II
CUPID'S MESSENGER
I do protest that it was not altogether my fault. At least-; but if I tell you exactly how it was you will understand what I mean.
I was fifteen. It was after I had left Miss Pritchard's. Not that I was much wiser than I was when I was at Miss Pritchard's. Though that was not my opinion at the time. In what I then called my judgment I was the wisest person the world had ever seen-perhaps it would be more correct to write that that was my estimate of myself as a rule. There were between-whiles when I knew better. I was at Mrs Sawyer's-Lingfield House School-at Brighton to be finished. And a nice finish they made of me.
It was the summer term and I was romantic, I had my phases. One term I was cynical; another philosophical; a third filled with a wild despair. That one I was all for sentiment. I had been reading all manner of stuff, prose and poetry; I had even written some poems myself. As I burned them years and years ago I do not mind owning it. I was convinced that there was nothing in the world worth living for except love. Given Love-it ought to have a capital L; in my poems it always had-you had everything a reasonable being could desire. Lacking it, wealth, fame, clothes, and even chocolate creams, were as dust and ashes.
There was, that term, a governess who must have been almost as great a goose I was. I am not sure that she was quite so right in the head as she might have been. She only stayed that term. Why Mrs Sawyer ever had her is more than I can say. Her name was Frazer-Mamie Frazer. Her autograph-suggestive of a fly slipping over the paper after a visit to the inkstand-stares at me out of my birthday book at this moment. She was the most speechless person I ever encountered. So to speak, you might carry on a conversation with her for hours and she would never say a word. As a listener she was immense. By degrees her attitude so got upon your nerves that I, for one, would feel like murder.
"Say something!" I would beseech of her. "Do please say something! Don't you know that I have been talking myself hoarse and you haven't uttered a single word."
She would only sigh. To a person who was fond of conversational give-and-take it was trying.
And the name of the girl who shared my bedroom was Travers-Hester-generally known as Hetty-Travers. She was, well, she is one of my dearest friends at this hour, and she may see this, so I don't want to say anything to hurt her feelings, but she certainly was a mischievous imp. Mischief brimmed out of her finger-tips. And the point was that she had such an excessively demure air that you never had the faintest notion that she was that kind of person till the truth was forced upon you. Even then you gave her the benefit of the doubt; or you tried to-at least I did-until it was obviously absurd to attempt to do so any longer since there was no doubt. Reverence! she did not know what it was. She had not a mite of respect for me, though I was a good three months her senior. She used to make fun of all the varying things I held most sacred-that is, while the mood was on me.
That inveterate habit of hers ought to have made me suspect her. But I was ever a Una for innocence. She was always taking me in. She had an insidious way about her which would take in anybody.
One night we were going to bed. I had one stocking off, and was wondering how the holes did get into the toes; I used to bribe other girls to do my darning. It cost me frightful sums. We were talking about other people's peculiarities, as was our agreeable custom.
"You know Miss Frazer told me to walk with her when she took us out to-night. I kept talking to her all the time, and yet the whole way there and back she never spoke a word. I believe she's going mad."
"I shouldn't wonder."
Hetty was doing her hair. I was wishing she would make haste, because she was using the only glass we had, and it seemed to me that she never would have done with it. What discussions we had about that looking-glass! We took it in turns to use it first, and whoever had first turn used to hang on to it as if it was the Koh-i-noor. Something struck me in her tone.
"Why shouldn't you wonder?"
"I shouldn't." This was cryptic. But I was aware that it was advisable to give her a little rope. So I held my peace and found another hole. And presently she added, "When a woman's heart is breaking she sometimes does go mad."
"Hetty!"
I had been giving utterance to my sentiments on the subject of the importance which love plays in human lives; I think I got them from Byron. Hetty had been scoffing. I suspected her of paraphrasing my words with mischievous intention. But it seemed that she was actually in earnest.
"You talk about love wrecking people's lives, as if you know anything at all about it; I saw that paper-covered Byron in your workbox-and you can't see what's taking place underneath your very eyes."
"Hetty, what do you mean?"
"Poor Miss Frazer!"
She sighed, actually. Or she emitted a sound which appeared to me to be a sigh. A light dawned on me.
"You don't mean-you don't mean that you think that she's in love?"
