“Of course…But you’ve every reason to be satisfied, haven’t you?”
“Every apparent reason. We all like her. Effie’s very fond of her, and she seems to have a delightful influence on the child. But we know so little, after all—about her antecedents, I mean, and her past history. That’s why I want you to try and recall everything you heard about her when you used to see her in London.”
“Oh, on that score I’m afraid I sha’n’t be of much use. As I told you, she was a mere shadow in the background of the house I saw her in—and that was four or five years ago…”
“When she was with a Mrs. Murrett?”
“Yes; an appalling woman who runs a roaring dinner-factory that used now and then to catch me in its wheels. I escaped from them long ago; but in my time there used to be half a dozen fagged ‘hands’ to tend the machine, and Miss Viner was one of them. I’m glad she’s out of it, poor girl!” “Then you never really saw anything of her there?”
“I never had the chance. Mrs. Murrett discouraged any competition on the part of her subordinates.”
“Especially such pretty ones, I suppose?” Darrow made no comment, and she continued: “And Mrs. Murrett’s own opinion—if she’d offered you one—probably wouldn’t have been of much value?”
“Only in so far as her disapproval would, on general principles, have been a good mark for Miss Viner. But surely,” he went on after a pause, “you could have found out about her from the people through whom you first heard of her?”
Anna smiled. “Oh, we heard of her through Adelaide Painter—;” and in reply to his glance of interrogation she explained that the lady in question was a spinster of South Braintree, Massachusetts, who, having come to Paris some thirty years earlier, to nurse a brother through an illness, had ever since protestingly and provisionally camped there in a state of contemptuous protestation oddly manifested by her never taking the slip-covers off her drawing- room chairs. Her long residence on Gallic soil had not mitigated her hostility toward the creed and customs of the race, but though she always referred to the Catholic Church as the Scarlet Woman and took the darkest views of French private life, Madame de Chantelle placed great reliance on her judgment and experience, and in every domestic crisis the irreducible Adelaide was immediately summoned to Givre.
“It’s all the odder because my mother-in-law, since her second marriage, has lived so much in the country that she’s practically lost sight of all her other American friends. Besides which, you can see how completely she has identified herself with Monsieur de Chantelle’s nationality and adopted French habits and prejudices. Yet when anything goes wrong she always sends for Adelaide Painter, who’s more American than the Stars and Stripes, and might have left South Braintree yesterday, if she hadn’t, rather, brought it over with her in her trunk.”
Darrow laughed. “Well, then, if South Braintree vouches for Miss Viner–-“
“Oh, but only indirectly. When we had that odious adventure with Mademoiselle Grumeau, who’d been so highly recommended by Monsieur de Chantelle’s aunt, the Chanoinesse, Adelaide was of course sent for, and she said at once: ‘I’m not the least bit surprised. I’ve always told you that what you wanted for Effie was a sweet American girl, and not one of these nasty foreigners.’ Unluckily she couldn’t, at the moment, put her hand on a sweet American; but she presently heard of Miss Viner through the Farlows, an excellent couple who live in the Quartier Latin and write about French life for the American papers. I was only too thankful to find anyone who was vouched for by decent people; and so far I’ve had no cause to regret my choice. But I know, after all, very little about Miss Viner; and there are all kinds of reasons why I want, as soon as possible, to find out more—to find out all I can.”
“Since you’ve got to leave Effie I understand your feeling in that way. But is there, in such a case, any recommendation worth half as much as your own direct experience?”
“No; and it’s been so favourable that I was ready to accept it as conclusive. Only, naturally, when I found you’d known her in London I was in hopes you’d give me some more specific reasons for liking her as much as I do.”
“I’m afraid I can give you nothing more specific than my general vague impression that she seems very plucky and extremely nice.”
“You don’t, at any rate, know anything specific to the contrary?”
“To the contrary? How should I? I’m not conscious of ever having heard any one say two words about her. I only infer that she must have pluck and character to have stuck it out so long at Mrs. Murrett’s.”
“Yes, poor thing! She has pluck, certainly; and pride, too; which must have made it all the harder.” Anna rose to her feet. “You don’t know how glad I am that your impression’s on the whole so good. I particularly wanted you to like her.”
He drew her to him with a smile. “On that condition I’m prepared to love even Adelaide Painter.”
“I almost hope you wont have the chance to—poor Adelaide! Her appearance here always coincides with a catastrophe.”
“Oh, then I must manage to meet her elsewhere.” He held Anna closer, saying to himself, as he smoothed back the hair from her forehead: “What does anything matter but just THIS?—Must I go now?” he added aloud.
She answered absently: “It must be time to dress”; then she drew back a little and laid her hands on his shoulders. “My love—oh, my dear love!” she said.
It came to him that they were the first words of endearment he had heard her speak, and their rareness gave them a magic quality of reassurance, as though no danger could strike through such a shield.
A knock on the door made them draw apart. Anna lifted her hand to her hair and Darrow stooped to examine a photograph of Effie on the writing-table.
“Come in!” Anna said.
The door opened and Sophy Viner entered. Seeing Darrow, she drew back.
“Do come in, Miss Viner,” Anna repeated, looking at her kindly.
The girl, a quick red in her cheeks, still hesitated on the threshold.
“I’m so sorry; but Effie has mislaid her Latin grammar, and I thought she might have left it here. I need it to prepare for tomorrow’s lesson.”
