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diff --git a/old/2016-09-18-209-0.txt b/old/2016-09-18-209-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3441b90..0000000 --- a/old/2016-09-18-209-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4937 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Turn of the Screw - -Author: Henry James - -Posting Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #209] -Release Date: February, 1995 -Last Updated: September 18, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TURN OF THE SCREW *** - - - - -Produced by Judith Boss - - - - - -THE TURN OF THE SCREW - -by Henry James - - -[The text is take from the first American appearance of this book.] - - - - - -THE TURN OF THE SCREW - - -The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but -except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve -in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no -comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case -he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. The case, I -may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an old house as had -gathered us for the occasion--an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to a -little boy sleeping in the room with his mother and waking her up in the -terror of it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him to -sleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she had succeeded -in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. It was this observation -that drew from Douglas--not immediately, but later in the evening--a -reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call attention. -Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which I saw he was -not following. This I took for a sign that he had himself something to -produce and that we should only have to wait. We waited in fact till two -nights later; but that same evening, before we scattered, he brought out -what was in his mind. - -“I quite agree--in regard to Griffin’s ghost, or whatever it was--that -its appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds a -particular touch. But it’s not the first occurrence of its charming -kind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the effect -another turn of the screw, what do you say to TWO children--?” - -“We say, of course,” somebody exclaimed, “that they give two turns! Also -that we want to hear about them.” - -I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got up to -present his back, looking down at his interlocutor with his hands in -his pockets. “Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. It’s quite too -horrible.” This, naturally, was declared by several voices to give the -thing the utmost price, and our friend, with quiet art, prepared his -triumph by turning his eyes over the rest of us and going on: “It’s -beyond everything. Nothing at all that I know touches it.” - -“For sheer terror?” I remember asking. - -He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at a loss -how to qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made a little -wincing grimace. “For dreadful--dreadfulness!” - -“Oh, how delicious!” cried one of the women. - -He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead of me, -he saw what he spoke of. “For general uncanny ugliness and horror and -pain.” - -“Well then,” I said, “just sit right down and begin.” - -He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log, watched it an -instant. Then as he faced us again: “I can’t begin. I shall have to send -to town.” There was a unanimous groan at this, and much reproach; after -which, in his preoccupied way, he explained. “The story’s written. It’s -in a locked drawer--it has not been out for years. I could write to my -man and enclose the key; he could send down the packet as he finds it.” - It was to me in particular that he appeared to propound this--appeared -almost to appeal for aid not to hesitate. He had broken a thickness -of ice, the formation of many a winter; had had his reasons for a long -silence. The others resented postponement, but it was just his scruples -that charmed me. I adjured him to write by the first post and to agree -with us for an early hearing; then I asked him if the experience in -question had been his own. To this his answer was prompt. “Oh, thank -God, no!” - -“And is the record yours? You took the thing down?” - -“Nothing but the impression. I took that HERE”--he tapped his heart. -“I’ve never lost it.” - -“Then your manuscript--?” - -“Is in old, faded ink, and in the most beautiful hand.” He hung fire -again. “A woman’s. She has been dead these twenty years. She sent me the -pages in question before she died.” They were all listening now, and -of course there was somebody to be arch, or at any rate to draw the -inference. But if he put the inference by without a smile it was also -without irritation. “She was a most charming person, but she was ten -years older than I. She was my sister’s governess,” he quietly said. -“She was the most agreeable woman I’ve ever known in her position; -she would have been worthy of any whatever. It was long ago, and this -episode was long before. I was at Trinity, and I found her at home on -my coming down the second summer. I was much there that year--it was a -beautiful one; and we had, in her off-hours, some strolls and talks in -the garden--talks in which she struck me as awfully clever and nice. Oh -yes; don’t grin: I liked her extremely and am glad to this day to think -she liked me, too. If she hadn’t she wouldn’t have told me. She had -never told anyone. It wasn’t simply that she said so, but that I knew -she hadn’t. I was sure; I could see. You’ll easily judge why when you -hear.” - -“Because the thing had been such a scare?” - -He continued to fix me. “You’ll easily judge,” he repeated: “YOU will.” - -I fixed him, too. “I see. She was in love.” - -He laughed for the first time. “You ARE acute. Yes, she was in love. -That is, she had been. That came out--she couldn’t tell her story -without its coming out. I saw it, and she saw I saw it; but neither of -us spoke of it. I remember the time and the place--the corner of the -lawn, the shade of the great beeches and the long, hot summer afternoon. -It wasn’t a scene for a shudder; but oh--!” He quitted the fire and -dropped back into his chair. - -“You’ll receive the packet Thursday morning?” I inquired. - -“Probably not till the second post.” - -“Well then; after dinner--” - -“You’ll all meet me here?” He looked us round again. “Isn’t anybody -going?” It was almost the tone of hope. - -“Everybody will stay!” - -“_I_ will”--and “_I_ will!” cried the ladies whose departure had been -fixed. Mrs. Griffin, however, expressed the need for a little more -light. “Who was it she was in love with?” - -“The story will tell,” I took upon myself to reply. - -“Oh, I can’t wait for the story!” - -“The story WON’T tell,” said Douglas; “not in any literal, vulgar way.” - -“More’s the pity, then. That’s the only way I ever understand.” - -“Won’t YOU tell, Douglas?” somebody else inquired. - -He sprang to his feet again. “Yes--tomorrow. Now I must go to bed. -Good night.” And quickly catching up a candlestick, he left us slightly -bewildered. From our end of the great brown hall we heard his step on -the stair; whereupon Mrs. Griffin spoke. “Well, if I don’t know who she -was in love with, I know who HE was.” - -“She was ten years older,” said her husband. - -“Raison de plus--at that age! But it’s rather nice, his long reticence.” - -“Forty years!” Griffin put in. - -“With this outbreak at last.” - -“The outbreak,” I returned, “will make a tremendous occasion of Thursday -night;” and everyone so agreed with me that, in the light of it, we lost -all attention for everything else. The last story, however incomplete -and like the mere opening of a serial, had been told; we handshook and -“candlestuck,” as somebody said, and went to bed. - -I knew the next day that a letter containing the key had, by the first -post, gone off to his London apartments; but in spite of--or perhaps -just on account of--the eventual diffusion of this knowledge we quite -let him alone till after dinner, till such an hour of the evening, in -fact, as might best accord with the kind of emotion on which our hopes -were fixed. Then he became as communicative as we could desire and -indeed gave us his best reason for being so. We had it from him again -before the fire in the hall, as we had had our mild wonders of the -previous night. It appeared that the narrative he had promised to read -us really required for a proper intelligence a few words of prologue. -Let me say here distinctly, to have done with it, that this narrative, -from an exact transcript of my own made much later, is what I shall -presently give. Poor Douglas, before his death--when it was in -sight--committed to me the manuscript that reached him on the third of -these days and that, on the same spot, with immense effect, he began -to read to our hushed little circle on the night of the fourth. The -departing ladies who had said they would stay didn’t, of course, thank -heaven, stay: they departed, in consequence of arrangements made, in a -rage of curiosity, as they professed, produced by the touches with -which he had already worked us up. But that only made his little final -auditory more compact and select, kept it, round the hearth, subject to -a common thrill. - -The first of these touches conveyed that the written statement took up -the tale at a point after it had, in a manner, begun. The fact to be in -possession of was therefore that his old friend, the youngest of several -daughters of a poor country parson, had, at the age of twenty, on taking -service for the first time in the schoolroom, come up to London, in -trepidation, to answer in person an advertisement that had already -placed her in brief correspondence with the advertiser. This person -proved, on her presenting herself, for judgment, at a house in Harley -Street, that impressed her as vast and imposing--this prospective patron -proved a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such a figure as -had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered, -anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage. One could easily fix his type; -it never, happily, dies out. He was handsome and bold and pleasant, -offhand and gay and kind. He struck her, inevitably, as gallant and -splendid, but what took her most of all and gave her the courage she -afterward showed was that he put the whole thing to her as a kind of -favor, an obligation he should gratefully incur. She conceived him -as rich, but as fearfully extravagant--saw him all in a glow of high -fashion, of good looks, of expensive habits, of charming ways with -women. He had for his own town residence a big house filled with the -spoils of travel and the trophies of the chase; but it was to his -country home, an old family place in Essex, that he wished her -immediately to proceed. - -He had been left, by the death of their parents in India, guardian to -a small nephew and a small niece, children of a younger, a military -brother, whom he had lost two years before. These children were, by the -strangest of chances for a man in his position--a lone man without the -right sort of experience or a grain of patience--very heavily on his -hands. It had all been a great worry and, on his own part doubtless, a -series of blunders, but he immensely pitied the poor chicks and had done -all he could; had in particular sent them down to his other house, the -proper place for them being of course the country, and kept them there, -from the first, with the best people he could find to look after them, -parting even with his own servants to wait on them and going down -himself, whenever he might, to see how they were doing. The awkward -thing was that they had practically no other relations and that his -own affairs took up all his time. He had put them in possession of Bly, -which was healthy and secure, and had placed at the head of their little -establishment--but below stairs only--an excellent woman, Mrs. Grose, -whom he was sure his visitor would like and who had formerly been maid -to his mother. She was now housekeeper and was also acting for the time -as superintendent to the little girl, of whom, without children of her -own, she was, by good luck, extremely fond. There were plenty of people -to help, but of course the young lady who should go down as governess -would be in supreme authority. She would also have, in holidays, to look -after the small boy, who had been for a term at school--young as he was -to be sent, but what else could be done?--and who, as the holidays were -about to begin, would be back from one day to the other. There had -been for the two children at first a young lady whom they had had the -misfortune to lose. She had done for them quite beautifully--she was a -most respectable person--till her death, the great awkwardness of which -had, precisely, left no alternative but the school for little Miles. -Mrs. Grose, since then, in the way of manners and things, had done as -she could for Flora; and there were, further, a cook, a housemaid, a -dairywoman, an old pony, an old groom, and an old gardener, all likewise -thoroughly respectable. - -So far had Douglas presented his picture when someone put a question. -“And what did the former governess die of?--of so much respectability?” - -Our friend’s answer was prompt. “That will come out. I don’t -anticipate.” - -“Excuse me--I thought that was just what you ARE doing.” - -“In her successor’s place,” I suggested, “I should have wished to learn -if the office brought with it--” - -“Necessary danger to life?” Douglas completed my thought. “She did wish -to learn, and she did learn. You shall hear tomorrow what she learned. -Meanwhile, of course, the prospect struck her as slightly grim. She was -young, untried, nervous: it was a vision of serious duties and little -company, of really great loneliness. She hesitated--took a couple of -days to consult and consider. But the salary offered much exceeded -her modest measure, and on a second interview she faced the music, she -engaged.” And Douglas, with this, made a pause that, for the benefit of -the company, moved me to throw in-- - -“The moral of which was of course the seduction exercised by the -splendid young man. She succumbed to it.” - -He got up and, as he had done the night before, went to the fire, gave -a stir to a log with his foot, then stood a moment with his back to us. -“She saw him only twice.” - -“Yes, but that’s just the beauty of her passion.” - -A little to my surprise, on this, Douglas turned round to me. “It WAS -the beauty of it. There were others,” he went on, “who hadn’t succumbed. -He told her frankly all his difficulty--that for several applicants the -conditions had been prohibitive. They were, somehow, simply afraid. It -sounded dull--it sounded strange; and all the more so because of his -main condition.” - -“Which was--?” - -“That she should never trouble him--but never, never: neither appeal -nor complain nor write about anything; only meet all questions herself, -receive all moneys from his solicitor, take the whole thing over and let -him alone. She promised to do this, and she mentioned to me that when, -for a moment, disburdened, delighted, he held her hand, thanking her for -the sacrifice, she already felt rewarded.” - -“But was that all her reward?” one of the ladies asked. - -“She never saw him again.” - -“Oh!” said the lady; which, as our friend immediately left us again, was -the only other word of importance contributed to the subject till, the -next night, by the corner of the hearth, in the best chair, he opened -the faded red cover of a thin old-fashioned gilt-edged album. The whole -thing took indeed more nights than one, but on the first occasion the -same lady put another question. “What is your title?” - -“I haven’t one.” - -“Oh, _I_ have!” I said. But Douglas, without heeding me, had begun to -read with a fine clearness that was like a rendering to the ear of the -beauty of his author’s hand. - - - - -I - - -I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a -little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, -to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days--found -myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this -state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that -carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle -from the house. This convenience, I was told, had been ordered, and -I found, toward the close of the June afternoon, a commodious fly in -waiting for me. Driving at that hour, on a lovely day, through a country -to which the summer sweetness seemed to offer me a friendly welcome, my -fortitude mounted afresh and, as we turned into the avenue, encountered -a reprieve that was probably but a proof of the point to which it had -sunk. I suppose I had expected, or had dreaded, something so melancholy -that what greeted me was a good surprise. I remember as a most pleasant -impression the broad, clear front, its open windows and fresh curtains -and the pair of maids looking out; I remember the lawn and the bright -flowers and the crunch of my wheels on the gravel and the clustered -treetops over which the rooks circled and cawed in the golden sky. The -scene had a greatness that made it a different affair from my own scant -home, and there immediately appeared at the door, with a little girl in -her hand, a civil person who dropped me as decent a curtsy as if I had -been the mistress or a distinguished visitor. I had received in Harley -Street a narrower notion of the place, and that, as I recalled it, made -me think the proprietor still more of a gentleman, suggested that what I -was to enjoy might be something beyond his promise. - -I had no drop again till the next day, for I was carried triumphantly -through the following hours by my introduction to the younger of my -pupils. The little girl who accompanied Mrs. Grose appeared to me on the -spot a creature so charming as to make it a great fortune to have to -do with her. She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, and I -afterward wondered that my employer had not told me more of her. I slept -little that night--I was too much excited; and this astonished me, too, -I recollect, remained with me, adding to my sense of the liberality with -which I was treated. The large, impressive room, one of the best in -the house, the great state bed, as I almost felt it, the full, figured -draperies, the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see -myself from head to foot, all struck me--like the extraordinary charm of -my small charge--as so many things thrown in. It was thrown in as -well, from the first moment, that I should get on with Mrs. Grose in -a relation over which, on my way, in the coach, I fear I had rather -brooded. The only thing indeed that in this early outlook might have -made me shrink again was the clear circumstance of her being so glad -to see me. I perceived within half an hour that she was so glad--stout, -simple, plain, clean, wholesome woman--as to be positively on her guard -against showing it too much. I wondered even then a little why she -should wish not to show it, and that, with reflection, with suspicion, -might of course have made me uneasy. - -But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a connection -with anything so beatific as the radiant image of my little girl, the -vision of whose angelic beauty had probably more than anything else to -do with the restlessness that, before morning, made me several times -rise and wander about my room to take in the whole picture and prospect; -to watch, from my open window, the faint summer dawn, to look at such -portions of the rest of the house as I could catch, and to listen, -while, in the fading dusk, the first birds began to twitter, for the -possible recurrence of a sound or two, less natural and not without, -but within, that I had fancied I heard. There had been a moment when I -believed I recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been -another when I found myself just consciously starting as at the passage, -before my door, of a light footstep. But these fancies were not marked -enough not to be thrown off, and it is only in the light, or the gloom, -I should rather say, of other and subsequent matters that they now come -back to me. To watch, teach, “form” little Flora would too evidently -be the making of a happy and useful life. It had been agreed between us -downstairs that after this first occasion I should have her as a matter -of course at night, her small white bed being already arranged, to that -end, in my room. What I had undertaken was the whole care of her, and -she had remained, just this last time, with Mrs. Grose only as an effect -of our consideration for my inevitable strangeness and her natural -timidity. In spite of this timidity--which the child herself, in the -oddest way in the world, had been perfectly frank and brave about, -allowing it, without a sign of uncomfortable consciousness, with the -deep, sweet serenity indeed of one of Raphael’s holy infants, to be -discussed, to be imputed to her, and to determine us--I feel quite sure -she would presently like me. It was part of what I already liked Mrs. -Grose herself for, the pleasure I could see her feel in my admiration -and wonder as I sat at supper with four tall candles and with my pupil, -in a high chair and a bib, brightly facing me, between them, over bread -and milk. There were naturally things that in Flora’s presence could -pass between us only as prodigious and gratified looks, obscure and -roundabout allusions. - -“And the little boy--does he look like her? Is he too so very -remarkable?” - -One wouldn’t flatter a child. “Oh, miss, MOST remarkable. If you think -well of this one!”--and she stood there with a plate in her hand, -beaming at our companion, who looked from one of us to the other with -placid heavenly eyes that contained nothing to check us. - -“Yes; if I do--?” - -“You WILL be carried away by the little gentleman!” - -“Well, that, I think, is what I came for--to be carried away. I’m -afraid, however,” I remember feeling the impulse to add, “I’m rather -easily carried away. I was carried away in London!” - -I can still see Mrs. Grose’s broad face as she took this in. “In Harley -Street?” - -“In Harley Street.” - -“Well, miss, you’re not the first--and you won’t be the last.” - -“Oh, I’ve no pretension,” I could laugh, “to being the only one. My -other pupil, at any rate, as I understand, comes back tomorrow?” - -“Not tomorrow--Friday, miss. He arrives, as you did, by the coach, under -care of the guard, and is to be met by the same carriage.” - -I forthwith expressed that the proper as well as the pleasant and -friendly thing would be therefore that on the arrival of the public -conveyance I should be in waiting for him with his little sister; an -idea in which Mrs. Grose concurred so heartily that I somehow took -her manner as a kind of comforting pledge--never falsified, thank -heaven!--that we should on every question be quite at one. Oh, she was -glad I was there! - -What I felt the next day was, I suppose, nothing that could be fairly -called a reaction from the cheer of my arrival; it was probably at the -most only a slight oppression produced by a fuller measure of the -scale, as I walked round them, gazed up at them, took them in, of my new -circumstances. They had, as it were, an extent and mass for which I had -not been prepared and in the presence of which I found myself, freshly, -a little scared as well as a little proud. Lessons, in this agitation, -certainly suffered some delay; I reflected that my first duty was, by -the gentlest arts I could contrive, to win the child into the sense of -knowing me. I spent the day with her out-of-doors; I arranged with her, -to her great satisfaction, that it should be she, she only, who might -show me the place. She showed it step by step and room by room and -secret by secret, with droll, delightful, childish talk about it and -with the result, in half an hour, of our becoming immense friends. -Young as she was, I was struck, throughout our little tour, with -her confidence and courage with the way, in empty chambers and dull -corridors, on crooked staircases that made me pause and even on the -summit of an old machicolated square tower that made me dizzy, her -morning music, her disposition to tell me so many more things than she -asked, rang out and led me on. I have not seen Bly since the day I left -it, and I daresay that to my older and more informed eyes it would now -appear sufficiently contracted. But as my little conductress, with her -hair of gold and her frock of blue, danced before me round corners and -pattered down passages, I had the view of a castle of romance inhabited -by a rosy sprite, such a place as would somehow, for diversion of the -young idea, take all color out of storybooks and fairytales. Wasn’t it -just a storybook over which I had fallen adoze and adream? No; it was a -big, ugly, antique, but convenient house, embodying a few features of -a building still older, half-replaced and half-utilized, in which I had -the fancy of our being almost as lost as a handful of passengers in a -great drifting ship. Well, I was, strangely, at the helm! - - - - -II - - -This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to -meet, as Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; and all the more for -an incident that, presenting itself the second evening, had deeply -disconcerted me. The first day had been, on the whole, as I have -expressed, reassuring; but I was to see it wind up in keen apprehension. -The postbag, that evening--it came late--contained a letter for me, -which, however, in the hand of my employer, I found to be composed but -of a few words enclosing another, addressed to himself, with a seal -still unbroken. “This, I recognize, is from the headmaster, and the -headmaster’s an awful bore. Read him, please; deal with him; but mind -you don’t report. Not a word. I’m off!” I broke the seal with a great -effort--so great a one that I was a long time coming to it; took the -unopened missive at last up to my room and only attacked it just before -going to bed. I had better have let it wait till morning, for it gave me -a second sleepless night. With no counsel to take, the next day, I -was full of distress; and it finally got so the better of me that I -determined to open myself at least to Mrs. Grose. - -“What does it mean? The child’s dismissed his school.” - -She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then, visibly, with a -quick blankness, seemed to try to take it back. “But aren’t they all--?” - -“Sent home--yes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never go back at -all.” - -Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. “They won’t take him?” - -“They absolutely decline.” - -At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me; I saw them -fill with good tears. “What has he done?” - -I hesitated; then I judged best simply to hand her my letter--which, -however, had the effect of making her, without taking it, simply put her -hands behind her. She shook her head sadly. “Such things are not for me, -miss.” - -My counselor couldn’t read! I winced at my mistake, which I attenuated -as I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it to her; then, -faltering in the act and folding it up once more, I put it back in my -pocket. “Is he really BAD?” - -The tears were still in her eyes. “Do the gentlemen say so?” - -“They go into no particulars. They simply express their regret that it -should be impossible to keep him. That can have only one meaning.” - Mrs. Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask me what -this meaning might be; so that, presently, to put the thing with some -coherence and with the mere aid of her presence to my own mind, I went -on: “That he’s an injury to the others.” - -At this, with one of the quick turns of simple folk, she suddenly flamed -up. “Master Miles! HIM an injury?” - -There was such a flood of good faith in it that, though I had not yet -seen the child, my very fears made me jump to the absurdity of the idea. -I found myself, to meet my friend the better, offering it, on the spot, -sarcastically. “To his poor little innocent mates!” - -“It’s too dreadful,” cried Mrs. Grose, “to say such cruel things! Why, -he’s scarce ten years old.” - -“Yes, yes; it would be incredible.” - -She was evidently grateful for such a profession. “See him, miss, first. -THEN believe it!” I felt forthwith a new impatience to see him; it was -the beginning of a curiosity that, for all the next hours, was to deepen -almost to pain. Mrs. Grose was aware, I could judge, of what she had -produced in me, and she followed it up with assurance. “You might as -well believe it of the little lady. Bless her,” she added the next -moment--“LOOK at her!” - -I turned and saw that Flora, whom, ten minutes before, I had established -in the schoolroom with a sheet of white paper, a pencil, and a copy of -nice “round o’s,” now presented herself to view at the open door. -She expressed in her little way an extraordinary detachment from -disagreeable duties, looking to me, however, with a great childish -light that seemed to offer it as a mere result of the affection she had -conceived for my person, which had rendered necessary that she should -follow me. I needed nothing more than this to feel the full force of -Mrs. Grose’s comparison, and, catching my pupil in my arms, covered her -with kisses in which there was a sob of atonement. - -Nonetheless, the rest of the day I watched for further occasion to -approach my colleague, especially as, toward evening, I began to fancy -she rather sought to avoid me. I overtook her, I remember, on the -staircase; we went down together, and at the bottom I detained her, -holding her there with a hand on her arm. “I take what you said to me at -noon as a declaration that YOU’VE never known him to be bad.” - -She threw back her head; she had clearly, by this time, and very -honestly, adopted an attitude. “Oh, never known him--I don’t pretend -THAT!” - -I was upset again. “Then you HAVE known him--?” - -“Yes indeed, miss, thank God!” - -On reflection I accepted this. “You mean that a boy who never is--?” - -“Is no boy for ME!” - -I held her tighter. “You like them with the spirit to be naughty?” Then, -keeping pace with her answer, “So do I!” I eagerly brought out. “But not -to the degree to contaminate--” - -“To contaminate?”--my big word left her at a loss. I explained it. “To -corrupt.” - -She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her an odd laugh. -“Are you afraid he’ll corrupt YOU?” She put the question with such a -fine bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, to match -her own, I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule. - -But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped up in -another place. “What was the lady who was here before?” - -“The last governess? She was also young and pretty--almost as young and -almost as pretty, miss, even as you.” - -“Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her!” I recollect -throwing off. “He seems to like us young and pretty!” - -“Oh, he DID,” Mrs. Grose assented: “it was the way he liked everyone!” - She had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself up. “I mean -that’s HIS way--the master’s.” - -I was struck. “But of whom did you speak first?” - -She looked blank, but she colored. “Why, of HIM.” - -“Of the master?” - -“Of who else?” - -There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I had lost my -impression of her having accidentally said more than she meant; and I -merely asked what I wanted to know. “Did SHE see anything in the boy--?” - -“That wasn’t right? She never told me.” - -I had a scruple, but I overcame it. “Was she careful--particular?” - -Mrs. Grose appeared to try to be conscientious. “About some -things--yes.” - -“But not about all?” - -Again she considered. “Well, miss--she’s gone. I won’t tell tales.” - -“I quite understand your feeling,” I hastened to reply; but I thought -it, after an instant, not opposed to this concession to pursue: “Did she -die here?” - -“No--she went off.” - -I don’t know what there was in this brevity of Mrs. Grose’s that struck -me as ambiguous. “Went off to die?” Mrs. Grose looked straight out of -the window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right to know what -young persons engaged for Bly were expected to do. “She was taken ill, -you mean, and went home?” - -“She was not taken ill, so far as appeared, in this house. She left it, -at the end of the year, to go home, as she said, for a short holiday, -to which the time she had put in had certainly given her a right. We -had then a young woman--a nursemaid who had stayed on and who was a good -girl and clever; and SHE took the children altogether for the interval. -But our young lady never came back, and at the very moment I was -expecting her I heard from the master that she was dead.” - -I turned this over. “But of what?” - -“He never told me! But please, miss,” said Mrs. Grose, “I must get to my -work.” - - - - -III - - -Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just -preoccupations, a snub that could check the growth of our mutual esteem. -We met, after I had brought home little Miles, more intimately than ever -on the ground of my stupefaction, my general emotion: so monstrous was I -then ready to pronounce it that such a child as had now been revealed to -me should be under an interdict. I was a little late on the scene, and -I felt, as he stood wistfully looking out for me before the door of the -inn at which the coach had put him down, that I had seen him, on the -instant, without and within, in the great glow of freshness, the same -positive fragrance of purity, in which I had, from the first moment, -seen his little sister. He was incredibly beautiful, and Mrs. Grose had -put her finger on it: everything but a sort of passion of tenderness for -him was swept away by his presence. What I then and there took him to -my heart for was something divine that I have never found to the same -degree in any child--his indescribable little air of knowing nothing in -the world but love. It would have been impossible to carry a bad name -with a greater sweetness of innocence, and by the time I had got back to -Bly with him I remained merely bewildered--so far, that is, as I was not -outraged--by the sense of the horrible letter locked up in my room, in -a drawer. As soon as I could compass a private word with Mrs. Grose I -declared to her that it was grotesque. - -She promptly understood me. “You mean the cruel charge--?” - -“It doesn’t live an instant. My dear woman, LOOK at him!” - -She smiled at my pretention to have discovered his charm. “I assure -you, miss, I do nothing else! What will you say, then?” she immediately -added. - -“In answer to the letter?” I had made up my mind. “Nothing.” - -“And to his uncle?” - -I was incisive. “Nothing.” - -“And to the boy himself?” - -I was wonderful. “Nothing.” - -She gave with her apron a great wipe to her mouth. “Then I’ll stand by -you. We’ll see it out.” - -“We’ll see it out!” I ardently echoed, giving her my hand to make it a -vow. - -She held me there a moment, then whisked up her apron again with her -detached hand. “Would you mind, miss, if I used the freedom--” - -“To kiss me? No!” I took the good creature in my arms and, after we had -embraced like sisters, felt still more fortified and indignant. - -This, at all events, was for the time: a time so full that, as I recall -the way it went, it reminds me of all the art I now need to make it a -little distinct. What I look back at with amazement is the situation I -accepted. I had undertaken, with my companion, to see it out, and I was -under a charm, apparently, that could smooth away the extent and the -far and difficult connections of such an effort. I was lifted aloft on a -great wave of infatuation and pity. I found it simple, in my ignorance, -my confusion, and perhaps my conceit, to assume that I could deal with -a boy whose education for the world was all on the point of beginning. -I am unable even to remember at this day what proposal I framed for the -end of his holidays and the resumption of his studies. Lessons with me, -indeed, that charming summer, we all had a theory that he was to have; -but I now feel that, for weeks, the lessons must have been rather my -own. I learned something--at first, certainly--that had not been one -of the teachings of my small, smothered life; learned to be amused, and -even amusing, and not to think for the morrow. It was the first time, in -a manner, that I had known space and air and freedom, all the music -of summer and all the mystery of nature. And then there was -consideration--and consideration was sweet. Oh, it was a trap--not -designed, but deep--to my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps to my -vanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable. The best way to picture -it all is to say that I was off my guard. They gave me so little -trouble--they were of a gentleness so extraordinary. I used to -speculate--but even this with a dim disconnectedness--as to how the -rough future (for all futures are rough!) would handle them and might -bruise them. They had the bloom of health and happiness; and yet, as -if I had been in charge of a pair of little grandees, of princes of the -blood, for whom everything, to be right, would have to be enclosed and -protected, the only form that, in my fancy, the afteryears could take -for them was that of a romantic, a really royal extension of the garden -and the park. It may be, of course, above all, that what suddenly broke -into this gives the previous time a charm of stillness--that hush in -which something gathers or crouches. The change was actually like the -spring of a beast. - -In the first weeks the days were long; they often, at their finest, -gave me what I used to call my own hour, the hour when, for my pupils, -teatime and bedtime having come and gone, I had, before my final -retirement, a small interval alone. Much as I liked my companions, this -hour was the thing in the day I liked most; and I liked it best of all -when, as the light faded--or rather, I should say, the day lingered and -the last calls of the last birds sounded, in a flushed sky, from the -old trees--I could take a turn into the grounds and enjoy, almost with -a sense of property that amused and flattered me, the beauty and dignity -of the place. It was a pleasure at these moments to feel myself -tranquil and justified; doubtless, perhaps, also to reflect that by my -discretion, my quiet good sense and general high propriety, I was giving -pleasure--if he ever thought of it!--to the person to whose pressure -I had responded. What I was doing was what he had earnestly hoped and -directly asked of me, and that I COULD, after all, do it proved even a -greater joy than I had expected. I daresay I fancied myself, in short, -a remarkable young woman and took comfort in the faith that this would -more publicly appear. Well, I needed to be remarkable to offer a front -to the remarkable things that presently gave their first sign. - -It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour: the children -were tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll. One of the thoughts -that, as I don’t in the least shrink now from noting, used to be with me -in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story -suddenly to meet someone. Someone would appear there at the turn of a -path and would stand before me and smile and approve. I didn’t ask more -than that--I only asked that he should KNOW; and the only way to be sure -he knew would be to see it, and the kind light of it, in his handsome -face. That was exactly present to me--by which I mean the face -was--when, on the first of these occasions, at the end of a long June -day, I stopped short on emerging from one of the plantations and coming -into view of the house. What arrested me on the spot--and with a shock -much greater than any vision had allowed for--was the sense that my -imagination had, in a flash, turned real. He did stand there!--but high -up, beyond the lawn and at the very top of the tower to which, on that -first morning, little Flora had conducted me. This tower was one of -a pair--square, incongruous, crenelated structures--that were -distinguished, for some reason, though I could see little difference, -as the new and the old. They flanked opposite ends of the house and were -probably architectural absurdities, redeemed in a measure indeed by -not being wholly disengaged nor of a height too pretentious, dating, in -their gingerbread antiquity, from a romantic revival that was already a -respectable past. I admired them, had fancies about them, for we could -all profit in a degree, especially when they loomed through the dusk, -by the grandeur of their actual battlements; yet it was not at such an -elevation that the figure I had so often invoked seemed most in place. - -It produced in me, this figure, in the clear twilight, I remember, two -distinct gasps of emotion, which were, sharply, the shock of my first -and that of my second surprise. My second was a violent perception of -the mistake of my first: the man who met my eyes was not the person -I had precipitately supposed. There came to me thus a bewilderment of -vision of which, after these years, there is no living view that I can -hope to give. An unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object -of fear to a young woman privately bred; and the figure that faced me -was--a few more seconds assured me--as little anyone else I knew as -it was the image that had been in my mind. I had not seen it in -Harley Street--I had not seen it anywhere. The place, moreover, in the -strangest way in the world, had, on the instant, and by the very fact of -its appearance, become a solitude. To me at least, making my statement -here with a deliberation with which I have never made it, the whole -feeling of the moment returns. It was as if, while I took in--what I did -take in--all the rest of the scene had been stricken with death. I can -hear again, as I write, the intense hush in which the sounds of evening -dropped. The rooks stopped cawing in the golden sky, and the friendly -hour lost, for the minute, all its voice. But there was no other change -in nature, unless indeed it were a change that I saw with a stranger -sharpness. The gold was still in the sky, the clearness in the air, -and the man who looked at me over the battlements was as definite as a -picture in a frame. That’s how I thought, with extraordinary quickness, -of each person that he might have been and that he was not. We were -confronted across our distance quite long enough for me to ask myself -with intensity who then he was and to feel, as an effect of my inability -to say, a wonder that in a few instants more became intense. - -The great question, or one of these, is, afterward, I know, with regard -to certain matters, the question of how long they have lasted. Well, -this matter of mine, think what you will of it, lasted while I caught at -a dozen possibilities, none of which made a difference for the better, -that I could see, in there having been in the house--and for how long, -above all?--a person of whom I was in ignorance. It lasted while I -just bridled a little with the sense that my office demanded that there -should be no such ignorance and no such person. It lasted while this -visitant, at all events--and there was a touch of the strange freedom, -as I remember, in the sign of familiarity of his wearing no hat--seemed -to fix me, from his position, with just the question, just the scrutiny -through the fading light, that his own presence provoked. We were too -far apart to call to each other, but there was a moment at which, at -shorter range, some challenge between us, breaking the hush, would have -been the right result of our straight mutual stare. He was in one of the -angles, the one away from the house, very erect, as it struck me, and -with both hands on the ledge. So I saw him as I see the letters I -form on this page; then, exactly, after a minute, as if to add to the -spectacle, he slowly changed his place--passed, looking at me hard -all the while, to the opposite corner of the platform. Yes, I had the -sharpest sense that during this transit he never took his eyes from me, -and I can see at this moment the way his hand, as he went, passed from -one of the crenelations to the next. He stopped at the other corner, but -less long, and even as he turned away still markedly fixed me. He turned -away; that was all I knew. - - - - -IV - - -It was not that I didn’t wait, on this occasion, for more, for I was -rooted as deeply as I was shaken. Was there a “secret” at Bly--a mystery -of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected -confinement? I can’t say how long I turned it over, or how long, in -a confusion of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had had my -collision; I only recall that when I re-entered the house darkness had -quite closed in. Agitation, in the interval, certainly had held me and -driven me, for I must, in circling about the place, have walked three -miles; but I was to be, later on, so much more overwhelmed that this -mere dawn of alarm was a comparatively human chill. The most singular -part of it, in fact--singular as the rest had been--was the part I -became, in the hall, aware of in meeting Mrs. Grose. This picture comes -back to me in the general train--the impression, as I received it on my -return, of the wide white panelled space, bright in the lamplight and -with its portraits and red carpet, and of the good surprised look of -my friend, which immediately told me she had missed me. It came to -me straightway, under her contact, that, with plain heartiness, mere -relieved anxiety at my appearance, she knew nothing whatever that could -bear upon the incident I had there ready for her. I had not suspected -in advance that her comfortable face would pull me up, and I somehow -measured the importance of what I had seen by my thus finding myself -hesitate to mention it. Scarce anything in the whole history seems to -me so odd as this fact that my real beginning of fear was one, as I -may say, with the instinct of sparing my companion. On the spot, -accordingly, in the pleasant hall and with her eyes on me, I, for -a reason that I couldn’t then have phrased, achieved an inward -resolution--offered a vague pretext for my lateness and, with the plea -of the beauty of the night and of the heavy dew and wet feet, went as -soon as possible to my room. - -Here it was another affair; here, for many days after, it was a queer -affair enough. There were hours, from day to day--or at least there were -moments, snatched even from clear duties--when I had to shut myself up -to think. It was not so much yet that I was more nervous than I could -bear to be as that I was remarkably afraid of becoming so; for the truth -I had now to turn over was, simply and clearly, the truth that I could -arrive at no account whatever of the visitor with whom I had been so -inexplicably and yet, as it seemed to me, so intimately concerned. It -took little time to see that I could sound without forms of inquiry -and without exciting remark any domestic complications. The shock I had -suffered must have sharpened all my senses; I felt sure, at the end of -three days and as the result of mere closer attention, that I had not -been practiced upon by the servants nor made the object of any “game.” - Of whatever it was that I knew, nothing was known around me. There was -but one sane inference: someone had taken a liberty rather gross. That -was what, repeatedly, I dipped into my room and locked the door to say -to myself. We had been, collectively, subject to an intrusion; some -unscrupulous traveler, curious in old houses, had made his way in -unobserved, enjoyed the prospect from the best point of view, and then -stolen out as he came. If he had given me such a bold hard stare, that -was but a part of his indiscretion. The good thing, after all, was that -we should surely see no more of him. - -This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that -what, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming -work. My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, and -through nothing could I so like it as through feeling that I could throw -myself into it in trouble. The attraction of my small charges was a -constant joy, leading me to wonder afresh at the vanity of my original -fears, the distaste I had begun by entertaining for the probable gray -prose of my office. There was to be no gray prose, it appeared, and no -long grind; so how could work not be charming that presented itself as -daily beauty? It was all the romance of the nursery and the poetry of -the schoolroom. I don’t mean by this, of course, that we studied -only fiction and verse; I mean I can express no otherwise the sort -of interest my companions inspired. How can I describe that except by -saying that instead of growing used to them--and it’s a marvel for a -governess: I call the sisterhood to witness!--I made constant fresh -discoveries. There was one direction, assuredly, in which these -discoveries stopped: deep obscurity continued to cover the region of the -boy’s conduct at school. It had been promptly given me, I have noted, -to face that mystery without a pang. Perhaps even it would be nearer the -truth to say that--without a word--he himself had cleared it up. He had -made the whole charge absurd. My conclusion bloomed there with the -real rose flush of his innocence: he was only too fine and fair for the -little horrid, unclean school world, and he had paid a price for it. I -reflected acutely that the sense of such differences, such superiorities -of quality, always, on the part of the majority--which could include -even stupid, sordid headmasters--turn infallibly to the vindictive. - -Both the children had a gentleness (it was their only fault, and it -never made Miles a muff) that kept them--how shall I express it?--almost -impersonal and certainly quite unpunishable. They were like the cherubs -of the anecdote, who had--morally, at any rate--nothing to whack! I -remember feeling with Miles in especial as if he had had, as it were, no -history. We expect of a small child a scant one, but there was in -this beautiful little boy something extraordinarily sensitive, yet -extraordinarily happy, that, more than in any creature of his age I have -seen, struck me as beginning anew each day. He had never for a second -suffered. I took this as a direct disproof of his having really been -chastised. If he had been wicked he would have “caught” it, and I should -have caught it by the rebound--I should have found the trace. I found -nothing at all, and he was therefore an angel. He never spoke of his -school, never mentioned a comrade or a master; and I, for my part, was -quite too much disgusted to allude to them. Of course I was under the -spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly -knew I was. But I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to any -pain, and I had more pains than one. I was in receipt in these days of -disturbing letters from home, where things were not going well. But with -my children, what things in the world mattered? That was the question -I used to put to my scrappy retirements. I was dazzled by their -loveliness. - -There was a Sunday--to get on--when it rained with such force and for so -many hours that there could be no procession to church; in consequence -of which, as the day declined, I had arranged with Mrs. Grose that, -should the evening show improvement, we would attend together the late -service. The rain happily stopped, and I prepared for our walk, which, -through the park and by the good road to the village, would be a matter -of twenty minutes. Coming downstairs to meet my colleague in the hall, -I remembered a pair of gloves that had required three stitches and that -had received them--with a publicity perhaps not edifying--while I sat -with the children at their tea, served on Sundays, by exception, in that -cold, clean temple of mahogany and brass, the “grown-up” dining room. -The gloves had been dropped there, and I turned in to recover them. -The day was gray enough, but the afternoon light still lingered, and it -enabled me, on crossing the threshold, not only to recognize, on a chair -near the wide window, then closed, the articles I wanted, but to become -aware of a person on the other side of the window and looking straight -in. One step into the room had sufficed; my vision was instantaneous; -it was all there. The person looking straight in was the person who had -already appeared to me. He appeared thus again with I won’t say -greater distinctness, for that was impossible, but with a nearness that -represented a forward stride in our intercourse and made me, as I met -him, catch my breath and turn cold. He was the same--he was the same, -and seen, this time, as he had been seen before, from the waist up, the -window, though the dining room was on the ground floor, not going down -to the terrace on which he stood. His face was close to the glass, -yet the effect of this better view was, strangely, only to show me how -intense the former had been. He remained but a few seconds--long enough -to convince me he also saw and recognized; but it was as if I had been -looking at him for years and had known him always. Something, however, -happened this time that had not happened before; his stare into my face, -through the glass and across the room, was as deep and hard as then, but -it quitted me for a moment during which I could still watch it, see it -fix successively several other things. On the spot there came to me the -added shock of a certitude that it was not for me he had come there. He -had come for someone else. - -The flash of this knowledge--for it was knowledge in the midst of -dread--produced in me the most extraordinary effect, started as I stood -there, a sudden vibration of duty and courage. I say courage because -I was beyond all doubt already far gone. I bounded straight out of the -door again, reached that of the house, got, in an instant, upon the -drive, and, passing along the terrace as fast as I could rush, turned -a corner and came full in sight. But it was in sight of nothing now--my -visitor had vanished. I stopped, I almost dropped, with the real relief -of this; but I took in the whole scene--I gave him time to reappear. I -call it time, but how long was it? I can’t speak to the purpose today -of the duration of these things. That kind of measure must have left me: -they couldn’t have lasted as they actually appeared to me to last. The -terrace and the whole place, the lawn and the garden beyond it, all I -could see of the park, were empty with a great emptiness. There were -shrubberies and big trees, but I remember the clear assurance I felt -that none of them concealed him. He was there or was not there: not -there if I didn’t see him. I got hold of this; then, instinctively, -instead of returning as I had come, went to the window. It was -confusedly present to me that I ought to place myself where he had -stood. I did so; I applied my face to the pane and looked, as he had -looked, into the room. As if, at this moment, to show me exactly what -his range had been, Mrs. Grose, as I had done for himself just before, -came in from the hall. With this I had the full image of a repetition of -what had already occurred. She saw me as I had seen my own visitant; she -pulled up short as I had done; I gave her something of the shock that -I had received. She turned white, and this made me ask myself if I had -blanched as much. She stared, in short, and retreated on just MY lines, -and I knew she had then passed out and come round to me and that I -should presently meet her. I remained where I was, and while I waited -I thought of more things than one. But there’s only one I take space to -mention. I wondered why SHE should be scared. - - - - -V - - -Oh, she let me know as soon as, round the corner of the house, she -loomed again into view. “What in the name of goodness is the matter--?” - She was now flushed and out of breath. - -I said nothing till she came quite near. “With me?” I must have made a -wonderful face. “Do I show it?” - -“You’re as white as a sheet. You look awful.” - -I considered; I could meet on this, without scruple, any innocence. My -need to respect the bloom of Mrs. Grose’s had dropped, without a rustle, -from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not with what -I kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held her hard -a little, liking to feel her close to me. There was a kind of support in -the shy heave of her surprise. “You came for me for church, of course, -but I can’t go.” - -“Has anything happened?” - -“Yes. You must know now. Did I look very queer?” - -“Through this window? Dreadful!” - -“Well,” I said, “I’ve been frightened.” Mrs. Grose’s eyes expressed -plainly that SHE had no wish to be, yet also that she knew too well her -place not to be ready to share with me any marked inconvenience. Oh, -it was quite settled that she MUST share! “Just what you saw from the -dining room a minute ago was the effect of that. What _I_ saw--just -before--was much worse.” - -Her hand tightened. “What was it?” - -“An extraordinary man. Looking in.” - -“What extraordinary man?” - -“I haven’t the least idea.” - -Mrs. Grose gazed round us in vain. “Then where is he gone?” - -“I know still less.” - -“Have you seen him before?” - -“Yes--once. On the old tower.” - -She could only look at me harder. “Do you mean he’s a stranger?” - -“Oh, very much!” - -“Yet you didn’t tell me?” - -“No--for reasons. But now that you’ve guessed--” - -Mrs. Grose’s round eyes encountered this charge. “Ah, I haven’t -guessed!” she said very simply. “How can I if YOU don’t imagine?” - -“I don’t in the very least.” - -“You’ve seen him nowhere but on the tower?” - -“And on this spot just now.” - -Mrs. Grose looked round again. “What was he doing on the tower?” - -“Only standing there and looking down at me.” - -She thought a minute. “Was he a gentleman?” - -I found I had no need to think. “No.” She gazed in deeper wonder. “No.” - -“Then nobody about the place? Nobody from the village?” - -“Nobody--nobody. I didn’t tell you, but I made sure.” - -She breathed a vague relief: this was, oddly, so much to the good. It -only went indeed a little way. “But if he isn’t a gentleman--” - -“What IS he? He’s a horror.” - -“A horror?” - -“He’s--God help me if I know WHAT he is!” - -Mrs. Grose looked round once more; she fixed her eyes on the duskier -distance, then, pulling herself together, turned to me with abrupt -inconsequence. “It’s time we should be at church.” - -“Oh, I’m not fit for church!” - -“Won’t it do you good?” - -“It won’t do THEM--! I nodded at the house. - -“The children?” - -“I can’t leave them now.” - -“You’re afraid--?” - -I spoke boldly. “I’m afraid of HIM.” - -Mrs. Grose’s large face showed me, at this, for the first time, the -faraway faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute: I somehow made out -in it the delayed dawn of an idea I myself had not given her and that -was as yet quite obscure to me. It comes back to me that I thought -instantly of this as something I could get from her; and I felt it to be -connected with the desire she presently showed to know more. “When was -it--on the tower?” - -“About the middle of the month. At this same hour.” - -“Almost at dark,” said Mrs. Grose. - -“Oh, no, not nearly. I saw him as I see you.” - -“Then how did he get in?” - -“And how did he get out?” I laughed. “I had no opportunity to ask him! -This evening, you see,” I pursued, “he has not been able to get in.” - -“He only peeps?” - -“I hope it will be confined to that!” She had now let go my hand; she -turned away a little. I waited an instant; then I brought out: “Go to -church. Goodbye. I must watch.” - -Slowly she faced me again. “Do you fear for them?” - -We met in another long look. “Don’t YOU?” Instead of answering she came -nearer to the window and, for a minute, applied her face to the glass. -“You see how he could see,” I meanwhile went on. - -She didn’t move. “How long was he here?” - -“Till I came out. I came to meet him.” - -Mrs. Grose at last turned round, and there was still more in her face. -“_I_ couldn’t have come out.” - -“Neither could I!” I laughed again. “But I did come. I have my duty.” - -“So have I mine,” she replied; after which she added: “What is he like?” - -“I’ve been dying to tell you. But he’s like nobody.” - -“Nobody?” she echoed. - -“He has no hat.” Then seeing in her face that she already, in this, with -a deeper dismay, found a touch of picture, I quickly added stroke to -stroke. “He has red hair, very red, close-curling, and a pale face, long -in shape, with straight, good features and little, rather queer whiskers -that are as red as his hair. His eyebrows are, somehow, darker; they -look particularly arched and as if they might move a good deal. His eyes -are sharp, strange--awfully; but I only know clearly that they’re rather -small and very fixed. His mouth’s wide, and his lips are thin, and -except for his little whiskers he’s quite clean-shaven. He gives me a -sort of sense of looking like an actor.” - -“An actor!” It was impossible to resemble one less, at least, than Mrs. -Grose at that moment. - -“I’ve never seen one, but so I suppose them. He’s tall, active, erect,” - I continued, “but never--no, never!--a gentleman.” - -My companion’s face had blanched as I went on; her round eyes started -and her mild mouth gaped. “A gentleman?” she gasped, confounded, -stupefied: “a gentleman HE?” - -“You know him then?” - -She visibly tried to hold herself. “But he IS handsome?” - -I saw the way to help her. “Remarkably!” - -“And dressed--?” - -“In somebody’s clothes.” “They’re smart, but they’re not his own.” - -She broke into a breathless affirmative groan: “They’re the master’s!” - -I caught it up. “You DO know him?” - -She faltered but a second. “Quint!” she cried. - -“Quint?” - -“Peter Quint--his own man, his valet, when he was here!” - -“When the master was?” - -Gaping still, but meeting me, she pieced it all together. “He never wore -his hat, but he did wear--well, there were waistcoats missed. They were -both here--last year. Then the master went, and Quint was alone.” - -I followed, but halting a little. “Alone?” - -“Alone with US.” Then, as from a deeper depth, “In charge,” she added. - -“And what became of him?” - -She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. “He went, too,” - she brought out at last. - -“Went where?” - -Her expression, at this, became extraordinary. “God knows where! He -died.” - -“Died?” I almost shrieked. - -She seemed fairly to square herself, plant herself more firmly to utter -the wonder of it. “Yes. Mr. Quint is dead.” - - - - -VI - - -It took of course more than that particular passage to place us together -in presence of what we had now to live with as we could--my dreadful -liability to impressions of the order so vividly exemplified, and my -companion’s knowledge, henceforth--a knowledge half consternation and -half compassion--of that liability. There had been, this evening, after -the revelation left me, for an hour, so prostrate--there had been, for -either of us, no attendance on any service but a little service of tears -and vows, of prayers and promises, a climax to the series of mutual -challenges and pledges that had straightway ensued on our retreating -together to the schoolroom and shutting ourselves up there to have -everything out. The result of our having everything out was simply to -reduce our situation to the last rigor of its elements. She herself had -seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the house but -the governess was in the governess’s plight; yet she accepted without -directly impugning my sanity the truth as I gave it to her, and ended by -showing me, on this ground, an awestricken tenderness, an expression -of the sense of my more than questionable privilege, of which the very -breath has remained with me as that of the sweetest of human charities. - -What was settled between us, accordingly, that night, was that we -thought we might bear things together; and I was not even sure that, -in spite of her exemption, it was she who had the best of the burden. I -knew at this hour, I think, as well as I knew later, what I was capable -of meeting to shelter my pupils; but it took me some time to be wholly -sure of what my honest ally was prepared for to keep terms with so -compromising a contract. I was queer company enough--quite as queer as -the company I received; but as I trace over what we went through I see -how much common ground we must have found in the one idea that, by good -fortune, COULD steady us. It was the idea, the second movement, that led -me straight out, as I may say, of the inner chamber of my dread. I could -take the air in the court, at least, and there Mrs. Grose could join me. -Perfectly can I recall now the particular way strength came to me before -we separated for the night. We had gone over and over every feature of -what I had seen. - -“He was looking for someone else, you say--someone who was not you?” - -“He was looking for little Miles.” A portentous clearness now possessed -me. “THAT’S whom he was looking for.” - -“But how do you know?” - -“I know, I know, I know!” My exaltation grew. “And YOU know, my dear!” - -She didn’t deny this, but I required, I felt, not even so much telling -as that. She resumed in a moment, at any rate: “What if HE should see -him?” - -“Little Miles? That’s what he wants!” - -She looked immensely scared again. “The child?” - -“Heaven forbid! The man. He wants to appear to THEM.” That he might was -an awful conception, and yet, somehow, I could keep it at bay; which, -moreover, as we lingered there, was what I succeeded in practically -proving. I had an absolute certainty that I should see again what I -had already seen, but something within me said that by offering myself -bravely as the sole subject of such experience, by accepting, by -inviting, by surmounting it all, I should serve as an expiatory victim -and guard the tranquility of my companions. The children, in especial, -I should thus fence about and absolutely save. I recall one of the last -things I said that night to Mrs. Grose. - -“It does strike me that my pupils have never mentioned--” - -She looked at me hard as I musingly pulled up. “His having been here and -the time they were with him?” - -“The time they were with him, and his name, his presence, his history, -in any way.” - -“Oh, the little lady doesn’t remember. She never heard or knew.” - -“The circumstances of his death?” I thought with some intensity. -“Perhaps not. But Miles would remember--Miles would know.” - -“Ah, don’t try him!” broke from Mrs. Grose. - -I returned her the look she had given me. “Don’t be afraid.” I continued -to think. “It IS rather odd.” - -“That he has never spoken of him?” - -“Never by the least allusion. And you tell me they were ‘great -friends’?” - -“Oh, it wasn’t HIM!” Mrs. Grose with emphasis declared. “It was Quint’s -own fancy. To play with him, I mean--to spoil him.” She paused a moment; -then she added: “Quint was much too free.” - -This gave me, straight from my vision of his face--SUCH a face!--a -sudden sickness of disgust. “Too free with MY boy?” - -“Too free with everyone!” - -I forbore, for the moment, to analyze this description further than by -the reflection that a part of it applied to several of the members of -the household, of the half-dozen maids and men who were still of our -small colony. But there was everything, for our apprehension, in the -lucky fact that no discomfortable legend, no perturbation of scullions, -had ever, within anyone’s memory attached to the kind old place. It had -neither bad name nor ill fame, and Mrs. Grose, most apparently, only -desired to cling to me and to quake in silence. I even put her, the very -last thing of all, to the test. It was when, at midnight, she had her -hand on the schoolroom door to take leave. “I have it from you then--for -it’s of great importance--that he was definitely and admittedly bad?” - -“Oh, not admittedly. _I_ knew it--but the master didn’t.” - -“And you never told him?” - -“Well, he didn’t like tale-bearing--he hated complaints. He was terribly -short with anything of that kind, and if people were all right to HIM--” - -“He wouldn’t be bothered with more?” This squared well enough with my -impressions of him: he was not a trouble-loving gentleman, nor so very -particular perhaps about some of the company HE kept. All the same, I -pressed my interlocutress. “I promise you _I_ would have told!” - -She felt my discrimination. “I daresay I was wrong. But, really, I was -afraid.” - -“Afraid of what?” - -“Of things that man could do. Quint was so clever--he was so deep.” - -I took this in still more than, probably, I showed. “You weren’t afraid -of anything else? Not of his effect--?” - -“His effect?” she repeated with a face of anguish and waiting while I -faltered. - -“On innocent little precious lives. They were in your charge.” - -“No, they were not in mine!” she roundly and distressfully returned. -“The master believed in him and placed him here because he was supposed -not to be well and the country air so good for him. So he had everything -to say. Yes”--she let me have it--“even about THEM.” - -“Them--that creature?” I had to smother a kind of howl. “And you could -bear it!” - -“No. I couldn’t--and I can’t now!” And the poor woman burst into tears. - -A rigid control, from the next day, was, as I have said, to follow them; -yet how often and how passionately, for a week, we came back together -to the subject! Much as we had discussed it that Sunday night, I was, in -the immediate later hours in especial--for it may be imagined whether I -slept--still haunted with the shadow of something she had not told me. -I myself had kept back nothing, but there was a word Mrs. Grose had kept -back. I was sure, moreover, by morning, that this was not from a failure -of frankness, but because on every side there were fears. It seems to me -indeed, in retrospect, that by the time the morrow’s sun was high I had -restlessly read into the fact before us almost all the meaning they were -to receive from subsequent and more cruel occurrences. What they gave me -above all was just the sinister figure of the living man--the dead one -would keep awhile!--and of the months he had continuously passed at Bly, -which, added up, made a formidable stretch. The limit of this evil time -had arrived only when, on the dawn of a winter’s morning, Peter Quint -was found, by a laborer going to early work, stone dead on the road -from the village: a catastrophe explained--superficially at least--by a -visible wound to his head; such a wound as might have been produced--and -as, on the final evidence, HAD been--by a fatal slip, in the dark and -after leaving the public house, on the steepish icy slope, a wrong -path altogether, at the bottom of which he lay. The icy slope, the turn -mistaken at night and in liquor, accounted for much--practically, in -the end and after the inquest and boundless chatter, for everything; but -there had been matters in his life--strange passages and perils, secret -disorders, vices more than suspected--that would have accounted for a -good deal more. - -I scarce know how to put my story into words that shall be a credible -picture of my state of mind; but I was in these days literally able to -find a joy in the extraordinary flight of heroism the occasion demanded -of me. I now saw that I had been asked for a service admirable and -difficult; and there would be a greatness in letting it be seen--oh, in -the right quarter!--that I could succeed where many another girl might -have failed. It was an immense help to me--I confess I rather applaud -myself as I look back!--that I saw my service so strongly and so simply. -I was there to protect and defend the little creatures in the world the -most bereaved and the most lovable, the appeal of whose helplessness had -suddenly become only too explicit, a deep, constant ache of one’s own -committed heart. We were cut off, really, together; we were united in -our danger. They had nothing but me, and I--well, I had THEM. It was -in short a magnificent chance. This chance presented itself to me in an -image richly material. I was a screen--I was to stand before them. The -more I saw, the less they would. I began to watch them in a stifled -suspense, a disguised excitement that might well, had it continued too -long, have turned to something like madness. What saved me, as I now -see, was that it turned to something else altogether. It didn’t last as -suspense--it was superseded by horrible proofs. Proofs, I say, yes--from -the moment I really took hold. - -This moment dated from an afternoon hour that I happened to spend in the -grounds with the younger of my pupils alone. We had left Miles indoors, -on the red cushion of a deep window seat; he had wished to finish a -book, and I had been glad to encourage a purpose so laudable in a young -man whose only defect was an occasional excess of the restless. His -sister, on the contrary, had been alert to come out, and I strolled with -her half an hour, seeking the shade, for the sun was still high and the -day exceptionally warm. I was aware afresh, with her, as we went, of -how, like her brother, she contrived--it was the charming thing in both -children--to let me alone without appearing to drop me and to accompany -me without appearing to surround. They were never importunate and yet -never listless. My attention to them all really went to seeing them -amuse themselves immensely without me: this was a spectacle they seemed -actively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer. I walked -in a world of their invention--they had no occasion whatever to draw -upon mine; so that my time was taken only with being, for them, some -remarkable person or thing that the game of the moment required and that -was merely, thanks to my superior, my exalted stamp, a happy and highly -distinguished sinecure. I forget what I was on the present occasion; -I only remember that I was something very important and very quiet and -that Flora was playing very hard. We were on the edge of the lake, and, -as we had lately begun geography, the lake was the Sea of Azof. - -Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the other -side of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. The way this -knowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing in the world--the -strangest, that is, except the very much stranger in which it quickly -merged itself. I had sat down with a piece of work--for I was something -or other that could sit--on the old stone bench which overlooked the -pond; and in this position I began to take in with certitude, and yet -without direct vision, the presence, at a distance, of a third person. -The old trees, the thick shrubbery, made a great and pleasant shade, but -it was all suffused with the brightness of the hot, still hour. There -was no ambiguity in anything; none whatever, at least, in the conviction -I from one moment to another found myself forming as to what I should -see straight before me and across the lake as a consequence of raising -my eyes. They were attached at this juncture to the stitching in which I -was engaged, and I can feel once more the spasm of my effort not to move -them till I should so have steadied myself as to be able to make up my -mind what to do. There was an alien object in view--a figure whose right -of presence I instantly, passionately questioned. I recollect counting -over perfectly the possibilities, reminding myself that nothing was more -natural, for instance, then the appearance of one of the men about the -place, or even of a messenger, a postman, or a tradesman’s boy, from the -village. That reminder had as little effect on my practical certitude -as I was conscious--still even without looking--of its having upon the -character and attitude of our visitor. Nothing was more natural than -that these things should be the other things that they absolutely were -not. - -Of the positive identity of the apparition I would assure myself as -soon as the small clock of my courage should have ticked out the right -second; meanwhile, with an effort that was already sharp enough, I -transferred my eyes straight to little Flora, who, at the moment, was -about ten yards away. My heart had stood still for an instant with the -wonder and terror of the question whether she too would see; and I -held my breath while I waited for what a cry from her, what some sudden -innocent sign either of interest or of alarm, would tell me. I waited, -but nothing came; then, in the first place--and there is something -more dire in this, I feel, than in anything I have to relate--I was -determined by a sense that, within a minute, all sounds from her had -previously dropped; and, in the second, by the circumstance that, also -within the minute, she had, in her play, turned her back to the water. -This was her attitude when I at last looked at her--looked with the -confirmed conviction that we were still, together, under direct personal -notice. She had picked up a small flat piece of wood, which happened to -have in it a little hole that had evidently suggested to her the idea -of sticking in another fragment that might figure as a mast and make -the thing a boat. This second morsel, as I watched her, she was -very markedly and intently attempting to tighten in its place. My -apprehension of what she was doing sustained me so that after some -seconds I felt I was ready for more. Then I again shifted my eyes--I -faced what I had to face. - - - - -VII - - -I got hold of Mrs. Grose as soon after this as I could; and I can give -no intelligible account of how I fought out the interval. Yet I still -hear myself cry as I fairly threw myself into her arms: “They KNOW--it’s -too monstrous: they know, they know!” - -“And what on earth--?” I felt her incredulity as she held me. - -“Why, all that WE know--and heaven knows what else besides!” Then, as -she released me, I made it out to her, made it out perhaps only now with -full coherency even to myself. “Two hours ago, in the garden”--I could -scarce articulate--“Flora SAW!” - -Mrs. Grose took it as she might have taken a blow in the stomach. “She -has told you?” she panted. - -“Not a word--that’s the horror. She kept it to herself! The child of -eight, THAT child!” Unutterable still, for me, was the stupefaction of -it. - -Mrs. Grose, of course, could only gape the wider. “Then how do you -know?” - -“I was there--I saw with my eyes: saw that she was perfectly aware.” - -“Do you mean aware of HIM?” - -“No--of HER.” I was conscious as I spoke that I looked prodigious -things, for I got the slow reflection of them in my companion’s face. -“Another person--this time; but a figure of quite as unmistakable horror -and evil: a woman in black, pale and dreadful--with such an air also, -and such a face!--on the other side of the lake. I was there with the -child--quiet for the hour; and in the midst of it she came.” - -“Came how--from where?” - -“From where they come from! She just appeared and stood there--but not -so near.” - -“And without coming nearer?” - -“Oh, for the effect and the feeling, she might have been as close as -you!” - -My friend, with an odd impulse, fell back a step. “Was she someone -you’ve never seen?” - -“Yes. But someone the child has. Someone YOU have.” Then, to show how I -had thought it all out: “My predecessor--the one who died.” - -“Miss Jessel?” - -“Miss Jessel. You don’t believe me?” I pressed. - -She turned right and left in her distress. “How can you be sure?” - -This drew from me, in the state of my nerves, a flash of impatience. -“Then ask Flora--SHE’S sure!” But I had no sooner spoken than I caught -myself up. “No, for God’s sake, DON’T! She’ll say she isn’t--she’ll -lie!” - -Mrs. Grose was not too bewildered instinctively to protest. “Ah, how CAN -you?” - -“Because I’m clear. Flora doesn’t want me to know.” - -“It’s only then to spare you.” - -“No, no--there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I see -in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I don’t know what I -DON’T see--what I DON’T fear!” - -Mrs. Grose tried to keep up with me. “You mean you’re afraid of seeing -her again?” - -“Oh, no; that’s nothing--now!” Then I explained. “It’s of NOT seeing -her.” - -But my companion only looked wan. “I don’t understand you.” - -“Why, it’s that the child may keep it up--and that the child assuredly -WILL--without my knowing it.” - -At the image of this possibility Mrs. Grose for a moment collapsed, yet -presently to pull herself together again, as if from the positive force -of the sense of what, should we yield an inch, there would really be to -give way to. “Dear, dear--we must keep our heads! And after all, if she -doesn’t mind it--!” She even tried a grim joke. “Perhaps she likes it!” - -“Likes SUCH things--a scrap of an infant!” - -“Isn’t it just a proof of her blessed innocence?” my friend bravely -inquired. - -She brought me, for the instant, almost round. “Oh, we must clutch at -THAT--we must cling to it! If it isn’t a proof of what you say, it’s a -proof of--God knows what! For the woman’s a horror of horrors.” - -Mrs. Grose, at this, fixed her eyes a minute on the ground; then at last -raising them, “Tell me how you know,” she said. - -“Then you admit it’s what she was?” I cried. - -“Tell me how you know,” my friend simply repeated. - -“Know? By seeing her! By the way she looked.” - -“At you, do you mean--so wickedly?” - -“Dear me, no--I could have borne that. She gave me never a glance. She -only fixed the child.” - -Mrs. Grose tried to see it. “Fixed her?” - -“Ah, with such awful eyes!” - -She stared at mine as if they might really have resembled them. “Do you -mean of dislike?” - -“God help us, no. Of something much worse.” - -“Worse than dislike?”--this left her indeed at a loss. - -“With a determination--indescribable. With a kind of fury of intention.” - -I made her turn pale. “Intention?” - -“To get hold of her.” Mrs. Grose--her eyes just lingering on mine--gave -a shudder and walked to the window; and while she stood there looking -out I completed my statement. “THAT’S what Flora knows.” - -After a little she turned round. “The person was in black, you say?” - -“In mourning--rather poor, almost shabby. But--yes--with extraordinary -beauty.” I now recognized to what I had at last, stroke by stroke, -brought the victim of my confidence, for she quite visibly weighed -this. “Oh, handsome--very, very,” I insisted; “wonderfully handsome. But -infamous.” - -She slowly came back to me. “Miss Jessel--WAS infamous.” She once more -took my hand in both her own, holding it as tight as if to fortify me -against the increase of alarm I might draw from this disclosure. “They -were both infamous,” she finally said. - -So, for a little, we faced it once more together; and I found absolutely -a degree of help in seeing it now so straight. “I appreciate,” I said, -“the great decency of your not having hitherto spoken; but the time has -certainly come to give me the whole thing.” She appeared to assent to -this, but still only in silence; seeing which I went on: “I must have it -now. Of what did she die? Come, there was something between them.” - -“There was everything.” - -“In spite of the difference--?” - -“Oh, of their rank, their condition”--she brought it woefully out. “SHE -was a lady.” - -I turned it over; I again saw. “Yes--she was a lady.” - -“And he so dreadfully below,” said Mrs. Grose. - -I felt that I doubtless needn’t press too hard, in such company, on the -place of a servant in the scale; but there was nothing to prevent an -acceptance of my companion’s own measure of my predecessor’s abasement. -There was a way to deal with that, and I dealt; the more readily for -my full vision--on the evidence--of our employer’s late clever, -good-looking “own” man; impudent, assured, spoiled, depraved. “The -fellow was a hound.” - -Mrs. Grose considered as if it were perhaps a little a case for a sense -of shades. “I’ve never seen one like him. He did what he wished.” - -“With HER?” - -“With them all.” - -It was as if now in my friend’s own eyes Miss Jessel had again appeared. -I seemed at any rate, for an instant, to see their evocation of her -as distinctly as I had seen her by the pond; and I brought out with -decision: “It must have been also what SHE wished!” - -Mrs. Grose’s face signified that it had been indeed, but she said at the -same time: “Poor woman--she paid for it!” - -“Then you do know what she died of?” I asked. - -“No--I know nothing. I wanted not to know; I was glad enough I didn’t; -and I thanked heaven she was well out of this!” - -“Yet you had, then, your idea--” - -“Of her real reason for leaving? Oh, yes--as to that. She couldn’t have -stayed. Fancy it here--for a governess! And afterward I imagined--and I -still imagine. And what I imagine is dreadful.” - -“Not so dreadful as what _I_ do,” I replied; on which I must have shown -her--as I was indeed but too conscious--a front of miserable defeat. It -brought out again all her compassion for me, and at the renewed touch of -her kindness my power to resist broke down. I burst, as I had, the other -time, made her burst, into tears; she took me to her motherly breast, -and my lamentation overflowed. “I don’t do it!” I sobbed in despair; “I -don’t save or shield them! It’s far worse than I dreamed--they’re lost!” - - - - -VIII - - -What I had said to Mrs. Grose was true enough: there were in the matter -I had put before her depths and possibilities that I lacked resolution -to sound; so that when we met once more in the wonder of it we were of a -common mind about the duty of resistance to extravagant fancies. We were -to keep our heads if we should keep nothing else--difficult indeed as -that might be in the face of what, in our prodigious experience, was -least to be questioned. Late that night, while the house slept, we had -another talk in my room, when she went all the way with me as to its -being beyond doubt that I had seen exactly what I had seen. To hold her -perfectly in the pinch of that, I found I had only to ask her how, if -I had “made it up,” I came to be able to give, of each of the persons -appearing to me, a picture disclosing, to the last detail, their -special marks--a portrait on the exhibition of which she had instantly -recognized and named them. She wished of course--small blame to her!--to -sink the whole subject; and I was quick to assure her that my own -interest in it had now violently taken the form of a search for the way -to escape from it. I encountered her on the ground of a probability that -with recurrence--for recurrence we took for granted--I should get -used to my danger, distinctly professing that my personal exposure had -suddenly become the least of my discomforts. It was my new suspicion -that was intolerable; and yet even to this complication the later hours -of the day had brought a little ease. - -On leaving her, after my first outbreak, I had of course returned to my -pupils, associating the right remedy for my dismay with that sense of -their charm which I had already found to be a thing I could positively -cultivate and which had never failed me yet. I had simply, in other -words, plunged afresh into Flora’s special society and there become -aware--it was almost a luxury!--that she could put her little conscious -hand straight upon the spot that ached. She had looked at me in sweet -speculation and then had accused me to my face of having “cried.” I had -supposed I had brushed away the ugly signs: but I could literally--for -the time, at all events--rejoice, under this fathomless charity, that -they had not entirely disappeared. To gaze into the depths of blue of -the child’s eyes and pronounce their loveliness a trick of premature -cunning was to be guilty of a cynicism in preference to which I -naturally preferred to abjure my judgment and, so far as might be, my -agitation. I couldn’t abjure for merely wanting to, but I could repeat -to Mrs. Grose--as I did there, over and over, in the small hours--that -with their voices in the air, their pressure on one’s heart, and their -fragrant faces against one’s cheek, everything fell to the ground but -their incapacity and their beauty. It was a pity that, somehow, to -settle this once for all, I had equally to re-enumerate the signs of -subtlety that, in the afternoon, by the lake had made a miracle of my -show of self-possession. It was a pity to be obliged to reinvestigate -the certitude of the moment itself and repeat how it had come to me as -a revelation that the inconceivable communion I then surprised was a -matter, for either party, of habit. It was a pity that I should have had -to quaver out again the reasons for my not having, in my delusion, -so much as questioned that the little girl saw our visitant even as I -actually saw Mrs. Grose herself, and that she wanted, by just so much as -she did thus see, to make me suppose she didn’t, and at the same time, -without showing anything, arrive at a guess as to whether I myself did! -It was a pity that I needed once more to describe the portentous little -activity by which she sought to divert my attention--the perceptible -increase of movement, the greater intensity of play, the singing, the -gabbling of nonsense, and the invitation to romp. - -Yet if I had not indulged, to prove there was nothing in it, in this -review, I should have missed the two or three dim elements of comfort -that still remained to me. I should not for instance have been able to -asseverate to my friend that I was certain--which was so much to the -good--that _I_ at least had not betrayed myself. I should not have been -prompted, by stress of need, by desperation of mind--I scarce know what -to call it--to invoke such further aid to intelligence as might spring -from pushing my colleague fairly to the wall. She had told me, bit by -bit, under pressure, a great deal; but a small shifty spot on the wrong -side of it all still sometimes brushed my brow like the wing of a bat; -and I remember how on this occasion--for the sleeping house and the -concentration alike of our danger and our watch seemed to help--I felt -the importance of giving the last jerk to the curtain. “I don’t -believe anything so horrible,” I recollect saying; “no, let us put it -definitely, my dear, that I don’t. But if I did, you know, there’s -a thing I should require now, just without sparing you the least bit -more--oh, not a scrap, come!