Miss Frazer was short, square, and squat. Sandy-haired, with not much of that. Short-sighted, her spectacles would not keep straight owing to the absence of a bridge on her abbreviated nose. Freckled, you might have been able to stick a pin between some of the freckles, but I doubt it. To me, then, she seemed ancient; but I suppose she was about forty. And, considering her general appearance and style of figure, she had a most unfortunate fondness for Scotch plaids. Up to that moment my sentimentalism had been all theory. I had not associated the tender passion with Miss Frazer. It was left for Hetty to direct my theoretical sympathy into a practical channel.
"Do I think? No, I do not think."
"Do you know that she's in love?"
"I know nothing. I want to know nothing. I will know nothing. But with you, who are always talking, it is different."
"Hetty, if you don't tell me what you mean, I-I-I'll throw my shoe at you."
"Throw away. You never hit anything you aimed at yet." She went on calmly brushing her hair, as if she had not made me all over pins and needles. Presently she gave utterance to an observation which was Sphinx-like in its mystery: "A Frenchman thinks no more of breaking an Englishwoman's heart than-than of eating his breakfast."
"Hetty! what do you mean?"
"Ask Monsieur Doumer."
Monsieur Doumer! Ask Monsieur Doumer! Why, M. Doumer was our French master, as unromantic-looking an example of the one sex as Miss Frazer was of the other. He was immensely stout, perfectly bald-headed, with cheeks and skin which looked as if they were covered with iron-mould, because he never shaved them. That anything feminine could regard with equanimity the prospect of being brought within measurable distance of that scrubby countenance did seem incredible. And yet here was Hetty hinting.
"Do you mean to say that Miss Frazer's in love with M. Doumer?"
"You say yourself that she seems to be going mad."
"Yes; but I don't quite see what that has to do with it."
"Not when a woman's being trampled on?"
"Trampled on? Really, Hetty, I do wish you would say straight out what it is you're driving at. You can't be suggesting that M. Doumer has been literally trampling on Miss Frazer, because, since he weighs about two tons, she'd have been killed upon the spot."
"There are more ways of killing a pig than one."
"You are mysterious. I daresay you think it's clever, but I think it's stupid."
"Are there not more ways of killing a pig than one?"
"I daresay there may be; but I don't see what that has to do with Miss Frazer."
"I don't say that it has anything to do with Miss Frazer. But, as I began by observing, when you consider how every Frenchman considers himself entitled to treat an Englishwoman exactly as he pleases, and perceive where Miss Frazer is plainly drifting, I should have thought you would have been able to see something for yourself." She seemed to me to be more mysterious than ever. "Perhaps," she added, as if by an afterthought, "if someone were to take him to task, and give him to understand that an Englishwoman is not a football for anyone to kick about, matters might be brought to wear a different aspect. But no doubt, as she is alone and unprotected, he knows that there is nothing of that kind to be feared. Because, of course, no one is going to play Don Quixote for a freckled Scotchwoman."
"I don't see why not. I should have thought that the fact of her being alone and-and not good-looking-would have made anyone with a grain of chivalry in them stand up for her all the more on that account."
"It looks like it! When you yourself just said that she is going mad because of the way she has been treated."
I had not said that or anything of the kind. I was trying to think of what I had said when the door opened and Miss Frazer herself came in. She had her watch in her hand, at which she was pointing an accusatory finger. I do not know what time it was-she did not give us a chance to see-but I expect it was later than we had supposed, because, taking the candle off the dressing-table, she marched straight out of the room with it without a word, and left us in total darkness.
"Well," I exclaimed, "this is pleasant. I'm not undressed, you've had the looking-glass all the time, and I haven't done a single thing to my hair, and I never can do anything to it in the dark."
"When a woman is in the state of mind in which she is, those who have to do with her have to put up with her. Don't blame her. Don't even think hard things of her. Try sometimes to practise, what you preach."
What Hetty Travers meant I again had not the faintest notion. She certainly had no right to hint such things of me. It seemed impossible that the mere contemplation of Miss Frazer's doleful plight could have moved her to tears; but while I fumbled with my hair in my indignant efforts to do it up in one decent plait in the darkness she did make some extraordinary noises, which might have been stifled sobs.
