Maisie had jumped at them. She held them well, she looked +at them hard; at last she brought out with an assurance which +there was no one, alas, but herself to admire: "Well, yes—since +you ask me." She debated, then continued: "Lots of times!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix glared askance an instant; such approval as her look +expressed was not wholly unqualified. It expressed at any rate +something that presumably had to do with her saying once more: +"Yes. He's afraid of her."</p> + +<p>Maisie heard, and it had afresh its effect on her even through the +blur of the attention now required by the possibility of that idea +of jealousy—a possibility created only by her feeling she had +thus found the way to show she was not simple. It struck out of +Mrs. Wix that this lady still believed her moral sense to be +interested and feigned; so what could be such a gage of her +sincerity as a peep of the most restless of the passions? Such a +revelation would baffle discouragement, and discouragement was in +fact so baffled that, helped in some degree by the mere intensity +of their need to hope, which also, according to its nature, sprang +from the dark portent of the absent letter, the real pitch of +their morning was reached by the note, not of mutual scrutiny, but +of unprecedented frankness. There were broodings indeed and +silences, and Maisie sank deeper into the vision that for her +friend she was, at the most, superficial, and that also, +positively, she was the more so the more she tried to appear +complete. Was the sum of all knowledge only to know how little in +this presence one would ever reach it? The answer to that question +luckily lost itself in the brightness suffusing the scene as soon +as Maisie had thrown out in regard to Mrs. Beale such a remark as +she had never dreamed she should live to make. "If I thought she +was unkind to him—I don't know <i>what</i> I should do!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix dropped one of her squints; she even confirmed it by a +wild grunt. "I know what <i>I</i> should!"</p> + +<p>Maisie at this felt that she lagged. "Well, I can think of +<i>one</i> thing."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix more directly challenged her. "What is it then?"</p> + +<p>Maisie met her expression as if it were a game with forfeits for +winking. "I'd <i>kill</i> her!" That at least, she hoped as she +looked away, would guarantee her moral sense. She looked away, but +her companion said nothing for so long that she at last turned her +head again. Then she saw the straighteners all blurred with tears +which after a little seemed to have sprung from her own eyes. +There were tears in fact on both sides of the spectacles, and they +were even so thick that it was presently all Maisie could do to +make out through them that slowly, finally Mrs. Wix put forth a +hand. It was the material pressure that settled this and even at +the end of some minutes more things besides. It settled in its own +way one thing in particular, which, though often, between them, +heaven knew, hovered round and hung over, was yet to be +established without the shadow of an attenuating smile. Oh there +was no gleam of levity, as little of humour as of deprecation, in +the long time they now sat together or in the way in which at some +unmeasured point of it Mrs. Wix became distinct enough for her own +dignity and yet not loud enough for the snoozing old women.</p> + +<p>"I adore him. I adore him."</p> + +<p>Maisie took it well in; so well that in a moment more she would +have answered profoundly: "So do I." But before that moment passed +something took place that brought other words to her lips; nothing +more, very possibly, than the closer consciousness in her hand of +the significance of Mrs. Wix's. Their hands remained linked in +unutterable sign of their union, and what Maisie at last said was +simply and serenely: "Oh I know!"</p> + +<p>Their hands were so linked and their union was so confirmed that +it took the far deep note of a bell, borne to them on the summer +air, to call them back to a sense of hours and proprieties. They +had touched bottom and melted together, but they gave a start at +last: the bell was the voice of the inn and the inn was the image +of luncheon. They should be late for it; they got up, and their +quickened step on the return had something of the swing of +confidence. When they reached the hotel the <i>table d'hôte</i> +had begun; this was clear from the threshold, clear from the absence +in the hall and on the stairs of the "personnel," as Mrs. Wix +said—she had picked <i>that</i> up—all collected in the +dining-room. They mounted to their apartments for a brush before +the glass, and it was Maisie who, in passing and from a vain +impulse, threw open the white and gold door. She was thus first +to utter the sound that brought Mrs. Wix almost on top of her, as +by the other accident it would have brought her on top of Mrs. Wix. +It had at any rate the effect of leaving them bunched together in +a strained stare at their new situation. This situation had put on +in a flash the bright form of Mrs. Beale: she stood there in her +hat and her jacket, amid bags and shawls, smiling and holding out +her arms. If she had just arrived it was a different figure from +either of the two that for <i>their</i> benefit, wan and tottering +and none too soon to save life, the Channel had recently disgorged. +She was as lovely as the day that had brought her over, as fresh +as the luck and the health that attended her: it came to Maisie on +the spot that she was more beautiful than she had ever been. All +this was too quick to count, but there was still time in it to +give the child the sense of what had kindled the light. That +leaped out of the open arms, the open eyes, the open mouth; it +leaped out with Mrs. Beale's loud cry at her: "I'm free, I'm +free!"</p> + + +<p> <a name="27"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XXVII<br /> </h3> + + +<p>The greatest wonder of all was the way Mrs. Beale addressed her +announcement, so far as could be judged, equally to Mrs. Wix, who, +as if from sudden failure of strength, sank into a chair while +Maisie surrendered to the visitor's embrace. As soon as the child +was liberated she met with profundity Mrs. Wix's stupefaction and +actually was able to see that while in a manner sustaining the +encounter her face yet seemed with intensity to say: "Now, for +God's sake, don't crow 'I told you so!'" Maisie was somehow on the +spot aware of an absence of disposition to crow; it had taken her +but an extra minute to arrive at such a quick survey of the +objects surrounding Mrs. Beale as showed that among them was no +appurtenance of Sir Claude's. She knew his dressing-bag now—oh +with the fondest knowledge!—and there was an instant during which +its not being there was a stroke of the worst news. She was yet to +learn what it could be to recognise in some lapse of a sequence +the proof of an extinction, and therefore remained unaware that +this momentary pang was a foretaste of the experience of death. It +of course yielded in a flash to Mrs. Beale's brightness, it gasped +itself away in her own instant appeal. "You've come alone?"</p> + +<p>"Without Sir Claude?" Strangely, Mrs. Beale looked even brighter. +"Yes; in the eagerness to get at you. You abominable little +villain!"—and her stepmother, laughing clear, administered to her +cheek a pat that was partly a pinch. "What were you up to and what +did you take me for? But I'm glad to be abroad, and after all it's +you who have shown me the way. I mightn't, without you, have been +able to come—to come, that is, so soon. Well, here I am at any +rate and in a moment more I should have begun to worry about you. +This will do very well"—she was good-natured about the place and +even presently added that it was charming. Then with a rosier glow +she made again her great point: "I'm free, I'm free!" Maisie made +on her side her own: she carried back her gaze to Mrs. Wix, whom +amazement continued to hold; she drew afresh her old friend's +attention to the superior way she didn't take that up. What she +did take up the next minute was the question of Sir Claude. "Where +is he? Won't he come?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale's consideration of this oscillated with a smile between +the two expectancies with which she was flanked: it was +conspicuous, it was extraordinary, her unblinking acceptance of +Mrs. Wix, a miracle of which Maisie had even now begun to read a +reflexion in that lady's long visage. "He'll come, but we must +<i>make</i> him!" she gaily brought forth.</p> + +<p>"Make him?" Maisie echoed.</p> + +<p>"We must give him time. We must play our cards."</p> + +<p>"But he promised us awfully," Maisie replied.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, he has promised <i>me</i> awfully; I mean lots +of things, and not in every case kept his promise to the letter." +Mrs. Beale's good humour insisted on taking for granted Mrs. Wix's, +to whom her attention had suddenly grown prodigious. "I dare say +he has done the same with you, and not always come to time. But +he makes it up in his own way—and it isn't as if we didn't know +exactly what he is. There's one thing he is," she went on, "which +makes everything else only a question, for us, of tact." They +scarce had time to wonder what this was before, as they might have +said, it flew straight into their face. "He's as free as I am!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," said Maisie; as if, however, independently weighing +the value of that. She really weighed also the oddity of her +stepmother's treating it as news to <i>her</i>, who had been the +first person literally to whom Sir Claude had mentioned it. For a +few seconds, as if with the sound of it in her ears, she stood with +him again, in memory and in the twilight, in the hotel garden at +Folkestone.</p> + +<p>Anything Mrs. Beale overlooked was, she indeed divined, but the +effect of an exaltation of high spirits, a tendency to soar that +showed even when she dropped—still quite impartially—almost to +the confidential. "Well, then—we've only to wait. He can't do +without us long. I'm sure, Mrs. Wix, he can't do without +<i>you</i>! He's devoted to you; he has told me so much about you. +The extent I count on you, you know, count on you to help me—" +was an extent that even all her radiance couldn't express. What it +couldn't express quite as much as what it could made at any rate +every instant her presence and even her famous freedom loom +larger; and it was this mighty mass that once more led her +companions, bewildered and disjoined, to exchange with each other +as through a thickening veil confused and ineffectual signs. They +clung together at least on the common ground of unpreparedness, +and Maisie watched without relief the havoc of wonder in Mrs. Wix. +It had reduced her to perfect impotence, and, but that gloom was +black upon her, she sat as if fascinated by Mrs. Beale's high +style. It had plunged her into a long deep hush; for what had +happened was the thing she had least allowed for and before which +the particular rigour she had worked up could only grow limp and +sick. Sir Claude was to have reappeared with his accomplice or +without her; never, never his accomplice without <i>him</i>. Mrs. +Beale had gained apparently by this time an advantage she could +pursue: she looked at the droll dumb figure with jesting +reproach. "You really won't shake hands with me? Never mind; +you'll come round!" She put the matter to no test, going on +immediately and, instead of offering her hand, raising it, with +a pretty gesture that her bent head met, to a long black pin that +played a part in her back hair. "Are hats worn at luncheon? If +you're as hungry as I am we must go right down."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix stuck fast, but she met the question in a voice her +pupil scarce recognised. "I wear mine."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale, swallowing at one glance her brand-new bravery, +which she appeared at once to refer to its origin and to follow +in its flights, accepted this as conclusive. "Oh but I've not +such a beauty!" Then she turned rejoicingly to Maisie. "I've +got a beauty for <i>you</i> my dear."</p> + +<p>"A beauty?"</p> + +<p>"A love of a hat—in my luggage. I remembered <i>that</i>"—she +nodded at the object on her stepdaughter's head—"and I've brought +you one with a peacock's breast. It's the most gorgeous blue!"</p> + +<p>It was too strange, this talking with her there already not about +Sir Claude but about peacocks—too strange for the child to have +the presence of mind to thank her. But the felicity in which she +had arrived was so proof against everything that Maisie felt more +and more the depth of the purpose that must underlie it. She had a +vague sense of its being abysmal, the spirit with which Mrs. Beale +carried off the awkwardness, in the white and gold salon, of such +a want of breath and of welcome. Mrs. Wix was more breathless than +ever; the embarrassment of Mrs. Beale's isolation was as nothing +to the embarrassment of her grace. The perception of this dilemma +was the germ on the child's part of a new question altogether. +What if <i>with</i> this indulgence—? But the idea lost itself in +something too frightened for hope and too conjectured for fear; +and while everything went by leaps and bounds one of the waiters +stood at the door to remind them that the <i>table d'hôte</i> +was half over.</p> + +<p>"Had you come up to wash hands?" Mrs. Beale hereupon asked them. +"Go and do it quickly and I'll be with you: they've put my boxes +in that nice room—it was Sir Claude's. Trust him," she laughed, +"to have a nice one!" The door of a neighbouring room stood open, +and now from the threshold, addressing herself again to Mrs. Wix, +she launched a note that gave the very key of what, as she would +have said, she was up to. "Dear lady, please attend to my +daughter."</p> + +<p>She was up to a change of deportment so complete that it +represented—oh for offices still honourably subordinate if not +too explicitly menial—an absolute coercion, an interested clutch +of the old woman's respectability. There was response, to Maisie's +view, I may say at once, in the jump of that respectability to its +feet: it was itself capable of one of the leaps, one of the bounds +just mentioned, and it carried its charge, with this momentum and +while Mrs. Beale popped into Sir Claude's chamber, straight away +to where, at the end of the passage, pupil and governess were +quartered. The greatest stride of all, for that matter, was that +within a few seconds the pupil had, in another relation, been +converted into a daughter. Maisie's eyes were still following it +when, after the rush, with the door almost slammed and no thought +of soap and towels, the pair stood face to face. Mrs. Wix, in this +position, was the first to gasp a sound. "Can it ever be that +<i>she</i> has one?"