VI
I SAW her the next day but one—on the morning when the third “insertion” appeared in The Morning Post. Bessie Thistleton had told me, with obvious annoyance, that there had been no replies yet. “Governesses are really a drug, unless they have a degree, in these days,” she had said. “ ‘Where is she?’ Oh, somewhere in the garden, I think, Mr Tregaskis.”
So I went into the garden and found her again under the tree. But her big book was not with her now; she was sitting idle, looking straight ahead of her, with pondering and, perhaps, fear in her great dark eyes.
She gave me her hand to shake. I kissed it.
“Nobody will kiss my hand in my next place,” she said.
“Why in heaven do you do it?”
“I can’t beg; and if I did, I don’t think I should receive.” She leant forward, resting her hand on the arm of the chair. “We don’t know who I’m to be,” she went on, smiling. “Nobody but Mrs Thistleton could carry it off if I confessed to being myself! Who shall I be, Mr Tregaskis?”
I made no answer, and she gave a little laugh.
“You like to go?” I asked.
“No. I’m frightened. And suppose there’s another Mr Miles?”
“The infernal idiot!”
“He’s wise. Only—I’m amused. They’re right to send me away, though. I’m such an absurdity.”
“Yes,” I assented mournfully. “I’m afraid you are.”
She leant nearer still to me, half whispering in her talk. “I should never have liked him, but yet it hardly seemed strange that he should think of it. I’m forgetting myself, I think. In my next place I wonder if I shall remember at all!”
“You have your book and the picture.”
“Yes, but they seem dim now. I suppose it would be best to forget, as everybody else does.”
“Not everybody,” I said very low.
“No, you don’t forget. I’ve noticed that. It’s foolish, but I like someone to remember. Suppose you forgot too!”
One of her rare smiles lit up her face. But I did not tell her what would happen if I forgot too. I knew very well in my own mind, though. I was not trammelled by previous attentions, nor was I making three or four thousand a year.
“You’ll tell me when you go—and where?” I asked.
“Yes, if you like to know.”
“And will ‘they’ know too?”
She looked at me with searching eyes. “Are you laughing?” she asked, and it seemed to me that there was a break in her voice.
“God forbid, madam!” said I.
“Ah, but I think you should be. How the present can make the past ridiculous!”
“Neither the past ridiculous nor the future impossible,” I said.
She laid her hand on my arm for a moment with a gentle pressure.
“We have an Order at home called The Knights of Faith. Shall I send you the Cross some day—in that impossible future?”
“No. Send me your big book, with the picture of the great castle and the broad river flowing by its base.”
She looked at me a moment, flushed but the slightest, and answered: “Yes.” Then, as I remember, we sat silent for a while.
That silence was waste of time, as it proved. For, before it ended, Mrs Thistleton came bounding (really the expression is excusable in view of her unrestrained elation) out of the house, holding a letter in her hand.
“Fräulein, an answer!” she cried.
We both rose, and she came up to us.
“And it sounds most suitable. I do hope you don’t mind London—though really it doesn’t do to be fussy. A Mrs Perkyns, on Maida Hill—nice and high! Only two little children, and she offers—— Oh, well, we can talk about the salary presently.”
That last remark constituted an evident hint to me. I grasped my hat and gave my hand to Mrs Thistleton.
“Good news, isn’t it?” said she. “And Mrs Perkyns says she has such confidence in me—it appears she knew my sister Mary at Cheltenham—that she waives any other references. Isn’t that convenient?”
“Very,” I agreed.
“You’re to go the day after to-morrow if you can be ready. Can you?” asked Mrs Thistleton.
“I can be ready,” Fräulein said.
“In the morning, Mrs Perkyns suggested.”
“I can be ready in the morning.” Then she turned to me. “This is good-bye, then, I’m afraid, Mr Tregaskis.”
“I shall come and see you off,” said I, taking her hand.
Mrs Thistleton raised her brows for a moment, but her words were gracious.
“We shall all be down to wish her a good journey and a happy home.”
I made up my mind to say my farewell at the station—and I took my leave. As I walked out of the front gate I met Thistleton coming from the station. I took upon myself to tell him the news.
“Good,” said Thistleton. “It ends what was always a false, and has become an impossible, situation.”
How about poor Mrs Perkyns, then? But I did not put that point to him. She was forewarned by that “Well-connected.” As I walked home I pictured Thistleton putting up a board before his residence: “Princesses, beware!”