Whiteladies

“Very kind-hearted,” said Mrs. Richard, though with less enthusiasm. “It is all from those foreigners’ love of display,” she said in her heart.

“But perhaps it would be wise to consult Miss Augustine, or – any other friend you may have confidence in,” said the Doctor. “People are so very censorious, and we must not give any occasion for evil-speaking.”

“I think exactly with Dr. Richard, my dear,” said the old lady. “I am sure that would be the best.”

“But I have nothing done to consult about,” cried the culprit surprised. She sipped her tea, and ate a large piece of the good people’s cake, however, and let them talk. When she was not crossed, Giovanna was perfectly good-humored. “I will sing for you, if you please,” she said when she had finished.

The Doctor and his wife looked at each other, and professed their delight in the proposal. “But we have no piano,” they said in chorus with embarrassed looks.

“What does that do to me, when I can sing without it,” said Giovanna. And she lifted up her powerful voice, “almost too much for a drawing-room,” Mrs. Richard said afterward, and sang them one of those gay peasant songs that abound in Italy, where every village has its own canzone. She sang seated where she had been taking her tea, and without seeming to miss an accompaniment, they remarked to each other, as if she had been a ballad-singer. It was pretty enough, but so very unusual! “Of course foreigners cannot be expected to know what is according to the rules of society in England,” Mrs. Richard said with conscious indulgence; but she put on her bonnet and walked with “Madame” part of the way to Whiteladies, that she might not continue her performance in the garden. “Miss Augustine might think, or Miss Susan might think, that we countenanced it; and in the Doctor’s position that would never do,” said the old lady, breathing her troubles into the ear of a confidential friend whom she met on her way home. And Dr. Richard himself felt the danger not less strongly than she.

Other changes, however, happened to Giovanna, as she settled down at Whiteladies. She was without any fixed principles of morality, and had no code of any kind which interfered with her free action. To give up doing anything she wanted to do because it involved lying, or any kind of spiritual dishonesty, would never have occurred to her, nor was she capable of perceiving that there was anything wrong in securing her own advantage as she had done. But she was by no means all bad, any more than truthful and honorable persons are all good. Her own advantage, or what she thought her own advantage, and her own way, were paramount considerations with her; but having obtained these, Giovanna had no wish to hurt anybody, or to be unkind. She was indolent and loved ease, but still she was capable of taking trouble now and then to do some one else a service. She had had no moral training, and all her faculties were obtuse; and she had seen no prevailing rule but that of selfishness. Selfishness takes different aspects, according to the manner in which you look at it. When you have to maintain hardly, by a constant struggle, your own self against the encroachments and still more rampant selfishness of others, the struggle confers a certain beauty upon the object of it. Giovanna had wanted to have her own way, like the others of the family, but had been usually thrust into a corner, and prevented from having it. What wonder, then, that when she had a chance, she seized it, and emancipated herself, and secured her own comfort with the same total disregard to others which she had been used to see? But now, having got this – having for the moment all she wanted – an entire exemption from work, an existence full of external comfort, and circumstances around her which flattered her with a sense of an elevated position – she began to think a little. Nothing was exacted of her. If Miss Susan was not kind to her, she was not at least unkind, only withdrawing from her as much as possible, a thing which Giovanna felt to be quite natural, and in the quiet and silence the young woman’s mind began to work. I do not say her conscience, for that was not in the least awakened, nor was she conscious of any penitential regret in thinking of the past, or religious resolution for the future; it was her mind only that was concerned. She thought it might be as well to make certain changes in her habits. In her new existence, certain modifications of the old use and wont seemed reasonable. And then there gradually developed in her – an invaluable possession which sometimes does more for the character than high principle or good intention – a sense of the ludicrous. This was what Everard meant when he said there was fun in her. She had a sense of humor, a sense of the incongruities which affect some minds so much more powerfully by the fact of being absurd, than by the fact of being wrong. Giovanna, without any actual good motive, thus felt the necessity of amending herself, and making various changes in her life.

