What Maisie Knew (32 page)

"Mamma does NOT!" It was startling—her friend contradicted her flat.
"She loves him—she adores him. A woman knows." Mrs. Wix spoke not only
as if Maisie were not a woman, but as if she would never be one. "
I
know!" she cried.

"Then why on earth has she left him?"

Mrs. Wix hesitated. "He hates HER. Don't stoop so—lift up your hair.
You know how I'm affected toward him," she added with dignity; "but
you must also know that I see clear."

Maisie all this time was trying hard to do likewise. "Then if she has
left him for that why shouldn't Mrs. Beale leave him?"

"Because she's not such a fool!"

"Not such a fool as mamma?"

"Precisely—if you WILL have it. Does it look like her leaving him?"
Mrs. Wix enquired. She brooded again; then she went on with more
intensity: "Do you want to know really and truly why? So that she may
be his wretchedness and his punishment."

"His punishment?"—this was more than as yet Maisie could quite accept.
"For what?"

"For everything. That's what will happen: he'll be tied to her for ever.
She won't mind in the least his hating her, and she won't hate him back.
She'll only hate US."

"Us?" the child faintly echoed.

"She'll hate YOU."

"Me? Why, I brought them together!" Maisie resentfully cried.

"You brought them together." There was a completeness in Mrs. Wix's
assent. "Yes; it was a pretty job. Sit down." She began to brush her
pupil's hair and, as she took up the mass of it with some force of
hand, went on with a sharp recall: "Your mother adored him at first—it
might have lasted. But he began too soon with Mrs. Beale. As you say,"
she pursued with a brisk application of the brush, "you brought them
together."

"I brought them together"—Maisie was ready to reaffirm it. She felt
none the less for a moment at the bottom of a hole; then she seemed to
see a way out. "But I didn't bring mamma together—" She just faltered.

"With all those gentlemen?"—Mrs. Wix pulled her up. "No; it isn't quite
so bad as that."

"I only said to the Captain"—Maisie had the quick memory of it—"that
I hoped he at least (he was awfully nice!) would love her and keep her."

"And even that wasn't much harm," threw in Mrs. Wix.

"It wasn't much good," Maisie was obliged to recognise. "She can't bear
him—not even a mite. She told me at Folkestone."

Mrs. Wix suppressed a gasp; then after a bridling instant during
which she might have appeared to deflect with difficulty from her odd
consideration of Ida's wrongs: "He was a nice sort of person for her to
talk to you about!"

"Oh I LIKE him!" Maisie promptly rejoined; and at this, with an
inarticulate sound and an inconsequence still more marked, her companion
bent over and dealt her on the cheek a rapid peck which had the apparent
intention of a kiss.

"Well, if her ladyship doesn't agree with you, what does it only prove?"
Mrs. Wix demanded in conclusion. "It proves that she's fond of Sir
Claude!"

Maisie, in the light of some of the evidence, reflected on that till her
hair was finished, but when she at last started up she gave a sign of no
very close embrace of it. She grasped at this moment Mrs. Wix's arm. "He
must have got his divorce!"

"Since day before yesterday? Don't talk trash."

This was spoken with an impatience which left the child nothing to
reply; whereupon she sought her defence in a completely different
relation to the fact. "Well, I knew he would come!"

"So did I; but not in twenty-four hours. I gave him a few days!" Mrs.
Wix wailed.

Maisie, whom she had now released, looked at her with interest. "How
many did SHE give him?"

Mrs. Wix faced her a moment; then as if with a bewildered sniff: "You
had better ask her!" But she had no sooner uttered the words than she
caught herself up. "Lord o' mercy, how we talk!"

Maisie felt that however they talked she must see him, but she said
nothing more for a time, a time during which she conscientiously
finished dressing and Mrs. Wix also kept silence. It was as if they each
had almost too much to think of, and even as if the child had the sense
that her friend was watching her and seeing if she herself were watched.
At last Mrs. Wix turned to the window and stood—sightlessly, as Maisie
could guess—looking away. Then our young lady, before the glass, gave
the supreme shake. "Well, I'm ready. And now to SEE him!"

Mrs. Wix turned round, but as if without having heard her. "It's
tremendously grave." There were slow still tears behind the
straighteners.

"It is—it is." Maisie spoke as if she were now dressed quite up to the
occasion; as if indeed with the last touch she had put on the
judgement-cap. "I must see him immediately."

"How can you see him if he doesn't send for you?"

"Why can't I go and find him?"

"Because you don't know where he is."

