Читать книгу The Governess - Julie M. Lippmann - Страница 9

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She knew what was coming when the bell rang. She had been expecting it all the afternoon. But in spite of that her heart beat fast and her breath came hard as she heard the familiar sound. Not that she was afraid. She had nothing to be afraid of, she assured herself defiantly, and besides, fear was one of the things she despised. Whatever else she was, she was certainly not a coward. Still she sat in her room and waited in a state of mind that was not precisely what one would call tranquil.

She heard Delia mount the basement stairs and then she heard her ask the new-comer into the parlor. A moment later there was a tap upon Nan's bedroom door.

"Come in," she said carelessly, and pretended to be searching for some article lost in the confusion of her upper drawer.

"You're wanted in the parlor, Nan," began Delia at once. "It's a lady who says she lives on the block and she wouldn't give her name, but I think she's the one moved into Leffingwell's old house last spring—has that little girl with the long curls, you know the one I mean. Shall I help you put on another dress and braid your hair over? It's fearful mussy-lookin'. Or will I just go and say you'll be down in a minute while you do it yourself?"

Nan cast a glance at her torn dress and towzled head in the mirror. "No, Delia, I'll go as I am, and if the lady doesn't like it she can—oh, well, I'll go down as I am."

Delia pressed her lips together, as though trying to hold back the words of advice on the tip of her tongue. She knew it was worse than useless to try to argue with the girl. She had not lived in the house since Nan was born without learning better than to try to reason with her when she had once declared her mind. She stood beside the door, and allowed Nan to pass through it before her, without saying a word. Then she followed her quietly down stairs. At the parlor door Nan paused a moment, and Delia, who thought she was about to speak, paused too, but the girl only turned sharply into the room, pulling the door shut behind her. Once across the threshold she halted and stood irresolute. Whatever the result of this meeting might prove, depended not so much on Nan as on her visitor.

Nan, though standing in awkward silence, as stiff and as straight as a soldier on parade, was ready to be influenced by whatever course her caller chose to pursue; a kind word spoken at the start would melt her at once, where a harsh one would raise in her every sort of sullen hostility and obstinate resistance. She was, as Delia often said to herself, "as hard to manage as a kicking colt." Sometimes she was wonderfully docile, but her moods were variable, and oftenest she was headstrong and wilful, with a fierce repugnance to curb, or what she considered unwarrantable interference.

But it would have been difficult to convince the stranger at that moment that Nan could ever be won, or, in fact, that she had any tenderness to be appealed to. There she stood, looking as erect and impassive as a young Indian. Her brown hair was in a state of thorough disorder, and gave a sort of savage look to her sun-browned face. Her gray eyes were anything but soft at this moment; her mouth was set, and her whole attitude seemed to be one of imperturbable indifference. In reality, the girl was apprehensive and embarrassed. She set her lips to keep them from trembling. Her first impulse would have been to make a clean breast of everything, frankly and truthfully, but—something in her nature held her back. Was it obstinacy, or was it reticence?

Her visitor did not wait to discover. She decided the result of the interview in the first words she spoke.

"Is your name Nan Cutler?" she asked in a voice of stern authority.

"Yes, it is!" acknowledged the girl, instantly on the defensive.

"Then it is you who are accountable for the accident to Ruth Newton? You urged her to go with you, and when she fell—oh, you are a coward! It was detestable!"

Nan made no reply, but stood the picture of inflexibility, facing her accuser squarely.

"I have come to see you, not because you can undo the mischief you have done to my child, and not because I think I can affect you in the least, or make you sorry or ashamed, but simply to tell you that I intend to see that you are punished, as you deserve. I have put up with annoyance you caused me long enough. Your influence is bad. All the neighbors complain of you. You are noisy and careless, and rough and rude. When any one reprimands you, you give a pert retort, or else pretend not to hear—which is impudent. Unless we wish our children to be utterly ruined we must see that they are put beyond your influence at once. You do things that are absolutely vulgar and unbefitting a girl of your age; you must be fourteen, at least, you look older, you are certainly old enough to know better. You are not a proper playmate for our children. You are boisterous and unladylike. You—you—are a perfect hoyden!"

The stranger paused for breath, while Nan surveyed her with a look of calm indifference; an air of unconcern in anything she might say or think that seemed as insolent as it was exasperating.

"You are a perfect hoyden!" repeated the stern voice in rising anger. "Whatever you do is done in such a loud, violent fashion that it becomes perfectly unbearable. You play ball with boys. You climb fences and trees. You are continually flying up and down the street on your detestable roller-skates and shouting until the neighborhood seems like Bedlam, and you don't appear to have the vaguest idea that people's rights need not be infringed on in such a manner; that they have the right to peace and quiet in their own homes. Even if you would content yourself with your own disorderliness! But you are not satisfied with doing what you know must annoy others; you seem to take a malicious delight in bringing the little children under your influence and making them long to follow your example. You cannot have the first shadow of generosity or bravery in your nature, or you would not urge them to do what you know their parents would disapprove of. You teach them to disobey. My daughter never told an untruth in her life until the other day. I have no reason to doubt that you taught her to tell that untruth!"