--to get out of you. What was it you had in -mind when, in our distress, before Miles came back, over the letter from -his school, you said, under my insistence, that you didn’t pretend for -him that he had not literally EVER been ‘bad’? He has NOT literally -‘ever,’ in these weeks that I myself have lived with him and so closely -watched him; he has been an imperturbable little prodigy of delightful, -lovable goodness. Therefore you might perfectly have made the claim for -him if you had not, as it happened, seen an exception to take. What was -your exception, and to what passage in your personal observation of him -did you refer?” - -It was a dreadfully austere inquiry, but levity was not our note, and, -at any rate, before the gray dawn admonished us to separate I had got -my answer. What my friend had had in mind proved to be immensely to the -purpose. It was neither more nor less than the circumstance that for -a period of several months Quint and the boy had been perpetually -together. It was in fact the very appropriate truth that she had -ventured to criticize the propriety, to hint at the incongruity, of -so close an alliance, and even to go so far on the subject as a frank -overture to Miss Jessel. Miss Jessel had, with a most strange manner, -requested her to mind her business, and the good woman had, on this, -directly approached little Miles. What she had said to him, since I -pressed, was that SHE liked to see young gentlemen not forget their -station. - -I pressed again, of course, at this. “You reminded him that Quint was -only a base menial?” - -“As you might say! And it was his answer, for one thing, that was bad.” - -“And for another thing?” I waited. “He repeated your words to Quint?” - -“No, not that. It’s just what he WOULDN’T!” she could still impress upon -me. “I was sure, at any rate,” she added, “that he didn’t. But he denied -certain occasions.” - -“What occasions?” - -“When they had been about together quite as if Quint were his tutor--and -a very grand one--and Miss Jessel only for the little lady. When he had -gone off with the fellow, I mean, and spent hours with him.” - -“He then prevaricated about it--he said he hadn’t?” Her assent was clear -enough to cause me to add in a moment: “I see. He lied.” - -“Oh!” Mrs. Grose mumbled. This was a suggestion that it didn’t matter; -which indeed she backed up by a further remark. “You see, after all, -Miss Jessel didn’t mind. She didn’t forbid him.” - -I considered. “Did he put that to you as a justification?” - -At this she dropped again. “No, he never spoke of it.” - -“Never mentioned her in connection with Quint?” - -She saw, visibly flushing, where I was coming out. “Well, he didn’t show -anything. He denied,” she repeated; “he denied.” - -Lord, how I pressed her now! “So that you could see he knew what was -between the two wretches?” - -“I don’t know--I don’t know!” the poor woman groaned. - -“You do know, you dear thing,” I replied; “only you haven’t my dreadful -boldness of mind, and you keep back, out of timidity and modesty and -delicacy, even the impression that, in the past, when you had, without -my aid, to flounder about in silence, most of all made you miserable. -But I shall get it out of you yet! There was something in the boy that -suggested to you,” I continued, “that he covered and concealed their -relation.” - -“Oh, he couldn’t prevent--” - -“Your learning the truth? I daresay! But, heavens,” I fell, with -vehemence, athinking, “what it shows that they must, to that extent, -have succeeded in making of him!” - -“Ah, nothing that’s not nice NOW!” Mrs. Grose lugubriously pleaded. - -“I don’t wonder you looked queer,” I persisted, “when I mentioned to you -the letter from his school!” - -“I doubt if I looked as queer as you!” she retorted with homely force. -“And if he was so bad then as that comes to, how is he such an angel -now?” - -“Yes, indeed--and if he was a fiend at school! How, how, how? Well,” - I said in my torment, “you must put it to me again, but I shall not be -able to tell you for some days. Only, put it to me again!” I cried in a -way that made my friend stare. “There are directions in which I must -not for the present let myself go.” Meanwhile I returned to her first -example--the one to which she had just previously referred--of the boy’s -happy capacity for an occasional slip. “If Quint--on your remonstrance -at the time you speak of--was a base menial, one of the things Miles -said to you, I find myself guessing, was that you were another.” Again -her admission was so adequate that I continued: “And you forgave him -that?” - -“Wouldn’t YOU?” - -“Oh, yes!” And we exchanged there, in the stillness, a sound of the -oddest amusement. Then I went on: “At all events, while he was with the -man--” - -“Miss Flora was with the woman. It suited them all!” - -It suited me, too, I felt, only too well; by which I mean that it suited -exactly the particularly deadly view I was in the very act of forbidding -myself to entertain. But I so far succeeded in checking the expression -of this view that I will throw, just here, no further light on it than -may be offered by the mention of my final observation to Mrs. Grose. -“His having lied and been impudent are, I confess, less engaging -specimens than I had hoped to have from you of the outbreak in him of -the little natural man. Still,” I mused, “They must do, for they make me -feel more than ever that I must watch.” - -It made me blush, the next minute, to see in my friend’s face how much -more unreservedly she had forgiven him than her anecdote struck me as -presenting to my own tenderness an occasion for doing. This came out -when, at the schoolroom door, she quitted me. “Surely you don’t accuse -HIM--” - -“Of carrying on an intercourse that he conceals from me? Ah, remember -that, until further evidence, I now accuse nobody.” Then, before -shutting her out to go, by another passage, to her own place, “I must -just wait,” I wound up. - - - - -IX - - -I waited and waited, and the days, as they elapsed, took something from -my consternation. A very few of them, in fact, passing, in constant -sight of my pupils, without a fresh incident, sufficed to give to -grievous fancies and even to odious memories a kind of brush of the -sponge. I have spoken of the surrender to their extraordinary childish -grace as a thing I could actively cultivate, and it may be imagined if -I neglected now to address myself to this source for whatever it -would yield. Stranger than I can express, certainly, was the effort to -struggle against my new lights; it would doubtless have been, however, -a greater tension still had it not been so frequently successful. I -used to wonder how my little charges could help guessing that I thought -strange things about them; and the circumstances that these things only -made them more interesting was not by itself a direct aid to keeping -them in the dark. I trembled lest they should see that they WERE so -immensely more interesting. Putting things at the worst, at all events, -as in meditation I so often did, any clouding of their innocence could -only be--blameless and foredoomed as they were--a reason the more for -taking risks. There were moments when, by an irresistible impulse, I -found myself catching them up and pressing them to my heart. As soon as -I had done so I used to say to myself: “What will they think of that? -Doesn’t it betray too much?” It would have been easy to get into a sad, -wild tangle about how much I might betray; but the real account, I feel, -of the hours of peace that I could still enjoy was that the immediate -charm of my companions was a beguilement still effective even under the -shadow of the possibility that it was studied. For if it occurred to me -that I might occasionally excite suspicion by the little outbreaks of my -sharper passion for them, so too I remember wondering if I mightn’t see -a queerness in the traceable increase of their own demonstrations. - -They were at this period extravagantly and preternaturally fond of me; -which, after all, I could reflect, was no more than a graceful response -in children perpetually bowed over and hugged. The homage of which they -were so lavish succeeded, in truth, for my nerves, quite as well as if -I never appeared to myself, as I may say, literally to catch them at a -purpose in it. They had never, I think, wanted to do so many things for -their poor protectress; I mean--though they got their lessons better and -better, which was naturally what would please her most--in the way of -diverting, entertaining, surprising her; reading her passages, telling -her stories, acting her charades, pouncing out at her, in disguises, as -animals and historical characters, and above all astonishing her by the -“pieces” they had secretly got by heart and could interminably recite. I -should never get to the bottom--were I to let myself go even now--of the -prodigious private commentary, all under still more private correction, -with which, in these days, I overscored their full hours. They had shown -me from the first a facility for everything, a general faculty which, -taking a fresh start, achieved remarkable flights. They got their little -tasks as if they loved them, and indulged, from the mere exuberance of -the gift, in the most unimposed little miracles of memory. They not -only popped out at me as tigers and as Romans, but as Shakespeareans, -astronomers, and navigators. This was so singularly the case that it had -presumably much to do with the fact as to which, at the present day, -I am at a loss for a different explanation: I allude to my unnatural -composure on the subject of another school for Miles. What I remember -is that I was content not, for the time, to open the question, and that -contentment must have sprung from the sense of his perpetually striking -show of cleverness. He was too clever for a bad governess, for a -parson’s daughter, to spoil; and the strangest if not the brightest -thread in the pensive embroidery I just spoke of was the impression I -might have got, if I had dared to work it out, that he was under some -influence operating in his small intellectual life as a tremendous -incitement. - -If it was easy to reflect, however, that such a boy could postpone -school, it was at least as marked that for such a boy to have been -“kicked out” by a schoolmaster was a mystification without end. Let me -add that in their company now--and I was careful almost never to be out -of it--I could follow no scent very far. We lived in a cloud of music -and love and success and private theatricals. The musical sense in each -of the children was of the quickest, but the elder in especial had a -marvelous knack of catching and repeating. The schoolroom piano -broke into all gruesome fancies; and when that failed there were -confabulations in corners, with a sequel of one of them going out in -the highest spirits in order to “come in” as something new. I had had -brothers myself, and it was no revelation to me that little girls could -be slavish idolaters of little boys. What surpassed everything was that -there was a little boy in the world who could have for the inferior age, -sex, and intelligence so fine a consideration. They were extraordinarily -at one, and to say that they never either quarreled or complained is -to make the note of praise coarse for their quality of sweetness. -Sometimes, indeed, when I dropped into coarseness, I perhaps came across -traces of little understandings between them by which one of them should -keep me occupied while the other slipped away. There is a naive side, -I suppose, in all diplomacy; but if my pupils practiced upon me, it was -surely with the minimum of grossness. It was all in the other quarter -that, after a lull, the grossness broke out. - -I find that I really hang back; but I must take my plunge. In going on -with the record of what was hideous at Bly, I not only challenge the -most liberal faith--for which I little care; but--and this is another -matter--I renew what I myself suffered, I again push my way through it -to the end. There came suddenly an hour after which, as I look back, the -affair seems to me to have been all pure suffering; but I have at least -reached the heart of it, and the straightest road out is doubtless to -advance. One evening--with nothing to lead up or to prepare it--I felt -the cold touch of the impression that had breathed on me the night of -my arrival and which, much lighter then, as I have mentioned, I should -probably have made little of in memory had my subsequent sojourn been -less agitated. I had not gone to bed; I sat reading by a couple of -candles. There was a roomful of old books at Bly--last-century fiction, -some of it, which, to the extent of a distinctly deprecated renown, -but never to so much as that of a stray specimen, had reached the -sequestered home and appealed to the unavowed curiosity of my youth. I -remember that the book I had in my hand was Fielding’s Amelia; also that -I was wholly awake. I recall further both a general conviction that it -was horribly late and a particular objection to looking at my watch. I -figure, finally, that the white curtain draping, in the fashion of those -days, the head of Flora’s little bed, shrouded, as I had assured myself -long before, the perfection of childish rest. I recollect in short that, -though I was deeply interested in my author, I found myself, at the turn -of a page and with his spell all scattered, looking straight up from -him and hard at the door of my room. There was a moment during which -I listened, reminded of the faint sense I had had, the first night, of -there being something undefinably astir in the house, and noted the soft -breath of the open casement just move the half-drawn blind. Then, with -all the marks of a deliberation that must have seemed magnificent had -there been anyone to admire it, I laid down my book, rose to my feet, -and, taking a candle, went straight out of the room and, from the -passage, on which my light made little impression, noiselessly closed -and locked the door. - -I can say now neither what determined nor what guided me, but I went -straight along the lobby, holding my candle high, till I came within -sight of the tall window that presided over the great turn of the -staircase. At this point I precipitately found myself aware of three -things. They were practically simultaneous, yet they had flashes of -succession. My candle, under a bold flourish, went out, and I perceived, -by the uncovered window, that the yielding dusk of earliest morning -rendered it unnecessary. Without it, the next instant, I saw that there -was someone on the stair. I speak of sequences, but I required no lapse -of seconds to stiffen myself for a third encounter with Quint. The -apparition had reached the landing halfway up and was therefore on the -spot nearest the window, where at sight of me, it stopped short and -fixed me exactly as it had fixed me from the tower and from the garden. -He knew me as well as I knew him; and so, in the cold, faint twilight, -with a glimmer in the high glass and another on the polish of the -oak stair below, we faced each other in our common intensity. He was -absolutely, on this occasion, a living, detestable, dangerous presence. -But that was not the wonder of wonders; I reserve this distinction for -quite another circumstance: the circumstance that dread had unmistakably -quitted me and that there was nothing in me there that didn’t meet and -measure him. - -I had plenty of anguish after that extraordinary moment, but I had, -thank God, no terror. And he knew I had not--I found myself at the end -of an instant magnificently aware of this. I felt, in a fierce rigor of -confidence, that if I stood my ground a minute I should cease--for -the time, at least--to have him to reckon with; and during the minute, -accordingly, the thing was as human and hideous as a real interview: -hideous just because it WAS human, as human as to have met alone, in -the small hours, in a sleeping house, some enemy, some adventurer, -some criminal. It was the dead silence of our long gaze at such close -quarters that gave the whole horror, huge as it was, its only note of -the unnatural. If I had met a murderer in such a place and at such an -hour, we still at least would have spoken. Something would have passed, -in life, between us; if nothing had passed, one of us would have moved. -The moment was so prolonged that it would have taken but little more to -make me doubt if even _I_ were in life. I can’t express what followed it -save by saying that the silence itself--which was indeed in a manner -an attestation of my strength--became the element into which I saw the -figure disappear; in which I definitely saw it turn as I might have -seen the low wretch to which it had once belonged turn on receipt of an -order, and pass, with my eyes on the villainous back that no hunch could -have more disfigured, straight down the staircase and into the darkness -in which the next bend was lost. - - - - -X - - -I remained awhile at the top of the stair, but with the effect presently -of understanding that when my visitor had gone, he had gone: then I -returned to my room. The foremost thing I saw there by the light of the -candle I had left burning was that Flora’s little bed was empty; and on -this I caught my breath with all the terror that, five minutes before, -I had been able to resist. I dashed at the place in which I had left her -lying and over which (for the small silk counterpane and the sheets were -disarranged) the white curtains had been deceivingly pulled forward; -then my step, to my unutterable relief, produced an answering sound: I -perceived an agitation of the window blind, and the child, ducking down, -emerged rosily from the other side of it. She stood there in so much of -her candor and so little of her nightgown, with her pink bare feet and -the golden glow of her curls. She looked intensely grave, and I had -never had such a sense of losing an advantage acquired (the thrill -of which had just been so prodigious) as on my consciousness that -she addressed me with a reproach. “You naughty: where HAVE you -been?”--instead of challenging her own irregularity I found myself -arraigned and explaining. She herself explained, for that matter, with -the loveliest, eagerest simplicity. She had known suddenly, as she lay -there, that I was out of the room, and had jumped up to see what had -become of me. I had dropped, with the joy of her reappearance, back -into my chair--feeling then, and then only, a little faint; and she had -pattered straight over to me, thrown herself upon my knee, given herself -to be held with the flame of the candle full in the wonderful little -face that was still flushed with sleep. I remember closing my eyes an -instant, yieldingly, consciously, as before the excess of something -beautiful that shone out of the blue of her own. “You were looking for -me out of the window?” I said. “You thought I might be walking in the -grounds?” - -“Well, you know, I thought someone was”--she never blanched as she -smiled out that at me. - -Oh, how I looked at her now! “And did you see anyone?” - -“Ah, NO!” she returned, almost with the full privilege of childish -inconsequence, resentfully, though with a long sweetness in her little -drawl of the negative. - -At that moment, in the state of my nerves, I absolutely believed she -lied; and if I once more closed my eyes it was before the dazzle of the -three or four possible ways in which I might take this up. One of these, -for a moment, tempted me with such singular intensity that, to withstand -it, I must have gripped my little girl with a spasm that, wonderfully, -she submitted to without a cry or a sign of fright. Why not break out -at her on the spot and have it all over?--give it to her straight in her -lovely little lighted face? “You see, you see, you KNOW that you do and -that you already quite suspect I believe it; therefore, why not frankly -confess it to me, so that we may at least live with it together and -learn perhaps, in the strangeness of our fate, where we are and what -it means?” This solicitation dropped, alas, as it came: if I could -immediately have succumbed to it I might have spared myself--well, -you’ll see what. Instead of succumbing I sprang again to my feet, -looked at her bed, and took a helpless middle way. “Why did you pull the -curtain over the place to make me think you were still there?” - -Flora luminously considered; after which, with her little divine smile: -“Because I don’t like to frighten you!” - -“But if I had, by your idea, gone out--?” - -She absolutely declined to be puzzled; she turned her eyes to the flame -of the candle as if the question were as irrelevant, or at any rate as -impersonal, as Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine. “Oh, but you know,” she -quite adequately answered, “that you might come back, you dear, and that -you HAVE!” And after a little, when she had got into bed, I had, for a -long time, by almost sitting on her to hold her hand, to prove that I -recognized the pertinence of my return. - -You may imagine the general complexion, from that moment, of my nights. -I repeatedly sat up till I didn’t know when; I selected moments when my -roommate unmistakably slept, and, stealing out, took noiseless turns in -the passage and even pushed as far as to where I had last met Quint. But -I never met him there again; and I may as well say at once that I on no -other occasion saw him in the house. I just missed, on the staircase, -on the other hand, a different adventure. Looking down it from the top I -once recognized the presence of a woman seated on one of the lower steps -with her back presented to me, her body half-bowed and her head, in an -attitude of woe, in her hands. I had been there but an instant, however, -when she vanished without looking round at me. I knew, nonetheless, -exactly what dreadful face she had to show; and I wondered whether, if -instead of being above I had been below, I should have had, for going -up, the same nerve I had lately shown Quint. Well, there continued to -be plenty of chance for nerve. On the eleventh night after my latest -encounter with that gentleman--they were all numbered now--I had an -alarm that perilously skirted it and that indeed, from the particular -quality of its unexpectedness, proved quite my sharpest shock. It was -precisely the first night during this series that, weary with watching, -I had felt that I might again without laxity lay myself down at my -old hour. I slept immediately and, as I afterward knew, till about one -o’clock; but when I woke it was to sit straight up, as completely roused -as if a hand had shook me. I had left a light burning, but it was now -out, and I felt an instant certainty that Flora had extinguished it. -This brought me to my feet and straight, in the darkness, to her bed, -which I found she had left. A glance at the window enlightened me -further, and the striking of a match completed the picture. - -The child had again got up--this time blowing out the taper, and had -again, for some purpose of observation or response, squeezed in behind -the blind and was peering out into the night. That she now saw--as she -had not, I had satisfied myself, the previous time--was proved to me by -the fact that she was disturbed neither by my reillumination nor by the -haste I made to get into slippers and into a wrap. Hidden, protected, -absorbed, she evidently rested on the sill--the casement opened -forward--and gave herself up. There was a great still moon to help her, -and this fact had counted in my quick decision. She was face to face -with the apparition we had met at the lake, and could now communicate -with it as she had not then been able to do. What I, on my side, had to -care for was, without disturbing her, to reach, from the corridor, some -other window in the same quarter. I got to the door without her hearing -me; I got out of it, closed it, and listened, from the other side, for -some sound from her. While I stood in the passage I had my eyes on her -brother’s door, which was but ten steps off and which, indescribably, -produced in me a renewal of the strange impulse that I lately spoke -of as my temptation. What if I should go straight in and march to HIS -window?--what if, by risking to his boyish bewilderment a revelation of -my motive, I should throw across the rest of the mystery the long halter -of my boldness? - -This thought held me sufficiently to make me cross to his threshold and -pause again. I preternaturally listened; I figured to myself what might -portentously be; I wondered if his bed were also empty and he too were -secretly at watch. It was a deep, soundless minute, at the end of which -my impulse failed. He was quiet; he might be innocent; the risk was -hideous; I turned away. There was a figure in the grounds--a figure -prowling for a sight, the visitor with whom Flora was engaged; but it -was not the visitor most concerned with my boy. I hesitated afresh, but -on other grounds and only for a few seconds; then I had made my choice. -There were empty rooms at Bly, and it was only a question of choosing -the right one. The right one suddenly presented itself to me as the -lower one--though high above the gardens--in the solid corner of the -house that I have spoken of as the old tower. This was a large, square -chamber, arranged with some state as a bedroom, the extravagant size of -which made it so inconvenient that it had not for years, though kept by -Mrs. Grose in exemplary order, been occupied. I had often admired it and -I knew my way about in it; I had only, after just faltering at the first -chill gloom of its disuse, to pass across it and unbolt as quietly as I -could one of the shutters. Achieving this transit, I uncovered the -glass without a sound and, applying my face to the pane, was able, the -darkness without being much less than within, to see that I commanded -the right direction. Then I saw something more. The moon made the -night extraordinarily penetrable and showed me on the lawn a person, -diminished by distance, who stood there motionless and as if fascinated, -looking up to where I had appeared--looking, that is, not so much -straight at me as at something that was apparently above me. There was -clearly another person above me--there was a person on the tower; but -the presence on the lawn was not in the least what I had conceived and -had confidently hurried to meet. The presence on the lawn--I felt sick -as I made it out--was poor little Miles himself. - - - - -XI - - -It was not till late next day that I spoke to Mrs. Grose; the rigor with -which I kept my pupils in sight making it often difficult to meet -her privately, and the more as we each felt the importance of not -provoking--on the part of the servants quite as much as on that of the -children--any suspicion of a secret flurry or that of a discussion of -mysteries. I drew a great security in this particular from her mere -smooth aspect. There was nothing in her fresh face to pass on to others -my horrible confidences. She believed me, I was sure, absolutely: if she -hadn’t I don’t know what would have become of me, for I couldn’t have -borne the business alone. But she was a magnificent monument to the -blessing of a want of imagination, and if she could see in our little -charges nothing but their beauty and amiability, their happiness and -cleverness, she had no direct communication with the sources of my -trouble. If they had been at all visibly blighted or battered, she would -doubtless have grown, on tracing it back, haggard enough to match them; -as matters stood, however, I could feel her, when she surveyed them, -with her large white arms folded and the habit of serenity in all her -look, thank the Lord’s mercy that if they were ruined the pieces would -still serve. Flights of fancy gave place, in her mind, to a steady -fireside glow, and I had already begun to perceive how, with the -development of the conviction that--as time went on without a public -accident--our young things could, after all, look out for themselves, -she addressed her greatest solicitude to the sad case presented by their -instructress. That, for myself, was a sound simplification: I could -engage that, to the world, my face should tell no tales, but it would -have been, in the conditions, an immense added strain to find myself -anxious about hers. - -At the hour I now speak of she had joined me, under pressure, on the -terrace, where, with the lapse of the season, the afternoon sun was now -agreeable; and we sat there together while, before us, at a distance, -but within call if we wished, the children strolled to and fro in one -of their most manageable moods. They moved slowly, in unison, below us, -over the lawn, the boy, as they went, reading aloud from a storybook and -passing his arm round his sister to keep her quite in touch. Mrs. Grose -watched them with positive placidity; then I caught the suppressed -intellectual creak with which she conscientiously turned to take from me -a view of the back of the tapestry. I had made her a receptacle of -lurid things, but there was an odd recognition of my superiority--my -accomplishments and my function--in her patience under my pain. She -offered her mind to my disclosures as, had I wished to mix a witch’s -broth and proposed it with assurance, she would have held out a large -clean saucepan. This had become thoroughly her attitude by the time -that, in my recital of the events of the night, I reached the point of -what Miles had said to me when, after seeing him, at such a monstrous -hour, almost on the very spot where he happened now to be, I had gone -down to bring him in; choosing then, at the window, with a concentrated -need of not alarming the house, rather that method than a signal more -resonant. I had left her meanwhile in little doubt of my small hope of -representing with success even to her actual sympathy my sense of the -real splendor of the little inspiration with which, after I had got him -into the house, the boy met my final articulate challenge. As soon as I -appeared in the moonlight on the terrace, he had come to me as straight -as possible; on which I had taken his hand without a word and led him, -through the dark spaces, up the staircase where Quint had so hungrily -hovered for him, along the lobby where I had listened and trembled, and -so to his forsaken room. - -Not a sound, on the way, had passed between us, and I had wondered--oh, -HOW I had wondered!--if he were groping about in his little mind for -something plausible and not too grotesque. It would tax his invention, -certainly, and I felt, this time, over his real embarrassment, a curious -thrill of triumph. It was a sharp trap for the inscrutable! He couldn’t -play any longer at innocence; so how the deuce would he get out of it? -There beat in me indeed, with the passionate throb of this question an -equal dumb appeal as to how the deuce _I_ should. I was confronted at -last, as never yet, with all the risk attached even now to sounding my -own horrid note. I remember in fact that as we pushed into his little -chamber, where the bed had not been slept in at all and the window, -uncovered to the moonlight, made the place so clear that there was no -need of striking a match--I remember how I suddenly dropped, sank upon -the edge of the bed from the force of the idea that he must know how he -really, as they say, “had” me. He could do what he liked, with all his -cleverness to help him, so long as I should continue to defer to the -old tradition of the criminality of those caretakers of the young who -minister to superstitions and fears. He “had” me indeed, and in a cleft -stick; for who would ever absolve me, who would consent that I should go -unhung, if, by the faintest tremor of an overture, I were the first to -introduce into our perfect intercourse an element so dire? No, no: it -was useless to attempt to convey to Mrs. Grose, just as it is scarcely -less so to attempt to suggest here, how, in our short, stiff brush in -the dark, he fairly shook me with admiration. I was of course thoroughly -kind and merciful; never, never yet had I placed on his little shoulders -hands of such tenderness as those with which, while I rested against the -bed, I held him there well under fire. I had no alternative but, in form -at least, to put it to him. - -“You must tell me now--and all the truth. What did you go out for? What -were you doing there?” - -I can still see his wonderful smile, the whites of his beautiful eyes, -and the uncovering of his little teeth shine to me in the dusk. “If I -tell you why, will you understand?” My heart, at this, leaped into my -mouth. WOULD he tell me why? I found no sound on my lips to press it, -and I was aware of replying only with a vague, repeated, grimacing nod. -He was gentleness itself, and while I wagged my head at him he stood -there more than ever a little fairy prince. It was his brightness indeed -that gave me a respite. Would it be so great if he were really going to -tell me? “Well,” he said at last, “just exactly in order that you should -do this.” - -“Do what?” - -“Think me--for a change--BAD!” I shall never forget the sweetness and -gaiety with which he brought out the word, nor how, on top of it, he -bent forward and kissed me. It was practically the end of everything. -I met his kiss and I had to make, while I folded him for a minute in my -arms, the most stupendous effort not to cry. He had given exactly the -account of himself that permitted least of my going behind it, and it -was only with the effect of confirming my acceptance of it that, as I -presently glanced about the room, I could say-- - -“Then you didn’t undress at all?” - -He fairly glittered in the gloom. “Not at all. I sat up and read.” - -“And when did you go down?” - -“At midnight. When I’m bad I AM bad!” - -“I see, I see--it’s charming. But how could you be sure I would know -it?” - -“Oh, I arranged that with Flora.” His answers rang out with a readiness! -“She was to get up and look out.” - -“Which is what she did do.” It was I who fell into the trap! - -“So she disturbed you, and, to see what she was looking at, you also -looked--you saw.” - -“While you,” I concurred, “caught your death in the night air!” - -He literally bloomed so from this exploit that he could afford radiantly -to assent. “How otherwise should I have been bad enough?” he asked. -Then, after another embrace, the incident and our interview closed on my -recognition of all the reserves of goodness that, for his joke, he had -been able to draw upon. - - - - -XII - - -The particular impression I had received proved in the morning light, -I repeat, not quite successfully presentable to Mrs. Grose, though I -reinforced it with the mention of still another remark that he had made -before we separated. “It all lies in half a dozen words,” I said to her, -“words that really settle the matter. ‘Think, you know, what I MIGHT -do!’ He threw that off to show me how good he is. He knows down to -the ground what he ‘might’ do. That’s what he gave them a taste of at -school.” - -“Lord, you do change!” cried my friend. - -“I don’t change--I simply make it out. The four, depend upon it, -perpetually meet. If on either of these last nights you had been with -either child, you would clearly have understood. The more I’ve watched -and waited the more I’ve felt that if there were nothing else to make it -sure it would be made so by the systematic silence of each. NEVER, by a -slip of the tongue, have they so much as alluded to either of their old -friends, any more than Miles has alluded to his expulsion. Oh, yes, -we may sit here and look at them, and they may show off to us there to -their fill; but even while they pretend to be lost in their fairytale -they’re steeped in their vision of the dead restored. He’s not reading -to her,” I declared; “they’re talking of THEM--they’re talking horrors! -I go on, I know, as if I were crazy; and it’s a wonder I’m not. What -I’ve seen would have made YOU so; but it has only made me more lucid, -made me get hold of still other things.” - -My lucidity must have seemed awful, but the charming creatures who were -victims of it, passing and repassing in their interlocked sweetness, -gave my colleague something to hold on by; and I felt how tight she held -as, without stirring in the breath of my passion, she covered them still -with her eyes. “Of what other things have you got hold?” - -“Why, of the very things that have delighted, fascinated, and yet, at -bottom, as I now so strangely see, mystified and troubled me. Their more -than earthly beauty, their absolutely unnatural goodness. It’s a game,” - I went on; “it’s a policy and a fraud!” - -“On the part of little darlings--?” - -“As yet mere lovely babies? Yes, mad as that seems!” The very act of -bringing it out really helped me to trace it--follow it all up and piece -it all together. “They haven’t been good--they’ve only been absent. It -has been easy to live with them, because they’re simply leading a -life of their own. They’re not mine--they’re not ours. They’re his and -they’re hers!” - -“Quint’s and that woman’s?” - -“Quint’s and that woman’s. They want to get to them.” - -Oh, how, at this, poor Mrs. Grose appeared to study them! “But for -what?” - -“For the love of all the evil that, in those dreadful days, the pair put -into them. And to ply them with that evil still, to keep up the work of -demons, is what brings the others back.” - -“Laws!” said my friend under her breath. The exclamation was homely, but -it revealed a real acceptance of my further proof of what, in the bad -time--for there had been a worse even than this!--must have occurred. -There could have been no such justification for me as the plain assent -of her experience to whatever depth of depravity I found credible in -our brace of scoundrels. It was in obvious submission of memory that she -brought out after a moment: “They WERE rascals! But what can they now -do?” she pursued. - -“Do?” I echoed so loud that Miles and Flora, as they passed at their -distance, paused an instant in their walk and looked at us. “Don’t -they do enough?” I demanded in a lower tone, while the children, having -smiled and nodded and kissed hands to us, resumed their exhibition. We -were held by it a minute; then I answered: “They can destroy them!” At -this my companion did turn, but the inquiry she launched was a silent -one, the effect of which was to make me more explicit. “They don’t know, -as yet, quite how--but they’re trying hard. They’re seen only across, -as it were, and beyond--in strange places and on high places, the top of -towers, the roof of houses, the outside of windows, the further edge -of pools; but there’s a deep design, on either side, to shorten the -distance and overcome the obstacle; and the success of the tempters is -only a question of time. They’ve only to keep to their suggestions of -danger.” - -“For the children to come?” - -“And perish in the attempt!” Mrs. Grose slowly got up, and I -scrupulously added: “Unless, of course, we can prevent!” - -Standing there before me while I kept my seat, she visibly turned things -over. “Their uncle must do the preventing. He must take them away.” - -“And who’s to make him?” - -She had been scanning the distance, but she now dropped on me a foolish -face. “You, miss.” - -“By writing to him that his house is poisoned and his little nephew and -niece mad?” - -“But if they ARE, miss?” - -“And if I am myself, you mean? That’s charming news to be sent him by a -governess whose prime undertaking was to give him no worry.” - -Mrs. Grose considered, following the children again. “Yes, he do hate -worry. That was the great reason--” - -“Why those fiends took him in so long? No doubt, though his indifference -must have been awful. As I’m not a fiend, at any rate, I shouldn’t take -him in.” - -My companion, after an instant and for all answer, sat down again and -grasped my arm. “Make him at any rate come to you.” - -I stared. “To ME?” I had a sudden fear of what she might do. “‘Him’?” - -“He ought to BE here--he ought to help.” - -I quickly rose, and I think I must have shown her a queerer face than -ever yet. “You see me asking him for a visit?” No, with her eyes on -my face she evidently couldn’t. Instead of it even--as a woman reads -another--she could see what I myself saw: his derision, his amusement, -his contempt for the breakdown of my resignation at being left alone and -for the fine machinery I had set in motion to attract his attention to -my slighted charms. She didn’t know--no one knew--how proud I had been -to serve him and to stick to our terms; yet she nonetheless took the -measure, I think, of the warning I now gave her. “If you should so lose -your head as to appeal to him for me--” - -She was really frightened. “Yes, miss?” - -“I would leave, on the spot, both him and you.” - - - - -XIII - - -It was all very well to join them, but speaking to them proved quite as -much as ever an effort beyond my strength--offered, in close quarters, -difficulties as insurmountable as before. This situation continued a -month, and with new aggravations and particular notes, the note above -all, sharper and sharper, of the small ironic consciousness on the part -of my pupils. It was not, I am as sure today as I was sure then, my mere -infernal imagination: it was absolutely traceable that they were aware -of my predicament and that this strange relation made, in a manner, for -a long time, the air in which we moved. I don’t mean that they had their -tongues in their cheeks or did anything vulgar, for that was not one -of their dangers: I do mean, on the other hand, that the element of the -unnamed and untouched became, between us, greater than any other, and -that so much avoidance could not have been so successfully effected -without a great deal of tacit arrangement. It was as if, at moments, we -were perpetually coming into sight of subjects before which we must stop -short, turning suddenly out of alleys that we perceived to be blind, -closing with a little bang that made us look at each other--for, like -all bangs, it was something louder than we had intended--the doors we -had indiscreetly opened. All roads lead to Rome, and there were times -when it might have struck us that almost every branch of study or -subject of conversation skirted forbidden ground. Forbidden ground was -the question of the return of the dead in general and of whatever, in -especial, might survive, in memory, of the friends little children had -lost. There were days when I could have sworn that one of them had, with -a small invisible nudge, said to the other: “She thinks she’ll do it -this time--but she WON’T!” To “do it” would have been to indulge for -instance--and for once in a way--in some direct reference to the lady -who had prepared them for my discipline. They had a delightful endless -appetite for passages in my own history, to which I had again and -again treated them; they were in possession of everything that had -ever happened to me, had had, with every circumstance the story of my -smallest adventures and of those of my brothers and sisters and of the -cat and the dog at home, as well as many particulars of the eccentric -nature of my father, of the furniture and arrangement of our house, and -of the conversation of the old women of our village. There were things -enough, taking one with another, to chatter about, if one went very fast -and knew by instinct when to go round. They pulled with an art of their -own the strings of my invention and my memory; and nothing else perhaps, -when I thought of such occasions afterward, gave me so the suspicion -of being watched from under cover. It was in any case over MY life, MY -past, and MY friends alone that we could take anything like our ease--a -state of affairs that led them sometimes without the least pertinence -to break out into sociable reminders. I was invited--with no visible -connection--to repeat afresh Goody Gosling’s celebrated mot or to -confirm the details already supplied as to the cleverness of the -vicarage pony. - -It was partly at such junctures as these and partly at quite different -ones that, with the turn my matters had now taken, my predicament, as I -have called it, grew most sensible. The fact that the days passed for -me without another encounter ought, it would have appeared, to have done -something toward soothing my nerves. Since the light brush, that second -night on the upper landing, of the presence of a woman at the foot of -the stair, I had seen nothing, whether in or out of the house, that one -had better not have seen. There was many a corner round which I expected -to come upon Quint, and many a situation that, in a merely sinister way, -would have favored the appearance of Miss Jessel. The summer had turned, -the summer had gone; the autumn had dropped upon Bly and had blown out -half our lights. The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, -its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after -the performance--all strewn with crumpled playbills. There were exactly -states of the air, conditions of sound and of stillness, unspeakable -impressions of the KIND of ministering moment, that brought back to me, -long enough to catch it, the feeling of the medium in which, that June -evening out of doors, I had had my first sight of Quint, and in which, -too, at those other instants, I had, after seeing him through the -window, looked for him in vain in the circle of shrubbery. I recognized -the signs, the portents--I recognized the moment, the spot. But they -remained unaccompanied and empty, and I continued unmolested; if -unmolested one could call a young woman whose sensibility had, in the -most extraordinary fashion, not declined but deepened. I had said in my -talk with Mrs. Grose on that horrid scene of Flora’s by the lake--and -had perplexed her by so saying--that it would from that moment distress -me much more to lose my power than to keep it. I had then expressed what -was vividly in my mind: the truth that, whether the children really -saw or not--since, that is, it was not yet definitely proved--I greatly -preferred, as a safeguard, the fullness of my own exposure. I was ready -to know the very worst that was to be known. What I had then had an ugly -glimpse of was that my eyes might be sealed just while theirs were -most opened. Well, my eyes WERE sealed, it appeared, at present--a -consummation for which it seemed blasphemous not to thank God. There -was, alas, a difficulty about that: I would have thanked him with all -my soul had I not had in a proportionate measure this conviction of the -secret of my pupils. - -How can I retrace today the strange steps of my obsession? There were -times of our being together when I would have been ready to swear that, -literally, in my presence, but with my direct sense of it closed, they -had visitors who were known and were welcome. Then it was that, had I -not been deterred by the very chance that such an injury might prove -greater than the injury to be averted, my exultation would have broken -out. “They’re here, they’re here, you little wretches,” I would have -cried, “and you can’t deny it now!” The little wretches denied it with -all the added volume of their sociability and their tenderness, in just -the crystal depths of which--like the flash of a fish in a stream--the -mockery of their advantage peeped up. The shock, in truth, had sunk into -me still deeper than I knew on the night when, looking out to see either -Quint or Miss Jessel under the stars, I had beheld the boy over -whose rest I watched and who had immediately brought in with him--had -straightway, there, turned it on me--the lovely upward look with which, -from the battlements above me, the hideous apparition of Quint had -played. If it was a question of a scare, my discovery on this occasion -had scared me more than any other, and it was in the condition of nerves -produced by it that I made my actual inductions. They harassed me so -that sometimes, at odd moments, I shut myself up audibly to rehearse--it -was at once a fantastic relief and a renewed despair--the manner in -which I might come to the point. I approached it from one side and the -other while, in my room, I flung myself about, but I always broke down -in the monstrous utterance of names. As they died away on my lips, I -said to myself that I should indeed help them to represent something -infamous, if, by pronouncing them, I should violate as rare a little -case of instinctive delicacy as any schoolroom, probably, had ever -known. When I said to myself: “THEY have the manners to be silent, and -you, trusted as you are, the baseness to speak!” I felt myself crimson -and I covered my face with my hands. After these secret scenes I -chattered more than ever, going on volubly enough till one of our -prodigious, palpable hushes occurred--I can call them nothing else--the -strange, dizzy lift or swim (I try for terms!) into a stillness, a pause -of all life, that had nothing to do with the more or less noise that at -the moment we might be engaged in making and that I could hear through -any deepened exhilaration or quickened recitation or louder strum of the -piano. Then it was that the others, the outsiders, were there. Though -they were not angels, they “passed,” as the French say, causing me, -while they stayed, to tremble with the fear of their addressing to their -younger victims some yet more infernal message or more vivid image than -they had thought good enough for myself. - -What it was most impossible to get rid of was the cruel idea that, -whatever I had seen, Miles and Flora saw MORE--things terrible and -unguessable and that sprang from dreadful passages of intercourse in the -past. Such things naturally left on the surface, for the time, a chill -which we vociferously denied that we felt; and we had, all three, with -repetition, got into such splendid training that we went, each time, -almost automatically, to mark the close of the incident, through the -very same movements. It was striking of the children, at all events, -to kiss me inveterately with a kind of wild irrelevance and never to -fail--one or the other--of the precious question that had helped us -through many a peril. “When do you think he WILL come? Don’t you think -we OUGHT to write?”--there was nothing like that inquiry, we found by -experience, for carrying off an awkwardness. “He” of course was their -uncle in Harley Street; and we lived in much profusion of theory that he -might at any moment arrive to mingle in our circle. It was impossible to -have given less encouragement than he had done to such a doctrine, but -if we had not had the doctrine to fall back upon we should have -deprived each other of some of our finest exhibitions. He never wrote to -them--that may have been selfish, but it was a part of the flattery of -his trust of me; for the way in which a man pays his highest tribute to -a woman is apt to be but by the more festal celebration of one of the -sacred laws of his comfort; and I held that I carried out the spirit of -the pledge given not to appeal to him when I let my charges understand -that their own letters were but charming literary exercises. They were -too beautiful to be posted; I kept them myself; I have them all to this -hour. This was a rule indeed which only added to the satiric effect of -my being plied with the supposition that he might at any moment be among -us. It was exactly as if my charges knew how almost more awkward than -anything else that might be for me. There appears to me, moreover, as -I look back, no note in all this more extraordinary than the mere fact -that, in spite of my tension and of their triumph, I never lost patience -with them. Adorable they must in truth have been, I now reflect, that I -didn’t in these days hate them! Would exasperation, however, if relief -had longer been postponed, finally have betrayed me? It little matters, -for relief arrived. I call it relief, though it was only the relief that -a snap brings to a strain or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day of -suffocation. It was at least change, and it came with a rush. - - - - -XIV - - -Walking to church a certain Sunday morning, I had little Miles at my -side and his sister, in advance of us and at Mrs. Grose’s, well in -sight. It was a crisp, clear day, the first of its order for some time; -the night had brought a touch of frost, and the autumn air, bright -and sharp, made the church bells almost gay. It was an odd accident of -thought that I should have happened at such a moment to be particularly -and very gratefully struck with the obedience of my little charges. Why -did they never resent my inexorable, my perpetual society? Something or -other had brought nearer home to me that I had all but pinned the boy to -my shawl and that, in the way our companions were marshaled before me, -I might have appeared to provide against some danger of rebellion. I -was like a gaoler with an eye to possible surprises and escapes. But all -this belonged--I mean their magnificent little surrender--just to the -special array of the facts that were most abysmal. Turned out for Sunday -by his uncle’s tailor, who had had a free hand and a notion of -pretty waistcoats and of his grand little air, Miles’s whole title to -independence, the rights of his sex and situation, were so stamped upon -him that if he had suddenly struck for freedom I should have had nothing -to say. I was by the strangest of chances wondering how I should meet -him when the revolution unmistakably occurred. I call it a revolution -because I now see how, with the word he spoke, the curtain rose on the -last act of my dreadful drama, and the catastrophe was precipitated. -“Look here, my dear, you know,” he charmingly said, “when in the world, -please, am I going back to school?” - -Transcribed here the speech sounds harmless enough, particularly -as uttered in the sweet, high, casual pipe with which, at all -interlocutors, but above all at his eternal governess, he threw off -intonations as if he were tossing roses. There was something in -them that always made one “catch,” and I caught, at any rate, now so -effectually that I stopped as short as if one of the trees of the -park had fallen across the road. There was something new, on the spot, -between us, and he was perfectly aware that I recognized it, though, -to enable me to do so, he had no need to look a whit less candid and -charming than usual. I could feel in him how he already, from my at -first finding nothing to reply, perceived the advantage he had gained. I -was so slow to find anything that he had plenty of time, after a minute, -to continue with his suggestive but inconclusive smile: “You know, my -dear, that for a fellow to be with a lady ALWAYS--!” His “my dear” was -constantly on his lips for me, and nothing could have expressed more the -exact shade of the sentiment with which I desired to inspire my pupils -than its fond familiarity. It was so respectfully easy. - -But, oh, how I felt that at present I must pick my own phrases! I -remember that, to gain time, I tried to laugh, and I seemed to see in -the beautiful face with which he watched me how ugly and queer I looked. -“And always with the same lady?” I returned. - -He neither blanched nor winked. The whole thing was virtually out -between us. “Ah, of course, she’s a jolly, ‘perfect’ lady; but, after -all, I’m a fellow, don’t you see? that’s--well, getting on.” - -I lingered there with him an instant ever so kindly. “Yes, you’re -getting on.” Oh, but I felt helpless! - -I have kept to this day the heartbreaking little idea of how he seemed -to know that and to play with it. “And you can’t say I’ve not been -awfully good, can you?” - -I laid my hand on his shoulder, for, though I felt how much better it -would have been to walk on, I was not yet quite able. “No, I can’t say -that, Miles.” - -“Except just that one night, you know--!” - -“That one night?” I couldn’t look as straight as he. - -“Why, when I went down--went out of the house.” - -“Oh, yes. But I forget what you did it for.” - -“You forget?”--he spoke with the sweet extravagance of childish -reproach. “Why, it was to show you I could!” - -“Oh, yes, you could.” - -“And I can again.” - -I felt that I might, perhaps, after all, succeed in keeping my wits -about me. “Certainly. But you won’t.” - -“No, not THAT again. It was nothing.” - -“It was nothing,” I said. “But we must go on.” - -He resumed our walk with me, passing his hand into my arm. “Then when AM -I going back?” - -I wore, in turning it over, my most responsible air. “Were you very -happy at school?” - -He just considered. “Oh, I’m happy enough anywhere!” - -“Well, then,” I quavered, “if you’re just as happy here--!” - -“Ah, but that isn’t everything! Of course YOU know a lot--” - -“But you hint that you know almost as much?” I risked as he paused. - -“Not half I want to!” Miles honestly professed. “But it isn’t so much -that.” - -“What is it, then?” - -“Well--I want to see more life.” - -“I see; I see.” We had arrived within sight of the church and of various -persons, including several of the household of Bly, on their way to it -and clustered about the door to see us go in. I quickened our step; -I wanted to get there before the question between us opened up much -further; I reflected hungrily that, for more than an hour, he would have -to be silent; and I thought with envy of the comparative dusk of the pew -and of the almost spiritual help of the hassock on which I might bend -my knees. I seemed literally to be running a race with some confusion -to which he was about to reduce me, but I felt that he had got in first -when, before we had even entered the churchyard, he threw out-- - -“I want my own sort!” - -It literally made me bound forward. “There are not many of your own -sort, Miles!” I laughed. “Unless perhaps dear little Flora!” - -“You really compare me to a baby girl?” - -This found me singularly weak. “Don’t you, then, LOVE our sweet Flora?” - -“If I didn’t--and you, too; if I didn’t--!” he repeated as if retreating -for a jump, yet leaving his thought so unfinished that, after we had -come into the gate, another stop, which he imposed on me by the pressure -of his arm, had become inevitable. Mrs. Grose and Flora had passed into -the church, the other worshippers had followed, and we were, for the -minute, alone among the old, thick graves. We had paused, on the path -from the gate, by a low, oblong, tablelike tomb. - -“Yes, if you didn’t--?” - -He looked, while I waited, at the graves. “Well, you know what!” But -he didn’t move, and he presently produced something that made me drop -straight down on the stone slab, as if suddenly to rest. “Does my uncle -think what YOU think?” - -I markedly rested. “How do you know what I think?” - -“Ah, well, of course I don’t; for it strikes me you never tell me. But I -mean does HE know?” - -“Know what, Miles?” - -“Why, the way I’m going on.” - -I perceived quickly enough that I could make, to this inquiry, no answer -that would not involve something of a sacrifice of my employer. Yet it -appeared to me that we were all, at Bly, sufficiently sacrificed to make -that venial. “I don’t think your uncle much cares.” - -Miles, on this, stood looking at me. “Then don’t you think he can be -made to?” - -“In what way?” - -“Why, by his coming down.” - -“But who’ll get him to come down?” - -“_I_ will!” the boy said with extraordinary brightness and emphasis. He -gave me another look charged with that expression and then marched off -alone into church. - - - - -XV - - -The business was practically settled from the moment I never followed -him. It was a pitiful surrender to agitation, but my being aware of this -had somehow no power to restore me. I only sat there on my tomb and read -into what my little friend had said to me the fullness of its meaning; -by the time I had grasped the whole of which I had also embraced, for -absence, the pretext that I was ashamed to offer my pupils and the rest -of the congregation such an example of delay. What I said to myself -above all was that Miles had got something out of me and that the proof -of it, for him, would be just this awkward collapse. He had got out -of me that there was something I was much afraid of and that he should -probably be able to make use of my fear to gain, for his own purpose, -more freedom. My fear was of having to deal with the intolerable -question of the grounds of his dismissal from school, for that was -really but the question of the horrors gathered behind. That his uncle -should arrive to treat with me of these things was a solution that, -strictly speaking, I ought now to have desired to bring on; but I -could so little face the ugliness and the pain of it that I simply -procrastinated and lived from hand to mouth. The boy, to my deep -discomposure, was immensely in the right, was in a position to say -to me: “Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of this -interruption of my studies, or you cease to expect me to lead with you -a life that’s so unnatural for a boy.” What was so unnatural for the -particular boy I was concerned with was this sudden revelation of a -consciousness and a plan. - -That was what really overcame me, what prevented my going in. I walked -round the church, hesitating, hovering; I reflected that I had already, -with him, hurt myself beyond repair. Therefore I could patch up nothing, -and it was too extreme an effort to squeeze beside him into the pew: he -would be so much more sure than ever to pass his arm into mine and make -me sit there for an hour in close, silent contact with his commentary -on our talk. For the first minute since his arrival I wanted to get away -from him. As I paused beneath the high east window and listened to the -sounds of worship, I was taken with an impulse that might master me, -I felt, completely should I give it the least encouragement. I might -easily put an end to my predicament by getting away altogether. Here -was my chance; there was no one to stop me; I could give the whole thing -up--turn my back and retreat. It was only a question of hurrying again, -for a few preparations, to the house which the attendance at church of -so many of the servants would practically have left unoccupied. No one, -in short, could blame me if I should just drive desperately off. What -was it to get away if I got away only till dinner? That would be in -a couple of hours, at the end of which--I had the acute prevision--my -little pupils would play at innocent wonder about my nonappearance in -their train. - -“What DID you do, you naughty, bad thing? Why in the world, to worry us -so--and take our thoughts off, too, don’t you know?--did you desert us -at the very door?” I couldn’t meet such questions nor, as they asked -them, their false little lovely eyes; yet it was all so exactly what I -should have to meet that, as the prospect grew sharp to me, I at last -let myself go. - -I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away; I came -straight out of the churchyard and, thinking hard, retraced my steps -through the park. It seemed to me that by the time I reached the house -I had made up my mind I would fly. The Sunday stillness both of the -approaches and of the interior, in which I met no one, fairly excited -me with a sense of opportunity. Were I to get off quickly, this way, I -should get off without a scene, without a word. My quickness would have -to be remarkable, however, and the question of a conveyance was the -great one to settle. Tormented, in the hall, with difficulties -and obstacles, I remember sinking down at the foot of the -staircase--suddenly collapsing there on the lowest step and then, with a -revulsion, recalling that it was exactly where more than a month before, -in the darkness of night and just so bowed with evil things, I had -seen the specter of the most horrible of women. At this I was able -to straighten myself; I went the rest of the way up; I made, in my -bewilderment, for the schoolroom, where there were objects belonging to -me that I should have to take. But I opened the door to find again, in a -flash, my eyes unsealed. In the presence of what I saw I reeled straight -back upon my resistance. - -Seated at my own table in clear noonday light I saw a person whom, -without my previous experience, I should have taken at the first blush -for some housemaid who might have stayed at home to look after the place -and who, availing herself of rare relief from observation and of the -schoolroom table and my pens, ink, and paper, had applied herself to the -considerable effort of a letter to her sweetheart. There was an effort -in the way that, while her arms rested on the table, her hands with -evident weariness supported her head; but at the moment I took this in -I had already become aware that, in spite of my entrance, her attitude -strangely persisted. Then it was--with the very act of its announcing -itself--that her identity flared up in a change of posture. She rose, -not as if she had heard me, but with an indescribable grand melancholy -of indifference and detachment, and, within a dozen feet of me, stood -there as my vile predecessor. Dishonored and tragic, she was all before -me; but even as I fixed and, for memory, secured it, the awful image -passed away. Dark as midnight in her black dress, her haggard beauty and -her unutterable woe, she had looked at me long enough to appear to say -that her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers. -While these instants lasted, indeed, I had the extraordinary chill of -feeling that it was I who was the intruder. It was as a wild protest -against it that, actually addressing her--“You terrible, miserable -woman!”--I heard myself break into a sound that, by the open door, rang -through the long passage and the empty house. She looked at me as if -she heard me, but I had recovered myself and cleared the air. There was -nothing in the room the next minute but the sunshine and a sense that I -must stay. - - - - -XVI - - -I had so perfectly expected that the return of my pupils would be marked -by a demonstration that I was freshly upset at having to take into -account that they were dumb about my absence. Instead of gaily -denouncing and caressing me, they made no allusion to my having failed -them, and I was left, for the time, on perceiving that she too said -nothing, to study Mrs. Grose’s odd face. I did this to such purpose that -I made sure they had in some way bribed her to silence; a silence that, -however, I would engage to break down on the first private opportunity. -This opportunity came before tea: I secured five minutes with her in the -housekeeper’s room, where, in the twilight, amid a smell of lately baked -bread, but with the place all swept and garnished, I found her sitting -in pained placidity before the fire. So I see her still, so I see her -best: facing the flame from her straight chair in the dusky, shining -room, a large clean image of the “put away”--of drawers closed and -locked and rest without a remedy. - -“Oh, yes, they asked me to say nothing; and to please them--so long as -they were there--of course I promised. But what had happened to you?” - -“I only went with you for the walk,” I said. “I had then to come back to -meet a friend.” - -She showed her surprise. “A friend--YOU?” - -“Oh, yes, I have a couple!” I laughed. “But did the children give you a -reason?” - -“For not alluding to your leaving us? Yes; they said you would like it -better. Do you like it better?” - -My face had made her rueful. “No, I like it worse!” But after an instant -I added: “Did they say why I should like it better?” - -“No; Master Miles only said, ‘We must do nothing but what she likes!’” - -“I wish indeed he would. And what did Flora say?” - -“Miss Flora was too sweet. She said, ‘Oh, of course, of course!’--and I -said the same.” - -I thought a moment. “You were too sweet, too--I can hear you all. But -nonetheless, between Miles and me, it’s now all out.” - -“All out?” My companion stared. “But what, miss?” - -“Everything. It doesn’t matter. I’ve made up my mind. I came home, my -dear,” I went on, “for a talk with Miss Jessel.” - -I had by this time formed the habit of having Mrs. Grose literally well -in hand in advance of my sounding that note; so that even now, as -she bravely blinked under the signal of my word, I could keep her -comparatively firm. “A talk! Do you mean she spoke?” - -“It came to that. I found her, on my return, in the schoolroom.” - -“And what did she say?” I can hear the good woman still, and the candor -of her stupefaction. - -“That she suffers the torments--!” - -It was this, of a truth, that made her, as she filled out my picture, -gape. “Do you mean,” she faltered, “--of the lost?” - -“Of the lost. Of the damned. And that’s why, to share them-” I faltered -myself with the horror of it. - -But my companion, with less imagination, kept me up. “To share them--?” - -“She wants Flora.” Mrs. Grose might, as I gave it to her, fairly have -fallen away from me had I not been prepared. I still held her there, to -show I was. “As I’ve told you, however, it doesn’t matter.” - -“Because you’ve made up your mind? But to what?” - -“To everything.” - -“And what do you call ‘everything’?” - -“Why, sending for their uncle.” - -“Oh, miss, in pity do,” my friend broke out. “ah, but I will, I WILL! I -see it’s the only way. What’s ‘out,’ as I told you, with Miles is that -if he thinks I’m afraid to--and has ideas of what he gains by that--he -shall see he’s mistaken. Yes, yes; his uncle shall have it here from me -on the spot (and before the boy himself, if necessary) that if I’m to be -reproached with having done nothing again about more school--” - -“Yes, miss--” my companion pressed me. - -“Well, there’s that awful reason.” - -There were now clearly so many of these for my poor colleague that she -was excusable for being vague. “But--a--which?” - -“Why, the letter from his old place.” - -“You’ll show it to the master?” - -“I ought to have done so on the instant.” - -“Oh, no!” said Mrs. Grose with decision. - -“I’ll put it before him,” I went on inexorably, “that I can’t undertake -to work the question on behalf of a child who has been expelled--” - -“For we’ve never in the least known what!” Mrs. Grose declared. - -“For wickedness. For what else--when he’s so clever and beautiful and -perfect? Is he stupid? Is he untidy? Is he infirm? Is he ill-natured? -He’s exquisite--so it can be only THAT; and that would open up the whole -thing. After all,” I said, “it’s their uncle’s fault. If he left here -such people--!” - -“He didn’t really in the least know them. The fault’s mine.” She had -turned quite pale. - -“Well, you shan’t suffer,” I answered. - -“The children shan’t!” she emphatically returned. - -I was silent awhile; we looked at each other. “Then what am I to tell -him?” - -“You needn’t tell him anything. _I_‘ll tell him.” - -I measured this. “Do you mean you’ll write--?” Remembering she couldn’t, -I caught myself up. “How do you communicate?” - -“I tell the bailiff. HE writes.” - -“And should you like him to write our story?” - -My question had a sarcastic force that I had not fully intended, and -it made her, after a moment, inconsequently break down. The tears were -again in her eyes. “Ah, miss, YOU write!” - -“Well--tonight,” I at last answered; and on this we separated. - - - - -XVII - - -I went so far, in the evening, as to make a beginning. The weather had -changed back, a great wind was abroad, and beneath the lamp, in my room, -with Flora at peace beside me, I sat for a long time before a blank -sheet of paper and listened to the lash of the rain and the batter of -the gusts. Finally I went out, taking a candle; I crossed the passage -and listened a minute at Miles’s door. What, under my endless obsession, -I had been impelled to listen for was some betrayal of his not being at -rest, and I presently caught one, but not in the form I had expected. -His voice tinkled out. “I say, you there--come in.” It was a gaiety in -the gloom! - -I went in with my light and found him, in bed, very wide awake, but very -much at his ease. “Well, what are YOU up to?” he asked with a grace of -sociability in which it occurred to me that Mrs. Grose, had she been -present, might have looked in vain for proof that anything was “out.” - -I stood over him with my candle. “How did you know I was there?” - -“Why, of course I heard you. Did you fancy you made no noise? You’re -like a troop of cavalry!” he beautifully laughed. - -“Then you weren’t asleep?” - -“Not much! I lie awake and think.” - -I had put my candle, designedly, a short way off, and then, as he held -out his friendly old hand to me, had sat down on the edge of his bed. -“What is it,” I asked, “that you think of?” - -“What in the world, my dear, but YOU?” - -“Ah, the pride I take in your appreciation doesn’t insist on that! I had -so far rather you slept.” - -“Well, I think also, you know, of this queer business of ours.” - -I marked the coolness of his firm little hand. “Of what queer business, -Miles?” - -“Why, the way you bring me up. And all the rest!” - -I fairly held my breath a minute, and even from my glimmering taper -there was light enough to show how he smiled up at me from his pillow. -“What do you mean by all the rest?” - -“Oh, you know, you know!” - -I could say nothing for a minute, though I felt, as I held his hand and -our eyes continued to meet, that my silence had all the air of admitting -his charge and that nothing in the whole world of reality was perhaps at -that moment so fabulous as our actual relation. “Certainly you shall go -back to school,” I said, “if it be that that troubles you. But not to -the old place--we must find another, a better. How could I know it did -trouble you, this question, when you never told me so, never spoke of it -at all?” His clear, listening face, framed in its smooth whiteness, made -him for the minute as appealing as some wistful patient in a children’s -hospital; and I would have given, as the resemblance came to me, all I -possessed on earth really to be the nurse or the sister of charity who -might have helped to cure him. Well, even as it was, I perhaps might -help! “Do you know you’ve never said a word to me about your school--I -mean the old one; never mentioned it in any way?” - -He seemed to wonder; he smiled with the same loveliness. But he clearly -gained time; he waited, he called for guidance. “Haven’t I?” It wasn’t -for ME to help him--it was for the thing I had met! - -Something in his tone and the expression of his face, as I got this from -him, set my heart aching with such a pang as it had never yet known; -so unutterably touching was it to see his little brain puzzled and his -little resources taxed to play, under the spell laid on him, a part -of innocence and consistency. “No, never--from the hour you came back. -You’ve never mentioned to me one of your masters, one of your comrades, -nor the least little thing that ever happened to you at school. Never, -little Miles--no, never--have you given me an inkling of anything that -MAY have happened there. Therefore you can fancy how much I’m in the -dark. Until you came out, that way, this morning, you had, since the -first hour I saw you, scarce even made a reference to anything in your -previous life. You seemed so perfectly to accept the present.” It was -extraordinary how my absolute conviction of his secret precocity (or -whatever I might call the poison of an influence that I dared but half -to phrase) made him, in spite of the faint breath of his inward trouble, -appear as accessible as an older person--imposed him almost as an -intellectual equal. “I thought you wanted to go on as you are.” - -It struck me that at this he just faintly colored. He gave, at any rate, -like a convalescent slightly fatigued, a languid shake of his head. “I -don’t--I don’t. I want to get away.” - -“You’re tired of Bly?” - -“Oh, no, I like Bly.” - -“Well, then--?” - -“Oh, YOU know what a boy wants!” - -I felt that I didn’t know so well as Miles, and I took temporary refuge. -“You want to go to your uncle?” - -Again, at this, with his sweet ironic face, he made a movement on the -pillow. “Ah, you can’t get off with that!” - -I was silent a little, and it was I, now, I think, who changed color. -“My dear, I don’t want to get off!” - -“You can’t, even if you do. You can’t, you can’t!”--he lay beautifully -staring. “My uncle must come down, and you must completely settle -things.” - -“If we do,” I returned with some spirit, “you may be sure it will be to -take you quite away.” - -“Well, don’t you understand that that’s exactly what I’m working for? -You’ll have to tell him--about the way you’ve let it all drop: you’ll -have to tell him a tremendous lot!” - -The exultation with which he uttered this helped me somehow, for the -instant, to meet him rather more. “And how much will YOU, Miles, have to -tell him? There are things he’ll ask you!” - -He turned it over. “Very likely. But what things?” - -“The things you’ve never told me. To make up his mind what to do with -you. He can’t send you back--” - -“Oh, I don’t want to go back!” he broke in. “I want a new field.” - -He said it with admirable serenity, with positive unimpeachable -gaiety; and doubtless it was that very note that most evoked for me the -poignancy, the unnatural childish tragedy, of his probable reappearance -at the end of three months with all this bravado and still more -dishonor. It overwhelmed me now that I should never be able to bear -that, and it made me let myself go. I threw myself upon him and in the -tenderness of my pity I embraced him. “Dear little Miles, dear little -Miles--!” - -My face was close to his, and he let me kiss him, simply taking it with -indulgent good humor. “Well, old lady?” - -“Is there nothing--nothing at all that you want to tell me?” - -He turned off a little, facing round toward the wall and holding up his -hand to look at as one had seen sick children look. “I’ve told you--I -told you this morning.” - -Oh, I was sorry for him! “That you just want me not to worry you?” - -He looked round at me now, as if in recognition of my understanding him; -then ever so gently, “To let me alone,” he replied. - -There was even a singular little dignity in it, something that made me -release him, yet, when I had slowly risen, linger beside him. God knows -I never wished to harass him, but I felt that merely, at this, to turn -my back on him was to abandon or, to put it more truly, to lose him. -“I’ve just begun a letter to your uncle,” I said. - -“Well, then, finish it!” - -I waited a minute. “What happened before?” - -He gazed up at me again. “Before what?” - -“Before you came back. And before you went away.” - -For some time he was silent, but he continued to meet my eyes. “What -happened?” - -It made me, the sound of the words, in which it seemed to me that -I caught for the very first time a small faint quaver of consenting -consciousness--it made me drop on my knees beside the bed and seize -once more the chance of possessing him. “Dear little Miles, dear little -Miles, if you KNEW how I want to help you! It’s only that, it’s nothing -but that, and I’d rather die than give you a pain or do you a wrong--I’d -rather die than hurt a hair of you. Dear little Miles”--oh, I brought it -out now even if I SHOULD go too far--“I just want you to help me to save -you!” But I knew in a moment after this that I had gone too far. The -answer to my appeal was instantaneous, but it came in the form of an -extraordinary blast and chill, a gust of frozen air, and a shake of the -room as great as if, in the wild wind, the casement had crashed in. The -boy gave a loud, high shriek, which, lost in the rest of the shock of -sound, might have seemed, indistinctly, though I was so close to him, -a note either of jubilation or of terror. I jumped to my feet again and -was conscious of darkness. So for a moment we remained, while I stared -about me and saw that the drawn curtains were unstirred and the window -tight. “Why, the candle’s out!” I then cried. - -“It was I who blew it, dear!” said Miles. - - - - -XVIII - - -The next day, after lessons, Mrs. Grose found a moment to say to me -quietly: “Have you written, miss?” - -“Yes--I’ve written.” But I didn’t add--for the hour--that my letter, -sealed and directed, was still in my pocket. There would be time enough -to send it before the messenger should go to the village. Meanwhile -there had been, on the part of my pupils, no more brilliant, more -exemplary morning. It was exactly as if they had both had at heart to -gloss over any recent little friction. They performed the dizziest feats -of arithmetic, soaring quite out of MY feeble range, and perpetrated, -in higher spirits than ever, geographical and historical jokes. It was -conspicuous of course in Miles in particular that he appeared to wish to -show how easily he could let me down. This child, to my memory, really -lives in a setting of beauty and misery that no words can translate; -there was a distinction all his own in every impulse he revealed; never -was a small natural creature, to the uninitiated eye all frankness and -freedom, a more ingenious, a more extraordinary little gentleman. I had -perpetually to guard against the wonder of contemplation into which my -initiated view betrayed me; to check the irrelevant gaze and discouraged -sigh in which I constantly both attacked and renounced the enigma of -what such a little gentleman could have done that deserved a penalty. -Say that, by the dark prodigy I knew, the imagination of all evil HAD -been opened up to him: all the justice within me ached for the proof -that it could ever have flowered into an act. - -He had never, at any rate, been such a little gentleman as when, after -our early dinner on this dreadful day, he came round to me and asked if -I shouldn’t like him, for half an hour, to play to me. David playing -to Saul could never have shown a finer sense of the occasion. It was -literally a charming exhibition of tact, of magnanimity, and quite -tantamount to his saying outright: “The true knights we love to read -about never push an advantage too far. I know what you mean now: you -mean that--to be let alone yourself and not followed up--you’ll cease to -worry and spy upon me, won’t keep me so close to you, will let me go -and come. Well, I ‘come,’ you see--but I don’t go! There’ll be plenty of -time for that. I do really delight in your society, and I only want to -show you that I contended for a principle.” It may be imagined whether I -resisted this appeal or failed to accompany him again, hand in hand, to -the schoolroom. He sat down at the old piano and played as he had never -played; and if there are those who think he had better have been kicking -a football I can only say that I wholly agree with them. For at the -end of a time that under his influence I had quite ceased to measure, I -started up with a strange sense of having literally slept at my post. It -was after luncheon, and by the schoolroom fire, and yet I hadn’t -really, in the least, slept: I had only done something much worse--I had -forgotten. Where, all this time, was Flora? When I put the question to -Miles, he played on a minute before answering and then could only say: -“Why, my dear, how do _I_ know?”--breaking moreover into a happy laugh -which, immediately after, as if it were a vocal accompaniment, he -prolonged into incoherent, extravagant song. - -I went straight to my room, but his sister was not there; then, before -going downstairs, I looked into several others. As she was nowhere -about she would surely be with Mrs. Grose, whom, in the comfort of that -theory, I accordingly proceeded in quest of. I found her where I had -found her the evening before, but she met my quick challenge with blank, -scared ignorance. She had only supposed that, after the repast, I had -carried off both the children; as to which she was quite in her right, -for it was the very first time I had allowed the little girl out of my -sight without some special provision. Of course now indeed she might be -with the maids, so that the immediate thing was to look for her without -an air of alarm. This we promptly arranged between us; but when, ten -minutes later and in pursuance of our arrangement, we met in the hall, -it was only to report on either side that after guarded inquiries we -had altogether failed to trace her. For a minute there, apart from -observation, we exchanged mute alarms, and I could feel with what high -interest my friend returned me all those I had from the first given her. - -“She’ll be above,” she presently said--“in one of the rooms you haven’t -searched.” - -“No; she’s at a distance.” I had made up my mind. “She has gone out.” - -Mrs. Grose stared. “Without a hat?” - -I naturally also looked volumes. “Isn’t that woman always without one?” - -“She’s with HER?” - -“She’s with HER!” I declared. “We must find them.” - -My hand was on my friend’s arm, but she failed for the moment, -confronted with such an account of the matter, to respond to my -pressure. She communed, on the contrary, on the spot, with her -uneasiness. “And where’s Master Miles?” - -“Oh, HE’S with Quint. They’re in the schoolroom.” - -“Lord, miss!” My view, I was myself aware--and therefore I suppose my -tone--had never yet reached so calm an assurance. - -“The trick’s played,” I went on; “they’ve successfully worked their -plan. He found the most divine little way to keep me quiet while she -went off.” - -“‘Divine’?” Mrs. Grose bewilderedly echoed. - -“Infernal, then!” I almost cheerfully rejoined. “He has provided for -himself as well. But come!” - -She had helplessly gloomed at the upper regions. “You leave him--?” - -“So long with Quint? Yes--I don’t mind that now.” - -She always ended, at these moments, by getting possession of my hand, -and in this manner she could at present still stay me. But after gasping -an instant at my sudden resignation, “Because of your letter?” she -eagerly brought out. - -I quickly, by way of answer, felt for my letter, drew it forth, held it -up, and then, freeing myself, went and laid it on the great hall table. -“Luke will take it,” I said as I came back. I reached the house door and -opened it; I was already on the steps. - -My companion still demurred: the storm of the night and the early -morning had dropped, but the afternoon was damp and gray. I came down to -the drive while she stood in the doorway. “You go with nothing on?” - -“What do I care when the child has nothing? I can’t wait to dress,” I -cried, “and if you must do so, I leave you. Try meanwhile, yourself, -upstairs.” - -“With THEM?” Oh, on this, the poor woman promptly joined me! - - - - -XIX - - -We went straight to the lake, as it was called at Bly, and I daresay -rightly called, though I reflect that it may in fact have been a sheet -of water less remarkable than it appeared to my untraveled eyes. My -acquaintance with sheets of water was small, and the pool of Bly, at all -events on the few occasions of my consenting, under the protection of -my pupils, to affront its surface in the old flat-bottomed boat moored -there for our use, had impressed me both with its extent and its -agitation. The usual place of embarkation was half a mile from the -house, but I had an intimate conviction that, wherever Flora might -be, she was not near home. She had not given me the slip for any small -adventure, and, since the day of the very great one that I had shared -with her by the pond, I had been aware, in our walks, of the quarter to -which she most inclined. This was why I had now given to Mrs. Grose’s -steps so marked a direction--a direction that made her, when she -perceived it, oppose a resistance that showed me she was freshly -mystified. “You’re going to the water, Miss?--you think she’s IN--?” - -“She may be, though the depth is, I believe, nowhere very great. But -what I judge most likely is that she’s on the spot from which, the other -day, we saw together what I told you.” - -“When she pretended not to see--?” - -“With that astounding self-possession? I’ve always been sure she wanted -to go back alone. And now her brother has managed it for her.” - -Mrs. Grose still stood where she had stopped. “You suppose they really -TALK of them?” - -“I could meet this with a confidence! They say things that, if we heard -them, would simply appall us.” - -“And if she IS there--” - -“Yes?” - -“Then Miss Jessel is?” - -“Beyond a doubt. You shall see.” - -“Oh, thank you!” my friend cried, planted so firm that, taking it in, I -went straight on without her. By the time I reached the pool, however, -she was close behind me, and I knew that, whatever, to her apprehension, -might befall me, the exposure of my society struck her as her least -danger. She exhaled a moan of relief as we at last came in sight of the -greater part of the water without a sight of the child. There was no -trace of Flora on that nearer side of the bank where my observation of -her had been most startling, and none on the opposite edge, where, save -for a margin of some twenty yards, a thick copse came down to the water. -The pond, oblong in shape, had a width so scant compared to its length -that, with its ends out of view, it might have been taken for a scant -river. We looked at the empty expanse, and then I felt the suggestion -of my friend’s eyes. I knew what she meant and I replied with a negative -headshake. - -“No, no; wait! She has taken the boat.” - -My companion stared at the vacant mooring place and then again across -the lake. “Then where is it?” - -“Our not seeing it is the strongest of proofs. She has used it to go -over, and then has managed to hide it.” - -“All alone--that child?” - -“She’s not alone, and at such times she’s not a child: she’s an old, -old woman.” I scanned all the visible shore while Mrs. Grose took again, -into the queer element I offered her, one of her plunges of submission; -then I pointed out that the boat might perfectly be in a small refuge -formed by one of the recesses of the pool, an indentation masked, for -the hither side, by a projection of the bank and by a clump of trees -growing close to the water. - -“But if the boat’s there, where on earth’s SHE?” my colleague anxiously -asked. - -“That’s exactly what we must learn.” And I started to walk further. - -“By going all the way round?” - -“Certainly, far as it is. It will take us but ten minutes, but it’s -far enough to have made the child prefer not to walk. She went straight -over.” - -“Laws!” cried my friend again; the chain of my logic was ever too -much for her. It dragged her at my heels even now, and when we had got -halfway round--a devious, tiresome process, on ground much broken and by -a path choked with overgrowth--I paused to give her breath. I sustained -her with a grateful arm, assuring her that she might hugely help me; and -this started us afresh, so that in the course of but few minutes more we -reached a point from which we found the boat to be where I had supposed -it. It had been intentionally left as much as possible out of sight and -was tied to one of the stakes of a fence that came, just there, down to -the brink and that had been an assistance to disembarking. I recognized, -as I looked at the pair of short, thick oars, quite safely drawn up, the -prodigious character of the feat for a little girl; but I had lived, by -this time, too long among wonders and had panted to too many livelier -measures. There was a gate in the fence, through which we passed, and -that brought us, after a trifling interval, more into the open. Then, -“There she is!” we both exclaimed at once. - -Flora, a short way off, stood before us on the grass and smiled as if -her performance was now complete. The next thing she did, however, was -to stoop straight down and pluck--quite as if it were all she was there -for--a big, ugly spray of withered fern. I instantly became sure she -had just come out of the copse. She waited for us, not herself taking a -step, and I was conscious of the rare solemnity with which we presently -approached her. She smiled and smiled, and we met; but it was all done -in a silence by this time flagrantly ominous. Mrs. Grose was the first -to break the spell: she threw herself on her knees and, drawing the -child to her breast, clasped in a long embrace the little tender, -yielding body. While this dumb convulsion lasted I could only watch -it--which I did the more intently when I saw Flora’s face peep at me -over our companion’s shoulder. It was serious now--the flicker had left -it; but it strengthened the pang with which I at that moment envied Mrs. -Grose the simplicity of HER relation. Still, all this while, nothing -more passed between us save that Flora had let her foolish fern again -drop to the ground. What she and I had virtually said to each other was -that pretexts were useless now. When Mrs. Grose finally got up she kept -the child’s hand, so that the two were still before me; and the singular -reticence of our communion was even more marked in the frank look she -launched me. “I’ll be hanged,” it said, “if _I_‘ll speak!” - -It was Flora who, gazing all over me in candid wonder, was the first. -She was struck with our bareheaded aspect. “Why, where are your things?” - -“Where yours are, my dear!” I promptly returned. - -She had already got back her gaiety, and appeared to take this as an -answer quite sufficient. “And where’s Miles?” she went on. - -There was something in the small valor of it that quite finished me: -these three words from her were, in a flash like the glitter of a drawn -blade, the jostle of the cup that my hand, for weeks and weeks, had -held high and full to the brim that now, even before speaking, I felt -overflow in a deluge. “I’ll tell you if you’ll tell ME--” I heard myself -say, then heard the tremor in which it broke. - -“Well, what?” - -Mrs. Grose’s suspense blazed at me, but it was too late now, and I -brought the thing out handsomely. “Where, my pet, is Miss Jessel?” - - - - -XX - - -Just as in the churchyard with Miles, the whole thing was upon us. Much -as I had made of the fact that this name had never once, between us, -been sounded, the quick, smitten glare with which the child’s face now -received it fairly likened my breach of the silence to the smash of a -pane of glass. It added to the interposing cry, as if to stay the blow, -that Mrs. Grose, at the same instant, uttered over my violence--the -shriek of a creature scared, or rather wounded, which, in turn, within a -few seconds, was completed by a gasp of my own. I seized my colleague’s -arm. “She’s there, she’s there!” - -Miss Jessel stood before us on the opposite bank exactly as she had -stood the other time, and I remember, strangely, as the first feeling -now produced in me, my thrill of joy at having brought on a proof. She -was there, and I was justified; she was there, and I was neither cruel -nor mad. She was there for poor scared Mrs. Grose, but she was there -most for Flora; and no moment of my monstrous time was perhaps so -extraordinary as that in which I consciously threw out to her--with -the sense that, pale and ravenous demon as she was, she would catch and -understand it--an inarticulate message of gratitude. She rose erect on -the spot my friend and I had lately quitted, and there was not, in all -the long reach of her desire, an inch of her evil that fell short. This -first vividness of vision and emotion were things of a few seconds, -during which Mrs. Grose’s dazed blink across to where I pointed struck -me as a sovereign sign that she too at last saw, just as it carried my -own eyes precipitately to the child. The revelation then of the manner -in which Flora was affected startled me, in truth, far more than it -would have done to find her also merely agitated, for direct dismay -was of course not what I had expected. Prepared and on her guard as our -pursuit had actually made her, she would repress every betrayal; and I -was therefore shaken, on the spot, by my first glimpse of the particular -one for which I had not allowed. To see her, without a convulsion of -her small pink face, not even feign to glance in the direction of the -prodigy I announced, but only, instead of that, turn at ME an expression -of hard, still gravity, an expression absolutely new and unprecedented -and that appeared to read and accuse and judge me--this was a stroke -that somehow converted the little girl herself into the very presence -that could make me quail. I quailed even though my certitude that -she thoroughly saw was never greater than at that instant, and in the -immediate need to defend myself I called it passionately to witness. -“She’s there, you little unhappy thing--there, there, THERE, and you see -her as well as you see me!” I had said shortly before to Mrs. Grose -that she was not at these times a child, but an old, old woman, and that -description of her could not have been more strikingly confirmed than in -the way in which, for all answer to this, she simply showed me, without -a concession, an admission, of her eyes, a countenance of deeper and -deeper, of indeed suddenly quite fixed, reprobation. I was by this -time--if I can put the whole thing at all together--more appalled at -what I may properly call her manner than at anything else, though it was -simultaneously with this that I became aware of having Mrs. Grose -also, and very formidably, to reckon with. My elder companion, the next -moment, at any rate, blotted out everything but her own flushed face and -her loud, shocked protest, a burst of high disapproval. “What a dreadful -turn, to be sure, miss! Where on earth do you see anything?” - -I could only grasp her more quickly yet, for even while she spoke the -hideous plain presence stood undimmed and undaunted. It had already -lasted a minute, and it lasted while I continued, seizing my colleague, -quite thrusting her at it and presenting her to it, to insist with my -pointing hand. “You don’t see her exactly as WE see?--you mean to say -you don’t now--NOW? She’s as big as a blazing fire! Only look, dearest -woman, LOOK--!” She looked, even as I did, and gave me, with her deep -groan of negation, repulsion, compassion--the mixture with her pity of -her relief at her exemption--a sense, touching to me even then, that she -would have backed me up if she could. I might well have needed that, for -with this hard blow of the proof that her eyes were hopelessly sealed -I felt my own situation horribly crumble, I felt--I saw--my livid -predecessor press, from her position, on my defeat, and I was conscious, -more than all, of what I should have from this instant to deal with in -the astounding little attitude of Flora. Into this attitude Mrs. Grose -immediately and violently entered, breaking, even while there pierced -through my sense of ruin a prodigious private triumph, into breathless -reassurance. - -“She isn’t there, little lady, and nobody’s there--and you never see -nothing, my sweet! How can poor Miss Jessel--when poor Miss Jessel’s -dead and buried? WE know, don’t we, love?”--and she appealed, blundering -in, to the child. “It’s all a mere mistake and a worry and a joke--and -we’ll go home as fast as we can!” - -Our companion, on this, had responded with a strange, quick primness of -propriety, and they were again, with Mrs. Grose on her feet, united, as -it were, in pained opposition to me. Flora continued to fix me with -her small mask of reprobation, and even at that minute I prayed God to -forgive me for seeming to see that, as she stood there holding tight -to our friend’s dress, her incomparable childish beauty had suddenly -failed, had quite vanished. I’ve said it already--she was literally, -she was hideously, hard; she had turned common and almost ugly. “I don’t -know what you mean. I see nobody. I see nothing. I never HAVE. I think -you’re cruel. I don’t like you!” Then, after this deliverance, which -might have been that of a vulgarly pert little girl in the street, she -hugged Mrs. Grose more closely and buried in her skirts the dreadful -little face. In this position she produced an almost furious wail. “Take -me away, take me away--oh, take me away from HER!” - -“From ME?” I panted. - -“From you--from you!” she cried. - -Even Mrs. Grose looked across at me dismayed, while I had nothing to -do but communicate again with the figure that, on the opposite bank, -without a movement, as rigidly still as if catching, beyond the -interval, our voices, was as vividly there for my disaster as it was not -there for my service. The wretched child had spoken exactly as if she -had got from some outside source each of her stabbing little words, and -I could therefore, in the full despair of all I had to accept, but sadly -shake my head at her. “If I had ever doubted, all my doubt would at -present have gone. I’ve been living with the miserable truth, and now -it has only too much closed round me. Of course I’ve lost you: I’ve -interfered, and you’ve seen--under HER dictation”--with which I faced, -over the pool again, our infernal witness--“the easy and perfect way to -meet it. I’ve done my best, but I’ve lost you. Goodbye.” For Mrs. -Grose I had an imperative, an almost frantic “Go, go!” before which, in -infinite distress, but mutely possessed of the little girl and clearly -convinced, in spite of her blindness, that something awful had occurred -and some collapse engulfed us, she retreated, by the way we had come, as -fast as she could move. - -Of what first happened when I was left alone I had no subsequent memory. -I only knew that at the end of, I suppose, a quarter of an hour, an -odorous dampness and roughness, chilling and piercing my trouble, had -made me understand that I must have thrown myself, on my face, on the -ground and given way to a wildness of grief. I must have lain there long -and cried and sobbed, for when I raised my head the day was almost done. -I got up and looked a moment, through the twilight, at the gray pool and -its blank, haunted edge, and then I took, back to the house, my dreary -and difficult course. When I reached the gate in the fence the boat, -to my surprise, was gone, so that I had a fresh reflection to make on -Flora’s extraordinary command of the situation. She passed that night, -by the most tacit, and I should add, were not the word so grotesque a -false note, the happiest of arrangements, with Mrs. Grose. I saw -neither of them on my return, but, on the other hand, as by an ambiguous -compensation, I saw a great deal of Miles. I saw--I can use no other -phrase--so much of him that it was as if it were more than it had ever -been. No evening I had passed at Bly had the portentous quality of -this one; in spite of which--and in spite also of the deeper depths of -consternation that had opened beneath my feet--there was literally, in -the ebbing actual, an extraordinarily sweet sadness. On reaching the -house I had never so much as looked for the boy; I had simply gone -straight to my room to change what I was wearing and to take in, at -a glance, much material testimony to Flora’s rupture. Her little -belongings had all been removed. When later, by the schoolroom fire, I -was served with tea by the usual maid, I indulged, on the article of my -other pupil, in no inquiry whatever. He had his freedom now--he might -have it to the end! Well, he did have it; and it consisted--in part at -least--of his coming in at about eight o’clock and sitting down with me -in silence. On the removal of the tea things I had blown out the candles -and drawn my chair closer: I was conscious of a mortal coldness and felt -as if I should never again be warm. So, when he appeared, I was sitting -in the glow with my thoughts. He paused a moment by the door as if to -look at me; then--as if to share them--came to the other side of the -hearth and sank into a chair. We sat there in absolute stillness; yet he -wanted, I felt, to be with me. - - - - -XXI - - -Before a new day, in my room, had fully broken, my eyes opened to Mrs. -Grose, who had come to my bedside with worse news. Flora was so markedly -feverish that an illness was perhaps at hand; she had passed a night of -extreme unrest, a night agitated above all by fears that had for their -subject not in the least her former, but wholly her present, governess. -It was not against the possible re-entrance of Miss Jessel on the scene -that she protested--it was conspicuously and passionately against mine. -I was promptly on my feet of course, and with an immense deal to ask; -the more that my friend had discernibly now girded her loins to meet me -once more. This I felt as soon as I had put to her the question of -her sense of the child’s sincerity as against my own. “She persists in -denying to you that she saw, or has ever seen, anything?” - -My visitor’s trouble, truly, was great. “Ah, miss, it isn’t a matter -on which I can push her! Yet it isn’t either, I must say, as if I much -needed to. It has made her, every inch of her, quite old.” - -“Oh, I see her perfectly from here. She resents, for all the world like -some high little personage, the imputation on her truthfulness and, -as it were, her respectability. ‘Miss Jessel indeed--SHE!’ Ah, she’s -‘respectable,’ the chit! The impression she gave me there yesterday was, -I assure you, the very strangest of all; it was quite beyond any of the -others. I DID put my foot in it! She’ll never speak to me again.” - -Hideous and obscure as it all was, it held Mrs. Grose briefly silent; -then she granted my point with a frankness which, I made sure, had more -behind it. “I think indeed, miss, she never will. She do have a grand -manner about it!” - -“And that manner”--I summed it up--“is practically what’s the matter -with her now!” - -Oh, that manner, I could see in my visitor’s face, and not a little else -besides! “She asks me every three minutes if I think you’re coming in.” - -“I see--I see.” I, too, on my side, had so much more than worked it -out. “Has she said to you since yesterday--except to repudiate her -familiarity with anything so dreadful--a single other word about Miss -Jessel?” - -“Not one, miss. And of course you know,” my friend added, “I took it -from her, by the lake, that, just then and there at least, there WAS -nobody.” - -“Rather! and, naturally, you take it from her still.” - -“I don’t contradict her. What else can I do?” - -“Nothing in the world! You’ve the cleverest little person to deal with. -They’ve made them--their two friends, I mean--still cleverer even than -nature did; for it was wondrous material to play on! Flora has now her -grievance, and she’ll work it to the end.” - -“Yes, miss; but to WHAT end?” - -“Why, that of dealing with me to her uncle. She’ll make me out to him -the lowest creature--!” - -I winced at the fair show of the scene in Mrs. Grose’s face; she looked -for a minute as if she sharply saw them together. “And him who thinks so -well of you!” - -“He has an odd way--it comes over me now,” I laughed,”--of proving it! -But that doesn’t matter. What Flora wants, of course, is to get rid of -me.” - -My companion bravely concurred. “Never again to so much as look at you.” - -“So that what you’ve come to me now for,” I asked, “is to speed me on my -way?” Before she had time to reply, however, I had her in check. “I’ve a -better idea--the result of my reflections. My going WOULD seem the right -thing, and on Sunday I was terribly near it. Yet that won’t do. It’s YOU -who must go. You must take Flora.” - -My visitor, at this, did speculate. “But where in the world--?” - -“Away from here. Away from THEM. Away, even most of all, now, from me. -Straight to her uncle.” - -“Only to tell on you--?” - -“No, not ‘only’! To leave me, in addition, with my remedy.” - -She was still vague. “And what IS your remedy?” - -“Your loyalty, to begin with. And then Miles’s.” - -She looked at me hard. “Do you think he--?” - -“Won’t, if he has the chance, turn on me? Yes, I venture still to think -it. At all events, I want to try. Get off with his sister as soon as -possible and leave me with him alone.” I was amazed, myself, at the -spirit I had still in reserve, and therefore perhaps a trifle the more -disconcerted at the way in which, in spite of this fine example of it, -she hesitated. “There’s one thing, of course,” I went on: “they mustn’t, -before she goes, see each other for three seconds.” Then it came over me -that, in spite of Flora’s presumable sequestration from the instant of -her return from the pool, it might already be too late. “Do you mean,” I -anxiously asked, “that they HAVE met?” - -At this she quite flushed. “Ah, miss, I’m not such a fool as that! If -I’ve been obliged to leave her three or four times, it has been each -time with one of the maids, and at present, though she’s alone, she’s -locked in safe. And yet--and yet!” There were too many things. - -“And yet what?” - -“Well, are you so sure of the little gentleman?” - -“I’m not sure of anything but YOU. But I have, since last evening, a new -hope. I think he wants to give me an opening. I do believe that--poor -little exquisite wretch!--he wants to speak. Last evening, in the -firelight and the silence, he sat with me for two hours as if it were -just coming.” - -Mrs. Grose looked hard, through the window, at the gray, gathering day. -“And did it come?” - -“No, though I waited and waited, I confess it didn’t, and it was without -a breach of the silence or so much as a faint allusion to his sister’s -condition and absence that we at last kissed for good night. All the -same,” I continued, “I can’t, if her uncle sees her, consent to his -seeing her brother without my having given the boy--and most of all -because things have got so bad--a little more time.” - -My friend appeared on this ground more reluctant than I could quite -understand. “What do you mean by more time?” - -“Well, a day or two--really to bring it out. He’ll then be on MY -side--of which you see the importance. If nothing comes, I shall only -fail, and you will, at the worst, have helped me by doing, on your -arrival in town, whatever you may have found possible.” So I put it -before her, but she continued for a little so inscrutably embarrassed -that I came again to her aid. “Unless, indeed,” I wound up, “you really -want NOT to go.” - -I could see it, in her face, at last clear itself; she put out her hand -to me as a pledge. “I’ll go--I’ll go. I’ll go this morning.” - -I wanted to be very just. “If you SHOULD wish still to wait, I would -engage she shouldn’t see me.” - -“No, no: it’s the place itself. She must leave it.” She held me a moment -with heavy eyes, then brought out the rest. “Your idea’s the right one. -I myself, miss--” - -“Well?” - -“I can’t stay.” - -The look she gave me with it made me jump at possibilities. “You mean -that, since yesterday, you HAVE seen--?” - -She shook her head with dignity. “I’ve HEARD--!” - -“Heard?” - -“From that child--horrors! There!” she sighed with tragic relief. “On my -honor, miss, she says things--!” But at this evocation she broke down; -she dropped, with a sudden sob, upon my sofa and, as I had seen her do -before, gave way to all the grief of it. - -It was quite in another manner that I, for my part, let myself go. “Oh, -thank God!” - -She sprang up again at this, drying her eyes with a groan. “‘Thank -God’?” - -“It so justifies me!” - -“It does that, miss!” - -I couldn’t have desired more emphasis, but I just hesitated. “She’s so -horrible?” - -I saw my colleague scarce knew how to put it. “Really shocking.” - -“And about me?” - -“About you, miss--since you must have it. It’s beyond everything, for a -young lady; and I can’t think wherever she must have picked up--” - -“The appalling language she applied to me? I can, then!” I broke in with -a laugh that was doubtless significant enough. - -It only, in truth, left my friend still more grave. “Well, perhaps I -ought to also--since I’ve heard some of it before! Yet I can’t bear it,” - the poor woman went on while, with the same movement, she glanced, on my -dressing table, at the face of my watch. “But I must go back.” - -I kept her, however. “Ah, if you can’t bear it--!” - -“How can I stop with her, you mean? Why, just FOR that: to get her away. -Far from this,” she pursued, “far from THEM-” - -“She may be different? She may be free?” I seized her almost with joy. -“Then, in spite of yesterday, you BELIEVE--” - -“In such doings?” Her simple description of them required, in the light -of her expression, to be carried no further, and she gave me the whole -thing as she had never done. “I believe.” - -Yes, it was a joy, and we were still shoulder to shoulder: if I might -continue sure of that I should care but little what else happened. My -support in the presence of disaster would be the same as it had been -in my early need of confidence, and if my friend would answer for my -honesty, I would answer for all the rest. On the point of taking leave -of her, nonetheless, I was to some extent embarrassed. “There’s one -thing, of course--it occurs to me--to remember. My letter, giving the -alarm, will have reached town before you.” - -I now perceived still more how she had been beating about the bush and -how weary at last it had made her. “Your letter won’t have got there. -Your letter never went.” - -“What then became of it?” - -“Goodness knows! Master Miles--” - -“Do you mean HE took it?” I gasped. - -She hung fire, but she overcame her reluctance. “I mean that I saw -yesterday, when I came back with Miss Flora, that it wasn’t where you -had put it. Later in the evening I had the chance to question Luke, and -he declared that he had neither noticed nor touched it.” We could only -exchange, on this, one of our deeper mutual soundings, and it was Mrs. -Grose who first brought up the plumb with an almost elated “You see!” - -“Yes, I see that if Miles took it instead he probably will have read it -and destroyed it.” - -“And don’t you see anything else?” - -I faced her a moment with a sad smile. “It strikes me that by this time -your eyes are open even wider than mine.” - -They proved to be so indeed, but she could still blush, almost, to show -it. “I make out now what he must have done at school.” And she gave, in -her simple sharpness, an almost droll disillusioned nod. “He stole!” - -I turned it over--I tried to be more judicial. “Well--perhaps.” - -She looked as if she found me unexpectedly calm. “He stole LETTERS!” - -She couldn’t know my reasons for a calmness after all pretty shallow; so -I showed them off as I might. “I hope then it was to more purpose than -in this case! The note, at any rate, that I put on the table yesterday,” - I pursued, “will have given him so scant an advantage--for it contained -only the bare demand for an interview--that he is already much ashamed -of having gone so far for so little, and that what he had on his mind -last evening was precisely the need of confession.” I seemed to myself, -for the instant, to have mastered it, to see it all. “Leave us, leave -us”--I was already, at the door, hurrying her off. “I’ll get it out of -him. He’ll meet me--he’ll confess. If he confesses, he’s saved. And if -he’s saved--” - -“Then YOU are?” The dear woman kissed me on this, and I took her -farewell. “I’ll save you without him!” she cried as she went. - - - - -XXII - - -Yet it was when she had got off--and I missed her on the spot--that the -great pinch really came. If I had counted on what it would give me to -find myself alone with Miles, I speedily perceived, at least, that it -would give me a measure. No hour of my stay in fact was so assailed -with apprehensions as that of my coming down to learn that the carriage -containing Mrs. Grose and my younger pupil had already rolled out of the -gates. Now I WAS, I said to myself, face to face with the elements, and -for much of the rest of the day, while I fought my weakness, I could -consider that I had been supremely rash. It was a tighter place still -than I had yet turned round in; all the more that, for the first time, -I could see in the aspect of others a confused reflection of the crisis. -What had happened naturally caused them all to stare; there was too -little of the explained, throw out whatever we might, in the suddenness -of my colleague’s act. The maids and the men looked blank; the effect -of which on my nerves was an aggravation until I saw the necessity of -making it a positive aid. It was precisely, in short, by just clutching -the helm that I avoided total wreck; and I dare say that, to bear up -at all, I became, that morning, very grand and very dry. I welcomed the -consciousness that I was charged with much to do, and I caused it to be -known as well that, left thus to myself, I was quite remarkably firm. I -wandered with that manner, for the next hour or two, all over the place -and looked, I have no doubt, as if I were ready for any onset. So, for -the benefit of whom it might concern, I paraded with a sick heart. - -The person it appeared least to concern proved to be, till dinner, -little Miles himself. My perambulations had given me, meanwhile, no -glimpse of him, but they had tended to make more public the change -taking place in our relation as a consequence of his having at the -piano, the day before, kept me, in Flora’s interest, so beguiled and -befooled. The stamp of publicity had of course been fully given by her -confinement and departure, and the change itself was now ushered in -by our nonobservance of the regular custom of the schoolroom. He had -already disappeared when, on my way down, I pushed open his door, and -I learned below that he had breakfasted--in the presence of a couple of -the maids--with Mrs. Grose and his sister. He had then gone out, as he -said, for a stroll; than which nothing, I reflected, could better have -expressed his frank view of the abrupt transformation of my office. What -he would not permit this office to consist of was yet to be settled: -there was a queer relief, at all events--I mean for myself in -especial--in the renouncement of one pretension. If so much had sprung -to the surface, I scarce put it too strongly in saying that what had -perhaps sprung highest was the absurdity of our prolonging the fiction -that I had anything more to teach him. It sufficiently stuck out that, -by tacit little tricks in which even more than myself he carried out the -care for my dignity, I had had to appeal to him to let me off straining -to meet him on the ground of his true capacity. He had at any rate -his freedom now; I was never to touch it again; as I had amply shown, -moreover, when, on his joining me in the schoolroom the previous night, -I had uttered, on the subject of the interval just concluded, neither -challenge nor hint. I had too much, from this moment, my other ideas. -Yet when he at last arrived, the difficulty of applying them, the -accumulations of my problem, were brought straight home to me by the -beautiful little presence on which what had occurred had as yet, for the -eye, dropped neither stain nor shadow. - -To mark, for the house, the high state I cultivated I decreed that my -meals with the boy should be served, as we called it, downstairs; so -that I had been awaiting him in the ponderous pomp of the room outside -of the window of which I had had from Mrs. Grose, that first scared -Sunday, my flash of something it would scarce have done to call light. -Here at present I felt afresh--for I had felt it again and again--how my -equilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, the will to shut -my eyes as tight as possible to the truth that what I had to deal with -was, revoltingly, against nature. I could only get on at all by taking -“nature” into my confidence and my account, by treating my monstrous -ordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, and unpleasant, but -demanding, after all, for a fair front, only another turn of the screw -of ordinary human virtue. No attempt, nonetheless, could well require -more tact than just this attempt to supply, one’s self, ALL the nature. -How could I put even a little of that article into a suppression of -reference to what had occurred? How, on the other hand, could I make -reference without a new plunge into the hideous obscure? Well, a sort -of answer, after a time, had come to me, and it was so far confirmed as -that I was met, incontestably, by the quickened vision of what was rare -in my little companion. It was indeed as if he had found even now--as he -had so often found at lessons--still some other delicate way to ease me -off. Wasn’t there light in the fact which, as we shared our solitude, -broke out with a specious glitter it had never yet quite worn?--the fact -that (opportunity aiding, precious opportunity which had now come) it -would be preposterous, with a child so endowed, to forego the help one -might wrest from absolute intelligence? What had his intelligence been -given him for but to save him? Mightn’t one, to reach his mind, risk the -stretch of an angular arm over his character? It was as if, when we were -face to face in the dining room, he had literally shown me the way. -The roast mutton was on the table, and I had dispensed with attendance. -Miles, before he sat down, stood a moment with his hands in his pockets -and looked at the joint, on which he seemed on the point of passing some -humorous judgment. But what he presently produced was: “I say, my dear, -is she really very awfully ill?” - -“Little Flora? Not so bad but that she’ll presently be better. London -will set her up. Bly had ceased to agree with her. Come here and take -your mutton.” - -He alertly obeyed me, carried the plate carefully to his seat, and, -when he was established, went on. “Did Bly disagree with her so terribly -suddenly?” - -“Not so suddenly as you might think. One had seen it coming on.” - -“Then why didn’t you get her off before?” - -“Before what?” - -“Before she became too ill to travel.” - -I found myself prompt. “She’s NOT too ill to travel: she only might -have become so if she had stayed. This was just the moment to seize. The -journey will dissipate the influence”--oh, I was grand!--“and carry it -off.” - -“I see, I see”--Miles, for that matter, was grand, too. He settled to -his repast with the charming little “table manner” that, from the day of -his arrival, had relieved me of all grossness of admonition. Whatever -he had been driven from school for, it was not for ugly feeding. He -was irreproachable, as always, today; but he was unmistakably more -conscious. He was discernibly trying to take for granted more things -than he found, without assistance, quite easy; and he dropped into -peaceful silence while he felt his situation. Our meal was of the -briefest--mine a vain pretense, and I had the things immediately -removed. While this was done Miles stood again with his hands in his -little pockets and his back to me--stood and looked out of the wide -window through which, that other day, I had seen what pulled me up. We -continued silent while the maid was with us--as silent, it whimsically -occurred to me, as some young couple who, on their wedding journey, at -the inn, feel shy in the presence of the waiter. He turned round only -when the waiter had left us. “Well--so we’re alone!” - - - - -XXIII - - -“Oh, more or less.” I fancy my smile was pale. “Not absolutely. We -shouldn’t like that!” I went on. - -“No--I suppose we shouldn’t. Of course we have the others.” - -“We have the others--we have indeed the others,” I concurred. - -“Yet even though we have them,” he returned, still with his hands in -his pockets and planted there in front of me, “they don’t much count, do -they?” - -I made the best of it, but I felt wan. “It depends on what you call -‘much’!” - -“Yes”--with all accommodation--“everything depends!” On this, however, -he faced to the window again and presently reached it with his vague, -restless, cogitating step. He remained there awhile, with his forehead -against the glass, in contemplation of the stupid shrubs I knew and the -dull things of November. I had always my hypocrisy of “work,” behind -which, now, I gained the sofa. Steadying myself with it there as I had -repeatedly done at those moments of torment that I have described as the -moments of my knowing the children to be given to something from which -I was barred, I sufficiently obeyed my habit of being prepared for the -worst. But an extraordinary impression dropped on me as I extracted a -meaning from the boy’s embarrassed back--none other than the impression -that I was not barred now. This inference grew in a few minutes to sharp -intensity and seemed bound up with the direct perception that it was -positively HE who was. The frames and squares of the great window were a -kind of image, for him, of a kind of failure. I felt that I saw him, at -any rate, shut in or shut out. He was admirable, but not comfortable: I -took it in with a throb of hope. Wasn’t he looking, through the haunted -pane, for something he couldn’t see?--and wasn’t it the first time in -the whole business that he had known such a lapse? The first, the very -first: I found it a splendid portent. It made him anxious, though he -watched himself; he had been anxious all day and, even while in his -usual sweet little manner he sat at table, had needed all his small -strange genius to give it a gloss. When he at last turned round to meet -me, it was almost as if this genius had succumbed. “Well, I think I’m -glad Bly agrees with ME!” - -“You would certainly seem to have seen, these twenty-four hours, a good -deal more of it than for some time before. I hope,” I went on bravely, -“that you’ve been enjoying yourself.” - -“Oh, yes, I’ve been ever so far; all round about--miles and miles away. -I’ve never been so free.” - -He had really a manner of his own, and I could only try to keep up with -him. “Well, do you like it?” - -He stood there smiling; then at last he put into two words--“Do -YOU?”--more discrimination than I had ever heard two words contain. -Before I had time to deal with that, however, he continued as if with -the sense that this was an impertinence to be softened. “Nothing could -be more charming than the way you take it, for of course if we’re alone -together now it’s you that are alone most. But I hope,” he threw in, -“you don’t particularly mind!” - -“Having to do with you?” I asked. “My dear child, how can I help -minding? Though I’ve renounced all claim to your company--you’re so -beyond me--I at least greatly enjoy it. What else should I stay on for?” - -He looked at me more directly, and the expression of his face, graver -now, struck me as the most beautiful I had ever found in it. “You stay -on just for THAT?” - -“Certainly. I stay on as your friend and from the tremendous interest -I take in you till something can be done for you that may be more worth -your while. That needn’t surprise you.” My voice trembled so that I felt -it impossible to suppress the shake. “Don’t you remember how I told you, -when I came and sat on your bed the night of the storm, that there was -nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you?” - -“Yes, yes!” He, on his side, more and more visibly nervous, had a tone -to master; but he was so much more successful than I that, laughing out -through his gravity, he could pretend we were pleasantly jesting. “Only -that, I think, was to get me to do something for YOU!” - -“It was partly to get you to do something,” I conceded. “But, you know, -you didn’t do it.” - -“Oh, yes,” he said with the brightest superficial eagerness, “you wanted -me to tell you something.” - -“That’s it. Out, straight out. What you have on your mind, you know.” - -“Ah, then, is THAT what you’ve stayed over for?” - -He spoke with a gaiety through which I could still catch the finest -little quiver of resentful passion; but I can’t begin to express the -effect upon me of an implication of surrender even so faint. It was as -if what I had yearned for had come at last only to astonish me. “Well, -yes--I may as well make a clean breast of it, it was precisely for -that.” - -He waited so long that I supposed it for the purpose of repudiating the -assumption on which my action had been founded; but what he finally said -was: “Do you mean now--here?” - -“There couldn’t be a better place or time.” He looked round him -uneasily, and I had the rare--oh, the queer!--impression of the very -first symptom I had seen in him of the approach of immediate fear. -It was as if he were suddenly afraid of me--which struck me indeed as -perhaps the best thing to make him. Yet in the very pang of the effort -I felt it vain to try sternness, and I heard myself the next instant so -gentle as to be almost grotesque. “You want so to go out again?” - -“Awfully!” He smiled at me heroically, and the touching little bravery -of it was enhanced by his actually flushing with pain. He had picked up -his hat, which he had brought in, and stood twirling it in a way that -gave me, even as I was just nearly reaching port, a perverse horror of -what I was doing. To do it in ANY way was an act of violence, for what -did it consist of but the obtrusion of the idea of grossness and guilt -on a small helpless creature who had been for me a revelation of the -possibilities of beautiful intercourse? Wasn’t it base to create for a -being so exquisite a mere alien awkwardness? I suppose I now read into -our situation a clearness it couldn’t have had at the time, for I seem -to see our poor eyes already lighted with some spark of a prevision -of the anguish that was to come. So we circled about, with terrors and -scruples, like fighters not daring to close. But it was for each other -we feared! That kept us a little longer suspended and unbruised. “I’ll -tell you everything,” Miles said--“I mean I’ll tell you anything you -like. You’ll stay on with me, and we shall both be all right, and I WILL -tell you--I WILL. But not now.” - -“Why not now?” - -My insistence turned him from me and kept him once more at his window -in a silence during which, between us, you might have heard a pin drop. -Then he was before me again with the air of a person for whom, outside, -someone who had frankly to be reckoned with was waiting. “I have to see -Luke.” - -I had not yet reduced him to quite so vulgar a lie, and I felt -proportionately ashamed. But, horrible as it was, his lies made up my -truth. I achieved thoughtfully a few loops of my knitting. “Well, then, -go to Luke, and I’ll wait for what you promise. Only, in return for -that, satisfy, before you leave me, one very much smaller request.” - -He looked as if he felt he had succeeded enough to be able still a -little to bargain. “Very much smaller--?” - -“Yes, a mere fraction of the whole. Tell me”--oh, my work preoccupied -me, and I was offhand!--“if, yesterday afternoon, from the table in the -hall, you took, you know, my letter.” - - - - -XXIV - - -My sense of how he received this suffered for a minute from something -that I can describe only as a fierce split of my attention--a stroke -that at first, as I sprang straight up, reduced me to the mere blind -movement of getting hold of him, drawing him close, and, while I just -fell for support against the nearest piece of furniture, instinctively -keeping him with his back to the window. The appearance was full upon us -that I had already had to deal with here: Peter Quint had come into view -like a sentinel before a prison. The next thing I saw was that, from -outside, he had reached the window, and then I knew that, close to the -glass and glaring in through it, he offered once more to the room his -white face of damnation. It represents but grossly what took place -within me at the sight to say that on the second my decision was made; -yet I believe that no woman so overwhelmed ever in so short a time -recovered her grasp of the ACT. It came to me in the very horror of the -immediate presence that the act would be, seeing and facing what I saw -and faced, to keep the boy himself unaware. The inspiration--I can -call it by no other name--was that I felt how voluntarily, how -transcendently, I MIGHT. It was like fighting with a demon for a -human soul, and when I had fairly so appraised it I saw how the human -soul--held out, in the tremor of my hands, at arm’s length--had a -perfect dew of sweat on a lovely childish forehead. The face that was -close to mine was as white as the face against the glass, and out of it -presently came a sound, not low nor weak, but as if from much further -away, that I drank like a waft of fragrance. - -“Yes--I took it.” - -At this, with a moan of joy, I enfolded, I drew him close; and while -I held him to my breast, where I could feel in the sudden fever of his -little body the tremendous pulse of his little heart, I kept my eyes on -the thing at the window and saw it move and shift its posture. I have -likened it to a sentinel, but its slow wheel, for a moment, was rather -the prowl of a baffled beast. My present quickened courage, however, was -such that, not too much to let it through, I had to shade, as it were, -my flame. Meanwhile the glare of the face was again at the window, the -scoundrel fixed as if to watch and wait. It was the very confidence that -I might now defy him, as well as the positive certitude, by this time, -of the child’s unconsciousness, that made me go on. “What did you take -it for?” - -“To see what you said about me.” - -“You opened the letter?” - -“I opened it.” - -My eyes were now, as I held him off a little again, on Miles’s own face, -in which the collapse of mockery showed me how complete was the ravage -of uneasiness. What was prodigious was that at last, by my success, his -sense was sealed and his communication stopped: he knew that he was in -presence, but knew not of what, and knew still less that I also was and -that I did know. And what did this strain of trouble matter when my eyes -went back to the window only to see that the air was clear again and--by -my personal triumph--the influence quenched? There was nothing there. I -felt that the cause was mine and that I should surely get ALL. “And you -found nothing!”--I let my elation out. - -He gave the most mournful, thoughtful little headshake. “Nothing.” - -“Nothing, nothing!” I almost shouted in my joy. - -“Nothing, nothing,” he sadly repeated. - -I kissed his forehead; it was drenched. “So what have you done with it?” - -“I’ve burned it.” - -“Burned it?” It was now or never. “Is that what you did at school?” - -Oh, what this brought up! “At school?” - -“Did you take letters?--or other things?” - -“Other things?” He appeared now to be thinking of something far off and -that reached him only through the pressure of his anxiety. Yet it did -reach him. “Did I STEAL?” - -I felt myself redden to the roots of my hair as well as wonder if it -were more strange to put to a gentleman such a question or to see him -take it with allowances that gave the very distance of his fall in the -world. “Was it for that you mightn’t go back?” - -The only thing he felt was rather a dreary little surprise. “Did you -know I mightn’t go back?” - -“I know everything.” - -He gave me at this the longest and strangest look. “Everything?” - -“Everything. Therefore DID you--?” But I couldn’t say it again. - -Miles could, very simply. “No. I didn’t steal.” - -My face must have shown him I believed him utterly; yet my hands--but it -was for pure tenderness--shook him as if to ask him why, if it was all -for nothing, he had condemned me to months of torment. “What then did -you do?” - -He looked in vague pain all round the top of the room and drew his -breath, two or three times over, as if with difficulty. He might have -been standing at the bottom of the sea and raising his eyes to some -faint green twilight. “Well--I said things.” - -“Only that?” - -“They thought it was enough!” - -“To turn you out for?” - -Never, truly, had a person “turned out” shown so little to explain it -as this little person! He appeared to weigh my question, but in a manner -quite detached and almost helpless. “Well, I suppose I oughtn’t.” - -“But to whom did you say them?” - -He evidently tried to remember, but it dropped--he had lost it. “I don’t -know!” - -He almost smiled at me in the desolation of his surrender, which was -indeed practically, by this time, so complete that I ought to have left -it there. But I was infatuated--I was blind with victory, though even -then the very effect that was to have brought him so much nearer was -already that of added separation. “Was it to everyone?” I asked. - -“No; it was only to--” But he gave a sick little headshake. “I don’t -remember their names.” - -“Were they then so many?” - -“No--only a few. Those I liked.” - -Those he liked? I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker -obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity -the appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent. It was for the -instant confounding and bottomless, for if he WERE innocent, what then -on earth was _I_? Paralyzed, while it lasted, by the mere brush of the -question, I let him go a little, so that, with a deep-drawn sigh, he -turned away from me again; which, as he faced toward the clear window, -I suffered, feeling that I had nothing now there to keep him from. “And -did they repeat what you said?” I went on after a moment. - -He was soon at some distance from me, still breathing hard and again -with the air, though now without anger for it, of being confined against -his will. Once more, as he had done before, he looked up at the dim -day as if, of what had hitherto sustained him, nothing was left but an -unspeakable anxiety. “Oh, yes,” he nevertheless replied--“they must have -repeated them. To those THEY liked,” he added. - -There was, somehow, less of it than I had expected; but I turned it -over. “And these things came round--?” - -“To the masters? Oh, yes!” he answered very simply. “But I didn’t know -they’d tell.” - -“The masters? They didn’t--they’ve never told. That’s why I ask you.” - -He turned to me again his little beautiful fevered face. “Yes, it was -too bad.” - -“Too bad?” - -“What I suppose I sometimes said. To write home.” - -I can’t name the exquisite pathos of the contradiction given to such -a speech by such a speaker; I only know that the next instant I heard -myself throw off with homely force: “Stuff and nonsense!” But the next -after that I must have sounded stern enough. “What WERE these things?” - -My sternness was all for his judge, his executioner; yet it made him -avert himself again, and that movement made ME, with a single bound and -an irrepressible cry, spring straight upon him. For there again, against -the glass, as if to blight his confession and stay his answer, was the -hideous author of our woe--the white face of damnation. I felt a sick -swim at the drop of my victory and all the return of my battle, so that -the wildness of my veritable leap only served as a great betrayal. I -saw him, from the midst of my act, meet it with a divination, and on the -perception that even now he only guessed, and that the window was still -to his own eyes free, I let the impulse flame up to convert the climax -of his dismay into the very proof of his liberation. “No more, no -more, no more!” I shrieked, as I tried to press him against me, to my -visitant. - -“Is she HERE?” Miles panted as he caught with his sealed eyes the -direction of my words. Then as his strange “she” staggered me and, with -a gasp, I echoed it, “Miss Jessel, Miss Jessel!” he with a sudden fury -gave me back. - -I seized, stupefied, his supposition--some sequel to what we had done to -Flora, but this made me only want to show him that it was better still -than that. “It’s not Miss Jessel! But it’s at the window--straight -before us. It’s THERE--the coward horror, there for the last time!” - -At this, after a second in which his head made the movement of a baffled -dog’s on a scent and then gave a frantic little shake for air and light, -he was at me in a white rage, bewildered, glaring vainly over the place -and missing wholly, though it now, to my sense, filled the room like the -taste of poison, the wide, overwhelming presence. “It’s HE?” - -I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice to -challenge him. “Whom do you mean by ‘he’?” - -“Peter Quint--you devil!” His face gave again, round the room, its -convulsed supplication. “WHERE?” - -They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his -tribute to my devotion. “What does he matter now, my own?--what will he -EVER matter? _I_ have you,” I launched at the beast, “but he has lost -you forever!” Then, for the demonstration of my work, “There, THERE!” I -said to Miles. - -But he had already jerked straight round, stared, glared again, and -seen but the quiet day. With the stroke of the loss I was so proud of he -uttered the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss, and the grasp with -which I recovered him might have been that of catching him in his fall. -I caught him, yes, I held him--it may be imagined with what a passion; -but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that -I held. We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, -dispossessed, had stopped. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TURN OF THE SCREW *** - -***** This file should be named 209-0.txt or 209-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/209/ - -Produced by Judith Boss - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/2016-09-18-209-h.htm b/old/2016-09-18-209-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 11ef5bb..0000000 --- a/old/2016-09-18-209-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5910 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html - PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> - <head> - <title> - The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James - </title> - <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; - margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; - text-align: right;} - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - -</style> - </head> - <body> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Turn of the Screw - -Author: Henry James - -Release Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #209] -Last Updated: September 18, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TURN OF THE SCREW *** - - - - -Produced by Judith Boss, and David Widger - - - - - -</pre> - - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <h1> - THE TURN OF THE SCREW - </h1> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <h2> - by Henry James - </h2> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <h4> - [The text is take from the first American appearance of this book.] - </h4> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <blockquote> - <p class="toc"> - <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE TURN OF THE SCREW</b> </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VI </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VII </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VIII </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> IX </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> X </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> XI </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> XII </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XIII </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> XIV </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> XV </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> XVI </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> XVII </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> XVIII </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> XIX </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> XX </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> XXI </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> XXII </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> XXIII </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> XXIV </a> - </p> - </blockquote> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <h2> - THE TURN OF THE SCREW - </h2> - <p> - The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except - the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old - house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered - till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in - which such a visitation had fallen on a child. The case, I may mention, - was that of an apparition in just such an old house as had gathered us for - the occasion—an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to a little boy - sleeping in the room with his mother and waking her up in the terror of - it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him to sleep again, - but to encounter also, herself, before she had succeeded in doing so, the - same sight that had shaken him. It was this observation that drew from - Douglas—not immediately, but later in the evening—a reply that - had the interesting consequence to which I call attention. Someone else - told a story not particularly effective, which I saw he was not following. - This I took for a sign that he had himself something to produce and that - we should only have to wait. We waited in fact till two nights later; but - that same evening, before we scattered, he brought out what was in his - mind. - </p> - <p> - “I quite agree—in regard to Griffin’s ghost, or whatever it was—that - its appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds a - particular touch. But it’s not the first occurrence of its charming kind - that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the effect - another turn of the screw, what do you say to TWO children—?” - </p> - <p> - “We say, of course,” somebody exclaimed, “that they give two turns! Also - that we want to hear about them.” - </p> - <p> - I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got up to present - his back, looking down at his interlocutor with his hands in his pockets. - “Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. It’s quite too horrible.” This, - naturally, was declared by several voices to give the thing the utmost - price, and our friend, with quiet art, prepared his triumph by turning his - eyes over the rest of us and going on: “It’s beyond everything. Nothing at - all that I know touches it.” - </p> - <p> - “For sheer terror?” I remember asking. - </p> - <p> - He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at a loss how - to qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made a little wincing - grimace. “For dreadful—dreadfulness!” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, how delicious!” cried one of the women. - </p> - <p> - He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead of me, he - saw what he spoke of. “For general uncanny ugliness and horror and pain.” - </p> - <p> - “Well then,” I said, “just sit right down and begin.” - </p> - <p> - He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log, watched it an instant. - Then as he faced us again: “I can’t begin. I shall have to send to town.” - There was a unanimous groan at this, and much reproach; after which, in - his preoccupied way, he explained. “The story’s written. It’s in a locked - drawer—it has not been out for years. I could write to my man and - enclose the key; he could send down the packet as he finds it.” It was to - me in particular that he appeared to propound this—appeared almost - to appeal for aid not to hesitate. He had broken a thickness of ice, the - formation of many a winter; had had his reasons for a long silence. The - others resented postponement, but it was just his scruples that charmed - me. I adjured him to write by the first post and to agree with us for an - early hearing; then I asked him if the experience in question had been his - own. To this his answer was prompt. “Oh, thank God, no!” - </p> - <p> - “And is the record yours? You took the thing down?” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing but the impression. I took that HERE”—he tapped his heart. - “I’ve never lost it.” - </p> - <p> - “Then your manuscript—?” - </p> - <p> - “Is in old, faded ink, and in the most beautiful hand.” He hung fire - again. “A woman’s. She has been dead these twenty years. She sent me the - pages in question before she died.” They were all listening now, and of - course there was somebody to be arch, or at any rate to draw the - inference. But if he put the inference by without a smile it was also - without irritation. “She was a most charming person, but she was ten years - older than I. She was my sister’s governess,” he quietly said. “She was - the most agreeable woman I’ve ever known in her position; she would have - been worthy of any whatever. It was long ago, and this episode was long - before. I was at Trinity, and I found her at home on my coming down the - second summer. I was much there that year—it was a beautiful one; - and we had, in her off-hours, some strolls and talks in the garden—talks - in which she struck me as awfully clever and nice. Oh yes; don’t grin: I - liked her extremely and am glad to this day to think she liked me, too. If - she hadn’t she wouldn’t have told me. She had never told anyone. It wasn’t - simply that she said so, but that I knew she hadn’t. I was sure; I could - see. You’ll easily judge why when you hear.” - </p> - <p> - “Because the thing had been such a scare?” - </p> - <p> - He continued to fix me. “You’ll easily judge,” he repeated: “YOU will.” - </p> - <p> - I fixed him, too. “I see. She was in love.” - </p> - <p> - He laughed for the first time. “You ARE acute. Yes, she was in love. That - is, she had been. That came out—she couldn’t tell her story without - its coming out. I saw it, and she saw I saw it; but neither of us spoke of - it. I remember the time and the place—the corner of the lawn, the - shade of the great beeches and the long, hot summer afternoon. It wasn’t a - scene for a shudder; but oh—!” He quitted the fire and dropped back - into his chair. - </p> - <p> - “You’ll receive the packet Thursday morning?” I inquired. - </p> - <p> - “Probably not till the second post.” - </p> - <p> - “Well then; after dinner—” - </p> - <p> - “You’ll all meet me here?” He looked us round again. “Isn’t anybody - going?” It was almost the tone of hope. - </p> - <p> - “Everybody will stay!” - </p> - <p> - “<i>I</i> will”—and “<i>I</i> will!” cried the ladies whose - departure had been fixed. Mrs. Griffin, however, expressed the need for a - little more light. “Who was it she was in love with?” - </p> - <p> - “The story will tell,” I took upon myself to reply. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I can’t wait for the story!” - </p> - <p> - “The story WON’T tell,” said Douglas; “not in any literal, vulgar way.” - </p> - <p> - “More’s the pity, then. That’s the only way I ever understand.” - </p> - <p> - “Won’t YOU tell, Douglas?” somebody else inquired. - </p> - <p> - He sprang to his feet again. “Yes—tomorrow. Now I must go to bed. - Good night.” And quickly catching up a candlestick, he left us slightly - bewildered. From our end of the great brown hall we heard his step on the - stair; whereupon Mrs. Griffin spoke. “Well, if I don’t know who she was in - love with, I know who HE was.” - </p> - <p> - “She was ten years older,” said her husband. - </p> - <p> - “Raison de plus—at that age! But it’s rather nice, his long - reticence.” - </p> - <p> - “Forty years!” Griffin put in. - </p> - <p> - “With this outbreak at last.” - </p> - <p> - “The outbreak,” I returned, “will make a tremendous occasion of Thursday - night;” and everyone so agreed with me that, in the light of it, we lost - all attention for everything else. The last story, however incomplete and - like the mere opening of a serial, had been told; we handshook and - “candlestuck,” as somebody said, and went to bed. - </p> - <p> - I knew the next day that a letter containing the key had, by the first - post, gone off to his London apartments; but in spite of—or perhaps - just on account of—the eventual diffusion of this knowledge we quite - let him alone till after dinner, till such an hour of the evening, in - fact, as might best accord with the kind of emotion on which our hopes - were fixed. Then he became as communicative as we could desire and indeed - gave us his best reason for being so. We had it from him again before the - fire in the hall, as we had had our mild wonders of the previous night. It - appeared that the narrative he had promised to read us really required for - a proper intelligence a few words of prologue. Let me say here distinctly, - to have done with it, that this narrative, from an exact transcript of my - own made much later, is what I shall presently give. Poor Douglas, before - his death—when it was in sight—committed to me the manuscript - that reached him on the third of these days and that, on the same spot, - with immense effect, he began to read to our hushed little circle on the - night of the fourth. The departing ladies who had said they would stay - didn’t, of course, thank heaven, stay: they departed, in consequence of - arrangements made, in a rage of curiosity, as they professed, produced by - the touches with which he had already worked us up. But that only made his - little final auditory more compact and select, kept it, round the hearth, - subject to a common thrill. - </p> - <p> - The first of these touches conveyed that the written statement took up the - tale at a point after it had, in a manner, begun. The fact to be in - possession of was therefore that his old friend, the youngest of several - daughters of a poor country parson, had, at the age of twenty, on taking - service for the first time in the schoolroom, come up to London, in - trepidation, to answer in person an advertisement that had already placed - her in brief correspondence with the advertiser. This person proved, on - her presenting herself, for judgment, at a house in Harley Street, that - impressed her as vast and imposing—this prospective patron proved a - gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such a figure as had never - risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered, anxious girl - out of a Hampshire vicarage. One could easily fix his type; it never, - happily, dies out. He was handsome and bold and pleasant, offhand and gay - and kind. He struck her, inevitably, as gallant and splendid, but what - took her most of all and gave her the courage she afterward showed was - that he put the whole thing to her as a kind of favor, an obligation he - should gratefully incur. She conceived him as rich, but as fearfully - extravagant—saw him all in a glow of high fashion, of good looks, of - expensive habits, of charming ways with women. He had for his own town - residence a big house filled with the spoils of travel and the trophies of - the chase; but it was to his country home, an old family place in Essex, - that he wished her immediately to proceed. - </p> - <p> - He had been left, by the death of their parents in India, guardian to a - small nephew and a small niece, children of a younger, a military brother, - whom he had lost two years before. These children were, by the strangest - of chances for a man in his position—a lone man without the right - sort of experience or a grain of patience—very heavily on his hands. - It had all been a great worry and, on his own part doubtless, a series of - blunders, but he immensely pitied the poor chicks and had done all he - could; had in particular sent them down to his other house, the proper - place for them being of course the country, and kept them there, from the - first, with the best people he could find to look after them, parting even - with his own servants to wait on them and going down himself, whenever he - might, to see how they were doing. The awkward thing was that they had - practically no other relations and that his own affairs took up all his - time. He had put them in possession of Bly, which was healthy and secure, - and had placed at the head of their little establishment—but below - stairs only—an excellent woman, Mrs. Grose, whom he was sure his - visitor would like and who had formerly been maid to his mother. She was - now housekeeper and was also acting for the time as superintendent to the - little girl, of whom, without children of her own, she was, by good luck, - extremely fond. There were plenty of people to help, but of course the - young lady who should go down as governess would be in supreme authority. - She would also have, in holidays, to look after the small boy, who had - been for a term at school—young as he was to be sent, but what else - could be done?—and who, as the holidays were about to begin, would - be back from one day to the other. There had been for the two children at - first a young lady whom they had had the misfortune to lose. She had done - for them quite beautifully—she was a most respectable person—till - her death, the great awkwardness of which had, precisely, left no - alternative but the school for little Miles. Mrs. Grose, since then, in - the way of manners and things, had done as she could for Flora; and there - were, further, a cook, a housemaid, a dairywoman, an old pony, an old - groom, and an old gardener, all likewise thoroughly respectable. - </p> - <p> - So far had Douglas presented his picture when someone put a question. “And - what did the former governess die of?—of so much respectability?” - </p> - <p> - Our friend’s answer was prompt. “That will come out. I don’t anticipate.” - </p> - <p> - “Excuse me—I thought that was just what you ARE doing.” - </p> - <p> - “In her successor’s place,” I suggested, “I should have wished to learn if - the office brought with it—” - </p> - <p> - “Necessary danger to life?” Douglas completed my thought. “She did wish to - learn, and she did learn. You shall hear tomorrow what she learned. - Meanwhile, of course, the prospect struck her as slightly grim. She was - young, untried, nervous: it was a vision of serious duties and little - company, of really great loneliness. She hesitated—took a couple of - days to consult and consider. But the salary offered much exceeded her - modest measure, and on a second interview she faced the music, she - engaged.” And Douglas, with this, made a pause that, for the benefit of - the company, moved me to throw in— - </p> - <p> - “The moral of which was of course the seduction exercised by the splendid - young man. She succumbed to it.” - </p> - <p> - He got up and, as he had done the night before, went to the fire, gave a - stir to a log with his foot, then stood a moment with his back to us. “She - saw him only twice.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, but that’s just the beauty of her passion.” - </p> - <p> - A little to my surprise, on this, Douglas turned round to me. “It WAS the - beauty of it. There were others,” he went on, “who hadn’t succumbed. He - told her frankly all his difficulty—that for several applicants the - conditions had been prohibitive. They were, somehow, simply afraid. It - sounded dull—it sounded strange; and all the more so because of his - main condition.” - </p> - <p> - “Which was—?” - </p> - <p> - “That she should never trouble him—but never, never: neither appeal - nor complain nor write about anything; only meet all questions herself, - receive all moneys from his solicitor, take the whole thing over and let - him alone. She promised to do this, and she mentioned to me that when, for - a moment, disburdened, delighted, he held her hand, thanking her for the - sacrifice, she already felt rewarded.” - </p> - <p> - “But was that all her reward?” one of the ladies asked. - </p> - <p> - “She never saw him again.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh!” said the lady; which, as our friend immediately left us again, was - the only other word of importance contributed to the subject till, the - next night, by the corner of the hearth, in the best chair, he opened the - faded red cover of a thin old-fashioned gilt-edged album. The whole thing - took indeed more nights than one, but on the first occasion the same lady - put another question. “What is your title?” - </p> - <p> - “I haven’t one.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, <i>I</i> have!” I said. But Douglas, without heeding me, had begun to - read with a fine clearness that was like a rendering to the ear of the - beauty of his author’s hand. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - I - </h2> - <p> - I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a - little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to - meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days—found - myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this - state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that - carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle - from the house. This convenience, I was told, had been ordered, and I - found, toward the close of the June afternoon, a commodious fly in waiting - for me. Driving at that hour, on a lovely day, through a country to which - the summer sweetness seemed to offer me a friendly welcome, my fortitude - mounted afresh and, as we turned into the avenue, encountered a reprieve - that was probably but a proof of the point to which it had sunk. I suppose - I had expected, or had dreaded, something so melancholy that what greeted - me was a good surprise. I remember as a most pleasant impression the - broad, clear front, its open windows and fresh curtains and the pair of - maids looking out; I remember the lawn and the bright flowers and the - crunch of my wheels on the gravel and the clustered treetops over which - the rooks circled and cawed in the golden sky. The scene had a greatness - that made it a different affair from my own scant home, and there - immediately appeared at the door, with a little girl in her hand, a civil - person who dropped me as decent a curtsy as if I had been the mistress or - a distinguished visitor. I had received in Harley Street a narrower notion - of the place, and that, as I recalled it, made me think the proprietor - still more of a gentleman, suggested that what I was to enjoy might be - something beyond his promise. - </p> - <p> - I had no drop again till the next day, for I was carried triumphantly - through the following hours by my introduction to the younger of my - pupils. The little girl who accompanied Mrs. Grose appeared to me on the - spot a creature so charming as to make it a great fortune to have to do - with her. She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, and I - afterward wondered that my employer had not told me more of her. I slept - little that night—I was too much excited; and this astonished me, - too, I recollect, remained with me, adding to my sense of the liberality - with which I was treated. The large, impressive room, one of the best in - the house, the great state bed, as I almost felt it, the full, figured - draperies, the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see - myself from head to foot, all struck me—like the extraordinary charm - of my small charge—as so many things thrown in. It was thrown in as - well, from the first moment, that I should get on with Mrs. Grose in a - relation over which, on my way, in the coach, I fear I had rather brooded. - The only thing indeed that in this early outlook might have made me shrink - again was the clear circumstance of her being so glad to see me. I - perceived within half an hour that she was so glad—stout, simple, - plain, clean, wholesome woman—as to be positively on her guard - against showing it too much. I wondered even then a little why she should - wish not to show it, and that, with reflection, with suspicion, might of - course have made me uneasy. - </p> - <p> - But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a connection - with anything so beatific as the radiant image of my little girl, the - vision of whose angelic beauty had probably more than anything else to do - with the restlessness that, before morning, made me several times rise and - wander about my room to take in the whole picture and prospect; to watch, - from my open window, the faint summer dawn, to look at such portions of - the rest of the house as I could catch, and to listen, while, in the - fading dusk, the first birds began to twitter, for the possible recurrence - of a sound or two, less natural and not without, but within, that I had - fancied I heard. There had been a moment when I believed I recognized, - faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been another when I found - myself just consciously starting as at the passage, before my door, of a - light footstep. But these fancies were not marked enough not to be thrown - off, and it is only in the light, or the gloom, I should rather say, of - other and subsequent matters that they now come back to me. To watch, - teach, “form” little Flora would too evidently be the making of a happy - and useful life. It had been agreed between us downstairs that after this - first occasion I should have her as a matter of course at night, her small - white bed being already arranged, to that end, in my room. What I had - undertaken was the whole care of her, and she had remained, just this last - time, with Mrs. Grose only as an effect of our consideration for my - inevitable strangeness and her natural timidity. In spite of this timidity—which - the child herself, in the oddest way in the world, had been perfectly - frank and brave about, allowing it, without a sign of uncomfortable - consciousness, with the deep, sweet serenity indeed of one of Raphael’s - holy infants, to be discussed, to be imputed to her, and to determine us—I - feel quite sure she would presently like me. It was part of what I already - liked Mrs. Grose herself for, the pleasure I could see her feel in my - admiration and wonder as I sat at supper with four tall candles and with - my pupil, in a high chair and a bib, brightly facing me, between them, - over bread and milk. There were naturally things that in Flora’s presence - could pass between us only as prodigious and gratified looks, obscure and - roundabout allusions. - </p> - <p> - “And the little boy—does he look like her? Is he too so very - remarkable?” - </p> - <p> - One wouldn’t flatter a child. “Oh, miss, MOST remarkable. If you think - well of this one!”—and she stood there with a plate in her hand, - beaming at our companion, who looked from one of us to the other with - placid heavenly eyes that contained nothing to check us. - </p> - <p> - “Yes; if I do—?” - </p> - <p> - “You WILL be carried away by the little gentleman!” - </p> - <p> - “Well, that, I think, is what I came for—to be carried away. I’m - afraid, however,” I remember feeling the impulse to add, “I’m rather - easily carried away. I was carried away in London!” - </p> - <p> - I can still see Mrs. Grose’s broad face as she took this in. “In Harley - Street?” - </p> - <p> - “In Harley Street.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, miss, you’re not the first—and you won’t be the last.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I’ve no pretension,” I could laugh, “to being the only one. My other - pupil, at any rate, as I understand, comes back tomorrow?” - </p> - <p> - “Not tomorrow—Friday, miss. He arrives, as you did, by the coach, - under care of the guard, and is to be met by the same carriage.” - </p> - <p> - I forthwith expressed that the proper as well as the pleasant and friendly - thing would be therefore that on the arrival of the public conveyance I - should be in waiting for him with his little sister; an idea in which Mrs. - Grose concurred so heartily that I somehow took her manner as a kind of - comforting pledge—never falsified, thank heaven!—that we - should on every question be quite at one. Oh, she was glad I was there! - </p> - <p> - What I felt the next day was, I suppose, nothing that could be fairly - called a reaction from the cheer of my arrival; it was probably at the - most only a slight oppression produced by a fuller measure of the scale, - as I walked round them, gazed up at them, took them in, of my new - circumstances. They had, as it were, an extent and mass for which I had - not been prepared and in the presence of which I found myself, freshly, a - little scared as well as a little proud. Lessons, in this agitation, - certainly suffered some delay; I reflected that my first duty was, by the - gentlest arts I could contrive, to win the child into the sense of knowing - me. I spent the day with her out-of-doors; I arranged with her, to her - great satisfaction, that it should be she, she only, who might show me the - place. She showed it step by step and room by room and secret by secret, - with droll, delightful, childish talk about it and with the result, in - half an hour, of our becoming immense friends. Young as she was, I was - struck, throughout our little tour, with her confidence and courage with - the way, in empty chambers and dull corridors, on crooked staircases that - made me pause and even on the summit of an old machicolated square tower - that made me dizzy, her morning music, her disposition to tell me so many - more things than she asked, rang out and led me on. I have not seen Bly - since the day I left it, and I daresay that to my older and more informed - eyes it would now appear sufficiently contracted. But as my little - conductress, with her hair of gold and her frock of blue, danced before me - round corners and pattered down passages, I had the view of a castle of - romance inhabited by a rosy sprite, such a place as would somehow, for - diversion of the young idea, take all color out of storybooks and - fairytales. Wasn’t it just a storybook over which I had fallen adoze and - adream? No; it was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient house, embodying a - few features of a building still older, half-replaced and half-utilized, - in which I had the fancy of our being almost as lost as a handful of - passengers in a great drifting ship. Well, I was, strangely, at the helm! - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - II - </h2> - <p> - This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to - meet, as Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; and all the more for an - incident that, presenting itself the second evening, had deeply - disconcerted me. The first day had been, on the whole, as I have - expressed, reassuring; but I was to see it wind up in keen apprehension. - The postbag, that evening—it came late—contained a letter for - me, which, however, in the hand of my employer, I found to be composed but - of a few words enclosing another, addressed to himself, with a seal still - unbroken. “This, I recognize, is from the headmaster, and the headmaster’s - an awful bore. Read him, please; deal with him; but mind you don’t report. - Not a word. I’m off!” I broke the seal with a great effort—so great - a one that I was a long time coming to it; took the unopened missive at - last up to my room and only attacked it just before going to bed. I had - better have let it wait till morning, for it gave me a second sleepless - night. With no counsel to take, the next day, I was full of distress; and - it finally got so the better of me that I determined to open myself at - least to Mrs. Grose. - </p> - <p> - “What does it mean? The child’s dismissed his school.” - </p> - <p> - She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then, visibly, with a - quick blankness, seemed to try to take it back. “But aren’t they all—?” - </p> - <p> - “Sent home—yes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never go back - at all.” - </p> - <p> - Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. “They won’t take him?” - </p> - <p> - “They absolutely decline.” - </p> - <p> - At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me; I saw them fill - with good tears. “What has he done?” - </p> - <p> - I hesitated; then I judged best simply to hand her my letter—which, - however, had the effect of making her, without taking it, simply put her - hands behind her. She shook her head sadly. “Such things are not for me, - miss.” - </p> - <p> - My counselor couldn’t read! I winced at my mistake, which I attenuated as - I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it to her; then, faltering - in the act and folding it up once more, I put it back in my pocket. “Is he - really BAD?” - </p> - <p> - The tears were still in her eyes. “Do the gentlemen say so?” - </p> - <p> - “They go into no particulars. They simply express their regret that it - should be impossible to keep him. That can have only one meaning.” Mrs. - Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask me what this meaning - might be; so that, presently, to put the thing with some coherence and - with the mere aid of her presence to my own mind, I went on: “That he’s an - injury to the others.” - </p> - <p> - At this, with one of the quick turns of simple folk, she suddenly flamed - up. “Master Miles! HIM an injury?” - </p> - <p> - There was such a flood of good faith in it that, though I had not yet seen - the child, my very fears made me jump to the absurdity of the idea. I - found myself, to meet my friend the better, offering it, on the spot, - sarcastically. “To his poor little innocent mates!” - </p> - <p> - “It’s too dreadful,” cried Mrs. Grose, “to say such cruel things! Why, - he’s scarce ten years old.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, yes; it would be incredible.” - </p> - <p> - She was evidently grateful for such a profession. “See him, miss, first. - THEN believe it!” I felt forthwith a new impatience to see him; it was the - beginning of a curiosity that, for all the next hours, was to deepen - almost to pain. Mrs. Grose was aware, I could judge, of what she had - produced in me, and she followed it up with assurance. “You might as well - believe it of the little lady. Bless her,” she added the next moment—“LOOK - at her!” - </p> - <p> - I turned and saw that Flora, whom, ten minutes before, I had established - in the schoolroom with a sheet of white paper, a pencil, and a copy of - nice “round o’s,” now presented herself to view at the open door. She - expressed in her little way an extraordinary detachment from disagreeable - duties, looking to me, however, with a great childish light that seemed to - offer it as a mere result of the affection she had conceived for my - person, which had rendered necessary that she should follow me. I needed - nothing more than this to feel the full force of Mrs. Grose’s comparison, - and, catching my pupil in my arms, covered her with kisses in which there - was a sob of atonement. - </p> - <p> - Nonetheless, the rest of the day I watched for further occasion to - approach my colleague, especially as, toward evening, I began to fancy she - rather sought to avoid me. I overtook her, I remember, on the staircase; - we went down together, and at the bottom I detained her, holding her there - with a hand on her arm. “I take what you said to me at noon as a - declaration that YOU’VE never known him to be bad.” - </p> - <p> - She threw back her head; she had clearly, by this time, and very honestly, - adopted an attitude. “Oh, never known him—I don’t pretend THAT!” - </p> - <p> - I was upset again. “Then you HAVE known him—?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes indeed, miss, thank God!” - </p> - <p> - On reflection I accepted this. “You mean that a boy who never is—?” - </p> - <p> - “Is no boy for ME!” - </p> - <p> - I held her tighter. “You like them with the spirit to be naughty?” Then, - keeping pace with her answer, “So do I!” I eagerly brought out. “But not - to the degree to contaminate—” - </p> - <p> - “To contaminate?”—my big word left her at a loss. I explained it. - “To corrupt.” - </p> - <p> - She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her an odd laugh. - “Are you afraid he’ll corrupt YOU?” She put the question with such a fine - bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, to match her own, - I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule. - </p> - <p> - But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped up in - another place. “What was the lady who was here before?” - </p> - <p> - “The last governess? She was also young and pretty—almost as young - and almost as pretty, miss, even as you.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her!” I recollect - throwing off. “He seems to like us young and pretty!” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, he DID,” Mrs. Grose assented: “it was the way he liked everyone!” She - had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself up. “I mean that’s HIS - way—the master’s.” - </p> - <p> - I was struck. “But of whom did you speak first?” - </p> - <p> - She looked blank, but she colored. “Why, of HIM.” - </p> - <p> - “Of the master?” - </p> - <p> - “Of who else?” - </p> - <p> - There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I had lost my - impression of her having accidentally said more than she meant; and I - merely asked what I wanted to know. “Did SHE see anything in the boy—?” - </p> - <p> - “That wasn’t right? She never told me.” - </p> - <p> - I had a scruple, but I overcame it. “Was she careful—particular?” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose appeared to try to be conscientious. “About some things—yes.” - </p> - <p> - “But not about all?” - </p> - <p> - Again she considered. “Well, miss—she’s gone. I won’t tell tales.” - </p> - <p> - “I quite understand your feeling,” I hastened to reply; but I thought it, - after an instant, not opposed to this concession to pursue: “Did she die - here?” - </p> - <p> - “No—she went off.” - </p> - <p> - I don’t know what there was in this brevity of Mrs. Grose’s that struck me - as ambiguous. “Went off to die?” Mrs. Grose looked straight out of the - window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right to know what young - persons engaged for Bly were expected to do. “She was taken ill, you mean, - and went home?” - </p> - <p> - “She was not taken ill, so far as appeared, in this house. She left it, at - the end of the year, to go home, as she said, for a short holiday, to - which the time she had put in had certainly given her a right. We had then - a young woman—a nursemaid who had stayed on and who was a good girl - and clever; and SHE took the children altogether for the interval. But our - young lady never came back, and at the very moment I was expecting her I - heard from the master that she was dead.” - </p> - <p> - I turned this over. “But of what?” - </p> - <p> - “He never told me! But please, miss,” said Mrs. Grose, “I must get to my - work.” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - III - </h2> - <p> - Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just - preoccupations, a snub that could check the growth of our mutual esteem. - We met, after I had brought home little Miles, more intimately than ever - on the ground of my stupefaction, my general emotion: so monstrous was I - then ready to pronounce it that such a child as had now been revealed to - me should be under an interdict. I was a little late on the scene, and I - felt, as he stood wistfully looking out for me before the door of the inn - at which the coach had put him down, that I had seen him, on the instant, - without and within, in the great glow of freshness, the same positive - fragrance of purity, in which I had, from the first moment, seen his - little sister. He was incredibly beautiful, and Mrs. Grose had put her - finger on it: everything but a sort of passion of tenderness for him was - swept away by his presence. What I then and there took him to my heart for - was something divine that I have never found to the same degree in any - child—his indescribable little air of knowing nothing in the world - but love. It would have been impossible to carry a bad name with a greater - sweetness of innocence, and by the time I had got back to Bly with him I - remained merely bewildered—so far, that is, as I was not outraged—by - the sense of the horrible letter locked up in my room, in a drawer. As - soon as I could compass a private word with Mrs. Grose I declared to her - that it was grotesque. - </p> - <p> - She promptly understood me. “You mean the cruel charge—?” - </p> - <p> - “It doesn’t live an instant. My dear woman, LOOK at him!” - </p> - <p> - She smiled at my pretention to have discovered his charm. “I assure you, - miss, I do nothing else! What will you say, then?” she immediately added. - </p> - <p> - “In answer to the letter?” I had made up my mind. “Nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “And to his uncle?” - </p> - <p> - I was incisive. “Nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “And to the boy himself?” - </p> - <p> - I was wonderful. “Nothing.” - </p> - <p> - She gave with her apron a great wipe to her mouth. “Then I’ll stand by - you. We’ll see it out.” - </p> - <p> - “We’ll see it out!” I ardently echoed, giving her my hand to make it a - vow. - </p> - <p> - She held me there a moment, then whisked up her apron again with her - detached hand. “Would you mind, miss, if I used the freedom—” - </p> - <p> - “To kiss me? No!” I took the good creature in my arms and, after we had - embraced like sisters, felt still more fortified and indignant. - </p> - <p> - This, at all events, was for the time: a time so full that, as I recall - the way it went, it reminds me of all the art I now need to make it a - little distinct. What I look back at with amazement is the situation I - accepted. I had undertaken, with my companion, to see it out, and I was - under a charm, apparently, that could smooth away the extent and the far - and difficult connections of such an effort. I was lifted aloft on a great - wave of infatuation and pity. I found it simple, in my ignorance, my - confusion, and perhaps my conceit, to assume that I could deal with a boy - whose education for the world was all on the point of beginning. I am - unable even to remember at this day what proposal I framed for the end of - his holidays and the resumption of his studies. Lessons with me, indeed, - that charming summer, we all had a theory that he was to have; but I now - feel that, for weeks, the lessons must have been rather my own. I learned - something—at first, certainly—that had not been one of the - teachings of my small, smothered life; learned to be amused, and even - amusing, and not to think for the morrow. It was the first time, in a - manner, that I had known space and air and freedom, all the music of - summer and all the mystery of nature. And then there was consideration—and - consideration was sweet. Oh, it was a trap—not designed, but deep—to - my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps to my vanity; to whatever, in me, - was most excitable. The best way to picture it all is to say that I was - off my guard. They gave me so little trouble—they were of a - gentleness so extraordinary. I used to speculate—but even this with - a dim disconnectedness—as to how the rough future (for all futures - are rough!) would handle them and might bruise them. They had the bloom of - health and happiness; and yet, as if I had been in charge of a pair of - little grandees, of princes of the blood, for whom everything, to be - right, would have to be enclosed and protected, the only form that, in my - fancy, the afteryears could take for them was that of a romantic, a really - royal extension of the garden and the park. It may be, of course, above - all, that what suddenly broke into this gives the previous time a charm of - stillness—that hush in which something gathers or crouches. The - change was actually like the spring of a beast. - </p> - <p> - In the first weeks the days were long; they often, at their finest, gave - me what I used to call my own hour, the hour when, for my pupils, teatime - and bedtime having come and gone, I had, before my final retirement, a - small interval alone. Much as I liked my companions, this hour was the - thing in the day I liked most; and I liked it best of all when, as the - light faded—or rather, I should say, the day lingered and the last - calls of the last birds sounded, in a flushed sky, from the old trees—I - could take a turn into the grounds and enjoy, almost with a sense of - property that amused and flattered me, the beauty and dignity of the - place. It was a pleasure at these moments to feel myself tranquil and - justified; doubtless, perhaps, also to reflect that by my discretion, my - quiet good sense and general high propriety, I was giving pleasure—if - he ever thought of it!—to the person to whose pressure I had - responded. What I was doing was what he had earnestly hoped and directly - asked of me, and that I COULD, after all, do it proved even a greater joy - than I had expected. I daresay I fancied myself, in short, a remarkable - young woman and took comfort in the faith that this would more publicly - appear. Well, I needed to be remarkable to offer a front to the remarkable - things that presently gave their first sign. - </p> - <p> - It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour: the children - were tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll. One of the thoughts - that, as I don’t in the least shrink now from noting, used to be with me - in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story - suddenly to meet someone. Someone would appear there at the turn of a path - and would stand before me and smile and approve. I didn’t ask more than - that—I only asked that he should KNOW; and the only way to be sure - he knew would be to see it, and the kind light of it, in his handsome - face. That was exactly present to me—by which I mean the face was—when, - on the first of these occasions, at the end of a long June day, I stopped - short on emerging from one of the plantations and coming into view of the - house. What arrested me on the spot—and with a shock much greater - than any vision had allowed for—was the sense that my imagination - had, in a flash, turned real. He did stand there!—but high up, - beyond the lawn and at the very top of the tower to which, on that first - morning, little Flora had conducted me. This tower was one of a pair—square, - incongruous, crenelated structures—that were distinguished, for some - reason, though I could see little difference, as the new and the old. They - flanked opposite ends of the house and were probably architectural - absurdities, redeemed in a measure indeed by not being wholly disengaged - nor of a height too pretentious, dating, in their gingerbread antiquity, - from a romantic revival that was already a respectable past. I admired - them, had fancies about them, for we could all profit in a degree, - especially when they loomed through the dusk, by the grandeur of their - actual battlements; yet it was not at such an elevation that the figure I - had so often invoked seemed most in place. - </p> - <p> - It produced in me, this figure, in the clear twilight, I remember, two - distinct gasps of emotion, which were, sharply, the shock of my first and - that of my second surprise. My second was a violent perception of the - mistake of my first: the man who met my eyes was not the person I had - precipitately supposed. There came to me thus a bewilderment of vision of - which, after these years, there is no living view that I can hope to give. - An unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object of fear to a young - woman privately bred; and the figure that faced me was—a few more - seconds assured me—as little anyone else I knew as it was the image - that had been in my mind. I had not seen it in Harley Street—I had - not seen it anywhere. The place, moreover, in the strangest way in the - world, had, on the instant, and by the very fact of its appearance, become - a solitude. To me at least, making my statement here with a deliberation - with which I have never made it, the whole feeling of the moment returns. - It was as if, while I took in—what I did take in—all the rest - of the scene had been stricken with death. I can hear again, as I write, - the intense hush in which the sounds of evening dropped. The rooks stopped - cawing in the golden sky, and the friendly hour lost, for the minute, all - its voice. But there was no other change in nature, unless indeed it were - a change that I saw with a stranger sharpness. The gold was still in the - sky, the clearness in the air, and the man who looked at me over the - battlements was as definite as a picture in a frame. That’s how I thought, - with extraordinary quickness, of each person that he might have been and - that he was not. We were confronted across our distance quite long enough - for me to ask myself with intensity who then he was and to feel, as an - effect of my inability to say, a wonder that in a few instants more became - intense. - </p> - <p> - The great question, or one of these, is, afterward, I know, with regard to - certain matters, the question of how long they have lasted. Well, this - matter of mine, think what you will of it, lasted while I caught at a - dozen possibilities, none of which made a difference for the better, that - I could see, in there having been in the house—and for how long, - above all?—a person of whom I was in ignorance. It lasted while I - just bridled a little with the sense that my office demanded that there - should be no such ignorance and no such person. It lasted while this - visitant, at all events—and there was a touch of the strange - freedom, as I remember, in the sign of familiarity of his wearing no hat—seemed - to fix me, from his position, with just the question, just the scrutiny - through the fading light, that his own presence provoked. We were too far - apart to call to each other, but there was a moment at which, at shorter - range, some challenge between us, breaking the hush, would have been the - right result of our straight mutual stare. He was in one of the angles, - the one away from the house, very erect, as it struck me, and with both - hands on the ledge. So I saw him as I see the letters I form on this page; - then, exactly, after a minute, as if to add to the spectacle, he slowly - changed his place—passed, looking at me hard all the while, to the - opposite corner of the platform. Yes, I had the sharpest sense that during - this transit he never took his eyes from me, and I can see at this moment - the way his hand, as he went, passed from one of the crenelations to the - next. He stopped at the other corner, but less long, and even as he turned - away still markedly fixed me. He turned away; that was all I knew. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - IV - </h2> - <p> - It was not that I didn’t wait, on this occasion, for more, for I was - rooted as deeply as I was shaken. Was there a “secret” at Bly—a - mystery of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in - unsuspected confinement? I can’t say how long I turned it over, or how - long, in a confusion of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had had my - collision; I only recall that when I re-entered the house darkness had - quite closed in. Agitation, in the interval, certainly had held me and - driven me, for I must, in circling about the place, have walked three - miles; but I was to be, later on, so much more overwhelmed that this mere - dawn of alarm was a comparatively human chill. The most singular part of - it, in fact—singular as the rest had been—was the part I - became, in the hall, aware of in meeting Mrs. Grose. This picture comes - back to me in the general train—the impression, as I received it on - my return, of the wide white panelled space, bright in the lamplight and - with its portraits and red carpet, and of the good surprised look of my - friend, which immediately told me she had missed me. It came to me - straightway, under her contact, that, with plain heartiness, mere relieved - anxiety at my appearance, she knew nothing whatever that could bear upon - the incident I had there ready for her. I had not suspected in advance - that her comfortable face would pull me up, and I somehow measured the - importance of what I had seen by my thus finding myself hesitate to - mention it. Scarce anything in the whole history seems to me so odd as - this fact that my real beginning of fear was one, as I may say, with the - instinct of sparing my companion. On the spot, accordingly, in the - pleasant hall and with her eyes on me, I, for a reason that I couldn’t - then have phrased, achieved an inward resolution—offered a vague - pretext for my lateness and, with the plea of the beauty of the night and - of the heavy dew and wet feet, went as soon as possible to my room. - </p> - <p> - Here it was another affair; here, for many days after, it was a queer - affair enough. There were hours, from day to day—or at least there - were moments, snatched even from clear duties—when I had to shut - myself up to think. It was not so much yet that I was more nervous than I - could bear to be as that I was remarkably afraid of becoming so; for the - truth I had now to turn over was, simply and clearly, the truth that I - could arrive at no account whatever of the visitor with whom I had been so - inexplicably and yet, as it seemed to me, so intimately concerned. It took - little time to see that I could sound without forms of inquiry and without - exciting remark any domestic complications. The shock I had suffered must - have sharpened all my senses; I felt sure, at the end of three days and as - the result of mere closer attention, that I had not been practiced upon by - the servants nor made the object of any “game.” Of whatever it was that I - knew, nothing was known around me. There was but one sane inference: - someone had taken a liberty rather gross. That was what, repeatedly, I - dipped into my room and locked the door to say to myself. We had been, - collectively, subject to an intrusion; some unscrupulous traveler, curious - in old houses, had made his way in unobserved, enjoyed the prospect from - the best point of view, and then stolen out as he came. If he had given me - such a bold hard stare, that was but a part of his indiscretion. The good - thing, after all, was that we should surely see no more of him. - </p> - <p> - This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that - what, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming - work. My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, and through - nothing could I so like it as through feeling that I could throw myself - into it in trouble. The attraction of my small charges was a constant joy, - leading me to wonder afresh at the vanity of my original fears, the - distaste I had begun by entertaining for the probable gray prose of my - office. There was to be no gray prose, it appeared, and no long grind; so - how could work not be charming that presented itself as daily beauty? It - was all the romance of the nursery and the poetry of the schoolroom. I - don’t mean by this, of course, that we studied only fiction and verse; I - mean I can express no otherwise the sort of interest my companions - inspired. How can I describe that except by saying that instead of growing - used to them—and it’s a marvel for a governess: I call the - sisterhood to witness!—I made constant fresh discoveries. There was - one direction, assuredly, in which these discoveries stopped: deep - obscurity continued to cover the region of the boy’s conduct at school. It - had been promptly given me, I have noted, to face that mystery without a - pang. Perhaps even it would be nearer the truth to say that—without - a word—he himself had cleared it up. He had made the whole charge - absurd. My conclusion bloomed there with the real rose flush of his - innocence: he was only too fine and fair for the little horrid, unclean - school world, and he had paid a price for it. I reflected acutely that the - sense of such differences, such superiorities of quality, always, on the - part of the majority—which could include even stupid, sordid - headmasters—turn infallibly to the vindictive. - </p> - <p> - Both the children had a gentleness (it was their only fault, and it never - made Miles a muff) that kept them—how shall I express it?—almost - impersonal and certainly quite unpunishable. They were like the cherubs of - the anecdote, who had—morally, at any rate—nothing to whack! I - remember feeling with Miles in especial as if he had had, as it were, no - history. We expect of a small child a scant one, but there was in this - beautiful little boy something extraordinarily sensitive, yet - extraordinarily happy, that, more than in any creature of his age I have - seen, struck me as beginning anew each day. He had never for a second - suffered. I took this as a direct disproof of his having really been - chastised. If he had been wicked he would have “caught” it, and I should - have caught it by the rebound—I should have found the trace. I found - nothing at all, and he was therefore an angel. He never spoke of his - school, never mentioned a comrade or a master; and I, for my part, was - quite too much disgusted to allude to them. Of course I was under the - spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew - I was. But I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to any pain, and I - had more pains than one. I was in receipt in these days of disturbing - letters from home, where things were not going well. But with my children, - what things in the world mattered? That was the question I used to put to - my scrappy retirements. I was dazzled by their loveliness. - </p> - <p> - There was a Sunday—to get on—when it rained with such force - and for so many hours that there could be no procession to church; in - consequence of which, as the day declined, I had arranged with Mrs. Grose - that, should the evening show improvement, we would attend together the - late service. The rain happily stopped, and I prepared for our walk, - which, through the park and by the good road to the village, would be a - matter of twenty minutes. Coming downstairs to meet my colleague in the - hall, I remembered a pair of gloves that had required three stitches and - that had received them—with a publicity perhaps not edifying—while - I sat with the children at their tea, served on Sundays, by exception, in - that cold, clean temple of mahogany and brass, the “grown-up” dining room. - The gloves had been dropped there, and I turned in to recover them. The - day was gray enough, but the afternoon light still lingered, and it - enabled me, on crossing the threshold, not only to recognize, on a chair - near the wide window, then closed, the articles I wanted, but to become - aware of a person on the other side of the window and looking straight in. - One step into the room had sufficed; my vision was instantaneous; it was - all there. The person looking straight in was the person who had already - appeared to me. He appeared thus again with I won’t say greater - distinctness, for that was impossible, but with a nearness that - represented a forward stride in our intercourse and made me, as I met him, - catch my breath and turn cold. He was the same—he was the same, and - seen, this time, as he had been seen before, from the waist up, the - window, though the dining room was on the ground floor, not going down to - the terrace on which he stood. His face was close to the glass, yet the - effect of this better view was, strangely, only to show me how intense the - former had been. He remained but a few seconds—long enough to - convince me he also saw and recognized; but it was as if I had been - looking at him for years and had known him always. Something, however, - happened this time that had not happened before; his stare into my face, - through the glass and across the room, was as deep and hard as then, but - it quitted me for a moment during which I could still watch it, see it fix - successively several other things. On the spot there came to me the added - shock of a certitude that it was not for me he had come there. He had come - for someone else. - </p> - <p> - The flash of this knowledge—for it was knowledge in the midst of - dread—produced in me the most extraordinary effect, started as I - stood there, a sudden vibration of duty and courage. I say courage because - I was beyond all doubt already far gone. I bounded straight out of the - door again, reached that of the house, got, in an instant, upon the drive, - and, passing along the terrace as fast as I could rush, turned a corner - and came full in sight. But it was in sight of nothing now—my - visitor had vanished. I stopped, I almost dropped, with the real relief of - this; but I took in the whole scene—I gave him time to reappear. I - call it time, but how long was it? I can’t speak to the purpose today of - the duration of these things. That kind of measure must have left me: they - couldn’t have lasted as they actually appeared to me to last. The terrace - and the whole place, the lawn and the garden beyond it, all I could see of - the park, were empty with a great emptiness. There were shrubberies and - big trees, but I remember the clear assurance I felt that none of them - concealed him. He was there or was not there: not there if I didn’t see - him. I got hold of this; then, instinctively, instead of returning as I - had come, went to the window. It was confusedly present to me that I ought - to place myself where he had stood. I did so; I applied my face to the - pane and looked, as he had looked, into the room. As if, at this moment, - to show me exactly what his range had been, Mrs. Grose, as I had done for - himself just before, came in from the hall. With this I had the full image - of a repetition of what had already occurred. She saw me as I had seen my - own visitant; she pulled up short as I had done; I gave her something of - the shock that I had received. She turned white, and this made me ask - myself if I had blanched as much. She stared, in short, and retreated on - just MY lines, and I knew she had then passed out and come round to me and - that I should presently meet her. I remained where I was, and while I - waited I thought of more things than one. But there’s only one I take - space to mention. I wondered why SHE should be scared. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - V - </h2> - <p> - Oh, she let me know as soon as, round the corner of the house, she loomed - again into view. “What in the name of goodness is the matter—?” She - was now flushed and out of breath. - </p> - <p> - I said nothing till she came quite near. “With me?” I must have made a - wonderful face. “Do I show it?” - </p> - <p> - “You’re as white as a sheet. You look awful.” - </p> - <p> - I considered; I could meet on this, without scruple, any innocence. My - need to respect the bloom of Mrs. Grose’s had dropped, without a rustle, - from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not with what I - kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held her hard a - little, liking to feel her close to me. There was a kind of support in the - shy heave of her surprise. “You came for me for church, of course, but I - can’t go.” - </p> - <p> - “Has anything happened?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. You must know now. Did I look very queer?” - </p> - <p> - “Through this window? Dreadful!” - </p> - <p> - “Well,” I said, “I’ve been frightened.” Mrs. Grose’s eyes expressed - plainly that SHE had no wish to be, yet also that she knew too well her - place not to be ready to share with me any marked inconvenience. Oh, it - was quite settled that she MUST share! “Just what you saw from the dining - room a minute ago was the effect of that. What <i>I</i> saw—just - before—was much worse.” - </p> - <p> - Her hand tightened. “What was it?” - </p> - <p> - “An extraordinary man. Looking in.” - </p> - <p> - “What extraordinary man?” - </p> - <p> - “I haven’t the least idea.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose gazed round us in vain. “Then where is he gone?” - </p> - <p> - “I know still less.” - </p> - <p> - “Have you seen him before?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes—once. On the old tower.” - </p> - <p> - She could only look at me harder. “Do you mean he’s a stranger?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, very much!” - </p> - <p> - “Yet you didn’t tell me?” - </p> - <p> - “No—for reasons. But now that you’ve guessed—” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose’s round eyes encountered this charge. “Ah, I haven’t guessed!” - she said very simply. “How can I if YOU don’t imagine?” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t in the very least.” - </p> - <p> - “You’ve seen him nowhere but on the tower?” - </p> - <p> - “And on this spot just now.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose looked round again. “What was he doing on the tower?” - </p> - <p> - “Only standing there and looking down at me.” - </p> - <p> - She thought a minute. “Was he a gentleman?” - </p> - <p> - I found I had no need to think. “No.” She gazed in deeper wonder. “No.” - </p> - <p> - “Then nobody about the place? Nobody from the village?” - </p> - <p> - “Nobody—nobody. I didn’t tell you, but I made sure.” - </p> - <p> - She breathed a vague relief: this was, oddly, so much to the good. It only - went indeed a little way. “But if he isn’t a gentleman—” - </p> - <p> - “What IS he? He’s a horror.” - </p> - <p> - “A horror?” - </p> - <p> - “He’s—God help me if I know WHAT he is!” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose looked round once more; she fixed her eyes on the duskier - distance, then, pulling herself together, turned to me with abrupt - inconsequence. “It’s time we should be at church.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I’m not fit for church!” - </p> - <p> - “Won’t it do you good?” - </p> - <p> - “It won’t do THEM—! I nodded at the house. - </p> - <p> - “The children?” - </p> - <p> - “I can’t leave them now.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re afraid—?” - </p> - <p> - I spoke boldly. “I’m afraid of HIM.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose’s large face showed me, at this, for the first time, the - faraway faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute: I somehow made out in - it the delayed dawn of an idea I myself had not given her and that was as - yet quite obscure to me. It comes back to me that I thought instantly of - this as something I could get from her; and I felt it to be connected with - the desire she presently showed to know more. “When was it—on the - tower?” - </p> - <p> - “About the middle of the month. At this same hour.” - </p> - <p> - “Almost at dark,” said Mrs. Grose. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no, not nearly. I saw him as I see you.” - </p> - <p> - “Then how did he get in?” - </p> - <p> - “And how did he get out?” I laughed. “I had no opportunity to ask him! - This evening, you see,” I pursued, “he has not been able to get in.” - </p> - <p> - “He only peeps?” - </p> - <p> - “I hope it will be confined to that!” She had now let go my hand; she - turned away a little. I waited an instant; then I brought out: “Go to - church. Goodbye. I must watch.” - </p> - <p> - Slowly she faced me again. “Do you fear for them?” - </p> - <p> - We met in another long look. “Don’t YOU?” Instead of answering she came - nearer to the window and, for a minute, applied her face to the glass. - “You see how he could see,” I meanwhile went on. - </p> - <p> - She didn’t move. “How long was he here?” - </p> - <p> - “Till I came out. I came to meet him.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose at last turned round, and there was still more in her face. “<i>I</i> - couldn’t have come out.” - </p> - <p> - “Neither could I!” I laughed again. “But I did come. I have my duty.” - </p> - <p> - “So have I mine,” she replied; after which she added: “What is he like?” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve been dying to tell you. But he’s like nobody.” - </p> - <p> - “Nobody?” she echoed. - </p> - <p> - “He has no hat.” Then seeing in her face that she already, in this, with a - deeper dismay, found a touch of picture, I quickly added stroke to stroke. - “He has red hair, very red, close-curling, and a pale face, long in shape, - with straight, good features and little, rather queer whiskers that are as - red as his hair. His eyebrows are, somehow, darker; they look particularly - arched and as if they might move a good deal. His eyes are sharp, strange—awfully; - but I only know clearly that they’re rather small and very fixed. His - mouth’s wide, and his lips are thin, and except for his little whiskers - he’s quite clean-shaven. He gives me a sort of sense of looking like an - actor.” - </p> - <p> - “An actor!” It was impossible to resemble one less, at least, than Mrs. - Grose at that moment. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve never seen one, but so I suppose them. He’s tall, active, erect,” I - continued, “but never—no, never!—a gentleman.” - </p> - <p> - My companion’s face had blanched as I went on; her round eyes started and - her mild mouth gaped. “A gentleman?” she gasped, confounded, stupefied: “a - gentleman HE?” - </p> - <p> - “You know him then?” - </p> - <p> - She visibly tried to hold herself. “But he IS handsome?” - </p> - <p> - I saw the way to help her. “Remarkably!” - </p> - <p> - “And dressed—?” - </p> - <p> - “In somebody’s clothes.” “They’re smart, but they’re not his own.” - </p> - <p> - She broke into a breathless affirmative groan: “They’re the master’s!” - </p> - <p> - I caught it up. “You DO know him?” - </p> - <p> - She faltered but a second. “Quint!” she cried. - </p> - <p> - “Quint?” - </p> - <p> - “Peter Quint—his own man, his valet, when he was here!” - </p> - <p> - “When the master was?” - </p> - <p> - Gaping still, but meeting me, she pieced it all together. “He never wore - his hat, but he did wear—well, there were waistcoats missed. They - were both here—last year. Then the master went, and Quint was - alone.” - </p> - <p> - I followed, but halting a little. “Alone?” - </p> - <p> - “Alone with US.” Then, as from a deeper depth, “In charge,” she added. - </p> - <p> - “And what became of him?” - </p> - <p> - She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. “He went, too,” she - brought out at last. - </p> - <p> - “Went where?” - </p> - <p> - Her expression, at this, became extraordinary. “God knows where! He died.” - </p> - <p> - “Died?” I almost shrieked. - </p> - <p> - She seemed fairly to square herself, plant herself more firmly to utter - the wonder of it. “Yes. Mr. Quint is dead.” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - VI - </h2> - <p> - It took of course more than that particular passage to place us together - in presence of what we had now to live with as we could—my dreadful - liability to impressions of the order so vividly exemplified, and my - companion’s knowledge, henceforth—a knowledge half consternation and - half compassion—of that liability. There had been, this evening, - after the revelation left me, for an hour, so prostrate—there had - been, for either of us, no attendance on any service but a little service - of tears and vows, of prayers and promises, a climax to the series of - mutual challenges and pledges that had straightway ensued on our - retreating together to the schoolroom and shutting ourselves up there to - have everything out. The result of our having everything out was simply to - reduce our situation to the last rigor of its elements. She herself had - seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the house but the - governess was in the governess’s plight; yet she accepted without directly - impugning my sanity the truth as I gave it to her, and ended by showing - me, on this ground, an awestricken tenderness, an expression of the sense - of my more than questionable privilege, of which the very breath has - remained with me as that of the sweetest of human charities. - </p> - <p> - What was settled between us, accordingly, that night, was that we thought - we might bear things together; and I was not even sure that, in spite of - her exemption, it was she who had the best of the burden. I knew at this - hour, I think, as well as I knew later, what I was capable of meeting to - shelter my pupils; but it took me some time to be wholly sure of what my - honest ally was prepared for to keep terms with so compromising a - contract. I was queer company enough—quite as queer as the company I - received; but as I trace over what we went through I see how much common - ground we must have found in the one idea that, by good fortune, COULD - steady us. It was the idea, the second movement, that led me straight out, - as I may say, of the inner chamber of my dread. I could take the air in - the court, at least, and there Mrs. Grose could join me. Perfectly can I - recall now the particular way strength came to me before we separated for - the night. We had gone over and over every feature of what I had seen. - </p> - <p> - “He was looking for someone else, you say—someone who was not you?” - </p> - <p> - “He was looking for little Miles.” A portentous clearness now possessed - me. “THAT’S whom he was looking for.” - </p> - <p> - “But how do you know?” - </p> - <p> - “I know, I know, I know!” My exaltation grew. “And YOU know, my dear!” - </p> - <p> - She didn’t deny this, but I required, I felt, not even so much telling as - that. She resumed in a moment, at any rate: “What if HE should see him?” - </p> - <p> - “Little Miles? That’s what he wants!” - </p> - <p> - She looked immensely scared again. “The child?” - </p> - <p> - “Heaven forbid! The man. He wants to appear to THEM.” That he might was an - awful conception, and yet, somehow, I could keep it at bay; which, - moreover, as we lingered there, was what I succeeded in practically - proving. I had an absolute certainty that I should see again what I had - already seen, but something within me said that by offering myself bravely - as the sole subject of such experience, by accepting, by inviting, by - surmounting it all, I should serve as an expiatory victim and guard the - tranquility of my companions. The children, in especial, I should thus - fence about and absolutely save. I recall one of the last things I said - that night to Mrs. Grose. - </p> - <p> - “It does strike me that my pupils have never mentioned—” - </p> - <p> - She looked at me hard as I musingly pulled up. “His having been here and - the time they were with him?” - </p> - <p> - “The time they were with him, and his name, his presence, his history, in - any way.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, the little lady doesn’t remember. She never heard or knew.” - </p> - <p> - “The circumstances of his death?” I thought with some intensity. “Perhaps - not. But Miles would remember—Miles would know.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, don’t try him!” broke from Mrs. Grose. - </p> - <p> - I returned her the look she had given me. “Don’t be afraid.” I continued - to think. “It IS rather odd.” - </p> - <p> - “That he has never spoken of him?” - </p> - <p> - “Never by the least allusion. And you tell me they were ‘great friends’?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it wasn’t HIM!” Mrs. Grose with emphasis declared. “It was Quint’s - own fancy. To play with him, I mean—to spoil him.” She paused a - moment; then she added: “Quint was much too free.” - </p> - <p> - This gave me, straight from my vision of his face—SUCH a face!—a - sudden sickness of disgust. “Too free with MY boy?” - </p> - <p> - “Too free with everyone!” - </p> - <p> - I forbore, for the moment, to analyze this description further than by the - reflection that a part of it applied to several of the members of the - household, of the half-dozen maids and men who were still of our small - colony. But there was everything, for our apprehension, in the lucky fact - that no discomfortable legend, no perturbation of scullions, had ever, - within anyone’s memory attached to the kind old place. It had neither bad - name nor ill fame, and Mrs. Grose, most apparently, only desired to cling - to me and to quake in silence. I even put her, the very last thing of all, - to the test. It was when, at midnight, she had her hand on the schoolroom - door to take leave. “I have it from you then—for it’s of great - importance—that he was definitely and admittedly bad?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, not admittedly. <i>I</i> knew it—but the master didn’t.” - </p> - <p> - “And you never told him?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, he didn’t like tale-bearing—he hated complaints. He was - terribly short with anything of that kind, and if people were all right to - HIM—” - </p> - <p> - “He wouldn’t be bothered with more?” This squared well enough with my - impressions of him: he was not a trouble-loving gentleman, nor so very - particular perhaps about some of the company HE kept. All the same, I - pressed my interlocutress. “I promise you <i>I</i> would have told!” - </p> - <p> - She felt my discrimination. “I daresay I was wrong. But, really, I was - afraid.” - </p> - <p> - “Afraid of what?” - </p> - <p> - “Of things that man could do. Quint was so clever—he was so deep.” - </p> - <p> - I took this in still more than, probably, I showed. “You weren’t afraid of - anything else? Not of his effect—?” - </p> - <p> - “His effect?” she repeated with a face of anguish and waiting while I - faltered. - </p> - <p> - “On innocent little precious lives. They were in your charge.” - </p> - <p> - “No, they were not in mine!” she roundly and distressfully returned. “The - master believed in him and placed him here because he was supposed not to - be well and the country air so good for him. So he had everything to say. - Yes”—she let me have it—“even about THEM.” - </p> - <p> - “Them—that creature?” I had to smother a kind of howl. “And you - could bear it!” - </p> - <p> - “No. I couldn’t—and I can’t now!” And the poor woman burst into - tears. - </p> - <p> - A rigid control, from the next day, was, as I have said, to follow them; - yet how often and how passionately, for a week, we came back together to - the subject! Much as we had discussed it that Sunday night, I was, in the - immediate later hours in especial—for it may be imagined whether I - slept—still haunted with the shadow of something she had not told - me. I myself had kept back nothing, but there was a word Mrs. Grose had - kept back. I was sure, moreover, by morning, that this was not from a - failure of frankness, but because on every side there were fears. It seems - to me indeed, in retrospect, that by the time the morrow’s sun was high I - had restlessly read into the fact before us almost all the meaning they - were to receive from subsequent and more cruel occurrences. What they gave - me above all was just the sinister figure of the living man—the dead - one would keep awhile!—and of the months he had continuously passed - at Bly, which, added up, made a formidable stretch. The limit of this evil - time had arrived only when, on the dawn of a winter’s morning, Peter Quint - was found, by a laborer going to early work, stone dead on the road from - the village: a catastrophe explained—superficially at least—by - a visible wound to his head; such a wound as might have been produced—and - as, on the final evidence, HAD been—by a fatal slip, in the dark and - after leaving the public house, on the steepish icy slope, a wrong path - altogether, at the bottom of which he lay. The icy slope, the turn - mistaken at night and in liquor, accounted for much—practically, in - the end and after the inquest and boundless chatter, for everything; but - there had been matters in his life—strange passages and perils, - secret disorders, vices more than suspected—that would have - accounted for a good deal more. - </p> - <p> - I scarce know how to put my story into words that shall be a credible - picture of my state of mind; but I was in these days literally able to - find a joy in the extraordinary flight of heroism the occasion demanded of - me. I now saw that I had been asked for a service admirable and difficult; - and there would be a greatness in letting it be seen—oh, in the - right quarter!—that I could succeed where many another girl might - have failed. It was an immense help to me—I confess I rather applaud - myself as I look back!—that I saw my service so strongly and so - simply. I was there to protect and defend the little creatures in the - world the most bereaved and the most lovable, the appeal of whose - helplessness had suddenly become only too explicit, a deep, constant ache - of one’s own committed heart. We were cut off, really, together; we were - united in our danger. They had nothing but me, and I—well, I had - THEM. It was in short a magnificent chance. This chance presented itself - to me in an image richly material. I was a screen—I was to stand - before them. The more I saw, the less they would. I began to watch them in - a stifled suspense, a disguised excitement that might well, had it - continued too long, have turned to something like madness. What saved me, - as I now see, was that it turned to something else altogether. It didn’t - last as suspense—it was superseded by horrible proofs. Proofs, I - say, yes—from the moment I really took hold. - </p> - <p> - This moment dated from an afternoon hour that I happened to spend in the - grounds with the younger of my pupils alone. We had left Miles indoors, on - the red cushion of a deep window seat; he had wished to finish a book, and - I had been glad to encourage a purpose so laudable in a young man whose - only defect was an occasional excess of the restless. His sister, on the - contrary, had been alert to come out, and I strolled with her half an - hour, seeking the shade, for the sun was still high and the day - exceptionally warm. I was aware afresh, with her, as we went, of how, like - her brother, she contrived—it was the charming thing in both - children—to let me alone without appearing to drop me and to - accompany me without appearing to surround. They were never importunate - and yet never listless. My attention to them all really went to seeing - them amuse themselves immensely without me: this was a spectacle they - seemed actively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer. I - walked in a world of their invention—they had no occasion whatever - to draw upon mine; so that my time was taken only with being, for them, - some remarkable person or thing that the game of the moment required and - that was merely, thanks to my superior, my exalted stamp, a happy and - highly distinguished sinecure. I forget what I was on the present - occasion; I only remember that I was something very important and very - quiet and that Flora was playing very hard. We were on the edge of the - lake, and, as we had lately begun geography, the lake was the Sea of Azof. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the other side - of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. The way this knowledge - gathered in me was the strangest thing in the world—the strangest, - that is, except the very much stranger in which it quickly merged itself. - I had sat down with a piece of work—for I was something or other - that could sit—on the old stone bench which overlooked the pond; and - in this position I began to take in with certitude, and yet without direct - vision, the presence, at a distance, of a third person. The old trees, the - thick shrubbery, made a great and pleasant shade, but it was all suffused - with the brightness of the hot, still hour. There was no ambiguity in - anything; none whatever, at least, in the conviction I from one moment to - another found myself forming as to what I should see straight before me - and across the lake as a consequence of raising my eyes. They were - attached at this juncture to the stitching in which I was engaged, and I - can feel once more the spasm of my effort not to move them till I should - so have steadied myself as to be able to make up my mind what to do. There - was an alien object in view—a figure whose right of presence I - instantly, passionately questioned. I recollect counting over perfectly - the possibilities, reminding myself that nothing was more natural, for - instance, then the appearance of one of the men about the place, or even - of a messenger, a postman, or a tradesman’s boy, from the village. That - reminder had as little effect on my practical certitude as I was conscious—still - even without looking—of its having upon the character and attitude - of our visitor. Nothing was more natural than that these things should be - the other things that they absolutely were not. - </p> - <p> - Of the positive identity of the apparition I would assure myself as soon - as the small clock of my courage should have ticked out the right second; - meanwhile, with an effort that was already sharp enough, I transferred my - eyes straight to little Flora, who, at the moment, was about ten yards - away. My heart had stood still for an instant with the wonder and terror - of the question whether she too would see; and I held my breath while I - waited for what a cry from her, what some sudden innocent sign either of - interest or of alarm, would tell me. I waited, but nothing came; then, in - the first place—and there is something more dire in this, I feel, - than in anything I have to relate—I was determined by a sense that, - within a minute, all sounds from her had previously dropped; and, in the - second, by the circumstance that, also within the minute, she had, in her - play, turned her back to the water. This was her attitude when I at last - looked at her—looked with the confirmed conviction that we were - still, together, under direct personal notice. She had picked up a small - flat piece of wood, which happened to have in it a little hole that had - evidently suggested to her the idea of sticking in another fragment that - might figure as a mast and make the thing a boat. This second morsel, as I - watched her, she was very markedly and intently attempting to tighten in - its place. My apprehension of what she was doing sustained me so that - after some seconds I felt I was ready for more. Then I again shifted my - eyes—I faced what I had to face. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - VII - </h2> - <p> - I got hold of Mrs. Grose as soon after this as I could; and I can give no - intelligible account of how I fought out the interval. Yet I still hear - myself cry as I fairly threw myself into her arms: “They KNOW—it’s - too monstrous: they know, they know!” - </p> - <p> - “And what on earth—?” I felt her incredulity as she held me. - </p> - <p> - “Why, all that WE know—and heaven knows what else besides!” Then, as - she released me, I made it out to her, made it out perhaps only now with - full coherency even to myself. “Two hours ago, in the garden”—I - could scarce articulate—“Flora SAW!” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose took it as she might have taken a blow in the stomach. “She has - told you?” she panted. - </p> - <p> - “Not a word—that’s the horror. She kept it to herself! The child of - eight, THAT child!” Unutterable still, for me, was the stupefaction of it. - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose, of course, could only gape the wider. “Then how do you know?” - </p> - <p> - “I was there—I saw with my eyes: saw that she was perfectly aware.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you mean aware of HIM?” - </p> - <p> - “No—of HER.” I was conscious as I spoke that I looked prodigious - things, for I got the slow reflection of them in my companion’s face. - “Another person—this time; but a figure of quite as unmistakable - horror and evil: a woman in black, pale and dreadful—with such an - air also, and such a face!—on the other side of the lake. I was - there with the child—quiet for the hour; and in the midst of it she - came.” - </p> - <p> - “Came how—from where?” - </p> - <p> - “From where they come from! She just appeared and stood there—but - not so near.” - </p> - <p> - “And without coming nearer?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, for the effect and the feeling, she might have been as close as you!” - </p> - <p> - My friend, with an odd impulse, fell back a step. “Was she someone you’ve - never seen?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. But someone the child has. Someone YOU have.” Then, to show how I - had thought it all out: “My predecessor—the one who died.” - </p> - <p> - “Miss Jessel?” - </p> - <p> - “Miss Jessel. You don’t believe me?” I pressed. - </p> - <p> - She turned right and left in her distress. “How can you be sure?” - </p> - <p> - This drew from me, in the state of my nerves, a flash of impatience. “Then - ask Flora—SHE’S sure!” But I had no sooner spoken than I caught - myself up. “No, for God’s sake, DON’T! She’ll say she isn’t—she’ll - lie!” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose was not too bewildered instinctively to protest. “Ah, how CAN - you?” - </p> - <p> - “Because I’m clear. Flora doesn’t want me to know.” - </p> - <p> - “It’s only then to spare you.” - </p> - <p> - “No, no—there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I - see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I don’t know what I - DON’T see—what I DON’T fear!” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose tried to keep up with me. “You mean you’re afraid of seeing her - again?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no; that’s nothing—now!” Then I explained. “It’s of NOT seeing - her.” - </p> - <p> - But my companion only looked wan. “I don’t understand you.” - </p> - <p> - “Why, it’s that the child may keep it up—and that the child - assuredly WILL—without my knowing it.” - </p> - <p> - At the image of this possibility Mrs. Grose for a moment collapsed, yet - presently to pull herself together again, as if from the positive force of - the sense of what, should we yield an inch, there would really be to give - way to. “Dear, dear—we must keep our heads! And after all, if she - doesn’t mind it—!” She even tried a grim joke. “Perhaps she likes - it!” - </p> - <p> - “Likes SUCH things—a scrap of an infant!” - </p> - <p> - “Isn’t it just a proof of her blessed innocence?” my friend bravely - inquired. - </p> - <p> - She brought me, for the instant, almost round. “Oh, we must clutch at THAT—we - must cling to it! If it isn’t a proof of what you say, it’s a proof of—God - knows what! For the woman’s a horror of horrors.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose, at this, fixed her eyes a minute on the ground; then at last - raising them, “Tell me how you know,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “Then you admit it’s what she was?” I cried. - </p> - <p> - “Tell me how you know,” my friend simply repeated. - </p> - <p> - “Know? By seeing her! By the way she looked.” - </p> - <p> - “At you, do you mean—so wickedly?” - </p> - <p> - “Dear me, no—I could have borne that. She gave me never a glance. - She only fixed the child.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose tried to see it. “Fixed her?” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, with such awful eyes!” - </p> - <p> - She stared at mine as if they might really have resembled them. “Do you - mean of dislike?” - </p> - <p> - “God help us, no. Of something much worse.” - </p> - <p> - “Worse than dislike?”—this left her indeed at a loss. - </p> - <p> - “With a determination—indescribable. With a kind of fury of - intention.” - </p> - <p> - I made her turn pale. “Intention?” - </p> - <p> - “To get hold of her.” Mrs. Grose—her eyes just lingering on mine—gave - a shudder and walked to the window; and while she stood there looking out - I completed my statement. “THAT’S what Flora knows.” - </p> - <p> - After a little she turned round. “The person was in black, you say?” - </p> - <p> - “In mourning—rather poor, almost shabby. But—yes—with - extraordinary beauty.” I now recognized to what I had at last, stroke by - stroke, brought the victim of my confidence, for she quite visibly weighed - this. “Oh, handsome—very, very,” I insisted; “wonderfully handsome. - But infamous.” - </p> - <p> - She slowly came back to me. “Miss Jessel—WAS infamous.” She once - more took my hand in both her own, holding it as tight as if to fortify me - against the increase of alarm I might draw from this disclosure. “They - were both infamous,” she finally said. - </p> - <p> - So, for a little, we faced it once more together; and I found absolutely a - degree of help in seeing it now so straight. “I appreciate,” I said, “the - great decency of your not having hitherto spoken; but the time has - certainly come to give me the whole thing.” She appeared to assent to - this, but still only in silence; seeing which I went on: “I must have it - now. Of what did she die? Come, there was something between them.” - </p> - <p> - “There was everything.” - </p> - <p> - “In spite of the difference—?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, of their rank, their condition”—she brought it woefully out. - “SHE was a lady.” - </p> - <p> - I turned it over; I again saw. “Yes—she was a lady.” - </p> - <p> - “And he so dreadfully below,” said Mrs. Grose. - </p> - <p> - I felt that I doubtless needn’t press too hard, in such company, on the - place of a servant in the scale; but there was nothing to prevent an - acceptance of my companion’s own measure of my predecessor’s abasement. - There was a way to deal with that, and I dealt; the more readily for my - full vision—on the evidence—of our employer’s late clever, - good-looking “own” man; impudent, assured, spoiled, depraved. “The fellow - was a hound.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose considered as if it were perhaps a little a case for a sense of - shades. “I’ve never seen one like him. He did what he wished.” - </p> - <p> - “With HER?” - </p> - <p> - “With them all.” - </p> - <p> - It was as if now in my friend’s own eyes Miss Jessel had again appeared. I - seemed at any rate, for an instant, to see their evocation of her as - distinctly as I had seen her by the pond; and I brought out with decision: - “It must have been also what SHE wished!” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose’s face signified that it had been indeed, but she said at the - same time: “Poor woman—she paid for it!” - </p> - <p> - “Then you do know what she died of?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “No—I know nothing. I wanted not to know; I was glad enough I - didn’t; and I thanked heaven she was well out of this!” - </p> - <p> - “Yet you had, then, your idea—” - </p> - <p> - “Of her real reason for leaving? Oh, yes—as to that. She couldn’t - have stayed. Fancy it here—for a governess! And afterward I imagined—and - I still imagine. And what I imagine is dreadful.” - </p> - <p> - “Not so dreadful as what <i>I</i> do,” I replied; on which I must have - shown her—as I was indeed but too conscious—a front of - miserable defeat. It brought out again all her compassion for me, and at - the renewed touch of her kindness my power to resist broke down. I burst, - as I had, the other time, made her burst, into tears; she took me to her - motherly breast, and my lamentation overflowed. “I don’t do it!” I sobbed - in despair; “I don’t save or shield them! It’s far worse than I dreamed—they’re - lost!” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - VIII - </h2> - <p> - What I had said to Mrs. Grose was true enough: there were in the matter I - had put before her depths and possibilities that I lacked resolution to - sound; so that when we met once more in the wonder of it we were of a - common mind about the duty of resistance to extravagant fancies. We were - to keep our heads if we should keep nothing else—difficult indeed as - that might be in the face of what, in our prodigious experience, was least - to be questioned. Late that night, while the house slept, we had another - talk in my room, when she went all the way with me as to its being beyond - doubt that I had seen exactly what I had seen. To hold her perfectly in - the pinch of that, I found I had only to ask her how, if I had “made it - up,” I came to be able to give, of each of the persons appearing to me, a - picture disclosing, to the last detail, their special marks—a - portrait on the exhibition of which she had instantly recognized and named - them. She wished of course—small blame to her!—to sink the - whole subject; and I was quick to assure her that my own interest in it - had now violently taken the form of a search for the way to escape from - it. I encountered her on the ground of a probability that with recurrence—for - recurrence we took for granted—I should get used to my danger, - distinctly professing that my personal exposure had suddenly become the - least of my discomforts. It was my new suspicion that was intolerable; and - yet even to this complication the later hours of the day had brought a - little ease. - </p> - <p> - On leaving her, after my first outbreak, I had of course returned to my - pupils, associating the right remedy for my dismay with that sense of - their charm which I had already found to be a thing I could positively - cultivate and which had never failed me yet. I had simply, in other words, - plunged afresh into Flora’s special society and there become aware—it - was almost a luxury!—that she could put her little conscious hand - straight upon the spot that ached. She had looked at me in sweet - speculation and then had accused me to my face of having “cried.” I had - supposed I had brushed away the ugly signs: but I could literally—for - the time, at all events—rejoice, under this fathomless charity, that - they had not entirely disappeared. To gaze into the depths of blue of the - child’s eyes and pronounce their loveliness a trick of premature cunning - was to be guilty of a cynicism in preference to which I naturally - preferred to abjure my judgment and, so far as might be, my agitation. I - couldn’t abjure for merely wanting to, but I could repeat to Mrs. Grose—as - I did there, over and over, in the small hours—that with their - voices in the air, their pressure on one’s heart, and their fragrant faces - against one’s cheek, everything fell to the ground but their incapacity - and their beauty. It was a pity that, somehow, to settle this once for - all, I had equally to re-enumerate the signs of subtlety that, in the - afternoon, by the lake had made a miracle of my show of self-possession. - It was a pity to be obliged to reinvestigate the certitude of the moment - itself and repeat how it had come to me as a revelation that the - inconceivable communion I then surprised was a matter, for either party, - of habit. It was a pity that I should have had to quaver out again the - reasons for my not having, in my delusion, so much as questioned that the - little girl saw our visitant even as I actually saw Mrs. Grose herself, - and that she wanted, by just so much as she did thus see, to make me - suppose she didn’t, and at the same time, without showing anything, arrive - at a guess as to whether I myself did! It was a pity that I needed once - more to describe the portentous little activity by which she sought to - divert my attention—the perceptible increase of movement, the - greater intensity of play, the singing, the gabbling of nonsense, and the - invitation to romp. - </p> - <p> - Yet if I had not indulged, to prove there was nothing in it, in this - review, I should have missed the two or three dim elements of comfort that - still remained to me. I should not for instance have been able to - asseverate to my friend that I was certain—which was so much to the - good—that <i>I</i> at least had not betrayed myself. I should not - have been prompted, by stress of need, by desperation of mind—I - scarce know what to call it—to invoke such further aid to - intelligence as might spring from pushing my colleague fairly to the wall. - She had told me, bit by bit, under pressure, a great deal; but a small - shifty spot on the wrong side of it all still sometimes brushed my brow - like the wing of a bat; and I remember how on this occasion—for the - sleeping house and the concentration alike of our danger and our watch - seemed to help—I felt the importance of giving the last jerk to the - curtain. “I don’t believe anything so horrible,” I recollect saying; “no, - let us put it definitely, my dear, that I don’t. But if I did, you know, - there’s a thing I should require now, just without sparing you the least - bit more—oh, not a scrap, come!—to get out of you. What was it - you had in mind when, in our distress, before Miles came back, over the - letter from his school, you said, under my insistence, that you didn’t - pretend for him that he had not literally EVER been ‘bad’? He has NOT - literally ‘ever,’ in these weeks that I myself have lived with him and so - closely watched him; he has been an imperturbable little prodigy of - delightful, lovable goodness. Therefore you might perfectly have made the - claim for him if you had not, as it happened, seen an exception to take. - What was your exception, and to what passage in your personal observation - of him did you refer?” - </p> - <p> - It was a dreadfully austere inquiry, but levity was not our note, and, at - any rate, before the gray dawn admonished us to separate I had got my - answer. What my friend had had in mind proved to be immensely to the - purpose. It was neither more nor less than the circumstance that for a - period of several months Quint and the boy had been perpetually together. - It was in fact the very appropriate truth that she had ventured to - criticize the propriety, to hint at the incongruity, of so close an - alliance, and even to go so far on the subject as a frank overture to Miss - Jessel. Miss Jessel had, with a most strange manner, requested her to mind - her business, and the good woman had, on this, directly approached little - Miles. What she had said to him, since I pressed, was that SHE liked to - see young gentlemen not forget their station. - </p> - <p> - I pressed again, of course, at this. “You reminded him that Quint was only - a base menial?” - </p> - <p> - “As you might say! And it was his answer, for one thing, that was bad.” - </p> - <p> - “And for another thing?” I waited. “He repeated your words to Quint?” - </p> - <p> - “No, not that. It’s just what he WOULDN’T!” she could still impress upon - me. “I was sure, at any rate,” she added, “that he didn’t. But he denied - certain occasions.” - </p> - <p> - “What occasions?” - </p> - <p> - “When they had been about together quite as if Quint were his tutor—and - a very grand one—and Miss Jessel only for the little lady. When he - had gone off with the fellow, I mean, and spent hours with him.” - </p> - <p> - “He then prevaricated about it—he said he hadn’t?” Her assent was - clear enough to cause me to add in a moment: “I see. He lied.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh!” Mrs. Grose mumbled. This was a suggestion that it didn’t matter; - which indeed she backed up by a further remark. “You see, after all, Miss - Jessel didn’t mind. She didn’t forbid him.” - </p> - <p> - I considered. “Did he put that to you as a justification?” - </p> - <p> - At this she dropped again. “No, he never spoke of it.” - </p> - <p> - “Never mentioned her in connection with Quint?” - </p> - <p> - She saw, visibly flushing, where I was coming out. “Well, he didn’t show - anything. He denied,” she repeated; “he denied.” - </p> - <p> - Lord, how I pressed her now! “So that you could see he knew what was - between the two wretches?” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know—I don’t know!” the poor woman groaned. - </p> - <p> - “You do know, you dear thing,” I replied; “only you haven’t my dreadful - boldness of mind, and you keep back, out of timidity and modesty and - delicacy, even the impression that, in the past, when you had, without my - aid, to flounder about in silence, most of all made you miserable. But I - shall get it out of you yet! There was something in the boy that suggested - to you,” I continued, “that he covered and concealed their relation.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, he couldn’t prevent—” - </p> - <p> - “Your learning the truth? I daresay! But, heavens,” I fell, with - vehemence, athinking, “what it shows that they must, to that extent, have - succeeded in making of him!” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, nothing that’s not nice NOW!” Mrs. Grose lugubriously pleaded. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t wonder you looked queer,” I persisted, “when I mentioned to you - the letter from his school!” - </p> - <p> - “I doubt if I looked as queer as you!” she retorted with homely force. - “And if he was so bad then as that comes to, how is he such an angel now?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, indeed—and if he was a fiend at school! How, how, how? Well,” - I said in my torment, “you must put it to me again, but I shall not be - able to tell you for some days. Only, put it to me again!” I cried in a - way that made my friend stare. “There are directions in which I must not - for the present let myself go.” Meanwhile I returned to her first example—the - one to which she had just previously referred—of the boy’s happy - capacity for an occasional slip. “If Quint—on your remonstrance at - the time you speak of—was a base menial, one of the things Miles - said to you, I find myself guessing, was that you were another.” Again her - admission was so adequate that I continued: “And you forgave him that?” - </p> - <p> - “Wouldn’t YOU?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes!” And we exchanged there, in the stillness, a sound of the oddest - amusement. Then I went on: “At all events, while he was with the man—” - </p> - <p> - “Miss Flora was with the woman. It suited them all!” - </p> - <p> - It suited me, too, I felt, only too well; by which I mean that it suited - exactly the particularly deadly view I was in the very act of forbidding - myself to entertain. But I so far succeeded in checking the expression of - this view that I will throw, just here, no further light on it than may be - offered by the mention of my final observation to Mrs. Grose. “His having - lied and been impudent are, I confess, less engaging specimens than I had - hoped to have from you of the outbreak in him of the little natural man. - Still,” I mused, “They must do, for they make me feel more than ever that - I must watch.” - </p> - <p> - It made me blush, the next minute, to see in my friend’s face how much - more unreservedly she had forgiven him than her anecdote struck me as - presenting to my own tenderness an occasion for doing. This came out when, - at the schoolroom door, she quitted me. “Surely you don’t accuse HIM—” - </p> - <p> - “Of carrying on an intercourse that he conceals from me? Ah, remember - that, until further evidence, I now accuse nobody.” Then, before shutting - her out to go, by another passage, to her own place, “I must just wait,” I - wound up. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - IX - </h2> - <p> - I waited and waited, and the days, as they elapsed, took something from my - consternation. A very few of them, in fact, passing, in constant sight of - my pupils, without a fresh incident, sufficed to give to grievous fancies - and even to odious memories a kind of brush of the sponge. I have spoken - of the surrender to their extraordinary childish grace as a thing I could - actively cultivate, and it may be imagined if I neglected now to address - myself to this source for whatever it would yield. Stranger than I can - express, certainly, was the effort to struggle against my new lights; it - would doubtless have been, however, a greater tension still had it not - been so frequently successful. I used to wonder how my little charges - could help guessing that I thought strange things about them; and the - circumstances that these things only made them more interesting was not by - itself a direct aid to keeping them in the dark. I trembled lest they - should see that they WERE so immensely more interesting. Putting things at - the worst, at all events, as in meditation I so often did, any clouding of - their innocence could only be—blameless and foredoomed as they were—a - reason the more for taking risks. There were moments when, by an - irresistible impulse, I found myself catching them up and pressing them to - my heart. As soon as I had done so I used to say to myself: “What will - they think of that? Doesn’t it betray too much?” It would have been easy - to get into a sad, wild tangle about how much I might betray; but the real - account, I feel, of the hours of peace that I could still enjoy was that - the immediate charm of my companions was a beguilement still effective - even under the shadow of the possibility that it was studied. For if it - occurred to me that I might occasionally excite suspicion by the little - outbreaks of my sharper passion for them, so too I remember wondering if I - mightn’t see a queerness in the traceable increase of their own - demonstrations. - </p> - <p> - They were at this period extravagantly and preternaturally fond of me; - which, after all, I could reflect, was no more than a graceful response in - children perpetually bowed over and hugged. The homage of which they were - so lavish succeeded, in truth, for my nerves, quite as well as if I never - appeared to myself, as I may say, literally to catch them at a purpose in - it. They had never, I think, wanted to do so many things for their poor - protectress; I mean—though they got their lessons better and better, - which was naturally what would please her most—in the way of - diverting, entertaining, surprising her; reading her passages, telling her - stories, acting her charades, pouncing out at her, in disguises, as - animals and historical characters, and above all astonishing her by the - “pieces” they had secretly got by heart and could interminably recite. I - should never get to the bottom—were I to let myself go even now—of - the prodigious private commentary, all under still more private - correction, with which, in these days, I overscored their full hours. They - had shown me from the first a facility for everything, a general faculty - which, taking a fresh start, achieved remarkable flights. They got their - little tasks as if they loved them, and indulged, from the mere exuberance - of the gift, in the most unimposed little miracles of memory. They not - only popped out at me as tigers and as Romans, but as Shakespeareans, - astronomers, and navigators. This was so singularly the case that it had - presumably much to do with the fact as to which, at the present day, I am - at a loss for a different explanation: I allude to my unnatural composure - on the subject of another school for Miles. What I remember is that I was - content not, for the time, to open the question, and that contentment must - have sprung from the sense of his perpetually striking show of cleverness. - He was too clever for a bad governess, for a parson’s daughter, to spoil; - and the strangest if not the brightest thread in the pensive embroidery I - just spoke of was the impression I might have got, if I had dared to work - it out, that he was under some influence operating in his small - intellectual life as a tremendous incitement. - </p> - <p> - If it was easy to reflect, however, that such a boy could postpone school, - it was at least as marked that for such a boy to have been “kicked out” by - a schoolmaster was a mystification without end. Let me add that in their - company now—and I was careful almost never to be out of it—I - could follow no scent very far. We lived in a cloud of music and love and - success and private theatricals. The musical sense in each of the children - was of the quickest, but the elder in especial had a marvelous knack of - catching and repeating. The schoolroom piano broke into all gruesome - fancies; and when that failed there were confabulations in corners, with a - sequel of one of them going out in the highest spirits in order to “come - in” as something new. I had had brothers myself, and it was no revelation - to me that little girls could be slavish idolaters of little boys. What - surpassed everything was that there was a little boy in the world who - could have for the inferior age, sex, and intelligence so fine a - consideration. They were extraordinarily at one, and to say that they - never either quarreled or complained is to make the note of praise coarse - for their quality of sweetness. Sometimes, indeed, when I dropped into - coarseness, I perhaps came across traces of little understandings between - them by which one of them should keep me occupied while the other slipped - away. There is a naive side, I suppose, in all diplomacy; but if my pupils - practiced upon me, it was surely with the minimum of grossness. It was all - in the other quarter that, after a lull, the grossness broke out. - </p> - <p> - I find that I really hang back; but I must take my plunge. In going on - with the record of what was hideous at Bly, I not only challenge the most - liberal faith—for which I little care; but—and this is another - matter—I renew what I myself suffered, I again push my way through - it to the end. There came suddenly an hour after which, as I look back, - the affair seems to me to have been all pure suffering; but I have at - least reached the heart of it, and the straightest road out is doubtless - to advance. One evening—with nothing to lead up or to prepare it—I - felt the cold touch of the impression that had breathed on me the night of - my arrival and which, much lighter then, as I have mentioned, I should - probably have made little of in memory had my subsequent sojourn been less - agitated. I had not gone to bed; I sat reading by a couple of candles. - There was a roomful of old books at Bly—last-century fiction, some - of it, which, to the extent of a distinctly deprecated renown, but never - to so much as that of a stray specimen, had reached the sequestered home - and appealed to the unavowed curiosity of my youth. I remember that the - book I had in my hand was Fielding’s Amelia; also that I was wholly awake. - I recall further both a general conviction that it was horribly late and a - particular objection to looking at my watch. I figure, finally, that the - white curtain draping, in the fashion of those days, the head of Flora’s - little bed, shrouded, as I had assured myself long before, the perfection - of childish rest. I recollect in short that, though I was deeply - interested in my author, I found myself, at the turn of a page and with - his spell all scattered, looking straight up from him and hard at the door - of my room. There was a moment during which I listened, reminded of the - faint sense I had had, the first night, of there being something - undefinably astir in the house, and noted the soft breath of the open - casement just move the half-drawn blind. Then, with all the marks of a - deliberation that must have seemed magnificent had there been anyone to - admire it, I laid down my book, rose to my feet, and, taking a candle, - went straight out of the room and, from the passage, on which my light - made little impression, noiselessly closed and locked the door. - </p> - <p> - I can say now neither what determined nor what guided me, but I went - straight along the lobby, holding my candle high, till I came within sight - of the tall window that presided over the great turn of the staircase. At - this point I precipitately found myself aware of three things. They were - practically simultaneous, yet they had flashes of succession. My candle, - under a bold flourish, went out, and I perceived, by the uncovered window, - that the yielding dusk of earliest morning rendered it unnecessary. - Without it, the next instant, I saw that there was someone on the stair. I - speak of sequences, but I required no lapse of seconds to stiffen myself - for a third encounter with Quint. The apparition had reached the landing - halfway up and was therefore on the spot nearest the window, where at - sight of me, it stopped short and fixed me exactly as it had fixed me from - the tower and from the garden. He knew me as well as I knew him; and so, - in the cold, faint twilight, with a glimmer in the high glass and another - on the polish of the oak stair below, we faced each other in our common - intensity. He was absolutely, on this occasion, a living, detestable, - dangerous presence. But that was not the wonder of wonders; I reserve this - distinction for quite another circumstance: the circumstance that dread - had unmistakably quitted me and that there was nothing in me there that - didn’t meet and measure him. - </p> - <p> - I had plenty of anguish after that extraordinary moment, but I had, thank - God, no terror. And he knew I had not—I found myself at the end of - an instant magnificently aware of this. I felt, in a fierce rigor of - confidence, that if I stood my ground a minute I should cease—for - the time, at least—to have him to reckon with; and during the - minute, accordingly, the thing was as human and hideous as a real - interview: hideous just because it WAS human, as human as to have met - alone, in the small hours, in a sleeping house, some enemy, some - adventurer, some criminal. It was the dead silence of our long gaze at - such close quarters that gave the whole horror, huge as it was, its only - note of the unnatural. If I had met a murderer in such a place and at such - an hour, we still at least would have spoken. Something would have passed, - in life, between us; if nothing had passed, one of us would have moved. - The moment was so prolonged that it would have taken but little more to - make me doubt if even <i>I</i> were in life. I can’t express what followed - it save by saying that the silence itself—which was indeed in a - manner an attestation of my strength—became the element into which I - saw the figure disappear; in which I definitely saw it turn as I might - have seen the low wretch to which it had once belonged turn on receipt of - an order, and pass, with my eyes on the villainous back that no hunch - could have more disfigured, straight down the staircase and into the - darkness in which the next bend was lost. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - X - </h2> - <p> - I remained awhile at the top of the stair, but with the effect presently - of understanding that when my visitor had gone, he had gone: then I - returned to my room. The foremost thing I saw there by the light of the - candle I had left burning was that Flora’s little bed was empty; and on - this I caught my breath with all the terror that, five minutes before, I - had been able to resist. I dashed at the place in which I had left her - lying and over which (for the small silk counterpane and the sheets were - disarranged) the white curtains had been deceivingly pulled forward; then - my step, to my unutterable relief, produced an answering sound: I - perceived an agitation of the window blind, and the child, ducking down, - emerged rosily from the other side of it. She stood there in so much of - her candor and so little of her nightgown, with her pink bare feet and the - golden glow of her curls. She looked intensely grave, and I had never had - such a sense of losing an advantage acquired (the thrill of which had just - been so prodigious) as on my consciousness that she addressed me with a - reproach. “You naughty: where HAVE you been?”—instead of challenging - her own irregularity I found myself arraigned and explaining. She herself - explained, for that matter, with the loveliest, eagerest simplicity. She - had known suddenly, as she lay there, that I was out of the room, and had - jumped up to see what had become of me. I had dropped, with the joy of her - reappearance, back into my chair—feeling then, and then only, a - little faint; and she had pattered straight over to me, thrown herself - upon my knee, given herself to be held with the flame of the candle full - in the wonderful little face that was still flushed with sleep. I remember - closing my eyes an instant, yieldingly, consciously, as before the excess - of something beautiful that shone out of the blue of her own. “You were - looking for me out of the window?” I said. “You thought I might be walking - in the grounds?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, you know, I thought someone was”—she never blanched as she - smiled out that at me. - </p> - <p> - Oh, how I looked at her now! “And did you see anyone?” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, NO!” she returned, almost with the full privilege of childish - inconsequence, resentfully, though with a long sweetness in her little - drawl of the negative. - </p> - <p> - At that moment, in the state of my nerves, I absolutely believed she lied; - and if I once more closed my eyes it was before the dazzle of the three or - four possible ways in which I might take this up. One of these, for a - moment, tempted me with such singular intensity that, to withstand it, I - must have gripped my little girl with a spasm that, wonderfully, she - submitted to without a cry or a sign of fright. Why not break out at her - on the spot and have it all over?—give it to her straight in her - lovely little lighted face? “You see, you see, you KNOW that you do and - that you already quite suspect I believe it; therefore, why not frankly - confess it to me, so that we may at least live with it together and learn - perhaps, in the strangeness of our fate, where we are and what it means?” - This solicitation dropped, alas, as it came: if I could immediately have - succumbed to it I might have spared myself—well, you’ll see what. - Instead of succumbing I sprang again to my feet, looked at her bed, and - took a helpless middle way. “Why did you pull the curtain over the place - to make me think you were still there?” - </p> - <p> - Flora luminously considered; after which, with her little divine smile: - “Because I don’t like to frighten you!” - </p> - <p> - “But if I had, by your idea, gone out—?” - </p> - <p> - She absolutely declined to be puzzled; she turned her eyes to the flame of - the candle as if the question were as irrelevant, or at any rate as - impersonal, as Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine. “Oh, but you know,” she - quite adequately answered, “that you might come back, you dear, and that - you HAVE!” And after a little, when she had got into bed, I had, for a - long time, by almost sitting on her to hold her hand, to prove that I - recognized the pertinence of my return. - </p> - <p> - You may imagine the general complexion, from that moment, of my nights. I - repeatedly sat up till I didn’t know when; I selected moments when my - roommate unmistakably slept, and, stealing out, took noiseless turns in - the passage and even pushed as far as to where I had last met Quint. But I - never met him there again; and I may as well say at once that I on no - other occasion saw him in the house. I just missed, on the staircase, on - the other hand, a different adventure. Looking down it from the top I once - recognized the presence of a woman seated on one of the lower steps with - her back presented to me, her body half-bowed and her head, in an attitude - of woe, in her hands. I had been there but an instant, however, when she - vanished without looking round at me. I knew, nonetheless, exactly what - dreadful face she had to show; and I wondered whether, if instead of being - above I had been below, I should have had, for going up, the same nerve I - had lately shown Quint. Well, there continued to be plenty of chance for - nerve. On the eleventh night after my latest encounter with that gentleman—they - were all numbered now—I had an alarm that perilously skirted it and - that indeed, from the particular quality of its unexpectedness, proved - quite my sharpest shock. It was precisely the first night during this - series that, weary with watching, I had felt that I might again without - laxity lay myself down at my old hour. I slept immediately and, as I - afterward knew, till about one o’clock; but when I woke it was to sit - straight up, as completely roused as if a hand had shook me. I had left a - light burning, but it was now out, and I felt an instant certainty that - Flora had extinguished it. This brought me to my feet and straight, in the - darkness, to her bed, which I found she had left. A glance at the window - enlightened me further, and the striking of a match completed the picture. - </p> - <p> - The child had again got up—this time blowing out the taper, and had - again, for some purpose of observation or response, squeezed in behind the - blind and was peering out into the night. That she now saw—as she - had not, I had satisfied myself, the previous time—was proved to me - by the fact that she was disturbed neither by my reillumination nor by the - haste I made to get into slippers and into a wrap. Hidden, protected, - absorbed, she evidently rested on the sill—the casement opened - forward—and gave herself up. There was a great still moon to help - her, and this fact had counted in my quick decision. She was face to face - with the apparition we had met at the lake, and could now communicate with - it as she had not then been able to do. What I, on my side, had to care - for was, without disturbing her, to reach, from the corridor, some other - window in the same quarter. I got to the door without her hearing me; I - got out of it, closed it, and listened, from the other side, for some - sound from her. While I stood in the passage I had my eyes on her - brother’s door, which was but ten steps off and which, indescribably, - produced in me a renewal of the strange impulse that I lately spoke of as - my temptation. What if I should go straight in and march to HIS window?—what - if, by risking to his boyish bewilderment a revelation of my motive, I - should throw across the rest of the mystery the long halter of my - boldness? - </p> - <p> - This thought held me sufficiently to make me cross to his threshold and - pause again. I preternaturally listened; I figured to myself what might - portentously be; I wondered if his bed were also empty and he too were - secretly at watch. It was a deep, soundless minute, at the end of which my - impulse failed. He was quiet; he might be innocent; the risk was hideous; - I turned away. There was a figure in the grounds—a figure prowling - for a sight, the visitor with whom Flora was engaged; but it was not the - visitor most concerned with my boy. I hesitated afresh, but on other - grounds and only for a few seconds; then I had made my choice. There were - empty rooms at Bly, and it was only a question of choosing the right one. - The right one suddenly presented itself to me as the lower one—though - high above the gardens—in the solid corner of the house that I have - spoken of as the old tower. This was a large, square chamber, arranged - with some state as a bedroom, the extravagant size of which made it so - inconvenient that it had not for years, though kept by Mrs. Grose in - exemplary order, been occupied. I had often admired it and I knew my way - about in it; I had only, after just faltering at the first chill gloom of - its disuse, to pass across it and unbolt as quietly as I could one of the - shutters. Achieving this transit, I uncovered the glass without a sound - and, applying my face to the pane, was able, the darkness without being - much less than within, to see that I commanded the right direction. Then I - saw something more. The moon made the night extraordinarily penetrable and - showed me on the lawn a person, diminished by distance, who stood there - motionless and as if fascinated, looking up to where I had appeared—looking, - that is, not so much straight at me as at something that was apparently - above me. There was clearly another person above me—there was a - person on the tower; but the presence on the lawn was not in the least - what I had conceived and had confidently hurried to meet. The presence on - the lawn—I felt sick as I made it out—was poor little Miles - himself. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XI - </h2> - <p> - It was not till late next day that I spoke to Mrs. Grose; the rigor with - which I kept my pupils in sight making it often difficult to meet her - privately, and the more as we each felt the importance of not provoking—on - the part of the servants quite as much as on that of the children—any - suspicion of a secret flurry or that of a discussion of mysteries. I drew - a great security in this particular from her mere smooth aspect. There was - nothing in her fresh face to pass on to others my horrible confidences. - She believed me, I was sure, absolutely: if she hadn’t I don’t know what - would have become of me, for I couldn’t have borne the business alone. But - she was a magnificent monument to the blessing of a want of imagination, - and if she could see in our little charges nothing but their beauty and - amiability, their happiness and cleverness, she had no direct - communication with the sources of my trouble. If they had been at all - visibly blighted or battered, she would doubtless have grown, on tracing - it back, haggard enough to match them; as matters stood, however, I could - feel her, when she surveyed them, with her large white arms folded and the - habit of serenity in all her look, thank the Lord’s mercy that if they - were ruined the pieces would still serve. Flights of fancy gave place, in - her mind, to a steady fireside glow, and I had already begun to perceive - how, with the development of the conviction that—as time went on - without a public accident—our young things could, after all, look - out for themselves, she addressed her greatest solicitude to the sad case - presented by their instructress. That, for myself, was a sound - simplification: I could engage that, to the world, my face should tell no - tales, but it would have been, in the conditions, an immense added strain - to find myself anxious about hers. - </p> - <p> - At the hour I now speak of she had joined me, under pressure, on the - terrace, where, with the lapse of the season, the afternoon sun was now - agreeable; and we sat there together while, before us, at a distance, but - within call if we wished, the children strolled to and fro in one of their - most manageable moods. They moved slowly, in unison, below us, over the - lawn, the boy, as they went, reading aloud from a storybook and passing - his arm round his sister to keep her quite in touch. Mrs. Grose watched - them with positive placidity; then I caught the suppressed intellectual - creak with which she conscientiously turned to take from me a view of the - back of the tapestry. I had made her a receptacle of lurid things, but - there was an odd recognition of my superiority—my accomplishments - and my function—in her patience under my pain. She offered her mind - to my disclosures as, had I wished to mix a witch’s broth and proposed it - with assurance, she would have held out a large clean saucepan. This had - become thoroughly her attitude by the time that, in my recital of the - events of the night, I reached the point of what Miles had said to me - when, after seeing him, at such a monstrous hour, almost on the very spot - where he happened now to be, I had gone down to bring him in; choosing - then, at the window, with a concentrated need of not alarming the house, - rather that method than a signal more resonant. I had left her meanwhile - in little doubt of my small hope of representing with success even to her - actual sympathy my sense of the real splendor of the little inspiration - with which, after I had got him into the house, the boy met my final - articulate challenge. As soon as I appeared in the moonlight on the - terrace, he had come to me as straight as possible; on which I had taken - his hand without a word and led him, through the dark spaces, up the - staircase where Quint had so hungrily hovered for him, along the lobby - where I had listened and trembled, and so to his forsaken room. - </p> - <p> - Not a sound, on the way, had passed between us, and I had wondered—oh, - HOW I had wondered!—if he were groping about in his little mind for - something plausible and not too grotesque. It would tax his invention, - certainly, and I felt, this time, over his real embarrassment, a curious - thrill of triumph. It was a sharp trap for the inscrutable! He couldn’t - play any longer at innocence; so how the deuce would he get out of it? - There beat in me indeed, with the passionate throb of this question an - equal dumb appeal as to how the deuce <i>I</i> should. I was confronted at - last, as never yet, with all the risk attached even now to sounding my own - horrid note. I remember in fact that as we pushed into his little chamber, - where the bed had not been slept in at all and the window, uncovered to - the moonlight, made the place so clear that there was no need of striking - a match—I remember how I suddenly dropped, sank upon the edge of the - bed from the force of the idea that he must know how he really, as they - say, “had” me. He could do what he liked, with all his cleverness to help - him, so long as I should continue to defer to the old tradition of the - criminality of those caretakers of the young who minister to superstitions - and fears. He “had” me indeed, and in a cleft stick; for who would ever - absolve me, who would consent that I should go unhung, if, by the faintest - tremor of an overture, I were the first to introduce into our perfect - intercourse an element so dire? No, no: it was useless to attempt to - convey to Mrs. Grose, just as it is scarcely less so to attempt to suggest - here, how, in our short, stiff brush in the dark, he fairly shook me with - admiration. I was of course thoroughly kind and merciful; never, never yet - had I placed on his little shoulders hands of such tenderness as those - with which, while I rested against the bed, I held him there well under - fire. I had no alternative but, in form at least, to put it to him. - </p> - <p> - “You must tell me now—and all the truth. What did you go out for? - What were you doing there?” - </p> - <p> - I can still see his wonderful smile, the whites of his beautiful eyes, and - the uncovering of his little teeth shine to me in the dusk. “If I tell you - why, will you understand?” My heart, at this, leaped into my mouth. WOULD - he tell me why? I found no sound on my lips to press it, and I was aware - of replying only with a vague, repeated, grimacing nod. He was gentleness - itself, and while I wagged my head at him he stood there more than ever a - little fairy prince. It was his brightness indeed that gave me a respite. - Would it be so great if he were really going to tell me? “Well,” he said - at last, “just exactly in order that you should do this.” - </p> - <p> - “Do what?” - </p> - <p> - “Think me—for a change—BAD!” I shall never forget the - sweetness and gaiety with which he brought out the word, nor how, on top - of it, he bent forward and kissed me. It was practically the end of - everything. I met his kiss and I had to make, while I folded him for a - minute in my arms, the most stupendous effort not to cry. He had given - exactly the account of himself that permitted least of my going behind it, - and it was only with the effect of confirming my acceptance of it that, as - I presently glanced about the room, I could say— - </p> - <p> - “Then you didn’t undress at all?” - </p> - <p> - He fairly glittered in the gloom. “Not at all. I sat up and read.” - </p> - <p> - “And when did you go down?” - </p> - <p> - “At midnight. When I’m bad I AM bad!” - </p> - <p> - “I see, I see—it’s charming. But how could you be sure I would know - it?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I arranged that with Flora.” His answers rang out with a readiness! - “She was to get up and look out.” - </p> - <p> - “Which is what she did do.” It was I who fell into the trap! - </p> - <p> - “So she disturbed you, and, to see what she was looking at, you also - looked—you saw.” - </p> - <p> - “While you,” I concurred, “caught your death in the night air!” - </p> - <p> - He literally bloomed so from this exploit that he could afford radiantly - to assent. “How otherwise should I have been bad enough?” he asked. Then, - after another embrace, the incident and our interview closed on my - recognition of all the reserves of goodness that, for his joke, he had - been able to draw upon. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XII - </h2> - <p> - The particular impression I had received proved in the morning light, I - repeat, not quite successfully presentable to Mrs. Grose, though I - reinforced it with the mention of still another remark that he had made - before we separated. “It all lies in half a dozen words,” I said to her, - “words that really settle the matter. ‘Think, you know, what I MIGHT do!’ - He threw that off to show me how good he is. He knows down to the ground - what he ‘might’ do. That’s what he gave them a taste of at school.” - </p> - <p> - “Lord, you do change!” cried my friend. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t change—I simply make it out. The four, depend upon it, - perpetually meet. If on either of these last nights you had been with - either child, you would clearly have understood. The more I’ve watched and - waited the more I’ve felt that if there were nothing else to make it sure - it would be made so by the systematic silence of each. NEVER, by a slip of - the tongue, have they so much as alluded to either of their old friends, - any more than Miles has alluded to his expulsion. Oh, yes, we may sit here - and look at them, and they may show off to us there to their fill; but - even while they pretend to be lost in their fairytale they’re steeped in - their vision of the dead restored. He’s not reading to her,” I declared; - “they’re talking of THEM—they’re talking horrors! I go on, I know, - as if I were crazy; and it’s a wonder I’m not. What I’ve seen would have - made YOU so; but it has only made me more lucid, made me get hold of still - other things.” - </p> - <p> - My lucidity must have seemed awful, but the charming creatures who were - victims of it, passing and repassing in their interlocked sweetness, gave - my colleague something to hold on by; and I felt how tight she held as, - without stirring in the breath of my passion, she covered them still with - her eyes. “Of what other things have you got hold?” - </p> - <p> - “Why, of the very things that have delighted, fascinated, and yet, at - bottom, as I now so strangely see, mystified and troubled me. Their more - than earthly beauty, their absolutely unnatural goodness. It’s a game,” I - went on; “it’s a policy and a fraud!” - </p> - <p> - “On the part of little darlings—?” - </p> - <p> - “As yet mere lovely babies? Yes, mad as that seems!” The very act of - bringing it out really helped me to trace it—follow it all up and - piece it all together. “They haven’t been good—they’ve only been - absent. It has been easy to live with them, because they’re simply leading - a life of their own. They’re not mine—they’re not ours. They’re his - and they’re hers!” - </p> - <p> - “Quint’s and that woman’s?” - </p> - <p> - “Quint’s and that woman’s. They want to get to them.” - </p> - <p> - Oh, how, at this, poor Mrs. Grose appeared to study them! “But for what?” - </p> - <p> - “For the love of all the evil that, in those dreadful days, the pair put - into them. And to ply them with that evil still, to keep up the work of - demons, is what brings the others back.” - </p> - <p> - “Laws!” said my friend under her breath. The exclamation was homely, but - it revealed a real acceptance of my further proof of what, in the bad time—for - there had been a worse even than this!—must have occurred. There - could have been no such justification for me as the plain assent of her - experience to whatever depth of depravity I found credible in our brace of - scoundrels. It was in obvious submission of memory that she brought out - after a moment: “They WERE rascals! But what can they now do?” she - pursued. - </p> - <p> - “Do?” I echoed so loud that Miles and Flora, as they passed at their - distance, paused an instant in their walk and looked at us. “Don’t they do - enough?” I demanded in a lower tone, while the children, having smiled and - nodded and kissed hands to us, resumed their exhibition. We were held by - it a minute; then I answered: “They can destroy them!” At this my - companion did turn, but the inquiry she launched was a silent one, the - effect of which was to make me more explicit. “They don’t know, as yet, - quite how—but they’re trying hard. They’re seen only across, as it - were, and beyond—in strange places and on high places, the top of - towers, the roof of houses, the outside of windows, the further edge of - pools; but there’s a deep design, on either side, to shorten the distance - and overcome the obstacle; and the success of the tempters is only a - question of time. They’ve only to keep to their suggestions of danger.” - </p> - <p> - “For the children to come?” - </p> - <p> - “And perish in the attempt!” Mrs. Grose slowly got up, and I scrupulously - added: “Unless, of course, we can prevent!” - </p> - <p> - Standing there before me while I kept my seat, she visibly turned things - over. “Their uncle must do the preventing. He must take them away.” - </p> - <p> - “And who’s to make him?” - </p> - <p> - She had been scanning the distance, but she now dropped on me a foolish - face. “You, miss.” - </p> - <p> - “By writing to him that his house is poisoned and his little nephew and - niece mad?” - </p> - <p> - “But if they ARE, miss?” - </p> - <p> - “And if I am myself, you mean? That’s charming news to be sent him by a - governess whose prime undertaking was to give him no worry.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose considered, following the children again. “Yes, he do hate - worry. That was the great reason—” - </p> - <p> - “Why those fiends took him in so long? No doubt, though his indifference - must have been awful. As I’m not a fiend, at any rate, I shouldn’t take - him in.” - </p> - <p> - My companion, after an instant and for all answer, sat down again and - grasped my arm. “Make him at any rate come to you.” - </p> - <p> - I stared. “To ME?” I had a sudden fear of what she might do. “‘Him’?” - </p> - <p> - “He ought to BE here—he ought to help.” - </p> - <p> - I quickly rose, and I think I must have shown her a queerer face than ever - yet. “You see me asking him for a visit?” No, with her eyes on my face she - evidently couldn’t. Instead of it even—as a woman reads another—she - could see what I myself saw: his derision, his amusement, his contempt for - the breakdown of my resignation at being left alone and for the fine - machinery I had set in motion to attract his attention to my slighted - charms. She didn’t know—no one knew—how proud I had been to - serve him and to stick to our terms; yet she nonetheless took the measure, - I think, of the warning I now gave her. “If you should so lose your head - as to appeal to him for me—” - </p> - <p> - She was really frightened. “Yes, miss?” - </p> - <p> - “I would leave, on the spot, both him and you.” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XIII - </h2> - <p> - It was all very well to join them, but speaking to them proved quite as - much as ever an effort beyond my strength—offered, in close - quarters, difficulties as insurmountable as before. This situation - continued a month, and with new aggravations and particular notes, the - note above all, sharper and sharper, of the small ironic consciousness on - the part of my pupils. It was not, I am as sure today as I was sure then, - my mere infernal imagination: it was absolutely traceable that they were - aware of my predicament and that this strange relation made, in a manner, - for a long time, the air in which we moved. I don’t mean that they had - their tongues in their cheeks or did anything vulgar, for that was not one - of their dangers: I do mean, on the other hand, that the element of the - unnamed and untouched became, between us, greater than any other, and that - so much avoidance could not have been so successfully effected without a - great deal of tacit arrangement. It was as if, at moments, we were - perpetually coming into sight of subjects before which we must stop short, - turning suddenly out of alleys that we perceived to be blind, closing with - a little bang that made us look at each other—for, like all bangs, - it was something louder than we had intended—the doors we had - indiscreetly opened. All roads lead to Rome, and there were times when it - might have struck us that almost every branch of study or subject of - conversation skirted forbidden ground. Forbidden ground was the question - of the return of the dead in general and of whatever, in especial, might - survive, in memory, of the friends little children had lost. There were - days when I could have sworn that one of them had, with a small invisible - nudge, said to the other: “She thinks she’ll do it this time—but she - WON’T!” To “do it” would have been to indulge for instance—and for - once in a way—in some direct reference to the lady who had prepared - them for my discipline. They had a delightful endless appetite for - passages in my own history, to which I had again and again treated them; - they were in possession of everything that had ever happened to me, had - had, with every circumstance the story of my smallest adventures and of - those of my brothers and sisters and of the cat and the dog at home, as - well as many particulars of the eccentric nature of my father, of the - furniture and arrangement of our house, and of the conversation of the old - women of our village. There were things enough, taking one with another, - to chatter about, if one went very fast and knew by instinct when to go - round. They pulled with an art of their own the strings of my invention - and my memory; and nothing else perhaps, when I thought of such occasions - afterward, gave me so the suspicion of being watched from under cover. It - was in any case over MY life, MY past, and MY friends alone that we could - take anything like our ease—a state of affairs that led them - sometimes without the least pertinence to break out into sociable reminders. - I was invited—with no visible connection—to repeat afresh - Goody Gosling’s celebrated mot or to confirm the details already supplied - as to the cleverness of the vicarage pony. - </p> - <p> - It was partly at such junctures as these and partly at quite different - ones that, with the turn my matters had now taken, my predicament, as I - have called it, grew most sensible. The fact that the days passed for me - without another encounter ought, it would have appeared, to have done - something toward soothing my nerves. Since the light brush, that second - night on the upper landing, of the presence of a woman at the foot of the - stair, I had seen nothing, whether in or out of the house, that one had - better not have seen. There was many a corner round which I expected to - come upon Quint, and many a situation that, in a merely sinister way, - would have favored the appearance of Miss Jessel. The summer had turned, - the summer had gone; the autumn had dropped upon Bly and had blown out - half our lights. The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, its - bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the - performance—all strewn with crumpled playbills. There were exactly - states of the air, conditions of sound and of stillness, unspeakable - impressions of the KIND of ministering moment, that brought back to me, - long enough to catch it, the feeling of the medium in which, that June - evening out of doors, I had had my first sight of Quint, and in which, - too, at those other instants, I had, after seeing him through the window, - looked for him in vain in the circle of shrubbery. I recognized the signs, - the portents—I recognized the moment, the spot. But they remained - unaccompanied and empty, and I continued unmolested; if unmolested one - could call a young woman whose sensibility had, in the most extraordinary - fashion, not declined but deepened. I had said in my talk with Mrs. Grose - on that horrid scene of Flora’s by the lake—and had perplexed her by - so saying—that it would from that moment distress me much more to - lose my power than to keep it. I had then expressed what was vividly in my - mind: the truth that, whether the children really saw or not—since, - that is, it was not yet definitely proved—I greatly preferred, as a - safeguard, the fullness of my own exposure. I was ready to know the very - worst that was to be known. What I had then had an ugly glimpse of was - that my eyes might be sealed just while theirs were most opened. Well, my - eyes WERE sealed, it appeared, at present—a consummation for which - it seemed blasphemous not to thank God. There was, alas, a difficulty - about that: I would have thanked him with all my soul had I not had in a - proportionate measure this conviction of the secret of my pupils. - </p> - <p> - How can I retrace today the strange steps of my obsession? There were - times of our being together when I would have been ready to swear that, - literally, in my presence, but with my direct sense of it closed, they had - visitors who were known and were welcome. Then it was that, had I not been - deterred by the very chance that such an injury might prove greater than - the injury to be averted, my exultation would have broken out. “They’re - here, they’re here, you little wretches,” I would have cried, “and you - can’t deny it now!” The little wretches denied it with all the added - volume of their sociability and their tenderness, in just the crystal - depths of which—like the flash of a fish in a stream—the - mockery of their advantage peeped up. The shock, in truth, had sunk into - me still deeper than I knew on the night when, looking out to see either - Quint or Miss Jessel under the stars, I had beheld the boy over whose rest - I watched and who had immediately brought in with him—had - straightway, there, turned it on me—the lovely upward look with - which, from the battlements above me, the hideous apparition of Quint had - played. If it was a question of a scare, my discovery on this occasion had - scared me more than any other, and it was in the condition of nerves - produced by it that I made my actual inductions. They harassed me so that - sometimes, at odd moments, I shut myself up audibly to rehearse—it - was at once a fantastic relief and a renewed despair—the manner in - which I might come to the point. I approached it from one side and the - other while, in my room, I flung myself about, but I always broke down in - the monstrous utterance of names. As they died away on my lips, I said to - myself that I should indeed help them to represent something infamous, if, - by pronouncing them, I should violate as rare a little case of instinctive - delicacy as any schoolroom, probably, had ever known. When I said to - myself: “THEY have the manners to be silent, and you, trusted as you are, - the baseness to speak!” I felt myself crimson and I covered my face with - my hands. After these secret scenes I chattered more than ever, going on - volubly enough till one of our prodigious, palpable hushes occurred—I - can call them nothing else—the strange, dizzy lift or swim (I try - for terms!) into a stillness, a pause of all life, that had nothing to do - with the more or less noise that at the moment we might be engaged in - making and that I could hear through any deepened exhilaration or - quickened recitation or louder strum of the piano. Then it was that the - others, the outsiders, were there. Though they were not angels, they - “passed,” as the French say, causing me, while they stayed, to tremble - with the fear of their addressing to their younger victims some yet more - infernal message or more vivid image than they had thought good enough for - myself. - </p> - <p> - What it was most impossible to get rid of was the cruel idea that, - whatever I had seen, Miles and Flora saw MORE—things terrible and - unguessable and that sprang from dreadful passages of intercourse in the - past. Such things naturally left on the surface, for the time, a chill - which we vociferously denied that we felt; and we had, all three, with - repetition, got into such splendid training that we went, each time, - almost automatically, to mark the close of the incident, through the very - same movements. It was striking of the children, at all events, to kiss me - inveterately with a kind of wild irrelevance and never to fail—one - or the other—of the precious question that had helped us through - many a peril. “When do you think he WILL come? Don’t you think we OUGHT to - write?”—there was nothing like that inquiry, we found by experience, - for carrying off an awkwardness. “He” of course was their uncle in Harley - Street; and we lived in much profusion of theory that he might at any - moment arrive to mingle in our circle. It was impossible to have given - less encouragement than he had done to such a doctrine, but if we had not - had the doctrine to fall back upon we should have deprived each other of - some of our finest exhibitions. He never wrote to them—that may have - been selfish, but it was a part of the flattery of his trust of me; for - the way in which a man pays his highest tribute to a woman is apt to be - but by the more festal celebration of one of the sacred laws of his - comfort; and I held that I carried out the spirit of the pledge given not - to appeal to him when I let my charges understand that their own letters - were but charming literary exercises. They were too beautiful to be - posted; I kept them myself; I have them all to this hour. This was a rule - indeed which only added to the satiric effect of my being plied with the - supposition that he might at any moment be among us. It was exactly as if - my charges knew how almost more awkward than anything else that might be - for me. There appears to me, moreover, as I look back, no note in all this - more extraordinary than the mere fact that, in spite of my tension and of - their triumph, I never lost patience with them. Adorable they must in - truth have been, I now reflect, that I didn’t in these days hate them! - Would exasperation, however, if relief had longer been postponed, finally - have betrayed me? It little matters, for relief arrived. I call it relief, - though it was only the relief that a snap brings to a strain or the burst - of a thunderstorm to a day of suffocation. It was at least change, and it - came with a rush. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XIV - </h2> - <p> - Walking to church a certain Sunday morning, I had little Miles at my side - and his sister, in advance of us and at Mrs. Grose’s, well in sight. It - was a crisp, clear day, the first of its order for some time; the night - had brought a touch of frost, and the autumn air, bright and sharp, made - the church bells almost gay. It was an odd accident of thought that I - should have happened at such a moment to be particularly and very - gratefully struck with the obedience of my little charges. Why did they - never resent my inexorable, my perpetual society? Something or other had - brought nearer home to me that I had all but pinned the boy to my shawl - and that, in the way our companions were marshaled before me, I might have - appeared to provide against some danger of rebellion. I was like a gaoler - with an eye to possible surprises and escapes. But all this belonged—I - mean their magnificent little surrender—just to the special array of - the facts that were most abysmal. Turned out for Sunday by his uncle’s - tailor, who had had a free hand and a notion of pretty waistcoats and of - his grand little air, Miles’s whole title to independence, the rights of - his sex and situation, were so stamped upon him that if he had suddenly - struck for freedom I should have had nothing to say. I was by the - strangest of chances wondering how I should meet him when the revolution - unmistakably occurred. I call it a revolution because I now see how, with - the word he spoke, the curtain rose on the last act of my dreadful drama, - and the catastrophe was precipitated. “Look here, my dear, you know,” he - charmingly said, “when in the world, please, am I going back to school?” - </p> - <p> - Transcribed here the speech sounds harmless enough, particularly as - uttered in the sweet, high, casual pipe with which, at all interlocutors, - but above all at his eternal governess, he threw off intonations as if he - were tossing roses. There was something in them that always made one - “catch,” and I caught, at any rate, now so effectually that I stopped as - short as if one of the trees of the park had fallen across the road. There - was something new, on the spot, between us, and he was perfectly aware - that I recognized it, though, to enable me to do so, he had no need to - look a whit less candid and charming than usual. I could feel in him how - he already, from my at first finding nothing to reply, perceived the - advantage he had gained. I was so slow to find anything that he had plenty - of time, after a minute, to continue with his suggestive but inconclusive - smile: “You know, my dear, that for a fellow to be with a lady ALWAYS—!” - His “my dear” was constantly on his lips for me, and nothing could have - expressed more the exact shade of the sentiment with which I desired to - inspire my pupils than its fond familiarity. It was so respectfully easy. - </p> - <p> - But, oh, how I felt that at present I must pick my own phrases! I remember - that, to gain time, I tried to laugh, and I seemed to see in the beautiful - face with which he watched me how ugly and queer I looked. “And always - with the same lady?” I returned. - </p> - <p> - He neither blanched nor winked. The whole thing was virtually out between - us. “Ah, of course, she’s a jolly, ‘perfect’ lady; but, after all, I’m a - fellow, don’t you see? that’s—well, getting on.” - </p> - <p> - I lingered there with him an instant ever so kindly. “Yes, you’re getting - on.” Oh, but I felt helpless! - </p> - <p> - I have kept to this day the heartbreaking little idea of how he seemed to - know that and to play with it. “And you can’t say I’ve not been awfully - good, can you?” - </p> - <p> - I laid my hand on his shoulder, for, though I felt how much better it - would have been to walk on, I was not yet quite able. “No, I can’t say - that, Miles.” - </p> - <p> - “Except just that one night, you know—!” - </p> - <p> - “That one night?” I couldn’t look as straight as he. - </p> - <p> - “Why, when I went down—went out of the house.