The following morning, during recreation, when I went into the schoolroom to get a book which I had left, I found Miss Frazer crouching over her desk, not only what I should call crying, but positively bellowing into her pocket-handkerchief. I stared at her in astonishment.
"Miss Frazer! What is the matter?" She bellowed on. A thought occurred to me. "Has-has anyone been treating you badly?"
Since she was so taciturn when calm, I expected her to be dumb when torn by her emotions. But I was mistaken. Taking her handkerchief from before her streaming eyes-her spectacles lay on the top of the desk, and I noticed how comical she looked without them-she spluttered out, -
"I'm the worst treated woman in the whole world!"
"Someone has been making you unhappy?"
"Cruelly, wickedly unhappy!"
"But have you no one to whom you can go for advice and assistance?"
"Not a single creature! Not a living soul! I am helpless! It is because I am helpless that I am trampled on."
Trampled on? I recalled Hetty's words. So she had been trampled on. Was being trampled on at that very moment. My blood, as usual, began to boil. Here was still another forlorn woman who had fallen a helpless victim to what Lord Byron called the "divine fever." And so a Frenchman did think that he could kick an Englishwoman about as if she were a football! I jumped at my conclusions with an ease and a rapidity which set all my pulses glowing.
"Do you think that it would make any difference if anyone spoke for you?"
"It must make a difference; it must! It is impossible that it should not make a difference! But who is there who would speak for me? Not one being on the earth!"
Was there not? There she was mistaken, as she should see. But I did not tell her so. Indeed, she must have thought me also lacking in that rare human sympathy, the absence of which she mourned in others, because I hurried out of the schoolroom without another word. To be entirely frank, I was more than half afraid. Unattractive enough in her normal condition, she was absolutely repulsive in her woe. Had I dared I would have advised her, strongly, never under any circumstances to cry. But had I done so I might have wounded her sensitive nature still more deeply. She might have started boohooing with still greater vehemence. Then what would she have looked like? And what would have happened to me?
Mrs Sawyer had instructed me to go into town to get a particular kind of drawing block for the drawing class which was to take place that afternoon. I knew where M. Doumer lived. When a newcomer appeared in his class it was his custom to present her-with an original article in bows which we irreverently described as the "Doumer twiddle" – with his card, in the corner of which was printed his address, so that the place of his habitation was known to all of us. It was close to the shop where they sold the drawing blocks. In returning one needed to go scarcely out of one's way at all to pass his house. I made it my business to pass his house. And when I reached it I marched straight up to the door, and I knocked.
The door was opened by a nondescript-looking person whom I took for the landlady. There was a card in the window-"Apartments To Let" – so I immediately concluded that M. Doumer lived in lodgings and that this was the person who kept them. She was a small, thin, hungry, acidulated female, who struck me as being an old maid of the most pronounced type. I have a fatal facility for drawing instant definite deductions from altogether insufficient premises which will one of these days land me goodness alone knows where.
"I wish to see M. Doumer."
She led me into the room on the left, in the window of which appeared the legend about apartments.
"M. Doumer is out. Is it anything which I can say to him?"
It struck me, even in the midst of the boiling-over state of mind in which I was, that she might have informed me that the man was out before taking me into the house. But I was in much too explosive a condition to allow a trifle of that sort to deter me from letting off some of my steam.
"Will you please ask him what he means by the way in which he has behaved to Miss Frazer?"
To judge from the way in which she looked at me I might have said something extraordinary. She had rather nut-cracker jaws, and all at once her mouth went in such a way that one felt sure there must have been a click. And she did look at me.
"I don't understand," she said.
"I don't understand either. That's why I want M. Doumer to explain. He has been trampling on Miss Frazer, and broken her heart, so that she's crying her eyes out."
The landlady person had not quite closed the door when showing me into the room, but had remained standing with her back to it, holding the handle in her hand. Now she turned right round, carefully shut it fast, and moved two or three steps towards me. There was something in her behaviour which, in a person in her position, I thought odd.
"Who are you?"
She asked the question in an exceedingly inquisitorial sort of way. I held up my chin as high as I could in the air.
"I am Molly Boyes."
"Molly Boyes?" She seemed to be searching in her mind for something with which to associate the name. "I don't remember to have heard of you."
