Janet had as pretty a little temper of her own as you could meet anywhere. It flashed up in a moment into her eyes. No one, schoolgirl or otherwise, was likely to get a cheap bargain of this little governess. She rose, and, turning the key in the door as she passed, walked up to the table at which Miss Julia sat with her book. The girl was not aware that her own absolute immovability proved to her antagonist that she was not absorbed in her book but in the battle which had begun. Miss Summerhayes stood opposite to her for a moment looking down upon Julia’s bent head. She felt the key of the door in her pocket, which, perhaps, was rather a desperate step so early in the fight; as in doing this she had at once burnt her ships, and committed herself to a policy of absolute no-surrender; but still it inspired her, for she could now neither draw back nor temporize. “Julia! I have told you three times that it is ten o’clock, and I am waiting to begin lessons.”
There was still not a movement, not a sound. Julia sat as if made of stone. Then Janet made the great coup she had been contemplating. With a sudden swift movement she took the book from under the reader’s bent face, closed it, and carried it away. In a moment Julia was erect, getting to her feet with a bound, her gray eyes dilating into great globes of gold, her spring like that of a tiger. Janet had scarcely time, though her movements were very quick, to get back to the shelter of her arm-chair. But she managed to do so, and to lock up the offending volume in a drawer, with Julia’s grip on her shoulder, and a shriek of “How dare you, how dare you!” ringing in her ears.
“Miss Summerhayes! give me back my book. How dare you take my book? Give it me this moment—do you hear me! do you hear me!” cried the girl, passionately, holding Janet’s shoulders in a grasp of steel.
“I hear you perfectly well—as you heard me just now. Take your hands from my shoulders. I did not touch you; if we are to fight, let us fight fair.”
Julia’s hands dropped, and a shade of consternation came over her eyes. Then she stamped her foot violently upon the floor—“Miss Summerhayes, give me back my book?{31}”
“Sit down,” said Janet, not uncheerfully, “and we can have it out.”
“Give me back my book!”
“Well,” said Janet, “now we have both got through that formula, trois sommations—though I am afraid not very respectueuses. Do you know what that means? I called you three times and you have called me three times. We are equal, so far. Now sit down and let us talk it out.”
“Equal!” said Julia, with a shriek, “me and you, Miss Summerhayes! You are only the governess—that’s no better than a servant. You may suppose they think different downstairs, because of their way of talking, and because Gussy thinks it’s grand to be like that. But they think just the same. And mamma will stand up for me. She pretends she wants me to be mastered, but she doesn’t, and you’ll find the difference when you go to her with your complaints.”
“But I don’t mean to go to her with any complaints,” said Janet, putting on the best smile she could. “If we are to get on, we must manage it between ourselves; if not, there is a very easy remedy for me. You had better sit down, and discuss the matter, so that we may know what we are about.”
“What’s your remedy?” cried Julia, breathing hard.
“It will be quite effectual, as far as I am concerned: but I don’t like to be beaten, so I shall try some others first. Sit down there.”
“I shan’t,” Miss Julia said.
“Well, stand on your head then,” said Janet, “perhaps you may like that better: only let us get all the necessary tricks over, and come to business, for it may as well be decided once for all.”
“How dare you talk of tricks! What do you call my tricks?”
“They are quite easy to describe. To pretend to be deaf, dumb, and blind; to pretend to be a wild beast; to shriek and snort and talk loud. I don’t know what others you may still have to get through, but you must know as well as I do that all these are tricks, and of no consequence. When they are exhausted, then we can begin to talk.”
“Me a wild beast! Me of no consequence! I should like,” cried Julia, with her eyes blazing like red-hot flames, and her fingers clasping and unclasping, “just to give it you hot, for once! just to stamp upon you, and tear off your fal-lals and pitch you out of the window!”
Janet nodded her head at each threat, not by way of ap{32}probation, but of acquiescence as in an argument she had foreseen.
“I know,” she said, “I told you so. It would be a great saving of time if you would consider all that sort of thing as said, and come to the real question.”
“What is the real question?” said Julia, staring, with her hands grasping the top of the chair on which she had been requested to sit down—whether because she was checked in her childish rage, or whether because she meant to use it as a weapon, it was difficult to say.
“The real question is, whether we are to be able to get on together or not. It’s the only one of any importance. I want to come to that.”
“What an awful fool you must be,” said Julia, bending over the back of the chair towards Janet with flaming looks of wrath.
“Yes,” said Janet. “One of us is so, that is very evident: but why should it strike you at this moment?”
“To think that it isn’t settled already, to think I would ever give in to you for a moment. Knuckle under! me! Oh! you think you can come over me with smiling, when you are in as blue a funk—— You, a bit of a governess hired just like the housemaid: and that’s exactly what mamma will say.”
Janet yawned a little in the girl’s furious face, a gentle little yawn which did not at all distort her own countenance.
“My poor child,” she said, “if you would only consider that I understand all that, and that we’d so much better come to business! You can’t frighten me, and though, of course, you can insult me, that’s of equally little use, for I don’t care.”
“Because you’re used to it,” cried Julia.
“No—once only before. It was a tramp on the road, an old woman, and I would not give her any money. It is curious to think where you can have learned the same sort of thing—brought up, I suppose, more or less like a lady—but it must be in the blood.”
“Do you mean to say I’m not a lady—you—? Oh-h!” for Janet had gently shrugged those little shoulders which still felt the young fury’s grip. “I’ll go,” cried Julia, fiercely, “I’ll go this moment and tell mamma.”
