Only the Governess

Front matter

I I ■ I I ■ I ■ I ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ I ■ BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CA^Y AUTHOR OF ' Nellie's memories,' ' not like other girls,' ' uncle max,' etc. A NEW EDITION LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON gnMishen. in ©romarg to Der Jttajesta the ©wen 1889 [A II rights' reserved ] CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. D0SS1E ........ I II. 'this is the house that jack built' . . .8 III. 'LIKE THE BIRDS OF THE AIR ' . . . . l6 IV. IN THE EDITOR'S ROOM . . . . -25 V. LAUNCELOT'S PROTEGEES . . . . -34 VI. ' DOSSIE WILL NOT FORGIVE ME ' . . . -44 VII. VOICES OF COMFORT . . . . . -54 VIII. 'OH, MY LITTLE CHILD, MY LITTLE CHILD!' . . 62 IX. RACHEL THORPE . . . . . -7' X. ' OXFORD BLUE, IF YOU PLEASE ' . . . .80 XI. THE GREEN DOOR IN THE WALL . . . .88 XII. MADELLA ....... 96 XIII. ' I AM JACK'S LITTLE GIRL ' . . . . . 105 XIV. THE TERRACE AT THE WITCHENS . . . . 114 XV. 'MY SONNE'S FAIRE WIFE ELIZABETH' . . . 123 XVI.

BEE'S SATURDAYS ...... 132 XVII. 'ONLY SYBIL'S GOVERNESS' ..... I42 XVIII. A CINDERELLA DANCE . . . . -'52 XIX. 'BUT THERE IS ERICA ' . . . . . l6l XX. 'I DO NOT LIKE SAD THINGS' . . . . 169 XXI. 'SHE IS NOT TREATING US WELL' .... 180 XXII. ' I CAN HELP YOU, HULDAH ' . . . . 1 88 XXIII. UNDER MIDNIGHT SKIES ..... 198 XXIV. A MODERN BAYARD ...... 207 XXV.- RACHEL'S SILENCE . . . . . .217 XXVI. 'NO, NOT TOO LATE, MY CHILD' .... 225 XXVII. IN THE STUDIO ...... 233 XXVIII. 'JOAN, COME BACK* ...... 244 XXIX. JOAN LEAVES THE WITCHENS. .... 254 XXX. LAUNCELOT FINDS FAULT WITH THE SALAD . . vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXXI. ' THEN YOU ARE ENGAGED TO HIM ?' . . . 273 XXXII. 'OSCAR IS A SAD BOY ' ..... 282 XXXIII. ' BE A BRAVE LITTLE WOMAN' .... 29I xxxiv. 'oh, yes; he comes every sunday' . . . 300 XXXV. 'JOAN — REALLY — JOAN!' . .. . . • 310 xxxvi.

Rachel's nemesis ...... 320 xxxvu. ' would you like to see her ?' . . . . 329 xxxviii. launcelot's picture ..... 339 xxxix. 'he is hedley to me ' . . . . 347 xl. pauline . . . . . . . 357 xli. five years afterwards ..... 366 xlii. 'this is not my little girl!' .... 375 xliii. building jack's house ..... 385 xliv. dorothea ....... 394 xlv. the old love and the new .... 403 xlvi. launcelot's fiancee . . . . 413 xlvii. jemmy stokes' errand ..... 422 xlviii. launcelot finds that sketch ....

Chapter I. Dossie

' A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom.' — -Old Saying. It was only the other day that Launcelot Chudleigh came upon a half finished portrait that he had painted of Dossie as a child. He was moving some large dusty portfolios that had long blocked up a corner of his studio, when the rotten strings of one gave way, and out tumbled a miscellaneous collection of hastily-drawn sketches, crude studies, sunny little bits of scenery, here and there a larger piece with the colours only half washed in, as though the brush had been flung away in despair ; groups of figures with no particular background, a gondola floating in a very hazy sea, an Italian peasant with a Madonna face and the inevitable large-eyed babe in her arms, a little flower-girl vvith a gay kerchief on her head and a string of brown beads round her neck.