</p> + +<p>Maisie felt still more bewildered. "One what?"</p> + +<p>"Why moral sense."</p> + +<p>They spoke as if you might have two, but Mrs. Wix looked as if it +were not altogether a happy thought, and Maisie didn't see how +even an affirmative from her own lips would clear up what had +become most of a mystery. It was to this larger puzzle she sprang +pretty straight. "<i>Is</i> she my mother now?"</p> + +<p>It was a point as to which an horrific glimpse of the +responsibility of an opinion appeared to affect Mrs. Wix like a +blow in the stomach. She had evidently never thought of it; but +she could think and rebound. "If she is, he's equally your +father."</p> + +<p>Maisie, however, thought further. "Then my father and my +mother—!"</p> + +<p>But she had already faltered and Mrs. Wix had already glared back: +"Ought to live together? Don't begin it <i>again</i>!" She turned +away with a groan, to reach the washing-stand, and Maisie could by +this time recognise with a certain ease that that way verily madness +did lie. Mrs. Wix gave a great untidy splash, but the next instant +had faced round. "She has taken a new line."</p> + +<p>"She was nice to you," Maisie concurred.</p> + +<p>"What <i>she</i> thinks so—'go and dress the young lady!' +But it's something!" she panted. Then she thought out the +rest. "If he won't have her, why she'll have <i>you</i>. +She'll be the one."</p> + +<p>"The one to keep me abroad?"</p> + +<p>"The one to give you a home." Mrs. Wix saw further; she mastered +all the portents. "Oh she's cruelly clever! It's not a moral +sense." She reached her climax: "It's a game!"</p> + +<p>"A game?"</p> + +<p>"Not to lose him. She has sacrificed him—to her duty."</p> + +<p>"Then won't he come?" Maisie pleaded.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix made no answer; her vision absorbed her. "He has fought. +But she has won."</p> + +<p>"Then won't he come?" the child repeated.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix made it out. "Yes, hang him!" She had never been so +profane.</p> + +<p>For all Maisie minded! "Soon—to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Too soon—whenever. Indecently soon."</p> + +<p>"But then we <i>shall</i> be together!" the child went on. +It made Mrs. Wix look at her as if in exasperation; but nothing +had time to come before she precipitated: "Together with +<i>you</i>!" The air of criticism continued, but took voice only +in her companion's bidding her wash herself and come down. The +silence of quick ablutions fell upon them, presently broken, +however, by one of Maisie's sudden reversions. "Mercy, isn't +she handsome?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix had finished; she waited. "She'll attract attention." +They were rapid, and it would have been noticed that the shock the +beauty had given them acted, incongruously, as a positive spur to +their preparations for rejoining her. She had none the less, when +they returned to the sitting-room, already descended; the open +door of her room showed it empty and the chambermaid explained. +Here again they were delayed by another sharp thought of Mrs. +Wix's. "But what will she live on meanwhile?"</p> + +<p>Maisie stopped short. "Till Sir Claude comes?"</p> + +<p>It was nothing to the violence with which her friend had been +arrested. "Who'll pay the bills?"</p> + +<p>Maisie thought. "Can't <i>she</i>?"</p> + +<p>"She? She hasn't a penny."</p> + +<p>The child wondered. "But didn't papa—?"</p> + +<p>"Leave her a fortune?" Mrs. Wix would have appeared to speak of +papa as dead had she not immediately added: "Why he lives on other +women!"</p> + +<p>Oh yes, Maisie remembered. "Then can't he send—" She faltered +again; even to herself it sounded queer.</p> + +<p>"Some of their money to his wife?" Mrs. Wix pave a laugh still +stranger than the weird suggestion. "I dare say she'd take it!"</p> + +<p>They hurried on again; yet again, on the stairs, Maisie pulled up. +"Well, if she had stopped in England—!" she threw out.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix considered. "And he had come over instead?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, as we expected." Maisie launched her speculation. "What then +would she have lived on?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix hung fire but an instant. "On other men!" And she marched +downstairs.</p> + + +<p> <a name="28"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XXVIII<br /> </h3> + + +<p>Mrs. Beale, at table between the pair, plainly attracted the +attention Mrs. Wix had foretold. No other lady present was nearly +so handsome, nor did the beauty of any other accommodate itself +with such art to the homage it produced. She talked mainly to her +other neighbour, and that left Maisie leisure both to note the +manner in which eyes were riveted and nudges interchanged, and to +lose herself in the meanings that, dimly as yet and +disconnectedly, but with a vividness that fed apprehension, she +could begin to read into her stepmother's independent move. Mrs. +Wix had helped her by talking of a game; it was a connexion in +which the move could put on a strategic air. Her notions of +diplomacy were thin, but it was a kind of cold diplomatic shoulder +and an elbow of more than usual point that, temporarily at least, +were presented to her by the averted inclination of Mrs. Beale's +head. There was a phrase familiar to Maisie, so often was it used +by this lady to express the idea of one's getting what one wanted: +one got it—Mrs. Beale always said <i>she</i> at all events always +got it or proposed to get it—by "making love." She was at present +making love, singular as it appeared, to Mrs. Wix, and her young +friend's mind had never moved in such freedom as on thus finding +itself face to face with the question of what she wanted to get. +This period of the <i>omelette aux rognons</i> and the <i>poulet +sauté</i>, while her sole surviving parent, her fourth, +fairly chattered to her governess, left Maisie rather wondering if +her governess would hold out. It was strange, but she became on +the spot quite as interested in Mrs. Wix's moral sense as Mrs. Wix +could possibly be in hers: it had risen before her so pressingly +that this was something new for Mrs. Wix to resist. Resisting Mrs. +Beale herself promised at such a rate to become a very different +business from resisting Sir Claude's view of her. More might come +of what had happened—whatever it was—than Maisie felt she could +have expected. She put it together with a suspicion that, had she +ever in her life had a sovereign changed, would have resembled an +impression, baffled by the want of arithmetic, that her change was +wrong: she groped about in it that she was perhaps playing the +passive part in a case of violent substitution. A victim was what +she should surely be if the issue between her step-parents had +been settled by Mrs. Beale's saying: "Well, if she can live with +but one of us alone, with which in the world should it be but me?" +That answer was far from what, for days, she had nursed herself +in, and the desolation of it was deepened by the absence of +anything from Sir Claude to show he had not had to take it as +triumphant. Had not Mrs. Beale, upstairs, as good as given out +that she had quitted him with the snap of a tension, left him, +dropped him in London, after some struggle as a sequel to which +her own advent represented that she had practically sacrificed +him? Maisie assisted in fancy at the probable episode in the +Regent's Park, finding elements almost of terror in the suggestion +that Sir Claude had not had fair play. They drew something, as she +sat there, even from the pride of an association with such beauty +as Mrs. Beale's; and the child quite forgot that, though the +sacrifice of Mrs. Beale herself was a solution she had not +invented, she would probably have seen Sir Claude embark upon it +without a direct remonstrance.</p> + +<p>What her stepmother had clearly now promised herself +to wring from Mrs. Wix was an assent to the great +modification, the change, as smart as a juggler's trick, in the +interest of which nothing so much mattered as the new convenience +of Mrs. Beale. Maisie could positively seize the moral that her +elbow seemed to point in ribs thinly defended—the moral of its +not mattering a straw which of the step-parents was the guardian. +The essence of the question was that a girl wasn't a boy: if +Maisie had been a mere rough trousered thing, destined at the best +probably to grow up a scamp, Sir Claude would have been welcome. +As the case stood he had simply tumbled out of it, and Mrs. Wix +would henceforth find herself in the employ of the right person. +These arguments had really fallen into their place, for our young +friend, at the very touch of that tone in which she had heard her +new title declared. She was still, as a result of so many parents, +a daughter to somebody even after papa and mamma were to all +intents dead. If her father's wife and her mother's husband, by +the operation of a natural or, for all she knew, a legal rule, +were in the shoes of their defunct partners, then Mrs. Beale's +partner was exactly as defunct as Sir Claude's and her shoes the +very pair to which, in "Farange <i>v.</i> Farange and Others," the +divorce court had given priority. The subject of that celebrated +settlement saw the rest of her day really filled out with the pomp +of all that Mrs. Beale assumed. The assumption rounded itself +there between this lady's entertainers, flourished in a way that +left them, in their bottomless element, scarce a free pair of eyes +to exchange signals. It struck Maisie even a little that there was +a rope or two Mrs. Wix might have thrown out if she would, a +rocket or two she might have sent up. They had at any rate never +been so long together without communion or telegraphy, and their +companion kept them apart by simply keeping them with her. From +this situation they saw the grandeur of their intenser relation to +her pass and pass like an endless procession. It was a day of +lively movement and of talk on Mrs. Beale's part so brilliant and +overflowing as to represent music and banners. She took them out +with her promptly to walk and to drive, and even—towards +night—sketched a plan for carrying them to the Etablissement, +where, for only a franc apiece, they should listen to a concert of +celebrities. It reminded Maisie, the plan, of the side-shows at +Earl's Court, and the franc sounded brighter than the shillings +which had at that time failed; yet this too, like the other, was a +frustrated hope: the francs failed like the shillings and the +side-shows had set an example to the concert. The Etablissement in +short melted away, and it was little wonder that a lady who from +the moment of her arrival had been so gallantly in the breach +should confess herself it last done up. Maisie could appreciate +her fatigue; the day had not passed without such an observer's +discovering that she was excited and even mentally comparing her +state to that of the breakers after a gale. It had blown hard in +London, and she would take time to go down. It was of the +condition known to the child by report as that of talking against +time that her emphasis, her spirit, her humour, which had never +dropped, now gave the impression.</p> + +<p>She too was delighted with foreign manners; but her daughter's +opportunities of explaining them to her were unexpectedly +forestalled by her own tone of large acquaintance with them. One +of the things that nipped in the bud all response to her +volubility was Maisie's surprised retreat before the fact that +Continental life was what she had been almost brought up on. It +was Mrs. Beale, disconcertingly, who began to explain it to her +friends; it was she who, wherever they turned, was the +interpreter, the historian and the guide. She was full of +reference to her early travels—at the age of eighteen: she had at +that period made, with a distinguished Dutch family, a stay on the +Lake of Geneva. Maisie had in the old days been regaled with +anecdotes of these adventures, but they had with time become +phantasmal, and the heroine's quite showy exemption from +bewilderment at Boulogne, her acuteness on some of the very +subjects on which Maisie had been acute to Mrs. Wix, were a high +note of the majesty, of the variety of advantage, with which she +had alighted. It was all a part of the wind in her sails and of +the weight with which her daughter was now to feel her hand. The +effect of it on Maisie was to add already the burden of time to +her separation from Sir Claude. This might, to her sense, have +lasted for days; it was as if, with their main agitation +transferred thus to France and with neither mamma now nor Mrs. +Beale nor Mrs. Wix nor herself at his side, he must be fearfully +alone in England. Hour after hour she felt as if she were waiting; +yet she couldn't have said exactly for what. There were moments +when Mrs. Beale's flow of talk was a mere rattle to smother a +knock. At no part of the crisis had the rattle so public a purpose +as when, instead of letting Maisie go with Mrs. Wix to prepare for +dinner, she pushed her—with a push at last incontestably +maternal—straight into the room inherited from Sir Claude. She +titivated her little charge with her own brisk hands; then she +brought out: "I'm going to divorce your father."</p> + +<p>This was so different from anything Maisie had expected that it +took some time to reach her mind. She was aware meanwhile that she +probably looked rather wan. "To marry Sir Claude?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale rewarded her with a kiss. "It's sweet to hear you put +it so."</p> + +<p>This was a tribute, but it left Maisie balancing for an objection. +"How <i>can</i> you when he's married?"</p> + +<p>"He isn't—practically. He's free, you know."</p> + +<p>"Free to marry?"</p> + +<p>"Free, first, to divorce his own fiend."</p> + +<p>The benefit that, these last days, she had felt she owed a certain +person left Maisie a moment so ill-prepared for recognising this +lurid label that she hesitated long enough to risk: "Mamma?"</p> + +<p>"She isn't your mamma any longer," Mrs. Beale returned. "Sir +Claude has paid her money to cease to be." Then as if remembering +how little, to the child, a pecuniary transaction must represent: +"She lets him off supporting her if he'll let her off supporting +you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale appeared, however, to have done injustice to her +daughter's financial grasp. "And support me himself?" Maisie +asked.</p> + +<p>"Take the whole bother and burden of you and never let her hear of +you again. It's a regular signed contract."</p> + +<p>"Why that's lovely of her!" Maisie cried.</p> + +<p>"It's not so lovely, my dear, but that he'll get his divorce."