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I found to be true; for as Madame began to lose that character, her good-humour abated very perceptibly, and she began to show gleams of another sort of temper, that was lurid and dangerous.
Notwithstanding this, she was in the habit of always having her Bible open by her, and was austerely attentive at morning and evening services, and asked my father, with great humility, to lend her some translations of Swedenborg’s books, which she laid much to heart.
When we went out for our walk, if the weather were bad we generally made our promenade up and down the broad terrace in front of the windows. Sullen and malign at times she used to look, and as suddenly she would pat me on the shoulder caressingly, and smile with a grotesque benignity, asking tenderly, “Are you fatigue, ma chêre?” or “Are you cold-a, dear Maud?”
At first these abrupt transitions puzzled me, sometimes half frightened me, savouring, I fancied, of insanity. The key, however, was accidentally supplied, and I found that these excesses of demonstrative affection were sure to supervene whenever my father’s face was visible through the library windows.
I did not know well what to make of this woman, whom I feared with a vein of superstitious dread. I hated being alone with her after dusk in the school-room. She would sometimes sit for half an hour at a time, with her wide mouth drawn down at the corners, and a scowl, looking into the fire. If she saw me looking at her, she would change all this on the instant, affect a sort of languor, and lean her head upon her hand, and ultimately have recourse to her Bible. But I fancied she did not read, but pursued her own dark ruminations, for I observed that the open book might often lie for half an hour or more under her eyes and yet the leaf never turned.
I should have been glad to be assured that she prayed when on her knees, or read when that book was before her; I should have felt that she was more canny and human. As it was, those external pieties made a suspicion of a hollow contrast with realities that helped to scare me; yet it was but a suspicion — I could not be certain.
Our rector and the curate, with whom she was very gracious, and anxious about my collects and catechism, had an exalted opinion of her. In public places her affection for me was always demonstrative.
In like manner she contrived conferences with my father. She was always making excuses to consult him about my reading, and to confide in him her sufferings, as I learned, from my contumacy and temper. The fact is, I was altogether quiet and submissive. But I think she had a wish to reduce me to a state of the most abject bondage. She had designs of domination and subversion regarding the entire household, I now believe, worthy of the evil spirit I sometimes fancied her.
My father beckoned me into the study one day, and said he —
“You ought not to give poor Madame so much pain. She is one of the few persons who take an interest in you; why should she have so often to complain of your ill-temper and disobedience? — why should she be compelled to ask my permission to punish you? Don’t be afraid, I won’t concede that. But in so kind a person it argues much. Affection I can’t command — respect and obedience I may — and I insist on your rendering both to Madame.”
“But sir,” I said, roused into courage by the gross injustice of the charge, “I have always done exactly as she bid me, and never said one disrespectful word to Madame.”
“I don’t think, child, you are the best judge of that. Go, and amend.” And with a displeased look he pointed to the door. My heart swelled with the sense of wrong, and as I reached the door I turned to say another word, but I could not, and only burst into tears.
“There — don’t cry, little Maud — only let us do better for the future. There — there — there has been enough.”
And he kissed my forehead, and gently put me out and closed the door.
In the school-room I took courage, and with some warmth upbraided Madame.
“Wat wicked cheaile!” moaned Madame, demurely. “Read aloud those three — yes, those three chapters of the Bible, my dear Maud.”
There was no special fitness in those particular chapters, and when they were ended she said in a sad tone —
“Now, dear, you must commit to memory this pretty priaire for umility of art.”
It was a long one, and in a state of profound irritation I got through the task.
Mrs. Rusk hated her. She said she stole wine and brandy whenever the opportunity offered — that she was always asking her for such stimulants and pretending pains in her stomach. Here, perhaps, there was exaggeration; but I knew it was true that I had been at different times despatched on that errand and pretext for brandy to Mrs. Rusk, who at last came to her bedside with pills and a mustard blister only, and was hated irrevocably ever after.
I felt all this was done to torture me. But a day is a long time to a child, and they forgive quickly. It was always with a sense of danger that I heard Madame say she must go and see Monsieur Ruthyn in the library, and I think a jealousy of her growing influence was an ingredient in the detestation in which honest Mrs. Rusk held her.
Chapter 6.
A Walk in the Wood
TWO LITTLE PIECES of by-play in which I detected her confirmed my unpleasant suspicion. From the corner of the gallery I one day saw her, when she thought I was out and all quiet, with her ear and the keyhole of papa’s study, as we used to call the sitting-room next his bed-room. Her eyes were turned in the direction of the stairs, from which only she apprehended surprise. Her great mouth was open, and her eyes absolutely goggled with eagerness. She was devouring all that was passing there. I drew back into the shadow with a kind of disgust and horror. She was transformed into a great gaping reptile. I felt that I could have thrown something at her; but a kind of tear made me recede again toward my room. Indignation, however, quickly returned, and I came back, treading briskly as I did so. When I reached the angle of the gallery again, Madame, I suppose, had heard me, for she was half-way down the stairs.
“Ah, my dear cheaile, I am so glad to find you, and you are dress to come out. We shall have so pleasant walk.”
At that moment the door of my father’s study opened, and Mrs. Rusk, with her dark energetic face very much flushed, stepped out in high excitement.
“The Master says you may have the brandy-bottle, Madame, and I’m glad to be rid of it — I am.”
Madame courtesied with a great smirk, that was full of intangible hate and insult.
“Better your own brandy, if drink you must!” exclaimed Mrs. Rusk. “You may come to the store-room now, or the butler can take it.”
And off whisked Mrs. Rusk for the back staircase.
There had been no common skirmish on this occasion, but a pitched battle.
Madame had made a sort of pet of Anne Wixted, an under-chambermaid, and attached her to her interest economically by persuading me to make her presents of some old dresses and other things. Anne was such an angel!
But Mrs. Rusk, whose eyes were about her, detected Anne, with a brandy-bottle under her apron, stealing up-stairs. Anne, in a panic, declared the truth. Madame had commissioned her to buy it in the town, and convey it to her bed-room. Upon this, Mrs. Rusk impounded the flask; and, with Anne beside her, rather precipitately appeared before “the Master.” He heard, and summoned Madame. Madame was cool, frank, and fluent. The brandy was purely medicinal. She procured a document in form of a note. Doctor Somebody presented his compliments to Madame de la Rougierre, and ordered her a table-spoonful of brandy and some drops of laudanum whenever the pain of stomach returned. The flask would last a whole year, perhaps two. She claimed her medicine.
Mans’ estimate of woman is higher than woman’s own. Perhaps in their relations to men they are generally more trustworthy — perhaps woman’s is the juster, and the other an appointed illusion.