Nan's cheeks suddenly became white, but she did not open her lips.

"If you cannot be restrained by your own people at home you shall be by some other means. They say your own people are respectable; how can you disgrace them so?"

Nan deigned no reply, but her lip curled contemptuously.

"They say your mother is dead."

Again no answer.

"Where is your father?"

"My father is in India. He is in Bombay," announced Nan, deliberately.

"Who has control of you in his absence?"

"No one!" declared the girl with decision.

Mrs. Newton surveyed the lank, overgrown, girlish figure with unconcealed scorn.

"Do you know," she said with bitter distinctness, "that you are the most shameless, unfeeling girl I have ever beheld? Any one else would show some remorse for what she had done, but you—young as you are, you are the hardest creature I have ever known. Hard, cruel, and cold. How can you stand there and look me in the face when you know how you have injured me? Tell me, does it not touch you at all that Ruth is hurt? Do you know or care that such a fall as she has had is enough to cripple a child for life? Many children have been hopelessly crippled through far less."

The mother's voice broke, and she set her lips to keep down a sob.

"How much is she hurt?" whispered Nan after a moment. She was trembling all over and cold and hot by turns, and she could not command her voice. It was almost more than she could do to keep from bursting into a violent fit of sobbing from her sense of injury and shame and indignation. But she simply would not permit herself to break down. No one should be allowed to think they intimidated her. But she could not hide her anxiety about Ruth.

"Is she much hurt?" she repeated.

There was a shade of softening in her visitor's face. "We can't tell yet. She has had a severe fall, and the chill coming after it may have very serious consequences, but we can tell nothing yet. However, I did not come here to inform you of her condition," the voice growing stern and the face severe again. "I came to tell you that if Ruth is injured I will hold you responsible. And not only that, but I warn you that I mean to take matters into my own hands now and see that you are permitted to do no further mischief. You shall be controlled. Who has charge of your father's affairs? Who has any sort of authority over you in his absence? He must have left you in somebody's care. He can't have gone away leaving you with no one to look after you. Who is your guardian? Tell me? If you don't I shall find out for myself, you may depend."

"I'm perfectly willing to tell you," declared Nan, with what seemed to be complete coolness. "It's Mr. Turner. He gives Delia the money to get me things and to keep the house. He comes here every once in a while to see me. My father has him for his lawyer. He's a friend of his. When Delia writes to him for money for me she sends the letter to 101 Blank Street. That's his office. I don't remember where his house is. Delia never writes to his house. He doesn't attend to me—that is, he isn't my guardian, but I guess he would do if you want to see some one."

Nan delivered herself of this information as casually as though it had been a report of the weather. As a matter of fact she was inwardly quivering, and every moment found it more and more difficult to control herself. Never in all her life before had she been so relentlessly, harshly accused. In trying to conceal her emotion she only gave herself the appearance of rigid inflexibility.

Her visitor regarded her stonily for a moment and then abruptly brushed past her toward the door. Nan made no attempt to intercept her, but suddenly the hard lines about her mouth relaxed, her eyes softened, and she held out her hands with an imploring gesture.

"Won't you please tell me where Ruth is hurt?" she cried. "Won't you let me do something for her? Let me—please let me! If you'll only listen a minute I'll tell you—"

But it was too late now. She was given no reply; permitted no chance to vindicate herself. Her visitor's hard lips quivered, but she uttered no syllable. In a moment she was gone.

After the door had closed upon her and it was quite certain that she would not come back, Nan turned and rushed headlong, like a young savage, upstairs and into her own room. What took place there it would have been impossible to discover, for the shades were jerked fiercely down, the door sharply shut and locked, and Delia, coming up some time later, could not make out a sound within nor get a reply to her requests to be admitted, though she stood outside and pleaded for an hour.

At twilight the door was opened and Nan came out quite composed, but bearing on her face the unmistakable traces of tears which, however, Delia was wise enough to let pass unremarked.

"Time for dinner?" asked the girl, curtly.

"No, not yet. It ain't but just six," replied the woman. "Are you hungry? I'll get you something if you are."

"No, I'm not hungry. But I feel kind of queer, somehow. There's an empty feeling I have that makes me uncomfortable. But I'm not hungry. O Delia!" she burst out, vehemently, "I wish—I wish—I had my mother. A girl needs—her mother—sometimes—"

"Always," declared Delia, with conviction.