</p> + +<p>Maisie was briefly silent; after which, "No—he won't get it," she +said. Then she added still more boldly: "And you won't get yours."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale, who was at the dressing-glass, turned round with +amusement and surprise. "How do you know that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh I know!" cried Maisie.</p> + +<p>"From Mrs. Wix?"</p> + +<p>Maisie debated, then after an instant took her cue from Mrs. +Beale's absence of anger, which struck her the more as she had +felt how much of her courage she needed. "From Mrs. Wix," she +admitted.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale, at the glass again, made play with a powder-puff. "My +own sweet, she's mistaken!" was all she said.</p> + +<p>There was a certain force in the very amenity of this, but our +young lady reflected long enough to remember that it was not the +answer Sir Claude himself had made. The recollection nevertheless +failed to prevent her saying: "Do you mean then that he won't come +till he has got it?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale gave a last touch; she was ready; she stood there in +all her elegance. "I mean, my dear, that it's because he +<i>hasn't</i> got it that I left him."</p> + +<p>This opened a view that stretched further than Maisie could reach. +She turned away from it, but she spoke before they went out again. +"Do you like Mrs. Wix now?"</p> + +<p>"Why, my chick, I was just going to ask you if you think she has +come at all to like poor bad me!"</p> + +<p>Maisie thought, at this hint; but unsuccessfully. "I haven't the +least idea. But I'll find out."</p> + +<p>"Do!" said Mrs. Beale, rustling out with her in a scented air and +as if it would be a very particular favour.</p> + +<p>The child tried promptly at bed-time, relieved now of the fear +that their visitor would wish to separate her for the night from +her attendant. "Have you held out?" she began as soon as the two +doors at the end of the passage were again closed on them.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix looked hard at the flame of the candle. "Held out—?"</p> + +<p>"Why, she has been making love to you. Has she won you over?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix transferred her intensity to her pupil's face. "Over to +what?"</p> + +<p>"To <i>her</i> keeping me instead."</p> + +<p>"Instead of Sir Claude?" Mrs. Wix was distinctly gaining time.</p> + +<p>"Yes; who else? since it's not instead of you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix coloured at this lucidity. "Yes, that <i>is</i> what +she means."</p> + +<p>"Well, do you like it?" Maisie asked.</p> + +<p>She actually had to wait, for oh her friend was embarrassed! "My +opposition to the connexion—theirs—would then naturally to some +extent fall. She has treated me to-day as if I weren't after all +quite such a worm; not that I don't know very well where she got +the pattern of her politeness. But of course," Mrs. Wix hastened +to add, "I shouldn't like her as <i>the</i> one nearly so well +as him."</p> + +<p>"'Nearly so well!'" Maisie echoed. "I should hope indeed not." +She spoke with a firmness under which she was herself the first to +quiver. "I thought you 'adored' him."</p> + +<p>"I do," Mrs. Wix sturdily allowed.</p> + +<p>"Then have you suddenly begun to adore her too?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix, instead of directly answering, only blinked in support +of her sturdiness. "My dear, in what a tone you ask that! You're +coming out."</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I? <i>You've</i> come out. Mrs. Beale has come +out. We each have our turn!" And Maisie threw off the most +extraordinary little laugh that had ever passed her young +lips.</p> + +<p>There passed Mrs. Wix's indeed the next moment a sound that more +than matched it. "You're most remarkable!" she neighed.</p> + +<p>Her pupil, though wholly without aspirations to pertness, barely +faltered. "I think you've done a great deal to make me so."</p> + +<p>"Very true, I have." She dropped to humility, as if she recalled +her so recent self-arraignment.</p> + +<p>"Would you accept her then? That's what I ask," said Maisie.</p> + +<p>"As a substitute?" Mrs. Wix turned it over; she met again the +child's eyes. "She has literally almost fawned upon me."</p> + +<p>"She hasn't fawned upon <i>him</i>. She hasn't even been kind +to him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix looked as if she had now an advantage. "Then do you +propose to 'kill' her?"</p> + +<p>"You don't answer my question," Maisie persisted. "I want to know +if you accept her."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix continued to hedge. "I want to know if <i>you</i> +do!"</p> + +<p>Everything in the child's person, at this, announced that it was +easy to know. "Not for a moment."</p> + +<p>"Not the two now?" Mrs. Wix had caught on; she flushed with it. +"Only him alone?"</p> + +<p>"Him alone or nobody."</p> + +<p>"Not even <i>me</i>?" cried Mrs. Wix.</p> + +<p>Maisie looked at her a moment, then began to undress. "Oh you're +nobody!"</p> + + +<p> <a name="29"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XXIX<br /> </h3> + + +<p>Her sleep was drawn out, she instantly recognised lateness in the +way her eyes opened to Mrs. Wix, erect, completely dressed, more +dressed than ever, and gazing at her from the centre of the room. +The next thing she was sitting straight up, wide awake with the +fear of the hours of "abroad" that she might have lost. Mrs. Wix +looked as if the day had already made itself felt, and the process +of catching up with it began for Maisie in hearing her distinctly +say: "My poor dear, he has come!"</p> + +<p>"Sir Claude?" Maisie, clearing the little bed-rug with the width +of her spring, felt the polished floor under her bare feet.</p> + +<p>"He crossed in the night; he got in early." Mrs. Wix's head jerked +stiffly backward. "He's there."</p> + +<p>"And you've seen him?"</p> + +<p>"No. He's there—he's there," Mrs. Wix repeated. Her voice came +out with a queer extinction that was not a voluntary drop, and she +trembled so that it added to their common emotion. Visibly pale, +they gazed at each other.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it too <i>beautiful</i>?" Maisie panted back at her; a +challenge with an answer to which, however, she was not ready at +once. The term Maisie had used was a flash of diplomacy—to prevent +at any rate Mrs. Wix's using another. To that degree it was +successful; there was only an appeal, strange and mute, in the +white old face, which produced the effect of a want of decision +greater than could by any stretch of optimism have been associated +with her attitude toward what had happened. For Maisie herself +indeed what had happened was oddly, as she could feel, less of +a simple rapture than any arrival or return of the same supreme +friend had ever been before. What had become overnight, what had +become while she slept, of the comfortable faculty of gladness? +She tried to wake it up a little wider by talking, by rejoicing, +by plunging into water and into clothes, and she made out that it +was ten o'clock, but also that Mrs. Wix had not yet breakfasted. +The day before, at nine, they had had together a <i>café +complet</i> in their sitting-room. Mrs. Wix on her side had +evidently also a refuge to seek. She sought it in checking the +precipitation of some of her pupil's present steps, in recalling +to her with an approach to sternness that of such preliminaries +those embodied in a thorough use of soap should be the most +thorough, and in throwing even a certain reprobation on the idea +of hurrying into clothes for the sake of a mere stepfather. She +took her in hand with a silent insistence; she reduced the process +to sequences more definite than any it had known since the days of +Moddle. Whatever it might be that had now, with a difference, +begun to belong to Sir Claude's presence was still after all +compatible, for our young lady, with the instinct of dressing to +see him with almost untidy haste. Mrs. Wix meanwhile luckily was +not wholly directed to repression. "He's there—he's there!" she +had said over several times. It was her answer to every invitation +to mention how long she had been up and her motive for respecting +so rigidly the slumber of her companion. It formed for some +minutes her only account of the whereabouts of the others and her +reason for not having yet seen them, as well as of the possibility +of their presently being found in the salon.</p> + +<p>"He's there—he's there!" she declared once more as she made, on +the child, with an almost invidious tug, a strained undergarment +"meet."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean he's in the salon?" Maisie asked again.</p> + +<p>"He's <i>with</i> her," Mrs. Wix desolately said. "He's with +her," she reiterated.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean in her own room?" Maisie continued.</p> + +<p>She waited an instant. "God knows!"</p> + +<p>Maisie wondered a little why, or how, God should know; this, +however, delayed but an instant her bringing out: "Well, won't she +go back?"</p> + +<p>"Go back? Never!"</p> + +<p>"She'll stay all the same?"</p> + +<p>"All the more."</p> + +<p>"Then won't Sir Claude go?" Maisie asked.</p> + +<p>"Go back—if <i>she</i> doesn't?" Mrs. Wix appeared to give +this question the benefit of a minute's thought. "Why should he +have come—only to go back?"</p> + +<p>Maisie produced an ingenious solution. "To <i>make</i> her go. +To take her."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix met it without a concession. "If he can make her go so +easily, why should he have let her come?"</p> + +<p>Maisie considered. "Oh just to see <i>me</i>. She has a +right."</p> + +<p>"Yes—she has a right."</p> + +<p>"She's my mother!" Maisie tentatively tittered.</p> + +<p>"Yes—she's your mother."</p> + +<p>"Besides," Maisie went on, "he didn't let her come. He doesn't +like her coming, and if he doesn't like it—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix took her up. "He must lump it—that's what he must do! +Your mother was right about him—I mean your real one. He has no +strength. No—none at all." She seemed more profoundly to muse. +"He might have had some even with <i>her</i>—I mean with her +ladyship. He's just a poor sunk slave," she asserted with sudden +energy.</p> + +<p>Maisie wondered again. "A slave?"</p> + +<p>"To his passions."</p> + +<p>She continued to wonder and even to be impressed; after which she +went on: "But how do you know he'll stay?"</p> + +<p>"Because he likes us!"—and Mrs. Wix, with her emphasis of the +word, whirled her charge round again to deal with posterior hooks. +She had positively never shaken her so.</p> + +<p>It was as if she quite shook something out of her. "But how will +that help him if we—in spite of his liking!—don't stay?"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean if we go off and leave him with her?—" Mrs. Wix put +the question to the back of her pupil's head. "It <i>won't</i> help +him. It will be his ruin. He'll have got nothing. He'll have lost +everything. It will be his utter destruction, for he's certain +after a while to loathe her."</p> + +<p>"Then when he loathes her"—it was astonishing how she caught the +idea—"he'll just come right after us!" Maisie announced.</p> + +<p>"Never."</p> + +<p>"Never?"</p> + +<p>"She'll keep him. She'll hold him for ever."</p> + +<p>Maisie doubted. "When he 'loathes' her?"</p> + +<p>"That won't matter. She won't loathe <i>him</i>. People don't!" +Mrs. Wix brought up.</p> + +<p>"Some do. Mamma does," Maisie contended.</p> + +<p>"Mamma does <i>not</i>!" It was startling—her friend +contradicted her flat. "She loves him—she adores him. A woman +knows." Mrs. Wix spoke not only as if Maisie were not a woman, +but as if she would never be one. "<i>I</i> know!" she +cried.</p> + +<p>"Then why on earth has she left him?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix hesitated. "He hates <i>her</i>. Don't stoop so—lift +up your hair. You know how I'm affected toward him," she added with +dignity; "but you must also know that I see clear."</p> + +<p>Maisie all this time was trying hard to do likewise. "Then if she +has left him for that why shouldn't Mrs. Beale leave him?"</p> + +<p>"Because she's not such a fool!"</p> + +<p>"Not such a fool as mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely—if you <i>will</i> have it. Does it look like her +leaving him?" Mrs. Wix enquired. She brooded again; then she went +on with more intensity: "Do you want to know really and truly why? +So that she may be his wretchedness and his punishment."</p> + +<p>"His punishment?"—this was more than as yet Maisie could quite +accept. "For what?"</p> + +<p>"For everything. That's what will happen: he'll be tied to her for +ever. She won't mind in the least his hating her, and she won't +hate him back. She'll only hate <i>us</i>."</p> + +<p>"Us?" the child faintly echoed.</p> + +<p>"She'll hate <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"Me? Why, I brought them together!" Maisie resentfully cried.</p> + +<p>"You brought them together." There was a completeness in Mrs. +Wix's assent. "Yes; it was a pretty job. Sit down." She began to +brush her pupil's hair and, as she took up the mass of it with +some force of hand, went on with a sharp recall: "Your mother +adored him at first—it might have lasted. But he began too soon +with Mrs. Beale. As you say," she pursued with a brisk application +of the brush, "you brought them together."</p> + +<p>"I brought them together"—Maisie was ready to reaffirm it. She +felt none the less for a moment at the bottom of a hole; then she +seemed to see a way out. "But I didn't bring mamma together—" She +just faltered.</p> + +<p>"With all those gentlemen?"—Mrs. Wix pulled her up. "No; it isn't +quite so bad as that."</p> + +<p>"I only said to the Captain"—Maisie had the quick memory of +it—"that I hoped he at least (he was awfully nice!) would love +her and keep her."</p> + +<p>"And even that wasn't much harm," threw in Mrs. Wix.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't much good," Maisie was obliged to recognise. "She can't +bear him—not even a mite. She told me at Folkestone."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix suppressed a gasp; then after a bridling instant during +which she might have appeared to deflect with difficulty from her +odd consideration of Ida's wrongs: "He was a nice sort of person +for her to talk to you about!"</p> + +<p>"Oh I <i>like</i> him!" Maisie promptly rejoined; and at this, +with an inarticulate sound and an inconsequence still more marked, +her companion bent over and dealt her on the cheek a rapid peck +which had the apparent intention of a kiss.