This, it may be supposed, took some time to develop; and in the meantime the household in which she had become so very distinct a part, had to make up its mind to her, and resume as best it could its natural habits and use and wont, with the addition of this stranger in the midst. As for the servants, their instinctive repugnance to a foreigner and a new inmate was lessened from the very first by the introduction of the child, who conciliated the maids, and thus made them forgive his mother the extra rooms they had to arrange, and the extra work necessary. The child was fortunately an engaging and merry child, and as he got used to the strange faces round him, became the delight and pride and amusement of the house. Cook was still head nurse, and derived an increased importance and satisfaction from her supremacy. I doubt if she had ever before felt the dignity and happiness of her position as a married woman half so much as now, when that fact alone (as the others felt) gave her a mysterious capacity for the management of the child. The maids overlooked the fact that the child’s mother, though equally a married woman, was absolutely destitute of this power; but accuracy of reasoning is not necessary in such an argument, and the entire household bowed to the superior endowments of Cook. The child’s pattering, sturdy little feet, and crowings of baby laughter became the music of Whiteladies, the pleasant accompaniment to which the lives at least of the little community in the kitchen were set. Miss Susan, being miserable, resisted the fascination, and Augustine was too abstracted to be sensible of it; but the servants yielded as one woman, and even Stevens succumbed after the feeblest show of resistance. Now and then even, a bell would ring ineffectually in that well-ordered house, and the whole group of attendants be found clustered together worshipping before the baby, who had produced some new word, or made some manifestation of supernatural cleverness; and the sound of the child pervaded all that part of the house in which the servants were supreme. They forgave his mother for being there because she had brought him, and if at the same time they hated her for her neglect of him, the hatred was kept passive by a perception that, but for this insensibility on her part, the child could not have been allowed thus fully and pleasantly to minister to them.

As for Miss Susan, who had felt as though nothing could make her endure the presence of Giovanna, she too was affected unwittingly by the soft effects of time. It was true that no sentiment, no principle in existence was strong enough to make her accept cheerfully this unwelcome guest. Had she been bidden to do it in order to make atonement for her own guilt, or as penance for that guilt, earning its forgiveness, or out of pity or Christian feeling, she would have pronounced the effort impossible; and impossible she had still thought it when she watched with despair the old shopkeeper’s departure, and reflected with a sense of suffering intolerable and not to be borne that he had left behind him this terrible witness against her, this instrument of her punishment. Miss Susan had paced about her room in restless anguish, saying to herself under her breath that her punishment was greater than she could bear. She had felt with a sickening sense of helplessness and hopelessness that she could never go downstairs again, never take her place at that table, never eat or drink in the company of this new inmate whom she could not free herself from. And for a few days, indeed, Miss Susan kept on inventing little ailments which kept her in her own room. But this could not last. She had a hundred things to look after which made it necessary for her to be about, to be visible; and gradually there grew upon her a stirring of curiosity to see how things went on, with that woman always there. And then she resumed her ordinary habits, came downstairs, sat down at the familiar table, and by degrees found herself getting accustomed to the new-comer. Strangest effect of those calm, monotonous days! Nothing would have made her do it knowingly; but soft pressure of time made her do it. Things quieted down; the alien was there, and there was no possibility of casting her out; and, most wonderful of all, Miss Susan got used to her, in spite of herself.

And Giovanna, for her part, began to think.

