After this, however, she grew a little more composed. Perhaps Meredith would be kept back by the fact that he himself would be affected as much as she by any such revelation. Probably he would not, for his own sake, like it to be known that he had clandestine meetings with the governess. This was of all others the thing that would damn him, not only in St. John’s Wood, but wherever there were families to which he might wish to recommend himself. If it all came out, Gussy would no doubt be lost to him (if he had ever cared for Gussy), and not only Gussy but every young lady in his own position, and the mother of every young lady. To have clandestine meetings with the governess—to make love behind backs to the governess! Janet’s heart calmed down in its tumultuous beating when this blessed thought came into her mind. No, he would not betray himself in that way. He might not care for betraying her, but he would not betray himself. He would not allow himself to be held up to the contempt of the world, put into all the papers, perhaps into Punch, with a shabby girl clinging to him in the dock.
Janet, who thought of everything in the sharply acute state of her perceptions, remembered too that, while the ladies would think it the blackest treachery to carry on a correspondence with the governess, the newspapers would take the other side, and would be chiefly indignant concerning the wrongs of the poor girl, blighted by her dependent position, whom this monster was endeavoring to beguile and lead astray. Ah, no! Meredith would not lay himself open to these critics. He would keep her out of it, since otherwise he himself would suffer. It calmed her entirely after a time to follow out this point of view.
But, oh! if he could but be spirited away to the other end of the world. Oh, if she could but be quit of him—but forget that she had ever seen him! Janet looked towards the room of the convalescent with a tremor. What would his feelings be? Would he expect to take up the thread where it had dropped? Would he go on telling her with his eyes what a fool Gussy was? how ridiculous was her confidence in herself! how much more he cared for herself, Janet, than for anybody else in the world! This, she thought, would be the most intolerable of all.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
After this fright, however, which was—so much is that poison to one which is another’s antidote—so joyful for Gussy, everything relapsed into a still and apprehensive silence which to two in the house seemed full of fate. Better and better was the news that came from the sick-room. Morning after morning Gussy came to the breakfast-table pale but radiant with the bulletin. Better, and better, and better. He not only knew her, but had smiled and said a few words. He had a long and refreshing sleep. He was promoted to a little solid food. The doctor was satisfied, nay, astonished, at the progress made. But all this took a long time.
There was a long interval of that dark and melancholy weather which gives winter its special horror in London—one day more dull and gray and dismal than the other, depressing in any circumstances, miserable when there is anxiety and suspense within. The new year had begun with the chills and snows and dreariness which so often accompany it. The only relief in the prospect was that Dolff ere many days had passed would have to return to Oxford. If it only might be that he could go without seeing the convalescent? He wished this himself in a half-and-half way sometimes, hoping that he might not be compelled to congratulate Meredith on his recovery, or indeed face him at all, though he was glad that he was getting well: yet sometimes also with a lurking desire to see him, to judge for himself how much he was changed, and if he had any consciousness of “what had happened.” Dolff did not indicate to himself the tremendous moment of his passion by any more clear description than this. Perhaps on the whole he wished more than he feared to see Meredith again. Then perhaps he would get out of his eyes the white face upon the pavement, with the faint lamplight upon it, which he had never been able to forget.
The day on which Meredith was first allowed to see the family was a Monday in the middle of January. His couch was wheeled into the drawing-room in the afternoon, Gussy proudly attending and announcing her patient. The daylight was beginning to wane, and to two at least of the party it was more easy to see him than it was for him to see them. Janet had withdrawn into the further part of the room, as was becoming in her position, and Dolff stood uneasily near the door, removing himself, without intention, in the mere excitement and uneasiness of this first meeting, from the light. Meredith was still very pale, and the change in his face, which had been florid red and white, was striking. His black hair, and the beard which had grown during his illness, made his pallor still more apparent, but it was scarcely the paleness which gives refinement and spirituality to a face worn with suffering. He shook hands with them all, and turned his head, asking, “Is that Miss Summerhayes?” in a way which compelled Janet to come forward, though so much against her will. He glanced up at her with something of his old look, a sort of smile in his eyes, the telegraph of old, which implied some secret understanding between them, and which once had so fluttered Janet’s heart. But it only brought a sickening thrill now of alarm and repugnance. This was the only thing she noted specially in the first interview, a look which showed her that all was not over, that he was not ready yet to relinquish the amusement which she had given him (if that was how to describe it), and that, though he had been at death’s door, and was so much altered in appearance, in himself he was not changed. Janet was too young to know that to be at death’s door is no sufficient reason for any change in that strange and perverse thing which is called the heart. She had been a little moved by the sight of him, so colorless and feeble, notwithstanding the change in her own feelings towards him. There is something piteous in the sight of a strong man, young, and in the flower of life, lying helpless upon a couch, ministered to like a child. It touched her heart, and something of the reverence for weakness, which is inherent in humanity, moved her as she came unwillingly, yet obediently to his side. But that side glance, the old confidential look, the smile which might have been called a leer by a more severe spectator, caught Janet in the midst of her momentary awe, and drove her back upon herself. She was not, as the reader knows, so lofty in her views, so generous in her motives, as would become a heroine; but she was startled and shocked by this, and thrown back into her original dismay and fear.
After this he saw the family every day. It became the habit of the house as he slowly recovered (and it was very slow progress) to have the couch rolled into the drawing-room every day, visitors shut out, and the whole efforts of the household, which were not very effectual in that department, devoted to the amusement of the patient. They were not very clever in the way of amusement. Mrs. Harwood talked to him, occasionally lighting upon an old story which had some interest for the invalid, and Gussy talked with no such reservoir of interest to fall back upon, generally dropping after a time into household details, which did not amuse him at all.
Janet, when she was not able to escape, sat demurely silent as far off as possible, her head bent over her work; and Dolff, who seemed to have been seized by a feverish desire to be present during these séances, as if something to his detriment might happen if he were absent, stood about, sometimes standing at one window, sometimes at another, adjured by his mother and sister not to get into the light, uncomfortable and unnecessary everywhere. Meredith, as he got able to talk a little, took up again his old habit of somewhat contemptuous banter to Dolff. He begged to know if he had not been singing lately—if Miss Summerhayes had been cruel and ceased to play the accompaniments, which she was so clever at. It was evident that his mind was far from any painful associations in respect to Dolff. He declared that it would amuse him to hear one of the old songs.
“Not the new ones,” he said, with that exasperating smile, “the refined ones, which Miss Summerhayes prefers. Sing me one of those, Dolff, that you brought from the Vic.”