"Can't I just look in the salon?" That still seemed simple to Maisie.

Mrs. Wix, however, instantly cut it off. "I wouldn't have you look in
the salon for all the world!" Then she explained a little: "The salon
isn't ours now."

"Ours?"

"Yours and mine. It's theirs."

"Theirs?" Maisie, with her stare, continued to echo. "You mean they want
to keep us out?"

Mrs. Wix faltered; she sank into a chair and, as Maisie had often enough
seen her do before, covered her face with her hands. "They ought to, at
least. The situation's too monstrous!"

Maisie stood there a moment—she looked about the room. "I'll go to
him—I'll find him."

"
I
won't! I won't go NEAR them!" cried Mrs. Wix.

"Then I'll see him alone." The child spied what she had been looking
for—she possessed herself of her hat. "Perhaps I'll take him out!" And
with decision she quitted the room.

When she entered the salon it was empty, but at the sound of the opened
door some one stirred on the balcony, and Sir Claude, stepping straight
in, stood before her. He was in light fresh clothes and wore a straw hat
with a bright ribbon; these things, besides striking her in themselves
as the very promise of the grandest of grand tours, gave him a certain
radiance and, as it were, a tropical ease; but such an effect only
marked rather more his having stopped short and, for a longer minute
than had ever at such a juncture elapsed, not opened his arms to her.
His pause made her pause and enabled her to reflect that he must have
been up some time, for there were no traces of breakfast; and that
though it was so late he had rather markedly not caused her to be called
to him. Had Mrs. Wix been right about their forfeiture of the salon? Was
it all his now, all his and Mrs. Beale's? Such an idea, at the rate her
small thoughts throbbed, could only remind her of the way in which what
had been hers hitherto was what was exactly most Mrs. Beale's and his.
It was strange to be standing there and greeting him across a gulf,
for he had by this time spoken, smiled and said: "My dear child, my
dear child!" but without coming any nearer. In a flash she saw he was
different—more so than he knew or designed. The next minute indeed it
was as if he caught an impression from her face: this made him hold out
his hand. Then they met, he kissed her, he laughed, she thought he even
blushed: something of his affection rang out as usual. "Here I am, you
see, again—as I promised you."

It was not as he had promised them—he had not promised them Mrs. Beale;
but Maisie said nothing about that. What she said was simply: "I knew
you had come. Mrs. Wix told me."

"Oh yes. And where is she?"

"In her room. She got me up—she dressed me."

Sir Claude looked at her up and down; a sweetness of mockery that she
particularly loved came out in his face whenever he did that, and it
was not wanting now. He raised his eyebrows and his arms to play at
admiration; he was evidently after all disposed to be gay. "Got you
up?—I should think so! She has dressed you most beautifully. Isn't she
coming?"

Maisie wondered if she had better tell. "She said not."

"Doesn't she want to see a poor devil?"

She looked about under the vibration of the way he described himself,
and her eyes rested on the door of the room he had previously occupied.
"Is Mrs. Beale in there?"

Sir Claude looked blankly at the same object. "I haven't the least
idea!"

"You haven't seen her?"

"Not the tip of her nose."

Maisie thought: there settled on her, in the light of his beautiful
smiling eyes, the faintest purest coldest conviction that he wasn't
telling the truth. "She hasn't welcomed you?"

"Not by a single sign."

"Then where is she?"

Sir Claude laughed; he seemed both amused and surprised at the point
she made of it. "I give it up!"

"Doesn't she know you've come?"

He laughed again. "Perhaps she doesn't care!"

Maisie, with an inspiration, pounced on his arm. "Has she GONE?"

He met her eyes and then she could see that his own were really much
graver than his manner. "Gone?" She had flown to the door, but before
she could raise her hand to knock he was beside her and had caught it.
"Let her be. I don't care about her. I want to see YOU."

"Then she HASN'T gone?"

Maisie fell back with him. He still looked as if it were a joke, but the
more she saw of him the more she could make out that he was troubled.
"It wouldn't be like her!"

She stood wondering at him. "Did you want her to come?"

"How can you suppose—?" He put it to her candidly. "We had an immense
row over it."

"Do you mean you've quarrelled?"

Sir Claude was at a loss. "What has she told you?"

"That I'm hers as much as yours. That she represents papa."

His gaze struck away through the open window and up to the sky; she
could hear him rattle in his trousers-pockets his money or his keys.
"Yes—that's what she keeps saying." It gave him for a moment an air
that was almost helpless.

"You say you don't care about her," Maisie went on. "DO you mean you've
quarrelled?"

