"I'll run away first!"
"Slowly—slowly!" cautioned Mr. Turner. "You go too fast! If you had waited for me to finish my sentence you would have discovered that I meant to send you neither to the House of Correction," here his eyes twinkled with amusement, "nor to a 'horrid boarding-school.' What I was about to say was that I propose to send you a lady who will teach you here at home, who will be a friend and companion to you and whom you will be sure to love. It is rather a curious coincidence that just the other day I was talking to a lady who is anxious to procure just such a position as this with you, and I am rather inclined to think that she would be willing to come here and undertake it. At all events, I have written to her asking her to consider the plan and in a day or so I shall know her decision. If she concludes to come—if I can induce her to come—I shall feel that you are very fortunate. You will forgive me if I say that while I disagree with Mrs. Newton in most respects regarding you, I feel with her that you are somewhat—well, somewhat ungoverned and in need of just the sort of discipline that I am sure Miss—the lady I speak of can maintain."
He paused a moment, but when he saw that Nan made no comment or objection he continued placidly:
"You will hear from me in the course of a day or so, as soon as I receive word from the lady herself. As I said, you will be very fortunate if I can secure her services for you—more fortunate than she will be, I fear," he said to himself, catching a glimpse of Nan's set mouth and flashing eyes as he made his way to the door. Later, when he recalled her expression, he was almost inclined to hope that the lady would decide to refuse the office. He thought her acceptance of it might involve her in rather more serious difficulties than he had foreseen when he wrote to her in the first place.
As a matter of fact, Nan was in a rage at the thought of a stranger coming into the house to interfere with her and Delia, to teach her what she did not want to learn, and to govern her when her sole idea of happiness was to be free and untrammeled. Even Delia resented the new-comer's intrusion. Had she managed the house for fourteen years now, ever since Mrs. Cutler's death, only to be set aside and ruled over by the first stranger who chose to imagine her position of governess to Nan gave her the right to interfere in household affairs? For of course she would interfere. Nan had drawn a vivid mental picture of the governess, which through her persistence in repetition, had begun to seem an actual description to herself and Delia.
"She's tall and thin and lanky and old!" declared the girl whenever the governess, who had accepted the appointment, was mentioned. "She has horrid sharp eyes that spy out everything, and she wears glasses. She'll never laugh because she'll say 'giggling is frivolous,' that's what Miss Fowler used to say, and she'll talk arithmetic and grammar and geography the whole blessed time. She'll snoop in your closets, Delia, and into my bureau drawers, and she'll find out everything we don't want her to know. Her hair is black and shiny, and I guess she parts it in the middle and makes it come to the back of her head in a little hard knot. Oh! I know just how she looks! I can see her every time I shut my eyes—the horrid thing! Just like Miss Fowler at school! And how I'll hate her! I'll hate her just as much as I did Miss Fowler. I'll hate her more, because I can never get rid of her: she'll always be here. Don't you fix up her room a single bit, Delia. Make it look as awful as you can. Then perhaps she won't like it and'll leave. I guess after a little while she won't think it agrees with her to live here. Then we two'll be alone again, and I tell you, won't we be glad, Delia?"
In her heart Delia thought they would. She did not follow Nan's advice to make the governess' room look "as awful as she could." She swept and dusted it thoroughly, and set all the furniture in place, as she had been accustomed to do for the last fourteen years, and when she had finished the place was as uninviting as even Nan could have desired. In fact, there was nothing attractive in the whole house. The furniture was all good and substantial, but Delia had a way of ranging it against the walls in a manner that made it seem stiff and uncompromising. When a piece needed repairing, and with Nan about, many a piece needed repairing often, it was stowed out of sight in the trunk-room, or the cellar, and the carpets, which had been rich and fashionable in their day, were allowed to lie now long after they had become threadbare and faded. Delia kept the handsome paintings veiled in tarlatan winter and summer, and she never removed the slip-covers from the parlor sofas and chairs, whatever the season might be. Nan did not care, because she knew nothing different, and there was no loving, artful hand to make the best of the things and turn the house into a home.
Mrs. Newton had shivered as she entered the place; it seemed dark and cold and forbidding to her, and she felt the mother-want at every turn, but this had not made her any more lenient with Nan. Perhaps the governess would make no allowances either. Delia made up her mind that if things really came to the pass where Nan was being abused, she in person would "just step in and say her say, if it lost her her place." She often talked of things losing her her place when the fact was that she herself was the place: if it had not been for her the house must have been closed, and Nan sent to boarding-school. Mr. Cutler would never have trusted the care of his girl to a strange servant.
"Yes, Ma'am," Delia said to herself, as she pushed the governess' bed flat up against the wall. "Yes, Ma'am! if I see her going for to abuse Nan, I'll set to and give her a piece of my mind such as she ain't likely to have got in one while, I tell you that," and she gave the bureau a vicious tweak and pulled down the shade with a resentful jerk.
When Nan saw the room she was disgusted.
"Why, Delia Connor! you haven't done a single thing I told you to," she cried out angrily.
"I've swept and dusted it and that's all there was to do," retorted Delia.
"It looks perfectly lovely," resumed Nan, stamping her foot. "Do you s'pose I want her to think we're glad to have her, and that we've prepared for her? Well, I guess not! If she once gets into as good a room as this she'll never go—she'll just hang on and on, and nothing in the world will make her budge."
"What do you want me to do?" asked Delia with irritation.
Nan looked at her scornfully for a moment. "Do? Why, what I told you to do! Make the room look awful—perfectly hideous. Make it so she can't help but see we don't want her here. Make it a hint—and a strong one too."
Delia folded her arms deliberately. "Well, whatever you want to act like, Nan," she said, "I can tell you I ain't going to do anything unladylike, so there!" and she stalked out of the room with dignity.