Launcelct turned them all over vvith a droll, humorous smile. He was amused, as middle-aged people often are when they come unex pectedly on some toy or relic of their childhood. Ah, well ! he had been young too, like other people. He had attempted and had failed ; and, of course, his failures had seemed pathetic to him. Youth seldom finishes what it begins : it is ready to set the world on fire with its hasty energy ; then comes reality, disappointment, the plain prose of life. Launcelot was moralizing over his sketches when one fluttered slowly to his feet. He uttered an exclamation as he picked it up and brushed the dust off it very tenderly. It was the portrait of a child, but not a pretty child. A pale, plaintive little face, shaded by soft yellowish hair ; the mouth was grave and unsmiling, the great wistful eyes looked at one rather sadly. ' What does it mean ?' they seemed to ask, and the droop of the lips seemed to demand the same question.

Under it was written, ' Dossie, aged ten.' Launcelot regarded it long and fixedly. ' It is very like her still,' he murmured to himself. ' I have half a mind to finish it now ; it would be a surprise to Dorothea. I wonder if she would recollect it, or Madella? it is not so badly done after all.' And then he added, after a pause : ' That must have been sketched the week before Jack went away — poor old Jack ! how well I remember that time !' And then he sighed, and laying the picture on the table he restored the other sketches to the portfolio. It was a grey March afternoon, and the east wind, that abomina tion to all right-minded Englishmen, was playing a dreary sym phony on the bare tree-tops of the limes and acacias that grew in the small gardens of Wenvoe Road. Dossie hated the east wind ; she always regarded it as a personal enemy.

It was part of her childish creed to share all her father's likes and dislikes, and her father had once said that the east wind always made him feel disagreeable and antagonistic to the whole world. He had gone out this very morning, with his coat buttoned up and shrugging his shoulders at the dismal prospect. ' What a detestable climate !' he had muttered, as he watched the grey dust whirling down the white road. ' There, run in, Dossie, and tell Mrs. Slater that she must not let you go outside the door to day ; and be a good girl, and you shall help me paint this even ing ;' and Jack Weston waved his hand and set off in the direction of the station. ' Father always says that,' thought Dossie, as she closed the door and went back to the parlour and looked round the empty room a little wistfully. ' I wonder if I am a good girl after all?' Another long day to be spent all alone — for of course Mrs. Slater would be too busy to talk to her, and Nancy would be hard at work too.

Nancy would be blackleading stoves, with rather a smutty face, or scrubbing floors, and Mrs. Slater, with floury elbows or hands whitened with hot soapsuds, would be kneading dough, or slam ming oven doors, or wringing out mysterious long wisps that re solved themselves into still more mysterious garments. It would be ' Go away, Miss Dossie dear, for the place ain't fit for you to stand upon,' from poor, overworked, good-humoured Nancy ; and ' Run away, dearie, do, for I have not a minute hardly DOSSIE 3 to draw a breath in,' from the equally tasked mistress of the house. There were other lodgers in No. 28, Wenvoe Road, besides Mr. Weston and his little daughter. Another artist occupied the drawing-room floor — a pallid young man with long hair and a seedy-brown velvet coat — who had lately become a social democrat, and spouted for the hour together at public meetings on the wrongs of the working classes.

Jack Weston never held any intercourse with him ; he always wished him a very curt good-morning when they encountered each other on the stairs. He had a far more genial nod for the little grey-headed clerk on the upper floor, in spite of an execrable clarionet with which he tortured his neighbours into the small hours ; but then he always said Gregson was such a harmless, hard-working old fellow, and never gave his landlady any trouble, blacking his own boots, and only coming home to tea, and never complaining if Nancy forgot to fill his coalscuttle on a cold winter's night ; ' and he has had his troubles too, poor old man,' finished Jack, who had a soft heart. Dossie heaved a deep sigh as she looked round the empty room. It was a very pleasant room in summer-time when the folding doors were open, for the glass door led into a small garden, but just now it had a forlorn, untidy aspect.