"Perhaps not. I shouldn't think it likely that you had. I don't suppose that M. Doumer talks to everyone about all of his pupils."
"Are you one of his pupils?
"I am. I am at Lingfield House School, and I have been in his French class for now going on for four terms."
"And who's Miss- What's-her-name? Is she another of the pupils?"
"Miss Frazer is one of our governesses; and if he thinks that because she is an Englishwoman he can use her as if she were a football he's mistaken."
"Use her as if she were a football? What do you mean? What's he been doing to her?"
"He's broken her heart, that's what he's been doing to her. And when I came away just now she was crying so that if someone doesn't stop her soon I know she'll do herself an injury."
The landlady person made a noise with her nose which I should describe as a sniff. She straightened herself up as if she were trying to add another three or four inches to her stature, which would not have made her very tall even if she had succeeded.
"I thought as much. I have suspected it for months. But I am not one to speak unless I know. The man's a regular Bluebeard."
"A regular Bluebeard! – M. Doumer!"
"A complete Don Juan. I have long been convinced of it. He fascinates every woman he comes across. But he doesn't care."
The idea of calling that barrel-shaped monster, with his shining yellow head and scrubbing-brush physiognomy, a "complete Don Juan" so filled me with astonishment that for a second or two I could only look my feelings.
"M. Doumer is not like my idea of Don Juan in the very least."
"Indeed! And pray what do you know about Don Juan? A chit of your age! At my time of life I suppose I may be allowed to know something of what I'm talking about, and I tell you that I'm persuaded that he breaks hearts like walnuts."
"But-he's so ugly!"
"Ugly! Maximilian Doumer ugly! Misguided girl! But it's not becoming that I should discuss such subjects with a mere child like you. I know what I know. But it is none the less my duty on that account to see that he trifles with no woman's affections. And as his wife my duty shall be done."
When she said that I do believe the blood nearly froze in my veins. I am sure it turned cold, because I know I shivered from head to foot. His wife? She said his wife. And all the time I had been taking her for his landlady and an old maid, and had been calling M. Doumer ugly, and accusing him to her face of breaking Miss Frazer's heart. I do not know why, but I had never imagined for a single moment that he could be anything but a bachelor. We girls at Mrs Sawyer's had always taken it for granted that he was. At least, the general impression on my mind was that we had. The horror of the situation deprived me of the use of the tiny scrap of sense which I possessed. My own impulse was to run for it. But it was far from being Madame Doumer's intention that I should do anything of the kind. And though I think that she was in every respect smaller than I was, I am convinced that I never encountered a person of whom I all at once felt so much afraid. I stammered out something.
"I-I'm afraid I must go."
I made a faltering movement towards the door. She simply placed herself in my way and crushed me.
"You must what?"
"I-I shall be late for dinner."
"Then you will be late for dinner. You will not quit this apartment until M. Doumer returns. Not that that will necessitate your being detained long, because here he is."
I had been desirous of seeing M. Doumer, even anxious. In order to do so I had gone a good deal out of my way, and behaved in a characteristically considerate manner. But so far as I could judge, amid the rush of very curious sensations with which I was struggling, on a sudden, the entire situation had changed. It was far from being my wish to have an interview with him at that particular moment. Quite the contrary. I really do not know what I would not have given-certainly all the remainder of that term's pocket-money! – to have escaped such an encounter. Picture, therefore, my sensations when I heard the garden gate slam, the front door open, a heavy footstep enter the hall, and, on Madame Doumer opening the sitting-room door, perceived her husband standing without.
"Here is someone who wants to see you."
The lady's tone was sour as sour could be, and what she said was perfectly untrue. I could have wanted nothing less. I should have been only too glad to have been able to disappear up the chimney on a broomstick, or on nothing at all, if I could only have got out of that room. In came M. Doumer, all smiles and smirks, looking to me more shiny-headed and scrubbing-brush faced than ever.
"Ah! – it is Miss Boyes! – Sarah" – he addressed his wife as Sarah, and she looked it-"this is one of my charming pupils at Lingfield House School."
"So she's not an impostor. That's something." The insinuation made my cheeks flame. "You appear to have a number of charming pupils, M. Doumer. Is Miss Frazer one of them?"