Janet sat quietly in her chair awaiting the discovery of the locked door, and somewhat alarmed lest there should ensue a physical struggle which would be undignified and unladylike. Then followed a whirlwind of noise, stamping, shrieking, and wild talk.{33}
“Give me the key! Open the door! I want to go to mamma. Mamma! Let me out. Let me out! I want to open the door,”—then a furious kick upon the panel. “Mamma! Gussy! I’m locked in; come, come, and open the door.”
“It is a pity that all the servants should know you are in trouble, Julia. Let it remain between you and me,” said Janet, laying her hand upon the girl’s shoulder.
“Open the door!”
“No, I shall not open the door—nor shall anyone else, if I can help it. Let this remain between you and me.”
“Mamma will send and order you to do it. Mamma! mamma! I am locked in. I can’t get out. Come and open the door!”
How it was that no one heard these outcries Janet could not imagine: but they were at the top of the house: the kitchen was thoroughly occupied with its own affairs, and Mrs. Harwood, as she found out afterwards, had been wheeled out for her morning airing, so that silence alone replied to Julia’s passionate appeals. She rushed to the window and flung it open, but the gardener was not visible in the garden. After half-an-hour of tumult, an enforced silence fell upon the school-room. But Julia was not yet overcome.
“I shall keep you here all your life—you shan’t go—not a step. If I am to be shut in, you shall be shut in too. You shall have no lunch; you shall have no tea; you shall have no dinner!” said Julia, crescendo, rising to a climax.
“Well,” said Janet, “if you think it better to put off our conversation till to-morrow, I make no objection. It will be very uncomfortable—but there are worse things than discomfort in this world. I have done without my dinner before now.”
“Yes! often, I shouldn’t wonder—when you had nobody to give you a dinner,” cried Julia.
Janet looked at the furious girl with a glance of astonishment in her eyes. She laughed a little.
“You silly child,” she said.
And then in the midst of the agitation and tumult there occurred a moment of quiet. Julia was at the end of her resources. She was worn out with her own passion, dismayed by being thus left to the tender mercies of the governess, and discouraged beyond description by the indifference and contempt of the stranger whom she had been so certain of subduing—a little thing not so big as herself, a little governess without a friend—a subject creature whom it was safe for every{34}body to jump upon. Julia’s experience contained no stronger picture of the governess than that of the one who ran away next morning after complaining to Mrs. Harwood that she was not accustomed to such young ladies. The others had all coaxed and cringed and endeavored to temporize.
Julia went and sat down panting at the other table, and watched this new kind of human being seated in the middle of the room as if nothing had happened, calmly writing, not a hair turned upon her head, not a bit of frill crumpled about her neck. It was natural to Janet to be neat, and her self-control was wonderful. Besides, of course she knew that she was being looked at, watched with all the keen observation of a vindictive child to see where her weakness lay. That she had supported this struggle so long without moments of weakness it would be vain to say—that she had not felt the stings and resented the blows. Her heart had beat as if it was bursting from her breast. She had felt herself trembling all over with excitement and alarm. But she had managed somehow to keep calm all along, and she was still calm now, keeping in her breath, holding herself with all her might to look indifferent. Julia’s observation was keen, but not so keen as to pierce Janet’s armour of mail. The girl sat staring at her with eyes that became less and less like orbs of flame, and more like ordinary big gray eyes with a golden glow. And Janet wrote a letter. It was the only thing she could think of to give her the support of an occupation. She wrote a narrative of what had passed, writing “Dear Mrs. Bland” at the top to give herself a countenance, though the last thing in the world she would have done was to send the vicar’s wife such a description of her first day in her new situation. She smiled, however, to herself involuntarily as she went on with her story, making it very amusing. And Julia saw her smile, and something like awe came over the exhausted spirit of the little rebel. To go through all that, one tithe of which would have broken the spirit of any other governess, and yet to smile!
After a long interval of silence, and when Janet began to wonder with some alarm how she would meet a long strain of passive resistance had Julia strength of mind to keep it up, a sudden voice once more made itself heard.
“Miss Summerhayes! the first thing I shall do when I get out of this will be to tell mamma.”
“That is exactly what I should recommend,” said Janet, looking up from her writing; “one’s mother should always know everything,” and with a little friendly nod she returned to her letter.{35}
Julia could not tell what to think: there was more in it than her puzzled understanding had ever encountered before. After a while she said, with some hesitation, “Miss Summerhayes!” again.
“Yes,” said Janet, looking up once more.
“What did you mean about conversation? I hate you! I shall never speak to you three words if I can help it; but what did you mean about putting off the conversation? I want to know——”
“Perhaps it will be better to put it off till to-morrow.”
“I want to have it now. Conversation! as if there ever could be any between you and me.”
“That is what I have just said. It will be better to put it off,” said Janet, without raising her head, turning over the page of her supposed letter.
The next thing she heard was a stamp on the floor, suppressed so that it was scarcely a stamp, and an exclamation,
“I prefer to have it now.”
“I cannot talk to anyone so far off,” said Janet, and there was another pause.
Presently she could hear the faint rustling of a person about to get up from a chair, which went on for some time, there being an evident and great reluctance to move. Then there was a sudden plunge. Julia alighted opposite her, on the other side of the table.
“I want to know what it is—— I want to know what you want with me.”
Janet sat up, raised her head, putting down her pen.
“Honestly, and without any more preliminaries?” she said.
Julia’s eyes gave a single dart of fire.
“No one ever said I was a thief. I want to know what you want with me.”
“That is what I call honestly,” Janet replied, and she put away her writing things for the second encounter, the first having thus been successful beyond her hopes.