The breakfast things had not been cleared away from the round table— Mrs. Slater and Nancy were too busy at present ; the only cheerful window was blocked by her father's easel ; the couch and half the chairs were littered with papers, books, and a heterogeneous mass of odds and ends ; the fire, which had been ruthlessly poked by an impatient hand, was now a bed of red cinders. Portfolios, palettes, colour-boxes, musical instruments, coats and rugs were on every available article of furniture. Brown sparrows were chirping and picking up the crumbs that had been lavishly strewn for them in spite of the green eyes of a small black kitten who watched them through the glass door ; actually one pert little fellow seemed to cock his head at her in a knowing way, as if he knew that she could not reach him.

How was Dossie to get through her long solitary day? that was the question she was revolving with a puckered forehead and a very grave face, while the kitten patted the glass with soft velvety paws and the sparrows flew away. There was the room to tidy, but there would be plenty of time for that before father came home ; it was no use learning any more lessons, as he had not heard the last, and she had finished the dusters Mrs. Slater had given her to hem, and of course she was much too busy to find her any more work. 1 — Never mind, she would get on with her writing and have quite a long bit to show her father in the evening. How he did laugh over it, to be sure ! She had been rather hurt about his laughing at first, until he had explained to her very kindly that it was only the idea that amused him, and that really he was very much pleased with the whole thing.

There was no empty space on the round table for her writing materials, so Dossie wedged herself in vvith some difficulty between the easel and the window — there was a nice window-seat there that opened like a box, a curious contrivance made by some pre vious lodger. Here Dossie kept her treasures — her little work-box and lesson books, and childish odds and ends, and from this dusty receptacle she triumphantly produced a bundle of copy-books, tied together with blue ribbon. Five minutes more and Dossie had forgotten the world, the east wind, and the solitude she had so dreaded, in the proud de light of composition. The scratchy pen never paused as Mrs. Slater cleared the breakfast things and made up the fire. ' Poor little soul !' she said to herself as she bustled out of the room with the tray, ' she is as good as gold.

Few children would amuse themselves as Miss Dossie does. Bless her little heart ! She is making believe to write some story, I expect. We should never get the ink off her hands if Nancy had not bought that pumice stone.' But, regardless of ink, smudges, erasures and an occasional difficulty in spelling some desirable word, Dossie worked on — quite oblivious of time — only pausing to stroke the kitten, which had crept into her lap and was purring contentedly in that warm receptacle. They ate their dinner together in gipsy fashion, for Mrs. Slater never troubled to spread a cloth for Dossie alone; the little tray was placed on the window-seat, and by-and by Nancy took it away and the copy-books were replaced. ' I am getting on beautifully, Nancy !' exclaimed Dossie, with a beaming smile that lighted up her pale little face like a ray of sunshine. ' If I take great pains with it, perhaps father will have it printed some day.' ' Of course he will, Miss Dossie,' returned Nancy stoutly ; ' it is quite as good as any real printed book.

It almost made me cry it did, the other night.' And this flattering testimony to the intrinsic worth of her work was an immense consolation to Dossie. Nancy's value as a critic might have been held somewhat cheaply by other people — her childhood had been spent in a workhouse, a place where the intellectual activities seldom attain rapid growth • DOSSIE 5 neither was the position of maid-of-all work — in a house where lodgers are kept — a particularly fortunate one for the develop ment of critical acumen, or the faculty of nice discrimination ; nevertheless Nancy's sympathy and honest faith were great sources of comfort to Dossie, who had no companions of her own age. Sometimes Dossie, staring wide awake into the darkness, would hear Nancy come up heavily to bed, and would beg her, in a plaintive voice, to sit with her a little.

