Works of Ellen Wood, page 1030
“Do you know where your mamma is, Miss Trot?” asked the servant, putting a chair.
“You can go and search for her?”
She looked at me so intently as the maid left the room, that I told her who I was, and what I had come for. The child’s tongue — it seemed as sharp a one as Miss Cattledon’s — was let loose.
“I have heard of you, Johnny Ludlow. Mrs. Smith would be glad to see you. You had better wait.”
I don’t know how it is that I make myself at home with people; or, rather, that people seem so soon to be at home with me. I don’t try to do it, but it is always so. In two or three minutes, when the girl was talking to me as freely as though I were her brother, the maid came back again.
“Miss Trot, I cannot find your mamma.”
“Mrs. Smith’s out. But I was not obliged to tell you so. I’ll not spare you any work when you call me Miss Trot.”
The maid’s only answer was to leave the room: and the little girl — who spoke like a woman — shook her dark hair from her face in temper.
“I’ve told them over and over again I will not be called Miss Trot. How would you like it? Because my mamma took to say it when I was a baby, it is no reason why other people should say it.”
“Perhaps your mamma says it still, and so they fall into it also.”
“My mamma is dead.”
Just at the moment I did not take in the meaning of the words. “Mrs. Smith dead!”
“Mrs. Smith is not my mother. Don’t insult me, please. She came here as my governess. If papa chose to make a fool of himself by marrying her afterwards, it was not my fault. What are you looking at?”
I was looking at her: she seemed so strange a child; and feeling slightly puzzled between the other Mrs. Smith and this one. They say I am a muff at many things; I am sure I am at understanding complicated relationships.
“Then — Miss Chalk is — this Mrs. Smith’s sister?”
“Well, you might know that. They are a pair, and I don’t like either of them. There are two crying babies upstairs now.”
“Mrs. Smith’s?”
“Yes, Mrs. Smith’s” — with intense aggravation. “Papa had quite enough with me, and I could have managed the house and servants as well as she does. And because Nancy Chalk was not enough, in addition we must be never safe from Sophonisba! Oh, there are crosses in life!”
“Who is Sophonisba?”
“She is Sophonisba.”
“Perhaps you mean Sophie Chalk?”
“Her name’s not Sophie, or Sophia either. She was christened Sophonisba, but she hates the name, and takes care to drop it always. She is a deep one, is Sophonisba Chalk!”
“Is this her home?”
“She makes it her home, when she’s not out teaching. And papa never seems to think it an encroachment. Sophonisba Chalk does not keep her places, you know. She thought she had got into something fine last autumn at Lord Augustus Difford’s, but Lady Augustus gave her warning at the first month’s end.”
“Then Miss Chalk is a governess?”
“What else do you suppose she is? She comes over people, and gets a stock of invitations on hand, and goes to them between times. You should hear the trouble there is about her dresses, that she may make a good appearance. And how she does it I can’t think: they don’t tell me their contrivances. Mrs. Smith must give her some — I am sure of it — which papa has to pay for; and Sophonisba goes in trust for others.”
“She was always dressed well down with us.”
“Of course she was. Whitney Hall was her great-card place; but the time for the visit was so long before it was fixed, she thought it had all dropped through. It came just right: just when she was turned out of Lady Augustus Difford’s. Helen Whitney had promised it a long while before.”
“I know; when they were schoolfellows at Miss Lakon’s.”
“They were not schoolfellows. Sophonisba was treated as the rest, but she was only improving pupil. She gave her services, learnt of some of the masters, and paid nothing. How old do you think she is?” broke off Miss Trot.
“About twenty.”
“She was six-and-twenty last birthday; and they say she will look like a child till she’s six-and-thirty. I call it a shame for a young woman of that age to be doing nothing for herself, but to be living on strangers: and papa and I are nothing else to her.”
“How old are you?” I could not help asking.
“Fifteen; nearly sixteen. People take me to be younger, because I am short, and it vexes me. They would not think me young if they knew how I feel. Oh, I can tell you it is a sharpening thing for your papa to marry again, and to find yourself put down in your own home.”