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes. But I forget what you did it for.” - </p> - <p> - “You forget?”—he spoke with the sweet extravagance of childish - reproach. “Why, it was to show you I could!” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes, you could.” - </p> - <p> - “And I can again.” - </p> - <p> - I felt that I might, perhaps, after all, succeed in keeping my wits about - me. “Certainly. But you won’t.” - </p> - <p> - “No, not THAT again. It was nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “It was nothing,” I said. “But we must go on.” - </p> - <p> - He resumed our walk with me, passing his hand into my arm. “Then when AM I - going back?” - </p> - <p> - I wore, in turning it over, my most responsible air. “Were you very happy - at school?” - </p> - <p> - He just considered. “Oh, I’m happy enough anywhere!” - </p> - <p> - “Well, then,” I quavered, “if you’re just as happy here—!” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, but that isn’t everything! Of course YOU know a lot—” - </p> - <p> - “But you hint that you know almost as much?” I risked as he paused. - </p> - <p> - “Not half I want to!” Miles honestly professed. “But it isn’t so much - that.” - </p> - <p> - “What is it, then?” - </p> - <p> - “Well—I want to see more life.” - </p> - <p> - “I see; I see.” We had arrived within sight of the church and of various - persons, including several of the household of Bly, on their way to it and - clustered about the door to see us go in. I quickened our step; I wanted - to get there before the question between us opened up much further; I - reflected hungrily that, for more than an hour, he would have to be - silent; and I thought with envy of the comparative dusk of the pew and of - the almost spiritual help of the hassock on which I might bend my knees. I - seemed literally to be running a race with some confusion to which he was - about to reduce me, but I felt that he had got in first when, before we - had even entered the churchyard, he threw out— - </p> - <p> - “I want my own sort!” - </p> - <p> - It literally made me bound forward. “There are not many of your own sort, - Miles!” I laughed. “Unless perhaps dear little Flora!” - </p> - <p> - “You really compare me to a baby girl?” - </p> - <p> - This found me singularly weak. “Don’t you, then, LOVE our sweet Flora?” - </p> - <p> - “If I didn’t—and you, too; if I didn’t—!” he repeated as if - retreating for a jump, yet leaving his thought so unfinished that, after - we had come into the gate, another stop, which he imposed on me by the - pressure of his arm, had become inevitable. Mrs. Grose and Flora had - passed into the church, the other worshippers had followed, and we were, - for the minute, alone among the old, thick graves. We had paused, on the - path from the gate, by a low, oblong, tablelike tomb. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, if you didn’t—?” - </p> - <p> - He looked, while I waited, at the graves. “Well, you know what!” But he - didn’t move, and he presently produced something that made me drop - straight down on the stone slab, as if suddenly to rest. “Does my uncle - think what YOU think?” - </p> - <p> - I markedly rested. “How do you know what I think?” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, well, of course I don’t; for it strikes me you never tell me. But I - mean does HE know?” - </p> - <p> - “Know what, Miles?” - </p> - <p> - “Why, the way I’m going on.” - </p> - <p> - I perceived quickly enough that I could make, to this inquiry, no answer - that would not involve something of a sacrifice of my employer. Yet it - appeared to me that we were all, at Bly, sufficiently sacrificed to make - that venial. “I don’t think your uncle much cares.” - </p> - <p> - Miles, on this, stood looking at me. “Then don’t you think he can be made - to?” - </p> - <p> - “In what way?” - </p> - <p> - “Why, by his coming down.” - </p> - <p> - “But who’ll get him to come down?” - </p> - <p> - “<i>I</i> will!” the boy said with extraordinary brightness and emphasis. - He gave me another look charged with that expression and then marched off - alone into church. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XV - </h2> - <p> - The business was practically settled from the moment I never followed him. - It was a pitiful surrender to agitation, but my being aware of this had - somehow no power to restore me. I only sat there on my tomb and read into - what my little friend had said to me the fullness of its meaning; by the - time I had grasped the whole of which I had also embraced, for absence, - the pretext that I was ashamed to offer my pupils and the rest of the - congregation such an example of delay. What I said to myself above all was - that Miles had got something out of me and that the proof of it, for him, - would be just this awkward collapse. He had got out of me that there was - something I was much afraid of and that he should probably be able to make - use of my fear to gain, for his own purpose, more freedom. My fear was of - having to deal with the intolerable question of the grounds of his - dismissal from school, for that was really but the question of the horrors - gathered behind. That his uncle should arrive to treat with me of these - things was a solution that, strictly speaking, I ought now to have desired - to bring on; but I could so little face the ugliness and the pain of it - that I simply procrastinated and lived from hand to mouth. The boy, to my - deep discomposure, was immensely in the right, was in a position to say to - me: “Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of this interruption - of my studies, or you cease to expect me to lead with you a life that’s so - unnatural for a boy.” What was so unnatural for the particular boy I was - concerned with was this sudden revelation of a consciousness and a plan. - </p> - <p> - That was what really overcame me, what prevented my going in. I walked - round the church, hesitating, hovering; I reflected that I had already, - with him, hurt myself beyond repair. Therefore I could patch up nothing, - and it was too extreme an effort to squeeze beside him into the pew: he - would be so much more sure than ever to pass his arm into mine and make me - sit there for an hour in close, silent contact with his commentary on our - talk. For the first minute since his arrival I wanted to get away from - him. As I paused beneath the high east window and listened to the sounds - of worship, I was taken with an impulse that might master me, I felt, - completely should I give it the least encouragement. I might easily put an - end to my predicament by getting away altogether. Here was my chance; - there was no one to stop me; I could give the whole thing up—turn my - back and retreat. It was only a question of hurrying again, for a few - preparations, to the house which the attendance at church of so many of - the servants would practically have left unoccupied. No one, in short, - could blame me if I should just drive desperately off. What was it to get - away if I got away only till dinner? That would be in a couple of hours, - at the end of which—I had the acute prevision—my little pupils - would play at innocent wonder about my nonappearance in their train. - </p> - <p> - “What DID you do, you naughty, bad thing? Why in the world, to worry us so—and - take our thoughts off, too, don’t you know?—did you desert us at the - very door?” I couldn’t meet such questions nor, as they asked them, their - false little lovely eyes; yet it was all so exactly what I should have to - meet that, as the prospect grew sharp to me, I at last let myself go. - </p> - <p> - I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away; I came straight - out of the churchyard and, thinking hard, retraced my steps through the - park. It seemed to me that by the time I reached the house I had made up - my mind I would fly. The Sunday stillness both of the approaches and of - the interior, in which I met no one, fairly excited me with a sense of - opportunity. Were I to get off quickly, this way, I should get off without - a scene, without a word. My quickness would have to be remarkable, - however, and the question of a conveyance was the great one to settle. - Tormented, in the hall, with difficulties and obstacles, I remember - sinking down at the foot of the staircase—suddenly collapsing there - on the lowest step and then, with a revulsion, recalling that it was - exactly where more than a month before, in the darkness of night and just - so bowed with evil things, I had seen the specter of the most horrible of - women. At this I was able to straighten myself; I went the rest of the way - up; I made, in my bewilderment, for the schoolroom, where there were - objects belonging to me that I should have to take. But I opened the door - to find again, in a flash, my eyes unsealed. In the presence of what I saw - I reeled straight back upon my resistance. - </p> - <p> - Seated at my own table in clear noonday light I saw a person whom, without - my previous experience, I should have taken at the first blush for some - housemaid who might have stayed at home to look after the place and who, - availing herself of rare relief from observation and of the schoolroom - table and my pens, ink, and paper, had applied herself to the considerable - effort of a letter to her sweetheart. There was an effort in the way that, - while her arms rested on the table, her hands with evident weariness - supported her head; but at the moment I took this in I had already become - aware that, in spite of my entrance, her attitude strangely persisted. - Then it was—with the very act of its announcing itself—that - her identity flared up in a change of posture. She rose, not as if she had - heard me, but with an indescribable grand melancholy of indifference and - detachment, and, within a dozen feet of me, stood there as my vile - predecessor. Dishonored and tragic, she was all before me; but even as I - fixed and, for memory, secured it, the awful image passed away. Dark as - midnight in her black dress, her haggard beauty and her unutterable woe, - she had looked at me long enough to appear to say that her right to sit at - my table was as good as mine to sit at hers. While these instants lasted, - indeed, I had the extraordinary chill of feeling that it was I who was the - intruder. It was as a wild protest against it that, actually addressing - her—“You terrible, miserable woman!”—I heard myself break into - a sound that, by the open door, rang through the long passage and the - empty house. She looked at me as if she heard me, but I had recovered - myself and cleared the air. There was nothing in the room the next minute - but the sunshine and a sense that I must stay. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XVI - </h2> - <p> - I had so perfectly expected that the return of my pupils would be marked - by a demonstration that I was freshly upset at having to take into account - that they were dumb about my absence. Instead of gaily denouncing and - caressing me, they made no allusion to my having failed them, and I was - left, for the time, on perceiving that she too said nothing, to study Mrs. - Grose’s odd face. I did this to such purpose that I made sure they had in - some way bribed her to silence; a silence that, however, I would engage to - break down on the first private opportunity. This opportunity came before - tea: I secured five minutes with her in the housekeeper’s room, where, in - the twilight, amid a smell of lately baked bread, but with the place all - swept and garnished, I found her sitting in pained placidity before the - fire. So I see her still, so I see her best: facing the flame from her - straight chair in the dusky, shining room, a large clean image of the “put - away”—of drawers closed and locked and rest without a remedy. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes, they asked me to say nothing; and to please them—so long - as they were there—of course I promised. But what had happened to - you?” - </p> - <p> - “I only went with you for the walk,” I said. “I had then to come back to - meet a friend.” - </p> - <p> - She showed her surprise. “A friend—YOU?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes, I have a couple!” I laughed. “But did the children give you a - reason?” - </p> - <p> - “For not alluding to your leaving us? Yes; they said you would like it - better. Do you like it better?” - </p> - <p> - My face had made her rueful. “No, I like it worse!” But after an instant I - added: “Did they say why I should like it better?” - </p> - <p> - “No; Master Miles only said, ‘We must do nothing but what she likes!’” - </p> - <p> - “I wish indeed he would. And what did Flora say?” - </p> - <p> - “Miss Flora was too sweet. She said, ‘Oh, of course, of course!’—and - I said the same.” - </p> - <p> - I thought a moment. “You were too sweet, too—I can hear you all. But - nonetheless, between Miles and me, it’s now all out.” - </p> - <p> - “All out?” My companion stared. “But what, miss?” - </p> - <p> - “Everything. It doesn’t matter. I’ve made up my mind. I came home, my - dear,” I went on, “for a talk with Miss Jessel.” - </p> - <p> - I had by this time formed the habit of having Mrs. Grose literally well in - hand in advance of my sounding that note; so that even now, as she bravely - blinked under the signal of my word, I could keep her comparatively firm. - “A talk! Do you mean she spoke?” - </p> - <p> - “It came to that. I found her, on my return, in the schoolroom.” - </p> - <p> - “And what did she say?” I can hear the good woman still, and the candor of - her stupefaction. - </p> - <p> - “That she suffers the torments—!” - </p> - <p> - It was this, of a truth, that made her, as she filled out my picture, - gape. “Do you mean,” she faltered, “—of the lost?” - </p> - <p> - “Of the lost. Of the damned. And that’s why, to share them-” I faltered - myself with the horror of it. - </p> - <p> - But my companion, with less imagination, kept me up. “To share them—?” - </p> - <p> - “She wants Flora.” Mrs. Grose might, as I gave it to her, fairly have - fallen away from me had I not been prepared. I still held her there, to - show I was. “As I’ve told you, however, it doesn’t matter.” - </p> - <p> - “Because you’ve made up your mind? But to what?” - </p> - <p> - “To everything.” - </p> - <p> - “And what do you call ‘everything’?” - </p> - <p> - “Why, sending for their uncle.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, miss, in pity do,” my friend broke out. “ah, but I will, I WILL! I - see it’s the only way. What’s ‘out,’ as I told you, with Miles is that if - he thinks I’m afraid to—and has ideas of what he gains by that—he - shall see he’s mistaken. Yes, yes; his uncle shall have it here from me on - the spot (and before the boy himself, if necessary) that if I’m to be - reproached with having done nothing again about more school—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, miss—” my companion pressed me. - </p> - <p> - “Well, there’s that awful reason.” - </p> - <p> - There were now clearly so many of these for my poor colleague that she was - excusable for being vague. “But—a—which?” - </p> - <p> - “Why, the letter from his old place.” - </p> - <p> - “You’ll show it to the master?” - </p> - <p> - “I ought to have done so on the instant.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no!” said Mrs. Grose with decision. - </p> - <p> - “I’ll put it before him,” I went on inexorably, “that I can’t undertake to - work the question on behalf of a child who has been expelled—” - </p> - <p> - “For we’ve never in the least known what!” Mrs. Grose declared. - </p> - <p> - “For wickedness. For what else—when he’s so clever and beautiful and - perfect? Is he stupid? Is he untidy? Is he infirm? Is he ill-natured? He’s - exquisite—so it can be only THAT; and that would open up the whole - thing. After all,” I said, “it’s their uncle’s fault. If he left here such - people—!” - </p> - <p> - “He didn’t really in the least know them. The fault’s mine.” She had - turned quite pale. - </p> - <p> - “Well, you shan’t suffer,” I answered. - </p> - <p> - “The children shan’t!” she emphatically returned. - </p> - <p> - I was silent awhile; we looked at each other. “Then what am I to tell - him?” - </p> - <p> - “You needn’t tell him anything. <i>I</i>’ll tell him.” - </p> - <p> - I measured this. “Do you mean you’ll write—?” Remembering she - couldn’t, I caught myself up. “How do you communicate?” - </p> - <p> - “I tell the bailiff. HE writes.” - </p> - <p> - “And should you like him to write our story?” - </p> - <p> - My question had a sarcastic force that I had not fully intended, and it - made her, after a moment, inconsequently break down. The tears were again - in her eyes. “Ah, miss, YOU write!” - </p> - <p> - “Well—tonight,” I at last answered; and on this we separated. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XVII - </h2> - <p> - I went so far, in the evening, as to make a beginning. The weather had - changed back, a great wind was abroad, and beneath the lamp, in my room, - with Flora at peace beside me, I sat for a long time before a blank sheet - of paper and listened to the lash of the rain and the batter of the gusts. - Finally I went out, taking a candle; I crossed the passage and listened a - minute at Miles’s door. What, under my endless obsession, I had been - impelled to listen for was some betrayal of his not being at rest, and I - presently caught one, but not in the form I had expected. His voice - tinkled out. “I say, you there—come in.” It was a gaiety in the - gloom! - </p> - <p> - I went in with my light and found him, in bed, very wide awake, but very - much at his ease. “Well, what are YOU up to?” he asked with a grace of - sociability in which it occurred to me that Mrs. Grose, had she been - present, might have looked in vain for proof that anything was “out.” - </p> - <p> - I stood over him with my candle. “How did you know I was there?” - </p> - <p> - “Why, of course I heard you. Did you fancy you made no noise? You’re like - a troop of cavalry!” he beautifully laughed. - </p> - <p> - “Then you weren’t asleep?” - </p> - <p> - “Not much! I lie awake and think.” - </p> - <p> - I had put my candle, designedly, a short way off, and then, as he held out - his friendly old hand to me, had sat down on the edge of his bed. “What is - it,” I asked, “that you think of?” - </p> - <p> - “What in the world, my dear, but YOU?” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, the pride I take in your appreciation doesn’t insist on that! I had - so far rather you slept.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I think also, you know, of this queer business of ours.” - </p> - <p> - I marked the coolness of his firm little hand. “Of what queer business, - Miles?” - </p> - <p> - “Why, the way you bring me up. And all the rest!” - </p> - <p> - I fairly held my breath a minute, and even from my glimmering taper there - was light enough to show how he smiled up at me from his pillow. “What do - you mean by all the rest?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you know, you know!” - </p> - <p> - I could say nothing for a minute, though I felt, as I held his hand and - our eyes continued to meet, that my silence had all the air of admitting - his charge and that nothing in the whole world of reality was perhaps at - that moment so fabulous as our actual relation. “Certainly you shall go - back to school,” I said, “if it be that that troubles you. But not to the - old place—we must find another, a better. How could I know it did - trouble you, this question, when you never told me so, never spoke of it - at all?” His clear, listening face, framed in its smooth whiteness, made - him for the minute as appealing as some wistful patient in a children’s - hospital; and I would have given, as the resemblance came to me, all I - possessed on earth really to be the nurse or the sister of charity who - might have helped to cure him. Well, even as it was, I perhaps might help! - “Do you know you’ve never said a word to me about your school—I mean - the old one; never mentioned it in any way?” - </p> - <p> - He seemed to wonder; he smiled with the same loveliness. But he clearly - gained time; he waited, he called for guidance. “Haven’t I?” It wasn’t for - ME to help him—it was for the thing I had met! - </p> - <p> - Something in his tone and the expression of his face, as I got this from - him, set my heart aching with such a pang as it had never yet known; so - unutterably touching was it to see his little brain puzzled and his little - resources taxed to play, under the spell laid on him, a part of innocence - and consistency. “No, never—from the hour you came back. You’ve - never mentioned to me one of your masters, one of your comrades, nor the - least little thing that ever happened to you at school. Never, little - Miles—no, never—have you given me an inkling of anything that - MAY have happened there. Therefore you can fancy how much I’m in the dark. - Until you came out, that way, this morning, you had, since the first hour - I saw you, scarce even made a reference to anything in your previous life. - You seemed so perfectly to accept the present.” It was extraordinary how - my absolute conviction of his secret precocity (or whatever I might call - the poison of an influence that I dared but half to phrase) made him, in - spite of the faint breath of his inward trouble, appear as accessible as - an older person—imposed him almost as an intellectual equal. “I - thought you wanted to go on as you are.” - </p> - <p> - It struck me that at this he just faintly colored. He gave, at any rate, - like a convalescent slightly fatigued, a languid shake of his head. “I - don’t—I don’t. I want to get away.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re tired of Bly?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no, I like Bly.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, then—?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, YOU know what a boy wants!” - </p> - <p> - I felt that I didn’t know so well as Miles, and I took temporary refuge. - “You want to go to your uncle?” - </p> - <p> - Again, at this, with his sweet ironic face, he made a movement on the - pillow. “Ah, you can’t get off with that!” - </p> - <p> - I was silent a little, and it was I, now, I think, who changed color. “My - dear, I don’t want to get off!” - </p> - <p> - “You can’t, even if you do. You can’t, you can’t!”—he lay - beautifully staring. “My uncle must come down, and you must completely - settle things.” - </p> - <p> - “If we do,” I returned with some spirit, “you may be sure it will be to - take you quite away.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, don’t you understand that that’s exactly what I’m working for? - You’ll have to tell him—about the way you’ve let it all drop: you’ll - have to tell him a tremendous lot!” - </p> - <p> - The exultation with which he uttered this helped me somehow, for the - instant, to meet him rather more. “And how much will YOU, Miles, have to - tell him? There are things he’ll ask you!” - </p> - <p> - He turned it over. “Very likely. But what things?” - </p> - <p> - “The things you’ve never told me. To make up his mind what to do with you. - He can’t send you back—” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I don’t want to go back!” he broke in. “I want a new field.” - </p> - <p> - He said it with admirable serenity, with positive unimpeachable gaiety; - and doubtless it was that very note that most evoked for me the poignancy, - the unnatural childish tragedy, of his probable reappearance at the end of - three months with all this bravado and still more dishonor. It overwhelmed - me now that I should never be able to bear that, and it made me let myself - go. I threw myself upon him and in the tenderness of my pity I embraced - him. “Dear little Miles, dear little Miles—!” - </p> - <p> - My face was close to his, and he let me kiss him, simply taking it with - indulgent good humor. “Well, old lady?” - </p> - <p> - “Is there nothing—nothing at all that you want to tell me?” - </p> - <p> - He turned off a little, facing round toward the wall and holding up his - hand to look at as one had seen sick children look. “I’ve told you—I - told you this morning.” - </p> - <p> - Oh, I was sorry for him! “That you just want me not to worry you?” - </p> - <p> - He looked round at me now, as if in recognition of my understanding him; - then ever so gently, “To let me alone,” he replied. - </p> - <p> - There was even a singular little dignity in it, something that made me - release him, yet, when I had slowly risen, linger beside him. God knows I - never wished to harass him, but I felt that merely, at this, to turn my - back on him was to abandon or, to put it more truly, to lose him. “I’ve - just begun a letter to your uncle,” I said. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, finish it!” - </p> - <p> - I waited a minute. “What happened before?” - </p> - <p> - He gazed up at me again. “Before what?” - </p> - <p> - “Before you came back. And before you went away.” - </p> - <p> - For some time he was silent, but he continued to meet my eyes. “What - happened?” - </p> - <p> - It made me, the sound of the words, in which it seemed to me that I caught - for the very first time a small faint quaver of consenting consciousness—it - made me drop on my knees beside the bed and seize once more the chance of - possessing him. “Dear little Miles, dear little Miles, if you KNEW how I - want to help you! It’s only that, it’s nothing but that, and I’d rather - die than give you a pain or do you a wrong—I’d rather die than hurt - a hair of you. Dear little Miles”—oh, I brought it out now even if I - SHOULD go too far—“I just want you to help me to save you!” But I - knew in a moment after this that I had gone too far. The answer to my - appeal was instantaneous, but it came in the form of an extraordinary - blast and chill, a gust of frozen air, and a shake of the room as great as - if, in the wild wind, the casement had crashed in. The boy gave a loud, - high shriek, which, lost in the rest of the shock of sound, might have - seemed, indistinctly, though I was so close to him, a note either of - jubilation or of terror. I jumped to my feet again and was conscious of - darkness. So for a moment we remained, while I stared about me and saw - that the drawn curtains were unstirred and the window tight. “Why, the - candle’s out!” I then cried. - </p> - <p> - “It was I who blew it, dear!” said Miles. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XVIII - </h2> - <p> - The next day, after lessons, Mrs. Grose found a moment to say to me - quietly: “Have you written, miss?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes—I’ve written.” But I didn’t add—for the hour—that - my letter, sealed and directed, was still in my pocket. There would be - time enough to send it before the messenger should go to the village. - Meanwhile there had been, on the part of my pupils, no more brilliant, - more exemplary morning. It was exactly as if they had both had at heart to - gloss over any recent little friction. They performed the dizziest feats - of arithmetic, soaring quite out of MY feeble range, and perpetrated, in - higher spirits than ever, geographical and historical jokes. It was - conspicuous of course in Miles in particular that he appeared to wish to - show how easily he could let me down. This child, to my memory, really - lives in a setting of beauty and misery that no words can translate; there - was a distinction all his own in every impulse he revealed; never was a - small natural creature, to the uninitiated eye all frankness and freedom, - a more ingenious, a more extraordinary little gentleman. I had perpetually - to guard against the wonder of contemplation into which my initiated view - betrayed me; to check the irrelevant gaze and discouraged sigh in which I - constantly both attacked and renounced the enigma of what such a little - gentleman could have done that deserved a penalty. Say that, by the dark - prodigy I knew, the imagination of all evil HAD been opened up to him: all - the justice within me ached for the proof that it could ever have flowered - into an act. - </p> - <p> - He had never, at any rate, been such a little gentleman as when, after our - early dinner on this dreadful day, he came round to me and asked if I - shouldn’t like him, for half an hour, to play to me. David playing to Saul - could never have shown a finer sense of the occasion. It was literally a - charming exhibition of tact, of magnanimity, and quite tantamount to his - saying outright: “The true knights we love to read about never push an - advantage too far. I know what you mean now: you mean that—to be let - alone yourself and not followed up—you’ll cease to worry and spy - upon me, won’t keep me so close to you, will let me go and come. Well, I - ‘come,’ you see—but I don’t go! There’ll be plenty of time for that. - I do really delight in your society, and I only want to show you that I - contended for a principle.” It may be imagined whether I resisted this - appeal or failed to accompany him again, hand in hand, to the schoolroom. - He sat down at the old piano and played as he had never played; and if - there are those who think he had better have been kicking a football I can - only say that I wholly agree with them. For at the end of a time that - under his influence I had quite ceased to measure, I started up with a - strange sense of having literally slept at my post. It was after luncheon, - and by the schoolroom fire, and yet I hadn’t really, in the least, slept: - I had only done something much worse—I had forgotten. Where, all - this time, was Flora? When I put the question to Miles, he played on a - minute before answering and then could only say: “Why, my dear, how do <i>I</i> - know?”—breaking moreover into a happy laugh which, immediately - after, as if it were a vocal accompaniment, he prolonged into incoherent, - extravagant song. - </p> - <p> - I went straight to my room, but his sister was not there; then, before - going downstairs, I looked into several others. As she was nowhere about - she would surely be with Mrs. Grose, whom, in the comfort of that theory, - I accordingly proceeded in quest of. I found her where I had found her the - evening before, but she met my quick challenge with blank, scared - ignorance. She had only supposed that, after the repast, I had carried off - both the children; as to which she was quite in her right, for it was the - very first time I had allowed the little girl out of my sight without some - special provision. Of course now indeed she might be with the maids, so - that the immediate thing was to look for her without an air of alarm. This - we promptly arranged between us; but when, ten minutes later and in - pursuance of our arrangement, we met in the hall, it was only to report on - either side that after guarded inquiries we had altogether failed to trace - her. For a minute there, apart from observation, we exchanged mute alarms, - and I could feel with what high interest my friend returned me all those I - had from the first given her. - </p> - <p> - “She’ll be above,” she presently said—“in one of the rooms you - haven’t searched.” - </p> - <p> - “No; she’s at a distance.” I had made up my mind. “She has gone out.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose stared. “Without a hat?” - </p> - <p> - I naturally also looked volumes. “Isn’t that woman always without one?” - </p> - <p> - “She’s with HER?” - </p> - <p> - “She’s with HER!” I declared. “We must find them.” - </p> - <p> - My hand was on my friend’s arm, but she failed for the moment, confronted - with such an account of the matter, to respond to my pressure. She - communed, on the contrary, on the spot, with her uneasiness. “And where’s - Master Miles?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, HE’S with Quint. They’re in the schoolroom.” - </p> - <p> - “Lord, miss!” My view, I was myself aware—and therefore I suppose my - tone—had never yet reached so calm an assurance. - </p> - <p> - “The trick’s played,” I went on; “they’ve successfully worked their plan. - He found the most divine little way to keep me quiet while she went off.” - </p> - <p> - “‘Divine’?” Mrs. Grose bewilderedly echoed. - </p> - <p> - “Infernal, then!” I almost cheerfully rejoined. “He has provided for - himself as well. But come!” - </p> - <p> - She had helplessly gloomed at the upper regions. “You leave him—?” - </p> - <p> - “So long with Quint? Yes—I don’t mind that now.” - </p> - <p> - She always ended, at these moments, by getting possession of my hand, and - in this manner she could at present still stay me. But after gasping an - instant at my sudden resignation, “Because of your letter?” she eagerly - brought out. - </p> - <p> - I quickly, by way of answer, felt for my letter, drew it forth, held it - up, and then, freeing myself, went and laid it on the great hall table. - “Luke will take it,” I said as I came back. I reached the house door and - opened it; I was already on the steps. - </p> - <p> - My companion still demurred: the storm of the night and the early morning - had dropped, but the afternoon was damp and gray. I came down to the drive - while she stood in the doorway. “You go with nothing on?” - </p> - <p> - “What do I care when the child has nothing? I can’t wait to dress,” I - cried, “and if you must do so, I leave you. Try meanwhile, yourself, - upstairs.” - </p> - <p> - “With THEM?” Oh, on this, the poor woman promptly joined me! - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XIX - </h2> - <p> - We went straight to the lake, as it was called at Bly, and I daresay - rightly called, though I reflect that it may in fact have been a sheet of - water less remarkable than it appeared to my untraveled eyes. My - acquaintance with sheets of water was small, and the pool of Bly, at all - events on the few occasions of my consenting, under the protection of my - pupils, to affront its surface in the old flat-bottomed boat moored there - for our use, had impressed me both with its extent and its agitation. The - usual place of embarkation was half a mile from the house, but I had an - intimate conviction that, wherever Flora might be, she was not near home. - She had not given me the slip for any small adventure, and, since the day - of the very great one that I had shared with her by the pond, I had been - aware, in our walks, of the quarter to which she most inclined. This was - why I had now given to Mrs. Grose’s steps so marked a direction—a - direction that made her, when she perceived it, oppose a resistance that - showed me she was freshly mystified. “You’re going to the water, Miss?—you - think she’s IN—?” - </p> - <p> - “She may be, though the depth is, I believe, nowhere very great. But what - I judge most likely is that she’s on the spot from which, the other day, - we saw together what I told you.” - </p> - <p> - “When she pretended not to see—?” - </p> - <p> - “With that astounding self-possession? I’ve always been sure she wanted to - go back alone. And now her brother has managed it for her.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose still stood where she had stopped. “You suppose they really - TALK of them?” - </p> - <p> - “I could meet this with a confidence! They say things that, if we heard - them, would simply appall us.” - </p> - <p> - “And if she IS there—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” - </p> - <p> - “Then Miss Jessel is?” - </p> - <p> - “Beyond a doubt. You shall see.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, thank you!” my friend cried, planted so firm that, taking it in, I - went straight on without her. By the time I reached the pool, however, she - was close behind me, and I knew that, whatever, to her apprehension, might - befall me, the exposure of my society struck her as her least danger. She - exhaled a moan of relief as we at last came in sight of the greater part - of the water without a sight of the child. There was no trace of Flora on - that nearer side of the bank where my observation of her had been most - startling, and none on the opposite edge, where, save for a margin of some - twenty yards, a thick copse came down to the water. The pond, oblong in - shape, had a width so scant compared to its length that, with its ends out - of view, it might have been taken for a scant river. We looked at the - empty expanse, and then I felt the suggestion of my friend’s eyes. I knew - what she meant and I replied with a negative headshake. - </p> - <p> - “No, no; wait! She has taken the boat.” - </p> - <p> - My companion stared at the vacant mooring place and then again across the - lake. “Then where is it?” - </p> - <p> - “Our not seeing it is the strongest of proofs. She has used it to go over, - and then has managed to hide it.” - </p> - <p> - “All alone—that child?” - </p> - <p> - “She’s not alone, and at such times she’s not a child: she’s an old, old - woman.” I scanned all the visible shore while Mrs. Grose took again, into - the queer element I offered her, one of her plunges of submission; then I - pointed out that the boat might perfectly be in a small refuge formed by - one of the recesses of the pool, an indentation masked, for the hither - side, by a projection of the bank and by a clump of trees growing close to - the water. - </p> - <p> - “But if the boat’s there, where on earth’s SHE?” my colleague anxiously - asked. - </p> - <p> - “That’s exactly what we must learn.” And I started to walk further. - </p> - <p> - “By going all the way round?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly, far as it is. It will take us but ten minutes, but it’s far - enough to have made the child prefer not to walk. She went straight over.” - </p> - <p> - “Laws!” cried my friend again; the chain of my logic was ever too much for - her. It dragged her at my heels even now, and when we had got halfway - round—a devious, tiresome process, on ground much broken and by a - path choked with overgrowth—I paused to give her breath. I sustained - her with a grateful arm, assuring her that she might hugely help me; and - this started us afresh, so that in the course of but few minutes more we - reached a point from which we found the boat to be where I had supposed - it. It had been intentionally left as much as possible out of sight and - was tied to one of the stakes of a fence that came, just there, down to - the brink and that had been an assistance to disembarking. I recognized, - as I looked at the pair of short, thick oars, quite safely drawn up, the - prodigious character of the feat for a little girl; but I had lived, by - this time, too long among wonders and had panted to too many livelier - measures. There was a gate in the fence, through which we passed, and that - brought us, after a trifling interval, more into the open. Then, “There - she is!” we both exclaimed at once. - </p> - <p> - Flora, a short way off, stood before us on the grass and smiled as if her - performance was now complete. The next thing she did, however, was to - stoop straight down and pluck—quite as if it were all she was there - for—a big, ugly spray of withered fern. I instantly became sure she - had just come out of the copse. She waited for us, not herself taking a - step, and I was conscious of the rare solemnity with which we presently - approached her. She smiled and smiled, and we met; but it was all done in - a silence by this time flagrantly ominous. Mrs. Grose was the first to - break the spell: she threw herself on her knees and, drawing the child to - her breast, clasped in a long embrace the little tender, yielding body. - While this dumb convulsion lasted I could only watch it—which I did - the more intently when I saw Flora’s face peep at me over our companion’s - shoulder. It was serious now—the flicker had left it; but it - strengthened the pang with which I at that moment envied Mrs. Grose the - simplicity of HER relation. Still, all this while, nothing more passed - between us save that Flora had let her foolish fern again drop to the - ground. What she and I had virtually said to each other was that pretexts - were useless now. When Mrs. Grose finally got up she kept the child’s - hand, so that the two were still before me; and the singular reticence of - our communion was even more marked in the frank look she launched me. - “I’ll be hanged,” it said, “if <i>I</i>’ll speak!” - </p> - <p> - It was Flora who, gazing all over me in candid wonder, was the first. She - was struck with our bareheaded aspect. “Why, where are your things?” - </p> - <p> - “Where yours are, my dear!” I promptly returned. - </p> - <p> - She had already got back her gaiety, and appeared to take this as an - answer quite sufficient. “And where’s Miles?” she went on. - </p> - <p> - There was something in the small valor of it that quite finished me: these - three words from her were, in a flash like the glitter of a drawn blade, - the jostle of the cup that my hand, for weeks and weeks, had held high and - full to the brim that now, even before speaking, I felt overflow in a - deluge. “I’ll tell you if you’ll tell ME—” I heard myself say, then - heard the tremor in which it broke. - </p> - <p> - “Well, what?” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose’s suspense blazed at me, but it was too late now, and I brought - the thing out handsomely. “Where, my pet, is Miss Jessel?” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XX - </h2> - <p> - Just as in the churchyard with Miles, the whole thing was upon us. Much as - I had made of the fact that this name had never once, between us, been - sounded, the quick, smitten glare with which the child’s face now received - it fairly likened my breach of the silence to the smash of a pane of - glass. It added to the interposing cry, as if to stay the blow, that Mrs. - Grose, at the same instant, uttered over my violence—the shriek of a - creature scared, or rather wounded, which, in turn, within a few seconds, - was completed by a gasp of my own. I seized my colleague’s arm. “She’s - there, she’s there!” - </p> - <p> - Miss Jessel stood before us on the opposite bank exactly as she had stood - the other time, and I remember, strangely, as the first feeling now - produced in me, my thrill of joy at having brought on a proof. She was - there, and I was justified; she was there, and I was neither cruel nor - mad. She was there for poor scared Mrs. Grose, but she was there most for - Flora; and no moment of my monstrous time was perhaps so extraordinary as - that in which I consciously threw out to her—with the sense that, - pale and ravenous demon as she was, she would catch and understand it—an - inarticulate message of gratitude. She rose erect on the spot my friend - and I had lately quitted, and there was not, in all the long reach of her - desire, an inch of her evil that fell short. This first vividness of - vision and emotion were things of a few seconds, during which Mrs. Grose’s - dazed blink across to where I pointed struck me as a sovereign sign that - she too at last saw, just as it carried my own eyes precipitately to the - child. The revelation then of the manner in which Flora was affected - startled me, in truth, far more than it would have done to find her also - merely agitated, for direct dismay was of course not what I had expected. - Prepared and on her guard as our pursuit had actually made her, she would - repress every betrayal; and I was therefore shaken, on the spot, by my - first glimpse of the particular one for which I had not allowed. To see - her, without a convulsion of her small pink face, not even feign to glance - in the direction of the prodigy I announced, but only, instead of that, - turn at ME an expression of hard, still gravity, an expression absolutely - new and unprecedented and that appeared to read and accuse and judge me—this - was a stroke that somehow converted the little girl herself into the very - presence that could make me quail. I quailed even though my certitude that - she thoroughly saw was never greater than at that instant, and in the - immediate need to defend myself I called it passionately to witness. - “She’s there, you little unhappy thing—there, there, THERE, and you - see her as well as you see me!” I had said shortly before to Mrs. Grose - that she was not at these times a child, but an old, old woman, and that - description of her could not have been more strikingly confirmed than in - the way in which, for all answer to this, she simply showed me, without a - concession, an admission, of her eyes, a countenance of deeper and deeper, - of indeed suddenly quite fixed, reprobation. I was by this time—if I - can put the whole thing at all together—more appalled at what I may - properly call her manner than at anything else, though it was - simultaneously with this that I became aware of having Mrs. Grose also, - and very formidably, to reckon with. My elder companion, the next moment, - at any rate, blotted out everything but her own flushed face and her loud, - shocked protest, a burst of high disapproval. “What a dreadful turn, to be - sure, miss! Where on earth do you see anything?” - </p> - <p> - I could only grasp her more quickly yet, for even while she spoke the - hideous plain presence stood undimmed and undaunted. It had already lasted - a minute, and it lasted while I continued, seizing my colleague, quite - thrusting her at it and presenting her to it, to insist with my pointing - hand. “You don’t see her exactly as WE see?—you mean to say you - don’t now—NOW? She’s as big as a blazing fire! Only look, dearest - woman, LOOK—!” She looked, even as I did, and gave me, with her deep - groan of negation, repulsion, compassion—the mixture with her pity - of her relief at her exemption—a sense, touching to me even then, - that she would have backed me up if she could. I might well have needed - that, for with this hard blow of the proof that her eyes were hopelessly - sealed I felt my own situation horribly crumble, I felt—I saw—my - livid predecessor press, from her position, on my defeat, and I was - conscious, more than all, of what I should have from this instant to deal - with in the astounding little attitude of Flora. Into this attitude Mrs. - Grose immediately and violently entered, breaking, even while there - pierced through my sense of ruin a prodigious private triumph, into - breathless reassurance. - </p> - <p> - “She isn’t there, little lady, and nobody’s there—and you never see - nothing, my sweet! How can poor Miss Jessel—when poor Miss Jessel’s - dead and buried? WE know, don’t we, love?”—and she appealed, - blundering in, to the child. “It’s all a mere mistake and a worry and a - joke—and we’ll go home as fast as we can!” - </p> - <p> - Our companion, on this, had responded with a strange, quick primness of - propriety, and they were again, with Mrs. Grose on her feet, united, as it - were, in pained opposition to me. Flora continued to fix me with her small - mask of reprobation, and even at that minute I prayed God to forgive me - for seeming to see that, as she stood there holding tight to our friend’s - dress, her incomparable childish beauty had suddenly failed, had quite - vanished. I’ve said it already—she was literally, she was hideously, - hard; she had turned common and almost ugly. “I don’t know what you mean. - I see nobody. I see nothing. I never HAVE. I think you’re cruel. I don’t - like you!” Then, after this deliverance, which might have been that of a - vulgarly pert little girl in the street, she hugged Mrs. Grose more - closely and buried in her skirts the dreadful little face. In this - position she produced an almost furious wail. “Take me away, take me away—oh, - take me away from HER!” - </p> - <p> - “From ME?” I panted. - </p> - <p> - “From you—from you!” she cried. - </p> - <p> - Even Mrs. Grose looked across at me dismayed, while I had nothing to do - but communicate again with the figure that, on the opposite bank, without - a movement, as rigidly still as if catching, beyond the interval, our - voices, was as vividly there for my disaster as it was not there for my - service. The wretched child had spoken exactly as if she had got from some - outside source each of her stabbing little words, and I could therefore, - in the full despair of all I had to accept, but sadly shake my head at - her. “If I had ever doubted, all my doubt would at present have gone. I’ve - been living with the miserable truth, and now it has only too much closed - round me. Of course I’ve lost you: I’ve interfered, and you’ve seen—under - HER dictation”—with which I faced, over the pool again, our infernal - witness—“the easy and perfect way to meet it. I’ve done my best, but - I’ve lost you. Goodbye.” For Mrs. Grose I had an imperative, an almost - frantic “Go, go!” before which, in infinite distress, but mutely possessed - of the little girl and clearly convinced, in spite of her blindness, that - something awful had occurred and some collapse engulfed us, she retreated, - by the way we had come, as fast as she could move. - </p> - <p> - Of what first happened when I was left alone I had no subsequent memory. I - only knew that at the end of, I suppose, a quarter of an hour, an odorous - dampness and roughness, chilling and piercing my trouble, had made me - understand that I must have thrown myself, on my face, on the ground and - given way to a wildness of grief. I must have lain there long and cried - and sobbed, for when I raised my head the day was almost done. I got up - and looked a moment, through the twilight, at the gray pool and its blank, - haunted edge, and then I took, back to the house, my dreary and difficult - course. When I reached the gate in the fence the boat, to my surprise, was - gone, so that I had a fresh reflection to make on Flora’s extraordinary - command of the situation. She passed that night, by the most tacit, and I - should add, were not the word so grotesque a false note, the happiest of - arrangements, with Mrs. Grose. I saw neither of them on my return, but, on - the other hand, as by an ambiguous compensation, I saw a great deal of - Miles. I saw—I can use no other phrase—so much of him that it - was as if it were more than it had ever been. No evening I had passed at - Bly had the portentous quality of this one; in spite of which—and in - spite also of the deeper depths of consternation that had opened beneath - my feet—there was literally, in the ebbing actual, an - extraordinarily sweet sadness. On reaching the house I had never so much - as looked for the boy; I had simply gone straight to my room to change - what I was wearing and to take in, at a glance, much material testimony to - Flora’s rupture. Her little belongings had all been removed. When later, - by the schoolroom fire, I was served with tea by the usual maid, I - indulged, on the article of my other pupil, in no inquiry whatever. He had - his freedom now—he might have it to the end! Well, he did have it; - and it consisted—in part at least—of his coming in at about - eight o’clock and sitting down with me in silence. On the removal of the - tea things I had blown out the candles and drawn my chair closer: I was - conscious of a mortal coldness and felt as if I should never again be - warm. So, when he appeared, I was sitting in the glow with my thoughts. He - paused a moment by the door as if to look at me; then—as if to share - them—came to the other side of the hearth and sank into a chair. We - sat there in absolute stillness; yet he wanted, I felt, to be with me. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXI - </h2> - <p> - Before a new day, in my room, had fully broken, my eyes opened to Mrs. - Grose, who had come to my bedside with worse news. Flora was so markedly - feverish that an illness was perhaps at hand; she had passed a night of - extreme unrest, a night agitated above all by fears that had for their - subject not in the least her former, but wholly her present, governess. It - was not against the possible re-entrance of Miss Jessel on the scene that - she protested—it was conspicuously and passionately against mine. I - was promptly on my feet of course, and with an immense deal to ask; the - more that my friend had discernibly now girded her loins to meet me once - more. This I felt as soon as I had put to her the question of her sense of - the child’s sincerity as against my own. “She persists in denying to you - that she saw, or has ever seen, anything?” - </p> - <p> - My visitor’s trouble, truly, was great. “Ah, miss, it isn’t a matter on - which I can push her! Yet it isn’t either, I must say, as if I much needed - to. It has made her, every inch of her, quite old.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I see her perfectly from here. She resents, for all the world like - some high little personage, the imputation on her truthfulness and, as it - were, her respectability. ‘Miss Jessel indeed—SHE!’ Ah, she’s - ‘respectable,’ the chit! The impression she gave me there yesterday was, I - assure you, the very strangest of all; it was quite beyond any of the - others. I DID put my foot in it! She’ll never speak to me again.” - </p> - <p> - Hideous and obscure as it all was, it held Mrs. Grose briefly silent; then - she granted my point with a frankness which, I made sure, had more behind - it. “I think indeed, miss, she never will. She do have a grand manner - about it!” - </p> - <p> - “And that manner”—I summed it up—“is practically what’s the - matter with her now!” - </p> - <p> - Oh, that manner, I could see in my visitor’s face, and not a little else - besides! “She asks me every three minutes if I think you’re coming in.” - </p> - <p> - “I see—I see.” I, too, on my side, had so much more than worked it - out. “Has she said to you since yesterday—except to repudiate her - familiarity with anything so dreadful—a single other word about Miss - Jessel?” - </p> - <p> - “Not one, miss. And of course you know,” my friend added, “I took it from - her, by the lake, that, just then and there at least, there WAS nobody.” - </p> - <p> - “Rather! and, naturally, you take it from her still.” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t contradict her. What else can I do?” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing in the world! You’ve the cleverest little person to deal with. - They’ve made them—their two friends, I mean—still cleverer - even than nature did; for it was wondrous material to play on! Flora has - now her grievance, and she’ll work it to the end.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, miss; but to WHAT end?” - </p> - <p> - “Why, that of dealing with me to her uncle. She’ll make me out to him the - lowest creature—!” - </p> - <p> - I winced at the fair show of the scene in Mrs. Grose’s face; she looked - for a minute as if she sharply saw them together. “And him who thinks so - well of you!” - </p> - <p> - “He has an odd way—it comes over me now,” I laughed,”—of - proving it! But that doesn’t matter. What Flora wants, of course, is to - get rid of me.” - </p> - <p> - My companion bravely concurred. “Never again to so much as look at you.” - </p> - <p> - “So that what you’ve come to me now for,” I asked, “is to speed me on my - way?” Before she had time to reply, however, I had her in check. “I’ve a - better idea—the result of my reflections. My going WOULD seem the - right thing, and on Sunday I was terribly near it. Yet that won’t do. It’s - YOU who must go. You must take Flora.” - </p> - <p> - My visitor, at this, did speculate. “But where in the world—?” - </p> - <p> - “Away from here. Away from THEM. Away, even most of all, now, from me. - Straight to her uncle.” - </p> - <p> - “Only to tell on you—?” - </p> - <p> - “No, not ‘only’! To leave me, in addition, with my remedy.” - </p> - <p> - She was still vague. “And what IS your remedy?” - </p> - <p> - “Your loyalty, to begin with. And then Miles’s.” - </p> - <p> - She looked at me hard. “Do you think he—?” - </p> - <p> - “Won’t, if he has the chance, turn on me? Yes, I venture still to think - it. At all events, I want to try. Get off with his sister as soon as - possible and leave me with him alone.” I was amazed, myself, at the spirit - I had still in reserve, and therefore perhaps a trifle the more - disconcerted at the way in which, in spite of this fine example of it, she - hesitated. “There’s one thing, of course,” I went on: “they mustn’t, - before she goes, see each other for three seconds.” Then it came over me - that, in spite of Flora’s presumable sequestration from the instant of her - return from the pool, it might already be too late. “Do you mean,” I - anxiously asked, “that they HAVE met?” - </p> - <p> - At this she quite flushed. “Ah, miss, I’m not such a fool as that! If I’ve - been obliged to leave her three or four times, it has been each time with - one of the maids, and at present, though she’s alone, she’s locked in - safe. And yet—and yet!” There were too many things. - </p> - <p> - “And yet what?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, are you so sure of the little gentleman?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m not sure of anything but YOU. But I have, since last evening, a new - hope. I think he wants to give me an opening. I do believe that—poor - little exquisite wretch!—he wants to speak. Last evening, in the - firelight and the silence, he sat with me for two hours as if it were just - coming.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Grose looked hard, through the window, at the gray, gathering day. - “And did it come?” - </p> - <p> - “No, though I waited and waited, I confess it didn’t, and it was without a - breach of the silence or so much as a faint allusion to his sister’s - condition and absence that we at last kissed for good night. All the - same,” I continued, “I can’t, if her uncle sees her, consent to his seeing - her brother without my having given the boy—and most of all because - things have got so bad—a little more time.” - </p> - <p> - My friend appeared on this ground more reluctant than I could quite - understand. “What do you mean by more time?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, a day or two—really to bring it out. He’ll then be on MY side—of - which you see the importance. If nothing comes, I shall only fail, and you - will, at the worst, have helped me by doing, on your arrival in town, - whatever you may have found possible.” So I put it before her, but she - continued for a little so inscrutably embarrassed that I came again to her - aid. “Unless, indeed,” I wound up, “you really want NOT to go.” - </p> - <p> - I could see it, in her face, at last clear itself; she put out her hand to - me as a pledge. “I’ll go—I’ll go. I’ll go this morning.” - </p> - <p> - I wanted to be very just. “If you SHOULD wish still to wait, I would - engage she shouldn’t see me.” - </p> - <p> - “No, no: it’s the place itself. She must leave it.” She held me a moment - with heavy eyes, then brought out the rest. “Your idea’s the right one. I - myself, miss—” - </p> - <p> - “Well?” - </p> - <p> - “I can’t stay.” - </p> - <p> - The look she gave me with it made me jump at possibilities. “You mean - that, since yesterday, you HAVE seen—?” - </p> - <p> - She shook her head with dignity. “I’ve HEARD—!” - </p> - <p> - “Heard?” - </p> - <p> - “From that child—horrors! There!” she sighed with tragic relief. “On - my honor, miss, she says things—!” But at this evocation she broke - down; she dropped, with a sudden sob, upon my sofa and, as I had seen her - do before, gave way to all the grief of it. - </p> - <p> - It was quite in another manner that I, for my part, let myself go. “Oh, - thank God!” - </p> - <p> - She sprang up again at this, drying her eyes with a groan. “‘Thank God’?” - </p> - <p> - “It so justifies me!” - </p> - <p> - “It does that, miss!” - </p> - <p> - I couldn’t have desired more emphasis, but I just hesitated. “She’s so - horrible?” - </p> - <p> - I saw my colleague scarce knew how to put it. “Really shocking.” - </p> - <p> - “And about me?” - </p> - <p> - “About you, miss—since you must have it. It’s beyond everything, for - a young lady; and I can’t think wherever she must have picked up—” - </p> - <p> - “The appalling language she applied to me? I can, then!” I broke in with a - laugh that was doubtless significant enough. - </p> - <p> - It only, in truth, left my friend still more grave. “Well, perhaps I ought - to also—since I’ve heard some of it before! Yet I can’t bear it,” - the poor woman went on while, with the same movement, she glanced, on my - dressing table, at the face of my watch. “But I must go back.” - </p> - <p> - I kept her, however. “Ah, if you can’t bear it—!” - </p> - <p> - “How can I stop with her, you mean? Why, just FOR that: to get her away. - Far from this,” she pursued, “far from THEM-” - </p> - <p> - “She may be different? She may be free?” I seized her almost with joy. - “Then, in spite of yesterday, you BELIEVE—” - </p> - <p> - “In such doings?” Her simple description of them required, in the light of - her expression, to be carried no further, and she gave me the whole thing - as she had never done. “I believe.” - </p> - <p> - Yes, it was a joy, and we were still shoulder to shoulder: if I might - continue sure of that I should care but little what else happened. My - support in the presence of disaster would be the same as it had been in my - early need of confidence, and if my friend would answer for my honesty, I - would answer for all the rest. On the point of taking leave of her, - nonetheless, I was to some extent embarrassed. “There’s one thing, of - course—it occurs to me—to remember. My letter, giving the - alarm, will have reached town before you.” - </p> - <p> - I now perceived still more how she had been beating about the bush and how - weary at last it had made her. “Your letter won’t have got there. Your - letter never went.” - </p> - <p> - “What then became of it?” - </p> - <p> - “Goodness knows! Master Miles—” - </p> - <p> - “Do you mean HE took it?” I gasped. - </p> - <p> - She hung fire, but she overcame her reluctance. “I mean that I saw - yesterday, when I came back with Miss Flora, that it wasn’t where you had - put it. Later in the evening I had the chance to question Luke, and he - declared that he had neither noticed nor touched it.” We could only - exchange, on this, one of our deeper mutual soundings, and it was Mrs. - Grose who first brought up the plumb with an almost elated “You see!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I see that if Miles took it instead he probably will have read it - and destroyed it.” - </p> - <p> - “And don’t you see anything else?” - </p> - <p> - I faced her a moment with a sad smile. “It strikes me that by this time - your eyes are open even wider than mine.” - </p> - <p> - They proved to be so indeed, but she could still blush, almost, to show - it. “I make out now what he must have done at school.” And she gave, in - her simple sharpness, an almost droll disillusioned nod. “He stole!” - </p> - <p> - I turned it over—I tried to be more judicial. “Well—perhaps.” - </p> - <p> - She looked as if she found me unexpectedly calm. “He stole LETTERS!” - </p> - <p> - She couldn’t know my reasons for a calmness after all pretty shallow; so I - showed them off as I might. “I hope then it was to more purpose than in - this case! The note, at any rate, that I put on the table yesterday,” I - pursued, “will have given him so scant an advantage—for it contained - only the bare demand for an interview—that he is already much - ashamed of having gone so far for so little, and that what he had on his - mind last evening was precisely the need of confession.” I seemed to - myself, for the instant, to have mastered it, to see it all. “Leave us, - leave us”—I was already, at the door, hurrying her off. “I’ll get it - out of him. He’ll meet me—he’ll confess. If he confesses, he’s - saved. And if he’s saved—” - </p> - <p> - “Then YOU are?” The dear woman kissed me on this, and I took her farewell. - “I’ll save you without him!” she cried as she went. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXII - </h2> - <p> - Yet it was when she had got off—and I missed her on the spot—that - the great pinch really came. If I had counted on what it would give me to - find myself alone with Miles, I speedily perceived, at least, that it - would give me a measure. No hour of my stay in fact was so assailed with - apprehensions as that of my coming down to learn that the carriage - containing Mrs. Grose and my younger pupil had already rolled out of the - gates. Now I WAS, I said to myself, face to face with the elements, and - for much of the rest of the day, while I fought my weakness, I could - consider that I had been supremely rash. It was a tighter place still than - I had yet turned round in; all the more that, for the first time, I could - see in the aspect of others a confused reflection of the crisis. What had - happened naturally caused them all to stare; there was too little of the - explained, throw out whatever we might, in the suddenness of my - colleague’s act. The maids and the men looked blank; the effect of which - on my nerves was an aggravation until I saw the necessity of making it a - positive aid. It was precisely, in short, by just clutching the helm that - I avoided total wreck; and I dare say that, to bear up at all, I became, - that morning, very grand and very dry. I welcomed the consciousness that I - was charged with much to do, and I caused it to be known as well that, - left thus to myself, I was quite remarkably firm. I wandered with that - manner, for the next hour or two, all over the place and looked, I have no - doubt, as if I were ready for any onset. So, for the benefit of whom it - might concern, I paraded with a sick heart. - </p> - <p> - The person it appeared least to concern proved to be, till dinner, little - Miles himself. My perambulations had given me, meanwhile, no glimpse of - him, but they had tended to make more public the change taking place in - our relation as a consequence of his having at the piano, the day before, - kept me, in Flora’s interest, so beguiled and befooled. The stamp of - publicity had of course been fully given by her confinement and departure, - and the change itself was now ushered in by our nonobservance of the - regular custom of the schoolroom. He had already disappeared when, on my - way down, I pushed open his door, and I learned below that he had - breakfasted—in the presence of a couple of the maids—with Mrs. - Grose and his sister. He had then gone out, as he said, for a stroll; than - which nothing, I reflected, could better have expressed his frank view of - the abrupt transformation of my office. What he would not permit this - office to consist of was yet to be settled: there was a queer relief, at - all events—I mean for myself in especial—in the renouncement - of one pretension. If so much had sprung to the surface, I scarce put it - too strongly in saying that what had perhaps sprung highest was the - absurdity of our prolonging the fiction that I had anything more to teach - him. It sufficiently stuck out that, by tacit little tricks in which even - more than myself he carried out the care for my dignity, I had had to - appeal to him to let me off straining to meet him on the ground of his - true capacity. He had at any rate his freedom now; I was never to touch it - again; as I had amply shown, moreover, when, on his joining me in the - schoolroom the previous night, I had uttered, on the subject of the - interval just concluded, neither challenge nor hint. I had too much, from - this moment, my other ideas. Yet when he at last arrived, the difficulty - of applying them, the accumulations of my problem, were brought straight - home to me by the beautiful little presence on which what had occurred had - as yet, for the eye, dropped neither stain nor shadow. - </p> - <p> - To mark, for the house, the high state I cultivated I decreed that my - meals with the boy should be served, as we called it, downstairs; so that - I had been awaiting him in the ponderous pomp of the room outside of the - window of which I had had from Mrs. Grose, that first scared Sunday, my - flash of something it would scarce have done to call light. Here at - present I felt afresh—for I had felt it again and again—how my - equilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, the will to shut my - eyes as tight as possible to the truth that what I had to deal with was, - revoltingly, against nature. I could only get on at all by taking “nature” - into my confidence and my account, by treating my monstrous ordeal as a - push in a direction unusual, of course, and unpleasant, but demanding, - after all, for a fair front, only another turn of the screw of ordinary - human virtue. No attempt, nonetheless, could well require more tact than - just this attempt to supply, one’s self, ALL the nature. How could I put - even a little of that article into a suppression of reference to what had - occurred? How, on the other hand, could I make reference without a new - plunge into the hideous obscure? Well, a sort of answer, after a time, had - come to me, and it was so far confirmed as that I was met, incontestably, - by the quickened vision of what was rare in my little companion. It was - indeed as if he had found even now—as he had so often found at - lessons—still some other delicate way to ease me off. Wasn’t there - light in the fact which, as we shared our solitude, broke out with a - specious glitter it had never yet quite worn?—the fact that - (opportunity aiding, precious opportunity which had now come) it would be - preposterous, with a child so endowed, to forego the help one might wrest - from absolute intelligence? What had his intelligence been given him for - but to save him? Mightn’t one, to reach his mind, risk the stretch of an - angular arm over his character? It was as if, when we were face to face in - the dining room, he had literally shown me the way. The roast mutton was - on the table, and I had dispensed with attendance. Miles, before he sat - down, stood a moment with his hands in his pockets and looked at the - joint, on which he seemed on the point of passing some humorous judgment. - But what he presently produced was: “I say, my dear, is she really very - awfully ill?” - </p> - <p> - “Little Flora? Not so bad but that she’ll presently be better. London will - set her up. Bly had ceased to agree with her. Come here and take your - mutton.” - </p> - <p> - He alertly obeyed me, carried the plate carefully to his seat, and, when - he was established, went on. “Did Bly disagree with her so terribly - suddenly?” - </p> - <p> - “Not so suddenly as you might think. One had seen it coming on.” - </p> - <p> - “Then why didn’t you get her off before?” - </p> - <p> - “Before what?” - </p> - <p> - “Before she became too ill to travel.” - </p> - <p> - I found myself prompt. “She’s NOT too ill to travel: she only might have - become so if she had stayed. This was just the moment to seize. The - journey will dissipate the influence”—oh, I was grand!—“and - carry it off.” - </p> - <p> - “I see, I see”—Miles, for that matter, was grand, too. He settled to - his repast with the charming little “table manner” that, from the day of - his arrival, had relieved me of all grossness of admonition. Whatever he - had been driven from school for, it was not for ugly feeding. He was - irreproachable, as always, today; but he was unmistakably more conscious. - He was discernibly trying to take for granted more things than he found, - without assistance, quite easy; and he dropped into peaceful silence while - he felt his situation. Our meal was of the briefest—mine a vain - pretense, and I had the things immediately removed. While this was done - Miles stood again with his hands in his little pockets and his back to me—stood - and looked out of the wide window through which, that other day, I had - seen what pulled me up. We continued silent while the maid was with us—as - silent, it whimsically occurred to me, as some young couple who, on their - wedding journey, at the inn, feel shy in the presence of the waiter. He - turned round only when the waiter had left us. “Well—so we’re - alone!” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXIII - </h2> - <p> - “Oh, more or less.” I fancy my smile was pale. “Not absolutely. We - shouldn’t like that!” I went on. - </p> - <p> - “No—I suppose we shouldn’t. Of course we have the others.” - </p> - <p> - “We have the others—we have indeed the others,” I concurred. - </p> - <p> - “Yet even though we have them,” he returned, still with his hands in his - pockets and planted there in front of me, “they don’t much count, do - they?” - </p> - <p> - I made the best of it, but I felt wan. “It depends on what you call - ‘much’!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes”—with all accommodation—“everything depends!” On this, - however, he faced to the window again and presently reached it with his - vague, restless, cogitating step. He remained there awhile, with his - forehead against the glass, in contemplation of the stupid shrubs I knew - and the dull things of November. I had always my hypocrisy of “work,” - behind which, now, I gained the sofa. Steadying myself with it there as I - had repeatedly done at those moments of torment that I have described as - the moments of my knowing the children to be given to something from which - I was barred, I sufficiently obeyed my habit of being prepared for the - worst. But an extraordinary impression dropped on me as I extracted a - meaning from the boy’s embarrassed back—none other than the - impression that I was not barred now. This inference grew in a few minutes - to sharp intensity and seemed bound up with the direct perception that it - was positively HE who was. The frames and squares of the great window were - a kind of image, for him, of a kind of failure. I felt that I saw him, at - any rate, shut in or shut out. He was admirable, but not comfortable: I - took it in with a throb of hope. Wasn’t he looking, through the haunted - pane, for something he couldn’t see?—and wasn’t it the first time in - the whole business that he had known such a lapse? The first, the very - first: I found it a splendid portent. It made him anxious, though he - watched himself; he had been anxious all day and, even while in his usual - sweet little manner he sat at table, had needed all his small strange - genius to give it a gloss. When he at last turned round to meet me, it was - almost as if this genius had succumbed. “Well, I think I’m glad Bly agrees - with ME!” - </p> - <p> - “You would certainly seem to have seen, these twenty-four hours, a good - deal more of it than for some time before. I hope,” I went on bravely, - “that you’ve been enjoying yourself.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes, I’ve been ever so far; all round about—miles and miles - away. I’ve never been so free.” - </p> - <p> - He had really a manner of his own, and I could only try to keep up with - him. “Well, do you like it?” - </p> - <p> - He stood there smiling; then at last he put into two words—“Do YOU?”—more - discrimination than I had ever heard two words contain. Before I had time - to deal with that, however, he continued as if with the sense that this - was an impertinence to be softened. “Nothing could be more charming than - the way you take it, for of course if we’re alone together now it’s you - that are alone most. But I hope,” he threw in, “you don’t particularly - mind!” - </p> - <p> - “Having to do with you?” I asked. “My dear child, how can I help minding? - Though I’ve renounced all claim to your company—you’re so beyond me—I - at least greatly enjoy it. What else should I stay on for?” - </p> - <p> - He looked at me more directly, and the expression of his face, graver now, - struck me as the most beautiful I had ever found in it. “You stay on just - for THAT?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly. I stay on as your friend and from the tremendous interest I - take in you till something can be done for you that may be more worth your - while. That needn’t surprise you.” My voice trembled so that I felt it - impossible to suppress the shake. “Don’t you remember how I told you, when - I came and sat on your bed the night of the storm, that there was nothing - in the world I wouldn’t do for you?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, yes!” He, on his side, more and more visibly nervous, had a tone to - master; but he was so much more successful than I that, laughing out - through his gravity, he could pretend we were pleasantly jesting. “Only - that, I think, was to get me to do something for YOU!” - </p> - <p> - “It was partly to get you to do something,” I conceded. “But, you know, - you didn’t do it.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes,” he said with the brightest superficial eagerness, “you wanted - me to tell you something.” - </p> - <p> - “That’s it. Out, straight out. What you have on your mind, you know.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, then, is THAT what you’ve stayed over for?” - </p> - <p> - He spoke with a gaiety through which I could still catch the finest little - quiver of resentful passion; but I can’t begin to express the effect upon - me of an implication of surrender even so faint. It was as if what I had - yearned for had come at last only to astonish me. “Well, yes—I may - as well make a clean breast of it, it was precisely for that.” - </p> - <p> - He waited so long that I supposed it for the purpose of repudiating the - assumption on which my action had been founded; but what he finally said - was: “Do you mean now—here?” - </p> - <p> - “There couldn’t be a better place or time.” He looked round him uneasily, - and I had the rare—oh, the queer!—impression of the very first - symptom I had seen in him of the approach of immediate fear. It was as if - he were suddenly afraid of me—which struck me indeed as perhaps the - best thing to make him. Yet in the very pang of the effort I felt it vain - to try sternness, and I heard myself the next instant so gentle as to be - almost grotesque. “You want so to go out again?” - </p> - <p> - “Awfully!” He smiled at me heroically, and the touching little bravery of - it was enhanced by his actually flushing with pain. He had picked up his - hat, which he had brought in, and stood twirling it in a way that gave me, - even as I was just nearly reaching port, a perverse horror of what I was - doing. To do it in ANY way was an act of violence, for what did it consist - of but the obtrusion of the idea of grossness and guilt on a small - helpless creature who had been for me a revelation of the possibilities of - beautiful intercourse? Wasn’t it base to create for a being so exquisite a - mere alien awkwardness? I suppose I now read into our situation a - clearness it couldn’t have had at the time, for I seem to see our poor - eyes already lighted with some spark of a prevision of the anguish that - was to come. So we circled about, with terrors and scruples, like fighters - not daring to close. But it was for each other we feared! That kept us a - little longer suspended and unbruised. “I’ll tell you everything,” Miles - said—“I mean I’ll tell you anything you like. You’ll stay on with - me, and we shall both be all right, and I WILL tell you—I WILL. But - not now.” - </p> - <p> - “Why not now?” - </p> - <p> - My insistence turned him from me and kept him once more at his window in a - silence during which, between us, you might have heard a pin drop. Then he - was before me again with the air of a person for whom, outside, someone - who had frankly to be reckoned with was waiting. “I have to see Luke.” - </p> - <p> - I had not yet reduced him to quite so vulgar a lie, and I felt - proportionately ashamed. But, horrible as it was, his lies made up my - truth. I achieved thoughtfully a few loops of my knitting. “Well, then, go - to Luke, and I’ll wait for what you promise. Only, in return for that, - satisfy, before you leave me, one very much smaller request.” - </p> - <p> - He looked as if he felt he had succeeded enough to be able still a little - to bargain. “Very much smaller—?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, a mere fraction of the whole. Tell me”—oh, my work preoccupied - me, and I was offhand!—“if, yesterday afternoon, from the table in - the hall, you took, you know, my letter.” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXIV - </h2> - <p> - My sense of how he received this suffered for a minute from something that - I can describe only as a fierce split of my attention—a stroke that - at first, as I sprang straight up, reduced me to the mere blind movement - of getting hold of him, drawing him close, and, while I just fell for - support against the nearest piece of furniture, instinctively keeping him - with his back to the window. The appearance was full upon us that I had - already had to deal with here: Peter Quint had come into view like a - sentinel before a prison. The next thing I saw was that, from outside, he - had reached the window, and then I knew that, close to the glass and - glaring in through it, he offered once more to the room his white face of - damnation. It represents but grossly what took place within me at the - sight to say that on the second my decision was made; yet I believe that - no woman so overwhelmed ever in so short a time recovered her grasp of the - ACT. It came to me in the very horror of the immediate presence that the - act would be, seeing and facing what I saw and faced, to keep the boy - himself unaware. The inspiration—I can call it by no other name—was - that I felt how voluntarily, how transcendently, I MIGHT. It was like - fighting with a demon for a human soul, and when I had fairly so appraised - it I saw how the human soul—held out, in the tremor of my hands, at - arm’s length—had a perfect dew of sweat on a lovely childish - forehead. The face that was close to mine was as white as the face against - the glass, and out of it presently came a sound, not low nor weak, but as - if from much further away, that I drank like a waft of fragrance. - </p> - <p> - “Yes—I took it.” - </p> - <p> - At this, with a moan of joy, I enfolded, I drew him close; and while I - held him to my breast, where I could feel in the sudden fever of his - little body the tremendous pulse of his little heart, I kept my eyes on - the thing at the window and saw it move and shift its posture. I have - likened it to a sentinel, but its slow wheel, for a moment, was rather the - prowl of a baffled beast. My present quickened courage, however, was such - that, not too much to let it through, I had to shade, as it were, my - flame. Meanwhile the glare of the face was again at the window, the - scoundrel fixed as if to watch and wait. It was the very confidence that I - might now defy him, as well as the positive certitude, by this time, of - the child’s unconsciousness, that made me go on. “What did you take it - for?” - </p> - <p> - “To see what you said about me.” - </p> - <p> - “You opened the letter?” - </p> - <p> - “I opened it.” - </p> - <p> - My eyes were now, as I held him off a little again, on Miles’s own face, - in which the collapse of mockery showed me how complete was the ravage of - uneasiness. What was prodigious was that at last, by my success, his sense - was sealed and his communication stopped: he knew that he was in presence, - but knew not of what, and knew still less that I also was and that I did - know. And what did this strain of trouble matter when my eyes went back to - the window only to see that the air was clear again and—by my - personal triumph—the influence quenched? There was nothing there. I - felt that the cause was mine and that I should surely get ALL. “And you - found nothing!”—I let my elation out. - </p> - <p> - He gave the most mournful, thoughtful little headshake. “Nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing, nothing!” I almost shouted in my joy. - </p> - <p> - “Nothing, nothing,” he sadly repeated. - </p> - <p> - I kissed his forehead; it was drenched. “So what have you done with it?” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve burned it.” - </p> - <p> - “Burned it?” It was now or never. “Is that what you did at school?” - </p> - <p> - Oh, what this brought up! “At school?” - </p> - <p> - “Did you take letters?—or other things?” - </p> - <p> - “Other things?” He appeared now to be thinking of something far off and - that reached him only through the pressure of his anxiety. Yet it did - reach him. “Did I STEAL?” - </p> - <p> - I felt myself redden to the roots of my hair as well as wonder if it were - more strange to put to a gentleman such a question or to see him take it - with allowances that gave the very distance of his fall in the world. “Was - it for that you mightn’t go back?” - </p> - <p> - The only thing he felt was rather a dreary little surprise. “Did you know - I mightn’t go back?” - </p> - <p> - “I know everything.” - </p> - <p> - He gave me at this the longest and strangest look. “Everything?” - </p> - <p> - “Everything. Therefore DID you—?” But I couldn’t say it again. - </p> - <p> - Miles could, very simply. “No. I didn’t steal.” - </p> - <p> - My face must have shown him I believed him utterly; yet my hands—but - it was for pure tenderness—shook him as if to ask him why, if it was - all for nothing, he had condemned me to months of torment. “What then did - you do?” - </p> - <p> - He looked in vague pain all round the top of the room and drew his breath, - two or three times over, as if with difficulty. He might have been - standing at the bottom of the sea and raising his eyes to some faint green - twilight. “Well—I said things.” - </p> - <p> - “Only that?” - </p> - <p> - “They thought it was enough!” - </p> - <p> - “To turn you out for?” - </p> - <p> - Never, truly, had a person “turned out” shown so little to explain it as - this little person! He appeared to weigh my question, but in a manner - quite detached and almost helpless. “Well, I suppose I oughtn’t.” - </p> - <p> - “But to whom did you say them?” - </p> - <p> - He evidently tried to remember, but it dropped—he had lost it. “I - don’t know!” - </p> - <p> - He almost smiled at me in the desolation of his surrender, which was - indeed practically, by this time, so complete that I ought to have left it - there. But I was infatuated—I was blind with victory, though even - then the very effect that was to have brought him so much nearer was - already that of added separation. “Was it to everyone?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “No; it was only to—” But he gave a sick little headshake. “I don’t - remember their names.” - </p> - <p> - “Were they then so many?” - </p> - <p> - “No—only a few. Those I liked.” - </p> - <p> - Those he liked? I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker - obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity the - appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent. It was for the instant - confounding and bottomless, for if he WERE innocent, what then on earth - was <i>I</i>? Paralyzed, while it lasted, by the mere brush of the - question, I let him go a little, so that, with a deep-drawn sigh, he - turned away from me again; which, as he faced toward the clear window, I - suffered, feeling that I had nothing now there to keep him from. “And did - they repeat what you said?” I went on after a moment. - </p> - <p> - He was soon at some distance from me, still breathing hard and again with - the air, though now without anger for it, of being confined against his - will. Once more, as he had done before, he looked up at the dim day as if, - of what had hitherto sustained him, nothing was left but an unspeakable - anxiety. “Oh, yes,” he nevertheless replied—“they must have repeated - them. To those THEY liked,” he added. - </p> - <p> - There was, somehow, less of it than I had expected; but I turned it over. - “And these things came round—?” - </p> - <p> - “To the masters? Oh, yes!” he answered very simply. “But I didn’t know - they’d tell.” - </p> - <p> - “The masters? They didn’t—they’ve never told. That’s why I ask you.” - </p> - <p> - He turned to me again his little beautiful fevered face. “Yes, it was too - bad.” - </p> - <p> - “Too bad?” - </p> - <p> - “What I suppose I sometimes said. To write home.” - </p> - <p> - I can’t name the exquisite pathos of the contradiction given to such a - speech by such a speaker; I only know that the next instant I heard myself - throw off with homely force: “Stuff and nonsense!” But the next after that - I must have sounded stern enough. “What WERE these things?” - </p> - <p> - My sternness was all for his judge, his executioner; yet it made him avert - himself again, and that movement made ME, with a single bound and an - irrepressible cry, spring straight upon him. For there again, against the - glass, as if to blight his confession and stay his answer, was the hideous - author of our woe—the white face of damnation. I felt a sick swim at - the drop of my victory and all the return of my battle, so that the - wildness of my veritable leap only served as a great betrayal. I saw him, - from the midst of my act, meet it with a divination, and on the perception - that even now he only guessed, and that the window was still to his own - eyes free, I let the impulse flame up to convert the climax of his dismay - into the very proof of his liberation. “No more, no more, no more!” I - shrieked, as I tried to press him against me, to my visitant. - </p> - <p> - “Is she HERE?” Miles panted as he caught with his sealed eyes the - direction of my words. Then as his strange “she” staggered me and, with a - gasp, I echoed it, “Miss Jessel, Miss Jessel!” he with a sudden fury gave - me back. - </p> - <p> - I seized, stupefied, his supposition—some sequel to what we had done - to Flora, but this made me only want to show him that it was better still - than that. “It’s not Miss Jessel! But it’s at the window—straight - before us. It’s THERE—the coward horror, there for the last time!” - </p> - <p> - At this, after a second in which his head made the movement of a baffled - dog’s on a scent and then gave a frantic little shake for air and light, - he was at me in a white rage, bewildered, glaring vainly over the place - and missing wholly, though it now, to my sense, filled the room like the - taste of poison, the wide, overwhelming presence. “It’s HE?” - </p> - <p> - I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice to - challenge him. “Whom do you mean by ‘he’?” - </p> - <p> - “Peter Quint—you devil!” His face gave again, round the room, its - convulsed supplication. “WHERE?” - </p> - <p> - They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his - tribute to my devotion. “What does he matter now, my own?—what will - he EVER matter? <i>I</i> have you,” I launched at the beast, “but he has - lost you forever!” Then, for the demonstration of my work, “There, THERE!” - I said to Miles. - </p> - <p> - But he had already jerked straight round, stared, glared again, and seen - but the quiet day. With the stroke of the loss I was so proud of he - uttered the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss, and the grasp with - which I recovered him might have been that of catching him in his fall. I - caught him, yes, I held him—it may be imagined with what a passion; - but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that I held. - We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had - stopped. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TURN OF THE SCREW *** - -***** This file should be named 209-h.htm or 209-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/209/ - -Produced by Judith Boss, and David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Turn of the Screw - -Author: Henry James - -Posting Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #209] -Release Date: February, 1995 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TURN OF THE SCREW *** - - - - -Produced by Judith Boss - - - - - -THE TURN OF THE SCREW - -by Henry James - - -[The text is take from the first American appearance of this book.] - - - - - -THE TURN OF THE SCREW - - -The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but -except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve -in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no -comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case -he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. The case, I -may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an old house as had -gathered us for the occasion--an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to a -little boy sleeping in the room with his mother and waking her up in the -terror of it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him to -sleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she had succeeded -in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. It was this observation -that drew from Douglas--not immediately, but later in the evening--a -reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call attention. -Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which I saw he was -not following. This I took for a sign that he had himself something to -produce and that we should only have to wait. We waited in fact till two -nights later; but that same evening, before we scattered, he brought out -what was in his mind. - -"I quite agree--in regard to Griffin's ghost, or whatever it was--that -its appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds a -particular touch. But it's not the first occurrence of its charming -kind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the effect -another turn of the screw, what do you say to TWO children--?" - -"We say, of course," somebody exclaimed, "that they give two turns! Also -that we want to hear about them." - -I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got up to -present his back, looking down at his interlocutor with his hands in -his pockets. "Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. It's quite too -horrible." This, naturally, was declared by several voices to give the -thing the utmost price, and our friend, with quiet art, prepared his -triumph by turning his eyes over the rest of us and going on: "It's -beyond everything. Nothing at all that I know touches it." - -"For sheer terror?" I remember asking. - -He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at a loss -how to qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made a little -wincing grimace. "For dreadful--dreadfulness!" - -"Oh, how delicious!" cried one of the women. - -He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead of me, -he saw what he spoke of. "For general uncanny ugliness and horror and -pain." - -"Well then," I said, "just sit right down and begin." - -He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log, watched it an -instant. Then as he faced us again: "I can't begin. I shall have to send -to town." There was a unanimous groan at this, and much reproach; after -which, in his preoccupied way, he explained. "The story's written. It's -in a locked drawer--it has not been out for years. I could write to my -man and enclose the key; he could send down the packet as he finds it." -It was to me in particular that he appeared to propound this--appeared -almost to appeal for aid not to hesitate. He had broken a thickness -of ice, the formation of many a winter; had had his reasons for a long -silence. The others resented postponement, but it was just his scruples -that charmed me. I adjured him to write by the first post and to agree -with us for an early hearing; then I asked him if the experience in -question had been his own. To this his answer was prompt. "Oh, thank -God, no!" - -"And is the record yours? You took the thing down?" - -"Nothing but the impression. I took that HERE"--he tapped his heart. -"I've never lost it." - -"Then your manuscript--?" - -"Is in old, faded ink, and in the most beautiful hand." He hung fire -again. "A woman's. She has been dead these twenty years. She sent me the -pages in question before she died." They were all listening now, and -of course there was somebody to be arch, or at any rate to draw the -inference. But if he put the inference by without a smile it was also -without irritation. "She was a most charming person, but she was ten -years older than I. She was my sister's governess," he quietly said. -"She was the most agreeable woman I've ever known in her position; -she would have been worthy of any whatever. It was long ago, and this -episode was long before. I was at Trinity, and I found her at home on -my coming down the second summer. I was much there that year--it was a -beautiful one; and we had, in her off-hours, some strolls and talks in -the garden--talks in which she struck me as awfully clever and nice. Oh -yes; don't grin: I liked her extremely and am glad to this day to think -she liked me, too. If she hadn't she wouldn't have told me. She had -never told anyone. It wasn't simply that she said so, but that I knew -she hadn't. I was sure; I could see. You'll easily judge why when you -hear." - -"Because the thing had been such a scare?" - -He continued to fix me. "You'll easily judge," he repeated: "YOU will." - -I fixed him, too. "I see. She was in love." - -He laughed for the first time. "You ARE acute. Yes, she was in love. -That is, she had been. That came out--she couldn't tell her story -without its coming out. I saw it, and she saw I saw it; but neither of -us spoke of it. I remember the time and the place--the corner of the -lawn, the shade of the great beeches and the long, hot summer afternoon. -It wasn't a scene for a shudder; but oh--!" He quitted the fire and -dropped back into his chair. - -"You'll receive the packet Thursday morning?" I inquired. - -"Probably not till the second post." - -"Well then; after dinner--" - -"You'll all meet me here?" He looked us round again. "Isn't anybody -going?" It was almost the tone of hope. - -"Everybody will stay!" - -"_I_ will"--and "_I_ will!" cried the ladies whose departure had been -fixed. Mrs. Griffin, however, expressed the need for a little more -light. "Who was it she was in love with?" - -"The story will tell," I took upon myself to reply. - -"Oh, I can't wait for the story!" - -"The story WON'T tell," said Douglas; "not in any literal, vulgar way." - -"More's the pity, then. That's the only way I ever understand." - -"Won't YOU tell, Douglas?" somebody else inquired. - -He sprang to his feet again. "Yes--tomorrow. Now I must go to bed. -Good night." And quickly catching up a candlestick, he left us slightly -bewildered. From our end of the great brown hall we heard his step on -the stair; whereupon Mrs. Griffin spoke. "Well, if I don't know who she -was in love with, I know who HE was." - -"She was ten years older," said her husband. - -"Raison de plus--at that age! But it's rather nice, his long reticence." - -"Forty years!" Griffin put in. - -"With this outbreak at last." - -"The outbreak," I returned, "will make a tremendous occasion of Thursday -night;" and everyone so agreed with me that, in the light of it, we lost -all attention for everything else. The last story, however incomplete -and like the mere opening of a serial, had been told; we handshook and -"candlestuck," as somebody said, and went to bed. - -I knew the next day that a letter containing the key had, by the first -post, gone off to his London apartments; but in spite of--or perhaps -just on account of--the eventual diffusion of this knowledge we quite -let him alone till after dinner, till such an hour of the evening, in -fact, as might best accord with the kind of emotion on which our hopes -were fixed. Then he became as communicative as we could desire and -indeed gave us his best reason for being so. We had it from him again -before the fire in the hall, as we had had our mild wonders of the -previous night. It appeared that the narrative he had promised to read -us really required for a proper intelligence a few words of prologue. -Let me say here distinctly, to have done with it, that this narrative, -from an exact transcript of my own made much later, is what I shall -presently give. Poor Douglas, before his death--when it was in -sight--committed to me the manuscript that reached him on the third of -these days and that, on the same spot, with immense effect, he began -to read to our hushed little circle on the night of the fourth. The -departing ladies who had said they would stay didn't, of course, thank -heaven, stay: they departed, in consequence of arrangements made, in a -rage of curiosity, as they professed, produced by the touches with -which he had already worked us up. But that only made his little final -auditory more compact and select, kept it, round the hearth, subject to -a common thrill. - -The first of these touches conveyed that the written statement took up -the tale at a point after it had, in a manner, begun. The fact to be in -possession of was therefore that his old friend, the youngest of several -daughters of a poor country parson, had, at the age of twenty, on taking -service for the first time in the schoolroom, come up to London, in -trepidation, to answer in person an advertisement that had already -placed her in brief correspondence with the advertiser. This person -proved, on her presenting herself, for judgment, at a house in Harley -Street, that impressed her as vast and imposing--this prospective patron -proved a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such a figure as -had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered, -anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage. One could easily fix his type; -it never, happily, dies out. He was handsome and bold and pleasant, -offhand and gay and kind. He struck her, inevitably, as gallant and -splendid, but what took her most of all and gave her the courage she -afterward showed was that he put the whole thing to her as a kind of -favor, an obligation he should gratefully incur. She conceived him -as rich, but as fearfully extravagant--saw him all in a glow of high -fashion, of good looks, of expensive habits, of charming ways with -women. He had for his own town residence a big house filled with the -spoils of travel and the trophies of the chase; but it was to his -country home, an old family place in Essex, that he wished her -immediately to proceed. - -He had been left, by the death of their parents in India, guardian to -a small nephew and a small niece, children of a younger, a military -brother, whom he had lost two years before. These children were, by the -strangest of chances for a man in his position--a lone man without the -right sort of experience or a grain of patience--very heavily on his -hands. It had all been a great worry and, on his own part doubtless, a -series of blunders, but he immensely pitied the poor chicks and had done -all he could; had in particular sent them down to his other house, the -proper place for them being of course the country, and kept them there, -from the first, with the best people he could find to look after them, -parting even with his own servants to wait on them and going down -himself, whenever he might, to see how they were doing. The awkward -thing was that they had practically no other relations and that his -own affairs took up all his time. He had put them in possession of Bly, -which was healthy and secure, and had placed at the head of their little -establishment--but below stairs only--an excellent woman, Mrs. Grose, -whom he was sure his visitor would like and who had formerly been maid -to his mother. She was now housekeeper and was also acting for the time -as superintendent to the little girl, of whom, without children of her -own, she was, by good luck, extremely fond. There were plenty of people -to help, but of course the young lady who should go down as governess -would be in supreme authority. She would also have, in holidays, to look -after the small boy, who had been for a term at school--young as he was -to be sent, but what else could be done?--and who, as the holidays were -about to begin, would be back from one day to the other. There had -been for the two children at first a young lady whom they had had the -misfortune to lose. She had done for them quite beautifully--she was a -most respectable person--till her death, the great awkwardness of which -had, precisely, left no alternative but the school for little Miles. -Mrs. Grose, since then, in the way of manners and things, had done as -she could for Flora; and there were, further, a cook, a housemaid, a -dairywoman, an old pony, an old groom, and an old gardener, all likewise -thoroughly respectable. - -So far had Douglas presented his picture when someone put a question. -"And what did the former governess die of?--of so much respectability?" - -Our friend's answer was prompt. "That will come out. I don't -anticipate." - -"Excuse me--I thought that was just what you ARE doing." - -"In her successor's place," I suggested, "I should have wished to learn -if the office brought with it--" - -"Necessary danger to life?" Douglas completed my thought. "She did wish -to learn, and she did learn. You shall hear tomorrow what she learned. -Meanwhile, of course, the prospect struck her as slightly grim. She was -young, untried, nervous: it was a vision of serious duties and little -company, of really great loneliness. She hesitated--took a couple of -days to consult and consider. But the salary offered much exceeded -her modest measure, and on a second interview she faced the music, she -engaged." And Douglas, with this, made a pause that, for the benefit of -the company, moved me to throw in-- - -"The moral of which was of course the seduction exercised by the -splendid young man. She succumbed to it." - -He got up and, as he had done the night before, went to the fire, gave -a stir to a log with his foot, then stood a moment with his back to us. -"She saw him only twice." - -"Yes, but that's just the beauty of her passion." - -A little to my surprise, on this, Douglas turned round to me. "It WAS -the beauty of it. There were others," he went on, "who hadn't succumbed. -He told her frankly all his difficulty--that for several applicants the -conditions had been prohibitive. They were, somehow, simply afraid. It -sounded dull--it sounded strange; and all the more so because of his -main condition." - -"Which was--?" - -"That she should never trouble him--but never, never: neither appeal -nor complain nor write about anything; only meet all questions herself, -receive all moneys from his solicitor, take the whole thing over and let -him alone. She promised to do this, and she mentioned to me that when, -for a moment, disburdened, delighted, he held her hand, thanking her for -the sacrifice, she already felt rewarded." - -"But was that all her reward?" one of the ladies asked. - -"She never saw him again." - -"Oh!" said the lady; which, as our friend immediately left us again, was -the only other word of importance contributed to the subject till, the -next night, by the corner of the hearth, in the best chair, he opened -the faded red cover of a thin old-fashioned gilt-edged album. The whole -thing took indeed more nights than one, but on the first occasion the -same lady put another question. "What is your title?" - -"I haven't one." - -"Oh, _I_ have!" I said. But Douglas, without heeding me, had begun to -read with a fine clearness that was like a rendering to the ear of the -beauty of his author's hand. - - - - -I - - -I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a -little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, -to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days--found -myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this -state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that -carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle -from the house. This convenience, I was told, had been ordered, and -I found, toward the close of the June afternoon, a commodious fly in -waiting for me. Driving at that hour, on a lovely day, through a country -to which the summer sweetness seemed to offer me a friendly welcome, my -fortitude mounted afresh and, as we turned into the avenue, encountered -a reprieve that was probably but a proof of the point to which it had -sunk. I suppose I had expected, or had dreaded, something so melancholy -that what greeted me was a good surprise. I remember as a most pleasant -impression the broad, clear front, its open windows and fresh curtains -and the pair of maids looking out; I remember the lawn and the bright -flowers and the crunch of my wheels on the gravel and the clustered -treetops over which the rooks circled and cawed in the golden sky. The -scene had a greatness that made it a different affair from my own scant -home, and there immediately appeared at the door, with a little girl in -her hand, a civil person who dropped me as decent a curtsy as if I had -been the mistress or a distinguished visitor. I had received in Harley -Street a narrower notion of the place, and that, as I recalled it, made -me think the proprietor still more of a gentleman, suggested that what I -was to enjoy might be something beyond his promise. - -I had no drop again till the next day, for I was carried triumphantly -through the following hours by my introduction to the younger of my -pupils. The little girl who accompanied Mrs. Grose appeared to me on the -spot a creature so charming as to make it a great fortune to have to -do with her. She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, and I -afterward wondered that my employer had not told me more of her. I slept -little that night--I was too much excited; and this astonished me, too, -I recollect, remained with me, adding to my sense of the liberality with -which I was treated. The large, impressive room, one of the best in -the house, the great state bed, as I almost felt it, the full, figured -draperies, the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see -myself from head to foot, all struck me--like the extraordinary charm of -my small charge--as so many things thrown in. It was thrown in as -well, from the first moment, that I should get on with Mrs. Grose in -a relation over which, on my way, in the coach, I fear I had rather -brooded. The only thing indeed that in this early outlook might have -made me shrink again was the clear circumstance of her being so glad -to see me. I perceived within half an hour that she was so glad--stout, -simple, plain, clean, wholesome woman--as to be positively on her guard -against showing it too much. I wondered even then a little why she -should wish not to show it, and that, with reflection, with suspicion, -might of course have made me uneasy. - -But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a connection -with anything so beatific as the radiant image of my little girl, the -vision of whose angelic beauty had probably more than anything else to -do with the restlessness that, before morning, made me several times -rise and wander about my room to take in the whole picture and prospect; -to watch, from my open window, the faint summer dawn, to look at such -portions of the rest of the house as I could catch, and to listen, -while, in the fading dusk, the first birds began to twitter, for the -possible recurrence of a sound or two, less natural and not without, -but within, that I had fancied I heard. There had been a moment when I -believed I recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been -another when I found myself just consciously starting as at the passage, -before my door, of a light footstep. But these fancies were not marked -enough not to be thrown off, and it is only in the light, or the gloom, -I should rather say, of other and subsequent matters that they now come -back to me. To watch, teach, "form" little Flora would too evidently -be the making of a happy and useful life. It had been agreed between us -downstairs that after this first occasion I should have her as a matter -of course at night, her small white bed being already arranged, to that -end, in my room. What I had undertaken was the whole care of her, and -she had remained, just this last time, with Mrs. Grose only as an effect -of our consideration for my inevitable strangeness and her natural -timidity. In spite of this timidity--which the child herself, in the -oddest way in the world, had been perfectly frank and brave about, -allowing it, without a sign of uncomfortable consciousness, with the -deep, sweet serenity indeed of one of Raphael's holy infants, to be -discussed, to be imputed to her, and to determine us--I feel quite sure -she would presently like me. It was part of what I already liked Mrs. -Grose herself for, the pleasure I could see her feel in my admiration -and wonder as I sat at supper with four tall candles and with my pupil, -in a high chair and a bib, brightly facing me, between them, over bread -and milk. There were naturally things that in Flora's presence could -pass between us only as prodigious and gratified looks, obscure and -roundabout allusions. - -"And the little boy--does he look like her? Is he too so very -remarkable?" - -One wouldn't flatter a child. "Oh, miss, MOST remarkable. If you think -well of this one!"--and she stood there with a plate in her hand, -beaming at our companion, who looked from one of us to the other with -placid heavenly eyes that contained nothing to check us. - -"Yes; if I do--?" - -"You WILL be carried away by the little gentleman!" - -"Well, that, I think, is what I came for--to be carried away. I'm -afraid, however," I remember feeling the impulse to add, "I'm rather -easily carried away. I was carried away in London!" - -I can still see Mrs. Grose's broad face as she took this in. "In Harley -Street?" - -"In Harley Street." - -"Well, miss, you're not the first--and you won't be the last." - -"Oh, I've no pretension," I could laugh, "to being the only one. My -other pupil, at any rate, as I understand, comes back tomorrow?" - -"Not tomorrow--Friday, miss. He arrives, as you did, by the coach, under -care of the guard, and is to be met by the same carriage." - -I forthwith expressed that the proper as well as the pleasant and -friendly thing would be therefore that on the arrival of the public -conveyance I should be in waiting for him with his little sister; an -idea in which Mrs. Grose concurred so heartily that I somehow took -her manner as a kind of comforting pledge--never falsified, thank -heaven!--that we should on every question be quite at one. Oh, she was -glad I was there! - -What I felt the next day was, I suppose, nothing that could be fairly -called a reaction from the cheer of my arrival; it was probably at the -most only a slight oppression produced by a fuller measure of the -scale, as I walked round them, gazed up at them, took them in, of my new -circumstances. They had, as it were, an extent and mass for which I had -not been prepared and in the presence of which I found myself, freshly, -a little scared as well as a little proud. Lessons, in this agitation, -certainly suffered some delay; I reflected that my first duty was, by -the gentlest arts I could contrive, to win the child into the sense of -knowing me. I spent the day with her out-of-doors; I arranged with her, -to her great satisfaction, that it should be she, she only, who might -show me the place. She showed it step by step and room by room and -secret by secret, with droll, delightful, childish talk about it and -with the result, in half an hour, of our becoming immense friends. -Young as she was, I was struck, throughout our little tour, with -her confidence and courage with the way, in empty chambers and dull -corridors, on crooked staircases that made me pause and even on the -summit of an old machicolated square tower that made me dizzy, her -morning music, her disposition to tell me so many more things than she -asked, rang out and led me on. I have not seen Bly since the day I left -it, and I daresay that to my older and more informed eyes it would now -appear sufficiently contracted. But as my little conductress, with her -hair of gold and her frock of blue, danced before me round corners and -pattered down passages, I had the view of a castle of romance inhabited -by a rosy sprite, such a place as would somehow, for diversion of the -young idea, take all color out of storybooks and fairytales. Wasn't it -just a storybook over which I had fallen adoze and adream? No; it was a -big, ugly, antique, but convenient house, embodying a few features of -a building still older, half-replaced and half-utilized, in which I had -the fancy of our being almost as lost as a handful of passengers in a -great drifting ship. Well, I was, strangely, at the helm! - - - - -II - - -This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to -meet, as Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; and all the more for -an incident that, presenting itself the second evening, had deeply -disconcerted me. The first day had been, on the whole, as I have -expressed, reassuring; but I was to see it wind up in keen apprehension. -The postbag, that evening--it came late--contained a letter for me, -which, however, in the hand of my employer, I found to be composed but -of a few words enclosing another, addressed to himself, with a seal -still unbroken. "This, I recognize, is from the headmaster, and the -headmaster's an awful bore. Read him, please; deal with him; but mind -you don't report. Not a word. I'm off!" I broke the seal with a great -effort--so great a one that I was a long time coming to it; took the -unopened missive at last up to my room and only attacked it just before -going to bed. I had better have let it wait till morning, for it gave me -a second sleepless night. With no counsel to take, the next day, I -was full of distress; and it finally got so the better of me that I -determined to open myself at least to Mrs. Grose. - -"What does it mean? The child's dismissed his school." - -She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then, visibly, with a -quick blankness, seemed to try to take it back. "But aren't they all--?" - -"Sent home--yes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never go back at -all." - -Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. "They won't take him?" - -"They absolutely decline." - -At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me; I saw them -fill with good tears. "What has he done?" - -I hesitated; then I judged best simply to hand her my letter--which, -however, had the effect of making her, without taking it, simply put her -hands behind her. She shook her head sadly. "Such things are not for me, -miss." - -My counselor couldn't read! I winced at my mistake, which I attenuated -as I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it to her; then, -faltering in the act and folding it up once more, I put it back in my -pocket. "Is he really BAD?" - -The tears were still in her eyes. "Do the gentlemen say so?" - -"They go into no particulars. They simply express their regret that it -should be impossible to keep him. That can have only one meaning." -Mrs. Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask me what -this meaning might be; so that, presently, to put the thing with some -coherence and with the mere aid of her presence to my own mind, I went -on: "That he's an injury to the others." - -At this, with one of the quick turns of simple folk, she suddenly flamed -up. "Master Miles! HIM an injury?" - -There was such a flood of good faith in it that, though I had not yet -seen the child, my very fears made me jump to the absurdity of the idea. -I found myself, to meet my friend the better, offering it, on the spot, -sarcastically. "To his poor little innocent mates!" - -"It's too dreadful," cried Mrs. Grose, "to say such cruel things! Why, -he's scarce ten years old." - -"Yes, yes; it would be incredible." - -She was evidently grateful for such a profession. "See him, miss, first. -THEN believe it!" I felt forthwith a new impatience to see him; it was -the beginning of a curiosity that, for all the next hours, was to deepen -almost to pain. Mrs. Grose was aware, I could judge, of what she had -produced in me, and she followed it up with assurance. "You might as -well believe it of the little lady. Bless her," she added the next -moment--"LOOK at her!" - -I turned and saw that Flora, whom, ten minutes before, I had established -in the schoolroom with a sheet of white paper, a pencil, and a copy of -nice "round o's," now presented herself to view at the open door. -She expressed in her little way an extraordinary detachment from -disagreeable duties, looking to me, however, with a great childish -light that seemed to offer it as a mere result of the affection she had -conceived for my person, which had rendered necessary that she should -follow me. I needed nothing more than this to feel the full force of -Mrs. Grose's comparison, and, catching my pupil in my arms, covered her -with kisses in which there was a sob of atonement. - -Nonetheless, the rest of the day I watched for further occasion to -approach my colleague, especially as, toward evening, I began to fancy -she rather sought to avoid me. I overtook her, I remember, on the -staircase; we went down together, and at the bottom I detained her, -holding her there with a hand on her arm. "I take what you said to me at -noon as a declaration that YOU'VE never known him to be bad." - -She threw back her head; she had clearly, by this time, and very -honestly, adopted an attitude. "Oh, never known him--I don't pretend -THAT!" - -I was upset again. "Then you HAVE known him--?" - -"Yes indeed, miss, thank God!" - -On reflection I accepted this. "You mean that a boy who never is--?" - -"Is no boy for ME!" - -I held her tighter. "You like them with the spirit to be naughty?" Then, -keeping pace with her answer, "So do I!" I eagerly brought out. "But not -to the degree to contaminate--" - -"To contaminate?"--my big word left her at a loss. I explained it. "To -corrupt." - -She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her an odd laugh. -"Are you afraid he'll corrupt YOU?" She put the question with such a -fine bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, to match -her own, I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule. - -But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped up in -another place. "What was the lady who was here before?" - -"The last governess? She was also young and pretty--almost as young and -almost as pretty, miss, even as you." - -"Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her!" I recollect -throwing off. "He seems to like us young and pretty!" - -"Oh, he DID," Mrs. Grose assented: "it was the way he liked everyone!" -She had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself up. "I mean -that's HIS way--the master's." - -I was struck. "But of whom did you speak first?" - -She looked blank, but she colored. "Why, of HIM." - -"Of the master?" - -"Of who else?" - -There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I had lost my -impression of her having accidentally said more than she meant; and I -merely asked what I wanted to know. "Did SHE see anything in the boy--?" - -"That wasn't right? She never told me." - -I had a scruple, but I overcame it. "Was she careful--particular?" - -Mrs. Grose appeared to try to be conscientious. "About some -things--yes." - -"But not about all?" - -Again she considered. "Well, miss--she's gone. I won't tell tales." - -"I quite understand your feeling," I hastened to reply; but I thought -it, after an instant, not opposed to this concession to pursue: "Did she -die here?" - -"No--she went off." - -I don't know what there was in this brevity of Mrs. Grose's that struck -me as ambiguous. "Went off to die?" Mrs. Grose looked straight out of -the window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right to know what -young persons engaged for Bly were expected to do. "She was taken ill, -you mean, and went home?" - -"She was not taken ill, so far as appeared, in this house. She left it, -at the end of the year, to go home, as she said, for a short holiday, -to which the time she had put in had certainly given her a right. We -had then a young woman--a nursemaid who had stayed on and who was a good -girl and clever; and SHE took the children altogether for the interval. -But our young lady never came back, and at the very moment I was -expecting her I heard from the master that she was dead." - -I turned this over. "But of what?" - -"He never told me! But please, miss," said Mrs. Grose, "I must get to my -work." - - - - -III - - -Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just -preoccupations, a snub that could check the growth of our mutual esteem. -We met, after I had brought home little Miles, more intimately than ever -on the ground of my stupefaction, my general emotion: so monstrous was I -then ready to pronounce it that such a child as had now been revealed to -me should be under an interdict. I was a little late on the scene, and -I felt, as he stood wistfully looking out for me before the door of the -inn at which the coach had put him down, that I had seen him, on the -instant, without and within, in the great glow of freshness, the same -positive fragrance of purity, in which I had, from the first moment, -seen his little sister. He was incredibly beautiful, and Mrs. Grose had -put her finger on it: everything but a sort of passion of tenderness for -him was swept away by his presence. What I then and there took him to -my heart for was something divine that I have never found to the same -degree in any child--his indescribable little air of knowing nothing in -the world but love. It would have been impossible to carry a bad name -with a greater sweetness of innocence, and by the time I had got back to -Bly with him I remained merely bewildered--so far, that is, as I was not -outraged--by the sense of the horrible letter locked up in my room, in -a drawer. As soon as I could compass a private word with Mrs. Grose I -declared to her that it was grotesque. - -She promptly understood me. "You mean the cruel charge--?" - -"It doesn't live an instant. My dear woman, LOOK at him!" - -She smiled at my pretention to have discovered his charm. "I assure -you, miss, I do nothing else! What will you say, then?" she immediately -added. - -"In answer to the letter?" I had made up my mind. "Nothing." - -"And to his uncle?" - -I was incisive. "Nothing." - -"And to the boy himself?" - -I was wonderful. "Nothing." - -She gave with her apron a great wipe to her mouth. "Then I'll stand by -you. We'll see it out." - -"We'll see it out!" I ardently echoed, giving her my hand to make it a -vow. - -She held me there a moment, then whisked up her apron again with her -detached hand. "Would you mind, miss, if I used the freedom--" - -"To kiss me? No!" I took the good creature in my arms and, after we had -embraced like sisters, felt still more fortified and indignant. - -This, at all events, was for the time: a time so full that, as I recall -the way it went, it reminds me of all the art I now need to make it a -little distinct. What I look back at with amazement is the situation I -accepted. I had undertaken, with my companion, to see it out, and I was -under a charm, apparently, that could smooth away the extent and the -far and difficult connections of such an effort. I was lifted aloft on a -great wave of infatuation and pity. I found it simple, in my ignorance, -my confusion, and perhaps my conceit, to assume that I could deal with -a boy whose education for the world was all on the point of beginning. -I am unable even to remember at this day what proposal I framed for the -end of his holidays and the resumption of his studies. Lessons with me, -indeed, that charming summer, we all had a theory that he was to have; -but I now feel that, for weeks, the lessons must have been rather my -own. I learned something--at first, certainly--that had not been one -of the teachings of my small, smothered life; learned to be amused, and -even amusing, and not to think for the morrow. It was the first time, in -a manner, that I had known space and air and freedom, all the music -of summer and all the mystery of nature. And then there was -consideration--and consideration was sweet. Oh, it was a trap--not -designed, but deep--to my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps to my -vanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable. The best way to picture -it all is to say that I was off my guard. They gave me so little -trouble--they were of a gentleness so extraordinary. I used to -speculate--but even this with a dim disconnectedness--as to how the -rough future (for all futures are rough!) would handle them and might -bruise them. They had the bloom of health and happiness; and yet, as -if I had been in charge of a pair of little grandees, of princes of the -blood, for whom everything, to be right, would have to be enclosed and -protected, the only form that, in my fancy, the afteryears could take -for them was that of a romantic, a really royal extension of the garden -and the park. It may be, of course, above all, that what suddenly broke -into this gives the previous time a charm of stillness--that hush in -which something gathers or crouches. The change was actually like the -spring of a beast. - -In the first weeks the days were long; they often, at their finest, -gave me what I used to call my own hour, the hour when, for my pupils, -teatime and bedtime having come and gone, I had, before my final -retirement, a small interval alone. Much as I liked my companions, this -hour was the thing in the day I liked most; and I liked it best of all -when, as the light faded--or rather, I should say, the day lingered and -the last calls of the last birds sounded, in a flushed sky, from the -old trees--I could take a turn into the grounds and enjoy, almost with -a sense of property that amused and flattered me, the beauty and dignity -of the place. It was a pleasure at these moments to feel myself -tranquil and justified; doubtless, perhaps, also to reflect that by my -discretion, my quiet good sense and general high propriety, I was giving -pleasure--if he ever thought of it!--to the person to whose pressure -I had responded. What I was doing was what he had earnestly hoped and -directly asked of me, and that I COULD, after all, do it proved even a -greater joy than I had expected. I daresay I fancied myself, in short, -a remarkable young woman and took comfort in the faith that this would -more publicly appear. Well, I needed to be remarkable to offer a front -to the remarkable things that presently gave their first sign. - -It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour: the children -were tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll. One of the thoughts -that, as I don't in the least shrink now from noting, used to be with me -in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story -suddenly to meet someone. Someone would appear there at the turn of a -path and would stand before me and smile and approve. I didn't ask more -than that--I only asked that he should KNOW; and the only way to be sure -he knew would be to see it, and the kind light of it, in his handsome -face. That was exactly present to me--by which I mean the face -was--when, on the first of these occasions, at the end of a long June -day, I stopped short on emerging from one of the plantations and coming -into view of the house. What arrested me on the spot--and with a shock -much greater than any vision had allowed for--was the sense that my -imagination had, in a flash, turned real. He did stand there!--but high -up, beyond the lawn and at the very top of the tower to which, on that -first morning, little Flora had conducted me. This tower was one of -a pair--square, incongruous, crenelated structures--that were -distinguished, for some reason, though I could see little difference, -as the new and the old. They flanked opposite ends of the house and were -probably architectural absurdities, redeemed in a measure indeed by -not being wholly disengaged nor of a height too pretentious, dating, in -their gingerbread antiquity, from a romantic revival that was already a -respectable past. I admired them, had fancies about them, for we could -all profit in a degree, especially when they loomed through the dusk, -by the grandeur of their actual battlements; yet it was not at such an -elevation that the figure I had so often invoked seemed most in place. - -It produced in me, this figure, in the clear twilight, I remember, two -distinct gasps of emotion, which were, sharply, the shock of my first -and that of my second surprise. My second was a violent perception of -the mistake of my first: the man who met my eyes was not the person -I had precipitately supposed. There came to me thus a bewilderment of -vision of which, after these years, there is no living view that I can -hope to give. An unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object -of fear to a young woman privately bred; and the figure that faced me -was--a few more seconds assured me--as little anyone else I knew as -it was the image that had been in my mind. I had not seen it in -Harley Street--I had not seen it anywhere. The place, moreover, in the -strangest way in the world, had, on the instant, and by the very fact of -its appearance, become a solitude. To me at least, making my statement -here with a deliberation with which I have never made it, the whole -feeling of the moment returns. It was as if, while I took in--what I did -take in--all the rest of the scene had been stricken with death. I can -hear again, as I write, the intense hush in which the sounds of evening -dropped. The rooks stopped cawing in the golden sky, and the friendly -hour lost, for the minute, all its voice. But there was no other change -in nature, unless indeed it were a change that I saw with a stranger -sharpness. The gold was still in the sky, the clearness in the air, -and the man who looked at me over the battlements was as definite as a -picture in a frame. That's how I thought, with extraordinary quickness, -of each person that he might have been and that he was not. We were -confronted across our distance quite long enough for me to ask myself -with intensity who then he was and to feel, as an effect of my inability -to say, a wonder that in a few instants more became intense. - -The great question, or one of these, is, afterward, I know, with regard -to certain matters, the question of how long they have lasted. Well, -this matter of mine, think what you will of it, lasted while I caught at -a dozen possibilities, none of which made a difference for the better, -that I could see, in there having been in the house--and for how long, -above all?--a person of whom I was in ignorance. It lasted while I -just bridled a little with the sense that my office demanded that there -should be no such ignorance and no such person. It lasted while this -visitant, at all events--and there was a touch of the strange freedom, -as I remember, in the sign of familiarity of his wearing no hat--seemed -to fix me, from his position, with just the question, just the scrutiny -through the fading light, that his own presence provoked. We were too -far apart to call to each other, but there was a moment at which, at -shorter range, some challenge between us, breaking the hush, would have -been the right result of our straight mutual stare. He was in one of the -angles, the one away from the house, very erect, as it struck me, and -with both hands on the ledge. So I saw him as I see the letters I -form on this page; then, exactly, after a minute, as if to add to the -spectacle, he slowly changed his place--passed, looking at me hard -all the while, to the opposite corner of the platform. Yes, I had the -sharpest sense that during this transit he never took his eyes from me, -and I can see at this moment the way his hand, as he went, passed from -one of the crenelations to the next. He stopped at the other corner, but -less long, and even as he turned away still markedly fixed me. He turned -away; that was all I knew. - - - - -IV - - -It was not that I didn't wait, on this occasion, for more, for I was -rooted as deeply as I was shaken. Was there a "secret" at Bly--a mystery -of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected -confinement? I can't say how long I turned it over, or how long, in -a confusion of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had had my -collision; I only recall that when I re-entered the house darkness had -quite closed in. Agitation, in the interval, certainly had held me and -driven me, for I must, in circling about the place, have walked three -miles; but I was to be, later on, so much more overwhelmed that this -mere dawn of alarm was a comparatively human chill. The most singular -part of it, in fact--singular as the rest had been--was the part I -became, in the hall, aware of in meeting Mrs. Grose. This picture comes -back to me in the general train--the impression, as I received it on my -return, of the wide white panelled space, bright in the lamplight and -with its portraits and red carpet, and of the good surprised look of -my friend, which immediately told me she had missed me. It came to -me straightway, under her contact, that, with plain heartiness, mere -relieved anxiety at my appearance, she knew nothing whatever that could -bear upon the incident I had there ready for her. I had not suspected -in advance that her comfortable face would pull me up, and I somehow -measured the importance of what I had seen by my thus finding myself -hesitate to mention it. Scarce anything in the whole history seems to -me so odd as this fact that my real beginning of fear was one, as I -may say, with the instinct of sparing my companion. On the spot, -accordingly, in the pleasant hall and with her eyes on me, I, for -a reason that I couldn't then have phrased, achieved an inward -resolution--offered a vague pretext for my lateness and, with the plea -of the beauty of the night and of the heavy dew and wet feet, went as -soon as possible to my room. - -Here it was another affair; here, for many days after, it was a queer -affair enough. There were hours, from day to day--or at least there were -moments, snatched even from clear duties--when I had to shut myself up -to think. It was not so much yet that I was more nervous than I could -bear to be as that I was remarkably afraid of becoming so; for the truth -I had now to turn over was, simply and clearly, the truth that I could -arrive at no account whatever of the visitor with whom I had been so -inexplicably and yet, as it seemed to me, so intimately concerned. It -took little time to see that I could sound without forms of inquiry -and without exciting remark any domestic complications. The shock I had -suffered must have sharpened all my senses; I felt sure, at the end of -three days and as the result of mere closer attention, that I had not -been practiced upon by the servants nor made the object of any "game." -Of whatever it was that I knew, nothing was known around me. There was -but one sane inference: someone had taken a liberty rather gross. That -was what, repeatedly, I dipped into my room and locked the door to say -to myself. We had been, collectively, subject to an intrusion; some -unscrupulous traveler, curious in old houses, had made his way in -unobserved, enjoyed the prospect from the best point of view, and then -stolen out as he came. If he had given me such a bold hard stare, that -was but a part of his indiscretion. The good thing, after all, was that -we should surely see no more of him. - -This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that -what, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming -work. My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, and -through nothing could I so like it as through feeling that I could throw -myself into it in trouble. The attraction of my small charges was a -constant joy, leading me to wonder afresh at the vanity of my original -fears, the distaste I had begun by entertaining for the probable gray -prose of my office. There was to be no gray prose, it appeared, and no -long grind; so how could work not be charming that presented itself as -daily beauty? It was all the romance of the nursery and the poetry of -the schoolroom. I don't mean by this, of course, that we studied -only fiction and verse; I mean I can express no otherwise the sort -of interest my companions inspired. How can I describe that except by -saying that instead of growing used to them--and it's a marvel for a -governess: I call the sisterhood to witness!--I made constant fresh -discoveries. There was one direction, assuredly, in which these -discoveries stopped: deep obscurity continued to cover the region of the -boy's conduct at school. It had been promptly given me, I have noted, -to face that mystery without a pang. Perhaps even it would be nearer the -truth to say that--without a word--he himself had cleared it up. He had -made the whole charge absurd. My conclusion bloomed there with the -real rose flush of his innocence: he was only too fine and fair for the -little horrid, unclean school world, and he had paid a price for it. I -reflected acutely that the sense of such differences, such superiorities -of quality, always, on the part of the majority--which could include -even stupid, sordid headmasters--turn infallibly to the vindictive. - -Both the children had a gentleness (it was their only fault, and it -never made Miles a muff) that kept them--how shall I express it?--almost -impersonal and certainly quite unpunishable. They were like the cherubs -of the anecdote, who had--morally, at any rate--nothing to whack! I -remember feeling with Miles in especial as if he had had, as it were, no -history. We expect of a small child a scant one, but there was in -this beautiful little boy something extraordinarily sensitive, yet -extraordinarily happy, that, more than in any creature of his age I have -seen, struck me as beginning anew each day. He had never for a second -suffered. I took this as a direct disproof of his having really been -chastised. If he had been wicked he would have "caught" it, and I should -have caught it by the rebound--I should have found the trace. I found -nothing at all, and he was therefore an angel. He never spoke of his -school, never mentioned a comrade or a master; and I, for my part, was -quite too much disgusted to allude to them. Of course I was under the -spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly -knew I was. But I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to any -pain, and I had more pains than one. I was in receipt in these days of -disturbing letters from home, where things were not going well. But with -my children, what things in the world mattered? That was the question -I used to put to my scrappy retirements. I was dazzled by their -loveliness. - -There was a Sunday--to get on--when it rained with such force and for so -many hours that there could be no procession to church; in consequence -of which, as the day declined, I had arranged with Mrs. Grose that, -should the evening show improvement, we would attend together the late -service. The rain happily stopped, and I prepared for our walk, which, -through the park and by the good road to the village, would be a matter -of twenty minutes. Coming downstairs to meet my colleague in the hall, -I remembered a pair of gloves that had required three stitches and that -had received them--with a publicity perhaps not edifying--while I sat -with the children at their tea, served on Sundays, by exception, in that -cold, clean temple of mahogany and brass, the "grown-up" dining room. -The gloves had been dropped there, and I turned in to recover them. -The day was gray enough, but the afternoon light still lingered, and it -enabled me, on crossing the threshold, not only to recognize, on a chair -near the wide window, then closed, the articles I wanted, but to become -aware of a person on the other side of the window and looking straight -in. One step into the room had sufficed; my vision was instantaneous; -it was all there. The person looking straight in was the person who had -already appeared to me. He appeared thus again with I won't say -greater distinctness, for that was impossible, but with a nearness that -represented a forward stride in our intercourse and made me, as I met -him, catch my breath and turn cold. He was the same--he was the same, -and seen, this time, as he had been seen before, from the waist up, the -window, though the dining room was on the ground floor, not going down -to the terrace on which he stood. His face was close to the glass, -yet the effect of this better view was, strangely, only to show me how -intense the former had been. He remained but a few seconds--long enough -to convince me he also saw and recognized; but it was as if I had been -looking at him for years and had known him always. Something, however, -happened this time that had not happened before; his stare into my face, -through the glass and across the room, was as deep and hard as then, but -it quitted me for a moment during which I could still watch it, see it -fix successively several other things. On the spot there came to me the -added shock of a certitude that it was not for me he had come there. He -had come for someone else. - -The flash of this knowledge--for it was knowledge in the midst of -dread--produced in me the most extraordinary effect, started as I stood -there, a sudden vibration of duty and courage. I say courage because -I was beyond all doubt already far gone. I bounded straight out of the -door again, reached that of the house, got, in an instant, upon the -drive, and, passing along the terrace as fast as I could rush, turned -a corner and came full in sight. But it was in sight of nothing now--my -visitor had vanished. I stopped, I almost dropped, with the real relief -of this; but I took in the whole scene--I gave him time to reappear. I -call it time, but how long was it? I can't speak to the purpose today -of the duration of these things. That kind of measure must have left me: -they couldn't have lasted as they actually appeared to me to last. The -terrace and the whole place, the lawn and the garden beyond it, all I -could see of the park, were empty with a great emptiness. There were -shrubberies and big trees, but I remember the clear assurance I felt -that none of them concealed him. He was there or was not there: not -there if I didn't see him. I got hold of this; then, instinctively, -instead of returning as I had come, went to the window. It was -confusedly present to me that I ought to place myself where he had -stood. I did so; I applied my face to the pane and looked, as he had -looked, into the room. As if, at this moment, to show me exactly what -his range had been, Mrs. Grose, as I had done for himself just before, -came in from the hall. With this I had the full image of a repetition of -what had already occurred. She saw me as I had seen my own visitant; she -pulled up short as I had done; I gave her something of the shock that -I had received. She turned white, and this made me ask myself if I had -blanched as much. She stared, in short, and retreated on just MY lines, -and I knew she had then passed out and come round to me and that I -should presently meet her. I remained where I was, and while I waited -I thought of more things than one. But there's only one I take space to -mention. I wondered why SHE should be scared. - - - - -V - - -Oh, she let me know as soon as, round the corner of the house, she -loomed again into view. "What in the name of goodness is the matter--?" -She was now flushed and out of breath. - -I said nothing till she came quite near. "With me?" I must have made a -wonderful face. "Do I show it?" - -"You're as white as a sheet. You look awful." - -I considered; I could meet on this, without scruple, any innocence. My -need to respect the bloom of Mrs. Grose's had dropped, without a rustle, -from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not with what -I kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held her hard -a little, liking to feel her close to me. There was a kind of support in -the shy heave of her surprise. "You came for me for church, of course, -but I can't go." - -"Has anything happened?" - -"Yes. You must know now. Did I look very queer?" - -"Through this window? Dreadful!" - -"Well," I said, "I've been frightened." Mrs. Grose's eyes expressed -plainly that SHE had no wish to be, yet also that she knew too well her -place not to be ready to share with me any marked inconvenience. Oh, -it was quite settled that she MUST share! "Just what you saw from the -dining room a minute ago was the effect of that. What _I_ saw--just -before--was much worse." - -Her hand tightened. "What was it?" - -"An extraordinary man. Looking in." - -"What extraordinary man?" - -"I haven't the least idea." - -Mrs. Grose gazed round us in vain. "Then where is he gone?" - -"I know still less." - -"Have you seen him before?" - -"Yes--once. On the old tower." - -She could only look at me harder. "Do you mean he's a stranger?" - -"Oh, very much!" - -"Yet you didn't tell me?" - -"No--for reasons. But now that you've guessed--" - -Mrs. Grose's round eyes encountered this charge. "Ah, I haven't -guessed!" she said very simply. "How can I if YOU don't imagine?" - -"I don't in the very least." - -"You've seen him nowhere but on the tower?" - -"And on this spot just now." - -Mrs. Grose looked round again. "What was he doing on the tower?" - -"Only standing there and looking down at me." - -She thought a minute. "Was he a gentleman?" - -I found I had no need to think. "No." She gazed in deeper wonder. "No." - -"Then nobody about the place? Nobody from the village?" - -"Nobody--nobody. I didn't tell you, but I made sure." - -She breathed a vague relief: this was, oddly, so much to the good. It -only went indeed a little way. "But if he isn't a gentleman--" - -"What IS he? He's a horror." - -"A horror?" - -"He's--God help me if I know WHAT he is!" - -Mrs. Grose looked round once more; she fixed her eyes on the duskier -distance, then, pulling herself together, turned to me with abrupt -inconsequence. "It's time we should be at church." - -"Oh, I'm not fit for church!" - -"Won't it do you good?" - -"It won't do THEM--! I nodded at the house. - -"The children?" - -"I can't leave them now." - -"You're afraid--?" - -I spoke boldly. "I'm afraid of HIM." - -Mrs. Grose's large face showed me, at this, for the first time, the -faraway faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute: I somehow made out -in it the delayed dawn of an idea I myself had not given her and that -was as yet quite obscure to me. It comes back to me that I thought -instantly of this as something I could get from her; and I felt it to be -connected with the desire she presently showed to know more. "When was -it--on the tower?" - -"About the middle of the month. At this same hour." - -"Almost at dark," said Mrs. Grose. - -"Oh, no, not nearly. I saw him as I see you." - -"Then how did he get in?" - -"And how did he get out?" I laughed. "I had no opportunity to ask him! -This evening, you see," I pursued, "he has not been able to get in." - -"He only peeps?" - -"I hope it will be confined to that!" She had now let go my hand; she -turned away a little. I waited an instant; then I brought out: "Go to -church. Goodbye. I must watch." - -Slowly she faced me again. "Do you fear for them?" - -We met in another long look. "Don't YOU?" Instead of answering she came -nearer to the window and, for a minute, applied her face to the glass. -"You see how he could see," I meanwhile went on. - -She didn't move. "How long was he here?" - -"Till I came out. I came to meet him." - -Mrs. Grose at last turned round, and there was still more in her face. -"_I_ couldn't have come out." - -"Neither could I!" I laughed again. "But I did come. I have my duty." - -"So have I mine," she replied; after which she added: "What is he like?" - -"I've been dying to tell you. But he's like nobody." - -"Nobody?" she echoed. - -"He has no hat." Then seeing in her face that she already, in this, with -a deeper dismay, found a touch of picture, I quickly added stroke to -stroke. "He has red hair, very red, close-curling, and a pale face, long -in shape, with straight, good features and little, rather queer whiskers -that are as red as his hair. His eyebrows are, somehow, darker; they -look particularly arched and as if they might move a good deal. His eyes -are sharp, strange--awfully; but I only know clearly that they're rather -small and very fixed. His mouth's wide, and his lips are thin, and -except for his little whiskers he's quite clean-shaven. He gives me a -sort of sense of looking like an actor." - -"An actor!" It was impossible to resemble one less, at least, than Mrs. -Grose at that moment. - -"I've never seen one, but so I suppose them. He's tall, active, erect," -I continued, "but never--no, never!--a gentleman." - -My companion's face had blanched as I went on; her round eyes started -and her mild mouth gaped. "A gentleman?" she gasped, confounded, -stupefied: "a gentleman HE?" - -"You know him then?" - -She visibly tried to hold herself. "But he IS handsome?" - -I saw the way to help her. "Remarkably!" - -"And dressed--?" - -"In somebody's clothes." "They're smart, but they're not his own." - -She broke into a breathless affirmative groan: "They're the master's!" - -I caught it up. "You DO know him?" - -She faltered but a second. "Quint!" she cried. - -"Quint?" - -"Peter Quint--his own man, his valet, when he was here!" - -"When the master was?" - -Gaping still, but meeting me, she pieced it all together. "He never wore -his hat, but he did wear--well, there were waistcoats missed. They were -both here--last year. Then the master went, and Quint was alone." - -I followed, but halting a little. "Alone?" - -"Alone with US." Then, as from a deeper depth, "In charge," she added. - -"And what became of him?" - -She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. "He went, too," -she brought out at last. - -"Went where?" - -Her expression, at this, became extraordinary. "God knows where! He -died." - -"Died?" I almost shrieked. - -She seemed fairly to square herself, plant herself more firmly to utter -the wonder of it. "Yes. Mr. Quint is dead." - - - - -VI - - -It took of course more than that particular passage to place us together -in presence of what we had now to live with as we could--my dreadful -liability to impressions of the order so vividly exemplified, and my -companion's knowledge, henceforth--a knowledge half consternation and -half compassion--of that liability. There had been, this evening, after -the revelation left me, for an hour, so prostrate--there had been, for -either of us, no attendance on any service but a little service of tears -and vows, of prayers and promises, a climax to the series of mutual -challenges and pledges that had straightway ensued on our retreating -together to the schoolroom and shutting ourselves up there to have -everything out. The result of our having everything out was simply to -reduce our situation to the last rigor of its elements. She herself had -seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the house but -the governess was in the governess's plight; yet she accepted without -directly impugning my sanity the truth as I gave it to her, and ended by -showing me, on this ground, an awestricken tenderness, an expression -of the sense of my more than questionable privilege, of which the very -breath has remained with me as that of the sweetest of human charities. - -What was settled between us, accordingly, that night, was that we -thought we might bear things together; and I was not even sure that, -in spite of her exemption, it was she who had the best of the burden. I -knew at this hour, I think, as well as I knew later, what I was capable -of meeting to shelter my pupils; but it took me some time to be wholly -sure of what my honest ally was prepared for to keep terms with so -compromising a contract. I was queer company enough--quite as queer as -the company I received; but as I trace over what we went through I see -how much common ground we must have found in the one idea that, by good -fortune, COULD steady us. It was the idea, the second movement, that led -me straight out, as I may say, of the inner chamber of my dread. I could -take the air in the court, at least, and there Mrs. Grose could join me. -Perfectly can I recall now the particular way strength came to me before -we separated for the night. We had gone over and over every feature of -what I had seen. - -"He was looking for someone else, you say--someone who was not you?" - -"He was looking for little Miles." A portentous clearness now possessed -me. "THAT'S whom he was looking for." - -"But how do you know?" - -"I know, I know, I know!" My exaltation grew. "And YOU know, my dear!" - -She didn't deny this, but I required, I felt, not even so much telling -as that. She resumed in a moment, at any rate: "What if HE should see -him?" - -"Little Miles? That's what he wants!" - -She looked immensely scared again. "The child?" - -"Heaven forbid! The man. He wants to appear to THEM." That he might was -an awful conception, and yet, somehow, I could keep it at bay; which, -moreover, as we lingered there, was what I succeeded in practically -proving. I had an absolute certainty that I should see again what I -had already seen, but something within me said that by offering myself -bravely as the sole subject of such experience, by accepting, by -inviting, by surmounting it all, I should serve as an expiatory victim -and guard the tranquility of my companions. The children, in especial, -I should thus fence about and absolutely save. I recall one of the last -things I said that night to Mrs. Grose. - -"It does strike me that my pupils have never mentioned--" - -She looked at me hard as I musingly pulled up. "His having been here and -the time they were with him?" - -"The time they were with him, and his name, his presence, his history, -in any way." - -"Oh, the little lady doesn't remember. She never heard or knew." - -"The circumstances of his death?" I thought with some intensity. -"Perhaps not. But Miles would remember--Miles would know." - -"Ah, don't try him!" broke from Mrs. Grose. - -I returned her the look she had given me. "Don't be afraid." I continued -to think. "It IS rather odd." - -"That he has never spoken of him?" - -"Never by the least allusion. And you tell me they were 'great -friends'?" - -"Oh, it wasn't HIM!" Mrs. Grose with emphasis declared. "It was Quint's -own fancy. To play with him, I mean--to spoil him." She paused a moment; -then she added: "Quint was much too free." - -This gave me, straight from my vision of his face--SUCH a face!--a -sudden sickness of disgust. "Too free with MY boy?" - -"Too free with everyone!" - -I forbore, for the moment, to analyze this description further than by -the reflection that a part of it applied to several of the members of -the household, of the half-dozen maids and men who were still of our -small colony. But there was everything, for our apprehension, in the -lucky fact that no discomfortable legend, no perturbation of scullions, -had ever, within anyone's memory attached to the kind old place. It had -neither bad name nor ill fame, and Mrs. Grose, most apparently, only -desired to cling to me and to quake in silence. I even put her, the very -last thing of all, to the test. It was when, at midnight, she had her -hand on the schoolroom door to take leave. "I have it from you then--for -it's of great importance--that he was definitely and admittedly bad?" - -"Oh, not admittedly. _I_ knew it--but the master didn't." - -"And you never told him?" - -"Well, he didn't like tale-bearing--he hated complaints. He was terribly -short with anything of that kind, and if people were all right to HIM--" - -"He wouldn't be bothered with more?" This squared well enough with my -impressions of him: he was not a trouble-loving gentleman, nor so very -particular perhaps about some of the company HE kept. All the same, I -pressed my interlocutress. "I promise you _I_ would have told!" - -She felt my discrimination. "I daresay I was wrong. But, really, I was -afraid." - -"Afraid of what?" - -"Of things that man could do. Quint was so clever--he was so deep." - -I took this in still more than, probably, I showed. "You weren't afraid -of anything else? Not of his effect--?" - -"His effect?" she repeated with a face of anguish and waiting while I -faltered. - -"On innocent little precious lives. They were in your charge." - -"No, they were not in mine!" she roundly and distressfully returned. -"The master believed in him and placed him here because he was supposed -not to be well and the country air so good for him. So he had everything -to say. Yes"--she let me have it--"even about THEM." - -"Them--that creature?" I had to smother a kind of howl. "And you could -bear it!" - -"No. I couldn't--and I can't now!" And the poor woman burst into tears. - -A rigid control, from the next day, was, as I have said, to follow them; -yet how often and how passionately, for a week, we came back together -to the subject! Much as we had discussed it that Sunday night, I was, in -the immediate later hours in especial--for it may be imagined whether I -slept--still haunted with the shadow of something she had not told me. -I myself had kept back nothing, but there was a word Mrs. Grose had kept -back. I was sure, moreover, by morning, that this was not from a failure -of frankness, but because on every side there were fears. It seems to me -indeed, in retrospect, that by the time the morrow's sun was high I had -restlessly read into the fact before us almost all the meaning they were -to receive from subsequent and more cruel occurrences. What they gave me -above all was just the sinister figure of the living man--the dead one -would keep awhile!--and of the months he had continuously passed at Bly, -which, added up, made a formidable stretch. The limit of this evil time -had arrived only when, on the dawn of a winter's morning, Peter Quint -was found, by a laborer going to early work, stone dead on the road -from the village: a catastrophe explained--superficially at least--by a -visible wound to his head; such a wound as might have been produced--and -as, on the final evidence, HAD been--by a fatal slip, in the dark and -after leaving the public house, on the steepish icy slope, a wrong -path altogether, at the bottom of which he lay. The icy slope, the turn -mistaken at night and in liquor, accounted for much--practically, in -the end and after the inquest and boundless chatter, for everything; but -there had been matters in his life--strange passages and perils, secret -disorders, vices more than suspected--that would have accounted for a -good deal more. - -I scarce know how to put my story into words that shall be a credible -picture of my state of mind; but I was in these days literally able to -find a joy in the extraordinary flight of heroism the occasion demanded -of me. I now saw that I had been asked for a service admirable and -difficult; and there would be a greatness in letting it be seen--oh, in -the right quarter!--that I could succeed where many another girl might -have failed. It was an immense help to me--I confess I rather applaud -myself as I look back!--that I saw my service so strongly and so simply. -I was there to protect and defend the little creatures in the world the -most bereaved and the most lovable, the appeal of whose helplessness had -suddenly become only too explicit, a deep, constant ache of one's own -committed heart. We were cut off, really, together; we were united in -our danger. They had nothing but me, and I--well, I had THEM. It was -in short a magnificent chance. This chance presented itself to me in an -image richly material. I was a screen--I was to stand before them. The -more I saw, the less they would. I began to watch them in a stifled -suspense, a disguised excitement that might well, had it continued too -long, have turned to something like madness. What saved me, as I now -see, was that it turned to something else altogether. It didn't last as -suspense--it was superseded by horrible proofs. Proofs, I say, yes--from -the moment I really took hold. - -This moment dated from an afternoon hour that I happened to spend in the -grounds with the younger of my pupils alone. We had left Miles indoors, -on the red cushion of a deep window seat; he had wished to finish a -book, and I had been glad to encourage a purpose so laudable in a young -man whose only defect was an occasional excess of the restless. His -sister, on the contrary, had been alert to come out, and I strolled with -her half an hour, seeking the shade, for the sun was still high and the -day exceptionally warm. I was aware afresh, with her, as we went, of -how, like her brother, she contrived--it was the charming thing in both -children--to let me alone without appearing to drop me and to accompany -me without appearing to surround. They were never importunate and yet -never listless. My attention to them all really went to seeing them -amuse themselves immensely without me: this was a spectacle they seemed -actively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer. I walked -in a world of their invention--they had no occasion whatever to draw -upon mine; so that my time was taken only with being, for them, some -remarkable person or thing that the game of the moment required and that -was merely, thanks to my superior, my exalted stamp, a happy and highly -distinguished sinecure. I forget what I was on the present occasion; -I only remember that I was something very important and very quiet and -that Flora was playing very hard. We were on the edge of the lake, and, -as we had lately begun geography, the lake was the Sea of Azof. - -Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the other -side of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. The way this -knowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing in the world--the -strangest, that is, except the very much stranger in which it quickly -merged itself. I had sat down with a piece of work--for I was something -or other that could sit--on the old stone bench which overlooked the -pond; and in this position I began to take in with certitude, and yet -without direct vision, the presence, at a distance, of a third person. -The old trees, the thick shrubbery, made a great and pleasant shade, but -it was all suffused with the brightness of the hot, still hour. There -was no ambiguity in anything; none whatever, at least, in the conviction -I from one moment to another found myself forming as to what I should -see straight before me and across the lake as a consequence of raising -my eyes. They were attached at this juncture to the stitching in which I -was engaged, and I can feel once more the spasm of my effort not to move -them till I should so have steadied myself as to be able to make up my -mind what to do. There was an alien object in view--a figure whose right -of presence I instantly, passionately questioned. I recollect counting -over perfectly the possibilities, reminding myself that nothing was more -natural, for instance, then the appearance of one of the men about the -place, or even of a messenger, a postman, or a tradesman's boy, from the -village. That reminder had as little effect on my practical certitude -as I was conscious--still even without looking--of its having upon the -character and attitude of our visitor. Nothing was more natural than -that these things should be the other things that they absolutely were -not. - -Of the positive identity of the apparition I would assure myself as -soon as the small clock of my courage should have ticked out the right -second; meanwhile, with an effort that was already sharp enough, I -transferred my eyes straight to little Flora, who, at the moment, was -about ten yards away. My heart had stood still for an instant with the -wonder and terror of the question whether she too would see; and I -held my breath while I waited for what a cry from her, what some sudden -innocent sign either of interest or of alarm, would tell me. I waited, -but nothing came; then, in the first place--and there is something -more dire in this, I feel, than in anything I have to relate--I was -determined by a sense that, within a minute, all sounds from her had -previously dropped; and, in the second, by the circumstance that, also -within the minute, she had, in her play, turned her back to the water. -This was her attitude when I at last looked at her--looked with the -confirmed conviction that we were still, together, under direct personal -notice. She had picked up a small flat piece of wood, which happened to -have in it a little hole that had evidently suggested to her the idea -of sticking in another fragment that might figure as a mast and make -the thing a boat. This second morsel, as I watched her, she was -very markedly and intently attempting to tighten in its place. My -apprehension of what she was doing sustained me so that after some -seconds I felt I was ready for more. Then I again shifted my eyes--I -faced what I had to face. - - - - -VII - - -I got hold of Mrs. Grose as soon after this as I could; and I can give -no intelligible account of how I fought out the interval. Yet I still -hear myself cry as I fairly threw myself into her arms: "They KNOW--it's -too monstrous: they know, they know!" - -"And what on earth--?" I felt her incredulity as she held me. - -"Why, all that WE know--and heaven knows what else besides!" Then, as -she released me, I made it out to her, made it out perhaps only now with -full coherency even to myself. "Two hours ago, in the garden"--I could -scarce articulate--"Flora SAW!" - -Mrs. Grose took it as she might have taken a blow in the stomach. "She -has told you?" she panted. - -"Not a word--that's the horror. She kept it to herself! The child of -eight, THAT child!" Unutterable still, for me, was the stupefaction of -it. - -Mrs. Grose, of course, could only gape the wider. "Then how do you -know?" - -"I was there--I saw with my eyes: saw that she was perfectly aware." - -"Do you mean aware of HIM?" - -"No--of HER." I was conscious as I spoke that I looked prodigious -things, for I got the slow reflection of them in my companion's face. -"Another person--this time; but a figure of quite as unmistakable horror -and evil: a woman in black, pale and dreadful--with such an air also, -and such a face!--on the other side of the lake. I was there with the -child--quiet for the hour; and in the midst of it she came." - -"Came how--from where?" - -"From where they come from! She just appeared and stood there--but not -so near." - -"And without coming nearer?" - -"Oh, for the effect and the feeling, she might have been as close as -you!" - -My friend, with an odd impulse, fell back a step. "Was she someone -you've never seen?" - -"Yes. But someone the child has. Someone YOU have." Then, to show how I -had thought it all out: "My predecessor--the one who died." - -"Miss Jessel?" - -"Miss Jessel. You don't believe me?" I pressed. - -She turned right and left in her distress. "How can you be sure?" - -This drew from me, in the state of my nerves, a flash of impatience. -"Then ask Flora--SHE'S sure!" But I had no sooner spoken than I caught -myself up. "No, for God's sake, DON'T! She'll say she isn't--she'll -lie!" - -Mrs. Grose was not too bewildered instinctively to protest. "Ah, how CAN -you?" - -"Because I'm clear. Flora doesn't want me to know." - -"It's only then to spare you." - -"No, no--there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I see -in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I don't know what I -DON'T see--what I DON'T fear!" - -Mrs. Grose tried to keep up with me. "You mean you're afraid of seeing -her again?" - -"Oh, no; that's nothing--now!" Then I explained. "It's of NOT seeing -her." - -But my companion only looked wan. "I don't understand you." - -"Why, it's that the child may keep it up--and that the child assuredly -WILL--without my knowing it." - -At the image of this possibility Mrs. Grose for a moment collapsed, yet -presently to pull herself together again, as if from the positive force -of the sense of what, should we yield an inch, there would really be to -give way to. "Dear, dear--we must keep our heads! And after all, if she -doesn't mind it--!" She even tried a grim joke. "Perhaps she likes it!" - -"Likes SUCH things--a scrap of an infant!" - -"Isn't it just a proof of her blessed innocence?" my friend bravely -inquired. - -She brought me, for the instant, almost round. "Oh, we must clutch at -THAT--we must cling to it! If it isn't a proof of what you say, it's a -proof of--God knows what! For the woman's a horror of horrors." - -Mrs. Grose, at this, fixed her eyes a minute on the ground; then at last -raising them, "Tell me how you know," she said. - -"Then you admit it's what she was?" I cried. - -"Tell me how you know," my friend simply repeated. - -"Know? By seeing her! By the way she looked." - -"At you, do you mean--so wickedly?" - -"Dear me, no--I could have borne that. She gave me never a glance. She -only fixed the child." - -Mrs. Grose tried to see it. "Fixed her?" - -"Ah, with such awful eyes!" - -She stared at mine as if they might really have resembled them. "Do you -mean of dislike?" - -"God help us, no. Of something much worse." - -"Worse than dislike?--this left her indeed at a loss. - -"With a determination--indescribable. With a kind of fury of intention." - -I made her turn pale. "Intention?" - -"To get hold of her." Mrs. Grose--her eyes just lingering on mine--gave -a shudder and walked to the window; and while she stood there looking -out I completed my statement. "THAT'S what Flora knows." - -After a little she turned round. "The person was in black, you say?" - -"In mourning--rather poor, almost shabby. But--yes--with extraordinary -beauty." I now recognized to what I had at last, stroke by stroke, -brought the victim of my confidence, for she quite visibly weighed -this. "Oh, handsome--very, very," I insisted; "wonderfully handsome. But -infamous." - -She slowly came back to me. "Miss Jessel--WAS infamous." She once more -took my hand in both her own, holding it as tight as if to fortify me -against the increase of alarm I might draw from this disclosure. "They -were both infamous," she finally said. - -So, for a little, we faced it once more together; and I found absolutely -a degree of help in seeing it now so straight. "I appreciate," I said, -"the great decency of your not having hitherto spoken; but the time has -certainly come to give me the whole thing." She appeared to assent to -this, but still only in silence; seeing which I went on: "I must have it -now. Of what did she die? Come, there was something between them." - -"There was everything." - -"In spite of the difference--?" - -"Oh, of their rank, their condition"--she brought it woefully out. "SHE -was a lady." - -I turned it over; I again saw. "Yes--she was a lady." - -"And he so dreadfully below," said Mrs. Grose. - -I felt that I doubtless needn't press too hard, in such company, on the -place of a servant in the scale; but there was nothing to prevent an -acceptance of my companion's own measure of my predecessor's abasement. -There was a way to deal with that, and I dealt; the more readily for -my full vision--on the evidence--of our employer's late clever, -good-looking "own" man; impudent, assured, spoiled, depraved. "The -fellow was a hound." - -Mrs. Grose considered as if it were perhaps a little a case for a sense -of shades. "I've never seen one like him. He did what he wished." - -"With HER?" - -"With them all." - -It was as if now in my friend's own eyes Miss Jessel had again appeared. -I seemed at any rate, for an instant, to see their evocation of her -as distinctly as I had seen her by the pond; and I brought out with -decision: "It must have been also what SHE wished!" - -Mrs. Grose's face signified that it had been indeed, but she said at the -same time: "Poor woman--she paid for it!" - -"Then you do know what she died of?" I asked. - -"No--I know nothing. I wanted not to know; I was glad enough I didn't; -and I thanked heaven she was well out of this!" - -"Yet you had, then, your idea--" - -"Of her real reason for leaving? Oh, yes--as to that. She couldn't have -stayed. Fancy it here--for a governess! And afterward I imagined--and I -still imagine. And what I imagine is dreadful." - -"Not so dreadful as what _I_ do," I replied; on which I must have shown -her--as I was indeed but too conscious--a front of miserable defeat. It -brought out again all her compassion for me, and at the renewed touch of -her kindness my power to resist broke down. I burst, as I had, the other -time, made her burst, into tears; she took me to her motherly breast, -and my lamentation overflowed. "I don't do it!" I sobbed in despair; "I -don't save or shield them! It's far worse than I dreamed--they're lost!" - - - - -VIII - - -What I had said to Mrs. Grose was true enough: there were in the matter -I had put before her depths and possibilities that I lacked resolution -to sound; so that when we met once more in the wonder of it we were of a -common mind about the duty of resistance to extravagant fancies. We were -to keep our heads if we should keep nothing else--difficult indeed as -that might be in the face of what, in our prodigious experience, was -least to be questioned. Late that night, while the house slept, we had -another talk in my room, when she went all the way with me as to its -being beyond doubt that I had seen exactly what I had seen. To hold her -perfectly in the pinch of that, I found I had only to ask her how, if -I had "made it up," I came to be able to give, of each of the persons -appearing to me, a picture disclosing, to the last detail, their -special marks--a portrait on the exhibition of which she had instantly -recognized and named them. She wished of course--small blame to her!--to -sink the whole subject; and I was quick to assure her that my own -interest in it had now violently taken the form of a search for the way -to escape from it. I encountered her on the ground of a probability that -with recurrence--for recurrence we took for granted--I should get -used to my danger, distinctly professing that my personal exposure had -suddenly become the least of my discomforts. It was my new suspicion -that was intolerable; and yet even to this complication the later hours -of the day had brought a little ease. - -On leaving her, after my first outbreak, I had of course returned to my -pupils, associating the right remedy for my dismay with that sense of -their charm which I had already found to be a thing I could positively -cultivate and which had never failed me yet. I had simply, in other -words, plunged afresh into Flora's special society and there become -aware--it was almost a luxury!--that she could put her little conscious -hand straight upon the spot that ached. She had looked at me in sweet -speculation and then had accused me to my face of having "cried." I had -supposed I had brushed away the ugly signs: but I could literally--for -the time, at all events--rejoice, under this fathomless charity, that -they had not entirely disappeared. To gaze into the depths of blue of -the child's eyes and pronounce their loveliness a trick of premature -cunning was to be guilty of a cynicism in preference to which I -naturally preferred to abjure my judgment and, so far as might be, my -agitation. I couldn't abjure for merely wanting to, but I could repeat -to Mrs. Grose--as I did there, over and over, in the small hours--that -with their voices in the air, their pressure on one's heart, and their -fragrant faces against one's cheek, everything fell to the ground but -their incapacity and their beauty. It was a pity that, somehow, to -settle this once for all, I had equally to re-enumerate the signs of -subtlety that, in the afternoon, by the lake had made a miracle of my -show of self-possession. It was a pity to be obliged to reinvestigate -the certitude of the moment itself and repeat how it had come to me as -a revelation that the inconceivable communion I then surprised was a -matter, for either party, of habit. It was a pity that I should have had -to quaver out again the reasons for my not having, in my delusion, -so much as questioned that the little girl saw our visitant even as I -actually saw Mrs. Grose herself, and that she wanted, by just so much as -she did thus see, to make me suppose she didn't, and at the same time, -without showing anything, arrive at a guess as to whether I myself did! -It was a pity that I needed once more to describe the portentous little -activity by which she sought to divert my attention--the perceptible -increase of movement, the greater intensity of play, the singing, the -gabbling of nonsense, and the invitation to romp. - -Yet if I had not indulged, to prove there was nothing in it, in this -review, I should have missed the two or three dim elements of comfort -that still remained to me. I should not for instance have been able to -asseverate to my friend that I was certain--which was so much to the -good--that _I_ at least had not betrayed myself. I should not have been -prompted, by stress of need, by desperation of mind--I scarce know what -to call it--to invoke such further aid to intelligence as might spring -from pushing my colleague fairly to the wall. She had told me, bit by -bit, under pressure, a great deal; but a small shifty spot on the wrong -side of it all still sometimes brushed my brow like the wing of a bat; -and I remember how on this occasion--for the sleeping house and the -concentration alike of our danger and our watch seemed to help--I felt -the importance of giving the last jerk to the curtain. "I don't -believe anything so horrible," I recollect saying; "no, let us put it -definitely, my dear, that I don't. But if I did, you know, there's -a thing I should require now, just without sparing you the least bit -more--oh, not a scrap, come!--to get out of you. What was it you had in -mind when, in our distress, before Miles came back, over the letter from -his school, you said, under my insistence, that you didn't pretend for -him that he had not literally EVER been 'bad'? He has NOT literally -'ever,' in these weeks that I myself have lived with him and so closely -watched him; he has been an imperturbable little prodigy of delightful, -lovable goodness. Therefore you might perfectly have made the claim for -him if you had not, as it happened, seen an exception to take. What was -your exception, and to what passage in your personal observation of him -did you refer?" - -It was a dreadfully austere inquiry, but levity was not our note, and, -at any rate, before the gray dawn admonished us to separate I had got -my answer. What my friend had had in mind proved to be immensely to the -purpose. It was neither more nor less than the circumstance that for -a period of several months Quint and the boy had been perpetually -together. It was in fact the very appropriate truth that she had -ventured to criticize the propriety, to hint at the incongruity, of -so close an alliance, and even to go so far on the subject as a frank -overture to Miss Jessel. Miss Jessel had, with a most strange manner, -requested her to mind her business, and the good woman had, on this, -directly approached little Miles. What she had said to him, since I -pressed, was that SHE liked to see young gentlemen not forget their -station. - -I pressed again, of course, at this. "You reminded him that Quint was -only a base menial?" - -"As you might say! And it was his answer, for one thing, that was bad." - -"And for another thing?" I waited. "He repeated your words to Quint?" - -"No, not that. It's just what he WOULDN'T!" she could still impress upon -me. "I was sure, at any rate," she added, "that he didn't. But he denied -certain occasions." - -"What occasions?" - -"When they had been about together quite as if Quint were his tutor--and -a very grand one--and Miss Jessel only for the little lady. When he had -gone off with the fellow, I mean, and spent hours with him." - -"He then prevaricated about it--he said he hadn't?" Her assent was clear -enough to cause me to add in a moment: "I see. He lied." - -"Oh!" Mrs. Grose mumbled. This was a suggestion that it didn't matter; -which indeed she backed up by a further remark. "You see, after all, -Miss Jessel didn't mind. She didn't forbid him." - -I considered. "Did he put that to you as a justification?" - -At this she dropped again. "No, he never spoke of it." - -"Never mentioned her in connection with Quint?" - -She saw, visibly flushing, where I was coming out. "Well, he didn't show -anything. He denied," she repeated; "he denied." - -Lord, how I pressed her now! "So that you could see he knew what was -between the two wretches?" - -"I don't know--I don't know!" the poor woman groaned. - -"You do know, you dear thing," I replied; "only you haven't my dreadful -boldness of mind, and you keep back, out of timidity and modesty and -delicacy, even the impression that, in the past, when you had, without -my aid, to flounder about in silence, most of all made you miserable. -But I shall get it out of you yet! There was something in the boy that -suggested to you," I continued, "that he covered and concealed their -relation." - -"Oh, he couldn't prevent--" - -"Your learning the truth? I daresay! But, heavens," I fell, with -vehemence, athinking, "what it shows that they must, to that extent, -have succeeded in making of him!" - -"Ah, nothing that's not nice NOW!" Mrs. Grose lugubriously pleaded. - -"I don't wonder you looked queer," I persisted, "when I mentioned to you -the letter from his school!" - -"I doubt if I looked as queer as you!" she retorted with homely force. -"And if he was so bad then as that comes to, how is he such an angel -now?" - -"Yes, indeed--and if he was a fiend at school! How, how, how? Well," -I said in my torment, "you must put it to me again, but I shall not be -able to tell you for some days. Only, put it to me again!" I cried in a -way that made my friend stare. "There are directions in which I must -not for the present let myself go." Meanwhile I returned to her first -example--the one to which she had just previously referred--of the boy's -happy capacity for an occasional slip. "If Quint--on your remonstrance -at the time you speak of--was a base menial, one of the things Miles -said to you, I find myself guessing, was that you were another." Again -her admission was so adequate that I continued: "And you forgave him -that?" - -"Wouldn't YOU?" - -"Oh, yes!" And we exchanged there, in the stillness, a sound of the -oddest amusement. Then I went on: "At all events, while he was with the -man--" - -"Miss Flora was with the woman. It suited them all!" - -It suited me, too, I felt, only too well; by which I mean that it suited -exactly the particularly deadly view I was in the very act of forbidding -myself to entertain. But I so far succeeded in checking the expression -of this view that I will throw, just here, no further light on it than -may be offered by the mention of my final observation to Mrs. Grose. -"His having lied and been impudent are, I confess, less engaging -specimens than I had hoped to have from you of the outbreak in him of -the little natural man. Still," I mused, "They must do, for they make me -feel more than ever that I must watch." - -It made me blush, the next minute, to see in my friend's face how much -more unreservedly she had forgiven him than her anecdote struck me as -presenting to my own tenderness an occasion for doing. This came out -when, at the schoolroom door, she quitted me. "Surely you don't accuse -HIM--" - -"Of carrying on an intercourse that he conceals from me? Ah, remember -that, until further evidence, I now accuse nobody." Then, before -shutting her out to go, by another passage, to her own place, "I must -just wait," I wound up. - - - - -IX - - -I waited and waited, and the days, as they elapsed, took something from -my consternation. A very few of them, in fact, passing, in constant -sight of my pupils, without a fresh incident, sufficed to give to -grievous fancies and even to odious memories a kind of brush of the -sponge. I have spoken of the surrender to their extraordinary childish -grace as a thing I could actively cultivate, and it may be imagined if -I neglected now to address myself to this source for whatever it -would yield. Stranger than I can express, certainly, was the effort to -struggle against my new lights; it would doubtless have been, however, -a greater tension still had it not been so frequently successful. I -used to wonder how my little charges could help guessing that I thought -strange things about them; and the circumstances that these things only -made them more interesting was not by itself a direct aid to keeping -them in the dark. I trembled lest they should see that they WERE so -immensely more interesting. Putting things at the worst, at all events, -as in meditation I so often did, any clouding of their innocence could -only be--blameless and foredoomed as they were--a reason the more for -taking risks. There were moments when, by an irresistible impulse, I -found myself catching them up and pressing them to my heart. As soon as -I had done so I used to say to myself: "What will they think of that? -Doesn't it betray too much?" It would have been easy to get into a sad, -wild tangle about how much I might betray; but the real account, I feel, -of the hours of peace that I could still enjoy was that the immediate -charm of my companions was a beguilement still effective even under the -shadow of the possibility that it was studied. For if it occurred to me -that I might occasionally excite suspicion by the little outbreaks of my -sharper passion for them, so too I remember wondering if I mightn't see -a queerness in the traceable increase of their own demonstrations. - -They were at this period extravagantly and preternaturally fond of me; -which, after all, I could reflect, was no more than a graceful response -in children perpetually bowed over and hugged. The homage of which they -were so lavish succeeded, in truth, for my nerves, quite as well as if -I never appeared to myself, as I may say, literally to catch them at a -purpose in it. They had never, I think, wanted to do so many things for -their poor protectress; I mean--though they got their lessons better and -better, which was naturally what would please her most--in the way of -diverting, entertaining, surprising her; reading her passages, telling -her stories, acting her charades, pouncing out at her, in disguises, as -animals and historical characters, and above all astonishing her by the -"pieces" they had secretly got by heart and could interminably recite. I -should never get to the bottom--were I to let myself go even now--of the -prodigious private commentary, all under still more private correction, -with which, in these days, I overscored their full hours. They had shown -me from the first a facility for everything, a general faculty which, -taking a fresh start, achieved remarkable flights. They got their little -tasks as if they loved them, and indulged, from the mere exuberance of -the gift, in the most unimposed little miracles of memory. They not -only popped out at me as tigers and as Romans, but as Shakespeareans, -astronomers, and navigators. This was so singularly the case that it had -presumably much to do with the fact as to which, at the present day, -I am at a loss for a different explanation: I allude to my unnatural -composure on the subject of another school for Miles. What I remember -is that I was content not, for the time, to open the question, and that -contentment must have sprung from the sense of his perpetually striking -show of cleverness. He was too clever for a bad governess, for a -parson's daughter, to spoil; and the strangest if not the brightest -thread in the pensive embroidery I just spoke of was the impression I -might have got, if I had dared to work it out, that he was under some -influence operating in his small intellectual life as a tremendous -incitement. - -If it was easy to reflect, however, that such a boy could postpone -school, it was at least as marked that for such a boy to have been -"kicked out" by a schoolmaster was a mystification without end. Let me -add that in their company now--and I was careful almost never to be out -of it--I could follow no scent very far. We lived in a cloud of music -and love and success and private theatricals. The musical sense in each -of the children was of the quickest, but the elder in especial had a -marvelous knack of catching and repeating. The schoolroom piano -broke into all gruesome fancies; and when that failed there were -confabulations in corners, with a sequel of one of them going out in -the highest spirits in order to "come in" as something new. I had had -brothers myself, and it was no revelation to me that little girls could -be slavish idolaters of little boys. What surpassed everything was that -there was a little boy in the world who could have for the inferior age, -sex, and intelligence so fine a consideration. They were extraordinarily -at one, and to say that they never either quarreled or complained is -to make the note of praise coarse for their quality of sweetness. -Sometimes, indeed, when I dropped into coarseness, I perhaps came across -traces of little understandings between them by which one of them should -keep me occupied while the other slipped away. There is a naive side, -I suppose, in all diplomacy; but if my pupils practiced upon me, it was -surely with the minimum of grossness. It was all in the other quarter -that, after a lull, the grossness broke out. - -I find that I really hang back; but I must take my plunge. In going on -with the record of what was hideous at Bly, I not only challenge the -most liberal faith--for which I little care; but--and this is another -matter--I renew what I myself suffered, I again push my way through it -to the end. There came suddenly an hour after which, as I look back, the -affair seems to me to have been all pure suffering; but I have at least -reached the heart of it, and the straightest road out is doubtless to -advance. One evening--with nothing to lead up or to prepare it--I felt -the cold touch of the impression that had breathed on me the night of -my arrival and which, much lighter then, as I have mentioned, I should -probably have made little of in memory had my subsequent sojourn been -less agitated. I had not gone to bed; I sat reading by a couple of -candles. There was a roomful of old books at Bly--last-century fiction, -some of it, which, to the extent of a distinctly deprecated renown, -but never to so much as that of a stray specimen, had reached the -sequestered home and appealed to the unavowed curiosity of my youth. I -remember that the book I had in my hand was Fielding's Amelia; also that -I was wholly awake. I recall further both a general conviction that it -was horribly late and a particular objection to looking at my watch. I -figure, finally, that the white curtain draping, in the fashion of those -days, the head of Flora's little bed, shrouded, as I had assured myself -long before, the perfection of childish rest. I recollect in short that, -though I was deeply interested in my author, I found myself, at the turn -of a page and with his spell all scattered, looking straight up from -him and hard at the door of my room. There was a moment during which -I listened, reminded of the faint sense I had had, the first night, of -there being something undefinably astir in the house, and noted the soft -breath of the open casement just move the half-drawn blind. Then, with -all the marks of a deliberation that must have seemed magnificent had -there been anyone to admire it, I laid down my book, rose to my feet, -and, taking a candle, went straight out of the room and, from the -passage, on which my light made little impression, noiselessly closed -and locked the door. - -I can say now neither what determined nor what guided me, but I went -straight along the lobby, holding my candle high, till I came within -sight of the tall window that presided over the great turn of the -staircase. At this point I precipitately found myself aware of three -things. They were practically simultaneous, yet they had flashes of -succession. My candle, under a bold flourish, went out, and I perceived, -by the uncovered window, that the yielding dusk of earliest morning -rendered it unnecessary. Without it, the next instant, I saw that there -was someone on the stair. I speak of sequences, but I required no lapse -of seconds to stiffen myself for a third encounter with Quint. The -apparition had reached the landing halfway up and was therefore on the -spot nearest the window, where at sight of me, it stopped short and -fixed me exactly as it had fixed me from the tower and from the garden. -He knew me as well as I knew him; and so, in the cold, faint twilight, -with a glimmer in the high glass and another on the polish of the -oak stair below, we faced each other in our common intensity. He was -absolutely, on this occasion, a living, detestable, dangerous presence. -But that was not the wonder of wonders; I reserve this distinction for -quite another circumstance: the circumstance that dread had unmistakably -quitted me and that there was nothing in me there that didn't meet and -measure him. - -I had plenty of anguish after that extraordinary moment, but I had, -thank God, no terror. And he knew I had not--I found myself at the end -of an instant magnificently aware of this. I felt, in a fierce rigor of -confidence, that if I stood my ground a minute I should cease--for -the time, at least--to have him to reckon with; and during the minute, -accordingly, the thing was as human and hideous as a real interview: -hideous just because it WAS human, as human as to have met alone, in -the small hours, in a sleeping house, some enemy, some adventurer, -some criminal. It was the dead silence of our long gaze at such close -quarters that gave the whole horror, huge as it was, its only note of -the unnatural. If I had met a murderer in such a place and at such an -hour, we still at least would have spoken. Something would have passed, -in life, between us; if nothing had passed, one of us would have moved. -The moment was so prolonged that it would have taken but little more to -make me doubt if even _I_ were in life. I can't express what followed it -save by saying that the silence itself--which was indeed in a manner -an attestation of my strength--became the element into which I saw the -figure disappear; in which I definitely saw it turn as I might have -seen the low wretch to which it had once belonged turn on receipt of an -order, and pass, with my eyes on the villainous back that no hunch could -have more disfigured, straight down the staircase and into the darkness -in which the next bend was lost. - - - - -X - - -I remained awhile at the top of the stair, but with the effect presently -of understanding that when my visitor had gone, he had gone: then I -returned to my room. The foremost thing I saw there by the light of the -candle I had left burning was that Flora's little bed was empty; and on -this I caught my breath with all the terror that, five minutes before, -I had been able to resist. I dashed at the place in which I had left her -lying and over which (for the small silk counterpane and the sheets were -disarranged) the white curtains had been deceivingly pulled forward; -then my step, to my unutterable relief, produced an answering sound: I -perceived an agitation of the window blind, and the child, ducking down, -emerged rosily from the other side of it. She stood there in so much of -her candor and so little of her nightgown, with her pink bare feet and -the golden glow of her curls. She looked intensely grave, and I had -never had such a sense of losing an advantage acquired (the thrill -of which had just been so prodigious) as on my consciousness that -she addressed me with a reproach. "You naughty: where HAVE you -been?"