Nancy never refused, how ever tired and sleepy she might be ; she would sit on the hard un comfortable box, with the tallow candle guttering in the tin candle stick, while Dossie, propped against her nest of pillows, read aloud her composition in a voice trembling with eagerness. ' I call it beautiful, Miss Dossie,' Nancy would murmur, with difficulty sup pressing a yawn ; sometimes her head would nod drowsily with cold and fatigue, but she always persisted that she had heard every word. Dossie returned to her labours with increased alacrity when Nancy had carried away the luncheon-tray. Her hands were very inky, and she had a red spot on either cheek, and perhaps she felt a little cramped and sleepy, but what did all that matter ? But one of those interruptions which Hale describes as ' a breach, or break, caused by the abrupt intervention of something foreign,' was to happen to the small author, for at that moment a thin, dark young man, in a foreign looking overcoat, lined with fur, was standing before the door of No. 28, Wenvoe Road, waiting with an air of philosophic patience until Nancy had pulled down her sleeves and tied on a clean apron. 'Yes, sir,' observed Nancy, dropping a little wooden curtsy; and as the gentleman turned round rather quickly, she added, ' We ain't got a " let " up, Mrs. Slater says, because we are full at present' ' Oh,' staring at her in rather a bewildered fashion. ' I am sure I am very glad to hear it.

Your neighbours are not so lucky, for I saw several placards up ; but I have not come after lodgings. I believe a gentleman of the name of Weston lives here.' ' Yes, sir ; our parlour lodger, but he is not in. Miss Dosie— that is the little girl— is in.' ' Oh, very well, I will speak to her,' returned the stranger with an air of relief; and Nancy, without wasting any more words, thrust her head into the parlour and observed, ' Here is a gentle man, Miss Dosie, asking to see your papa,' and then promptly vanished. ' I beg your pardon for this intrusion,' began the young man quickly, and then he stopped in some confusion. Where was the little girl ? There was a small demon in the shape of a black kitten washing its face very busily on the hearthrug, but no human being that he could see. The room had a desolate, untidy aspect, and looked like a bachelor's den. ' I suppose she is upstairs,' he muttered, and then he went up to the easel.

But the next moment he recoiled with a start and uttered an exclamation, for he had caught sight of a small head, covered with rough yellowish hair, lying on the window seat in a very limp manner — it might have belonged to a good sized doll, only it moved at the sound of his voice. ' I believe I was asleep,' remarked Dossie with dignity, as she moved her cramped limbs with difficulty and struggled to her feet. ' If you please, father is out, and I do not know who you are.' ' I dare say not, my little girl,' returned the young man, shaking the small ink-stained hand very kindly, and drawing her out of the corner, ' but I dare say when we have had a little talk we shall be great friends. Do you know, I first saw your father when he was only a big schoolboy ; he was seventeen or eighteen, I forget which, but still quite a boy, and I was a little fellow about six or seven years younger.' One of Dossie's sudden smiles, that always took people by sur prise, irradiated her small face as she heard this. ' Oh, did you really know father then?

How you could help me ! I never knew anyone before who could tell me what he was like as a boy. Of course you do not know what I mean by wanting to know all this, but if I tell you I am sure you would help me,' looking at him with a child's unerring instinct that he was to be trusted. ' To be sure I will help you,' was the quick reply ; ' may I take off my overcoat first ? Thank you ; and as I knew your father all those years ago may I stir the fire ? I am afraid I forgot what the maid called you ; Miss Dosie, was it ?' ' No, Dossie ; at least, father always calls me Dossie, but Nancy will always say Dosie. I don't like it, it is such a sleepy name, but Nancy never can see the difference. Oh, what a beautiful blaze you have made ! Muff is quite pleased ; listen how she purrs. Father almost pokes the fire to pieces, but it never is as bright as that ; please take that chair, Mr. Oh, now I come to think of it I do not know your name either — how funny !' ' I am afraid you will think it rather a difficult name, Miss Dossie — Launcelot Chudleigh — rather a mouthful, eh ? but people often call me Lance for brevity's sake.