“Has Miss Chalk any engagement now?”
“She has not had an engagement all this year, and now it’s April! I don’t believe she looks after one. She pretends to teach me — while she’s waiting, she says; but it’s all a farce; I won’t learn of her. I heard her tell Mr. Everty I was a horrid child. Fancy that!”
“Who is Mr. Everty?”
“Papa’s head-clerk. He is a gentleman, you know, and Sophonisba thinks great things of him. Ah, I could tell something, if I liked! but she put me on my honour. Oh, she’s a sly one! Just now, she is all her time at the Whitneys’, red-hot for it. You are not going? Stay to luncheon.”
“I must go; Miss Deveen will be waiting for me. You can deliver the parcel, please, with Mrs. Todhetley’s message. I will call in to see Mrs. Smith another day.”
“And to see me too?” came the quick retort.
“Yes, of course.”
“Now, mind, you can’t break your word. I shall say it is me you are coming to call upon; they think I am nobody in this house. Ask for Miss Smith when you come. Good-bye, Johnny Ludlow!”
She never stirred as I shook hands; she seemed never to have stirred hand or foot throughout the interview. But, as I opened the door, there came an odd sort of noise, and I turned to look what it was.
She. Hastening to cross the room, with a crutch, to ring the bell! And I saw that she was both lame and deformed.
In passing down the side street by the office, some one brushed by, with the quick step of a London business man. Where had I seen the face before? Whose did it put me in mind of? Why — it came to me all in a minute — Roger Monk’s! He who had lived at Dyke Manor for a short time as head-gardener under false auspices. But, as I have not said anything about him before, I will not enter into the history now. Before I could turn to look, Monk had disappeared; no doubt round the corner of the square.
“Tod,” I said, as soon as I came across him, “Sophie Chalk’s a governess.”
“Well, what of that?” asked Tod.
“Not much; but she might as well have been candid with us at Dyke Manor.”
“A governess is a lady.”
“Ought to be. But why did she make out to us that she had been a visitor at the Diffords’, when she was only the teacher? We should have respected her just as much; perhaps made more of her.”
“What are you cavilling at? As if a lady was never a teacher before!”
“Oh, Tod! it is not that. Don’t you see? — if she had kept a chandler’s shop, and been open about it, what should we have cared? It was the sailing under false colours; trying to pass herself off for what she is not.”
He gave no answer to this, except a whistle.
“She is turned six-and-twenty, Tod. And she was not a school-girl at Miss Lakon’s, but governess-pupil.”
“I suppose she was a schoolgirl once?”
“I suppose she was.”
“Good. What else have you to say, wise Johnny?”
“Nothing.”
Nothing; for where was the use? Sophie Chalk would have been only an angel in his eyes, though he heard that she had sold apples at a street-corner. Sophie, that very morning, had begged Lady Whitney to let her instruct the younger children, “as a friend,” so long as they were in town; for the governess at Whitney was a daily one, and they had not brought her. Lady Whitney at first demurred, and then kissed Sophie for her goodness. The result was, that a bed was found for Miss Chalk, and she stayed with them altogether.
But I can’t say much for the teaching. It was not Sophie Chalk’s fault, perhaps. Helen would be in the schoolroom, and Harry would be there; and I and Anna sometimes; and Tod and Bill always. Lady Whitney looked upon this London sojourn as a holiday, and did not mind whether the children learnt or played, provided they were kept passably quiet. I told Sophie of my visit to take the fichu, and she made a wry face over the lame girl.
“That Mabel Smith! Poor morbid little object! What she would have grown into but for the fortunate chance of my sister’s marrying into the house, I can’t imagine, Johnny. I’ll draw you her portrait in her night-cap, by-and-by.”
