The Head of the House of Coombe, Frances Hodgson Burnett [adult books to read txt] 📗

In the added suite of rooms at the back of the house, Robin grew through the years in which It was growing also. On the occasion when her mother saw her, she realized that she was not at least going to look like a barmaid. At no period of her least refulgent moment did she verge upon this type. Dowie took care of her and Mademoiselle Valle educated her with the assistance of certain masters who came to give lessons in German and Italian.

“Why only German and Italian and French,” said Feather, “why not Latin and Greek, as well, if she is to be so accomplished?”

“It is modern languages one needs at this period. They ought to be taught in the Board Schools,” Coombe replied. “They are not accomplishments but workman’s tools. Nationalities are not separated as they once were. To be familiar with the language of one’s friends—and one’s enemies—is a protective measure.”

“What country need one protect oneself against? When all the kings and queens are either married to each other’s daughters or cousins or take tea with each other every year or so. Just think of the friendliness of Germany for instance–-”

“I do,” said Coombe, “very often. That is one of the reasons I choose German rather than Latin and Greek. Julius Caesar and Nero are no longer reasons for alarm.”

“Is the Kaiser with his seventeen children and his respectable Frau?” giggled Feather. “All that he cares about is that women shall be made to remember that they are born for nothing but to cook and go to church and have babies. One doesn’t wonder at the clothes they wear.”

It was not a month after this, however, when Lord Coombe, again warming himself at his old friend’s fire, gave her a piece of information.

“The German teacher, Herr Wiese, has hastily returned to his own country,” he said.

She lifted her eyebrows inquiringly.

“He found himself suspected of being a spy,” was his answer. “With most excellent reason. Some first-rate sketches of fortifications were found in a box he left behind him in his haste. The country—all countries—are sown with those like him. Mild spectacled students and clerks in warehouses and manufactories are weighing and measuring resources; round-faced, middle-aged governesses are making notes of conversation and of any other thing which may be useful. In time of war—if they were caught at what are now their simple daily occupations—they would be placed against a wall and shot. As it is, they are allowed to play about among us and slip away when some fellow worker’s hint suggests it is time.”

“German young men are much given to spending a year or so here in business positions,” the Duchess wore a thoughtful air. “That has been going on for a decade or so. One recognizes their Teuton type in shops and in the streets. They say they come to learn the language and commercial methods.”

“Not long ago a pompous person, who is the owner of a big shop, pointed out to me three of them among his salesmen,” Coombe said. “He plumed himself on his astuteness in employing them. Said they worked for low wages and cared for very little else but finding out how things were done in England. It wasn’t only business knowledge they were after, he said; they went about everywhere—into factories and dock yards, and public buildings, and made funny little notes and sketches of things they didn’t understand—so that they could explain them in Germany. In his fatuous, insular way, it pleased him to regard them rather as a species of aborigines benefiting by English civilization. The English Ass and the German Ass are touchingly alike. The shade of difference is that the English Ass’s sublime self-satisfaction is in the German Ass self-glorification. The English Ass smirks and plumes himself; the German Ass blusters and bullies and defies.”

“Do you think of engaging another German Master for the little girl?” the Duchess asked the question casually.

“I have heard of a quiet young woman who has shown herself thorough and well-behaved in a certain family for three years. Perhaps she also will disappear some day, but, for the present, she will serve the purpose.”

As he had not put into words to others any explanation of the story of the small, smart establishment in the Mayfair street, so he had put into words no explanation to her. That she was aware of its existence he knew, but what she thought of it, or imagined he himself thought of it, he had not at any period inquired. Whatsoever her point of view might be, he knew it would be unbiassed, clear minded and wholly just. She had asked no question and made no comment. The rapid, whirligig existence of the well-known fashionable groups, including in their circles varieties of the Mrs. Gareth-Lawless type, were to be seen at smart functions and to be read of in newspapers and fashion reports, if one’s taste lay in the direction of a desire to follow their movements. The time had passed when pretty women of her kind were cut off by severities of opinion from the delights of a world they had thrown their dice daringly to gain. The worldly old axiom, “Be virtuous and you will be happy,” had been ironically paraphrased too often. “Please yourself and you will be much happier than if you were virtuous,” was a practical reading.

But for a certain secret which she alone knew and which no one would in the least have believed, if she had proclaimed it from the housetops, Feather would really have been entirely happy. And, after all, the fly in her ointment was merely an odd sting a fantastic Fate had inflicted on her vanity and did not in any degree affect her pleasures. So many people lived in glass houses that the habit of throwing stones had fallen out of fashion as an exercise. There were those, too, whose houses of glass, adroitly given the air of being respectable conservatories, engendered in the dwellers therein a leniency towards other vitreous constructions. As a result of this last circumstance, there were times when quite stately equipages drew up before Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ door and visiting cards bearing the names of acquaintances much to be desired were left upon the salver presented by Jennings. Again, as a result of this circumstance, Feather employed some laudable effort in her desire to give her own glass house the conservatory aspect. Her little parties became less noisy, if they still remained lively. She gave an “afternoon” now and then to which literary people and artists, and persons who “did things” were invited. She was pretty enough to allure an occasional musician to “do something”, some new poet to read or recite. Fashionable people were asked to come and hear and talk to them, and, in this way, she threw out delicate fishing lines here and there, and again and again drew up a desirable fish of substantial size. Sometimes the vague rumour connected with the name of the Head of the House of Coombe was quite forgotten and she was referred to amiably as “That beautiful creature, Mrs. Gareth-Lawless.” She was left a widow when she was nothing but a girl. If she hadn’t had a little money of her own, and if her husband’s relatives hadn’t taken care of her, she would have had a hard time of it. She is amazingly clever at managing her, small income, they added. Her tiny house is one of the jolliest little places in London—always full of good looking people and amusing things.

But, before Robin was fourteen, she had found out that the house she lived in was built of glass and that any chance stone would break its panes, even if cast without particular skill in aiming. She found it out in various ways, but the seed from which all things sprang to the fruition of actual knowledge was the child tragedy through which she had learned that Donal had been taken from her—because his mother would not let him love and play with a little girl whose mother let Lord Coombe come to her house—because Lord Coombe was so bad that even servants whispered secrets about him. Her first interpretation of this had been that of a mere baby, but it had filled her being with detestation of him, and curious doubts of her mother. Donal’s mother, who was good and beautiful, would not let him come to see her and kept Donal away from him. If the Lady Downstairs was good, too, then why did laugh and talk to him and seem to like him? She had thought this over for hours—sometimes wakening in the night to lie and puzzle over it feverishly. Then, as time went by, she had begun to remember that she had never played with any of the children in the Square Gardens. It had seemed as though this had been because Andrews would not let her. But, if she was not fit to play with Donal, perhaps the nurses and governesses and mothers of the other children knew about it and would not trust their little girls and boys to her damaging society. She did not know what she could have done to harm them—and Oh! how COULD she have harmed Donal!—but there must be something dreadful about a child whose mother knew bad people—something which other children could “catch” like scarlet fever. From this seed other thoughts had grown. She did not remain a baby long. A fervid little brain worked for her, picked up hints and developed suggestions, set her to singularly alert reasoning which quickly became too mature for her age. The quite horrid little girl, who flouncingly announced that she could not be played with