III
She was therefore all the more startled when her mother said to
her in connexion with something to be done before her next
migration: "You understand of course that she's not going with
you."
Maisie turned quite faint. "Oh I thought she was."
"It doesn't in the least matter, you know, what you think," Mrs.
Farange loudly replied; "and you had better indeed for the
future, miss, learn to keep your thoughts to yourself." This was
exactly what Maisie had already learned, and the accomplishment
was just the source of her mother's irritation. It was of a
horrid little critical system, a tendency, in her silence, to
judge her elders, that this lady suspected her, liking as she
did, for her own part, a child to be simple and confiding. She
liked also to hear the report of the whacks she administered to
Mr. Farange's character, to his pretensions to peace of mind: the
satisfaction of dealing them diminished when nothing came back.
The day was at hand, and she saw it, when she should feel more
delight in hurling Maisie at him than in snatching her away; so
much so that her conscience winced under the acuteness of a
candid friend who had remarked that the real end of all their
tugging would be that each parent would try to make the little
girl a burden to the other--a sort of game in which a fond mother
clearly wouldn't show to advantage. The prospect of not showing
to advantage, a distinction in which she held she had never
failed, begot in Ida Farange an ill humour of which several
persons felt the effect. She determined that Beale at any rate
should feel it; she reflected afresh that in the study of how to
be odious to him she must never give way. Nothing could incommode
him more than not to get the good, for the child, of a nice
female appendage who had clearly taken a fancy to her. One of the
things Ida said to the appendage was that Beale's was a house
in which no decent woman could consent to be seen. It was Miss
Overmore herself who explained to Maisie that she had had a hope
of being allowed to accompany her to her father's, and that this
hope had been dashed by the way her mother took it. "She says
that if I ever do such a thing as enter his service I must never
expect to show my face in this house again. So I've promised not
to attempt to go with you. If I wait patiently till you come back
here we shall certainly be together once more."
Waiting patiently, and above all waiting till she should come
back there, seemed to Maisie a long way round--it reminded her of
all the things she had been told, first and last, that she should
have if she'd be good and that in spite of her goodness she had
never had at all. "Then who'll take care of me at papa's?"
"Heaven only knows, my own precious!" Miss Overmore replied,
tenderly embracing her. There was indeed no doubt that she was
dear to this beautiful friend. What could have proved it better
than the fact that before a week was out, in spite of their
distressing separation and her mother's prohibition and Miss
Overmore's scruples and Miss Overmore's promise, the beautiful
friend had turned up at her father's? The little lady already
engaged there to come by the hour, a fat dark little lady with a
foreign name and dirty fingers, who wore, throughout, a bonnet
that had at first given her a deceptive air, too soon dispelled,
of not staying long, besides asking her pupil questions that had
nothing to do with lessons, questions that Beale Farange himself,
when two or three were repeated to him, admitted to be awfully
low--this strange apparition faded before the bright creature who
had braved everything for Maisie's sake. The bright creature told
her little charge frankly what had happened--that she had really
been unable to hold out. She had broken her vow to Mrs. Farange;
she had struggled for three days and then had come straight to
Maisie's papa and told him the simple truth. She adored his
daughter; she couldn't give her up; she'd make for her any
sacrifice. On this basis it had been arranged that she should
stay; her courage had been rewarded; she left Maisie in no doubt
as to the amount of courage she had required. Some of the things
she said made a particular impression on the child--her
declaration for instance that when her pupil should get older
she'd understand better just how "dreadfully bold" a young lady,
to do exactly what she had done, had to be.
"Fortunately your papa appreciates it; he appreciates it
IMMENSELY"--that was one of the things Miss Overmore also said,
with a striking insistence on the adverb. Maisie herself was no
less impressed with what this martyr had gone through, especially
after hearing of the terrible letter that had come from Mrs.
Farange. Mamma had been so angry that, in Miss Overmore's own
words, she had loaded her with insult--proof enough indeed that
they must never look forward to being together again under
mamma's roof. Mamma's roof, however, had its turn, this time, for
the child, of appearing but remotely contingent, so that, to
reassure her, there was scarce a need of her companion's secret,
solemnly confided--the probability there would be no going back
to mamma at all. It was Miss Overmore's private conviction, and a
part of the same communication, that if Mr. Farange's daughter
would only show a really marked preference she would be backed up
by "public opinion" in holding on to him. Poor Maisie could
scarcely grasp that incentive, but she could surrender herself to
the day. She had conceived her first passion, and the object of
it was her governess. It hadn't been put to her, and she
couldn't, or at any rate she didn't, put it to herself, that she
liked Miss Overmore better than she liked papa; but it would have
sustained her under such an imputation to feel herself able to
reply that papa too liked Miss Overmore exactly as much. He had
particularly told her so. Besides she could easily see it.