</p> + +<p>"Well, if her ladyship doesn't agree with you, what does it only +prove?" Mrs. Wix demanded in conclusion. "It proves that she's +fond of Sir Claude!"</p> + +<p>Maisie, in the light of some of the evidence, reflected on that +till her hair was finished, but when she at last started up she +gave a sign of no very close embrace of it. She grasped at this +moment Mrs. Wix's arm. "He must have got his divorce!"</p> + +<p>"Since day before yesterday? Don't talk trash."</p> + +<p>This was spoken with an impatience which left the child nothing to +reply; whereupon she sought her defence in a completely different +relation to the fact. "Well, I knew he would come!"</p> + +<p>"So did I; but not in twenty-four hours. I gave him a few days!" +Mrs. Wix wailed.</p> + +<p>Maisie, whom she had now released, looked at her with interest. +"How many did <i>she</i> give him?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix faced her a moment; then as if with a bewildered sniff: +"You had better ask her!" But she had no sooner uttered the words +than she caught herself up. "Lord o' mercy, how we talk!"</p> + +<p>Maisie felt that however they talked she must see him, but she +said nothing more for a time, a time during which she +conscientiously finished dressing and Mrs. Wix also kept silence. +It was as if they each had almost too much to think of, and even +as if the child had the sense that her friend was watching her and +seeing if she herself were watched. At last Mrs. Wix turned to the +window and stood—sightlessly, as Maisie could guess—looking +away. Then our young lady, before the glass, gave the supreme +shake. "Well, I'm ready. And now to <i>see</i> him!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix turned round, but as if without having heard her. "It's +tremendously grave." There were slow still tears behind the +straighteners.</p> + +<p>"It is—it is." Maisie spoke as if she were now dressed quite up +to the occasion; as if indeed with the last touch she had put on +the judgement-cap. "I must see him immediately."</p> + +<p>"How can you see him if he doesn't send for you?"</p> + +<p>"Why can't I go and find him?"</p> + +<p>"Because you don't know where he is."</p> + +<p>"Can't I just look in the salon?" That still seemed simple to +Maisie.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix, however, instantly cut it off. "I wouldn't have you look +in the salon for all the world!" Then she explained a little: "The +salon isn't ours now."</p> + +<p>"Ours?"</p> + +<p>"Yours and mine. It's theirs."</p> + +<p>"Theirs?" Maisie, with her stare, continued to echo. "You mean +they want to keep us out?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix faltered; she sank into a chair and, as Maisie had often +enough seen her do before, covered her face with her hands. "They +ought to, at least. The situation's too monstrous!"</p> + +<p>Maisie stood there a moment—she looked about the room. "I'll go +to him—I'll find him."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> won't! I won't go <i>near</i> them!" cried Mrs. +Wix.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll see him alone." The child spied what she had been +looking for—she possessed herself of her hat. "Perhaps I'll take +him out!" And with decision she quitted the room.</p> + +<p>When she entered the salon it was empty, but at the sound of the +opened door some one stirred on the balcony, and Sir Claude, +stepping straight in, stood before her. He was in light fresh +clothes and wore a straw hat with a bright ribbon; these things, +besides striking her in themselves as the very promise of the +grandest of grand tours, gave him a certain radiance and, as it +were, a tropical ease; but such an effect only marked rather more +his having stopped short and, for a longer minute than had ever at +such a juncture elapsed, not opened his arms to her. His pause +made her pause and enabled her to reflect that he must have been +up some time, for there were no traces of breakfast; and that +though it was so late he had rather markedly not caused her to be +called to him. Had Mrs. Wix been right about their forfeiture of +the salon? Was it all his now, all his and Mrs. Beale's? Such an +idea, at the rate her small thoughts throbbed, could only remind +her of the way in which what had been hers hitherto was what was +exactly most Mrs. Beale's and his. It was strange to be standing +there and greeting him across a gulf, for he had by this time +spoken, smiled and said: "My dear child, my dear child!" but +without coming any nearer. In a flash she saw he was +different—more so than he knew or designed. The next minute +indeed it was as if he caught an impression from her face: this +made him hold out his hand. Then they met, he kissed her, he +laughed, she thought he even blushed: something of his affection +rang out as usual. "Here I am, you see, again—as I promised you."</p> + +<p>It was not as he had promised them—he had not promised them Mrs. +Beale; but Maisie said nothing about that. What she said was +simply: "I knew you had come. Mrs. Wix told me."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes. And where is she?"</p> + +<p>"In her room. She got me up—she dressed me."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude looked at her up and down; a sweetness of mockery that +she particularly loved came out in his face whenever he did that, +and it was not wanting now. He raised his eyebrows and his arms to +play at admiration; he was evidently after all disposed to be gay. +"Got you up?—I should think so! She has dressed you most +beautifully. Isn't she coming?"</p> + +<p>Maisie wondered if she had better tell. "She said not."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't she want to see a poor devil?"</p> + +<p>She looked about under the vibration of the way he described +himself, and her eyes rested on the door of the room he had +previously occupied. "Is Mrs. Beale in there?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude looked blankly at the same object. "I haven't the least +idea!"</p> + +<p>"You haven't seen her?"</p> + +<p>"Not the tip of her nose."</p> + +<p>Maisie thought: there settled on her, in the light of his +beautiful smiling eyes, the faintest purest coldest conviction +that he wasn't telling the truth. "She hasn't welcomed you?"</p> + +<p>"Not by a single sign."</p> + +<p>"Then where is she?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude laughed; he seemed both amused and surprised at the +point she made of it. "I give it up!"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't she know you've come?"</p> + +<p>He laughed again. "Perhaps she doesn't care!"</p> + +<p>Maisie, with an inspiration, pounced on his arm. "Has she +<i>gone</i>?"</p> + +<p>He met her eyes and then she could see that his own were really +much graver than his manner. "Gone?" She had flown to the door, +but before she could raise her hand to knock he was beside her and +had caught it. "Let her be. I don't care about her. I want to see +<i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"Then she <i>hasn't</i> gone?"</p> + +<p>Maisie fell back with him. He still looked as if it were a joke, +but the more she saw of him the more she could make out that he +was troubled. "It wouldn't be like her!"</p> + +<p>She stood wondering at him. "Did you want her to come?"</p> + +<p>"How can you suppose—?" He put it to her candidly. "We had an +immense row over it."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean you've quarrelled?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude was at a loss. "What has she told you?"</p> + +<p>"That I'm hers as much as yours. That she represents papa."</p> + +<p>His gaze struck away through the open window and up to the sky; +she could hear him rattle in his trousers-pockets his money or his +keys. "Yes—that's what she keeps saying." It gave him for a +moment an air that was almost helpless.</p> + +<p>"You say you don't care about her," Maisie went on. "<i>Do</i> +you mean you've quarrelled?"</p> + +<p>"We do nothing in life but quarrel."</p> + +<p>He rose before her, as he said this, so soft and fair, so rich, in +spite of what might worry him, in restored familiarities, that it +gave a bright blur to the meaning—to what would otherwise perhaps +have been the palpable promise—of the words.</p> + +<p>"Oh <i>your</i> quarrels!" she exclaimed with discouragement.</p> + +<p>"I assure you hers are quite fearful!"</p> + +<p>"I don't speak of hers. I speak of yours."</p> + +<p>"Ah don't do it till I've had my coffee! You're growing up +clever," he added. Then he said: "I suppose you've breakfasted?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no—I've had nothing."</p> + +<p>"Nothing in your room?"—he was all compunction. "My dear old +man!—we'll breakfast then together." He had one of his happy +thoughts. "I say—we'll go out."</p> + +<p>"That was just what I hoped. I've brought my hat."</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> clever! We'll go to a café." Maisie was +already at the door; he glanced round the room. "A +moment—my stick." But there +appeared to be no stick. "No matter; I left it—oh!" He remembered +with an odd drop and came out.</p> + +<p>"You left it in London?" she asked as they went downstairs.</p> + +<p>"Yes—in London: fancy!"</p> + +<p>"You were in such a hurry to come," Maisie explained.</p> + +<p>He had his arm round her. "That must have been the reason."</p> + +<p>Halfway down he stopped short again, slapping his leg. "And poor +Mrs. Wix?"</p> + +<p>Maisie's face just showed a shadow. "Do you want her to come?"</p> + +<p>"Dear no—I want to see you alone."</p> + +<p>"That's the way I want to see <i>you</i>!" she replied. "Like +before."</p> + +<p>"Like before!" he gaily echoed. "But I mean has she had her +coffee?"</p> + +<p>"No, nothing."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll send it up to her. Madame!" He had already, at the +foot of the stair, called out to the stout <i>patronne</i>, a +lady who turned to him from the bustling, breezy hall a +countenance covered with fresh matutinal powder and a bosom as +capacious as the velvet shelf of a chimneypiece, over which her +round white face, framed in its golden frizzle, might have +figured as a showy clock. He ordered, with particular +recommendations, Mrs. Wix's repast, and it was a charm to hear +his easy brilliant French: even his companion's ignorance could +measure the perfection of it. The <i>patronne</i>, rubbing her +hands and breaking in with high swift notes as into a florid duet, +went with him to the street, and while they talked a moment +longer Maisie remembered what Mrs. Wix had said +about every one's liking him. It came out enough through the +morning powder, it came out enough in the heaving bosom, how the +landlady liked him. He had evidently ordered something lovely for +Mrs. Wix. <i>"Et bien soigné, n'est-ce-pas?"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Soyez tranquille"</i>—the patronne beamed upon him. +<i>"Et pour Madame?"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Madame?"</i> he echoed—it just pulled him up a +little.</p> + +<p><i>"Rien encore?"</i></p> + +<p>"<i>Rien encore.</i> Come, Maisie." She hurried along with +him, but on the way to the café he said nothing.</p> + + +<p> <a name="30"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XXX<br /> </h3> + + +<p>After they were seated there it was different: the place was not +below the hotel, but further along the quay; with wide, clear +windows and a floor sprinkled with bran in a manner that gave it +for Maisie something of the added charm of a circus. They had +pretty much to themselves the painted spaces and the red plush +benches; these were shared by a few scattered gentlemen who picked +teeth, with facial contortions, behind little bare tables, and by +an old personage in particular, a very old personage with a red +ribbon in his buttonhole, whose manner of soaking buttered rolls +in coffee and then disposing of them in the little that was left +of the interval between his nose and chin might at a less anxious +hour have cast upon Maisie an almost envious spell. They too had +their <i>café au lait</i> and their buttered rolls, +determined by Sir Claude's asking her if she could with that +light aid wait till the hour of déjeuner. His allusion +to this meal gave her, in the shaded sprinkled coolness, the +scene, as she vaguely felt, of a sort of ordered mirrored +licence, the haunt of those—the +irregular, like herself—who went to bed or who rose too late, +something to think over while she watched the white-aproned waiter +perform as nimbly with plates and saucers as a certain conjurer +her friend had in London taken her to a music-hall to see. Sir +Claude had presently begun to talk again, to tell her how London +had looked and how long he had felt himself, on either side, to +have been absent; all about Susan Ash too and the amusement as +well as the difficulty he had had with her; then all about his +return journey and the Channel in the night and the crowd of +people coming over and the way there were always too many one +knew. He spoke of other matters beside, especially of what she +must tell him of the occupations, while he was away, of Mrs. Wix +and her pupil. Hadn't they had the good time he had promised?—had +he exaggerated a bit the arrangements made for their pleasure? +Maisie had something—not all there was—to say of his success and +of their gratitude: she had a complication of thought that grew +every minute, grew with the consciousness that she had never seen +him in this particular state in which he had been given back.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix had once said—it was once or fifty times; once was +enough for Maisie, but more was not too much—that he was +wonderfully various. Well, he was certainly so, to the child's +mind, on the present occasion: he was much more various than he +was anything else. Besides, the fact that they were together in a +shop, at a nice little intimate table as they had so often been in +London, only made greater the difference of what they were +together about. This difference was in his face, in his voice, in +every look he gave her and every movement he made. They were not +the looks and the movements he really wanted to show, and she +could feel as well that they were not those she herself wanted. +She had seen him nervous, she had seen every one she had come in +contact with nervous, but she had never seen him so nervous as +this. Little by little it gave her a settled terror, a terror that +partook of the coldness she had felt just before, at the hotel, to +find herself, on his answer about Mrs. Beale, disbelieve him. She +seemed to see at present, to touch across the table, as if by +laying her hand on it, what he had meant when he confessed on +those several occasions to fear. Why was such a man so often +afraid? It must have begun to come to her now that there was one +thing just such a man above all could be afraid of. He could be +afraid of himself. His fear at all events was there; his fear was +sweet to her, beautiful and tender to her, was having coffee and +buttered rolls and talk and laughter that were no talk and +laughter at all with her; his fear was in his jesting postponing +perverting voice; it was just in this make-believe way he had +brought her out to imitate the old London playtimes, to imitate +indeed a relation that had wholly changed, a relation that she had +with her very eyes seen in the act of change when, the day before +in the salon, Mrs. Beale rose suddenly before her. She rose before +her, for that matter, now, and even while their refreshment +delayed Maisie arrived at the straight question for which, on +their entrance, his first word had given opportunity. "Are we +going to have déjeuner with Mrs. Beale?"