Nan surveyed the place in silence. What was to be done? If she removed all the furniture but the bed and the bureau and left the governess nothing to sit down on, it would only reflect discreditably upon the family's supply of household goods. If she carefully sifted back the dust Delia had just removed, it would merely prove that the people in this house were of a slovenly and careless habit, and that they were sadly in need of some one to oversee their work. Moreover, would a person as dull of feeling as this governess must be, appreciate the hint conveyed in so delicate and indirect a manner? No. She would be sure to lose the point. Nan felt it would never do to take any risk of her misunderstanding. Whatever she did must be unmistakable and absolutely direct.
She racked her brain to discover just the right thing, but she was rewarded by no brilliant idea, and she felt crosser than ever by the time noon had arrived. But suddenly, at the luncheon table, she gave a wild leap from her chair and clapped her hands frantically, while Delia almost let a dish fall in her surprise at this sudden and unexpected demonstration.
"For the land's sake, what is it now?" she demanded, while Nan caught her around the waist and whirled her about the room, vegetable dish and all.
"I've got it! I've got it!" screamed the girl, convulsed with inward laughter. "I've got the best scheme in the world. Delia, you old duck! Oh, won't it settle her though! Won't it settle her?" But she would not reveal who was to be settled, nor how, though Delia pleaded earnestly to be enlightened and even offered to help her make caramels as a bribe.
"No, thank you, Ma'am! I wouldn't have time to boil 'em. I'm going to be as busy as a beaver all the afternoon, so no matter what happens don't you disturb me," continued Nan, importantly.
Delia shrewdly suspected that the scheme afoot had something to do with the governess, but she did not dare suggest it.
"Oh, well, what I don't know I can't cry over," she said to herself, "and when Nan's like this, all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't stop her, so I might as well hold my tongue. But I'll say this much, I don't envy that governess her job, whoever she may be."
Meanwhile Nan had gone to her own room and shut and locked the door. Her next move was to take her night-dress from its hook and slip it over her head.
"Now I'm going to rehearse," she announced to her reflection in the glass. "First I must get my eyes to seem kind of wide and starey. No! not this way. They must look like licorice-drops in milk. There! that's better! All expressionless, and that kind of thing. I s'pose I might shut 'em, some somnabulists do; but then I'd be sure to trip over the furniture and stub my toes, and give the whole business away. No, I must keep my eyes open; that's certain. Then I must glide when I walk. My step must be light and ghostly and noiseless. I must be sure to have it ghostly and noiseless. Now—eyes staring—one, two, three—step ghostly and noiseless—Oh, bother! What business had that footstool in my way? If I knock things over like that I'll wake the house, and Delia would know in a minute what I was up to. There! get into the corner, you old thing! Now again! Eyes staring—step ghostly—and noiseless—voice low and mournful, but I must manage to make her understand every word. Now once more—voice low and mournful—
"Alas! alas! why did she come?—why did she come? (No, I can't say that! It sounds too much like 'Why did he die! Why did he die?' But the alas is good! That sounds real creepy and weird.) Now then—Alas! alas! This is the worst thing that ever happened to me in all my life! My dear, old home! To think that anybody who isn't wanted should come and push herself like this into my dear, old home! O father! father! come home from Bombay, and save me from this awful woman. Turn her out of the house! Make her go back where she came from! Her hated form haunts me in my sleep, and I dream all night of her as I see her in the daytime—tall—and thin—and lanky—with her hair all dragged into that ugly little knob behind at the back of her head! O father! father! her eyes are like needles! They prick me when she looks. Save me!—save me! My heart will break if some one doesn't come and rescue me from this terrible person. Take her away—take her away! Ah—I see her! I see her! Get away—get away! You awful creature! Don't you know you are causing an innocent girl to perish in her youth? Alas, she won't go! Then listen, reckless woman! and remember this warning—'the way of intruders is hard!'
"There! that ends it off with a sort of threatening dreadfulness that ought to scare her stiff. After I've said that in a whisper to freeze her blood, I'll turn silently from her bedside and glide noiselessly from the room, wringing my hair and tearing my hands; no, I mean just the other way, and if that doesn't fix her, why—I'll have to go over it all again, of course, so I won't forget. Perhaps it would be a good idea to write it down and learn it off by heart."
The idea in fact recommended itself so thoroughly to her that she followed her own suggestion without further delay and wrote off the entire harangue at once, making it, if possible, even more eloquent and harrowing than it had been in the original. It seemed a very long, wearisome task, to commit it all to memory, but she did not grudge the trouble. She had never attempted anything that looked like study with so much willingness. The afternoon slipped away like a dream, and as soon as dinner was over she set to work again, and by bed-time had the thing pretty well under control. Whenever she halted or stumbled she went over it all again with the most patient perseverance.
"I suppose if I had stuck to things at school like this I'd have been at the head of the class," she said to herself with a whimsical sense of her own perversity.
Delia was completely nonplused. She could not imagine what "that child was up to." There were no evidences anywhere of the means she was going to employ in the governess' initiation. Her room was in perfect order, and in Nan's own chamber nothing was unusually amiss. She got no satisfaction from the girl herself, who kept her lips tightly closed, except when she was mumbling over her harangue. It was terribly perplexing—and ominous.
"Good land!" thought Delia in real anxiety, "I only hope she ain't going to do anything too dreadful. I declare, if it weren't that I'm so soft where Nannie is concerned I'd say I'd be glad that some one's coming who may be up to managin' her. I'm free to confess I ain't. If only her mother had lived! Or, if only my dear Miss Belle hadn't gone off to the ends of the earth—! Miss Belle could have managed her! No one could resist Miss Belle, bless her! Ah, dear me, dear me! It's fifteen years, and to think, I'll never see her face again!"