At the Parmores’ she had learned a good deal about one phase of American life, and she had written home some droll letters on the subject; but she had suspected from the first that the real America was elsewhere, and had been tempted and amused by the idea that among the Wall Street parvenus she might discover it. She had an unspoiled taste for oddities and contrasts, and nothing could have been more alien to her private sentiments than the family combination of revolutionary radicalism, Exeter Hall piety, and awestruck reverence for the aristocratic households in which the Testvalley governesses earned the keep of their ex-carbonari. “If I’d been a man,” she sometimes thought, “Dante Gabriel might not have been the only cross in the family.” And the idea obscurely comforted her when she was correcting her pupils’ compositions, or picking up the dropped stitches in their knitting.
She was used to waiting in strange railway stations, her old black beaded “dolman” over her arm, her modest horse-hair box at her feet. Servants often forget to order the fly which is to fetch the governess, and the lady herself, though she may have meant to come to the station, is not infrequently detained by shopping or calling. So Miss Testvalley, without impatience, watched the other travellers drive off in the spidery high-wheeled vehicles in which people bounced across the humps and ruts of the American country roads. It was the eve of the great race-week, and she was amused by the showy garb of the gentlemen and the much-flounced elegance of their ladies, though she felt sure Mrs. Parmore would have disdained them.
One by one the travellers scattered, their huge “Saratogas” (she knew that expression also) hoisted into broken-down express-carts that crawled off in the wake of the owners; and at last a new dust-cloud formed down the road and floated slowly nearer, till there emerged from it a lumbering vehicle of the kind which Miss Testvalley knew to be classed as hotel hacks. As it drew up she was struck by the fact that the driver, a small dusky fellow in a white linen jacket and a hat-brim of exotic width, had an orange bow tied to his whip, and a beruffled white poodle with a bigger orange bow perched between himself and the shabby young man in overalls who shared his seat; while from within she felt herself laughingly surveyed by two tiers of bright young eyes. The driver pulled up with a queer guttural cry to his horses, the poodle leapt down and began to dance on his hind legs, and out of the hack poured a spring torrent of muslins, sash-ends, and bright cheeks under swaying hat-brims. Miss Testvalley found herself in a circle of nymphs shaken by hysterical laughter, and as she stood there, small, brown, interrogative, there swept through her mind a shred of verse which Dante Gabriel used to be fond of reciting:
Whence came ye, merry damsels, whence came ye,
So many and so many, and such glee?
and she smiled at the idea that Endymion should greet her at the Saratoga railway station. For it was clearly in search of her that the rabble rout had come. The dancing nymphs hailed her with joyful giggles, the poodle sprang on her with dusty paws, and then turned a somersault in her honour, and from the driver’s box came the twang of a guitar and the familiar wail of: Nita, Juanita, ask thy soul if we must part?
“No, certainly not!” cried Miss Testvalley, tossing up her head toward the driver, who responded with doffed sombrero and hand on heart. “That is to say,” she added, “if my future pupil is one of the young ladies who have joined in this very flattering welcome.”
The enchanted circle broke, and the nymphs, still hand in hand, stretched a straight line of loveliness before her. “Guess which!” chimed simultaneously from five pairs of lips, while five deep curtsies swept the platform; and Miss Testvalley drew back a step and scanned them thoughtfully.
Her first thought was that she had never seen five prettier girls in a row; her second (tinged with joy) that Mrs. Russell Parmore would have been scandalized by such an exhibition, on the Saratoga railway platform, in full view of departing travellers, gazing employes, and delighted station loafers; her third that, whichever of the beauties was to fall to her lot, life in such company would be infinitely more amusing than with the Parmores. And still smiling she continued to examine the mirthful mocking faces.
No dominant beauty, was her first impression; no proud angelic heads, ready for coronets or halos, such as she was used to in England; unless indeed the tall fair girl with such heaps of wheat-coloured hair and such gentian-blue eyes—or the very dark one, who was too pale for her black hair, but had the small imperious nose of a Roman empress… yes, those two were undoubtedly beautiful, yet they were not beauties. They seemed rather to have reached the last height of prettiness, and to be perched on that sunny lower slope, below the cold divinities. And with the other three, taken one by one, fault might have been found on various counts; for the one in the striped pink and white organdy, though she looked cleverer than the others, had a sharp nose, and her laugh showed too many teeth; and the one in white, with a big orange-coloured sash the colour of the poodle’s bow (no doubt she was his mistress) was sallow and red-haired, and you had to look into her pale starry eyes to forget that she was too tall, and stooped a little. And as for the fifth, who seemed so much younger—hardly more than a child—her small face was such a flurry of frowns and dimples that Miss Testvalley did not know how to define her.
“Well, young ladies, my first idea is that I wish you were all to be my pupils; and the second—” she paused, weighed the possibilities and met the eyes—”the second is that this is Miss Annabel St George, who is, I believe, to be my special charge.” She put her hand on Nan’s arm.
“How did you know?” burst from Nan, on the shrill note of a netted bird; and the others broke into laughter.
“Why, you silly, we told you sol Anybody can see you’re nothing but a baby!”