--instead of challenging her own irregularity I found myself -arraigned and explaining. She herself explained, for that matter, with -the loveliest, eagerest simplicity. She had known suddenly, as she lay -there, that I was out of the room, and had jumped up to see what had -become of me. I had dropped, with the joy of her reappearance, back -into my chair--feeling then, and then only, a little faint; and she had -pattered straight over to me, thrown herself upon my knee, given herself -to be held with the flame of the candle full in the wonderful little -face that was still flushed with sleep. I remember closing my eyes an -instant, yieldingly, consciously, as before the excess of something -beautiful that shone out of the blue of her own. "You were looking for -me out of the window?" I said. "You thought I might be walking in the -grounds?" - -"Well, you know, I thought someone was"--she never blanched as she -smiled out that at me. - -Oh, how I looked at her now! "And did you see anyone?" - -"Ah, NO!" she returned, almost with the full privilege of childish -inconsequence, resentfully, though with a long sweetness in her little -drawl of the negative. - -At that moment, in the state of my nerves, I absolutely believed she -lied; and if I once more closed my eyes it was before the dazzle of the -three or four possible ways in which I might take this up. One of these, -for a moment, tempted me with such singular intensity that, to withstand -it, I must have gripped my little girl with a spasm that, wonderfully, -she submitted to without a cry or a sign of fright. Why not break out -at her on the spot and have it all over?--give it to her straight in her -lovely little lighted face? "You see, you see, you KNOW that you do and -that you already quite suspect I believe it; therefore, why not frankly -confess it to me, so that we may at least live with it together and -learn perhaps, in the strangeness of our fate, where we are and what -it means?" This solicitation dropped, alas, as it came: if I could -immediately have succumbed to it I might have spared myself--well, -you'll see what. Instead of succumbing I sprang again to my feet, -looked at her bed, and took a helpless middle way. "Why did you pull the -curtain over the place to make me think you were still there?" - -Flora luminously considered; after which, with her little divine smile: -"Because I don't like to frighten you!" - -"But if I had, by your idea, gone out--?" - -She absolutely declined to be puzzled; she turned her eyes to the flame -of the candle as if the question were as irrelevant, or at any rate as -impersonal, as Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine. "Oh, but you know," she -quite adequately answered, "that you might come back, you dear, and that -you HAVE!" And after a little, when she had got into bed, I had, for a -long time, by almost sitting on her to hold her hand, to prove that I -recognized the pertinence of my return. - -You may imagine the general complexion, from that moment, of my nights. -I repeatedly sat up till I didn't know when; I selected moments when my -roommate unmistakably slept, and, stealing out, took noiseless turns in -the passage and even pushed as far as to where I had last met Quint. But -I never met him there again; and I may as well say at once that I on no -other occasion saw him in the house. I just missed, on the staircase, -on the other hand, a different adventure. Looking down it from the top I -once recognized the presence of a woman seated on one of the lower steps -with her back presented to me, her body half-bowed and her head, in an -attitude of woe, in her hands. I had been there but an instant, however, -when she vanished without looking round at me. I knew, nonetheless, -exactly what dreadful face she had to show; and I wondered whether, if -instead of being above I had been below, I should have had, for going -up, the same nerve I had lately shown Quint. Well, there continued to -be plenty of chance for nerve. On the eleventh night after my latest -encounter with that gentleman--they were all numbered now--I had an -alarm that perilously skirted it and that indeed, from the particular -quality of its unexpectedness, proved quite my sharpest shock. It was -precisely the first night during this series that, weary with watching, -I had felt that I might again without laxity lay myself down at my -old hour. I slept immediately and, as I afterward knew, till about one -o'clock; but when I woke it was to sit straight up, as completely roused -as if a hand had shook me. I had left a light burning, but it was now -out, and I felt an instant certainty that Flora had extinguished it. -This brought me to my feet and straight, in the darkness, to her bed, -which I found she had left. A glance at the window enlightened me -further, and the striking of a match completed the picture. - -The child had again got up--this time blowing out the taper, and had -again, for some purpose of observation or response, squeezed in behind -the blind and was peering out into the night. That she now saw--as she -had not, I had satisfied myself, the previous time--was proved to me by -the fact that she was disturbed neither by my reillumination nor by the -haste I made to get into slippers and into a wrap. Hidden, protected, -absorbed, she evidently rested on the sill--the casement opened -forward--and gave herself up. There was a great still moon to help her, -and this fact had counted in my quick decision. She was face to face -with the apparition we had met at the lake, and could now communicate -with it as she had not then been able to do. What I, on my side, had to -care for was, without disturbing her, to reach, from the corridor, some -other window in the same quarter. I got to the door without her hearing -me; I got out of it, closed it, and listened, from the other side, for -some sound from her. While I stood in the passage I had my eyes on her -brother's door, which was but ten steps off and which, indescribably, -produced in me a renewal of the strange impulse that I lately spoke -of as my temptation. What if I should go straight in and march to HIS -window?--what if, by risking to his boyish bewilderment a revelation of -my motive, I should throw across the rest of the mystery the long halter -of my boldness? - -This thought held me sufficiently to make me cross to his threshold and -pause again. I preternaturally listened; I figured to myself what might -portentously be; I wondered if his bed were also empty and he too were -secretly at watch. It was a deep, soundless minute, at the end of which -my impulse failed. He was quiet; he might be innocent; the risk was -hideous; I turned away. There was a figure in the grounds--a figure -prowling for a sight, the visitor with whom Flora was engaged; but it -was not the visitor most concerned with my boy. I hesitated afresh, but -on other grounds and only for a few seconds; then I had made my choice. -There were empty rooms at Bly, and it was only a question of choosing -the right one. The right one suddenly presented itself to me as the -lower one--though high above the gardens--in the solid corner of the -house that I have spoken of as the old tower. This was a large, square -chamber, arranged with some state as a bedroom, the extravagant size of -which made it so inconvenient that it had not for years, though kept by -Mrs. Grose in exemplary order, been occupied. I had often admired it and -I knew my way about in it; I had only, after just faltering at the first -chill gloom of its disuse, to pass across it and unbolt as quietly as I -could one of the shutters. Achieving this transit, I uncovered the -glass without a sound and, applying my face to the pane, was able, the -darkness without being much less than within, to see that I commanded -the right direction. Then I saw something more. The moon made the -night extraordinarily penetrable and showed me on the lawn a person, -diminished by distance, who stood there motionless and as if fascinated, -looking up to where I had appeared--looking, that is, not so much -straight at me as at something that was apparently above me. There was -clearly another person above me--there was a person on the tower; but -the presence on the lawn was not in the least what I had conceived and -had confidently hurried to meet. The presence on the lawn--I felt sick -as I made it out--was poor little Miles himself. - - - - -XI - - -It was not till late next day that I spoke to Mrs. Grose; the rigor with -which I kept my pupils in sight making it often difficult to meet -her privately, and the more as we each felt the importance of not -provoking--on the part of the servants quite as much as on that of the -children--any suspicion of a secret flurry or that of a discussion of -mysteries. I drew a great security in this particular from her mere -smooth aspect. There was nothing in her fresh face to pass on to others -my horrible confidences. She believed me, I was sure, absolutely: if she -hadn't I don't know what would have become of me, for I couldn't have -borne the business alone. But she was a magnificent monument to the -blessing of a want of imagination, and if she could see in our little -charges nothing but their beauty and amiability, their happiness and -cleverness, she had no direct communication with the sources of my -trouble. If they had been at all visibly blighted or battered, she would -doubtless have grown, on tracing it back, haggard enough to match them; -as matters stood, however, I could feel her, when she surveyed them, -with her large white arms folded and the habit of serenity in all her -look, thank the Lord's mercy that if they were ruined the pieces would -still serve. Flights of fancy gave place, in her mind, to a steady -fireside glow, and I had already begun to perceive how, with the -development of the conviction that--as time went on without a public -accident--our young things could, after all, look out for themselves, -she addressed her greatest solicitude to the sad case presented by their -instructress. That, for myself, was a sound simplification: I could -engage that, to the world, my face should tell no tales, but it would -have been, in the conditions, an immense added strain to find myself -anxious about hers. - -At the hour I now speak of she had joined me, under pressure, on the -terrace, where, with the lapse of the season, the afternoon sun was now -agreeable; and we sat there together while, before us, at a distance, -but within call if we wished, the children strolled to and fro in one -of their most manageable moods. They moved slowly, in unison, below us, -over the lawn, the boy, as they went, reading aloud from a storybook and -passing his arm round his sister to keep her quite in touch. Mrs. Grose -watched them with positive placidity; then I caught the suppressed -intellectual creak with which she conscientiously turned to take from me -a view of the back of the tapestry. I had made her a receptacle of -lurid things, but there was an odd recognition of my superiority--my -accomplishments and my function--in her patience under my pain. She -offered her mind to my disclosures as, had I wished to mix a witch's -broth and proposed it with assurance, she would have held out a large -clean saucepan. This had become thoroughly her attitude by the time -that, in my recital of the events of the night, I reached the point of -what Miles had said to me when, after seeing him, at such a monstrous -hour, almost on the very spot where he happened now to be, I had gone -down to bring him in; choosing then, at the window, with a concentrated -need of not alarming the house, rather that method than a signal more -resonant. I had left her meanwhile in little doubt of my small hope of -representing with success even to her actual sympathy my sense of the -real splendor of the little inspiration with which, after I had got him -into the house, the boy met my final articulate challenge. As soon as I -appeared in the moonlight on the terrace, he had come to me as straight -as possible; on which I had taken his hand without a word and led him, -through the dark spaces, up the staircase where Quint had so hungrily -hovered for him, along the lobby where I had listened and trembled, and -so to his forsaken room. - -Not a sound, on the way, had passed between us, and I had wondered--oh, -HOW I had wondered!--if he were groping about in his little mind for -something plausible and not too grotesque. It would tax his invention, -certainly, and I felt, this time, over his real embarrassment, a curious -thrill of triumph. It was a sharp trap for the inscrutable! He couldn't -play any longer at innocence; so how the deuce would he get out of it? -There beat in me indeed, with the passionate throb of this question an -equal dumb appeal as to how the deuce _I_ should. I was confronted at -last, as never yet, with all the risk attached even now to sounding my -own horrid note. I remember in fact that as we pushed into his little -chamber, where the bed had not been slept in at all and the window, -uncovered to the moonlight, made the place so clear that there was no -need of striking a match--I remember how I suddenly dropped, sank upon -the edge of the bed from the force of the idea that he must know how he -really, as they say, "had" me. He could do what he liked, with all his -cleverness to help him, so long as I should continue to defer to the -old tradition of the criminality of those caretakers of the young who -minister to superstitions and fears. He "had" me indeed, and in a cleft -stick; for who would ever absolve me, who would consent that I should go -unhung, if, by the faintest tremor of an overture, I were the first to -introduce into our perfect intercourse an element so dire? No, no: it -was useless to attempt to convey to Mrs. Grose, just as it is scarcely -less so to attempt to suggest here, how, in our short, stiff brush in -the dark, he fairly shook me with admiration. I was of course thoroughly -kind and merciful; never, never yet had I placed on his little shoulders -hands of such tenderness as those with which, while I rested against the -bed, I held him there well under fire. I had no alternative but, in form -at least, to put it to him. - -"You must tell me now--and all the truth. What did you go out for? What -were you doing there?" - -I can still see his wonderful smile, the whites of his beautiful eyes, -and the uncovering of his little teeth shine to me in the dusk. "If I -tell you why, will you understand?" My heart, at this, leaped into my -mouth. WOULD he tell me why? I found no sound on my lips to press it, -and I was aware of replying only with a vague, repeated, grimacing nod. -He was gentleness itself, and while I wagged my head at him he stood -there more than ever a little fairy prince. It was his brightness indeed -that gave me a respite. Would it be so great if he were really going to -tell me? "Well," he said at last, "just exactly in order that you should -do this." - -"Do what?" - -"Think me--for a change--BAD!" I shall never forget the sweetness and -gaiety with which he brought out the word, nor how, on top of it, he -bent forward and kissed me. It was practically the end of everything. -I met his kiss and I had to make, while I folded him for a minute in my -arms, the most stupendous effort not to cry. He had given exactly the -account of himself that permitted least of my going behind it, and it -was only with the effect of confirming my acceptance of it that, as I -presently glanced about the room, I could say-- - -"Then you didn't undress at all?" - -He fairly glittered in the gloom. "Not at all. I sat up and read." - -"And when did you go down?" - -"At midnight. When I'm bad I AM bad!" - -"I see, I see--it's charming. But how could you be sure I would know -it?" - -"Oh, I arranged that with Flora." His answers rang out with a readiness! -"She was to get up and look out." - -"Which is what she did do." It was I who fell into the trap! - -"So she disturbed you, and, to see what she was looking at, you also -looked--you saw." - -"While you," I concurred, "caught your death in the night air!" - -He literally bloomed so from this exploit that he could afford radiantly -to assent. "How otherwise should I have been bad enough?" he asked. -Then, after another embrace, the incident and our interview closed on my -recognition of all the reserves of goodness that, for his joke, he had -been able to draw upon. - - - - -XII - - -The particular impression I had received proved in the morning light, -I repeat, not quite successfully presentable to Mrs. Grose, though I -reinforced it with the mention of still another remark that he had made -before we separated. "It all lies in half a dozen words," I said to her, -"words that really settle the matter. 'Think, you know, what I MIGHT -do!' He threw that off to show me how good he is. He knows down to -the ground what he 'might' do. That's what he gave them a taste of at -school." - -"Lord, you do change!" cried my friend. - -"I don't change--I simply make it out. The four, depend upon it, -perpetually meet. If on either of these last nights you had been with -either child, you would clearly have understood. The more I've watched -and waited the more I've felt that if there were nothing else to make it -sure it would be made so by the systematic silence of each. NEVER, by a -slip of the tongue, have they so much as alluded to either of their old -friends, any more than Miles has alluded to his expulsion. Oh, yes, -we may sit here and look at them, and they may show off to us there to -their fill; but even while they pretend to be lost in their fairytale -they're steeped in their vision of the dead restored. He's not reading -to her," I declared; "they're talking of THEM--they're talking horrors! -I go on, I know, as if I were crazy; and it's a wonder I'm not. What -I've seen would have made YOU so; but it has only made me more lucid, -made me get hold of still other things." - -My lucidity must have seemed awful, but the charming creatures who were -victims of it, passing and repassing in their interlocked sweetness, -gave my colleague something to hold on by; and I felt how tight she held -as, without stirring in the breath of my passion, she covered them still -with her eyes. "Of what other things have you got hold?" - -"Why, of the very things that have delighted, fascinated, and yet, at -bottom, as I now so strangely see, mystified and troubled me. Their more -than earthly beauty, their absolutely unnatural goodness. It's a game," -I went on; "it's a policy and a fraud!" - -"On the part of little darlings--?" - -"As yet mere lovely babies? Yes, mad as that seems!" The very act of -bringing it out really helped me to trace it--follow it all up and piece -it all together. "They haven't been good--they've only been absent. It -has been easy to live with them, because they're simply leading a -life of their own. They're not mine--they're not ours. They're his and -they're hers!" - -"Quint's and that woman's?" - -"Quint's and that woman's. They want to get to them." - -Oh, how, at this, poor Mrs. Grose appeared to study them! "But for -what?" - -"For the love of all the evil that, in those dreadful days, the pair put -into them. And to ply them with that evil still, to keep up the work of -demons, is what brings the others back." - -"Laws!" said my friend under her breath. The exclamation was homely, but -it revealed a real acceptance of my further proof of what, in the bad -time--for there had been a worse even than this!--must have occurred. -There could have been no such justification for me as the plain assent -of her experience to whatever depth of depravity I found credible in -our brace of scoundrels. It was in obvious submission of memory that she -brought out after a moment: "They WERE rascals! But what can they now -do?" she pursued. - -"Do?" I echoed so loud that Miles and Flora, as they passed at their -distance, paused an instant in their walk and looked at us. "Don't -they do enough?" I demanded in a lower tone, while the children, having -smiled and nodded and kissed hands to us, resumed their exhibition. We -were held by it a minute; then I answered: "They can destroy them!" At -this my companion did turn, but the inquiry she launched was a silent -one, the effect of which was to make me more explicit. "They don't know, -as yet, quite how--but they're trying hard. They're seen only across, -as it were, and beyond--in strange places and on high places, the top of -towers, the roof of houses, the outside of windows, the further edge -of pools; but there's a deep design, on either side, to shorten the -distance and overcome the obstacle; and the success of the tempters is -only a question of time. They've only to keep to their suggestions of -danger." - -"For the children to come?" - -"And perish in the attempt!" Mrs. Grose slowly got up, and I -scrupulously added: "Unless, of course, we can prevent!" - -Standing there before me while I kept my seat, she visibly turned things -over. "Their uncle must do the preventing. He must take them away." - -"And who's to make him?" - -She had been scanning the distance, but she now dropped on me a foolish -face. "You, miss." - -"By writing to him that his house is poisoned and his little nephew and -niece mad?" - -"But if they ARE, miss?" - -"And if I am myself, you mean? That's charming news to be sent him by a -governess whose prime undertaking was to give him no worry." - -Mrs. Grose considered, following the children again. "Yes, he do hate -worry. That was the great reason--" - -"Why those fiends took him in so long? No doubt, though his indifference -must have been awful. As I'm not a fiend, at any rate, I shouldn't take -him in." - -My companion, after an instant and for all answer, sat down again and -grasped my arm. "Make him at any rate come to you." - -I stared. "To ME?" I had a sudden fear of what she might do. "'Him'?" - -"He ought to BE here--he ought to help." - -I quickly rose, and I think I must have shown her a queerer face than -ever yet. "You see me asking him for a visit?" No, with her eyes on -my face she evidently couldn't. Instead of it even--as a woman reads -another--she could see what I myself saw: his derision, his amusement, -his contempt for the breakdown of my resignation at being left alone and -for the fine machinery I had set in motion to attract his attention to -my slighted charms. She didn't know--no one knew--how proud I had been -to serve him and to stick to our terms; yet she nonetheless took the -measure, I think, of the warning I now gave her. "If you should so lose -your head as to appeal to him for me--" - -She was really frightened. "Yes, miss?" - -"I would leave, on the spot, both him and you." - - - - -XIII - - -It was all very well to join them, but speaking to them proved quite as -much as ever an effort beyond my strength--offered, in close quarters, -difficulties as insurmountable as before. This situation continued a -month, and with new aggravations and particular notes, the note above -all, sharper and sharper, of the small ironic consciousness on the part -of my pupils. It was not, I am as sure today as I was sure then, my mere -infernal imagination: it was absolutely traceable that they were aware -of my predicament and that this strange relation made, in a manner, for -a long time, the air in which we moved. I don't mean that they had their -tongues in their cheeks or did anything vulgar, for that was not one -of their dangers: I do mean, on the other hand, that the element of the -unnamed and untouched became, between us, greater than any other, and -that so much avoidance could not have been so successfully effected -without a great deal of tacit arrangement. It was as if, at moments, we -were perpetually coming into sight of subjects before which we must stop -short, turning suddenly out of alleys that we perceived to be blind, -closing with a little bang that made us look at each other--for, like -all bangs, it was something louder than we had intended--the doors we -had indiscreetly opened. All roads lead to Rome, and there were times -when it might have struck us that almost every branch of study or -subject of conversation skirted forbidden ground. Forbidden ground was -the question of the return of the dead in general and of whatever, in -especial, might survive, in memory, of the friends little children had -lost. There were days when I could have sworn that one of them had, with -a small invisible nudge, said to the other: "She thinks she'll do it -this time--but she WON'T!" To "do it" would have been to indulge for -instance--and for once in a way--in some direct reference to the lady -who had prepared them for my discipline. They had a delightful endless -appetite for passages in my own history, to which I had again and -again treated them; they were in possession of everything that had -ever happened to me, had had, with every circumstance the story of my -smallest adventures and of those of my brothers and sisters and of the -cat and the dog at home, as well as many particulars of the eccentric -nature of my father, of the furniture and arrangement of our house, and -of the conversation of the old women of our village. There were things -enough, taking one with another, to chatter about, if one went very fast -and knew by instinct when to go round. They pulled with an art of their -own the strings of my invention and my memory; and nothing else perhaps, -when I thought of such occasions afterward, gave me so the suspicion -of being watched from under cover. It was in any case over MY life, MY -past, and MY friends alone that we could take anything like our ease--a -state of affairs that led them sometimes without the least pertinence -to break out into sociable reminders. I was invited--with no visible -connection--to repeat afresh Goody Gosling's celebrated mot or to -confirm the details already supplied as to the cleverness of the -vicarage pony. - -It was partly at such junctures as these and partly at quite different -ones that, with the turn my matters had now taken, my predicament, as I -have called it, grew most sensible. The fact that the days passed for -me without another encounter ought, it would have appeared, to have done -something toward soothing my nerves. Since the light brush, that second -night on the upper landing, of the presence of a woman at the foot of -the stair, I had seen nothing, whether in or out of the house, that one -had better not have seen. There was many a corner round which I expected -to come upon Quint, and many a situation that, in a merely sinister way, -would have favored the appearance of Miss Jessel. The summer had turned, -the summer had gone; the autumn had dropped upon Bly and had blown out -half our lights. The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, -its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after -the performance--all strewn with crumpled playbills. There were exactly -states of the air, conditions of sound and of stillness, unspeakable -impressions of the KIND of ministering moment, that brought back to me, -long enough to catch it, the feeling of the medium in which, that June -evening out of doors, I had had my first sight of Quint, and in which, -too, at those other instants, I had, after seeing him through the -window, looked for him in vain in the circle of shrubbery. I recognized -the signs, the portents--I recognized the moment, the spot. But they -remained unaccompanied and empty, and I continued unmolested; if -unmolested one could call a young woman whose sensibility had, in the -most extraordinary fashion, not declined but deepened. I had said in my -talk with Mrs. Grose on that horrid scene of Flora's by the lake--and -had perplexed her by so saying--that it would from that moment distress -me much more to lose my power than to keep it. I had then expressed what -was vividly in my mind: the truth that, whether the children really -saw or not--since, that is, it was not yet definitely proved--I greatly -preferred, as a safeguard, the fullness of my own exposure. I was ready -to know the very worst that was to be known. What I had then had an ugly -glimpse of was that my eyes might be sealed just while theirs were -most opened. Well, my eyes WERE sealed, it appeared, at present--a -consummation for which it seemed blasphemous not to thank God. There -was, alas, a difficulty about that: I would have thanked him with all -my soul had I not had in a proportionate measure this conviction of the -secret of my pupils. - -How can I retrace today the strange steps of my obsession? There were -times of our being together when I would have been ready to swear that, -literally, in my presence, but with my direct sense of it closed, they -had visitors who were known and were welcome. Then it was that, had I -not been deterred by the very chance that such an injury might prove -greater than the injury to be averted, my exultation would have broken -out. "They're here, they're here, you little wretches," I would have -cried, "and you can't deny it now!" The little wretches denied it with -all the added volume of their sociability and their tenderness, in just -the crystal depths of which--like the flash of a fish in a stream--the -mockery of their advantage peeped up. The shock, in truth, had sunk into -me still deeper than I knew on the night when, looking out to see either -Quint or Miss Jessel under the stars, I had beheld the boy over -whose rest I watched and who had immediately brought in with him--had -straightway, there, turned it on me--the lovely upward look with which, -from the battlements above me, the hideous apparition of Quint had -played. If it was a question of a scare, my discovery on this occasion -had scared me more than any other, and it was in the condition of nerves -produced by it that I made my actual inductions. They harassed me so -that sometimes, at odd moments, I shut myself up audibly to rehearse--it -was at once a fantastic relief and a renewed despair--the manner in -which I might come to the point. I approached it from one side and the -other while, in my room, I flung myself about, but I always broke down -in the monstrous utterance of names. As they died away on my lips, I -said to myself that I should indeed help them to represent something -infamous, if, by pronouncing them, I should violate as rare a little -case of instinctive delicacy as any schoolroom, probably, had ever -known. When I said to myself: "THEY have the manners to be silent, and -you, trusted as you are, the baseness to speak!" I felt myself crimson -and I covered my face with my hands. After these secret scenes I -chattered more than ever, going on volubly enough till one of our -prodigious, palpable hushes occurred--I can call them nothing else--the -strange, dizzy lift or swim (I try for terms!) into a stillness, a pause -of all life, that had nothing to do with the more or less noise that at -the moment we might be engaged in making and that I could hear through -any deepened exhilaration or quickened recitation or louder strum of the -piano. Then it was that the others, the outsiders, were there. Though -they were not angels, they "passed," as the French say, causing me, -while they stayed, to tremble with the fear of their addressing to their -younger victims some yet more infernal message or more vivid image than -they had thought good enough for myself. - -What it was most impossible to get rid of was the cruel idea that, -whatever I had seen, Miles and Flora saw MORE--things terrible and -unguessable and that sprang from dreadful passages of intercourse in the -past. Such things naturally left on the surface, for the time, a chill -which we vociferously denied that we felt; and we had, all three, with -repetition, got into such splendid training that we went, each time, -almost automatically, to mark the close of the incident, through the -very same movements. It was striking of the children, at all events, -to kiss me inveterately with a kind of wild irrelevance and never to -fail--one or the other--of the precious question that had helped us -through many a peril. "When do you think he WILL come? Don't you think -we OUGHT to write?"--there was nothing like that inquiry, we found by -experience, for carrying off an awkwardness. "He" of course was their -uncle in Harley Street; and we lived in much profusion of theory that he -might at any moment arrive to mingle in our circle. It was impossible to -have given less encouragement than he had done to such a doctrine, but -if we had not had the doctrine to fall back upon we should have -deprived each other of some of our finest exhibitions. He never wrote to -them--that may have been selfish, but it was a part of the flattery of -his trust of me; for the way in which a man pays his highest tribute to -a woman is apt to be but by the more festal celebration of one of the -sacred laws of his comfort; and I held that I carried out the spirit of -the pledge given not to appeal to him when I let my charges understand -that their own letters were but charming literary exercises. They were -too beautiful to be posted; I kept them myself; I have them all to this -hour. This was a rule indeed which only added to the satiric effect of -my being plied with the supposition that he might at any moment be among -us. It was exactly as if my charges knew how almost more awkward than -anything else that might be for me. There appears to me, moreover, as -I look back, no note in all this more extraordinary than the mere fact -that, in spite of my tension and of their triumph, I never lost patience -with them. Adorable they must in truth have been, I now reflect, that I -didn't in these days hate them! Would exasperation, however, if relief -had longer been postponed, finally have betrayed me? It little matters, -for relief arrived. I call it relief, though it was only the relief that -a snap brings to a strain or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day of -suffocation. It was at least change, and it came with a rush. - - - - -XIV - - -Walking to church a certain Sunday morning, I had little Miles at my -side and his sister, in advance of us and at Mrs. Grose's, well in -sight. It was a crisp, clear day, the first of its order for some time; -the night had brought a touch of frost, and the autumn air, bright -and sharp, made the church bells almost gay. It was an odd accident of -thought that I should have happened at such a moment to be particularly -and very gratefully struck with the obedience of my little charges. Why -did they never resent my inexorable, my perpetual society? Something or -other had brought nearer home to me that I had all but pinned the boy to -my shawl and that, in the way our companions were marshaled before me, -I might have appeared to provide against some danger of rebellion. I -was like a gaoler with an eye to possible surprises and escapes. But all -this belonged--I mean their magnificent little surrender--just to the -special array of the facts that were most abysmal. Turned out for Sunday -by his uncle's tailor, who had had a free hand and a notion of -pretty waistcoats and of his grand little air, Miles's whole title to -independence, the rights of his sex and situation, were so stamped upon -him that if he had suddenly struck for freedom I should have had nothing -to say. I was by the strangest of chances wondering how I should meet -him when the revolution unmistakably occurred. I call it a revolution -because I now see how, with the word he spoke, the curtain rose on the -last act of my dreadful drama, and the catastrophe was precipitated. -"Look here, my dear, you know," he charmingly said, "when in the world, -please, am I going back to school?" - -Transcribed here the speech sounds harmless enough, particularly -as uttered in the sweet, high, casual pipe with which, at all -interlocutors, but above all at his eternal governess, he threw off -intonations as if he were tossing roses. There was something in -them that always made one "catch," and I caught, at any rate, now so -effectually that I stopped as short as if one of the trees of the -park had fallen across the road. There was something new, on the spot, -between us, and he was perfectly aware that I recognized it, though, -to enable me to do so, he had no need to look a whit less candid and -charming than usual. I could feel in him how he already, from my at -first finding nothing to reply, perceived the advantage he had gained. I -was so slow to find anything that he had plenty of time, after a minute, -to continue with his suggestive but inconclusive smile: "You know, my -dear, that for a fellow to be with a lady ALWAYS--!" His "my dear" was -constantly on his lips for me, and nothing could have expressed more the -exact shade of the sentiment with which I desired to inspire my pupils -than its fond familiarity. It was so respectfully easy. - -But, oh, how I felt that at present I must pick my own phrases! I -remember that, to gain time, I tried to laugh, and I seemed to see in -the beautiful face with which he watched me how ugly and queer I looked. -"And always with the same lady?" I returned. - -He neither blanched nor winked. The whole thing was virtually out -between us. "Ah, of course, she's a jolly, 'perfect' lady; but, after -all, I'm a fellow, don't you see? that's--well, getting on." - -I lingered there with him an instant ever so kindly. "Yes, you're -getting on." Oh, but I felt helpless! - -I have kept to this day the heartbreaking little idea of how he seemed -to know that and to play with it. "And you can't say I've not been -awfully good, can you?" - -I laid my hand on his shoulder, for, though I felt how much better it -would have been to walk on, I was not yet quite able. "No, I can't say -that, Miles." - -"Except just that one night, you know--!" - -"That one night?" I couldn't look as straight as he. - -"Why, when I went down--went out of the house." - -"Oh, yes. But I forget what you did it for." - -"You forget?"--he spoke with the sweet extravagance of childish -reproach. "Why, it was to show you I could!" - -"Oh, yes, you could." - -"And I can again." - -I felt that I might, perhaps, after all, succeed in keeping my wits -about me. "Certainly. But you won't." - -"No, not THAT again. It was nothing." - -"It was nothing," I said. "But we must go on." - -He resumed our walk with me, passing his hand into my arm. "Then when AM -I going back?" - -I wore, in turning it over, my most responsible air. "Were you very -happy at school?" - -He just considered. "Oh, I'm happy enough anywhere!" - -"Well, then," I quavered, "if you're just as happy here--!" - -"Ah, but that isn't everything! Of course YOU know a lot--" - -"But you hint that you know almost as much?" I risked as he paused. - -"Not half I want to!" Miles honestly professed. "But it isn't so much -that." - -"What is it, then?" - -"Well--I want to see more life." - -"I see; I see." We had arrived within sight of the church and of various -persons, including several of the household of Bly, on their way to it -and clustered about the door to see us go in. I quickened our step; -I wanted to get there before the question between us opened up much -further; I reflected hungrily that, for more than an hour, he would have -to be silent; and I thought with envy of the comparative dusk of the pew -and of the almost spiritual help of the hassock on which I might bend -my knees. I seemed literally to be running a race with some confusion -to which he was about to reduce me, but I felt that he had got in first -when, before we had even entered the churchyard, he threw out-- - -"I want my own sort!" - -It literally made me bound forward. "There are not many of your own -sort, Miles!" I laughed. "Unless perhaps dear little Flora!" - -"You really compare me to a baby girl?" - -This found me singularly weak. "Don't you, then, LOVE our sweet Flora?" - -"If I didn't--and you, too; if I didn't--!" he repeated as if retreating -for a jump, yet leaving his thought so unfinished that, after we had -come into the gate, another stop, which he imposed on me by the pressure -of his arm, had become inevitable. Mrs. Grose and Flora had passed into -the church, the other worshippers had followed, and we were, for the -minute, alone among the old, thick graves. We had paused, on the path -from the gate, by a low, oblong, tablelike tomb. - -"Yes, if you didn't--?" - -He looked, while I waited, at the graves. "Well, you know what!" But -he didn't move, and he presently produced something that made me drop -straight down on the stone slab, as if suddenly to rest. "Does my uncle -think what YOU think?" - -I markedly rested. "How do you know what I think?" - -"Ah, well, of course I don't; for it strikes me you never tell me. But I -mean does HE know?" - -"Know what, Miles?" - -"Why, the way I'm going on." - -I perceived quickly enough that I could make, to this inquiry, no answer -that would not involve something of a sacrifice of my employer. Yet it -appeared to me that we were all, at Bly, sufficiently sacrificed to make -that venial. "I don't think your uncle much cares." - -Miles, on this, stood looking at me. "Then don't you think he can be -made to?" - -"In what way?" - -"Why, by his coming down." - -"But who'll get him to come down?" - -"_I_ will!" the boy said with extraordinary brightness and emphasis. He -gave me another look charged with that expression and then marched off -alone into church. - - - - -XV - - -The business was practically settled from the moment I never followed -him. It was a pitiful surrender to agitation, but my being aware of this -had somehow no power to restore me. I only sat there on my tomb and read -into what my little friend had said to me the fullness of its meaning; -by the time I had grasped the whole of which I had also embraced, for -absence, the pretext that I was ashamed to offer my pupils and the rest -of the congregation such an example of delay. What I said to myself -above all was that Miles had got something out of me and that the proof -of it, for him, would be just this awkward collapse. He had got out -of me that there was something I was much afraid of and that he should -probably be able to make use of my fear to gain, for his own purpose, -more freedom. My fear was of having to deal with the intolerable -question of the grounds of his dismissal from school, for that was -really but the question of the horrors gathered behind. That his uncle -should arrive to treat with me of these things was a solution that, -strictly speaking, I ought now to have desired to bring on; but I -could so little face the ugliness and the pain of it that I simply -procrastinated and lived from hand to mouth. The boy, to my deep -discomposure, was immensely in the right, was in a position to say -to me: "Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of this -interruption of my studies, or you cease to expect me to lead with you -a life that's so unnatural for a boy." What was so unnatural for the -particular boy I was concerned with was this sudden revelation of a -consciousness and a plan. - -That was what really overcame me, what prevented my going in. I walked -round the church, hesitating, hovering; I reflected that I had already, -with him, hurt myself beyond repair. Therefore I could patch up nothing, -and it was too extreme an effort to squeeze beside him into the pew: he -would be so much more sure than ever to pass his arm into mine and make -me sit there for an hour in close, silent contact with his commentary -on our talk. For the first minute since his arrival I wanted to get away -from him. As I paused beneath the high east window and listened to the -sounds of worship, I was taken with an impulse that might master me, -I felt, completely should I give it the least encouragement. I might -easily put an end to my predicament by getting away altogether. Here -was my chance; there was no one to stop me; I could give the whole thing -up--turn my back and retreat. It was only a question of hurrying again, -for a few preparations, to the house which the attendance at church of -so many of the servants would practically have left unoccupied. No one, -in short, could blame me if I should just drive desperately off. What -was it to get away if I got away only till dinner? That would be in -a couple of hours, at the end of which--I had the acute prevision--my -little pupils would play at innocent wonder about my nonappearance in -their train. - -"What DID you do, you naughty, bad thing? Why in the world, to worry us -so--and take our thoughts off, too, don't you know?--did you desert us -at the very door?" I couldn't meet such questions nor, as they asked -them, their false little lovely eyes; yet it was all so exactly what I -should have to meet that, as the prospect grew sharp to me, I at last -let myself go. - -I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away; I came -straight out of the churchyard and, thinking hard, retraced my steps -through the park. It seemed to me that by the time I reached the house -I had made up my mind I would fly. The Sunday stillness both of the -approaches and of the interior, in which I met no one, fairly excited -me with a sense of opportunity. Were I to get off quickly, this way, I -should get off without a scene, without a word. My quickness would have -to be remarkable, however, and the question of a conveyance was the -great one to settle. Tormented, in the hall, with difficulties -and obstacles, I remember sinking down at the foot of the -staircase--suddenly collapsing there on the lowest step and then, with a -revulsion, recalling that it was exactly where more than a month before, -in the darkness of night and just so bowed with evil things, I had -seen the specter of the most horrible of women. At this I was able -to straighten myself; I went the rest of the way up; I made, in my -bewilderment, for the schoolroom, where there were objects belonging to -me that I should have to take. But I opened the door to find again, in a -flash, my eyes unsealed. In the presence of what I saw I reeled straight -back upon my resistance. - -Seated at my own table in clear noonday light I saw a person whom, -without my previous experience, I should have taken at the first blush -for some housemaid who might have stayed at home to look after the place -and who, availing herself of rare relief from observation and of the -schoolroom table and my pens, ink, and paper, had applied herself to the -considerable effort of a letter to her sweetheart. There was an effort -in the way that, while her arms rested on the table, her hands with -evident weariness supported her head; but at the moment I took this in -I had already become aware that, in spite of my entrance, her attitude -strangely persisted. Then it was--with the very act of its announcing -itself--that her identity flared up in a change of posture. She rose, -not as if she had heard me, but with an indescribable grand melancholy -of indifference and detachment, and, within a dozen feet of me, stood -there as my vile predecessor. Dishonored and tragic, she was all before -me; but even as I fixed and, for memory, secured it, the awful image -passed away. Dark as midnight in her black dress, her haggard beauty and -her unutterable woe, she had looked at me long enough to appear to say -that her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers. -While these instants lasted, indeed, I had the extraordinary chill of -feeling that it was I who was the intruder. It was as a wild protest -against it that, actually addressing her--"You terrible, miserable -woman!"--I heard myself break into a sound that, by the open door, rang -through the long passage and the empty house. She looked at me as if -she heard me, but I had recovered myself and cleared the air. There was -nothing in the room the next minute but the sunshine and a sense that I -must stay. - - - - -XVI - - -I had so perfectly expected that the return of my pupils would be marked -by a demonstration that I was freshly upset at having to take into -account that they were dumb about my absence. Instead of gaily -denouncing and caressing me, they made no allusion to my having failed -them, and I was left, for the time, on perceiving that she too said -nothing, to study Mrs. Grose's odd face. I did this to such purpose that -I made sure they had in some way bribed her to silence; a silence that, -however, I would engage to break down on the first private opportunity. -This opportunity came before tea: I secured five minutes with her in the -housekeeper's room, where, in the twilight, amid a smell of lately baked -bread, but with the place all swept and garnished, I found her sitting -in pained placidity before the fire. So I see her still, so I see her -best: facing the flame from her straight chair in the dusky, shining -room, a large clean image of the "put away"--of drawers closed and -locked and rest without a remedy. - -"Oh, yes, they asked me to say nothing; and to please them--so long as -they were there--of course I promised. But what had happened to you?" - -"I only went with you for the walk," I said. "I had then to come back to -meet a friend." - -She showed her surprise. "A friend--YOU?" - -"Oh, yes, I have a couple!" I laughed. "But did the children give you a -reason?" - -"For not alluding to your leaving us? Yes; they said you would like it -better. Do you like it better?" - -My face had made her rueful. "No, I like it worse!" But after an instant -I added: "Did they say why I should like it better?" - -"No; Master Miles only said, 'We must do nothing but what she likes!'" - -"I wish indeed he would. And what did Flora say?" - -"Miss Flora was too sweet. She said, 'Oh, of course, of course!'--and I -said the same." - -I thought a moment. "You were too sweet, too--I can hear you all. But -nonetheless, between Miles and me, it's now all out." - -"All out?" My companion stared. "But what, miss?" - -"Everything. It doesn't matter. I've made up my mind. I came home, my -dear," I went on, "for a talk with Miss Jessel." - -I had by this time formed the habit of having Mrs. Grose literally well -in hand in advance of my sounding that note; so that even now, as -she bravely blinked under the signal of my word, I could keep her -comparatively firm. "A talk! Do you mean she spoke?" - -"It came to that. I found her, on my return, in the schoolroom." - -"And what did she say?" I can hear the good woman still, and the candor -of her stupefaction. - -"That she suffers the torments--!" - -It was this, of a truth, that made her, as she filled out my picture, -gape. "Do you mean," she faltered, "--of the lost?" - -"Of the lost. Of the damned. And that's why, to share them-" I faltered -myself with the horror of it. - -But my companion, with less imagination, kept me up. "To share them--?" - -"She wants Flora." Mrs. Grose might, as I gave it to her, fairly have -fallen away from me had I not been prepared. I still held her there, to -show I was. "As I've told you, however, it doesn't matter." - -"Because you've made up your mind? But to what?" - -"To everything." - -"And what do you call 'everything'?" - -"Why, sending for their uncle." - -"Oh, miss, in pity do," my friend broke out. "ah, but I will, I WILL! I -see it's the only way. What's 'out,' as I told you, with Miles is that -if he thinks I'm afraid to--and has ideas of what he gains by that--he -shall see he's mistaken. Yes, yes; his uncle shall have it here from me -on the spot (and before the boy himself, if necessary) that if I'm to be -reproached with having done nothing again about more school--" - -"Yes, miss--" my companion pressed me. - -"Well, there's that awful reason." - -There were now clearly so many of these for my poor colleague that she -was excusable for being vague. "But--a--which?" - -"Why, the letter from his old place." - -"You'll show it to the master?" - -"I ought to have done so on the instant." - -"Oh, no!" said Mrs. Grose with decision. - -"I'll put it before him," I went on inexorably, "that I can't undertake -to work the question on behalf of a child who has been expelled--" - -"For we've never in the least known what!" Mrs. Grose declared. - -"For wickedness. For what else--when he's so clever and beautiful and -perfect? Is he stupid? Is he untidy? Is he infirm? Is he ill-natured? -He's exquisite--so it can be only THAT; and that would open up the whole -thing. After all," I said, "it's their uncle's fault. If he left here -such people--!" - -"He didn't really in the least know them. The fault's mine." She had -turned quite pale. - -"Well, you shan't suffer," I answered. - -"The children shan't!" she emphatically returned. - -I was silent awhile; we looked at each other. "Then what am I to tell -him?" - -"You needn't tell him anything. _I_'ll tell him." - -I measured this. "Do you mean you'll write--?" Remembering she couldn't, -I caught myself up. "How do you communicate?" - -"I tell the bailiff. HE writes." - -"And should you like him to write our story?" - -My question had a sarcastic force that I had not fully intended, and -it made her, after a moment, inconsequently break down. The tears were -again in her eyes. "Ah, miss, YOU write!" - -"Well--tonight," I at last answered; and on this we separated. - - - - -XVII - - -I went so far, in the evening, as to make a beginning. The weather had -changed back, a great wind was abroad, and beneath the lamp, in my room, -with Flora at peace beside me, I sat for a long time before a blank -sheet of paper and listened to the lash of the rain and the batter of -the gusts. Finally I went out, taking a candle; I crossed the passage -and listened a minute at Miles's door. What, under my endless obsession, -I had been impelled to listen for was some betrayal of his not being at -rest, and I presently caught one, but not in the form I had expected. -His voice tinkled out. "I say, you there--come in." It was a gaiety in -the gloom! - -I went in with my light and found him, in bed, very wide awake, but very -much at his ease. "Well, what are YOU up to?" he asked with a grace of -sociability in which it occurred to me that Mrs. Grose, had she been -present, might have looked in vain for proof that anything was "out." - -I stood over him with my candle. "How did you know I was there?" - -"Why, of course I heard you. Did you fancy you made no noise? You're -like a troop of cavalry!" he beautifully laughed. - -"Then you weren't asleep?" - -"Not much! I lie awake and think." - -I had put my candle, designedly, a short way off, and then, as he held -out his friendly old hand to me, had sat down on the edge of his bed. -"What is it," I asked, "that you think of?" - -"What in the world, my dear, but YOU?" - -"Ah, the pride I take in your appreciation doesn't insist on that! I had -so far rather you slept." - -"Well, I think also, you know, of this queer business of ours." - -I marked the coolness of his firm little hand. "Of what queer business, -Miles?" - -"Why, the way you bring me up. And all the rest!" - -I fairly held my breath a minute, and even from my glimmering taper -there was light enough to show how he smiled up at me from his pillow. -"What do you mean by all the rest?" - -"Oh, you know, you know!" - -I could say nothing for a minute, though I felt, as I held his hand and -our eyes continued to meet, that my silence had all the air of admitting -his charge and that nothing in the whole world of reality was perhaps at -that moment so fabulous as our actual relation. "Certainly you shall go -back to school," I said, "if it be that that troubles you. But not to -the old place--we must find another, a better. How could I know it did -trouble you, this question, when you never told me so, never spoke of it -at all?" His clear, listening face, framed in its smooth whiteness, made -him for the minute as appealing as some wistful patient in a children's -hospital; and I would have given, as the resemblance came to me, all I -possessed on earth really to be the nurse or the sister of charity who -might have helped to cure him. Well, even as it was, I perhaps might -help! "Do you know you've never said a word to me about your school--I -mean the old one; never mentioned it in any way?" - -He seemed to wonder; he smiled with the same loveliness. But he clearly -gained time; he waited, he called for guidance. "Haven't I?" It wasn't -for ME to help him--it was for the thing I had met! - -Something in his tone and the expression of his face, as I got this from -him, set my heart aching with such a pang as it had never yet known; -so unutterably touching was it to see his little brain puzzled and his -little resources taxed to play, under the spell laid on him, a part -of innocence and consistency. "No, never--from the hour you came back. -You've never mentioned to me one of your masters, one of your comrades, -nor the least little thing that ever happened to you at school. Never, -little Miles--no, never--have you given me an inkling of anything that -MAY have happened there. Therefore you can fancy how much I'm in the -dark. Until you came out, that way, this morning, you had, since the -first hour I saw you, scarce even made a reference to anything in your -previous life. You seemed so perfectly to accept the present." It was -extraordinary how my absolute conviction of his secret precocity (or -whatever I might call the poison of an influence that I dared but half -to phrase) made him, in spite of the faint breath of his inward trouble, -appear as accessible as an older person--imposed him almost as an -intellectual equal. "I thought you wanted to go on as you are." - -It struck me that at this he just faintly colored. He gave, at any rate, -like a convalescent slightly fatigued, a languid shake of his head. "I -don't--I don't. I want to get away." - -"You're tired of Bly?" - -"Oh, no, I like Bly." - -"Well, then--?" - -"Oh, YOU know what a boy wants!" - -I felt that I didn't know so well as Miles, and I took temporary refuge. -"You want to go to your uncle?" - -Again, at this, with his sweet ironic face, he made a movement on the -pillow. "Ah, you can't get off with that!" - -I was silent a little, and it was I, now, I think, who changed color. -"My dear, I don't want to get off!" - -"You can't, even if you do. You can't, you can't!"--he lay beautifully -staring. "My uncle must come down, and you must completely settle -things." - -"If we do," I returned with some spirit, "you may be sure it will be to -take you quite away." - -"Well, don't you understand that that's exactly what I'm working for? -You'll have to tell him--about the way you've let it all drop: you'll -have to tell him a tremendous lot!" - -The exultation with which he uttered this helped me somehow, for the -instant, to meet him rather more. "And how much will YOU, Miles, have to -tell him? There are things he'll ask you!" - -He turned it over. "Very likely. But what things?" - -"The things you've never told me. To make up his mind what to do with -you. He can't send you back--" - -"Oh, I don't want to go back!" he broke in. "I want a new field." - -He said it with admirable serenity, with positive unimpeachable -gaiety; and doubtless it was that very note that most evoked for me the -poignancy, the unnatural childish tragedy, of his probable reappearance -at the end of three months with all this bravado and still more -dishonor. It overwhelmed me now that I should never be able to bear -that, and it made me let myself go. I threw myself upon him and in the -tenderness of my pity I embraced him. "Dear little Miles, dear little -Miles--!" - -My face was close to his, and he let me kiss him, simply taking it with -indulgent good humor. "Well, old lady?" - -"Is there nothing--nothing at all that you want to tell me?" - -He turned off a little, facing round toward the wall and holding up his -hand to look at as one had seen sick children look. "I've told you--I -told you this morning." - -Oh, I was sorry for him! "That you just want me not to worry you?" - -He looked round at me now, as if in recognition of my understanding him; -then ever so gently, "To let me alone," he replied. - -There was even a singular little dignity in it, something that made me -release him, yet, when I had slowly risen, linger beside him. God knows -I never wished to harass him, but I felt that merely, at this, to turn -my back on him was to abandon or, to put it more truly, to lose him. -"I've just begun a letter to your uncle," I said. - -"Well, then, finish it!" - -I waited a minute. "What happened before?" - -He gazed up at me again. "Before what?" - -"Before you came back. And before you went away." - -For some time he was silent, but he continued to meet my eyes. "What -happened?" - -It made me, the sound of the words, in which it seemed to me that -I caught for the very first time a small faint quaver of consenting -consciousness--it made me drop on my knees beside the bed and seize -once more the chance of possessing him. "Dear little Miles, dear little -Miles, if you KNEW how I want to help you! It's only that, it's nothing -but that, and I'd rather die than give you a pain or do you a wrong--I'd -rather die than hurt a hair of you. Dear little Miles"--oh, I brought it -out now even if I SHOULD go too far--"I just want you to help me to save -you!" But I knew in a moment after this that I had gone too far. The -answer to my appeal was instantaneous, but it came in the form of an -extraordinary blast and chill, a gust of frozen air, and a shake of the -room as great as if, in the wild wind, the casement had crashed in. The -boy gave a loud, high shriek, which, lost in the rest of the shock of -sound, might have seemed, indistinctly, though I was so close to him, -a note either of jubilation or of terror. I jumped to my feet again and -was conscious of darkness. So for a moment we remained, while I stared -about me and saw that the drawn curtains were unstirred and the window -tight. "Why, the candle's out!" I then cried. - -"It was I who blew it, dear!" said Miles. - - - - -XVIII - - -The next day, after lessons, Mrs. Grose found a moment to say to me -quietly: "Have you written, miss?" - -"Yes--I've written." But I didn't add--for the hour--that my letter, -sealed and directed, was still in my pocket. There would be time enough -to send it before the messenger should go to the village. Meanwhile -there had been, on the part of my pupils, no more brilliant, more -exemplary morning. It was exactly as if they had both had at heart to -gloss over any recent little friction. They performed the dizziest feats -of arithmetic, soaring quite out of MY feeble range, and perpetrated, -in higher spirits than ever, geographical and historical jokes. It was -conspicuous of course in Miles in particular that he appeared to wish to -show how easily he could let me down. This child, to my memory, really -lives in a setting of beauty and misery that no words can translate; -there was a distinction all his own in every impulse he revealed; never -was a small natural creature, to the uninitiated eye all frankness and -freedom, a more ingenious, a more extraordinary little gentleman. I had -perpetually to guard against the wonder of contemplation into which my -initiated view betrayed me; to check the irrelevant gaze and discouraged -sigh in which I constantly both attacked and renounced the enigma of -what such a little gentleman could have done that deserved a penalty. -Say that, by the dark prodigy I knew, the imagination of all evil HAD -been opened up to him: all the justice within me ached for the proof -that it could ever have flowered into an act. - -He had never, at any rate, been such a little gentleman as when, after -our early dinner on this dreadful day, he came round to me and asked if -I shouldn't like him, for half an hour, to play to me. David playing -to Saul could never have shown a finer sense of the occasion. It was -literally a charming exhibition of tact, of magnanimity, and quite -tantamount to his saying outright: "The true knights we love to read -about never push an advantage too far. I know what you mean now: you -mean that--to be let alone yourself and not followed up--you'll cease to -worry and spy upon me, won't keep me so close to you, will let me go -and come. Well, I 'come,' you see--but I don't go! There'll be plenty of -time for that. I do really delight in your society, and I only want to -show you that I contended for a principle." It may be imagined whether I -resisted this appeal or failed to accompany him again, hand in hand, to -the schoolroom. He sat down at the old piano and played as he had never -played; and if there are those who think he had better have been kicking -a football I can only say that I wholly agree with them. For at the -end of a time that under his influence I had quite ceased to measure, I -started up with a strange sense of having literally slept at my post. It -was after luncheon, and by the schoolroom fire, and yet I hadn't -really, in the least, slept: I had only done something much worse--I had -forgotten. Where, all this time, was Flora? When I put the question to -Miles, he played on a minute before answering and then could only say: -"Why, my dear, how do _I_ know?"--breaking moreover into a happy laugh -which, immediately after, as if it were a vocal accompaniment, he -prolonged into incoherent, extravagant song. - -I went straight to my room, but his sister was not there; then, before -going downstairs, I looked into several others. As she was nowhere -about she would surely be with Mrs. Grose, whom, in the comfort of that -theory, I accordingly proceeded in quest of. I found her where I had -found her the evening before, but she met my quick challenge with blank, -scared ignorance. She had only supposed that, after the repast, I had -carried off both the children; as to which she was quite in her right, -for it was the very first time I had allowed the little girl out of my -sight without some special provision. Of course now indeed she might be -with the maids, so that the immediate thing was to look for her without -an air of alarm. This we promptly arranged between us; but when, ten -minutes later and in pursuance of our arrangement, we met in the hall, -it was only to report on either side that after guarded inquiries we -had altogether failed to trace her. For a minute there, apart from -observation, we exchanged mute alarms, and I could feel with what high -interest my friend returned me all those I had from the first given her. - -"She'll be above," she presently said--"in one of the rooms you haven't -searched." - -"No; she's at a distance." I had made up my mind. "She has gone out." - -Mrs. Grose stared. "Without a hat?" - -I naturally also looked volumes. "Isn't that woman always without one?" - -"She's with HER?" - -"She's with HER!" I declared. "We must find them." - -My hand was on my friend's arm, but she failed for the moment, -confronted with such an account of the matter, to respond to my -pressure. She communed, on the contrary, on the spot, with her -uneasiness. "And where's Master Miles?" - -"Oh, HE'S with Quint. They're in the schoolroom." - -"Lord, miss!" My view, I was myself aware--and therefore I suppose my -tone--had never yet reached so calm an assurance. - -"The trick's played," I went on; "they've successfully worked their -plan. He found the most divine little way to keep me quiet while she -went off." - -"'Divine'?" Mrs. Grose bewilderedly echoed. - -"Infernal, then!" I almost cheerfully rejoined. "He has provided for -himself as well. But come!" - -She had helplessly gloomed at the upper regions. "You leave him--?" - -"So long with Quint? Yes--I don't mind that now." - -She always ended, at these moments, by getting possession of my hand, -and in this manner she could at present still stay me. But after gasping -an instant at my sudden resignation, "Because of your letter?" she -eagerly brought out. - -I quickly, by way of answer, felt for my letter, drew it forth, held it -up, and then, freeing myself, went and laid it on the great hall table. -"Luke will take it," I said as I came back. I reached the house door and -opened it; I was already on the steps. - -My companion still demurred: the storm of the night and the early -morning had dropped, but the afternoon was damp and gray. I came down to -the drive while she stood in the doorway. "You go with nothing on?" - -"What do I care when the child has nothing? I can't wait to dress," I -cried, "and if you must do so, I leave you. Try meanwhile, yourself, -upstairs." - -"With THEM?" Oh, on this, the poor woman promptly joined me! - - - - -XIX - - -We went straight to the lake, as it was called at Bly, and I daresay -rightly called, though I reflect that it may in fact have been a sheet -of water less remarkable than it appeared to my untraveled eyes. My -acquaintance with sheets of water was small, and the pool of Bly, at all -events on the few occasions of my consenting, under the protection of -my pupils, to affront its surface in the old flat-bottomed boat moored -there for our use, had impressed me both with its extent and its -agitation. The usual place of embarkation was half a mile from the -house, but I had an intimate conviction that, wherever Flora might -be, she was not near home. She had not given me the slip for any small -adventure, and, since the day of the very great one that I had shared -with her by the pond, I had been aware, in our walks, of the quarter to -which she most inclined. This was why I had now given to Mrs. Grose's -steps so marked a direction--a direction that made her, when she -perceived it, oppose a resistance that showed me she was freshly -mystified. "You're going to the water, Miss?--you think she's IN--?" - -"She may be, though the depth is, I believe, nowhere very great. But -what I judge most likely is that she's on the spot from which, the other -day, we saw together what I told you." - -"When she pretended not to see--?" - -"With that astounding self-possession? I've always been sure she wanted -to go back alone. And now her brother has managed it for her." - -Mrs. Grose still stood where she had stopped. "You suppose they really -TALK of them?" - -"I could meet this with a confidence! They say things that, if we heard -them, would simply appall us." - -"And if she IS there--" - -"Yes?" - -"Then Miss Jessel is?" - -"Beyond a doubt. You shall see." - -"Oh, thank you!" my friend cried, planted so firm that, taking it in, I -went straight on without her. By the time I reached the pool, however, -she was close behind me, and I knew that, whatever, to her apprehension, -might befall me, the exposure of my society struck her as her least -danger. She exhaled a moan of relief as we at last came in sight of the -greater part of the water without a sight of the child. There was no -trace of Flora on that nearer side of the bank where my observation of -her had been most startling, and none on the opposite edge, where, save -for a margin of some twenty yards, a thick copse came down to the water. -The pond, oblong in shape, had a width so scant compared to its length -that, with its ends out of view, it might have been taken for a scant -river. We looked at the empty expanse, and then I felt the suggestion -of my friend's eyes. I knew what she meant and I replied with a negative -headshake. - -"No, no; wait! She has taken the boat." - -My companion stared at the vacant mooring place and then again across -the lake. "Then where is it?" - -"Our not seeing it is the strongest of proofs. She has used it to go -over, and then has managed to hide it." - -"All alone--that child?" - -"She's not alone, and at such times she's not a child: she's an old, -old woman." I scanned all the visible shore while Mrs. Grose took again, -into the queer element I offered her, one of her plunges of submission; -then I pointed out that the boat might perfectly be in a small refuge -formed by one of the recesses of the pool, an indentation masked, for -the hither side, by a projection of the bank and by a clump of trees -growing close to the water. - -"But if the boat's there, where on earth's SHE?" my colleague anxiously -asked. - -"That's exactly what we must learn." And I started to walk further. - -"By going all the way round?" - -"Certainly, far as it is. It will take us but ten minutes, but it's -far enough to have made the child prefer not to walk. She went straight -over." - -"Laws!" cried my friend again; the chain of my logic was ever too -much for her. It dragged her at my heels even now, and when we had got -halfway round--a devious, tiresome process, on ground much broken and by -a path choked with overgrowth--I paused to give her breath. I sustained -her with a grateful arm, assuring her that she might hugely help me; and -this started us afresh, so that in the course of but few minutes more we -reached a point from which we found the boat to be where I had supposed -it. It had been intentionally left as much as possible out of sight and -was tied to one of the stakes of a fence that came, just there, down to -the brink and that had been an assistance to disembarking. I recognized, -as I looked at the pair of short, thick oars, quite safely drawn up, the -prodigious character of the feat for a little girl; but I had lived, by -this time, too long among wonders and had panted to too many livelier -measures. There was a gate in the fence, through which we passed, and -that brought us, after a trifling interval, more into the open. Then, -"There she is!" we both exclaimed at once. - -Flora, a short way off, stood before us on the grass and smiled as if -her performance was now complete. The next thing she did, however, was -to stoop straight down and pluck--quite as if it were all she was there -for--a big, ugly spray of withered fern. I instantly became sure she -had just come out of the copse. She waited for us, not herself taking a -step, and I was conscious of the rare solemnity with which we presently -approached her. She smiled and smiled, and we met; but it was all done -in a silence by this time flagrantly ominous. Mrs. Grose was the first -to break the spell: she threw herself on her knees and, drawing the -child to her breast, clasped in a long embrace the little tender, -yielding body. While this dumb convulsion lasted I could only watch -it--which I did the more intently when I saw Flora's face peep at me -over our companion's shoulder. It was serious now--the flicker had left -it; but it strengthened the pang with which I at that moment envied Mrs. -Grose the simplicity of HER relation. Still, all this while, nothing -more passed between us save that Flora had let her foolish fern again -drop to the ground. What she and I had virtually said to each other was -that pretexts were useless now. When Mrs. Grose finally got up she kept -the child's hand, so that the two were still before me; and the singular -reticence of our communion was even more marked in the frank look she -launched me. "I'll be hanged," it said, "if _I_'ll speak!" - -It was Flora who, gazing all over me in candid wonder, was the first. -She was struck with our bareheaded aspect. "Why, where are your things?" - -"Where yours are, my dear!" I promptly returned. - -She had already got back her gaiety, and appeared to take this as an -answer quite sufficient. "And where's Miles?" she went on. - -There was something in the small valor of it that quite finished me: -these three words from her were, in a flash like the glitter of a drawn -blade, the jostle of the cup that my hand, for weeks and weeks, had -held high and full to the brim that now, even before speaking, I felt -overflow in a deluge. "I'll tell you if you'll tell ME--" I heard myself -say, then heard the tremor in which it broke. - -"Well, what?" - -Mrs. Grose's suspense blazed at me, but it was too late now, and I -brought the thing out handsomely. "Where, my pet, is Miss Jessel?" - - - - -XX - - -Just as in the churchyard with Miles, the whole thing was upon us. Much -as I had made of the fact that this name had never once, between us, -been sounded, the quick, smitten glare with which the child's face now -received it fairly likened my breach of the silence to the smash of a -pane of glass. It added to the interposing cry, as if to stay the blow, -that Mrs. Grose, at the same instant, uttered over my violence--the -shriek of a creature scared, or rather wounded, which, in turn, within a -few seconds, was completed by a gasp of my own. I seized my colleague's -arm. "She's there, she's there!" - -Miss Jessel stood before us on the opposite bank exactly as she had -stood the other time, and I remember, strangely, as the first feeling -now produced in me, my thrill of joy at having brought on a proof. She -was there, and I was justified; she was there, and I was neither cruel -nor mad. She was there for poor scared Mrs. Grose, but she was there -most for Flora; and no moment of my monstrous time was perhaps so -extraordinary as that in which I consciously threw out to her--with -the sense that, pale and ravenous demon as she was, she would catch and -understand it--an inarticulate message of gratitude. She rose erect on -the spot my friend and I had lately quitted, and there was not, in all -the long reach of her desire, an inch of her evil that fell short. This -first vividness of vision and emotion were things of a few seconds, -during which Mrs. Grose's dazed blink across to where I pointed struck -me as a sovereign sign that she too at last saw, just as it carried my -own eyes precipitately to the child. The revelation then of the manner -in which Flora was affected startled me, in truth, far more than it -would have done to find her also merely agitated, for direct dismay -was of course not what I had expected. Prepared and on her guard as our -pursuit had actually made her, she would repress every betrayal; and I -was therefore shaken, on the spot, by my first glimpse of the particular -one for which I had not allowed. To see her, without a convulsion of -her small pink face, not even feign to glance in the direction of the -prodigy I announced, but only, instead of that, turn at ME an expression -of hard, still gravity, an expression absolutely new and unprecedented -and that appeared to read and accuse and judge me--this was a stroke -that somehow converted the little girl herself into the very presence -that could make me quail. I quailed even though my certitude that -she thoroughly saw was never greater than at that instant, and in the -immediate need to defend myself I called it passionately to witness. -"She's there, you little unhappy thing--there, there, THERE, and you see -her as well as you see me!" I had said shortly before to Mrs. Grose -that she was not at these times a child, but an old, old woman, and that -description of her could not have been more strikingly confirmed than in -the way in which, for all answer to this, she simply showed me, without -a concession, an admission, of her eyes, a countenance of deeper and -deeper, of indeed suddenly quite fixed, reprobation. I was by this -time--if I can put the whole thing at all together--more appalled at -what I may properly call her manner than at anything else, though it was -simultaneously with this that I became aware of having Mrs. Grose -also, and very formidably, to reckon with. My elder companion, the next -moment, at any rate, blotted out everything but her own flushed face and -her loud, shocked protest, a burst of high disapproval. "What a dreadful -turn, to be sure, miss! Where on earth do you see anything?" - -I could only grasp her more quickly yet, for even while she spoke the -hideous plain presence stood undimmed and undaunted. It had already -lasted a minute, and it lasted while I continued, seizing my colleague, -quite thrusting her at it and presenting her to it, to insist with my -pointing hand. "You don't see her exactly as WE see?--you mean to say -you don't now--NOW? She's as big as a blazing fire! Only look, dearest -woman, LOOK--!" She looked, even as I did, and gave me, with her deep -groan of negation, repulsion, compassion--the mixture with her pity of -her relief at her exemption--a sense, touching to me even then, that she -would have backed me up if she could. I might well have needed that, for -with this hard blow of the proof that her eyes were hopelessly sealed -I felt my own situation horribly crumble, I felt--I saw--my livid -predecessor press, from her position, on my defeat, and I was conscious, -more than all, of what I should have from this instant to deal with in -the astounding little attitude of Flora. Into this attitude Mrs. Grose -immediately and violently entered, breaking, even while there pierced -through my sense of ruin a prodigious private triumph, into breathless -reassurance. - -"She isn't there, little lady, and nobody's there--and you never see -nothing, my sweet! How can poor Miss Jessel--when poor Miss Jessel's -dead and buried? WE know, don't we, love?"--and she appealed, blundering -in, to the child. "It's all a mere mistake and a worry and a joke--and -we'll go home as fast as we can!" - -Our companion, on this, had responded with a strange, quick primness of -propriety, and they were again, with Mrs. Grose on her feet, united, as -it were, in pained opposition to me. Flora continued to fix me with -her small mask of reprobation, and even at that minute I prayed God to -forgive me for seeming to see that, as she stood there holding tight -to our friend's dress, her incomparable childish beauty had suddenly -failed, had quite vanished. I've said it already--she was literally, -she was hideously, hard; she had turned common and almost ugly. "I don't -know what you mean. I see nobody. I see nothing. I never HAVE. I think -you're cruel. I don't like you!" Then, after this deliverance, which -might have been that of a vulgarly pert little girl in the street, she -hugged Mrs. Grose more closely and buried in her skirts the dreadful -little face. In this position she produced an almost furious wail. "Take -me away, take me away--oh, take me away from HER!" - -"From ME?" I panted. - -"From you--from you!" she cried. - -Even Mrs. Grose looked across at me dismayed, while I had nothing to -do but communicate again with the figure that, on the opposite bank, -without a movement, as rigidly still as if catching, beyond the -interval, our voices, was as vividly there for my disaster as it was not -there for my service. The wretched child had spoken exactly as if she -had got from some outside source each of her stabbing little words, and -I could therefore, in the full despair of all I had to accept, but sadly -shake my head at her. "If I had ever doubted, all my doubt would at -present have gone. I've been living with the miserable truth, and now -it has only too much closed round me. Of course I've lost you: I've -interfered, and you've seen--under HER dictation"--with which I faced, -over the pool again, our infernal witness--"the easy and perfect way to -meet it. I've done my best, but I've lost you. Goodbye." For Mrs. -Grose I had an imperative, an almost frantic "Go, go!" before which, in -infinite distress, but mutely possessed of the little girl and clearly -convinced, in spite of her blindness, that something awful had occurred -and some collapse engulfed us, she retreated, by the way we had come, as -fast as she could move. - -Of what first happened when I was left alone I had no subsequent memory. -I only knew that at the end of, I suppose, a quarter of an hour, an -odorous dampness and roughness, chilling and piercing my trouble, had -made me understand that I must have thrown myself, on my face, on the -ground and given way to a wildness of grief. I must have lain there long -and cried and sobbed, for when I raised my head the day was almost done. -I got up and looked a moment, through the twilight, at the gray pool and -its blank, haunted edge, and then I took, back to the house, my dreary -and difficult course. When I reached the gate in the fence the boat, -to my surprise, was gone, so that I had a fresh reflection to make on -Flora's extraordinary command of the situation. She passed that night, -by the most tacit, and I should add, were not the word so grotesque a -false note, the happiest of arrangements, with Mrs. Grose. I saw -neither of them on my return, but, on the other hand, as by an ambiguous -compensation, I saw a great deal of Miles. I saw--I can use no other -phrase--so much of him that it was as if it were more than it had ever -been. No evening I had passed at Bly had the portentous quality of -this one; in spite of which--and in spite also of the deeper depths of -consternation that had opened beneath my feet--there was literally, in -the ebbing actual, an extraordinarily sweet sadness. On reaching the -house I had never so much as looked for the boy; I had simply gone -straight to my room to change what I was wearing and to take in, at -a glance, much material testimony to Flora's rupture. Her little -belongings had all been removed. When later, by the schoolroom fire, I -was served with tea by the usual maid, I indulged, on the article of my -other pupil, in no inquiry whatever. He had his freedom now--he might -have it to the end! Well, he did have it; and it consisted--in part at -least--of his coming in at about eight o'clock and sitting down with me -in silence. On the removal of the tea things I had blown out the candles -and drawn my chair closer: I was conscious of a mortal coldness and felt -as if I should never again be warm. So, when he appeared, I was sitting -in the glow with my thoughts. He paused a moment by the door as if to -look at me; then--as if to share them--came to the other side of the -hearth and sank into a chair. We sat there in absolute stillness; yet he -wanted, I felt, to be with me. - - - - -XXI - - -Before a new day, in my room, had fully broken, my eyes opened to Mrs. -Grose, who had come to my bedside with worse news. Flora was so markedly -feverish that an illness was perhaps at hand; she had passed a night of -extreme unrest, a night agitated above all by fears that had for their -subject not in the least her former, but wholly her present, governess. -It was not against the possible re-entrance of Miss Jessel on the scene -that she protested--it was conspicuously and passionately against mine. -I was promptly on my feet of course, and with an immense deal to ask; -the more that my friend had discernibly now girded her loins to meet me -once more. This I felt as soon as I had put to her the question of -her sense of the child's sincerity as against my own. "She persists in -denying to you that she saw, or has ever seen, anything?" - -My visitor's trouble, truly, was great. "Ah, miss, it isn't a matter -on which I can push her! Yet it isn't either, I must say, as if I much -needed to. It has made her, every inch of her, quite old." - -"Oh, I see her perfectly from here. She resents, for all the world like -some high little personage, the imputation on her truthfulness and, -as it were, her respectability. 'Miss Jessel indeed--SHE!' Ah, she's -'respectable,' the chit! The impression she gave me there yesterday was, -I assure you, the very strangest of all; it was quite beyond any of the -others. I DID put my foot in it! She'll never speak to me again." - -Hideous and obscure as it all was, it held Mrs. Grose briefly silent; -then she granted my point with a frankness which, I made sure, had more -behind it. "I think indeed, miss, she never will. She do have a grand -manner about it!" - -"And that manner"--I summed it up--"is practically what's the matter -with her now!" - -Oh, that manner, I could see in my visitor's face, and not a little else -besides! "She asks me every three minutes if I think you're coming in." - -"I see--I see." I, too, on my side, had so much more than worked it -out. "Has she said to you since yesterday--except to repudiate her -familiarity with anything so dreadful--a single other word about Miss -Jessel?" - -"Not one, miss. And of course you know," my friend added, "I took it -from her, by the lake, that, just then and there at least, there WAS -nobody." - -"Rather! and, naturally, you take it from her still." - -"I don't contradict her. What else can I do?" - -"Nothing in the world! You've the cleverest little person to deal with. -They've made them--their two friends, I mean--still cleverer even than -nature did; for it was wondrous material to play on! Flora has now her -grievance, and she'll work it to the end." - -"Yes, miss; but to WHAT end?" - -"Why, that of dealing with me to her uncle. She'll make me out to him -the lowest creature--!" - -I winced at the fair show of the scene in Mrs. Grose's face; she looked -for a minute as if she sharply saw them together. "And him who thinks so -well of you!" - -"He has an odd way--it comes over me now," I laughed,"--of proving it! -But that doesn't matter. What Flora wants, of course, is to get rid of -me." - -My companion bravely concurred. "Never again to so much as look at you." - -"So that what you've come to me now for," I asked, "is to speed me on my -way?" Before she had time to reply, however, I had her in check. "I've a -better idea--the result of my reflections. My going WOULD seem the right -thing, and on Sunday I was terribly near it. Yet that won't do. It's YOU -who must go. You must take Flora." - -My visitor, at this, did speculate. "But where in the world--?" - -"Away from here. Away from THEM. Away, even most of all, now, from me. -Straight to her uncle." - -"Only to tell on you--?" - -"No, not 'only'! To leave me, in addition, with my remedy." - -She was still vague. "And what IS your remedy?" - -"Your loyalty, to begin with. And then Miles's." - -She looked at me hard. "Do you think he--?" - -"Won't, if he has the chance, turn on me? Yes, I venture still to think -it. At all events, I want to try. Get off with his sister as soon as -possible and leave me with him alone." I was amazed, myself, at the -spirit I had still in reserve, and therefore perhaps a trifle the more -disconcerted at the way in which, in spite of this fine example of it, -she hesitated. "There's one thing, of course," I went on: "they mustn't, -before she goes, see each other for three seconds." Then it came over me -that, in spite of Flora's presumable sequestration from the instant of -her return from the pool, it might already be too late. "Do you mean," I -anxiously asked, "that they HAVE met?" - -At this she quite flushed. "Ah, miss, I'm not such a fool as that! If -I've been obliged to leave her three or four times, it has been each -time with one of the maids, and at present, though she's alone, she's -locked in safe. And yet--and yet!" There were too many things. - -"And yet what?" - -"Well, are you so sure of the little gentleman?" - -"I'm not sure of anything but YOU. But I have, since last evening, a new -hope. I think he wants to give me an opening. I do believe that--poor -little exquisite wretch!