CHAPTER XXXI

Giovanna possessed that quality which is commonly called common-sense, though I doubt if she was herself aware of it. She had never before been in a position in which this good sense could tell much, or in which even it was called forth to any purpose. Her lot had always been determined for her by others. She had never, until the coming of the child, been in a position in which it mattered much one way or another what she thought; and since that eventful moment her thinkings had not been of an edifying description. They had been chiefly bent on the consideration how to circumvent the others who were using her for their own purposes, and to work advantage to herself out of the circumstances which, for the first time in her life, gave her the mastery. Now, she had done this; she had triumphantly overcome all difficulties, and, riding over everybody’s objections, had established herself here in comfort. Giovanna had expected a constant conflict with Miss Susan, who was her enemy, and over whom she had got the victory. She had looked for nothing better than a daily fight – rather enlivening, all things considered – with the mistress of the house, to whom, she knew, she was so unwelcome a guest. She had anticipated a long-continued struggle, in which she should have to hold her own, and defend herself, hour by hour. When she found that this was not going to be the case – that poor Miss Susan, in her misery and downfall, gave up and disappeared, and, even when she returned again to her ordinary habits, treated herself, Giovanna, with no harshness, and was only silent and cold, not insulting and disagreeable, a great deal of surprise arose in her mind. There were no little vengeances taken upon her, no jibes directed against her, no tasks attempted to be imposed. Miss Augustine, the bonne sœur, who no doubt (and this Giovanna could understand) acted from religious motives, was as kind to her as it was in her abstract nature to be, talking to her on subjects which the young woman did not understand, but to which she assented easily, to please the other, about the salvation of the race, and how, if anything happened to Herbert, there might be a great work possible to his successor; but even Miss Susan, who was her adversary, was not unkind to her, only cold, and this, Giovanna, accustomed to much rough usage, was not refined enough to take much note of. This gave a strong additional force to her conviction that it would be worth while to put herself more in accord with her position; and I believe that Giovanna, too, felt instinctively the influence of the higher breeding of her present companions.

The first result of her cogitations became evident one Winter day, when all was dreary out of doors, and Miss Susan, after having avoided as long as she could the place in which Giovanna was, felt herself at last compelled to take refuge in the drawing-room. There she found, to her great amazement, the young woman seated on a rug before the fire, playing with the child, who, seated on her lap, seemed as perfectly at home there as on the ample lap of its beloved Cook. Miss Susan started visibly at this unaccustomed sight, but said nothing. It was not her custom, now, to say anything she could help saying. She drew her chair aside to be out of their way, and took up her book. This was another notable change in her habits. She had been used to work, knitting the silent hours away, and read only at set times, set apart for this purpose by the habit of years – and then always what she called “standard books.” Now, Miss Susan, though her knitting was always at hand, knitted scarcely at all, but read continually novels, and all the light literature of the circulating library. She was scarcely herself aware of this change. It is a sign of the state of mind in which we have too much to think of, as well as of that in which we have nothing to think of at all.

And I think if any stranger had seen that pretty group, the beautiful young mother cooing over the child, playing with it and caressing it, the child responding by all manner of baby tricks and laughter, and soft clingings and claspings, while the elder woman sat silent and gray, taking no notice of them, he would have set the elder woman down as the severest and sternest of grandmothers – the father’s mother, no doubt, emblem of the genus mother-in-law, which so many clever persons have held up to odium. To tell the truth, Miss Susan had some difficulty in going on with her reading, with the sound of those baby babblings in her ear. She was thunderstruck at first by the scene, and then felt unreasonably angry. Was nature nothing then? She had thought the child’s dislike of Giovanna – though it was painful to see – was appropriate to the circumstances, and had in it a species of poetic justice. Had it been but a pretence, or what did this sudden fondness mean? She kept silent as long as she could, but after a time the continual babble grew too much for her.

“You have grown very suddenly fond of the child, Madame Jean,” she said, abruptly.

“Fond!” said Giovanna, “that is a strange word, that English word of yours; I can make him love me – here.”

“You did not love him elsewhere, so far as I have heard,” said Miss Susan, “and that is the best way to gain love.”

“Madame Suzanne, I wish to speak to you,” said Giovanna. “At Bruges I was never of any account; they said the child was more gentil, more sage with Gertrude. Well; it might be he was; they said I knew nothing about children, that I could not learn – that it was not in my nature; things which were pleasant, which were reassuring, don’t you think? That was one of the reasons why I came away.”

“You did not show much power of managing him, it must be confessed, when you came here.”