The days went on. We did have fun: but war was growing up between William Whitney and Tod. There could no longer be a mistake (to those who understood things and kept their eyes open) of the part Sophie Chalk was playing: and that was trying to throw Tod over for William Whitney, and to make no fuss about it, I don’t believe she cared a brass button for either: but Bill’s future position in life would be better than Tod’s, seeing that his father was a baronet. Bill was going in for her favour; perhaps not seriously: it might have been for the fun of the moment, or to amuse himself by spiting Tod. Sir John and my lady never so much as dreamt of the by-playing going on before their faces, and I don’t think Helen did.
“I told you she’d fascinate the eyes out of your head, Bill, give her the chance,” said I to him one day in the schoolroom, when Miss Chalk was teaching her pupils to dance.
“You shut up, Johnny,” he said, laughing, and shied the atlas at me.
Before the day was out, there was a sharp, short quarrel. They were all coming for the evening to Miss Deveen’s. I went in at dusk to tell them not to make it nine at night. Turning into the drawing-room, I interrupted a scene — Bill Whitney and Tod railing at one another. What the bone of contention was I never knew, for they seemed to have reached the end of it.
“You did,” said Tod.
“I did not,” said Bill.
“I tell you, you did, William Whitney.”
“Let it go; it’s word against word, and we shall never decide it. You are mistaken, Todhetley; but I am not going to ask your leave as to what I shall do, or what I shan’t.”
“You have no right to say to Miss Chalk what I heard you saying to-day.”
“I tell you, you did not hear me say anything of the sort. Put it that you did — what business is it of yours? If I chose to go in for her, to ask her to be the future Lady Whitney — though it may be many a year, I hope, before I step into my father’s place, good old man! — who has the right to say me nay?”
Tod was foaming. Dusk though it was, I could see that. They took no more account of my being present, than of Harry’s little barking dog.
“Look here, Bill Whitney. If — —”
“Are you boys quarrelling?”
The interruption was Anna’s. Passing through the hall, she had heard the voices and looked in. As if glad of the excuse to get away, Bill Whitney followed her from the room. Tod went out and banged the hall-door after him.
I waited, thinking Anna might come in, and strolled into the little drawing-room. There, quiet as a mouse, stood Sophie Chalk. She had been listening, for certain; and I hope it gratified her: her eyes sparkled a little.
“Why, Johnny! was it you making all that noise? What was the matter? Anything gone wrong?”
It was all very fine to try it on with me. I just looked straight at her, and I think she saw as much. Saying something about going to search for Helen, she left the room.
“What was the trouble, Johnny?” whispered Anna, stealing up to me.
“Only those two having a jar.”
“I heard that. But what was it about? Sophie Chalk?”
“Well, yes; that was it, Anna.”
We were at the front window then. A man was lighting the street-lamps, and Anna seemed to be occupied in watching him. There was enough care on her face to set one up in the dismals for life.
“No harm may come of it, Anna. Any way, you can do nothing.”
“Oh, Johnny, I wish I knew!” she said, clasping her hands. “I wish I could satisfy myself which way right lies. If I were to speak, it might be put down to a wrong motive. I try to see whether that thought is not a selfish one, whether I ought to let it deter me. But then — that’s not the worst.”
“That sounds like a riddle, Anna.”
“I wish I had some good, judicious person who would hear all and judge for me,” she said, rather dreamily. “If you were older, Johnny, I think I would tell you.”
“I am as old as you are, at any rate.”
“That’s just it. We are neither of us old enough nor experienced enough to trust to our own judgment.”
“There’s your mother, Anna.”
“I know.”
“What you mean is, that Sir John and Lady Whitney ought to have their eyes opened to what’s going on, that they may put an end to Miss Chalk’s intimacy here, if they deem the danger warrants it?”
“That’s near enough, Johnny. And I don’t see my way sufficiently clearly to do it.”
“Put the case to Helen.”
“She would only laugh in my face. Hush! here comes some one.”
It was Sophie Chalk. She looked rather sharply at us both, and said she could not find Helen anywhere.
And the days were to go on in outward smoothness and private discomfort, Miss Sophie exercising her fascinations on the whole of us.
But for having promised that lame child to call again in Torriana Square, I should not have cared to go. It was afternoon this time. The servant showed me upstairs, and said her mistress was for the moment engaged. Mabel Smith sat in the same seat in her black frock; some books lay on a small table drawn before her.