Now I should very much like to know what that shake of the head means.' ' I am only thinking,' was the oracular reply, as Dossie drew a DOSSIE 7 stool to the hearthrug ; ' I always shake my head when I think hard. When you spoke to me first, I thought you were young, very young, but I am not so sure now.' Mr. Chudleigh laughed ; he had often been accused of this before ; he was wonderfully young-looking for his age, which was in reality about two-and-thirty ; his face, without being exactly hand some, a term that would not have suited it at all, was so full of life and energy, and repressed enthusiasm, that it seemed to speak even when in repose ; the mouth, hardly shaded by the small trim moustache, was beautifully formed and characteristic, and the grey eyes looked very kindly at Dossie.

Children and animals never misunderstood Launcelot Chud leigh, though a few of his equals in age called him a hare-brained enthusiast, and accused him of posing as an English Don Quixote. ' It is Chudleigh's role to be peculiar,' people would say. ' I be lieve he does odd things to keep up his character for singularity, or because he thinks it artistic' 'I dare say, after all, his unselfish ness is only a form of refined egotism, a subjective idealism,' finished one cranky old philosopher, who always grumbled at Launcelot and secretly loved him. Launcelot was immensely amused by Dossie's artless speech. You can never deceive children, he moralized ; they had found out long ago that he was a boy at heart still ; he was afraid he should never grow old and dignified like other people. Even when his head was grey, his heart would be young.

He knew this, he had always known it, and had railed at himself for not being more of a melancholy Jacques ; but a man* must act up to his nature, and now this demure little thing, with her flaxen doll's head, had found him out. So this was Jack's child ; but she was not a bit like poor old Jack, and someone had told him her mother had been pretty ; well, she could not take after her mother either, unless she were a very washed-out edition. ' Well,' he observed briskly, as Dossie seemed a little absent and disinclined to speak, ' what is this important matter in which I am to help you ?' and as though the question had recalled her wandering thoughts, the child ran to the window-seat and returned with her arms full of the copybooks. ' Oh yes, you can help me,' she exclaimed breathlessly. ' Every now and then I have to stop because I do not know any more, and father is too lazy to tell me ; he is very lazy sometimes, and very often he only laughs and says ridiculous things, or scribbles nonsense on the nice clean page ; you have no idea how naughty he is.' ' But what is it — what are you writing ?' asked Launcelot in a kind, puzzled tone. ' My dear child, how you must have steeped yourself in ink !' regarding the stained fingers rather pitifully. ' Yes, but Nancy has got some pumice-stone ; it all comes out, so father does not mind, and I bought the ink myself.

Now, then, I am going to tell you : I am writing father's life, because he is quite the best man in the world, and, of course, his life ought to be written.'

Chapter II

'this is the house that jack built.' ' This is the man all tattered and torn who married the maiden all forlorn,' etc. — Nursery Rhyme. Launcelot dared not reply to this astounding piece of information for fear he should burst out laughing, and by so doing offend mortally this whimsical little being, so he bit his lip hard to con ceal a smile, and taking one of the copy-books out of Dossie's hand, he bent over it with an air of profound interest. 'Father's History' was written in large childish round-hand, but underneath in bold masculine handwriting was inscribed, ' The life of Jack Weston, by his daughter, being a full and vera cious account of the man, his morals, and complete history up to date, drawn frcJm an infantile point of view. Motto for same, " This is the house that Jack built." ' ' I am sure it must be very interesting, Miss Dossie,' observed Launcelot politely, but in rather a stifled voice ; he was growing very red in the face in the effort to conceal his risibility — this was the most amusing thing ever heard ; how delighted Madella would be to know it ! ' Should you mind very much if I were to read a page or two ?

If I am to help you by any choice reminiscences it will be necessary for "me to judge a little of the style, unless,' regarding the many blots dubiously, ' you were to read it to me yourself.' ' Oh yes,' assented Dossie joyously. ' I think that would be much better. I always read it to father and Nancy ; but,' regarding him with a puzzled expression, ' how will you ever know which is mine and which is father's, for he has put such funny things ? If I were to stop and cough — just " hem," you know, that would mean I am going to read father's.' ' That will be a capital plan,' replied Launcelot, taking up the poker in desperation ; his shoulders were heaving, but of course the big coal baffled him. 'What a nice man he was,' thought Dossie, ' how delightful that he had known her father as a boy ; he would have plenty of interesting things to tell her presently ;' and then she cleared her throat and began.