Nan faced about, blazing and quivering. “Well, if I’m a baby, what I want is a nurse, and not a beastly English governess!”
Her companions laughed again and nudged each other; then, abashed, they glanced at the newcomer, as if trying to read in her face what would come next.
Miss Testvalley laughed also. “Oh, I’m used to both jobs,” she rejoined briskly. “But meanwhile hadn’t we better be getting off to the hotel? Get into the carriage, please, Annabel,” she said with sudden authority.
She turned to look for her trunk; but it had already been shouldered by the nondescript young man in overalls, who hoisted it to the roof of the carriage, and then, jumping down, brushed the soot and dust off his hands. As he did so Miss Testvalley confronted him, and her hand dropped from Nan’s arm.
“Why—Lord Richard!” she exclaimed; and the young man in overalls gave a sheepish laugh. “I suppose at home they all think I’m in Brazil,” he said in an uncertain voice.
“I know nothing of what they think,” retorted Miss Testvalley drily, following the girls into the carriage. As they drove off, Nan, who was crowded in between Mab Elmsworth and Conchita, burst into sudden tears.
“I didn’t mean to call you ‘beastly’,” she whispered, stealing a hand toward the new governess; and the new governess, clasping the hand, answered with her undaunted smile: “I didn’t hear you call me so, my dear.”
V.
Mrs. St George had gone to the races with her husband—an ordeal she always dreaded and yet prayed for. Colonel St George, on these occasions, was so handsome, and so splendid in his light racing suit and gray top hat, that she enjoyed a larger repetition of her triumph in the hotel dining-room; but when this had been tasted to the full there remained her dread of the mysterious men with whom he was hail-fellow-well-met in the paddock, and the dreadful painted women in open carriages, who leered and beckoned (didn’t she see them?) under the fringes of their sunshades.
She soon wearied of the show, and would have been glad to be back rocking and sipping lemonade on the hotel verandah; yet when the Colonel helped her into the carriage, suggesting that if she wanted to meet the new governess it was time to be off, she instantly concluded that the rich widow at the Congress Springs Hotel, about
whom there was so much gossip, had made him a secret sign, and was going to carry him off to the gambling rooms for supper—if not worse. But when the Colonel chose his arts were irresistible, and in another moment Mrs. St George was driving away alone, her heart heavv with this new anxiety superposed on so many others.
When she reached the hotel all the frequenters of the verandah, gathered between the columns of the porch, were greeting with hysterical laughter a motley group who were pouring out of the familiar vehicle from which Mrs. St George had expected to see Nan descend with the dreaded and longed-for governess. The party was headed by Teddy de Santos-Dios, grotesquely accoutred in a hotel waiter’s white jacket, and twanging his guitar to the antics of Conchita’s poodle, while Conchita herself, the Elmsworth sisters and Mrs. St George’s own two girls, danced up the steps surrounding a small soberly garbed figure, whom Mrs. St George instantly identified as the governess. Mrs. Elmsworth and Mrs. Closson stood on the upper step, smothering their laughter in lace handkerchiefs; but Mrs. St George sailed past them with set lips, pushing aside a shabby-looking young man in overalls who seemed to form part of the company.
“Virginia—Annabel,” she gasped, “what is the meaning… Oh, Miss Testvalley—what must you think?” she faltered with trembling lips.
“I think it very kind of Annabel’s young friends to have come with her to meet me,” said Miss Testvalley; and Mrs. St George noted with bewilderment and relief that she was actually smiling, and that she had slipped her arm through Nan’s.
For a moment Mrs. St George thought it might be easier to deal with a governess who was already on such easy terms with her pupil; but by the time Miss Testvalley, having removed the dust of travel, had knocked at her employer’s door, the latter had been assailed by new apprehensions. It would have been comparatively simple to receive, with what Mrs. St George imagined to be the dignity of a Duchess, a governess used to such ceremonial; but the disconcerting circumstances of Miss Testvalley’s arrival, and the composure with which she met them, had left Mrs. St George with her dignity on her hands. Could it be—? But no; Mrs. Russell Parmore, as well as the Duchess, answered for Miss Testvalley’s unquestionable respectability. Mrs. St George fanned herself nervously.
“Oh, come in. Do sit down, Miss Testvalley.” (Mrs. St George had expected some one taller, more majestic. She would have thought Miss Testvalley insignificant, could the term be applied to any one coming from Mrs. Parmore.) “I don’t know how my daughters can have been induced to do anything so—so undignified. Unfortunately the Closson girl—.” She broke off, embarrassed by the recollection of the Colonel’s injunctions.
“The tall young girl with auburn hair? I understand that one of the masqueraders was her brother.”
“Yes; her half-brother. Mrs. Closson is a Brazilian”—but again Mrs. St George checked the note of disparagement. “Brazilian” was bad enough, without adding anything pejorative. “The Colonel—Colonel St George—has business relations with Mr. Closson. I never met them before…”
“Ah,” said Miss Testvalley.
“And I’m sure my girls and the Elmsworths would never.
“Oh, quite so; I understood. I’ve no doubt the idea was Lord Richard’s.”
