A True Friend Part 21

CHAPTER XIV.

JANETTA'S FAILURE.

The terrible certainty that Janetta had now acquired of Mrs. Colwyn's inability to control herself decided her in the choice of an occupation.

She knew that she must, if possible, earn something; but it was equally impossible for her to leave home entirely, or even for many hours at a stretch; she was quite convinced that constant watching, and even gentle restraint, could alone prevail in checking the tendency which her stepmother evinced. She understood now better than she had ever done why her father's brow had been so early wrinkled and his hair grey before its time. Doubtless, he had discovered his wife's unfortunate tendency, and, while carefully concealing it or keeping it within bounds, had allowed it often to weigh heavily upon his mind. Janetta realized with a great shock that _she_ could not hope to exert the influence or the authority of her father, that all her efforts might possibly be unavailing unless they were seconded by Mrs. Colwyn herself, and that public disgrace might yet be added to the troubles and anxieties of their lives.

There is something so particularly revolting in the spectacle of this kind of degradation in a woman, that Janetta felt as if the discovery that she had made turned her positively ill. She had much ado to behave to the children and the servant as if nothing were amiss; she got her stepmother to bed, and kept Tiny out of the room, but the effort was almost more than she knew how to bear. She pa.s.sed a melancholy evening with the children--melancholy in spite of herself, for she did her best to be cheerful--and spent a sleepless night, rising in the morning with a bad headache and a conviction as of the worthlessness of all things which she did not very often experience.

She shrank sensitively from going to Mrs. Colwyn's room. Surely the poor woman would be overcome with pain and shame; surely she would understand how terrible the exposure of her disgrace had been to Janetta. But at last Mrs. Colwyn's bell sounded sharply, and continued to ring, and the girl was obliged to run upstairs and enter her stepmother's room.

Mrs. Colwyn was sitting up in bed, with the bell-rope in her hand, an aggrieved expression upon her face.

"Well, I'm sure! Nine o'clock and no breakfast ready for me! I suppose I may wait until everybody else in the house is served first; I must say, Janetta, that you are very thoughtless of my comfort."

Contrary to her usual custom Janetta offered no word of excuse or apology. She was too much taken aback to speak. She stood and looked at her stepmother with slightly dilated eyes, and neither moved nor spoke.

"What _are_ you staring at?" said Mrs. Colwyn, sinking back on her pillows with a faint--very faint--touch of uneasiness in her tones. "If you are in a sulky mood, Janetta, I wish you would go away, and send my breakfast up by Ph[oe]be and Tiny. I have a wretched headache this morning and can't be bothered."

"What would you like?" said Janetta, with an effort.

"Oh, anything. Some coffee and toast, perhaps. I dare say you won't believe it--you are so unsympathetic--but I was frightfully ill last night. I don't know how I got to bed; I was quite insensible for a time--all from a narcotic that I had taken for neuralgia----"

"I'll go and get your breakfast ready," said Janetta abruptly. "I will send it up as soon as I can."

She left the room, unheeding some murmured grumbling at her selfishness, and shut the door behind her. On the landing it must be confessed that she struck her foot angrily on the floor and clenched her hands, while the color flushed into her mobile, sensitive little face. There was nothing that Janetta hated more than a lie. And her stepmother was lying to her now.

She sent up the breakfast tray, and did not re-enter the room for some time. When at last she came up, Mrs. Colwyn had had the fire lighted and was sitting beside it in a rocking-chair, with a novel on her lap. She looked up indolently as Janetta entered.

"Going out?" she said, noticing that the girl was in her out-door wraps.

"You are always gadding."

"I came to speak to you before I went out," said Janetta, patiently. "I am going to the stationer's, and to the Beaminster _Argus_ Office. I mean to make it well known in the town that I want to give music and singing-lessons. And, if possible, I shall give them here--at our own house."

"You'll do nothing of the sort!" said Mrs. Colwyn, shrilly. "I'll not have a pack of children about the house playing scales and singing their Do, Re, Mi, till my head is fit to split. You'll remember, Miss, that this is _my_ house, and that you are living on _my_ money, and behave yourself."

"Mamma," said Janetta, steadily, advancing a step nearer, and turning a shade paler than she had been before, "please think what you are saying.

I am willing to work as hard as I can, and earn as much as I can. But I dare not go away from home--at any rate for long--unless I can feel sure that--that what happened last night--will not occur again."

"What happened!--what happened last night?--I don't know what you mean."

"Don't say that, mamma: you know--you know quite well. And think what a grief it would have been to dear father--what a disgrace it will be to Joe and Nora and the little ones and all of us--if it ever became known!

Think of yourself, and the shame and the sin of it!"

"I've not the least notion what you are talking about, Janetta, and I beg that you will not address me in that way," said Mrs. Colwyn, with an attempt at dignity. "It is very undutiful indeed, and I hope that I shall hear no more of it."

"I'll never speak of it again, mamma, unless you make it necessary. All I mean is that you must understand--I cannot feel safe now--I must be at home as much as possible to see that Tiny is safe, and that everything is going on well. You must please let me advertise for pupils in our own house."