"Miss Frazer? Who is Miss Frazer?" He turned to me. "Is that the young lady who joined the class a week or two ago? I have forgotten her name."
I was tongue-tied. A conviction was stealing over me that the whole thing was a hideous mistake, that I had been making a spectacle of myself on an unusually handsome scale. The tone in which he put his question was sincerity itself. It was impossible to suspect him of an intention to deceive. At least I should have thought so, though it pleased his wife, apparently, to think otherwise.
"It is odd that you should have forgotten the name of the woman whose heart you have broken."
"Whose heart I have broken?"
"Though perhaps that is because it has become such a frequent custom of yours to trample your victims under foot that one more or less is hardly worth your noticing."
"My dear, I do not understand."
He evidently did not. He looked from one to the other of us as if struck by a sudden foreboding that there was trouble in the air. Such a comical-looking distress came over his peculiar physiognomy that I positively began to feel sorry for him.
"Still, considering that a short time ago she was crying to such a degree that it was feared that she might do herself an injury-all because of you! – it does seem strange that you cannot even remember her name."
He held out his hands in front of him in the funny way we knew so well.
"My dear, of what are you talking? I wish that you would explain."
"It seems that that is what she wants you to do. She has sent this insignificant child to demand an explanation."
He turned to me.
"She has sent you? Who has sent you? Miss Frazer? – who is Miss Frazer?"
"She's one of the governesses."
"One of the governesses? – which of the governesses?"
"So there are several. It is to be hoped that you haven't broken the hearts of the entire staff. It is plain that you know them all."
"My dear, I have to meet these ladies in the performance of my duties."
I thrust in my oar.
"M. Doumer, I've made a mistake, I know I've made a mistake-I'm sure of it. I've been very silly. Madame Doumer, I'm quite sure I've made a mistake; please do let me go."
"So that's the tone you take on now. It was a different one at first. I can see as far through a brick wall as most people, and I rather fancy that there may be a brick wall here. Perhaps you expected to see M. Doumer alone."
"I did; I thought he was a bachelor."
"Oh-h! – now I begin to see. You thought he was a bachelor. I suppose, M. Doumer, that that is because you have always behaved as a bachelor. In your profession it is so easy. And with your natural advantages, so much more agreeable."
"I tell you, Madame Doumer, it's a mistake. It's all my fault. I have been silly. I am so sorry, I beg your pardon and M. Doumer's too. Please forgive me! – and let me go!"
"Oh, you shall go. And I'm as sure as you are that there's a mistake-somewhere. Exactly where I intend to ascertain. So M. Doumer and I will go with you. I will request to be introduced to this Miss Frazer, and M. Doumer shall make the explanation you require before her face. Then we shall know precisely where the mistake has lain."
The prospect of such a climax to my adventure as her words suggested appalled me into something approaching a fury. I made a little rush at her.
"You sha'n't keep me! – I will go!"
She looked me straight in the face. Then she moved towards me. As she advanced I retreated. I found the little woman very terrible. M. Doumer tried his hand at expostulation.
"My dear, you do not know what you talk about. If you do not take care you will do mischief-great mischief I do not know what silly tale Miss Boyes has been telling you, but there is not a word of truth in it, whatever it is." He seemed to have a way of taking certain things for granted which was nice for me! "You must not listen to the talk of silly girls-never! never!"
He waved his hand as if he were dismissing the matter finally as being unworthy anyone's consideration. His wife, however, regarded neither his words nor his gestures. She spoke to him as if it were hers to command and his to obey.
"Go upstairs and get my hat, my coat, my gloves and my umbrella; and be quick about it. I have no intention of quitting this apartment until this young person quits it with me. Nor do I propose to leave you two together to arrange an explanation of the mistake between you and to hatch plots behind my back. Did you hear what I told you to get me?"
He did hear; and he obeyed. Some faint attempt at remonstrance he ventured on. But he might as well have spoken to a wooden image. Though it certainly is true that a figure of that description would not have been quite so dictatorial. She opened the door, she pointed through it with her fingers. Shrugging his shoulders, with an air of piteous resignation he went in the direction in which the finger pointed. During his absence not a word was spoken, his wife contenting herself with looking me up and down in a way I never was looked at either before or since. I felt as if I were momentarily dwindling in size. She called out to him.