“No,” said Giovanna, “it was harder than I thought. These babies, they have no reason. When you say, ‘Be still, I am thy mother, be still!’ it does not touch them. What they like is kisses and cakes, and that you should make what in England is called ‘a fuss;’ that is the hardest, making a fuss; but when it is done, all is done. Voilà! Now, he loves me. If Gertrude approached, he would run to me and cry. Ah, that would make me happy!”

“Then it is to spite Gertrude” – Miss Susan began, in her severest voice.

“No, no; I only contemplate that as a pleasure, a pleasure to come. No; I am not very fond of to read, like you, Madame Suzanne; besides, there is not anything more to read; and so I reflect. I reflect with myself, that not to have love with one’s child, or at least amitié, is very strange. It is droll; it gives to think; and people will stare and say, ‘Is that her child?’ This is what I reflect within myself. To try before would have been without use, for always there was Gertrude, or my belle-mère, or some one. They cried out, ‘G’vanna touch it not, thou wilt injure the baby!’ ‘G’vanna, give it to me, thou knowest nothing of children!’ And when I came away it was more hard than I thought. Babies have not sense to know when it is their mother. I said to myself, ‘Here is a perverse one, who hates me like the rest;’ and I was angry. I beat him – you would have beat him also, Madame Suzanne, if he had screamed when you touched him. And then – petit drôle! – he screamed more.”

“Very natural,” said Miss Susan. “If you had any heart, you would not beat a baby like that.”

Giovanna’s eyes flashed. She lifted her hand quickly, as if to give a blow of recollection now; but, changing her mind, she caught the child up in her arms, and laid his little flushed cheek to hers. “A présent, tu m’aimes!” she said. “When I saw how the others did, I knew I could do it too. Also, Madame Suzanne, I recollected that a mother should have de l’amitié for her child.”

Miss Susan gave a short contemptuous laugh. “It is a fine thing to have found that out at last,” she said.

“And I have reflected further,” said Giovanna – “Yes, darling, thou shalt have these jolies choses;” and with this, she took calmly from the table one of a very finely-carved set of chessmen, Indian work, which ornamented it. Miss Susan started, and put out her hand to save the ivory knight, but the little fellow had already grasped it, and a sudden scream arose.

“For shame! Madame Suzanne,” cried Giovanna, with fun sparkling in her eyes. “You, too, then, have no heart!”

“This is totally different from kindness, this is spoiling the child,” cried Miss Susan. “My ivory chessmen, which were my mother’s! Take it away from him at once.”

Giovanna wavered a moment between fun and prudence, then coaxing the child, adroitly with something else less valuable, got the knight from him, and replaced it on the table. Then she resumed where she had broken off. “I have reflected further that it is bad to fight in a house. You take me for your enemy, Madame Suzanne? – eh bien, I am not your enemy. I do nothing against you. I seek what is good for me, as all do.”

“All don’t do it at the cost of other people’s comfort – at the cost of everything that is worth caring for in another’s life.”

This Miss Susan said low, with her eyes bent on the fire, to herself rather than to Giovanna; from whom, indeed, she expected no response.

“Mon Dieu! it is not like that,” cried the young woman; “what is it that I do to you? Nothing! I do not trouble, nor tease, nor ask for anything. I am contented with what you give me. I have come here, and I find it well; but you, what is it that I do to you? I do not interfere. It is but to see me one time in a day, two times, perhaps. Listen, it cannot be so bad for you to see me even two times in a day as it would be for me to go back to my belle-mère.”

“But you have no right to be here,” said Miss Susan, shaking her gray dress free from the baby’s grasp, who had rolled softly off the young woman’s knee, and now sat on the carpet between them. His little babble went on all through their talk. The plaything Giovanna had given him – a paper-knife of carved ivory – was a delightful weapon to the child; he struck the floor with it, which under no possibility could be supposed capable of motion, and then the legs of the chair, on which Miss Susan sat, which afforded a more likely steed. Miss Susan had hard ado to pull her skirts from the soft round baby fingers, as the child looked up at her with great eyes, which laughed in her angry face. It was all she could do to keep her heart from melting to him; but then, that woman! who looked at her with eyes which were not angry, nor disagreeable, wooing her to smile – which not for the world, and all it contained, would she do.