</p> + +<p>His reply was anything but straight. "You and I?"</p> + +<p>Maisie sat back in her chair. "Mrs. Wix and me."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude also shifted. "That's an enquiry, my dear child, that +Mrs. Beale herself must answer." Yes, he had shifted; but +abruptly, after a moment during which something seemed to hang +there between them and, as it heavily swayed, just fan them with +the air of its motion, she felt that the whole thing was upon +them. "Do you mind," he broke out, "my asking you what Mrs. Wix +has said to you?"</p> + +<p>"Said to me?"</p> + +<p>"This day or two—while I was away."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean about you and Mrs. Beale?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude, resting on his elbows, fixed his eyes a moment on the +white marble beneath them. "No; I think we had a good deal of +that—didn't we?—before I left you. It seems to me we had it +pretty well all out. I mean about yourself, about your—don't you +know?—associating with us, as I might say, and staying on with +us. While you were alone with our friend what did she say?"</p> + +<p>Maisie felt the weight of the question; it kept her silent for a +space during which she looked at Sir Claude, whose eyes remained +bent. "Nothing," she returned at last.</p> + +<p>He showed incredulity. "Nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," Maisie repeated; on which an interruption descended in +the form of a tray bearing the preparations for their breakfast. +These preparations were as amusing as everything else; the waiter +poured their coffee from a vessel like a watering-pot and then +made it froth with the curved stream of hot milk that dropped from +the height of his raised arm; but the two looked across at each +other through the whole play of French pleasantness with a gravity +that had now ceased to dissemble. Sir Claude sent the waiter off +again for something and then took up her answer. "Hasn't she tried +to affect you?"</p> + +<p>Face to face with him thus it seemed to Maisie that she had tried +so little as to be scarce worth mentioning; again therefore an +instant she shut herself up. Presently she found her middle +course. "Mrs. Beale likes her now; and there's one thing I've +found out—a great thing. Mrs. Wix enjoys her being so kind. She +was tremendously kind all day yesterday."</p> + +<p>"I see. And what did she do?" Sir Claude asked.</p> + +<p>Maisie was now busy with her breakfast, and her companion attacked +his own; so that it was all, in form at least, even more than +their old sociability. "Everything she could think of. She was as +nice to her as you are," the child said. "She talked to her all +day."</p> + +<p>"And what did she say to her?"</p> + +<p>"Oh I don't know." Maisie was a little bewildered with his +pressing her so for knowledge; it didn't fit into the degree of +intimacy with Mrs. Beale that Mrs. Wix had so denounced and that, +according to that lady, had now brought him back in bondage. +Wasn't he more aware than his stepdaughter of what would be done +by the person to whom he was bound? In a moment, however, she +added: "She made love to her."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude looked at her harder, and it was clearly something in +her tone that made him quickly say: "You don't mind my asking you, +do you?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all; only I should think you'd know better than I."</p> + +<p>"What Mrs. Beale did yesterday?"</p> + +<p>She thought he coloured a trifle; but almost simultaneously +with that impression she found herself answering: "Yes—if you +have seen her."</p> + +<p>He broke into the loudest of laughs. "Why, my dear boy, I told you +just now I've absolutely not. I say, don't you believe me?"</p> + +<p>There was something she was already so afraid of that it covered +up other fears. "Didn't you come back to see her?" she enquired in +a moment. "Didn't you come back because you always want to so +much?"</p> + +<p>He received her enquiry as he had received her doubt—with an +extraordinary absence of resentment. "I can imagine of course why +you think that. But it doesn't explain my doing what I have. It +was, as I said to you just now at the inn, really and truly you I +wanted to see."</p> + +<p>She felt an instant as she used to feel when, in the back garden +at her mother's, she took from him the highest push of a +swing—high, high, high—that he had had put there for her +pleasure and that had finally broken down under the weight and the +extravagant patronage of the cook. "Well, that's beautiful. But to +see me, you mean, and go away again?"</p> + +<p>"My going away again is just the point. I can't tell yet—it all +depends."</p> + +<p>"On Mrs. Beale?" Maisie asked. "<i>She</i> won't go away." He +finished emptying his coffee-cup and then, when he had put it down, +leaned back in his chair, where she could see that he smiled on +her. This only added to her idea that he was in trouble, that he +was turning somehow in his pain and trying different things. He +continued to smile and she went on: "Don't you know that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I may as well confess to you that as much as that I do know. +<i>She</i> won't go away. She'll stay."</p> + +<p>"She'll stay. She'll stay," Maisie repeated.</p> + +<p>"Just so. Won't you have some more coffee?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, please."</p> + +<p>"And another buttered roll?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, please."</p> + +<p>He signed to the hovering waiter, who arrived with the shining +spout of plenty in either hand and with the friendliest interest +in mademoiselle. <i>"Les tartines sont là."</i> Their cups +were replenished and, while he watched almost musingly the bubbles +in the fragrant mixture, "Just so—just so," Sir Claude said again +and again. "It's awfully awkward!" he exclaimed when the waiter +had gone.</p> + +<p>"That she won't go?"</p> + +<p>"Well—everything! Well, well, well!" But he pulled himself +together; he began again to eat. "I came back to ask you +something. That's what I came back for."</p> + +<p>"I know what you want to ask me," Maisie said.</p> + +<p>"Are you very sure?"</p> + +<p>"I'm <i>almost</i> very."</p> + +<p>"Well then risk it. You mustn't make <i>me</i> risk +everything."</p> + +<p>She was struck with the force of this. "You want to know if I +should be happy with <i>them</i>."</p> + +<p>"With those two ladies only? No, no, old man: <i>vous n'y +êtes pas</i>. So now—there!" Sir Claude laughed.</p> + +<p>"Well then what is it?"</p> + +<p>The next minute, instead of telling her what it was, he laid his +hand across the table on her own and held her as if under the +prompting of a thought. "Mrs. Wix would stay with <i>her</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Without you? Oh yes—now."</p> + +<p>"On account, as you just intimated, of Mrs. Beale's changed +manner?"</p> + +<p>Maisie, with her sense of responsibility, weighed both Mrs. +Beale's changed manner and Mrs. Wix's human weakness. "I think she +talked her round."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude thought a moment. "Ah poor dear!"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean Mrs. Beale?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no—Mrs. Wix."</p> + +<p>"She likes being talked round—treated like any one else. Oh she +likes great politeness," Maisie expatiated. "It affects her very +much."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude, to her surprise, demurred a little to this. "Very +much—up to a certain point."</p> + +<p>"Oh up to any point!" Maisie returned with emphasis.</p> + +<p>"Well, haven't I been polite to her?"</p> + +<p>"Lovely—and she perfectly worships you."</p> + +<p>"Then, my dear child, why can't she let me alone?"—this time Sir +Claude unmistakeably blushed. Before Maisie, however, could answer +his question, which would indeed have taken her long, he went on +in another tone: "Mrs. Beale thinks she has probably quite broken +her down. But she hasn't."</p> + +<p>Though he spoke as if he were sure, Maisie was strong in the +impression she had just uttered and that she now again produced. +"She has talked her round."</p> + +<p>"Ah yes; round to herself, but not round to me."</p> + +<p>Oh she couldn't bear to hear him say that! "To you? Don't you +really believe how she loves you?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude examined his belief. "Of course I know she's +wonderful."</p> + +<p>"She's just every bit as fond of you as <i>I</i> am," said +Maisie. "She told me so yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Ah then," he promptly exclaimed, "she <i>has</i> tried to +affect you! I don't love <i>her</i>, don't you see? I do her +perfect justice," he pursued, "but I mean I don't love her as I +do you, and I'm sure you wouldn't seriously expect it. She's not +my daughter—come, old chap! She's not even my mother, +though I dare say it would have +been better for me if she had been. I'll do for her what I'd do +for my mother, but I won't do more." His real excitement broke out +in a need to explain and justify himself, though he kept trying to +correct and conceal it with laughs and mouthfuls and other vain +familiarities. Suddenly he broke off, wiping his moustache with +sharp pulls and coming back to Mrs. Beale. "Did she try to talk +<i>you</i> over?"</p> + +<p>"No—to me she said very little. Very little indeed," Maisie +continued.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude seemed struck with this. "She was only sweet to Mrs. +Wix?"</p> + +<p>"As sweet as sugar!" cried Maisie.</p> + +<p>He looked amused at her comparison, but he didn't contest it; he +uttered on the contrary, in an assenting way, a little +inarticulate sound. "I know what she <i>can</i> be. But much good +may it have done her! Mrs. Wix won't <i>come</i> 'round.' That's +what makes it so fearfully awkward."</p> + +<p>Maisie knew it was fearfully awkward; she had known this now, she +felt, for some time, and there was something else it more +pressingly concerned her to learn. "What is it you meant you came +over to ask me?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Sir Claude, "I was just going to say. Let me tell you +it will surprise you." She had finished breakfast now and she sat +back in her chair again: she waited in silence to hear. He had +pushed the things before him a little way and had his elbows on +the table. This time, she was convinced, she knew what was coming, +and once more, for the crash, as with Mrs. Wix lately in her room, +she held her breath and drew together her eyelids. He was going to +say she must give him up. He looked hard at her again; then he +made his effort. "Should you see your way to let her go?"</p> + +<p>She was bewildered. "To let who—?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Wix simply. I put it at the worst. Should you see your way +to sacrifice her? Of course I know what I'm asking."</p> + +<p>Maisie's eyes opened wide again; this was so different from what +she had expected. "And stay with you alone?"</p> + +<p>He gave another push to his coffee-cup. "With me and Mrs. Beale. +Of course it would be rather rum; but everything in our whole +story is rather rum, you know. What's more unusual than for any +one to be given up, like you, by her parents?"</p> + +<p>"Oh nothing is more unusual than <i>that</i>!" Maisie concurred, +relieved at the contact of a proposition as to which concurrence +could have lucidity.</p> + +<p>"Of course it would be quite unconventional," Sir Claude went +on—"I mean the little household we three should make together; +but things have got beyond that, don't you see? They got beyond +that long ago. We shall stay abroad at any rate—it's ever so much +easier and it's our affair and nobody else's: it's no one's +business but ours on all the blessed earth. I don't say that for +Mrs. Wix, poor dear—I do her absolute justice. I respect her; I +see what she means; she has done me a lot of good. But there are +the facts. There they are, simply. And here am I, and here are +you. And she won't come round. She's right from her point of view. +I'm talking to you in the most extraordinary way—I'm always +talking to you in the most extraordinary way, ain't I? One would +think you were about sixty and that I—I don't know what any one +would think <i>I</i> am. Unless a beastly cad!" he suggested. "I've +been awfully worried, and this's what it has come to. You've done +us the most tremendous good, and you'll do it still and always, +don't you see? We can't let you go—you're everything. There are +the facts as I say. She <i>is</i> your mother now, Mrs. Beale, by +what has happened, and I, in the same way, I'm your father. No +one can contradict that, and we can't get out of it. My idea +would be a nice little place—somewhere in the South—where +she and you would be together and as good as any one else. +And I should be as good too, don't you see? for I shouldn't +live with you, but I should be close to you—just round +the corner, and it would be just the same. My idea would +be that it should all be perfectly open and frank. +<i>Honi soit qui mal y pense</i>, don't you know? You're the best +thing—you and what we can do for you—that either of us has ever +known," he came back to that. "When I say to her 'Give her up, +come,' she lets me have it bang in the face: 'Give her up +yourself!' It's the same old vicious circle—and when I say +vicious I don't mean a pun, a what-d'-ye-call-'em. Mrs. Wix is the +obstacle; I mean, you know, if she has affected you. She has +affected <i>me</i>, and yet here I am. I never was in such a tight +place: please believe it's only that that makes me put it to you +as I do. My dear child, isn't that—to put it so—just the way out +of it? That came to me yesterday, in London, after Mrs. Beale had +gone: I had the most infernal atrocious day. 'Go straight over and +put it to her: let her choose, freely, her own self.' So I do, old +girl—I put it to you. <i>Can</i> you choose freely?"