For a little time there was silence between them. Then Nan said, "Look here, Delia—I want to tell you something. I feel just horribly. I never felt so unhappy in all my life. That lady who was here this afternoon is Ruth Newton's mother. She came to see me because this morning Ruth fell from the tree in Reid's lot and hurt herself, and Mrs. Newton thinks I made her do it. I didn't. Honestly, I didn't. I had climbed the tree myself, and it was fun and I liked it. Ruth would come. I tried to make her stay away, but she wouldn't, and when she teased to climb the tree too, I told her not to. She's so little and young, and her mother doesn't think it's ladylike, and I said if she wouldn't come with me in the first place I'd give her five cents. But she would tag on, and later she tried to climb the tree in spite of everything. She put a board up against the trunk and got on it and then scrambled up a little way, but she didn't get far, for the board slipped, or something, and down she went—smash! I guess she must have hit herself on the edge or somewhere, for when I dropped down she was lying on the ground, and she had her eyes closed and wouldn't speak. Then I didn't know what to do. I wanted to lift her, but it was awful work. There was no one in sight. At last I managed to tug her to the fence, but, of course, I hadn't the strength to get her over that alone. I couldn't leave her and run for help, and for a long time I did nothing but scream, in the hope that some one would come along and hear. And by and by I heard wheels. It was a milk cart, and I got the man to help me get her home. I went right to the Newton's as fast as I could, but when Bridget opened the door and saw who it was she was simply furious. They wouldn't let me in, and Mrs. Newton sent down word she wouldn't see me, but she'd attend to me later, and this afternoon when she called she just called me names and things, and I couldn't explain to her, I felt so choked. She talked to me so, I couldn't say a word. You don't know. When people say such things to me something gets in my throat, and I feel like strangling and doing all sorts of things. I seem to shut right up when they go at me like that. I can't speak. I just feel like—well, you don't know what I feel like. Mrs. Newton asked me where father is, and I told her, and then she asked about Mr. Turner, for she wants to have things done to me, and I told her about him. I wouldn't have her think I wanted to get out of it. She called me names and she thinks I taught Ruth to tell untruths; she said so. She says if Ruth doesn't get well it will be my fault. O Delia! I didn't do it. Honestly I wasn't to blame. But if Ruth is going to be sick and they think I did it—I want my mother! How can I bear it without my mother?"

Delia gently patted the dark head that had flung itself into her lap. Her heart ached for the girl, but her simple mind was not equal to the task of consolation in a case like this. She could not cope with its difficulties. She knew Nan was to blame for much, but she thought in her heart that Mrs. Newton had no right to vent her wrath upon the girl without first having heard her side of the story. She could not console Nan, she thought, without seeming to convict Mrs. Newton, and if she "stood up for" Mrs. Newton, Nan would think her lacking in sympathy for herself. But in the midst of her wondering, up bobbed the head from under her hand.

"Mrs. Newton says I teach the children to do wrong. She says I'm a hoyden. She says I left Ruth in the cold and that I was a coward. She didn't give me time to tell her about how I tried to get Ruth home myself, and that when I couldn't, how I just howled for help. At least she didn't want to listen when I got so I could speak. She says everybody thinks I'm bad, and they want to have me attended to. She thinks I taught Ruth to tell lies. Think, Delia, lies! When she said that it was like knives! O Delia? I know you've been awfully good to me always, and taken care of me since mamma died and all, but if it is so dreadful to play ball and skate and do things like that, why did you let me in the first place? I hate to sew and do worsted work and be prim, but perhaps, if you had brought me up that way I might have got so I could stand it. Don't you think if you had begun when I was a baby I might have? I don't want to have people hate me—honestly, I don't. When they talk to me, and say I'm rowdyish because I walk fences and play ball with the boys and climb trees, I try not to show it, but it hurts me way deep down. I try to say something back so they'll think I don't care, and sometimes, if it hurts too much, I pretend not to hear, and that makes them madder than ever. They don't know how, when it's like that, I can't speak. Perhaps if you'd brought me up so, I might have liked dolls and thought it was fun to sit still and sew on baby clothes. But I don't like to, and I can't help it. Mrs. Newton thinks because I whistle and make a noise that I'm just mean and hateful and everything else. She thinks I don't care. Why, Delia! if anything happened to Ruth I'd feel exactly as if I didn't want to live another day. I—I—O Delia!"

For the first time she gave way, and, hiding her head in her arms, sobbed heavily.

By this time Delia had risen to a point of burning anger against her child's detractor. Her heart beat loyally for Nan, and she could scarcely restrain the words of resentment that rose to her lips, and that it would have been such unwisdom to have uttered.

"Never mind, Nannie lamb!" she said. "It'll be all right in the morning. The child will be all well in the morning. You'll see she ain't so bad as they think. And to-morrow I'll go and tell them all about it. And perhaps they'll see then it's better to be slow accusin' where the guilt ain't proved. Come, come! Don't cry so! Why, Nannie, child, you haven't cried like this since you were—I can't tell how little. You never cry, Nan. You're always so brave, and never give way. You'll have a headache if you don't stop. Dry your tears, and to-morrow it'll be all right."

So, little by little, she soothed the girl, and by and by Nan ate her dinner, and then, when it was later, she went to bed. But when everything was hushed and still a dark figure crept noiselessly down stairs and on into the outer darkness. Down the street it stole until it had reached a house, which, alone in all the row of darkened barrack-like dwellings, showed a dimly lit window to the night. There it halted. And there it stood, like a faithful sentinel, only deserting its post when the gray light of early morning rose slowly over the world and the city was astir once more.