"We do nothing in life but quarrel."

He rose before her, as he said this, so soft and fair, so rich, in spite
of what might worry him, in restored familiarities, that it gave a
bright blur to the meaning—to what would otherwise perhaps have been
the palpable promise—of the words.

"Oh YOUR quarrels!" she exclaimed with discouragement.

"I assure you hers are quite fearful!"

"I don't speak of hers. I speak of yours."

"Ah don't do it till I've had my coffee! You're growing up clever," he
added. Then he said: "I suppose you've breakfasted?"

"Oh no—I've had nothing."

"Nothing in your room?"—he was all compunction. "My dear old
man!—we'll breakfast then together." He had one of his happy thoughts.
"I say—we'll go out."

"That was just what I hoped. I've brought my hat."

"You ARE clever! We'll go to a café." Maisie was already at the door; he
glanced round the room. "A moment—my stick." But there appeared to be
no stick. "No matter; I left it—oh!" He remembered with an odd drop and
came out.

"You left it in London?" she asked as they went downstairs.

"Yes—in London: fancy!"

"You were in such a hurry to come," Maisie explained.

He had his arm round her. "That must have been the reason."

Halfway down he stopped short again, slapping his leg. "And poor Mrs.
Wix?"

Maisie's face just showed a shadow. "Do you want her to come?"

"Dear no—I want to see you alone."

"That's the way I want to see YOU!" she replied. "Like before."

"Like before!" he gaily echoed. "But I mean has she had her coffee?"

"No, nothing."

"Then I'll send it up to her. Madame!" He had already, at the foot of
the stair, called out to the stout
patronne
, a lady who turned to
him from the bustling, breezy hall a countenance covered with fresh
matutinal powder and a bosom as capacious as the velvet shelf of a
chimneypiece, over which her round white face, framed in its golden
frizzle, might have figured as a showy clock. He ordered, with
particular recommendations, Mrs. Wix's repast, and it was a charm to
hear his easy brilliant French: even his companion's ignorance could
measure the perfection of it. The
patronne
, rubbing her hands and
breaking in with high swift notes as into a florid duet, went with him
to the street, and while they talked a moment longer Maisie remembered
what Mrs. Wix had said about every one's liking him. It came out enough
through the morning powder, it came out enough in the heaving bosom, how
the landlady liked him. He had evidently ordered something lovely for
Mrs. Wix.
"Et bien soigné, n'est-ce-pas?"

"Soyez tranquille"
—the patronne beamed upon him.
"Et pour Madame?"

"Madame?"
he echoed—it just pulled him up a little.

"Rien encore?"

"
Rien encore.
Come, Maisie." She hurried along with him, but on the way
to the café he said nothing.

After they were seated there it was different: the place was not below
the hotel, but further along the quay; with wide, clear windows and a
floor sprinkled with bran in a manner that gave it for Maisie something
of the added charm of a circus. They had pretty much to themselves the
painted spaces and the red plush benches; these were shared by a few
scattered gentlemen who picked teeth, with facial contortions, behind
little bare tables, and by an old personage in particular, a very old
personage with a red ribbon in his buttonhole, whose manner of soaking
buttered rolls in coffee and then disposing of them in the little that
was left of the interval between his nose and chin might at a less
anxious hour have cast upon Maisie an almost envious spell. They too
had their
café au lait
and their buttered rolls, determined by Sir
Claude's asking her if she could with that light aid wait till the hour
of déjeuner. His allusion to this meal gave her, in the shaded sprinkled
coolness, the scene, as she vaguely felt, of a sort of ordered mirrored
licence, the haunt of those—the irregular, like herself—who went to
bed or who rose too late, something to think over while she watched
the white-aproned waiter perform as nimbly with plates and saucers as
a certain conjurer her friend had in London taken her to a music-hall
to see. Sir Claude had presently begun to talk again, to tell her how
London had looked and how long he had felt himself, on either side, to
have been absent; all about Susan Ash too and the amusement as well as
the difficulty he had had with her; then all about his return journey
and the Channel in the night and the crowd of people coming over and
the way there were always too many one knew. He spoke of other matters
beside, especially of what she must tell him of the occupations, while
he was away, of Mrs. Wix and her pupil. Hadn't they had the good time he
had promised?—had he exaggerated a bit the arrangements made for their
pleasure? Maisie had something—not all there was—to say of his success
and of their gratitude: she had a complication of thought that grew
every minute, grew with the consciousness that she had never seen him in
this particular state in which he had been given back.