</p> + +<p>This long address, slowly and brokenly uttered, with fidgets and +falterings, with lapses and recoveries, with a mottled face and +embarrassed but supplicating eyes, reached the child from a +quarter so close that after the shock of the first sharpness she +could see intensely its direction and follow it from point to +point; all the more that it came back to the point at which it had +started. There was a word that had hummed all through it. "Do you +call it a 'sacrifice'?"</p> + +<p>"Of Mrs. Wix? I'll call it whatever <i>you</i> call it. I won't +funk it—I haven't, have I? I'll face it in all its baseness. Does +it strike you it <i>is</i> base for me to get you well away from +her, to smuggle you off here into a corner and bribe you with +sophistries and buttered rolls to betray her?"</p> + +<p>"To betray her?"</p> + +<p>"Well—to part with her."</p> + +<p>Maisie let the question wait; the concrete image it presented was +the most vivid side of it. "If I part with her where will she go?"</p> + +<p>"Back to London."</p> + +<p>"But I mean what will she do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh as for that I won't pretend I know. I don't. We all have our +difficulties."</p> + +<p>That, to Maisie, was at this moment more striking than it had ever +been. "Then who'll teach me?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude laughed out. "What Mrs. Wix teaches?"</p> + +<p>She smiled dimly; she saw what he meant. "It isn't so very very +much."</p> + +<p>"It's so very very little," he returned, "that that's a thing +we've positively to consider. We probably shouldn't give you +another governess. To begin with we shouldn't be able to get +one—not of the only kind that would do. It wouldn't do—the kind +that <i>would</i> do," he queerly enough explained. "I mean they +wouldn't stay—heigh-ho! We'd do you ourselves. Particularly +me. You see I <i>can</i> now; I haven't got to mind—what I +used to. I won't fight shy as I did—she can show out <i>with</i> +me. Our relation, all round, is more regular."</p> + +<p>It seemed wonderfully regular, the way he put it; yet none the +less, while she looked at it as judiciously as she could, the +picture it made persisted somehow in being a combination quite +distinct—an old woman and a little girl seated in deep silence on +a battered old bench by the rampart of the <i>haute ville</i>. It +was just at that hour yesterday; they were hand in hand; they had +melted together. "I don't think you yet understand how she clings +to you," Maisie said at last.</p> + +<p>"I do—I do. But for all that—" And he gave, turning in his +conscious exposure, an oppressed impatient sigh; the sigh, even +his companion could recognise, of the man naturally accustomed to +that argument, the man who wanted thoroughly to be reasonable, but +who, if really he had to mind so many things, would be always +impossibly hampered. What it came to indeed was that he understood +quite perfectly. If Mrs. Wix clung it was all the more reason for +shaking Mrs. Wix off.</p> + +<p>This vision of what she had brought him to occupied our young lady +while, to ask what he owed, he called the waiter and put down a +gold piece that the man carried off for change. Sir Claude looked +after him, then went on: "How could a woman have less to reproach +a fellow with? I mean as regards herself."</p> + +<p>Maisie entertained the question. "Yes. How <i>could</i> she +have less? So why are you so sure she'll go?"</p> + +<p>"Surely you heard why—you heard her come out three nights ago? +How can she do anything but go—after what she then said? I've +done what she warned me of—she was absolutely right. So here we +are. Her liking Mrs. Beale, as you call it now, is a motive +sufficient, with other things, to make her, for your sake, stay on +without me; it's not a motive sufficient to make her, even for +yours, stay on <i>with</i> me—swallow, don't you see? what she +can't swallow. And when you say she's as fond of me as you are I +think I can, if that's the case, challenge you a little on it. +Would <i>you</i>, only with those two, stay on without me?"</p> + +<p>The waiter came back with the change, and that gave her, under +this appeal, a moment's respite. But when he had retreated again +with the "tip" gathered in with graceful thanks on a subtle hint +from Sir Claude's forefinger, the latter, while pocketing the +money, followed the appeal up. "Would you let her make you live +with Mrs. Beale?"</p> + +<p>"Without you? Never," Maisie then answered. "Never," she said +again.</p> + +<p>It made him quite triumph, and she was indeed herself shaken by +the mere sound of it. "So you see you're not, like her," he +exclaimed, "so ready to give me away!" Then he came back to his +original question. "<i>Can</i> you choose? I mean can you settle +it by a word yourself? Will you stay on with us without her?" +Now in truth she felt the coldness of her terror, and it seemed +to her that suddenly she knew, as she knew it about Sir Claude, +what she was afraid of. She was afraid of herself. She looked +at him in such a way that it brought, she could see, wonder +into his face, a wonder held in check, however, by his frank +pretension to play fair with her, not to use advantages, not +to hurry nor hustle her—only to put her chance clearly and +kindly before her. "May I think?" she finally asked.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, certainly. But how long?"</p> + +<p>"Oh only a little while," she said meekly.</p> + +<p>He had for a moment the air of wishing to look at it +as if it were the most cheerful prospect in the world. +"But what shall we do while you're thinking?" He spoke +as if thought were compatible with almost any distraction.</p> + +<p>There was but one thing Maisie wished to do, and after an instant +she expressed it. "Have we got to go back to the hotel?"</p> + +<p>"Do you want to?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no."</p> + +<p>"There's not the least necessity for it." He bent his eyes on his +watch; his face was now very grave. "We can do anything else in +the world." He looked at her again almost as if he were on the +point of saying that they might for instance start off for Paris. +But even while she wondered if that were not coming he had a +sudden drop. "We can take a walk."</p> + +<p>She was all ready, but he sat there as if he had still something +more to say. This too, however, didn't come; so she herself spoke. +"I think I should like to see Mrs. Wix first."</p> + +<p>"Before you decide? All right—all right." He had put on his hat, +but he had still to light a cigarette. He smoked a minute, with +his head thrown back, looking at the ceiling; then he said: +"There's one thing to remember—I've a right to impress it on you: +we stand absolutely in the place of your parents. It's their +defection, their extraordinary baseness, that has made our +responsibility. Never was a young person more directly committed +and confided." He appeared to say this over, at the ceiling, +through his smoke, a little for his own illumination. It carried +him after a pause somewhat further. "Though I admit it was to each +of us separately."</p> + +<p>He gave her so at that moment and in that attitude the sense of +wanting, as it were, to be on her side—on the side of what would +be in every way most right and wise and charming for her—that she +felt a sudden desire to prove herself not less delicate and +magnanimous, not less solicitous for his own interests. What were +these but that of the "regularity" he had just before spoken of? +"It <i>was</i> to each of you separately," she accordingly with +much earnestness remarked. "But don't you remember? I brought you +together."</p> + +<p>He jumped up with a delighted laugh. "Remember? Rather! You +brought us together, you brought us together. Come!"</p> + + +<p> <a name="31"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h3>XXXI<br /> </h3> + + +<p>She remained out with him for a time of which she could take no +measure save that it was too short for what she wished to make of +it—an interval, a barrier indefinite, insurmountable. They walked +about, they dawdled, they looked in shop-windows; they did all the +old things exactly as if to try to get back all the old safety, to +get something out of them that they had always got before. This +had come before, whatever it was, without their trying, and +nothing came now but the intenser consciousness of their quest and +their subterfuge. The strangest thing of all was what had really +happened to the old safety. What had really happened was that Sir +Claude was "free" and that Mrs. Beale was "free," and yet that the +new medium was somehow still more oppressive than the old. She +could feel that Sir Claude concurred with her in the sense that +the oppression would be worst at the inn, where, till something +should be settled, they would feel the want of something—of what +could they call it but a footing? The question of the settlement +loomed larger to her now: it depended, she had learned, so +completely on herself. Her choice, as her friend had called it, +was there before her like an impossible sum on a slate, a sum that +in spite of her plea for consideration she simply got off from +doing while she walked about with him. She must see Mrs. Wix +before she could do her sum; therefore the longer before she saw +her the more distant would be the ordeal. She met at present no +demand whatever of her obligation; she simply plunged, to avoid +it, deeper into the company of Sir Claude. She saw nothing that +she had seen hitherto—no touch in the foreign picture that had at +first been always before her. The only touch was that of Sir +Claude's hand, and to feel her own in it was her mute resistance +to time. She went about as sightlessly as if he had been leading +her blindfold. If they were afraid of themselves it was themselves +they would find at the inn. She was certain now that what awaited +them there would be to lunch with Mrs. Beale. All her instinct was +to avoid that, to draw out their walk, to find pretexts, to take +him down upon the beach, to take him to the end of the pier. He +said no other word to her about what they had talked of at +breakfast, and she had a dim vision of how his way of not letting +her see him definitely wait for anything from her would make any +one who should know of it, would make Mrs. Wix for instance, think +him more than ever a gentleman. It was true that once or twice, on +the jetty, on the sands, he looked at her for a minute with eyes +that seemed to propose to her to come straight off with him to +Paris. That, however, was not to give her a nudge about her +responsibility. He evidently wanted to procrastinate quite as much +as she did; he was not a bit more in a hurry to get back to the +others. Maisie herself at this moment could be secretly merciless +to Mrs. Wix—to the extent at any rate of not caring if her +continued disappearance did make that lady begin to worry about +what had become of her, even begin to wonder perhaps if the +truants hadn't found their remedy. Her want of mercy to Mrs. Beale +indeed was at least as great; for Mrs. Beale's worry and wonder +would be as much greater as the object at which they were directed. +When at last Sir Claude, at the far end of the <i>plage</i>, +which they had already, in the many-coloured crowd, once +traversed, suddenly, with a look at his watch, remarked that it +was time, not to get back to the <i>table d'hôte</i>, but to +get over to the station and meet the Paris papers—when he did this +she found herself thinking quite with intensity what Mrs. Beale and +Mrs. Wix <i>would</i> say. On the way over to the station she had +even a mental picture of the stepfather and the pupil established +in a little place in the South while the governess and the +stepmother, in a little place in the North, remained linked by a +community of blankness and by the endless series of remarks it +would give birth to. The Paris papers had come in and her +companion, with a strange extravagance, purchased no fewer than +eleven: it took up time while they hovered at the bookstall +on the restless platform, where the little volumes in a row +were all yellow and pink and one of her favourite old women +in one of her favourite old caps absolutely wheedled him into +the purchase of three. They had thus so much to carry home that +it would have seemed simpler, with such a provision for a nice +straight journey through France, just to "nip," as she phrased +it to herself, into the coupé of the train that, a +little further along, stood waiting to start. She asked Sir +Claude where it was going.</p> + +<p>"To Paris. Fancy!"</p> + +<p>She could fancy well enough. They stood there and smiled, he with +all the newspapers under his arm and she with the three books, one +yellow and two pink. He had told her the pink were for herself and +the yellow one for Mrs. Beale, implying in an interesting way that +these were the natural divisions in France of literature for the +young and for the old. She knew how prepared they looked to pass +into the train, and she presently brought out to her companion: "I +wish we could go. Won't you take me?"</p> + +<p>He continued to smile. "Would you really come?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, oh yes. Try."</p> + +<p>"Do you want me to take our tickets?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, take them."</p> + +<p>"Without any luggage?"</p> + +<p>She showed their two armfuls, smiling at him as he smiled at her, +but so conscious of being more frightened than she had ever been +in her life that she seemed to see her whiteness as in a glass. +Then she knew that what she saw was Sir Claude's whiteness: he was +as frightened as herself. "Haven't we got plenty of luggage?" she +asked. "Take the tickets—haven't you time? When does the train +go?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude turned to a porter. "When does the train go?"</p> + +<p>The man looked up at the station-clock. "In two minutes. +<i>Monsieur est placé?</i>"</p> + +<p><i>"Pas encore."</i></p> + +<p><i>"Et vos billets?—vous n'avez que le temps."</i> Then after +a look at Maisie, <i>"Monsieur veut-il que je les prenne?"</i> +the man said.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude turned back to her. <i>"Veux-tu lieu qu'il en +prenne?"</i></p> + +<p>It was the most extraordinary thing in the world: in the intensity +of her excitement she not only by illumination understood all +their French, but fell into it with an active perfection. She +addressed herself straight to the porter. <i>"Prenny, prenny. Oh +prenny!"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Ah si mademoiselle le veut—!"</i> He waited there for the +money.</p> + +<p>But Sir Claude only stared—stared at her with his white face. +"You <i>have</i> chosen then? You'll let her go?"</p> + +<p>Maisie carried her eyes wistfully to the train, where, amid cries +of <i>"En voiture, en voiture!"