“I thought you had forgotten to come.”
“Did you? I should be sure not to forget it.”
“I am so tired of my lessons,” she said, irritably, sweeping the books away with her long thin fingers. “I always am when they teach me. Mrs. Smith has kept me at them for two hours; she has gone down now to engage a new servant.”
“I get frightfully tired of my lessons sometimes.”
“Ah, but not as I do; you can run about: and learning, you know, will never be of use to me. I want you to tell me something. Is Sophonisba Chalk going to stay at Lady Whitney’s?”
“I don’t know. They will not be so very long in town.”
“But I mean is she to be governess there, and go into the country with them?”
“No, I think not.”
“She wants to. If she does, papa says he shall have some nice young lady to sit with me and teach me. Oh, I do hope she will go with them, and then the house would be rid of her. I say she will: it is too good a chance for her to let slip. Mrs. Smith says she won’t: she told Mr. Everty so last night. He wouldn’t believe her, and was very cross over it.”
“Cross over it?”
“He said Sophonisba ought not to have gone there at all without consulting him, and that she had not been home once since, and only written him one rubbishing note that had nothing in it; and he asked Mrs. Smith whether she thought that was right.”
A light flashed over me. “Is Miss Chalk going to marry Mr. Everty?”
“I suppose that’s what it will come to,” answered the curious child. “She has promised to; but promises with her don’t go for much when it suits her to break them. Sophonisba put me on my honour not to tell; but now that Mr. Everty has spoken to Mrs. Smith and papa, it is different. I saw it a long while ago; before she went to the Diffords’. I have nothing to do but to sit and watch and think, you see, Johnny Ludlow; and I perceive things quicker than other people.”
“But — why do you fancy Miss Chalk may break her promise to Mr. Everty?”
“If she meant to keep it, why should she be scheming to go away as the Whitneys’ governess? I know what it is: Sophonisba does not think Mr. Everty good enough for her, but she would like to keep him waiting on, for fear of not getting anybody better.”
Anything so shrewd as Mabel Smith’s manner in saying this, was never seen. I don’t think she was naturally ill-natured, poor thing; but she evidently thought she was being wronged amongst them, and it made her spitefully resentful.
“Mr. Everty had better let her go. It is not I that would marry a wife who dyed her hair.”
“Is Miss Chalk’s dyed? I thought it might be the gold dust.”
“Have you any eyes?” retorted Mabel. “When she was down in the country with you her hair was brown; it’s a kind of yellow now. Oh, she knows how to set herself off, I can tell you. Do you happen to remember who was reigning in England when the massacre of St. Bartholomew took place in France?”
The change of subject was sudden. I told her it was Queen Elizabeth.
“Queen Elizabeth, was it? I’ll write it down. Mrs. Smith says I shall have no dessert to-day, if I don’t tell her. She puts those questions only to vex me. As if it mattered to anybody. Oh, here’s papa!”
A little man came in with a bald head and pleasant face. He said he was glad to see me and shook hands. She put out her arms, and he came and kissed her: her eyes followed him everywhere; her cheeks had a sudden colour: it was easy to see that he was her one great joy in life. And the bright colour made her poor thin face look almost charming.
“I can’t stay a minute, Trottie; going out in a hurry. I think I left my gloves up here.”
“So you did, papa. There was a tiny hole in the thumb and I mended it for you.”
“That’s my little attentive daughter! Good-bye. Mr. Ludlow, if you will stay to dinner we shall be happy.”
Mrs. Smith came in as he left the room. She was rather a plain likeness of Miss Chalk, not much older. But her face had a straightforward, open look, and I liked her. She made much of me and said how kind she had thought it of Mrs. Todhetley to be at the trouble of making a fichu for her, a stranger. She hoped — she did hope, she added rather anxiously, that Sophie had not asked her to do it. And it struck me that Mrs. Smith had not quite the implicit confidence in Miss Sophie’s sayings and doings that she might have had.
