Complete Short Stories (VMC) (49 page)

Miss Chasty’s first pupil was a flirtatious little boy. At seven years, he was alarmingly precocious, and sometimes she thought that he despised his childhood, regarding it as a waiting time which he used only as a rehearsal for adult life. He was already more sophisticated than his young governess and disturbed her with his air of dalliance, the mockery with which he set about his lessons, the preposterous conversations he led her into, guiding her skilfully away from work, confusing her with bizarre conjectures and irreverent ideas, so that she would clasp her hands tightly under the plush table-cloth and pray that his father would not choose such a moment to observe her teaching, coming in abruptly as he sometimes did and signalling to her to continue the lesson.

At those times, his son’s eyes were especially lively, fixed cruelly upon his governess as he listened, smiling faintly, to her faltering voice, measuring her timidity. He would answer her questions correctly, but significantly, as if he knew that by his aptitude he rescued her from dismissal. There were many governesses waiting employment, he implied – and this was so at the beginning of the century. He underlined her good fortune at having a pupil who could so easily learn, could display the results of her teaching to such an advantage for the benefit of the rather sombre, pompous figure seated at the window. When his father, apparently satisfied, had left them without a word, the boy’s manner changed. He seemed fatigued and too absent-minded to reply to any more questions.

‘Hilary!’ she would say sharply. ‘Are you attending to me?’ Her sharpness and her foolishness amused him, coming as he knew they did from the tension of the last ten minutes.

‘Why, my dear girl, of course.’

‘You must address me by my name.’

‘Certainly, dear Florence.’

‘Miss Chasty.’

His lips might shape the words, which he was too weary to say.

Sometimes, when she was correcting his sums, he would come round the table to stand beside her, leaning against her heavily, looking closely at her face, not at his book, breathing steadily down his nose so that tendrils of
hair wavered on her neck and against her cheeks. His stillness, his concentration on her and his too heavy leaning, worried her. She felt something experimental in his attitude, as if he were not leaning against her at all, but against someone in the future. ‘He is only a baby,’ she reminded herself, but she would try to shift from him, feeling a vague distaste. She would blush, as if he were a grown man, and her heart could be heard beating quickly. He was aware of this and would take up the corrected book and move back to his place.

Once he proposed to her and she had the feeling that it was a proposal-rehearsal and that he was making use of her, as an actor might ask her to hear his lines.

‘You must go on with your work,’ she said.

‘I can shade in a map and talk as well.’

‘Then talk sensibly.’

‘You think I am too young, I dare say; but you could wait for me to grow up, I can do that quickly enough.’

‘You are far from grown-up at the moment.’

‘You only say these things because you think that governesses ought to. I suppose you don’t know how governesses go on, because you have never been one until now, and you were too poor to have one of your own when you were young.’

‘That is impertinent, Hilary.’

‘You once told me your father couldn’t afford one.’

‘Which is a different way of putting it.’

‘I shouldn’t have thought they cost much.’ He had a way of just making a remark, of breathing it so gently that it was scarcely said, and might conveniently be ignored.

He was a dandified boy. His smooth hair was like a silk cap, combed straight from the crown to a level line above his topaz eyes. His sailor-suits were spotless. The usual boldness changed to an agonised fussiness if his serge sleeve brushed against chalk or if he should slip on the grassy terrace and stain his clothes with green. On their afternoon walks he took no risks and Florence, who had younger brothers, urged him in vain to climb a tree or jump across puddles. At first, she thought him intimidated by his mother or nurse; but soon she realised that his mother entirely indulged him and the nurse had her thoughts all bent upon the new baby; his fussiness was just another part of his grown-upness come too soon.

The house was comfortable, although to Florence rather too sealed-up and overheated after her own damp and draughty home. Her work was not hard and her loneliness only what she had expected. Cut off from the kitchen by her education, she lacked the feuds and camaraderie, gossip and cups of tea, which make life more interesting for the domestic staff.
None of the maids – coming to light the lamp at dusk or laying the schoolroom-table for tea – ever presumed beyond a remark or two about the weather.