Mrs. Colwyn burst into tears. "Oh, well, have your own way! I knew that you would tyrannize, you always do whenever you get the chance, and very foolish I have been to give you the opportunity. To speak in that way to your father's wife--and all because she had to take a little something for her nerves, and because of her neuralgia! But I am n.o.body now: n.o.body, even in my own house, where I'm sure I ought to be mistress if anybody is!"

Janetta could do or say nothing more. She gave her stepmother a dose of sal volatile, and went away. She had already searched every room and every cupboard in the house, except in Mrs. Colwyn's own domain, and had put every bottle that she could find under lock and key; but she left the house with a feeling of terrible insecurity upon her, as if the earth might open at any moment beneath her feet.

She put advertis.e.m.e.nts in the local papers and left notices at some of the Beaminster shops, and, when these attempts produced no results, she called systematically on all the people she knew, and did her best--very much against the grain--to ask for pupils. Thanks to her perseverance she soon got three or four children as music pupils, although at a very low rate of remuneration. Also, she gave two singing lessons weekly to the daughter of the grocer with whom the Colwyns dealt. But these were not paid for in money, but in kind. And then for a time she got no more pupils at all.

Janetta was somewhat puzzled by her failure. She had fully expected to succeed as a teacher in Beaminster. "When the Adairs come back it will be better," she said, hopefully, to herself. "They have not written for a long time, but I am sure that they will come home soon. Perhaps Margaret is going to be married and will not want any singing lessons.

But I should think that they would recommend me: I should think that I might refer to Lady Caroline, and surely people would think more of my abilities then."

But it was not confidence in her abilities that was lacking so much as confidence in her amiability and discretion, she soon found. She called one day at the house of a schoolmistress, who was said to want a.s.sistance in the musical line, and was received with a stiffness which did not encourage her to make much of her qualifications.

"The fact is, Miss Colwyn," said the preceptress at length, "I have heard of you from Miss Polehampton."

Janetta was on her feet in a moment. "I know very well what that means,"

she said, rather defiantly.

"Exactly. I see that Miss Polehampton's opinion of you is justifiable.

You will excuse my mentioning to you, as it is all for your own good, Miss Colwyn, that Miss Polehampton found in you some little weakness of temper, some want of the submissiveness and good sense which ought to characterize an under-teacher's demeanor. I have great confidence in Miss Polehampton's opinion."

"The circ.u.mstances under which I left Miss Polehampton's could be easily explained if you would allow me to refer you to Lady Caroline Adair,"

said Janetta, with mingled spirit and dignity.

"Lady Caroline Adair? Oh, yes, I have heard all about that," said the schoolmistress, in a tone of depreciation. "I do not need to hear any other version of the story. You must excuse my remarking, Miss Colwyn, that temper and sense are qualities as valuable in music-teaching as in any other; and that your dismissal from Miss Polehampton's will, in my opinion, be very much against you, in a place where Miss Polehampton's school is so well known, and she herself is so much respected."

"I am sorry to have troubled you," said Janetta, not without stateliness, although her lips trembled a little as she spoke. "I will wish you good-morning."

The schoolmistress bowed solemnly, and allowed the girl to depart.

Janetta hastened out of the house--glad to get away before the tears that had gathered in her eyes could fall.

At an ordinary time she would have been equally careful that they did not fall when she was in the street; but on this occasion, dazed, wounded, and tormented by an anxiety about the future, which was beginning to take the spring out of her youth, she moved along the side-walk with perfect unconsciousness that her eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g over, and that two great tears were already on her cheeks.

It was a quiet road, and there was little likelihood of encountering any one whom she knew. Therefore Janetta was utterly abashed when a gentleman, who had met her, took off his hat, glanced at her curiously, and then turned back as if by a sudden impulse, and addressed her by name.

"Miss Colwyn, I think?"

She looked up at him through a blinding haze of tears, and recognized the tall, spare figure, the fine sensitive face, the kind, dark eyes and intellectual forehead. The coal-black beard and moustache nearly hid his mouth, but Janetta felt instinctively that this tell-tale feature would not belie the promise of the others.

"Sir Philip Ashley," she murmured, in her surprise.

"I beg your pardon," he said, with the courtesy that she so well remembered; "I stopped you on impulse, I fear, because I felt a great desire to express to you my deep sympathy with you in your loss. It may seem impertinent for me to speak, but I knew your father and respected and trusted him. We had some correspondence about sanitary matters, and I was greatly relying on his help in certain reforms that I wish to inst.i.tute in Beaminster. He is a great loss to us all."

"Thank you," Janetta said unsteadily.

"Will you let me ask whether there is anything in which I can help you just now."

"Oh, no, nothing, thank you." She had brushed away the involuntary tear, and smiled bravely as she replied. "I did not think that I should meet anybody: it was simply that I was disappointed about--about--some lessons that I hoped to get. Quite a _little_ disappointment, you see."