She uttered the name as though it were familiar to her, and Mrs. St George caught at Lord Richard. “You knew him already? He appears to be a friend of the Clossons.”
“I knew him in England; yes. I was with Lady Brightlingsea for two years—as his sisters’ governess.”
Mrs. St George gazed awestruck down this new and resonant perspective. “Lady Brittlesey?” (It was thus that Miss Testvalley had pronounced the name.)
“The Marchioness of Brightlingsea; his mother. It’s a very large family. I was with two of the younger daughters. Lady Honoria and Lady Ulrica Marable. I think Lord Richard is the third son. But one saw him at home so very seldom…”
Mrs. St George drew a deep breath. She had not bargained for this glimpse into the labyrinth of the peerage, and she felt a little dizzy, as though all the Brightlingseas and the Marables were in the room, and she ought to make the proper gestures, and didn’t even know what to call them without her husband’s being there to tell her. She wondered whether the experiment of an English governess might not after all make life too complicated. And this one’s eyebrows were so black and ironical.
“Lord Richard,” continued Miss Testvalley, “always has to have his little joke.” Her tone seemed to dismiss him, and all his titled relations with him. Mrs. St George was relieved. “But your daughter Annabel—perhaps,” Miss Testvalley continued, “you would like to give me some general idea of the stage she has reached in her different studies?” Her manner was now distinctly professional, and Mrs. St George’s spirits drooped again. If only the Colonel had been there—as he would have been, but for that woman! Or even Nan herself… Mrs. St George looked helplessly at the governess. But suddenly an inspiration came to her. “I have always left these things to the girls’ teachers,” she said with majesty.
“Oh, quite—” Miss Testvalley assented.
“And their father; their father takes a great interest in their studies—when time permits…” Mrs. St George continued. “But of course his business interests… which are enormous…”
“I think I understand,” Miss Testvalley softly agreed.
Mrs. St George again sighed her relief. A governess who understood without the need of tiresome explanations—was it not more than she had hoped for? Certainly Miss Testvalley looked insignificant; but the eyes under her expressive eyebrows were splendid, and she had an air of firmness. And the miracle was that Nan should already have taken a fancy to her. If only the other girls didn’t laugh her out of it! “Of course,” Mrs. St George began again, “what I attach most importance to is that my girls should be taught to—to behave like ladies.”
Miss Testvalley murmured: “Oh, yes. Drawing-room accomplishments.”
“I may as well tell you that I don’t care very much for the girls they associate with here. Saratoga is not what it used to be. In New York of course it will be different. I hope you can persuade Annabel to study.”
She could not think of anything else to say, and the governess, who seemed singularly discerning, rose with a slight bow, and murmured: “If you will allow me…”
Miss Testvalley’s room was narrow and bare; but she had already discovered that the rooms of summer hotels in the States were all like that; the luxury and gilding were reserved for the public parlours. She did not much mind; she had never been used to comfort, and her Italian nature did not crave it. To her mind the chief difference between the governess’s room at Tintagel, or at Allfriars, the Brightlingsea seat, and those she had occupied since her arrival in America, was that the former were larger (and therefore harder to heat) and were furnished with threadbare relics of former splendour, and carpets in which you caught your heel; whereas at Mrs. Parmore’s, and in this big hotel, though the governess’s quarters were cramped, they were neat and the furniture was in good repair. But this afternoon Miss Testvalley was perhaps tired, or oppressed by the heat, or perhaps only by an unwonted sense of loneliness. Certainly it was odd to find one’s self at the orders of people who wished their daughters to be taught to “behave like ladies”. (The alternative being—what, she wondered? Perhaps a disturbing apparition like Conchita Closson.)
At any rate, Miss Testvalley was suddenly aware of a sense of loneliness, of far-away-ness, of a quite unreasonable yearning for the dining-room at the back of a certain shabby house at Denmark Hill, where her mother, in a widow’s cap of white crape, sat on one side of the scantily filled grate, turning with rheumatic fingers the pages of the Reverend Frederick Maurice’s sermons, while, facing her across the hearth, old Gennaro Testavaglia, still heavy and powerful in his extreme age, brooded with fixed eyes in a big parchment-coloured face, and repeated over and over some forgotten verse of his own revolutionary poems. In that room, with its chronic smell of cold coffee and smoulde
ring coals, of Elliman’s liniment and human old age, Miss Testvalley had spent some of the most disheartening hours of her life. “Le mie prigioni,” she had once called it; yet was it not for that detested room that she was homesick!
Only fifteen minutes in which to prepare for supper! (She had been warned that late dinners were still unknown in American hotels.) Miss Testvalley, setting her teeth against the vision of the Denmark Hill dining-room, went up to the chest of drawers on which she had already laid out her modest toilet appointments; and there she saw, between her yellowish-backed brush and faded pincushion, a bunch of freshly gathered geraniums and mignonette. The flowers had certainly not been there when she had smoothed her hair before waiting on Mrs. St George; nor had they, she was sure, been sent by that lady. They were not bought flowers, but flowers lovingly gathered; and some one else must have entered in Miss Testvalley’s absence, and hastily deposited the humble posy.
Edith Wharton - Novel 21 Page 4