One late afternoon, she and Hilary returned from their walk and found the lamps already lit. Florence went to her room to tidy herself before tea. When she came down to the schoolroom, Hilary was already there, sitting on the window-seat and staring out over the park as his father did. The room was bright and warm and a maid had put a white cloth over the plush one and was beginning to lay the table.

The air was full of a heavy scent, dry and musky. To Florence, it smelt quite unlike the eau de cologne she sometimes sprinkled on her handkerchief, when she had a headache, and she disapproved so much that she returned the maid’s greeting coldly and bade Hilary open the window.

‘Open the window, dear girl?’ he said. ‘We shall catch our very deaths.’

‘You will do as I ask and remember in future how to address me.’

She was angry with the maid – who now seemed to her an immoral creature – and angry to be humiliated before her.

‘But why?’ asked Hilary.

‘I don’t approve of my schoolroom being turned into a scented bower.’ She kept her back to the room and was trembling, for she had never rebuked a servant before.

‘I approve of it,’ Hilary said, sniffing loudly.

‘I think it’s lovely,’ the maid said. ‘I noticed it as soon as I opened the door.’

‘Is this some joke, Hilary?’ Florence asked when the girl had gone.

‘No. What?’

‘This smell in the room?’

‘No. You smell of it most, anyhow.’ He put his nose to her sleeve and breathed deeply.

It seemed to Florence that this was so, that her clothes had caught the perfume among the folds. She lifted her palms to her face, then went to the window and leant out into the air as far as she could.

‘Shall I pour out the tea, dear girl?’

‘Yes, please.’

She took her place at the table abstractedly, and as she drank her tea she stared about the room, frowning. When Hilary’s mother looked in, as she often did at this time, Florence stood up in a startled way.

‘Good-evening, Mrs Wilson. Hilary, put a chair for your mamma.’

‘Don’t let me disturb you.’

Mrs Wilson sank into the rocking-chair by the fire and gently tipped to and fro.

‘Have you finished your tea, darling boy?’ she asked. ‘Are you going to
read me a story from your book? Oh, there is Lady scratching at the door. Let her in for Mamma.’

Hilary opened the door and a bald old pug-dog with bloodshot eyes waddled in.

‘Come, Lady! Beautiful one. Come to mistress! What is wrong with her, poor pet lamb?’

The bitch had stepped just inside the room and lifted her head and howled. ‘What has frightened her, then? Come, beauty! Coax her with a sponge-cake, Hilary.’

She reached forward to the table to take the dish and doing so noticed Florence’s empty teacup. On the rim was a crimson smear, like the imprint of a lip. She gave a sponge-finger to Hilary, who tried to quieten the pug, then she leaned back in her chair and studied Florence again as she had studied her when she engaged her a few weeks earlier. The girl’s looks were appropriate enough, appropriate to a clergyman’s daughter and a governess. Her square chin looked resolute, her green eyes innocent, her dress was modest and unbecoming. Yet Mrs Wilson could detect an excitability, even feverishness, which she had not noticed before and she wondered if she had mistaken guardedness for innocence and deceit for modesty.

She was reaching this conclusion – rocking back and forth – when she saw Florence’s hand stretch out and turn the cup round in its saucer so that the red stain was out of sight.

‘What is wrong with Lady?’ Hilary asked, for the dog would not be pacified with sponge-fingers, but kept making barking advances farther into the room, then growling in retreat.

‘Perhaps she is crying at the new moon,’ said Florence and she went to the window and drew back the curtain. As she moved, her skirts rustled. ‘If she has silk underwear as well!’ Mrs Wilson thought. She had clearly heard the sound of taffetas, and she imagined the drab, shiny alpaca dress concealing frivolity and wantonness.

‘Open the door, Hilary,’ she said. ‘I will take Lady away. Vernon shall give her a run in the park. I think a quiet read for Hilary and then an early bed-time, Miss Chasty. He looks pale this evening.’

‘Yes, Mrs Wilson.’ Florence stood respectfully by the table, hiding the cup.

‘The hypocrisy!’ Mrs Wilson thought and she trembled as she crossed the landing and went downstairs.