"How long are you going to be up there?"
"Coming, my dear, coming!"
And he came.
A delightful walk we had, three abreast. The lady was in the centre, her husband on the left, I on the right. She treated us as if we were prisoners. I am sure I felt like one. Every now and then M. Doumer endeavoured to induce his wife to listen to a word or two of what he considered reason. She snapped him into silence. In vain he tried to make her realise the indignity of the situation into which she was thrusting both of us. Not a syllable would she have of it. Forced into speechlessness, he hinted at what was taking place within him by a variety of odd little gestures which, had I not been so conscious of my own ignominy, would have made me laugh outright in the street.
We reached Lingfield House. Madame made Monsieur knock at the door. But when it was opened it was she who inquired if Mrs Sawyer was in. It is my impression that he would have turned tail even at the last moment had she not insisted on his entering first, with me next, while she herself brought up the rear. We were shown into a sitting-room, where presently Mrs Sawyer appeared. M. Doumer, who had been fidgeting about like a cat on hot bricks, at once burst into speech.
"Mrs Sawyer, will you permit me to explain to you that I do not know-"
His wife cut short his flow of eloquence.
"M. Doumer, I will say all that is necessary. I am Madame Doumer, the wife of M. Doumer." Mrs Sawyer bowed. "Have you a person here of the name of Frazer?"
"Miss Frazer? Certainly, she is one of my governesses." Mrs Sawyer turned to me. "Molly, we have begun dinner without you. Where have you been?"
I essayed to explain, though I do not know what sort of explanation I should have offered. But Madame Doumer was acting as explainer-in-chief.
"She has been to visit M. Doumer. It is on that account that I am here; very much on that account. May I ask you to request Miss Frazer to favour us with her company? It is indispensable that what has to be said should be said in Miss Frazer's presence."
"I don't understand," began Mrs Sawyer.
She did look puzzled. And no wonder. M. Doumer interrupted.
"My dear, once more I beg of you to permit me to say-"
But his wife would not.
"Silence, sir! If you will be so good as to request Miss Frazer to come into this room I will endeavour to make myself as plain as the extremely peculiar circumstances will permit."
The end of it was that Miss Frazer was requested to come, and she came. She evidently had not a notion why she had been sent for. She gazed at us like a startled sheep. Mrs Sawyer introduced her.
"This is Miss Frazer. Miss Frazer, this is Madame Doumer. It appears that she has something which she wishes to say to you."
Miss Frazer looked more sheep-like than before; Madame Doumer could not have regarded her as a dangerous rival. But her manner could not have been more acid if Miss Frazer had been a queen of beauty.
"It is not my intention to give offence, therefore I trust that no offence will be taken. But it is my duty, as a woman, to invite you to state, publicly, what grounds you have for the assertion that M. Doumer has broken your heart."
"Broken my heart!"
Instantly Miss Frazer was all of a fluster, which was not surprising.
"And, also, why you charge him with trampling on you."
"Trampling on me? Why, I have never spoken to M. Doumer!"
M. Doumer was promptly in the breach.
"There, my dear-you hear! What did I say to you? What did I say? I have never spoken to this lady in my life-nor she to me! So far as I recollect I have not had the pleasure of seeing her before."
"Then what do you mean?" This question was addressed to me. I was beginning to ask myself what I could have meant. Oh, my feelings! "What do you mean by coming and telling me that this person was crying as if she would do herself an injury because of the way in which she had been treated by M. Doumer? And by saying that she had sent you to demand from him an explanation?"
"I did not say that she had sent me, I did not say it! And you were crying, Miss Frazer, you know you were!"
"Crying?"
"You know that I came and found you crying in the schoolroom."
She began to cry again then and there. As for me, I was swimming in tears already.
"I know that I was crying, but it wasn't because of that."
Mrs Sawyer interposed.
"Gently, Miss Frazer. Perhaps, if we keep cool, by degrees we shall begin to understand what this is all about. Can you tell us what you were crying about when this impulsive young lady intruded on your grief?"
"I was crying because of what you said to me."
"Because of what I said to you?"
It was Mrs Sawyer's turn to look bewildered.