</i> heads were at windows and doors +banging loud. The porter was pressing. <i>"Ah vous n'avez plus le +temps!"</i></p> + +<p>"It's going—it's going!" cried Maisie.</p> + +<p>They watched it move, they watched it start; then the man went his +way with a shrug. "It's gone!" Sir Claude said.</p> + +<p>Maisie crept some distance up the platform; she stood there with +her back to her companion, following it with her eyes, keeping +down tears, nursing her pink and yellow books. She had had a real +fright but had fallen back to earth. The odd thing was that in her +fall her fear too had been dashed down and broken. It was gone. +She looked round at last, from where she had paused, at Sir +Claude's, and then saw that his wasn't. It sat there with him on +the bench to which, against the wall of the station, he had +retreated, and where, leaning back and, as she thought, rather +queer, he still waited. She came down to him and he continued to +offer his ineffectual intention of pleasantry. "Yes, I've chosen," +she said to him. "I'll let her go if you—if you—"</p> + +<p>She faltered; he quickly took her up. "If I, if I—"</p> + +<p>"If you'll give up Mrs. Beale."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he exclaimed; on which she saw how much, how hopelessly he +was afraid. She had supposed at the café that it was of his +rebellion, of his gathering motive; but how could that be when his +temptations—that temptation for example of the train they had +just lost—were after all so slight? Mrs. Wix was right. He was +afraid of his weakness—of his weakness.</p> + +<p>She couldn't have told you afterwards how they got back to the +inn: she could only have told you that even from this point they +had not gone straight, but once more had wandered and loitered +and, in the course of it, had found themselves on the edge of the +quay where—still apparently with half an hour to spare—the boat +prepared for Folkestone was drawn up. Here they hovered as they +had done at the station; here they exchanged silences again, but +only exchanged silences. There were punctual people on the deck, +choosing places, taking the best; some of them already contented, +all established and shawled, facing to England and attended by the +steward, who, confined on such a day to the lighter offices, +tucked up the ladies' feet or opened bottles with a pop. They +looked down at these things without a word; they even picked out a +good place for two that was left in the lee of a lifeboat; and if +they lingered rather stupidly, neither deciding to go aboard nor +deciding to come away, it was Sir Claude quite as much as she who +wouldn't move. It was Sir Claude who cultivated the supreme +stillness by which she knew best what he meant. He simply meant +that he knew all she herself meant. But there was no pretence of +pleasantry now: their faces were grave and tired. When at last +they lounged off it was as if his fear, his fear of his weakness, +leaned upon her heavily as they followed the harbour. In the hall +of the hotel as they passed in she saw a battered old box that she +recognised, an ancient receptacle with dangling labels that she +knew and a big painted W, lately done over and intensely personal, +that seemed to stare at her with a recognition and even with some +suspicion of its own. Sir Claude caught it too, and there was +agitation for both of them in the sight of this object on the +move. Was Mrs. Wix going and was the responsibility of giving her +up lifted, at a touch, from her pupil? Her pupil and her pupil's +companion, transfixed a moment, held, in the presence of the omen, +communication more intense than in the presence either of the +Paris train or of the Channel steamer; then, and still without a +word, they went straight upstairs. There, however, on the landing, +out of sight of the people below, they collapsed so that they had +to sink down together for support: they simply seated themselves +on the uppermost step while Sir Claude grasped the hand of his +stepdaughter with a pressure that at another moment would probably +have made her squeal. Their books and papers were all scattered. +"She thinks you've given her up!"</p> + +<p>"Then I must see her—I must see her," Maisie said.</p> + +<p>"To bid her good-bye?"</p> + +<p>"I must see her—I must see her," the child only repeated.</p> + +<p>They sat a minute longer, Sir Claude, with his tight grip of +her hand and looking away from her, looking straight down the +staircase to where, round the turn, electric bells rattled and +the pleasant sea-draught blew. At last, loosening his grasp, he +slowly got up while she did the same. They went together along +the lobby, but before they reached the salon he stopped again. +"If I give up Mrs. Beale—?"</p> + +<p>"I'll go straight out with you again and not come back till she +has gone."</p> + +<p>He seemed to wonder. "Till Mrs. Beale—?" He had made it sound +like a bad joke.</p> + +<p>"I mean till Mrs. Wix leaves—in that boat."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude looked almost foolish. "Is she going in that boat?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so. I won't even bid her good-bye," Maisie continued. +"I'll stay out till the boat has gone. I'll go up to the old +rampart."</p> + +<p>"The old rampart?"</p> + +<p>"I'll sit on that old bench where you see the gold Virgin."</p> + +<p>"The gold Virgin?" he vaguely echoed. But it brought his eyes back +to her as if after an instant he could see the place and the thing +she named—could see her sitting there alone. "While I break with +Mrs. Beale?"</p> + +<p>"While you break with Mrs. Beale."</p> + +<p>He gave a long deep smothered sigh. "I must see her first."</p> + +<p>"You won't do as I do? Go out and wait?"</p> + +<p>"Wait?"—once more he appeared at a loss.</p> + +<p>"Till they both have gone," Maisie said.</p> + +<p>"Giving <i>us</i> up?"</p> + +<p>"Giving <i>us</i> up."</p> + +<p>Oh with what a face for an instant he wondered if that could be! +But his wonder the next moment only made him go to the door and, +with his hand on the knob, stand as if listening for voices. +Maisie listened, but she heard none. All she heard presently was +Sir Claude's saying with speculation quite choked off, but so as +not to be heard in the salon: "Mrs. Beale will never go." On this +he pushed open the door and she went in with him. The salon was +empty, but as an effect of their entrance the lady he had just +mentioned appeared at the door of the bedroom. "Is she going?" he +then demanded.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale came forward, closing her door behind her. "I've had +the most extraordinary scene with her. She told me yesterday she'd +stay."</p> + +<p>"And my arrival has altered it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh we took that into account!" Mrs. Beale was flushed, which was +never quite becoming to her, and her face visibly testified to the +encounter to which she alluded. Evidently, however, she had not +been worsted, and she held up her head and smiled and rubbed her +hands as if in sudden emulation of the <i>patronne</i>. "She +promised she'd stay even if you should come."</p> + +<p>"Then why has she changed?"</p> + +<p>"Because she's a hound. The reason she herself gives is that +you've been out too long."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude stared. "What has that to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"You've been out an age," Mrs. Beale continued; "I myself couldn't +imagine what had become of you. The whole morning," she exclaimed, +"and luncheon long since over!"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude appeared indifferent to that. "Did Mrs. Wix go down +with you?" he only asked.</p> + +<p>"Not she; she never budged!"—and Mrs. Beale's flush, to Maisie's +vision, deepened. "She moped there—she didn't so much as come out +to me; and when I sent to invite her she simply declined to +appear. She said she wanted nothing, and I went down alone. But +when I came up, fortunately a little primed"—and Mrs. Beale +smiled a fine smile of battle—"she <i>was</i> in the field!"</p> + +<p>"And you had a big row?"</p> + +<p>"We had a big row"—she assented with a frankness as large. "And +while you left me to that sort of thing I should like to know +where you were!" She paused for a reply, but Sir Claude merely +looked at Maisie; a movement that promptly quickened her +challenge. "Where the mischief have you been?"</p> + +<p>"You seem to take it as hard as Mrs. Wix," Sir Claude returned.</p> + +<p>"I take it as I choose to take it, and you don't answer my +question."</p> + +<p>He looked again at Maisie—as if for an aid to this effort; +whereupon she smiled at her stepmother and offered: "We've been +everywhere."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale, however, made her no response, thereby adding to a +surprise of which our young lady had already felt the light brush. +She had received neither a greeting nor a glance, but perhaps this +was not more remarkable than the omission, in respect to Sir +Claude, parted with in London two days before, of any sign of a +sense of their reunion. Most remarkable of all was Mrs. Beale's +announcement of the pledge given by Mrs. Wix and not hitherto +revealed to her pupil. Instead of heeding this witness she went on +with acerbity: "It might surely have occurred to you that +something would come up."</p> + +<p>Sir Claude looked at his watch. "I had no idea it was so late, nor +that we had been out so long. We weren't hungry. It passed like a +flash. What <i>has</i> come up?"</p> + +<p>"Oh that she's disgusted," said Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>"With whom then?"</p> + +<p>"With Maisie." Even now she never looked at the child, who stood +there equally associated and disconnected. "For having no moral +sense."</p> + +<p>"How <i>should</i> she have?" Sir Claude tried again to shine a +little at the companion of his walk. "How at any rate is it proved +by her going out with me?"</p> + +<p>"Don't ask <i>me</i>; ask that woman. She drivels when she +doesn't rage," Mrs. Beale declared.</p> + +<p>"And she leaves the child?"</p> + +<p>"She leaves the child," said Mrs. Beale with great emphasis and +looking more than ever over Maisie's head.</p> + +<p>In this position suddenly a change came into her face, caused, as +the others could the next thing see, by the reappearance of Mrs. +Wix in the doorway which, on coming in at Sir Claude's heels, +Maisie had left gaping. "I <i>don't</i> leave the child—I don't, +I don't!" she thundered from the threshold, advancing upon the +opposed three but addressing herself directly to Maisie. She was +girded—positively harnessed—for departure, arrayed as she had +been arrayed on her advent and armed with a small fat rusty +reticule which, almost in the manner of a battle-axe, she +brandished in support of her words. She had clearly come straight +from her room, where Maisie in an instant guessed she had directed +the removal of her minor effects. "I don't leave you till I've +given you another chance. Will you come <i>with</i> me?"</p> + +<p>Maisie turned to Sir Claude, who struck her as having been removed +to a distance of about a mile. To Mrs. Beale she turned no more +than Mrs. Beale had turned: she felt as if already their +difference had been disclosed. What had come out about that in the +scene between the two women? Enough came out now, at all events, +as she put it practically to her stepfather. "Will <i>you</i> come? +Won't you?" she enquired as if she had not already seen that she +should have to give him up. It was the last flare of her dream. By +this time she was afraid of nothing.</p> + +<p>"I should think you'd be too proud to ask!" Mrs. Wix interposed. +Mrs. Wix was herself conspicuously too proud.</p> + +<p>But at the child's words Mrs. Beale had fairly bounded. "Come away +from <i>me</i>, Maisie?" It was a wail of dismay and reproach, in +which her stepdaughter was astonished to read that she had had no +hostile consciousness and that if she had been so actively grand +it was not from suspicion, but from strange entanglements of +modesty.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude presented to Mrs. Beale an expression positively sick. +"Don't put it to her <i>that</i> way!" There had indeed been +something in Mrs. Beale's tone, and for a moment our young lady +was reminded of the old days in which so many of her friends had +been "compromised."</p> + +<p>This friend blushed; she was before Mrs. Wix, and though she +bridled she took the hint. "No—it isn't the way." Then she showed +she knew the way. "Don't be a still bigger fool, dear, but go +straight to your room and wait there till I can come to you."</p> + +<p>Maisie made no motion to obey, but Mrs. Wix raised a hand that +forestalled every evasion. "Don't move till you've heard me. +<i>I'm</i> going, but I must first understand. Have you lost it +again?"</p> + +<p>Maisie surveyed—for the idea of a describable loss—the immensity +of space. Then she replied lamely enough: "I feel as if I had lost +everything."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix looked dark. "Do you mean to say you <i>have</i> lost +what we found together with so much difficulty two days ago?" As +her pupil failed of response she continued: "Do you mean to say +you've already forgotten what we found together?"</p> + +<p>Maisie dimly remembered. "My moral sense?"</p> + +<p>"Your moral sense. <i>Haven't</i> I, after all, brought it out?" +She spoke as she had never spoken even in the schoolroom and with +the book in her hand.</p> + +<p>It brought back to the child's recollection how she sometimes +couldn't repeat on Friday the sentence that had been glib on +Wednesday, and she dealt all feebly and ruefully with the present +tough passage. Sir Claude and Mrs. Beale stood there like visitors +at an "exam." She had indeed an instant a whiff of the faint +flower that Mrs. Wix pretended to have plucked and now with such a +peremptory hand thrust at her nose. Then it left her, and, as if +she were sinking with a slip from a foothold, her arms made a +short jerk. What this jerk represented was the spasm within her of +something still deeper than a moral sense. She looked at her +examiner; she looked at the visitors; she felt the rising of the +tears she had kept down at the station. They had nothing—no, +distinctly nothing—to do with her moral sense. The only thing was +the old flat shameful schoolroom plea. "I don't know—I don't +know."</p> + +<p>"Then you've lost it." Mrs. Wix seemed to close the book as she +fixed the straighteners on Sir Claude. "You've nipped it in the +bud. You've killed it when it had begun to live."