She hesitated to tell her husband of her uneasiness, knowing his susceptibilities to the kind of women whom his conscience taught him to deplore. Hidden below the apparent urbanity of their married life were old unhappinesses – little acts of treachery and disloyalty which pained her to remember, bruises upon her peace of mind and her pride: letters found, a pretty maid dismissed, an actress who had blackmailed him. As he read the
Lesson in church, looking so perfectly upright and honourable a man, she sometimes thought of his escapades; but not with bitterness or cynicism, only with pain at her memories and a whisper of fear about the future. For some time she had been spared those whispers and had hoped that their marriage had at last achieved its calm. To speak of Florence as she must might both arouse his curiosity and revive the past. Nevertheless, she had her duty to her son to fulfil and her own anger to appease and she opened the library door very determinedly.

‘Oliver, I am sorry to interrupt your work, but I must speak to you.’

He put down the
Strand Magazine
quite happily, aware that she was not a sarcastic woman.

Oliver and his son were extraordinarily alike. ‘As soon as Hilary has grown a moustache we shall not know them apart,’ Mrs Wilson often said, and her husband liked this little joke which made him feel more youthful. He did not know that she added a silent prayer – ‘O God, please do not let him
be
like him, though.’

‘You seem troubled, Louise.’ His voice was rich and authoritative. He enjoyed setting to rights her little domestic flurries and waited indulgently to hear of some tradesman’s misdemeanour or servant’s laziness.

‘Yes, I am troubled about Miss Chasty.’

‘Little Miss Mouse? I was rather troubled myself. I noticed two spelling faults in Hilary’s botany essay, which she claimed to have corrected. I said nothing before the boy, but I shall acquaint her with it when the opportunity arises.’

‘Do you often go to the schoolroom, then?’

‘From time to time. I like to be sure that our choice was wise.’

‘It was not. It was misguided and unwise.’

‘All young people seem slip-shod nowadays.’

‘She is more than slip-shod. I believe she should go. I think she is quite brazen. Oh, yes, I should have laughed at that myself if it had been said to me an hour ago, but I have just come from the schoolroom and it occurs to me that now she has settled down and feels more secure – since you pass over her mistakes – she is beginning to take advantage of your leniency and to show herself in her true colours. I felt a sinister atmosphere up there, and I am quite upset and exhausted by it. I went up to hear Hilary’s reading. They were finishing tea and the room was full of the most overpowering scent,
her
scent. It was disgusting.’

‘Unpleasant?’

‘No, not at all. But upsetting.’

‘Disturbing?’

She would not look at him or reply, hearing no more indulgence or condescension in his voice, but the quality of warming interest.

‘And then I saw her teacup and there was a mark on it – a red smear where her lips had touched it. She did not know I saw it and as soon as she noticed it herself she turned it round, away from me. She is an immoral woman and she has come into our house to teach our son.’

‘I have never noticed a trace of artificiality in her looks. It seemed to me that she was rather colourless.’

‘She has been sly. This evening she looked quite different, quite flushed and excitable. I know that she had rouged her lips or painted them or whatever those women do.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

‘I shall observe her for a day or two,’ Oliver said, trying to keep anticipation from his voice.

‘I should like her to go at once.’

‘Never act rashly. She is entitled to a quarter’s notice unless there is definite blame. We should make ourselves very foolish if you have been mistaken. Oh, I know that you are sure; but it has been known for you to misjudge others. I shall take stock of her and decide if she is unsuitable. She is still Miss Mouse to me and I cannot think otherwise until I see the evidence with my own eyes.’

‘There was something else as well,’ Mrs Wilson said wretchedly.

‘And what was that?’

‘I would rather not say.’ She had changed her mind about further accusations. Silk underwear would prove, she guessed, too inflammatory.

‘I shall go up ostensibly to mention Hilary’s spelling faults.’ He could not go fast enough and stood up at once.

‘But Hilary is in bed.’

‘I could not mention the spelling faults if he were not.’

‘Shall I come with you?’

‘My dear Louise, why should you? It would look very strange – a deputation about two spelling faults.’

‘Then don’t be long, will you? I hope you won’t be long.’

He went to the schoolroom, but there was no one there. Hilary’s storybook lay closed upon the table and Miss Chasty’s sewing was folded neatly. As he was standing there looking about him and sniffing hard, a maid came in with a tray of crockery.