The Angel and The Demon CHAPTER 3.
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It was late when Mrs. Dainty came home. Her husband had already arrived, and was waiting for his dinner. George and Madeline, pleased as children usually are when the visiting mother returns from her recreations, crowded around her with their questions and complaints, and annoyed and hindered her to a degree that broke down her small stock of patience.
"Miss Harper!" she called, in a fretful voice, going to her chamber-door.
The governess heard, and answered from her room, leaving it at the same time, and coming down toward the chamber of Mrs. Dainty.
"Call those children away!" said the mother, sharply. "And see here! When I come home next time, don't let them beset me like so many hungry wolves. I've hired you to take the care of them, and I want the care taken. That's your business."
Mrs. Dainty was annoyed and angry; and she looked her real character for the time. She was a superior, commanding an inferior, with a complete consciousness of the gulf that stretched between them. Her manner, even more than her words, was offensive to the young governess, whose native independence and self-respect impelled her at once to resign her position and leave the house.
"George, Madeline." She spoke quietly — almost indifferently.
"Why don't you call them as if you had some life in you?" exclaimed Mrs. Dainty, losing all patience.
Miss Harper turned away without a word, and went upstairs, intending to put on her bonnet and leave the house. Near her room-door she met Uncle John, who had overheard the offensive language of his niece. He saw that the young girl's face wore an indignant flush, and that both lips and eyes indicated a settled purpose.
"What are you going to do?" he asked, letting her see by look and tone that he understood her feelings.
"I am going away from here," she replied, firmly.
"You must not do it," said Uncle John.
"Self-respect will not permit me to remain," answered Florence.
"Feeling must yield to duty, my dear young lady," said Uncle John, with an earnestness that showed how much he was interested.
"My duty is not here," was the slowly-spoken answer.
"Our duty is where we can do the most good. I know something of your morning's trials and wise discipline. You have done nobly, Florence — nobly. There is good in these children, and you must bring it forth to the light."
"I am but human," said Florence, with a quivering lip.
"You are gold in the crucible," replied Uncle John. "The fire may be very hot, my dear young friend; but it will leave no mark upon your real character. It is not every spirit that has a quality pure enough to meet life's higher ordeals. No, no — shrink not from the trials in your way. The lions are chained, and can only growl and shake their terrible manes at you. Go back for the children. For their sakes, draw them to yourself with the singular power you possess. Be to them, all their mother fails to be. And always regard me as your friend and advocate."
Uncle John left her and went back to his own room. A few moments Florence stood irresolute. Then, stepping to the head of the stairs, she called to George, who was pounding at his mother's door. Mrs. Dainty had retreated to her chamber, and locked it against the children. The child did not heed her in the least. Going down to him, and taking his hand, which the stubborn little fellow tried to prevent her from doing, she said, in a voice that was very kind, and in a tone full of interest —
"George, dear, did I ever show you my book of pictures?"
Instantly the firm, resisting hand lay passively in hers; though he neither looked up nor answered.
"It is full of the sweetest pictures you ever saw — birds, and sheep, and horses; children playing in the woods; and ducks and geese swimming in the water."
"Won't you show them to me?" said the child, turning to his young teacher, and half forgetting, already, in the pleasing images she had created in his thoughts, his angry disappointment in being thrust from his mother's room.
"Yes; and you shall look at them just as long as you please," answered Florence.
Madeline had thrown herself upon the passage floor in a stubborn fit. Her mother's discipline in the case, if the child had remained there until she came from her chamber, would have been to jerk her up passionately, and, while passion remained in the rapidly-acquired ascendant, inflict upon her from two to half a dozen blows with her hand. Wild, angry screams would have followed; and then the repentant mother would have soothed her child with promised favors.
"Madeline must see them also," said Miss Harper, pausing and stooping over the unhappy little girl. "Don't you want to see my picture scrap-book?" She spoke very cheerfully.
"Oh, yes, Madeline! Do come! Miss Harper is going to show us a book full of such beautiful pictures."
The voice of George went home. Madeline arose to her feet. Each taking a hand of their governess — the two children went with light feet up to her room, and in her book of pictures, soon lost all marks of their recent unhappy disturbance.
Mrs. Dainty appeared at the dinner-table in a bad humor, and commenced scolding about the new governess.
"She'll have to do better than this, before I am suited with her!" she said, captiously.
"What's the matter now?" asked Mr. Dainty, in a manner that exhibited some annoyance.
"Matter!" replied his wife. "I guess you'd think it was some matter, if, when you came in late, tired and hungry, the whole body of children were to hover around you with their thousand wants and complaints. It's Miss Harper's business to keep them out of the way. She's paid for doing it. I had to call her down from her room, and when I spoke to her sharply — she turned herself from me with an air of offended dignity that was perfectly ridiculous. The upstart! I shall have it out with her this afternoon. No servant shall treat me with even a shadow of disrespect. I scarcely think she comprehends her true position in the family; but I will enlighten her fully."
The children listened with wide open ears, from Agnes down to George. Mr. Dainty made no response, and Uncle John merely remarked, "I hope you will think twice before you act once, in this business of defining Miss Harper's position and making yourself clearly understood. My advice is, to be very sure that you understand yourself first."
There was nothing to offend in the manner of Uncle John. He spoke in sober earnest.
"Mother," said Agnes, breaking in through the pause that followed Uncle John's remark, "did you say that I should take my French lesson first?"
"No — who said that I did?" Mrs. Dainty answered, without a moment's reflection.
"Why, Miss Harper said so, and made me give my French recitation before I was ready for it."
"I said no such thing." Mrs. Dainty spoke with some indignation, born of a vague notion, from what Agnes had said, that the young governess was assuming arbitrary rule over the children, and falsely quoting her as authority. "I said no such thing! What does she mean by it?"
"Well, she said you did, and made me say a lesson before I had half learned it. That's not the way to do!"
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Dainty. "Here comes the trouble I feared! Give these vulgar people a position a little in advance of what they have been used to, and forthwith they take on airs. I saw it in the girl at the first interview. I knew then that she wouldn't suit, and if my judgment hadn't been overruled — she never would have come into the house."
Mrs. Dainty glanced toward meddlesome Uncle John as she said this. But Uncle John did not seem to be in the least disturbed.
"Agnes," said he, looking across the table at the injured and complaining girl, "what lesson did you propose to recite in place of your French?"
Agnes flushed a little as she answered —
"My music-lesson."
"Ah! That was the substitute. What about it?" And Uncle John turned his quiet eyes upon the countenance of his niece. "If I am not mistaken, I heard you tell Miss Harper that you thought the hour from twelve to one the best for music."
"Maybe I did," answered Mrs. Dainty, pettishly; "but I didn't fix it as a law more binding than the statutes of the Medes and Persians. Something was left to the girl's own discretion."
"And I think it will be found on examination," said Uncle John, "that she used the discretion wisely."
"Oh, but she said" — Agnes had taken her cue from her mother — "that the hours for study had positively been fixed by mother, and that she had no authority to vary them in the least."
"Preposterous!" ejaculated Mrs. Dainty.
"What's the news today?" said Uncle John, turning to Mr. Dainty. "Anything of importance stirring in the city?"
He wished to change a subject the discussion of which could do nothing but harm among the children.
The answer of Mr. Dainty led the conversation into an entirely new channel. Once or twice, during the dinner-hour, Mrs. Dainty tried to renew her complaints against the governess; but Uncle John managed to throw her off, and so the matter was dropped for the time.
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