</p> + +<p>She was a newer Mrs. Wix than ever, a Mrs. Wix high and great; but +Sir Claude was not after all to be treated as a little boy with a +missed lesson. "I've not killed anything," he said; "on the +contrary I think I've produced life. I don't know what to call +it—I haven't even known how decently to deal with it, to approach +it; but, whatever it is, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever +met—it's exquisite, it's sacred." He had his hands in his pockets +and, though a trace of the sickness he had just shown perhaps +lingered there, his face bent itself with extraordinary gentleness +on both the friends he was about to lose. "Do you know what I came +back for?" he asked of the elder.</p> + +<p>"I think I do!" cried Mrs. Wix, surprisingly un-mollified and with +the heat of her late engagement with Mrs. Beale still on her brow. +That lady, as if a little besprinkled by such turns of the tide, +uttered a loud inarticulate protest and, averting herself, stood a +moment at the window.</p> + +<p>"I came back with a proposal," said Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>"To me?" Mrs. Wix asked.</p> + +<p>"To Maisie. That she should give you up."</p> + +<p>"And does she?"</p> + +<p>Sir Claude wavered. "Tell her!" he then exclaimed to the child, +also turning away as if to give her the chance. But Mrs. Wix and +her pupil stood confronted in silence, Maisie whiter than +ever—more awkward, more rigid and yet more dumb. They looked at +each other hard, and as nothing came from them Sir Claude faced +about again. "You won't tell her?—you can't?" Still she said +nothing; whereupon, addressing Mrs. Wix, he broke into a kind of +ecstasy. "She refused—she refused!"</p> + +<p>Maisie, at this, found her voice. "I didn't refuse. I didn't," she +repeated.</p> + +<p>It brought Mrs. Beale straight back to her. "You accepted, +angel—you accepted!" She threw herself upon the child and, before +Maisie could resist, had sunk with her upon the sofa, possessed of +her, encircling her. "You've given her up already, you've given +her up for ever, and you're ours and ours only now, and the sooner +she's off the better!"</p> + +<p>Maisie had shut her eyes, but at a word of Sir Claude's they +opened. "Let her go!" he said to Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>"Never, never, never!" cried Mrs. Beale. Maisie felt herself more +compressed.</p> + +<p>"Let her go!" Sir Claude more intensely repeated. He was looking +at Mrs. Beale and there was something in his voice. Maisie knew +from a loosening of arms that she had become conscious of what it +was; she slowly rose from the sofa, and the child stood there +again dropped and divided. "You're free—you're free," Sir Claude +went on; at which Maisie's back became aware of a push that vented +resentment and that placed her again in the centre of the room, +the cynosure of every eye and not knowing which way to turn.</p> + +<p>She turned with an effort to Mrs. Wix. "I didn't refuse to give +you up. I said I would if <i>he'd</i> give up—"</p> + +<p>"Give up Mrs. Beale?" burst from Mrs. Wix.</p> + +<p>"Give up Mrs. Beale. What do you call that but exquisite?" Sir +Claude demanded of all of them, the lady mentioned included; +speaking with a relish as intense now as if some lovely work of +art or of nature had suddenly been set down among them. He was +rapidly recovering himself on this basis of fine appreciation. +"She made her condition—with such a sense of what it should be! +She made the only right one."</p> + +<p>"The only right one?"—Mrs. Beale returned to the charge. She had +taken a moment before a snub from him, but she was not to be +snubbed on this. "How can you talk such rubbish and how can you +back her up in such impertinence? What in the world have you done +to her to make her think of such stuff?" She stood there in +righteous wrath; she flashed her eyes round the circle. Maisie +took them full in her own, knowing that here at last was the +moment she had had most to reckon with. But as regards her +stepdaughter Mrs. Beale subdued herself to a question deeply mild. +"<i>Have</i> you made, my own love, any such condition as +that?"</p> + +<p>Somehow, now that it was there, the great moment was not so bad. +What helped the child was that she knew what she wanted. All her +learning and learning had made her at last learn that; so that if +she waited an instant to reply it was only from the desire to be +nice. Bewilderment had simply gone or at any rate was going fast. +Finally she answered. "Will you give <i>him</i> up? Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Ah leave her alone—leave her, leave her!" Sir Claude in sudden +supplication murmured to Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix at the same instant found another apostrophe. "Isn't it +enough for you, madam, to have brought her to discussing your +relations?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale left Sir Claude unheeded, but Mrs. Wix could make her +flame. "My relations? What do you know, you hideous creature, +about my relations, and what business on earth have you to speak +of them? Leave the room this instant, you horrible old woman!"</p> + +<p>"I think you had better go—you must really catch your boat," Sir +Claude said distressfully to Mrs. Wix. He was out of it now, or +wanted to be; he knew the worst and had accepted it: what now +concerned him was to prevent, to dissipate vulgarities. "Won't you +go—won't you just get off quickly?"</p> + +<p>"With the child as quickly as you like. Not without her." Mrs. Wix +was adamant.</p> + +<p>"Then why did you lie to me, you fiend?" Mrs. Beale almost yelled. +"Why did you tell me an hour ago that you had given her up?"</p> + +<p>"Because I despaired of her—because I thought she had left me." +Mrs. Wix turned to Maisie. "You were <i>with</i> them—in their +connexion. But now your eyes are open, and I take you!"</p> + +<p>"No you don't!" and Mrs. Beale made, with a great fierce jump, a +wild snatch at her stepdaughter. She caught her by the arm and, +completing an instinctive movement, whirled her round in a further +leap to the door, which had been closed by Sir Claude the instant +their voices had risen. She fell back against it and, even while +denouncing and waving off Mrs. Wix, kept it closed in an +incoherence of passion. "You don't take her, but you bundle +yourself: she stays with her own people and she's rid of you! I +never heard anything so monstrous!" Sir Claude had rescued Maisie +and kept hold of her; he held her in front of him, resting his +hands very lightly on her shoulders and facing the loud +adversaries. Mrs. Beale's flush had dropped; she had turned pale +with a splendid wrath. She kept protesting and dismissing Mrs. +Wix; she glued her back to the door to prevent Maisie's flight; +she drove out Mrs. Wix by the window or the chimney. "You're a +nice one—'discussing relations'—with your talk of our +'connexion' and your insults! What in the world's our connexion +but the love of the child who's our duty and our life and who +holds us together as closely as she originally brought us?"</p> + +<p>"I know, I know!" Maisie said with a burst of eagerness. "I did +bring you."</p> + +<p>The strangest of laughs escaped from Sir Claude. "You did bring +us—you did!" His hands went up and down gently on her shoulders.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix so dominated the situation that she had something sharp +for every one. "There you have it, you see!" she pregnantly +remarked to her pupil.</p> + +<p>"<i>Will</i> you give him up?" Maisie persisted to Mrs. +Beale.</p> + +<p>"To <i>you</i>, you abominable little horror?" that lady +indignantly enquired, "and to this raving old demon who has filled +your dreadful little mind with her wickedness? Have you been a +hideous little hypocrite all these years that I've slaved to make +you love me and deludedly believed you did?"</p> + +<p>"I love Sir Claude—I love <i>him</i>," Maisie replied with an +awkward sense that she appeared to offer it as something that +would do as well. Sir Claude had continued to pat her, and it was +really an answer to his pats.</p> + +<p>"She hates you—she hates you," he observed with the oddest +quietness to Mrs. Beale.</p> + +<p>His quietness made her blaze. "And you back her up in it and give +me up to outrage?"</p> + +<p>"No; I only insist that she's free—she's free."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale stared—Mrs. Beale glared. "Free to starve with this +pauper lunatic?"</p> + +<p>"I'll do more for her than <i>you</i> ever did!" Mrs. Wix +retorted. "I'll work my fingers to the bone."</p> + +<p>Maisie, with Sir Claude's hands still on her shoulders, felt, just +as she felt the fine surrender in them, that over her head he +looked in a certain way at Mrs. Wix. "You needn't do that," she +heard him say. "She has means."</p> + +<p>"Means?—Maisie?" Mrs. Beale shrieked. "Means that her vile father +has stolen!"</p> + +<p>"I'll get them back—I'll get them back. I'll look into it." He +smiled and nodded at Mrs. Wix.</p> + +<p>This had a fearful effect on his other friend. "Haven't I looked +into it, I should like to know, and haven't I found an abyss? It's +too inconceivable—your cruelty to me!" she wildly broke out. She +had hot tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p>He spoke to her very kindly, almost coaxingly. "We'll look into +it again; we'll look into it together. It <i>is</i> an abyss, but +he <i>can</i> be made—or Ida can. Think of the money they're +getting now!" he laughed. "It's all right, it's all right," he +continued. "It wouldn't do—it wouldn't do. We <i>can't</i> work +her in. It's perfectly true—she's unique. We're not good +enough—oh no!" and, quite exuberantly, he laughed again.</p> + +<p>"Not good enough, and that beast <i>is</i>?" Mrs. Beale +shouted.</p> + +<p>At this for a moment there was a hush in the room, and in the +midst of it Sir Claude replied to the question by moving with +Maisie to Mrs. Wix. The next thing the child knew she was at that +lady's side with an arm firmly grasped. Mrs. Beale still guarded +the door. "Let them pass," said Sir Claude at last.</p> + +<p>She remained there, however; Maisie saw the pair look at each +other. Then she saw Mrs. Beale turn to her. "I'm your mother now, +Maisie. And he's your father."</p> + +<p>"That's just where it is!" sighed Mrs. Wix with an effect of irony +positively detached and philosophic.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale continued to address her young friend, and her effort +to be reasonable and tender was in its way remarkable. "We're +representative, you know, of Mr. Farange and his former wife. This +person represents mere illiterate presumption. We take our stand +on the law."</p> + +<p>"Oh the law, the law!" Mrs. Wix superbly jeered. "You had better +indeed let the law have a look at you!"</p> + +<p>"Let them pass—let them pass!" Sir Claude pressed his friend +hard—he pleaded.</p> + +<p>But she fastened herself still to Maisie. "<i>Do</i> you hate me, +dearest?"</p> + +<p>Maisie looked at her with new eyes, but answered as she had +answered before. "Will you give him up?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale's rejoinder hung fire, but when it came it was noble. +"You shouldn't talk to me of such things!" She was shocked, she +was scandalised to tears.</p> + +<p>For Mrs. Wix, however, it was her discrimination that was +indelicate. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she roundly +cried.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude made a supreme appeal. "Will you be so good as to allow +these horrors to terminate?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale fixed her eyes on him, and again Maisie watched them. +"You should do him justice," Mrs. Wix went on to Mrs. Beale. +"We've always been devoted to him, Maisie and I—and he has shown +how much he likes us. He would like to please her; he would like +even, I think, to please me. But he hasn't given you up."</p> + +<p>They stood confronted, the step-parents, still under Maisie's +observation. That observation had never sunk so deep as at this +particular moment. "Yes, my dear, I haven't given you up," Sir +Claude said to Mrs. Beale at last, "and if you'd like me to treat +our friends here as solemn witnesses I don't mind giving you my +word for it that I never never will. There!" he dauntlessly +exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"He can't!" Mrs. Wix tragically commented.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale, erect and alive in her defeat, jerked her handsome +face about. "He can't!" she literally mocked.</p> + +<p>"He can't, he can't, he can't!"—Sir Claude's gay emphasis +wonderfully carried it off.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale took it all in, yet she held her ground; on which +Maisie addressed Mrs. Wix. "Shan't we lose the boat?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, we shall lose the boat," Mrs. Wix remarked to Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale meanwhile faced full at Maisie. "I don't know what to +make of you!" she launched.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," said Maisie to Sir Claude.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Maisie," Sir Claude answered.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beale came away from the door. "Goodbye!" she hurled at +Maisie; then passed straight across the room and disappeared in +the adjoining one.</p> + +<p>Sir Claude had reached the other door and opened it. Mrs. Wix was +already out. On the threshold Maisie paused; she put out her hand +to her stepfather. He took it and held it a moment, and their eyes +met as the eyes of those who have done for each other what they +can. "Good-bye," he repeated.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye." And Maisie followed Mrs. Wix.</p> + +<p>They caught the steamer, which was just putting off, and, hustled +across the gulf, found themselves on the deck so breathless and so +scared that they gave up half the voyage to letting their emotion +sink. It sank slowly and imperfectly; but at last, in mid-channel, +surrounded by the quiet sea, Mrs. Wix had courage to revert. "I +didn't look back, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He wasn't there," said Maisie.</p> + +<p>"Not on the balcony?"</p> + +<p>Maisie waited a moment; then "He wasn't there" she simply said +again.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix also was silent a while. "He went to <i>her</i>," +she finally observed.</p> + +<p>"Oh I know!" the child replied.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wix gave a sidelong look. She still had room for wonder at +what Maisie knew. </p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT MAISIE KNEW***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 7118-h.txt or 7118-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/1/1/7118">https://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/1/7118</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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