Launcelot glanced at her over one shoulder, but he. thought it impolitic to relinquish the poker. ' " I am writing father's life because he is quite the best man in the world, and so beautiful. I know everyone thinks so, because when we are walking together people look at him so ; he is so big and strong, and holds up his head like a king, and he has a nice reddish-brown beard, curly rather. Muff likes it, for she tried to go to sleep in it once, only he put her down very carefully — father never hurts anything — and called her an impudent little cat " — oh, I see,' and here Dossie coughed gently. '"N.B. — Rather a negative virtue that, 'he never hurt anything.' When a man is his worst enemy he is sure to do mischief enough. How about the talent laid up in the napkin all these years ? Never mind, my Dossie ; believe in your father with the beautiful faith of child hood. ' The best man in the world ' — what a stone launched by a tiny hand ! it hits hard somehow. ' " Father and I have always lived together since mother died, sometimes in one place and sometimes in another.

Now and then wThen we are very comfortable it makes me sorry when father says he has no money, and the lodgings are too expensive, and we must ' move on.' He threatens sometimes to take to a caravan, but that is only his joke. Father is such a joky man. I cried about it once when we were in that pretty cottage on the common. I did love blackberrying in the lanes so, but father took me on his knee and looked ready to cry too, and begged me not to be sorry because it made him so unhappy, and that he would give me all I wanted if he could only sell his pictures ; but he was down on his luck, as usual, and there were big tears in his eyes when he said this. '"So I never tell him I am sorry now, but I do hope that we shall not leave here for a long time, for Mrs. Slater and Nancy are so kind, and on Sunday father always takes me into the park to see the deer. ' " Father says when he was a baby his name was John, but his friends always call him Jack.

He never will talk of the time when he was a boy ; he always says he was much the same as other boys, only a great pickle. He is dreadfully lazy — the only thing that seems to interest him is the part about mother," dear me, hem ! " N.B. — My poor pretty Pen ! Is it any wonder ? A man, unless he be an absolute brute, which I always maintain Jack Weston was not, is never indifferent to his guardian angel. God knows how I loved the darling, and yet I failed to make her happy. She was too tender, too sensitive for this hard work-a-day world. My little Dossie takes after her there, I fear. What an unlucky beggar I have been ! Two good women to love me, and yet here I am a threadbare, lonely man, a painter of bad pictures, with hardly a friend in the world, except a stray Bohemian, and a little helpless female child for whose future I am responsible."

Father was very sad when he wrote that,' finished Dossie, 'he could not joke a bit : he just put his head on his hands and groaned, but when I asked him what was the matter he would not answer. ' " Father was very young when he first saw mother. He says he had quarrelled with his friends, and was sketching in a pretty village in one of the midland counties. He lodged at the inn, and was very happy and comfortable. ' " It was a sweet little village, with cottages all covered with roses and all sorts of climbing plants, and just outside the village near the church was a queer old red-brick house, with a beautiful lawn and a cedar tree.

It was a girls' school, and kept by two funny old ladies, I forget their names. ' " Father used to meet the girls walking two-and-two on a summer's evening ; some of them would notice him and nudge each other as they passed ; but there was one young lady in grey, who walked last, who was the quietest and prettiest of them all. ' " Father called her for a long time ' his little Quaker friend,' because she was so demure-looking, and always wore such sober colours ; but when he came to look at her more closely, he said she reminded him of a little pale snowdrop, there was something so fresh and pure about her : these are father's own words. ' " He got to know the clergyman presently, and his wife told father that the name of his little Quaker friend was Penelope Martin, that she was an orphan, and very friendless and poor, and that she was the junior English governess at the Cedars. ' But we are all very fond of her, Mr. Weston,' she added, ' for Miss Martin is so good and amiable, and we are delighted to have her with us on half-holidays.' " ' Here Dossie paused to cough, and Launcelot, who had long ago laid down the poker, stole another glance at her from under his hand.