"Ask Mademoiselle! How does Mademoiselle know? Was that what you were telling her in French? I didn't know you could speak French, Uncle Charles. O mamma! Here he is, and he's been here all the time waiting for us till the set was over and talking French to Mademoiselle."
"Well, I am sure I am very glad to see you, Charles. I hope you're better for your change," said Mrs Wargrave, sailing up to the group across the grass in all her finery. "And so you were talking French to Mademoiselle? Well, of course, I understand it, and read it and all that, but I'm not good at talking. Mademoiselle must have been quite pleased to have a chat in her own language. Come in; there's tea in the drawing-room, and it is cooler there than out of doors. Edith and Dorothy, don't hang on to your uncle so."
"Oh, he doesn't mind!" cried the children, hanging on more closely than ever. He was led in thus helpless to the cool drawing-room, unable even to gain a look from Mademoiselle. She fell back in her habitual way, leaving Mrs Wargrave to take her place. He was himself forced forward in advance when she dropped behind. And the last he saw of her was the sweep of her white dress across the grass as she went another way. He turned his head to look after her, but she did not vouchsafe him a glance. And the family loudly called for his attention, and dragged him over the sill of the great window which opened on to the lawn.
As for Mademoiselle, she went hastily up-stairs and reached the schoolroom almost at a flying pace; nor did she pause then, but went into her own room, which opened from it, shutting the door behind her. She was in great agitation, she who was always so calm. She tore her dress, stumbling and treading upon it as she made that breathless run up-stairs. Her breath came quick, and she turned the key in the door as if she were afraid of being pursued, which, of course, was nonsense. But Mademoiselle was not in a state of mind to weigh possibilities. The question was, what had happened to her? Had she been insulted, or had some new thing too strange to be comprehensible entered into her life?
CHAPTER V.
Claire de Castel-Sombre reached her room in a condition of mind in which, though this was quite unusual, she forgot altogether that she was Mademoiselle and became herself, a woman of strong feelings, great personal pride, and a temperament impassioned and imperious rather than subdued and calm. It was subdued under the burden of all those necessities which made her natural impetuosity almost a crime, so out of place was it, and out of keeping with every circumstance around her; but such subjugation, being artificial, is always at the mercy of an emotion or an impulse too strong for manufactured bonds, and at this moment the natural flood had swelled beyond all restraint. Her usual paleness was flushed with angry colour. Her eyes shone, her whole figure thrilled with an excitement which was beyond all restraint. A curious consequence, one would suppose, of a proposal of marriage made by a young man considered eligible in every way in circles much more exacting than Mrs Leicester Wargrave's daughters or sister, much less her governess. But Claire was roused by emotions which would not have influenced these young ladies. It was not that there was anything in the English language which prevented her full understanding of what was said to her, or in the habits of Englishmen; but perhaps something of French breeding, and something of the involuntary depression and susceptibility which are fostered by such a position as hers, turned her from the natural interpretation of such an overture to a strained and false one. She thought that she had been insulted by a light proposal which meant nothing, which was not intended to mean anything, which was a sort of jibe and no more; and every sentiment in her mind, as well as every drop of blood in her veins, seemed to rise up again. "You might marry me;" it meant contempt, or suggestive of an impossible escape from the subdued state which, in the first place, it was insulting for any man to remark upon. A woman who does her duty in the position which her circumstances compel her to accept, whose pride lies in accepting those circumstances as not alone the only possible, but as the most natural and dignified, is not a woman to be insulted, she said to herself, passionately stamping her foot upon the floor in her paroxysm of wounded pride and feeling. In her usual condition Mademoiselle would have been bitterly ashamed of that stamp upon the floor. She was even now, in the fumes of her passion, and blushed for herself, clenching her hands, which was a noiseless operation, to stay in herself any possible repetition of that bêtise. All good feeling, all honour, all justice even, forbade that a woman should be jeered at for circumstances she could not help, circumstances which her strength lay in making the best of, in taking the sting out of by a dignified acceptance of them, in which there should be neither question nor assumption of injury, nor the pose of a person wronged. Above all things that pose of wrong was abhorrent to Claire. It went against her pride to acknowledge that she was in an inferior position, a dependant, and in the cold shade. Her pride had been to ignore all that, to define her place as clearly as possible, and make it fully comprehensible that it was the place which she chose and that pleased her best. To remark upon it at all, as Mr Charles Wargrave had done, even though in a way that was intended to be flattering, was very bad taste, to say the least; but to end these remarks by such a suggestion, by an offensive jest, was an insult in every sense of the word. Her blood boiled in her veins. She walked up and down the room to wear out as far as she could the exasperation that possessed her, not stamping her foot any more, which was a humiliating confession of weakness, but pacing up and down because she was incapable of keeping quiet. A woman who had always avoided any folly of so-called sensitiveness, who had accepted everything with a smiling face, never murmured, never taken offence, consented to be Mademoiselle, and to dignify the title by the perfect philosophy of her self-adaptation to it—and after all these years, after all these heroisms, after her proud self-denials and self-subjugation, to be thus insulted! a sneer flung full in her face, a dart of contempt to her heart! Mademoiselle felt as if that sneer had struck her like a blow. Her face burned with the smart of it: she had the sensation of the physical shock as well as of the rush of blood to the brain which is its result.
And there was this special smart in it, that she had been beginning to find in Charles Wargrave a friendly figure, a sympathetic look. He had not been so often in the schoolroom, so often at the luncheon-table, without exchanging now and then a word with herself which had made her feel that he was more akin to her than his relations were, more able to understand. The people under whose roof she had lived for a year had not the faintest beginning of understanding, nor were they likely to have it should she remain there for five years more, which was very likely if she continued to "give satisfaction." But he had looked at her now and then as if he recognised that she was an individual, and not merely Mademoiselle. He had asked her opinion on one or two subjects on which he and she were in accord against the other stolid couple whose point of view was so different. Mademoiselle had not been able to deny to herself—nay, had done so with serious pleasure—that she liked to see M. le Cousin; that he was one of the few people whose entrance was agreeable to her. The fact that he was young made no impression upon this well-trained stoic. She herself was old, she was on the level of men ten years her senior, according to a well-understood chronology current in society. There might not be, perhaps, much actual difference between them in point of years, but, according to this system, she was at least ten years in advance of her male contemporaries. It is difficult, perhaps, to know the reason why, but it is perfectly understood by everybody. She was "old enough to be his mother," and she had no feeling that it was otherwise. She regarded him as so completely out of her sphere, in character and in age, as well as in circumstances, that it had never occurred to the imagination of Claire that he and she should meet anywhere save as they sometimes did, on the ground of a mutual opinion, a common taste. But this was enough to make her feel that it was an outrage greater and more painful than usual, that scorn or insult should come from him.
There was a knock at the door while Claire had as yet scarcely regained any of her usual composure. "Please, Mademoiselle, mother wants to know if you're coming down for tea?"
She paused a moment to master herself, and then opened the door. "Not this afternoon, Edith. As you are going out with your mother I am going to begin my mending, do you see?" There were some garments laid out upon the bed that supported her plea. The little girl cast a glance upon the high colour, so unusual in her governess's cheeks, and ran off, with a vague sense of something which she did not understand.
"She's not coming; she's going to mend her things; and, oh! mamma, she's got such a red face, like she does when she's furious with us!"