“Always I have seen that one does what one can for one’s self,” said Giovanna; “shall I think of you first, instead of myself? But no! is there any in the world who does that? But, no! it is contrary to reason. I do my best for me; and then I reflect, now that I am well off, I will hurt no one. I will be friends if Madame Suzanne will. I wish not to trouble her. I will show de l’amitié for her as well as for le petit. Thus it should be when we live in one house.”

Giovanna spoke with a certain earnestness as of honest conviction. She had no sense of irony in her mind; but Miss Susan had a deep sense of irony, and felt herself insulted when she was thus addressed by the intruder who had found her way into her house, and made havoc of her life. She got up hastily to her feet, overturning the child, who had now seated himself on her dress, and for whom this hasty movement had all the effect of an earthquake. She did not even notice this, however, and paid no attention to his cries, but fell to walking about the room in a state of impatience and excitement which would not be kept under.

“You do well to teach me what people should do who live in one house!” cried Miss Susan. “It comes gracefully from you who have forced yourself into my house against my will – who are a burden, and insupportable to me – you and your child. Take him away, or you will drive me mad! I cannot hear myself speak.”

“Hush, mon ange,” said Giovanna; “hush, here is something else that is pretty for thee – hush! and do not make the bonne maman angry. Ah, pardon, Madame Suzanne, you are not the bonne maman – but you look almost like her when you look like that!”

“You are very impertinent,” said Miss Susan, blushing high; for to compare her to Madame Austin of Bruges was more than she could bear.

“That is still more like her!” said Giovanna; “the belle-mère often tells me I am impertinent. Can I help it then? if I say what I think, that cannot be wrong. But you are not really like the bonne maman, Madame Suzanne,” she added, subduing the malice in her eyes. “You hate me, but you do not try to make me unhappy. You give me everything I want. You do not grudge; you do not make me work. Ah, what a life she would have made to one who came like me!”

This silenced Miss Susan, in spite of herself; for she herself felt and knew that she was not at all kind to Giovanna, and she was quite unaware that Giovanna was inaccessible to those unkindnesses which more refined natures feel, and having the substantial advantages of her reception at Whiteladies undisturbed by any practical hardship, had no further requirements in a sentimental sort. Miss Susan felt that she was not kind, but Giovanna did not feel it; and as the elder woman could not understand the bluntness of feeling in the younger, which produced this toleration, she was obliged, against her will, to see in it some indication of a higher nature. She thought reluctantly, and for the moment, that the woman whom she loathed was better than herself. She came back to the chair as this thought forced itself upon her, and sat down there and fixed her eyes upon the intruder, who still held her place on the carpet at her feet.

“Why do you not go away?” she said, tempted once more to make a last effort for her own relief. “If you think it good of me to receive you as I do, why will you not listen to my entreaties, and go away? I will give you enough to live on; I will not grudge money; but I cannot bear the sight of you, you know that. It brings my sin, my great sin, to my mind. I repent it; but I cannot undo it,” cried Miss Susan. “Oh, God forgive me! But you, Giovanna, listen! You have done wrong, too, as well as I – but it has been for your benefit, not for your punishment. You should not have done it any more than me.”

“Madame Suzanne,” said Giovanna, “one must think of one’s self first; what you call sin does not trouble me. I did not begin it. I did what I was told. If it is wrong, it is for the belle-mère and you; I am safe; and I must think of myself. It pleases me to be here, and I have my plans. But I should like to show de l’amitié for you, Madame Suzanne – when I have thought first of myself.”

“But it will be no better for yourself, staying here,” cried Miss Susan, subduing herself forcibly. “I will give you money – you shall live where you please – ”

“Pardon,” said Giovanna, with a smile; “it is to me to know. I have mes idées à moi. You all think of yourselves first. I will be good friends if you will; but, first of all, there is me.”

“And the child?” said Miss Susan, with strange forgetfulness, and a bizarre recollection, in her despair, of the conventional self-devotion to be expected from a mother.