--he wants to speak. Last evening, in the -firelight and the silence, he sat with me for two hours as if it were -just coming." - -Mrs. Grose looked hard, through the window, at the gray, gathering day. -"And did it come?" - -"No, though I waited and waited, I confess it didn't, and it was without -a breach of the silence or so much as a faint allusion to his sister's -condition and absence that we at last kissed for good night. All the -same," I continued, "I can't, if her uncle sees her, consent to his -seeing her brother without my having given the boy--and most of all -because things have got so bad--a little more time." - -My friend appeared on this ground more reluctant than I could quite -understand. "What do you mean by more time?" - -"Well, a day or two--really to bring it out. He'll then be on MY -side--of which you see the importance. If nothing comes, I shall only -fail, and you will, at the worst, have helped me by doing, on your -arrival in town, whatever you may have found possible." So I put it -before her, but she continued for a little so inscrutably embarrassed -that I came again to her aid. "Unless, indeed," I wound up, "you really -want NOT to go." - -I could see it, in her face, at last clear itself; she put out her hand -to me as a pledge. "I'll go--I'll go. I'll go this morning." - -I wanted to be very just. "If you SHOULD wish still to wait, I would -engage she shouldn't see me." - -"No, no: it's the place itself. She must leave it." She held me a moment -with heavy eyes, then brought out the rest. "Your idea's the right one. -I myself, miss--" - -"Well?" - -"I can't stay." - -The look she gave me with it made me jump at possibilities. "You mean -that, since yesterday, you HAVE seen--?" - -She shook her head with dignity. "I've HEARD--!" - -"Heard?" - -"From that child--horrors! There!" she sighed with tragic relief. "On my -honor, miss, she says things--!" But at this evocation she broke down; -she dropped, with a sudden sob, upon my sofa and, as I had seen her do -before, gave way to all the grief of it. - -It was quite in another manner that I, for my part, let myself go. "Oh, -thank God!" - -She sprang up again at this, drying her eyes with a groan. "'Thank -God'?" - -"It so justifies me!" - -"It does that, miss!" - -I couldn't have desired more emphasis, but I just hesitated. "She's so -horrible?" - -I saw my colleague scarce knew how to put it. "Really shocking." - -"And about me?" - -"About you, miss--since you must have it. It's beyond everything, for a -young lady; and I can't think wherever she must have picked up--" - -"The appalling language she applied to me? I can, then!" I broke in with -a laugh that was doubtless significant enough. - -It only, in truth, left my friend still more grave. "Well, perhaps I -ought to also--since I've heard some of it before! Yet I can't bear it," -the poor woman went on while, with the same movement, she glanced, on my -dressing table, at the face of my watch. "But I must go back." - -I kept her, however. "Ah, if you can't bear it--!" - -"How can I stop with her, you mean? Why, just FOR that: to get her away. -Far from this," she pursued, "far from THEM-" - -"She may be different? She may be free?" I seized her almost with joy. -"Then, in spite of yesterday, you BELIEVE--" - -"In such doings?" Her simple description of them required, in the light -of her expression, to be carried no further, and she gave me the whole -thing as she had never done. "I believe." - -Yes, it was a joy, and we were still shoulder to shoulder: if I might -continue sure of that I should care but little what else happened. My -support in the presence of disaster would be the same as it had been -in my early need of confidence, and if my friend would answer for my -honesty, I would answer for all the rest. On the point of taking leave -of her, nonetheless, I was to some extent embarrassed. "There's one -thing, of course--it occurs to me--to remember. My letter, giving the -alarm, will have reached town before you." - -I now perceived still more how she had been beating about the bush and -how weary at last it had made her. "Your letter won't have got there. -Your letter never went." - -"What then became of it?" - -"Goodness knows! Master Miles--" - -"Do you mean HE took it?" I gasped. - -She hung fire, but she overcame her reluctance. "I mean that I saw -yesterday, when I came back with Miss Flora, that it wasn't where you -had put it. Later in the evening I had the chance to question Luke, and -he declared that he had neither noticed nor touched it." We could only -exchange, on this, one of our deeper mutual soundings, and it was Mrs. -Grose who first brought up the plumb with an almost elated "You see!" - -"Yes, I see that if Miles took it instead he probably will have read it -and destroyed it." - -"And don't you see anything else?" - -I faced her a moment with a sad smile. "It strikes me that by this time -your eyes are open even wider than mine." - -They proved to be so indeed, but she could still blush, almost, to show -it. "I make out now what he must have done at school." And she gave, in -her simple sharpness, an almost droll disillusioned nod. "He stole!" - -I turned it over--I tried to be more judicial. "Well--perhaps." - -She looked as if she found me unexpectedly calm. "He stole LETTERS!" - -She couldn't know my reasons for a calmness after all pretty shallow; so -I showed them off as I might. "I hope then it was to more purpose than -in this case! The note, at any rate, that I put on the table yesterday," -I pursued, "will have given him so scant an advantage--for it contained -only the bare demand for an interview--that he is already much ashamed -of having gone so far for so little, and that what he had on his mind -last evening was precisely the need of confession." I seemed to myself, -for the instant, to have mastered it, to see it all. "Leave us, leave -us"--I was already, at the door, hurrying her off. "I'll get it out of -him. He'll meet me--he'll confess. If he confesses, he's saved. And if -he's saved--" - -"Then YOU are?" The dear woman kissed me on this, and I took her -farewell. "I'll save you without him!" she cried as she went. - - - - -XXII - - -Yet it was when she had got off--and I missed her on the spot--that the -great pinch really came. If I had counted on what it would give me to -find myself alone with Miles, I speedily perceived, at least, that it -would give me a measure. No hour of my stay in fact was so assailed -with apprehensions as that of my coming down to learn that the carriage -containing Mrs. Grose and my younger pupil had already rolled out of the -gates. Now I WAS, I said to myself, face to face with the elements, and -for much of the rest of the day, while I fought my weakness, I could -consider that I had been supremely rash. It was a tighter place still -than I had yet turned round in; all the more that, for the first time, -I could see in the aspect of others a confused reflection of the crisis. -What had happened naturally caused them all to stare; there was too -little of the explained, throw out whatever we might, in the suddenness -of my colleague's act. The maids and the men looked blank; the effect -of which on my nerves was an aggravation until I saw the necessity of -making it a positive aid. It was precisely, in short, by just clutching -the helm that I avoided total wreck; and I dare say that, to bear up -at all, I became, that morning, very grand and very dry. I welcomed the -consciousness that I was charged with much to do, and I caused it to be -known as well that, left thus to myself, I was quite remarkably firm. I -wandered with that manner, for the next hour or two, all over the place -and looked, I have no doubt, as if I were ready for any onset. So, for -the benefit of whom it might concern, I paraded with a sick heart. - -The person it appeared least to concern proved to be, till dinner, -little Miles himself. My perambulations had given me, meanwhile, no -glimpse of him, but they had tended to make more public the change -taking place in our relation as a consequence of his having at the -piano, the day before, kept me, in Flora's interest, so beguiled and -befooled. The stamp of publicity had of course been fully given by her -confinement and departure, and the change itself was now ushered in -by our nonobservance of the regular custom of the schoolroom. He had -already disappeared when, on my way down, I pushed open his door, and -I learned below that he had breakfasted--in the presence of a couple of -the maids--with Mrs. Grose and his sister. He had then gone out, as he -said, for a stroll; than which nothing, I reflected, could better have -expressed his frank view of the abrupt transformation of my office. What -he would not permit this office to consist of was yet to be settled: -there was a queer relief, at all events--I mean for myself in -especial--in the renouncement of one pretension. If so much had sprung -to the surface, I scarce put it too strongly in saying that what had -perhaps sprung highest was the absurdity of our prolonging the fiction -that I had anything more to teach him. It sufficiently stuck out that, -by tacit little tricks in which even more than myself he carried out the -care for my dignity, I had had to appeal to him to let me off straining -to meet him on the ground of his true capacity. He had at any rate -his freedom now; I was never to touch it again; as I had amply shown, -moreover, when, on his joining me in the schoolroom the previous night, -I had uttered, on the subject of the interval just concluded, neither -challenge nor hint. I had too much, from this moment, my other ideas. -Yet when he at last arrived, the difficulty of applying them, the -accumulations of my problem, were brought straight home to me by the -beautiful little presence on which what had occurred had as yet, for the -eye, dropped neither stain nor shadow. - -To mark, for the house, the high state I cultivated I decreed that my -meals with the boy should be served, as we called it, downstairs; so -that I had been awaiting him in the ponderous pomp of the room outside -of the window of which I had had from Mrs. Grose, that first scared -Sunday, my flash of something it would scarce have done to call light. -Here at present I felt afresh--for I had felt it again and again--how my -equilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, the will to shut -my eyes as tight as possible to the truth that what I had to deal with -was, revoltingly, against nature. I could only get on at all by taking -"nature" into my confidence and my account, by treating my monstrous -ordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, and unpleasant, but -demanding, after all, for a fair front, only another turn of the screw -of ordinary human virtue. No attempt, nonetheless, could well require -more tact than just this attempt to supply, one's self, ALL the nature. -How could I put even a little of that article into a suppression of -reference to what had occurred? How, on the other hand, could I make -reference without a new plunge into the hideous obscure? Well, a sort -of answer, after a time, had come to me, and it was so far confirmed as -that I was met, incontestably, by the quickened vision of what was rare -in my little companion. It was indeed as if he had found even now--as he -had so often found at lessons--still some other delicate way to ease me -off. Wasn't there light in the fact which, as we shared our solitude, -broke out with a specious glitter it had never yet quite worn?--the fact -that (opportunity aiding, precious opportunity which had now come) it -would be preposterous, with a child so endowed, to forego the help one -might wrest from absolute intelligence? What had his intelligence been -given him for but to save him? Mightn't one, to reach his mind, risk the -stretch of an angular arm over his character? It was as if, when we were -face to face in the dining room, he had literally shown me the way. -The roast mutton was on the table, and I had dispensed with attendance. -Miles, before he sat down, stood a moment with his hands in his pockets -and looked at the joint, on which he seemed on the point of passing some -humorous judgment. But what he presently produced was: "I say, my dear, -is she really very awfully ill?" - -"Little Flora? Not so bad but that she'll presently be better. London -will set her up. Bly had ceased to agree with her. Come here and take -your mutton." - -He alertly obeyed me, carried the plate carefully to his seat, and, -when he was established, went on. "Did Bly disagree with her so terribly -suddenly?" - -"Not so suddenly as you might think. One had seen it coming on." - -"Then why didn't you get her off before?" - -"Before what?" - -"Before she became too ill to travel." - -I found myself prompt. "She's NOT too ill to travel: she only might -have become so if she had stayed. This was just the moment to seize. The -journey will dissipate the influence"--oh, I was grand!--"and carry it -off." - -"I see, I see"--Miles, for that matter, was grand, too. He settled to -his repast with the charming little "table manner" that, from the day of -his arrival, had relieved me of all grossness of admonition. Whatever -he had been driven from school for, it was not for ugly feeding. He -was irreproachable, as always, today; but he was unmistakably more -conscious. He was discernibly trying to take for granted more things -than he found, without assistance, quite easy; and he dropped into -peaceful silence while he felt his situation. Our meal was of the -briefest--mine a vain pretense, and I had the things immediately -removed. While this was done Miles stood again with his hands in his -little pockets and his back to me--stood and looked out of the wide -window through which, that other day, I had seen what pulled me up. We -continued silent while the maid was with us--as silent, it whimsically -occurred to me, as some young couple who, on their wedding journey, at -the inn, feel shy in the presence of the waiter. He turned round only -when the waiter had left us. "Well--so we're alone!" - - - - -XXIII - - -"Oh, more or less." I fancy my smile was pale. "Not absolutely. We -shouldn't like that!" I went on. - -"No--I suppose we shouldn't. Of course we have the others." - -"We have the others--we have indeed the others," I concurred. - -"Yet even though we have them," he returned, still with his hands in -his pockets and planted there in front of me, "they don't much count, do -they?" - -I made the best of it, but I felt wan. "It depends on what you call -'much'!" - -"Yes"--with all accommodation--"everything depends!" On this, however, -he faced to the window again and presently reached it with his vague, -restless, cogitating step. He remained there awhile, with his forehead -against the glass, in contemplation of the stupid shrubs I knew and the -dull things of November. I had always my hypocrisy of "work," behind -which, now, I gained the sofa. Steadying myself with it there as I had -repeatedly done at those moments of torment that I have described as the -moments of my knowing the children to be given to something from which -I was barred, I sufficiently obeyed my habit of being prepared for the -worst. But an extraordinary impression dropped on me as I extracted a -meaning from the boy's embarrassed back--none other than the impression -that I was not barred now. This inference grew in a few minutes to sharp -intensity and seemed bound up with the direct perception that it was -positively HE who was. The frames and squares of the great window were a -kind of image, for him, of a kind of failure. I felt that I saw him, at -any rate, shut in or shut out. He was admirable, but not comfortable: I -took it in with a throb of hope. Wasn't he looking, through the haunted -pane, for something he couldn't see?--and wasn't it the first time in -the whole business that he had known such a lapse? The first, the very -first: I found it a splendid portent. It made him anxious, though he -watched himself; he had been anxious all day and, even while in his -usual sweet little manner he sat at table, had needed all his small -strange genius to give it a gloss. When he at last turned round to meet -me, it was almost as if this genius had succumbed. "Well, I think I'm -glad Bly agrees with ME!" - -"You would certainly seem to have seen, these twenty-four hours, a good -deal more of it than for some time before. I hope," I went on bravely, -"that you've been enjoying yourself." - -"Oh, yes, I've been ever so far; all round about--miles and miles away. -I've never been so free." - -He had really a manner of his own, and I could only try to keep up with -him. "Well, do you like it?" - -He stood there smiling; then at last he put into two words--"Do -YOU?"--more discrimination than I had ever heard two words contain. -Before I had time to deal with that, however, he continued as if with -the sense that this was an impertinence to be softened. "Nothing could -be more charming than the way you take it, for of course if we're alone -together now it's you that are alone most. But I hope," he threw in, -"you don't particularly mind!" - -"Having to do with you?" I asked. "My dear child, how can I help -minding? Though I've renounced all claim to your company--you're so -beyond me--I at least greatly enjoy it. What else should I stay on for?" - -He looked at me more directly, and the expression of his face, graver -now, struck me as the most beautiful I had ever found in it. "You stay -on just for THAT?" - -"Certainly. I stay on as your friend and from the tremendous interest -I take in you till something can be done for you that may be more worth -your while. That needn't surprise you." My voice trembled so that I felt -it impossible to suppress the shake. "Don't you remember how I told you, -when I came and sat on your bed the night of the storm, that there was -nothing in the world I wouldn't do for you?" - -"Yes, yes!" He, on his side, more and more visibly nervous, had a tone -to master; but he was so much more successful than I that, laughing out -through his gravity, he could pretend we were pleasantly jesting. "Only -that, I think, was to get me to do something for YOU!" - -"It was partly to get you to do something," I conceded. "But, you know, -you didn't do it." - -"Oh, yes," he said with the brightest superficial eagerness, "you wanted -me to tell you something." - -"That's it. Out, straight out. What you have on your mind, you know." - -"Ah, then, is THAT what you've stayed over for?" - -He spoke with a gaiety through which I could still catch the finest -little quiver of resentful passion; but I can't begin to express the -effect upon me of an implication of surrender even so faint. It was as -if what I had yearned for had come at last only to astonish me. "Well, -yes--I may as well make a clean breast of it, it was precisely for -that." - -He waited so long that I supposed it for the purpose of repudiating the -assumption on which my action had been founded; but what he finally said -was: "Do you mean now--here?" - -"There couldn't be a better place or time." He looked round him -uneasily, and I had the rare--oh, the queer!--impression of the very -first symptom I had seen in him of the approach of immediate fear. -It was as if he were suddenly afraid of me--which struck me indeed as -perhaps the best thing to make him. Yet in the very pang of the effort -I felt it vain to try sternness, and I heard myself the next instant so -gentle as to be almost grotesque. "You want so to go out again?" - -"Awfully!" He smiled at me heroically, and the touching little bravery -of it was enhanced by his actually flushing with pain. He had picked up -his hat, which he had brought in, and stood twirling it in a way that -gave me, even as I was just nearly reaching port, a perverse horror of -what I was doing. To do it in ANY way was an act of violence, for what -did it consist of but the obtrusion of the idea of grossness and guilt -on a small helpless creature who had been for me a revelation of the -possibilities of beautiful intercourse? Wasn't it base to create for a -being so exquisite a mere alien awkwardness? I suppose I now read into -our situation a clearness it couldn't have had at the time, for I seem -to see our poor eyes already lighted with some spark of a prevision -of the anguish that was to come. So we circled about, with terrors and -scruples, like fighters not daring to close. But it was for each other -we feared! That kept us a little longer suspended and unbruised. "I'll -tell you everything," Miles said--"I mean I'll tell you anything you -like. You'll stay on with me, and we shall both be all right, and I WILL -tell you--I WILL. But not now." - -"Why not now?" - -My insistence turned him from me and kept him once more at his window -in a silence during which, between us, you might have heard a pin drop. -Then he was before me again with the air of a person for whom, outside, -someone who had frankly to be reckoned with was waiting. "I have to see -Luke." - -I had not yet reduced him to quite so vulgar a lie, and I felt -proportionately ashamed. But, horrible as it was, his lies made up my -truth. I achieved thoughtfully a few loops of my knitting. "Well, then, -go to Luke, and I'll wait for what you promise. Only, in return for -that, satisfy, before you leave me, one very much smaller request." - -He looked as if he felt he had succeeded enough to be able still a -little to bargain. "Very much smaller--?" - -"Yes, a mere fraction of the whole. Tell me"--oh, my work preoccupied -me, and I was offhand!--"if, yesterday afternoon, from the table in the -hall, you took, you know, my letter." - - - - -XXIV - - -My sense of how he received this suffered for a minute from something -that I can describe only as a fierce split of my attention--a stroke -that at first, as I sprang straight up, reduced me to the mere blind -movement of getting hold of him, drawing him close, and, while I just -fell for support against the nearest piece of furniture, instinctively -keeping him with his back to the window. The appearance was full upon us -that I had already had to deal with here: Peter Quint had come into view -like a sentinel before a prison. The next thing I saw was that, from -outside, he had reached the window, and then I knew that, close to the -glass and glaring in through it, he offered once more to the room his -white face of damnation. It represents but grossly what took place -within me at the sight to say that on the second my decision was made; -yet I believe that no woman so overwhelmed ever in so short a time -recovered her grasp of the ACT. It came to me in the very horror of the -immediate presence that the act would be, seeing and facing what I saw -and faced, to keep the boy himself unaware. The inspiration--I can -call it by no other name--was that I felt how voluntarily, how -transcendently, I MIGHT. It was like fighting with a demon for a -human soul, and when I had fairly so appraised it I saw how the human -soul--held out, in the tremor of my hands, at arm's length--had a -perfect dew of sweat on a lovely childish forehead. The face that was -close to mine was as white as the face against the glass, and out of it -presently came a sound, not low nor weak, but as if from much further -away, that I drank like a waft of fragrance. - -"Yes--I took it." - -At this, with a moan of joy, I enfolded, I drew him close; and while -I held him to my breast, where I could feel in the sudden fever of his -little body the tremendous pulse of his little heart, I kept my eyes on -the thing at the window and saw it move and shift its posture. I have -likened it to a sentinel, but its slow wheel, for a moment, was rather -the prowl of a baffled beast. My present quickened courage, however, was -such that, not too much to let it through, I had to shade, as it were, -my flame. Meanwhile the glare of the face was again at the window, the -scoundrel fixed as if to watch and wait. It was the very confidence that -I might now defy him, as well as the positive certitude, by this time, -of the child's unconsciousness, that made me go on. "What did you take -it for?" - -"To see what you said about me." - -"You opened the letter?" - -"I opened it." - -My eyes were now, as I held him off a little again, on Miles's own face, -in which the collapse of mockery showed me how complete was the ravage -of uneasiness. What was prodigious was that at last, by my success, his -sense was sealed and his communication stopped: he knew that he was in -presence, but knew not of what, and knew still less that I also was and -that I did know. And what did this strain of trouble matter when my eyes -went back to the window only to see that the air was clear again and--by -my personal triumph--the influence quenched? There was nothing there. I -felt that the cause was mine and that I should surely get ALL. "And you -found nothing!"--I let my elation out. - -He gave the most mournful, thoughtful little headshake. "Nothing." - -"Nothing, nothing!" I almost shouted in my joy. - -"Nothing, nothing," he sadly repeated. - -I kissed his forehead; it was drenched. "So what have you done with it?" - -"I've burned it." - -"Burned it?" It was now or never. "Is that what you did at school?" - -Oh, what this brought up! "At school?" - -"Did you take letters?--or other things?" - -"Other things?" He appeared now to be thinking of something far off and -that reached him only through the pressure of his anxiety. Yet it did -reach him. "Did I STEAL?" - -I felt myself redden to the roots of my hair as well as wonder if it -were more strange to put to a gentleman such a question or to see him -take it with allowances that gave the very distance of his fall in the -world. "Was it for that you mightn't go back?" - -The only thing he felt was rather a dreary little surprise. "Did you -know I mightn't go back?" - -"I know everything." - -He gave me at this the longest and strangest look. "Everything?" - -"Everything. Therefore DID you--?" But I couldn't say it again. - -Miles could, very simply. "No. I didn't steal." - -My face must have shown him I believed him utterly; yet my hands--but it -was for pure tenderness--shook him as if to ask him why, if it was all -for nothing, he had condemned me to months of torment. "What then did -you do?" - -He looked in vague pain all round the top of the room and drew his -breath, two or three times over, as if with difficulty. He might have -been standing at the bottom of the sea and raising his eyes to some -faint green twilight. "Well--I said things." - -"Only that?" - -"They thought it was enough!" - -"To turn you out for?" - -Never, truly, had a person "turned out" shown so little to explain it -as this little person! He appeared to weigh my question, but in a manner -quite detached and almost helpless. "Well, I suppose I oughtn't." - -"But to whom did you say them?" - -He evidently tried to remember, but it dropped--he had lost it. "I don't -know!" - -He almost smiled at me in the desolation of his surrender, which was -indeed practically, by this time, so complete that I ought to have left -it there. But I was infatuated--I was blind with victory, though even -then the very effect that was to have brought him so much nearer was -already that of added separation. "Was it to everyone?" I asked. - -"No; it was only to--" But he gave a sick little headshake. "I don't -remember their names." - -"Were they then so many?" - -"No--only a few. Those I liked." - -Those he liked? I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker -obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity -the appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent. It was for the -instant confounding and bottomless, for if he WERE innocent, what then -on earth was _I_? Paralyzed, while it lasted, by the mere brush of the -question, I let him go a little, so that, with a deep-drawn sigh, he -turned away from me again; which, as he faced toward the clear window, -I suffered, feeling that I had nothing now there to keep him from. "And -did they repeat what you said?" I went on after a moment. - -He was soon at some distance from me, still breathing hard and again -with the air, though now without anger for it, of being confined against -his will. Once more, as he had done before, he looked up at the dim -day as if, of what had hitherto sustained him, nothing was left but an -unspeakable anxiety. "Oh, yes," he nevertheless replied--"they must have -repeated them. To those THEY liked," he added. - -There was, somehow, less of it than I had expected; but I turned it -over. "And these things came round--?" - -"To the masters? Oh, yes!" he answered very simply. "But I didn't know -they'd tell." - -"The masters? They didn't--they've never told. That's why I ask you." - -He turned to me again his little beautiful fevered face. "Yes, it was -too bad." - -"Too bad?" - -"What I suppose I sometimes said. To write home." - -I can't name the exquisite pathos of the contradiction given to such -a speech by such a speaker; I only know that the next instant I heard -myself throw off with homely force: "Stuff and nonsense!" But the next -after that I must have sounded stern enough. "What WERE these things?" - -My sternness was all for his judge, his executioner; yet it made him -avert himself again, and that movement made ME, with a single bound and -an irrepressible cry, spring straight upon him. For there again, against -the glass, as if to blight his confession and stay his answer, was the -hideous author of our woe--the white face of damnation. I felt a sick -swim at the drop of my victory and all the return of my battle, so that -the wildness of my veritable leap only served as a great betrayal. I -saw him, from the midst of my act, meet it with a divination, and on the -perception that even now he only guessed, and that the window was still -to his own eyes free, I let the impulse flame up to convert the climax -of his dismay into the very proof of his liberation. "No more, no -more, no more!" I shrieked, as I tried to press him against me, to my -visitant. - -"Is she HERE?" Miles panted as he caught with his sealed eyes the -direction of my words. Then as his strange "she" staggered me and, with -a gasp, I echoed it, "Miss Jessel, Miss Jessel!" he with a sudden fury -gave me back. - -I seized, stupefied, his supposition--some sequel to what we had done to -Flora, but this made me only want to show him that it was better still -than that. "It's not Miss Jessel! But it's at the window--straight -before us. It's THERE--the coward horror, there for the last time!" - -At this, after a second in which his head made the movement of a baffled -dog's on a scent and then gave a frantic little shake for air and light, -he was at me in a white rage, bewildered, glaring vainly over the place -and missing wholly, though it now, to my sense, filled the room like the -taste of poison, the wide, overwhelming presence. "It's HE?" - -I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice to -challenge him. "Whom do you mean by 'he'?" - -"Peter Quint--you devil!" His face gave again, round the room, its -convulsed supplication. "WHERE?" - -They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his -tribute to my devotion. "What does he matter now, my own?--what will he -EVER matter? _I_ have you," I launched at the beast, "but he has lost -you forever!" Then, for the demonstration of my work, "There, THERE!" I -said to Miles. - -But he had already jerked straight round, stared, glared again, and -seen but the quiet day. With the stroke of the loss I was so proud of he -uttered the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss, and the grasp with -which I recovered him might have been that of catching him in his fall. -I caught him, yes, I held him--it may be imagined with what a passion; -but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that -I held. We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, -dispossessed, had stopped. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TURN OF THE SCREW *** - -***** This file should be named 209.txt or 209.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/209/ - -Produced by Judith Boss - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Turn of the Screw - -Author: Henry James - -Release Date: February, 1995 [eBook #209] -[Most recently updated: September 17, 2022] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Judith Boss - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TURN OF THE SCREW *** - - - - -The Turn of the Screw - -by Henry James - - - -Contents - - - THE TURN OF THE SCREW - I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X - XI - XII - XIII - XIV - XV - XVI - XVII - XVIII - XIX - XX - XXI - XXII - XXIII - XXIV - - - - -THE TURN OF THE SCREW - -The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but -except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in -an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no -comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case -he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. The case, -I may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an old house as -had gathered us for the occasion—an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to -a little boy sleeping in the room with his mother and waking her up in -the terror of it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him -to sleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she had -succeeded in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. It was this -observation that drew from Douglas—not immediately, but later in the -evening—a reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call -attention. Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which -I saw he was not following. This I took for a sign that he had himself -something to produce and that we should only have to wait. We waited in -fact till two nights later; but that same evening, before we scattered, -he brought out what was in his mind. - -“I quite agree—in regard to Griffin’s ghost, or whatever it was—that -its appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds a -particular touch. But it’s not the first occurrence of its charming -kind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the -effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to _two_ children—?” - -“We say, of course,” somebody exclaimed, “that they give two turns! -Also that we want to hear about them.” - -I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got up to -present his back, looking down at his interlocutor with his hands in -his pockets. “Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. It’s quite too -horrible.” This, naturally, was declared by several voices to give the -thing the utmost price, and our friend, with quiet art, prepared his -triumph by turning his eyes over the rest of us and going on: “It’s -beyond everything. Nothing at all that I know touches it.” - -“For sheer terror?” I remember asking. - -He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at a loss -how to qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made a little -wincing grimace. “For dreadful—dreadfulness!” - -“Oh, how delicious!” cried one of the women. - -He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead of me, he -saw what he spoke of. “For general uncanny ugliness and horror and -pain.” - -“Well then,” I said, “just sit right down and begin.” - -He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log, watched it an -instant. Then as he faced us again: “I can’t begin. I shall have to -send to town.” There was a unanimous groan at this, and much reproach; -after which, in his preoccupied way, he explained. “The story’s -written. It’s in a locked drawer—it has not been out for years. I could -write to my man and enclose the key; he could send down the packet as -he finds it.” It was to me in particular that he appeared to propound -this—appeared almost to appeal for aid not to hesitate. He had broken a -thickness of ice, the formation of many a winter; had had his reasons -for a long silence. The others resented postponement, but it was just -his scruples that charmed me. I adjured him to write by the first post -and to agree with us for an early hearing; then I asked him if the -experience in question had been his own. To this his answer was prompt. -“Oh, thank God, no!” - -“And is the record yours? You took the thing down?” - -“Nothing but the impression. I took that _here_”—he tapped his heart. -“I’ve never lost it.” - -“Then your manuscript—?” - -“Is in old, faded ink, and in the most beautiful hand.” He hung fire -again. “A woman’s. She has been dead these twenty years. She sent me -the pages in question before she died.” They were all listening now, -and of course there was somebody to be arch, or at any rate to draw the -inference. But if he put the inference by without a smile it was also -without irritation. “She was a most charming person, but she was ten -years older than I. She was my sister’s governess,” he quietly said. -“She was the most agreeable woman I’ve ever known in her position; she -would have been worthy of any whatever. It was long ago, and this -episode was long before. I was at Trinity, and I found her at home on -my coming down the second summer. I was much there that year—it was a -beautiful one; and we had, in her off-hours, some strolls and talks in -the garden—talks in which she struck me as awfully clever and nice. Oh -yes; don’t grin: I liked her extremely and am glad to this day to think -she liked me, too. If she hadn’t she wouldn’t have told me. She had -never told anyone. It wasn’t simply that she said so, but that I knew -she hadn’t. I was sure; I could see. You’ll easily judge why when you -hear.” - -“Because the thing had been such a scare?” - -He continued to fix me. “You’ll easily judge,” he repeated: “_you_ -will.” - -I fixed him, too. “I see. She was in love.” - -He laughed for the first time. “You _are_ acute. Yes, she was in love. -That is, she had been. That came out—she couldn’t tell her story -without its coming out. I saw it, and she saw I saw it; but neither of -us spoke of it. I remember the time and the place—the corner of the -lawn, the shade of the great beeches and the long, hot summer -afternoon. It wasn’t a scene for a shudder; but oh—!” He quitted the -fire and dropped back into his chair. - -“You’ll receive the packet Thursday morning?” I inquired. - -“Probably not till the second post.” - -“Well then; after dinner—” - -“You’ll all meet me here?” He looked us round again. “Isn’t anybody -going?” It was almost the tone of hope. - -“Everybody will stay!” - -“_I_ will”—and “_I_ will!” cried the ladies whose departure had been -fixed. Mrs. Griffin, however, expressed the need for a little more -light. “Who was it she was in love with?” - -“The story will tell,” I took upon myself to reply. - -“Oh, I can’t wait for the story!” - -“The story _won’t_ tell,” said Douglas; “not in any literal, vulgar -way.” - -“More’s the pity, then. That’s the only way I ever understand.” - -“Won’t _you_ tell, Douglas?” somebody else inquired. - -He sprang to his feet again. “Yes—tomorrow. Now I must go to bed. Good -night.” And quickly catching up a candlestick, he left us slightly -bewildered. From our end of the great brown hall we heard his step on -the stair; whereupon Mrs. Griffin spoke. “Well, if I don’t know who she -was in love with, I know who _he_ was.” - -“She was ten years older,” said her husband. - -“_Raison de plus_—at that age! But it’s rather nice, his long -reticence.” - -“Forty years!” Griffin put in. - -“With this outbreak at last.” - -“The outbreak,” I returned, “will make a tremendous occasion of -Thursday night;” and everyone so agreed with me that, in the light of -it, we lost all attention for everything else. The last story, however -incomplete and like the mere opening of a serial, had been told; we -handshook and “candlestuck,” as somebody said, and went to bed. - -I knew the next day that a letter containing the key had, by the first -post, gone off to his London apartments; but in spite of—or perhaps -just on account of—the eventual diffusion of this knowledge we quite -let him alone till after dinner, till such an hour of the evening, in -fact, as might best accord with the kind of emotion on which our hopes -were fixed. Then he became as communicative as we could desire and -indeed gave us his best reason for being so. We had it from him again -before the fire in the hall, as we had had our mild wonders of the -previous night. It appeared that the narrative he had promised to read -us really required for a proper intelligence a few words of prologue. -Let me say here distinctly, to have done with it, that this narrative, -from an exact transcript of my own made much later, is what I shall -presently give. Poor Douglas, before his death—when it was in -sight—committed to me the manuscript that reached him on the third of -these days and that, on the same spot, with immense effect, he began to -read to our hushed little circle on the night of the fourth. The -departing ladies who had said they would stay didn’t, of course, thank -heaven, stay: they departed, in consequence of arrangements made, in a -rage of curiosity, as they professed, produced by the touches with -which he had already worked us up. But that only made his little final -auditory more compact and select, kept it, round the hearth, subject to -a common thrill. - -The first of these touches conveyed that the written statement took up -the tale at a point after it had, in a manner, begun. The fact to be in -possession of was therefore that his old friend, the youngest of -several daughters of a poor country parson, had, at the age of twenty, -on taking service for the first time in the schoolroom, come up to -London, in trepidation, to answer in person an advertisement that had -already placed her in brief correspondence with the advertiser. This -person proved, on her presenting herself, for judgment, at a house in -Harley Street, that impressed her as vast and imposing—this prospective -patron proved a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such a -figure as had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a -fluttered, anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage. One could easily -fix his type; it never, happily, dies out. He was handsome and bold and -pleasant, off-hand and gay and kind. He struck her, inevitably, as -gallant and splendid, but what took her most of all and gave her the -courage she afterward showed was that he put the whole thing to her as -a kind of favor, an obligation he should gratefully incur. She -conceived him as rich, but as fearfully extravagant—saw him all in a -glow of high fashion, of good looks, of expensive habits, of charming -ways with women. He had for his own town residence a big house filled -with the spoils of travel and the trophies of the chase; but it was to -his country home, an old family place in Essex, that he wished her -immediately to proceed. - -He had been left, by the death of their parents in India, guardian to a -small nephew and a small niece, children of a younger, a military -brother, whom he had lost two years before. These children were, by the -strangest of chances for a man in his position—a lone man without the -right sort of experience or a grain of patience—very heavily on his -hands. It had all been a great worry and, on his own part doubtless, a -series of blunders, but he immensely pitied the poor chicks and had -done all he could; had in particular sent them down to his other house, -the proper place for them being of course the country, and kept them -there, from the first, with the best people he could find to look after -them, parting even with his own servants to wait on them and going down -himself, whenever he might, to see how they were doing. The awkward -thing was that they had practically no other relations and that his own -affairs took up all his time. He had put them in possession of Bly, -which was healthy and secure, and had placed at the head of their -little establishment—but below stairs only—an excellent woman, Mrs. -Grose, whom he was sure his visitor would like and who had formerly -been maid to his mother. She was now housekeeper and was also acting -for the time as superintendent to the little girl, of whom, without -children of her own, she was, by good luck, extremely fond. There were -plenty of people to help, but of course the young lady who should go -down as governess would be in supreme authority. She would also have, -in holidays, to look after the small boy, who had been for a term at -school—young as he was to be sent, but what else could be done?—and -who, as the holidays were about to begin, would be back from one day to -the other. There had been for the two children at first a young lady -whom they had had the misfortune to lose. She had done for them quite -beautifully—she was a most respectable person—till her death, the great -awkwardness of which had, precisely, left no alternative but the school -for little Miles. Mrs. Grose, since then, in the way of manners and -things, had done as she could for Flora; and there were, further, a -cook, a housemaid, a dairywoman, an old pony, an old groom, and an old -gardener, all likewise thoroughly respectable. - -So far had Douglas presented his picture when someone put a question. -“And what did the former governess die of?—of so much respectability?” - -Our friend’s answer was prompt. “That will come out. I don’t -anticipate.” - -“Excuse me—I thought that was just what you _are_ doing.” - -“In her successor’s place,” I suggested, “I should have wished to learn -if the office brought with it—” - -“Necessary danger to life?” Douglas completed my thought. “She did wish -to learn, and she did learn. You shall hear tomorrow what she learned. -Meanwhile, of course, the prospect struck her as slightly grim. She was -young, untried, nervous: it was a vision of serious duties and little -company, of really great loneliness. She hesitated—took a couple of -days to consult and consider. But the salary offered much exceeded her -modest measure, and on a second interview she faced the music, she -engaged.” And Douglas, with this, made a pause that, for the benefit of -the company, moved me to throw in— - -“The moral of which was of course the seduction exercised by the -splendid young man. She succumbed to it.” - -He got up and, as he had done the night before, went to the fire, gave -a stir to a log with his foot, then stood a moment with his back to us. -“She saw him only twice.” - -“Yes, but that’s just the beauty of her passion.” - -A little to my surprise, on this, Douglas turned round to me. “It _was_ -the beauty of it. There were others,” he went on, “who hadn’t -succumbed. He told her frankly all his difficulty—that for several -applicants the conditions had been prohibitive. They were, somehow, -simply afraid. It sounded dull—it sounded strange; and all the more so -because of his main condition.” - -“Which was—?” - -“That she should never trouble him—but never, never: neither appeal nor -complain nor write about anything; only meet all questions herself, -receive all moneys from his solicitor, take the whole thing over and -let him alone. She promised to do this, and she mentioned to me that -when, for a moment, disburdened, delighted, he held her hand, thanking -her for the sacrifice, she already felt rewarded.” - -“But was that all her reward?” one of the ladies asked. - -“She never saw him again.” - -“Oh!” said the lady; which, as our friend immediately left us again, -was the only other word of importance contributed to the subject till, -the next night, by the corner of the hearth, in the best chair, he -opened the faded red cover of a thin old-fashioned gilt-edged album. -The whole thing took indeed more nights than one, but on the first -occasion the same lady put another question. “What is your title?” - -“I haven’t one.” - -“Oh, _I_ have!” I said. But Douglas, without heeding me, had begun to -read with a fine clearness that was like a rendering to the ear of the -beauty of his author’s hand. - - -I - -I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a -little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, -to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days—found -myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this -state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that -carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle -from the house. This convenience, I was told, had been ordered, and I -found, toward the close of the June afternoon, a commodious fly in -waiting for me. Driving at that hour, on a lovely day, through a -country to which the summer sweetness seemed to offer me a friendly -welcome, my fortitude mounted afresh and, as we turned into the avenue, -encountered a reprieve that was probably but a proof of the point to -which it had sunk. I suppose I had expected, or had dreaded, something -so melancholy that what greeted me was a good surprise. I remember as a -most pleasant impression the broad, clear front, its open windows and -fresh curtains and the pair of maids looking out; I remember the lawn -and the bright flowers and the crunch of my wheels on the gravel and -the clustered treetops over which the rooks circled and cawed in the -golden sky. The scene had a greatness that made it a different affair -from my own scant home, and there immediately appeared at the door, -with a little girl in her hand, a civil person who dropped me as decent -a curtsy as if I had been the mistress or a distinguished visitor. I -had received in Harley Street a narrower notion of the place, and that, -as I recalled it, made me think the proprietor still more of a -gentleman, suggested that what I was to enjoy might be something beyond -his promise. - -I had no drop again till the next day, for I was carried triumphantly -through the following hours by my introduction to the younger of my -pupils. The little girl who accompanied Mrs. Grose appeared to me on -the spot a creature so charming as to make it a great fortune to have -to do with her. She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, and I -afterward wondered that my employer had not told me more of her. I -slept little that night—I was too much excited; and this astonished me, -too, I recollect, remained with me, adding to my sense of the -liberality with which I was treated. The large, impressive room, one of -the best in the house, the great state bed, as I almost felt it, the -full, figured draperies, the long glasses in which, for the first time, -I could see myself from head to foot, all struck me—like the -extraordinary charm of my small charge—as so many things thrown in. It -was thrown in as well, from the first moment, that I should get on with -Mrs. Grose in a relation over which, on my way, in the coach, I fear I -had rather brooded. The only thing indeed that in this early outlook -might have made me shrink again was the clear circumstance of her being -so glad to see me. I perceived within half an hour that she was so -glad—stout, simple, plain, clean, wholesome woman—as to be positively -on her guard against showing it too much. I wondered even then a little -why she should wish not to show it, and that, with reflection, with -suspicion, might of course have made me uneasy. - -But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a connection -with anything so beatific as the radiant image of my little girl, the -vision of whose angelic beauty had probably more than anything else to -do with the restlessness that, before morning, made me several times -rise and wander about my room to take in the whole picture and -prospect; to watch, from my open window, the faint summer dawn, to look -at such portions of the rest of the house as I could catch, and to -listen, while, in the fading dusk, the first birds began to twitter, -for the possible recurrence of a sound or two, less natural and not -without, but within, that I had fancied I heard. There had been a -moment when I believed I recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child; -there had been another when I found myself just consciously starting as -at the passage, before my door, of a light footstep. But these fancies -were not marked enough not to be thrown off, and it is only in the -light, or the gloom, I should rather say, of other and subsequent -matters that they now come back to me. To watch, teach, “form” little -Flora would too evidently be the making of a happy and useful life. It -had been agreed between us downstairs that after this first occasion I -should have her as a matter of course at night, her small white bed -being already arranged, to that end, in my room. What I had undertaken -was the whole care of her, and she had remained, just this last time, -with Mrs. Grose only as an effect of our consideration for my -inevitable strangeness and her natural timidity. In spite of this -timidity—which the child herself, in the oddest way in the world, had -been perfectly frank and brave about, allowing it, without a sign of -uncomfortable consciousness, with the deep, sweet serenity indeed of -one of Raphael’s holy infants, to be discussed, to be imputed to her, -and to determine us—I feel quite sure she would presently like me. It -was part of what I already liked Mrs. Grose herself for, the pleasure I -could see her feel in my admiration and wonder as I sat at supper with -four tall candles and with my pupil, in a high chair and a bib, -brightly facing me, between them, over bread and milk. There were -naturally things that in Flora’s presence could pass between us only as -prodigious and gratified looks, obscure and roundabout allusions. - -“And the little boy—does he look like her? Is he too so very -remarkable?” - -One wouldn’t flatter a child. “Oh, miss, _most_ remarkable. If you -think well of this one!”—and she stood there with a plate in her hand, -beaming at our companion, who looked from one of us to the other with -placid heavenly eyes that contained nothing to check us. - -“Yes; if I do—?” - -“You _will_ be carried away by the little gentleman!” - -“Well, that, I think, is what I came for—to be carried away. I’m -afraid, however,” I remember feeling the impulse to add, “I’m rather -easily carried away. I was carried away in London!” - -I can still see Mrs. Grose’s broad face as she took this in. “In Harley -Street?” - -“In Harley Street.” - -“Well, miss, you’re not the first—and you won’t be the last.” - -“Oh, I’ve no pretension,” I could laugh, “to being the only one. My -other pupil, at any rate, as I understand, comes back tomorrow?” - -“Not tomorrow—Friday, miss. He arrives, as you did, by the coach, under -care of the guard, and is to be met by the same carriage.” - -I forthwith expressed that the proper as well as the pleasant and -friendly thing would be therefore that on the arrival of the public -conveyance I should be in waiting for him with his little sister; an -idea in which Mrs. Grose concurred so heartily that I somehow took her -manner as a kind of comforting pledge—never falsified, thank -heaven!—that we should on every question be quite at one. Oh, she was -glad I was there! - -What I felt the next day was, I suppose, nothing that could be fairly -called a reaction from the cheer of my arrival; it was probably at the -most only a slight oppression produced by a fuller measure of the -scale, as I walked round them, gazed up at them, took them in, of my -new circumstances. They had, as it were, an extent and mass for which I -had not been prepared and in the presence of which I found myself, -freshly, a little scared as well as a little proud. Lessons, in this -agitation, certainly suffered some delay; I reflected that my first -duty was, by the gentlest arts I could contrive, to win the child into -the sense of knowing me. I spent the day with her out-of-doors; I -arranged with her, to her great satisfaction, that it should be she, -she only, who might show me the place. She showed it step by step and -room by room and secret by secret, with droll, delightful, childish -talk about it and with the result, in half an hour, of our becoming -immense friends. Young as she was, I was struck, throughout our little -tour, with her confidence and courage with the way, in empty chambers -and dull corridors, on crooked staircases that made me pause and even -on the summit of an old machicolated square tower that made me dizzy, -her morning music, her disposition to tell me so many more things than -she asked, rang out and led me on. I have not seen Bly since the day I -left it, and I daresay that to my older and more informed eyes it would -now appear sufficiently contracted. But as my little conductress, with -her hair of gold and her frock of blue, danced before me round corners -and pattered down passages, I had the view of a castle of romance -inhabited by a rosy sprite, such a place as would somehow, for -diversion of the young idea, take all color out of storybooks and -fairytales. Wasn’t it just a storybook over which I had fallen adoze -and adream? No; it was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient house, -embodying a few features of a building still older, half-replaced and -half-utilized, in which I had the fancy of our being almost as lost as -a handful of passengers in a great drifting ship. Well, I was, -strangely, at the helm! - - -II - -This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to -meet, as Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; and all the more for an -incident that, presenting itself the second evening, had deeply -disconcerted me. The first day had been, on the whole, as I have -expressed, reassuring; but I was to see it wind up in keen -apprehension. The postbag, that evening—it came late—contained a letter -for me, which, however, in the hand of my employer, I found to be -composed but of a few words enclosing another, addressed to himself, -with a seal still unbroken. “This, I recognize, is from the headmaster, -and the headmaster’s an awful bore. Read him, please; deal with him; -but mind you don’t report. Not a word. I’m off!” I broke the seal with -a great effort—so great a one that I was a long time coming to it; took -the unopened missive at last up to my room and only attacked it just -before going to bed. I had better have let it wait till morning, for it -gave me a second sleepless night. With no counsel to take, the next -day, I was full of distress; and it finally got so the better of me -that I determined to open myself at least to Mrs. Grose. - -“What does it mean? The child’s dismissed his school.” - -She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then, visibly, with a -quick blankness, seemed to try to take it back. “But aren’t they all—?” - -“Sent home—yes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never go back at -all.” - -Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. “They won’t take him?” - -“They absolutely decline.” - -At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me; I saw them -fill with good tears. “What has he done?” - -I hesitated; then I judged best simply to hand her my letter—which, -however, had the effect of making her, without taking it, simply put -her hands behind her. She shook her head sadly. “Such things are not -for me, miss.” - -My counselor couldn’t read! I winced at my mistake, which I attenuated -as I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it to her; then, -faltering in the act and folding it up once more, I put it back in my -pocket. “Is he really _bad_?” - -The tears were still in her eyes. “Do the gentlemen say so?” - -“They go into no particulars. They simply express their regret that it -should be impossible to keep him. That can have only one meaning.” Mrs. -Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask me what this -meaning might be; so that, presently, to put the thing with some -coherence and with the mere aid of her presence to my own mind, I went -on: “That he’s an injury to the others.” - -At this, with one of the quick turns of simple folk, she suddenly -flamed up. “Master Miles! _him_ an injury?” - -There was such a flood of good faith in it that, though I had not yet -seen the child, my very fears made me jump to the absurdity of the -idea. I found myself, to meet my friend the better, offering it, on the -spot, sarcastically. “To his poor little innocent mates!” - -“It’s too dreadful,” cried Mrs. Grose, “to say such cruel things! Why, -he’s scarce ten years old.” - -“Yes, yes; it would be incredible.” - -She was evidently grateful for such a profession. “See him, miss, -first. _Then_ believe it!” I felt forthwith a new impatience to see -him; it was the beginning of a curiosity that, for all the next hours, -was to deepen almost to pain. Mrs. Grose was aware, I could judge, of -what she had produced in me, and she followed it up with assurance. -“You might as well believe it of the little lady. Bless her,” she added -the next moment—“_look_ at her!” - -I turned and saw that Flora, whom, ten minutes before, I had -established in the schoolroom with a sheet of white paper, a pencil, -and a copy of nice “round O’s,” now presented herself to view at the -open door. She expressed in her little way an extraordinary detachment -from disagreeable duties, looking to me, however, with a great childish -light that seemed to offer it as a mere result of the affection she had -conceived for my person, which had rendered necessary that she should -follow me. I needed nothing more than this to feel the full force of -Mrs. Grose’s comparison, and, catching my pupil in my arms, covered her -with kisses in which there was a sob of atonement. - -Nonetheless, the rest of the day I watched for further occasion to -approach my colleague, especially as, toward evening, I began to fancy -she rather sought to avoid me. I overtook her, I remember, on the -staircase; we went down together, and at the bottom I detained her, -holding her there with a hand on her arm. “I take what you said to me -at noon as a declaration that _you’ve_ never known him to be bad.” - -She threw back her head; she had clearly, by this time, and very -honestly, adopted an attitude. “Oh, never known him—I don’t pretend -_that!_” - -I was upset again. “Then you _have_ known him—?” - -“Yes indeed, miss, thank God!” - -On reflection I accepted this. “You mean that a boy who never is—?” - -“Is no boy for _me!_” - -I held her tighter. “You like them with the spirit to be naughty?” -Then, keeping pace with her answer, “So do I!” I eagerly brought out. -“But not to the degree to contaminate—” - -“To contaminate?”—my big word left her at a loss. I explained it. “To -corrupt.” - -She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her an odd laugh. -“Are you afraid he’ll corrupt _you?_” She put the question with such a -fine bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, to match -her own, I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule. - -But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped up in -another place. “What was the lady who was here before?” - -“The last governess? She was also young and pretty—almost as young and -almost as pretty, miss, even as you.” - -“Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her!” I recollect -throwing off. “He seems to like us young and pretty!” - -“Oh, he _did_,” Mrs. Grose assented: “it was the way he liked -everyone!” She had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself up. -“I mean that’s _his_ way—the master’s.” - -I was struck. “But of whom did you speak first?” - -She looked blank, but she colored. “Why, of _him_.” - -“Of the master?” - -“Of who else?” - -There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I had lost my -impression of her having accidentally said more than she meant; and I -merely asked what I wanted to know. “Did _she_ see anything in the -boy—?” - -“That wasn’t right? She never told me.” - -I had a scruple, but I overcame it. “Was she careful—particular?” - -Mrs. Grose appeared to try to be conscientious. “About some -things—yes.” - -“But not about all?” - -Again she considered. “Well, miss—she’s gone. I won’t tell tales.” - -“I quite understand your feeling,” I hastened to reply; but I thought -it, after an instant, not opposed to this concession to pursue: “Did -she die here?” - -“No—she went off.” - -I don’t know what there was in this brevity of Mrs. Grose’s that struck -me as ambiguous. “Went off to die?” Mrs. Grose looked straight out of -the window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right to know what -young persons engaged for Bly were expected to do. “She was taken ill, -you mean, and went home?” - -“She was not taken ill, so far as appeared, in this house. She left it, -at the end of the year, to go home, as she said, for a short holiday, -to which the time she had put in had certainly given her a right. We -had then a young woman—a nursemaid who had stayed on and who was a good -girl and clever; and _she_ took the children altogether for the -interval. But our young lady never came back, and at the very moment I -was expecting her I heard from the master that she was dead.” - -I turned this over. “But of what?” - -“He never told me! But please, miss,” said Mrs. Grose, “I must get to -my work.” - - -III - -Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just -preoccupations, a snub that could check the growth of our mutual -esteem. We met, after I had brought home little Miles, more intimately -than ever on the ground of my stupefaction, my general emotion: so -monstrous was I then ready to pronounce it that such a child as had now -been revealed to me should be under an interdict. I was a little late -on the scene, and I felt, as he stood wistfully looking out for me -before the door of the inn at which the coach had put him down, that I -had seen him, on the instant, without and within, in the great glow of -freshness, the same positive fragrance of purity, in which I had, from -the first moment, seen his little sister. He was incredibly beautiful, -and Mrs. Grose had put her finger on it: everything but a sort of -passion of tenderness for him was swept away by his presence. What I -then and there took him to my heart for was something divine that I -have never found to the same degree in any child—his indescribable -little air of knowing nothing in the world but love. It would have been -impossible to carry a bad name with a greater sweetness of innocence, -and by the time I had got back to Bly with him I remained merely -bewildered—so far, that is, as I was not outraged—by the sense of the -horrible letter locked up in my room, in a drawer. As soon as I could -compass a private word with Mrs. Grose I declared to her that it was -grotesque. - -She promptly understood me. “You mean the cruel charge—?” - -“It doesn’t live an instant. My dear woman, _look_ at him!” - -She smiled at my pretention to have discovered his charm. “I assure -you, miss, I do nothing else! What will you say, then?” she immediately -added. - -“In answer to the letter?” I had made up my mind. “Nothing.” - -“And to his uncle?” - -I was incisive. “Nothing.” - -“And to the boy himself?” - -I was wonderful. “Nothing.” - -She gave with her apron a great wipe to her mouth. “Then I’ll stand by -you. We’ll see it out.” - -“We’ll see it out!” I ardently echoed, giving her my hand to make it a -vow. - -She held me there a moment, then whisked up her apron again with her -detached hand. “Would you mind, miss, if I used the freedom—” - -“To kiss me? No!” I took the good creature in my arms and, after we had -embraced like sisters, felt still more fortified and indignant. - -This, at all events, was for the time: a time so full that, as I recall -the way it went, it reminds me of all the art I now need to make it a -little distinct. What I look back at with amazement is the situation I -accepted. I had undertaken, with my companion, to see it out, and I was -under a charm, apparently, that could smooth away the extent and the -far and difficult connections of such an effort. I was lifted aloft on -a great wave of infatuation and pity. I found it simple, in my -ignorance, my confusion, and perhaps my conceit, to assume that I could -deal with a boy whose education for the world was all on the point of -beginning. I am unable even to remember at this day what proposal I -framed for the end of his holidays and the resumption of his studies. -Lessons with me, indeed, that charming summer, we all had a theory that -he was to have; but I now feel that, for weeks, the lessons must have -been rather my own. I learned something—at first, certainly—that had -not been one of the teachings of my small, smothered life; learned to -be amused, and even amusing, and not to think for the morrow. It was -the first time, in a manner, that I had known space and air and -freedom, all the music of summer and all the mystery of nature. And -then there was consideration—and consideration was sweet. Oh, it was a -trap—not designed, but deep—to my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps -to my vanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable. The best way to -picture it all is to say that I was off my guard. They gave me so -little trouble—they were of a gentleness so extraordinary. I used to -speculate—but even this with a dim disconnectedness—as to how the rough -future (for all futures are rough!) would handle them and might bruise -them. They had the bloom of health and happiness; and yet, as if I had -been in charge of a pair of little grandees, of princes of the blood, -for whom everything, to be right, would have to be enclosed and -protected, the only form that, in my fancy, the afteryears could take -for them was that of a romantic, a really royal extension of the garden -and the park. It may be, of course, above all, that what suddenly broke -into this gives the previous time a charm of stillness—that hush in -which something gathers or crouches. The change was actually like the -spring of a beast. - -In the first weeks the days were long; they often, at their finest, -gave me what I used to call my own hour, the hour when, for my pupils, -teatime and bedtime having come and gone, I had, before my final -retirement, a small interval alone. Much as I liked my companions, this -hour was the thing in the day I liked most; and I liked it best of all -when, as the light faded—or rather, I should say, the day lingered and -the last calls of the last birds sounded, in a flushed sky, from the -old trees—I could take a turn into the grounds and enjoy, almost with a -sense of property that amused and flattered me, the beauty and dignity -of the place. It was a pleasure at these moments to feel myself -tranquil and justified; doubtless, perhaps, also to reflect that by my -discretion, my quiet good sense and general high propriety, I was -giving pleasure—if he ever thought of it!—to the person to whose -pressure I had responded. What I was doing was what he had earnestly -hoped and directly asked of me, and that I _could_, after all, do it -proved even a greater joy than I had expected. I daresay I fancied -myself, in short, a remarkable young woman and took comfort in the -faith that this would more publicly appear. Well, I needed to be -remarkable to offer a front to the remarkable things that presently -gave their first sign. - -It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour: the -children were tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll. One of the -thoughts that, as I don’t in the least shrink now from noting, used to -be with me in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a -charming story suddenly to meet someone. Someone would appear there at -the turn of a path and would stand before me and smile and approve. I -didn’t ask more than that—I only asked that he should _know;_ and the -only way to be sure he knew would be to see it, and the kind light of -it, in his handsome face. That was exactly present to me—by which I -mean the face was—when, on the first of these occasions, at the end of -a long June day, I stopped short on emerging from one of the -plantations and coming into view of the house. What arrested me on the -spot—and with a shock much greater than any vision had allowed for—was -the sense that my imagination had, in a flash, turned real. He did -stand there!—but high up, beyond the lawn and at the very top of the -tower to which, on that first morning, little Flora had conducted me. -This tower was one of a pair—square, incongruous, crenelated -structures—that were distinguished, for some reason, though I could see -little difference, as the new and the old. They flanked opposite ends -of the house and were probably architectural absurdities, redeemed in a -measure indeed by not being wholly disengaged nor of a height too -pretentious, dating, in their gingerbread antiquity, from a romantic -revival that was already a respectable past. I admired them, had -fancies about them, for we could all profit in a degree, especially -when they loomed through the dusk, by the grandeur of their actual -battlements; yet it was not at such an elevation that the figure I had -so often invoked seemed most in place. - -It produced in me, this figure, in the clear twilight, I remember, two -distinct gasps of emotion, which were, sharply, the shock of my first -and that of my second surprise. My second was a violent perception of -the mistake of my first: the man who met my eyes was not the person I -had precipitately supposed. There came to me thus a bewilderment of -vision of which, after these years, there is no living view that I can -hope to give. An unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object of -fear to a young woman privately bred; and the figure that faced me -was—a few more seconds assured me—as little anyone else I knew as it -was the image that had been in my mind. I had not seen it in Harley -Street—I had not seen it anywhere. The place, moreover, in the -strangest way in the world, had, on the instant, and by the very fact -of its appearance, become a solitude. To me at least, making my -statement here with a deliberation with which I have never made it, the -whole feeling of the moment returns. It was as if, while I took in—what -I did take in—all the rest of the scene had been stricken with death. I -can hear again, as I write, the intense hush in which the sounds of -evening dropped. The rooks stopped cawing in the golden sky, and the -friendly hour lost, for the minute, all its voice. But there was no -other change in nature, unless indeed it were a change that I saw with -a stranger sharpness. The gold was still in the sky, the clearness in -the air, and the man who looked at me over the battlements was as -definite as a picture in a frame. That’s how I thought, with -extraordinary quickness, of each person that he might have been and -that he was not. We were confronted across our distance quite long -enough for me to ask myself with intensity who then he was and to feel, -as an effect of my inability to say, a wonder that in a few instants -more became intense. - -The great question, or one of these, is, afterward, I know, with regard -to certain matters, the question of how long they have lasted. Well, -this matter of mine, think what you will of it, lasted while I caught -at a dozen possibilities, none of which made a difference for the -better, that I could see, in there having been in the house—and for how -long, above all?—a person of whom I was in ignorance. It lasted while I -just bridled a little with the sense that my office demanded that there -should be no such ignorance and no such person. It lasted while this -visitant, at all events—and there was a touch of the strange freedom, -as I remember, in the sign of familiarity of his wearing no hat—seemed -to fix me, from his position, with just the question, just the scrutiny -through the fading light, that his own presence provoked. We were too -far apart to call to each other, but there was a moment at which, at -shorter range, some challenge between us, breaking the hush, would have -been the right result of our straight mutual stare. He was in one of -the angles, the one away from the house, very erect, as it struck me, -and with both hands on the ledge. So I saw him as I see the letters I -form on this page; then, exactly, after a minute, as if to add to the -spectacle, he slowly changed his place—passed, looking at me hard all -the while, to the opposite corner of the platform. Yes, I had the -sharpest sense that during this transit he never took his eyes from me, -and I can see at this moment the way his hand, as he went, passed from -one of the crenelations to the next. He stopped at the other corner, -but less long, and even as he turned away still markedly fixed me. He -turned away; that was all I knew. - - -IV - -It was not that I didn’t wait, on this occasion, for more, for I was -rooted as deeply as I was shaken. Was there a “secret” at Bly—a mystery -of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected -confinement? I can’t say how long I turned it over, or how long, in a -confusion of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had had my -collision; I only recall that when I re-entered the house darkness had -quite closed in. Agitation, in the interval, certainly had held me and -driven me, for I must, in circling about the place, have walked three -miles; but I was to be, later on, so much more overwhelmed that this -mere dawn of alarm was a comparatively human chill. The most singular -part of it, in fact—singular as the rest had been—was the part I -became, in the hall, aware of in meeting Mrs. Grose. This picture comes -back to me in the general train—the impression, as I received it on my -return, of the wide white panelled space, bright in the lamplight and -with its portraits and red carpet, and of the good surprised look of my -friend, which immediately told me she had missed me. It came to me -straightway, under her contact, that, with plain heartiness, mere -relieved anxiety at my appearance, she knew nothing whatever that could -bear upon the incident I had there ready for her. I had not suspected -in advance that her comfortable face would pull me up, and I somehow -measured the importance of what I had seen by my thus finding myself -hesitate to mention it. Scarce anything in the whole history seems to -me so odd as this fact that my real beginning of fear was one, as I may -say, with the instinct of sparing my companion. On the spot, -accordingly, in the pleasant hall and with her eyes on me, I, for a -reason that I couldn’t then have phrased, achieved an inward -resolution—offered a vague pretext for my lateness and, with the plea -of the beauty of the night and of the heavy dew and wet feet, went as -soon as possible to my room. - -Here it was another affair; here, for many days after, it was a queer -affair enough. There were hours, from day to day—or at least there were -moments, snatched even from clear duties—when I had to shut myself up -to think. It was not so much yet that I was more nervous than I could -bear to be as that I was remarkably afraid of becoming so; for the -truth I had now to turn over was, simply and clearly, the truth that I -could arrive at no account whatever of the visitor with whom I had been -so inexplicably and yet, as it seemed to me, so intimately concerned. -It took little time to see that I could sound without forms of inquiry -and without exciting remark any domestic complications. The shock I had -suffered must have sharpened all my senses; I felt sure, at the end of -three days and as the result of mere closer attention, that I had not -been practiced upon by the servants nor made the object of any “game.” -Of whatever it was that I knew, nothing was known around me. There was -but one sane inference: someone had taken a liberty rather gross. That -was what, repeatedly, I dipped into my room and locked the door to say -to myself. We had been, collectively, subject to an intrusion; some -unscrupulous traveler, curious in old houses, had made his way in -unobserved, enjoyed the prospect from the best point of view, and then -stolen out as he came. If he had given me such a bold hard stare, that -was but a part of his indiscretion. The good thing, after all, was that -we should surely see no more of him. - -This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that -what, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my -charming work. My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, -and through nothing could I so like it as through feeling that I could -throw myself into it in trouble. The attraction of my small charges was -a constant joy, leading me to wonder afresh at the vanity of my -original fears, the distaste I had begun by entertaining for the -probable gray prose of my office. There was to be no gray prose, it -appeared, and no long grind; so how could work not be charming that -presented itself as daily beauty? It was all the romance of the nursery -and the poetry of the schoolroom. I don’t mean by this, of course, that -we studied only fiction and verse; I mean I can express no otherwise -the sort of interest my companions inspired. How can I describe that -except by saying that instead of growing used to them—and it’s a marvel -for a governess: I call the sisterhood to witness!—I made constant -fresh discoveries. There was one direction, assuredly, in which these -discoveries stopped: deep obscurity continued to cover the region of -the boy’s conduct at school. It had been promptly given me, I have -noted, to face that mystery without a pang. Perhaps even it would be -nearer the truth to say that—without a word—he himself had cleared it -up. He had made the whole charge absurd. My conclusion bloomed there -with the real rose flush of his innocence: he was only too fine and -fair for the little horrid, unclean school-world, and he had paid a -price for it. I reflected acutely that the sense of such differences, -such superiorities of quality, always, on the part of the -majority—which could include even stupid, sordid headmasters—turn -infallibly to the vindictive. - -Both the children had a gentleness (it was their only fault, and it -never made Miles a muff) that kept them—how shall I express it?—almost -impersonal and certainly quite unpunishable. They were like the cherubs -of the anecdote, who had—morally, at any rate—nothing to whack! I -remember feeling with Miles in especial as if he had had, as it were, -no history. We expect of a small child a scant one, but there was in -this beautiful little boy something extraordinarily sensitive, yet -extraordinarily happy, that, more than in any creature of his age I -have seen, struck me as beginning anew each day. He had never for a -second suffered. I took this as a direct disproof of his having really -been chastised. If he had been wicked he would have “caught” it, and I -should have caught it by the rebound—I should have found the trace. I -found nothing at all, and he was therefore an angel. He never spoke of -his school, never mentioned a comrade or a master; and I, for my part, -was quite too much disgusted to allude to them. Of course I was under -the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I -perfectly knew I was. But I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to -any pain, and I had more pains than one. I was in receipt in these days -of disturbing letters from home, where things were not going well. But -with my children, what things in the world mattered? That was the -question I used to put to my scrappy retirements. I was dazzled by -their loveliness. - -There was a Sunday—to get on—when it rained with such force and for so -many hours that there could be no procession to church; in consequence -of which, as the day declined, I had arranged with Mrs. Grose that, -should the evening show improvement, we would attend together the late -service. The rain happily stopped, and I prepared for our walk, which, -through the park and by the good road to the village, would be a matter -of twenty minutes. Coming downstairs to meet my colleague in the hall, -I remembered a pair of gloves that had required three stitches and that -had received them—with a publicity perhaps not edifying—while I sat -with the children at their tea, served on Sundays, by exception, in -that cold, clean temple of mahogany and brass, the “grown-up” dining -room. The gloves had been dropped there, and I turned in to recover -them. The day was gray enough, but the afternoon light still lingered, -and it enabled me, on crossing the threshold, not only to recognize, on -a chair near the wide window, then closed, the articles I wanted, but -to become aware of a person on the other side of the window and looking -straight in. One step into the room had sufficed; my vision was -instantaneous; it was all there. The person looking straight in was the -person who had already appeared to me. He appeared thus again with I -won’t say greater distinctness, for that was impossible, but with a -nearness that represented a forward stride in our intercourse and made -me, as I met him, catch my breath and turn cold. He was the same—he was -the same, and seen, this time, as he had been seen before, from the -waist up, the window, though the dining room was on the ground floor, -not going down to the terrace on which he stood. His face was close to -the glass, yet the effect of this better view was, strangely, only to -show me how intense the former had been. He remained but a few -seconds—long enough to convince me he also saw and recognized; but it -was as if I had been looking at him for years and had known him always. -Something, however, happened this time that had not happened before; -his stare into my face, through the glass and across the room, was as -deep and hard as then, but it quitted me for a moment during which I -could still watch it, see it fix successively several other things. On -the spot there came to me the added shock of a certitude that it was -not for me he had come there. He had come for someone else. - -The flash of this knowledge—for it was knowledge in the midst of -dread—produced in me the most extraordinary effect, started as I stood -there, a sudden vibration of duty and courage. I say courage because I -was beyond all doubt already far gone. I bounded straight out of the -door again, reached that of the house, got, in an instant, upon the -drive, and, passing along the terrace as fast as I could rush, turned a -corner and came full in sight. But it was in sight of nothing now—my -visitor had vanished. I stopped, I almost dropped, with the real relief -of this; but I took in the whole scene—I gave him time to reappear. I -call it time, but how long was it? I can’t speak to the purpose today -of the duration of these things. That kind of measure must have left -me: they couldn’t have lasted as they actually appeared to me to last. -The terrace and the whole place, the lawn and the garden beyond it, all -I could see of the park, were empty with a great emptiness. There were -shrubberies and big trees, but I remember the clear assurance I felt -that none of them concealed him. He was there or was not there: not -there if I didn’t see him. I got hold of this; then, instinctively, -instead of returning as I had come, went to the window. It was -confusedly present to me that I ought to place myself where he had -stood. I did so; I applied my face to the pane and looked, as he had -looked, into the room. As if, at this moment, to show me exactly what -his range had been, Mrs. Grose, as I had done for himself just before, -came in from the hall. With this I had the full image of a repetition -of what had already occurred. She saw me as I had seen my own visitant; -she pulled up short as I had done; I gave her something of the shock -that I had received. She turned white, and this made me ask myself if I -had blanched as much. She stared, in short, and retreated on just _my_ -lines, and I knew she had then passed out and come round to me and that -I should presently meet her. I remained where I was, and while I waited -I thought of more things than one. But there’s only one I take space to -mention. I wondered why _she_ should be scared. - - -V - -Oh, she let me know as soon as, round the corner of the house, she -loomed again into view. “What in the name of goodness is the matter—?” -She was now flushed and out of breath. - -I said nothing till she came quite near. “With me?” I must have made a -wonderful face. “Do I show it?” - -“You’re as white as a sheet. You look awful.” - -I considered; I could meet on this, without scruple, any innocence. My -need to respect the bloom of Mrs. Grose’s had dropped, without a -rustle, from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not -with what I kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held -her hard a little, liking to feel her close to me. There was a kind of -support in the shy heave of her surprise. “You came for me for church, -of course, but I can’t go.” - -“Has anything happened?” - -“Yes. You must know now. Did I look very queer?” - -“Through this window? Dreadful!” - -“Well,” I said, “I’ve been frightened.” Mrs. Grose’s eyes expressed -plainly that _she_ had no wish to be, yet also that she knew too well -her place not to be ready to share with me any marked inconvenience. -Oh, it was quite settled that she _must_ share! “Just what you saw from -the dining room a minute ago was the effect of that. What _I_ saw—just -before—was much worse.” - -Her hand tightened. “What was it?” - -“An extraordinary man. Looking in.” - -“What extraordinary man?” - -“I haven’t the least idea.” - -Mrs. Grose gazed round us in vain. “Then where is he gone?” - -“I know still less.” - -“Have you seen him before?” - -“Yes—once. On the old tower.” - -She could only look at me harder. “Do you mean he’s a stranger?” - -“Oh, very much!” - -“Yet you didn’t tell me?” - -“No—for reasons. But now that you’ve guessed—” - -Mrs. Grose’s round eyes encountered this charge. “Ah, I haven’t -guessed!” she said very simply. “How can I if _you_ don’t imagine?” - -“I don’t in the very least.” - -“You’ve seen him nowhere but on the tower?” - -“And on this spot just now.” - -Mrs. Grose looked round again. “What was he doing on the tower?” - -“Only standing there and looking down at me.” - -She thought a minute. “Was he a gentleman?” - -I found I had no need to think. “No.” She gazed in deeper wonder. “No.” - -“Then nobody about the place? Nobody from the village?” - -“Nobody—nobody. I didn’t tell you, but I made sure.” - -She breathed a vague relief: this was, oddly, so much to the good. It -only went indeed a little way. “But if he isn’t a gentleman—” - -“What _is_ he? He’s a horror.” - -“A horror?” - -“He’s—God help me if I know _what_ he is!” - -Mrs. Grose looked round once more; she fixed her eyes on the duskier -distance, then, pulling herself together, turned to me with abrupt -inconsequence. “It’s time we should be at church.” - -“Oh, I’m not fit for church!” - -“Won’t it do you good?” - -“It won’t do _them!_— I nodded at the house. - -“The children?” - -“I can’t leave them now.” - -“You’re afraid—?” - -I spoke boldly. “I’m afraid of _him_.” - -Mrs. Grose’s large face showed me, at this, for the first time, the -faraway faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute: I somehow made out -in it the delayed dawn of an idea I myself had not given her and that -was as yet quite obscure to me. It comes back to me that I thought -instantly of this as something I could get from her; and I felt it to -be connected with the desire she presently showed to know more. “When -was it—on the tower?” - -“About the middle of the month. At this same hour.” - -“Almost at dark,” said Mrs. Grose. - -“Oh, no, not nearly. I saw him as I see you.” - -“Then how did he get in?” - -“And how did he get out?” I laughed. “I had no opportunity to ask him! -This evening, you see,” I pursued, “he has not been able to get in.” - -“He only peeps?” - -“I hope it will be confined to that!” She had now let go my hand; she -turned away a little. I waited an instant; then I brought out: “Go to -church. Goodbye. I must watch.” - -Slowly she faced me again. “Do you fear for them?” - -We met in another long look. “Don’t _you?_” Instead of answering she -came nearer to the window and, for a minute, applied her face to the -glass. “You see how he could see,” I meanwhile went on. - -She didn’t move. “How long was he here?” - -“Till I came out. I came to meet him.” - -Mrs. Grose at last turned round, and there was still more in her face. -“_I_ couldn’t have come out.” - -“Neither could I!” I laughed again. “But I did come. I have my duty.” - -“So have I mine,” she replied; after which she added: “What is he -like?” - -“I’ve been dying to tell you. But he’s like nobody.” - -“Nobody?” she echoed. - -“He has no hat.” Then seeing in her face that she already, in this, -with a deeper dismay, found a touch of picture, I quickly added stroke -to stroke. “He has red hair, very red, close-curling, and a pale face, -long in shape, with straight, good features and little, rather queer -whiskers that are as red as his hair. His eyebrows are, somehow, -darker; they look particularly arched and as if they might move a good -deal. His eyes are sharp, strange—awfully; but I only know clearly that -they’re rather small and very fixed. His mouth’s wide, and his lips are -thin, and except for his little whiskers he’s quite clean-shaven. He -gives me a sort of sense of looking like an actor.” - -“An actor!” It was impossible to resemble one less, at least, than Mrs. -Grose at that moment. - -“I’ve never seen one, but so I suppose them. He’s tall, active, erect,” -I continued, “but never—no, never!—a gentleman.” - -My companion’s face had blanched as I went on; her round eyes started -and her mild mouth gaped. “A gentleman?” she gasped, confounded, -stupefied: “a gentleman _he?_” - -“You know him then?” - -She visibly tried to hold herself. “But he _is_ handsome?” - -I saw the way to help her. “Remarkably!” - -“And dressed—?” - -“In somebody’s clothes.” “They’re smart, but they’re not his own.” - -She broke into a breathless affirmative groan: “They’re the master’s!” - -I caught it up. “You _do_ know him?” - -She faltered but a second. “Quint!” she cried. - -“Quint?” - -“Peter Quint—his own man, his valet, when he was here!” - -“When the master was?” - -Gaping still, but meeting me, she pieced it all together. “He never -wore his hat, but he did wear—well, there were waistcoats missed. They -were both here—last year. Then the master went, and Quint was alone.” - -I followed, but halting a little. “Alone?” - -“Alone with _us_.” Then, as from a deeper depth, “In charge,” she -added. - -“And what became of him?” - -She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. “He went, too,” -she brought out at last. - -“Went where?” - -Her expression, at this, became extraordinary. “God knows where! He -died.” - -“Died?” I almost shrieked. - -She seemed fairly to square herself, plant herself more firmly to utter -the wonder of it. “Yes. Mr. Quint is dead.” - - -VI - -It took of course more than that particular passage to place us -together in presence of what we had now to live with as we could—my -dreadful liability to impressions of the order so vividly exemplified, -and my companion’s knowledge, henceforth—a knowledge half consternation -and half compassion—of that liability. There had been, this evening, -after the revelation left me, for an hour, so prostrate—there had been, -for either of us, no attendance on any service but a little service of -tears and vows, of prayers and promises, a climax to the series of -mutual challenges and pledges that had straightway ensued on our -retreating together to the schoolroom and shutting ourselves up there -to have everything out. The result of our having everything out was -simply to reduce our situation to the last rigor of its elements. She -herself had seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the -house but the governess was in the governess’s plight; yet she accepted -without directly impugning my sanity the truth as I gave it to her, and -ended by showing me, on this ground, an awestricken tenderness, an -expression of the sense of my more than questionable privilege, of -which the very breath has remained with me as that of the sweetest of -human charities. - -What was settled between us, accordingly, that night, was that we -thought we might bear things together; and I was not even sure that, in -spite of her exemption, it was she who had the best of the burden. I -knew at this hour, I think, as well as I knew later, what I was capable -of meeting to shelter my pupils; but it took me some time to be wholly -sure of what my honest ally was prepared for to keep terms with so -compromising a contract. I was queer company enough—quite as queer as -the company I received; but as I trace over what we went through I see -how much common ground we must have found in the one idea that, by good -fortune, _could_ steady us. It was the idea, the second movement, that -led me straight out, as I may say, of the inner chamber of my dread. I -could take the air in the court, at least, and there Mrs. Grose could -join me. Perfectly can I recall now the particular way strength came to -me before we separated for the night. We had gone over and over every -feature of what I had seen. - -“He was looking for someone else, you say—someone who was not you?” - -“He was looking for little Miles.” A portentous clearness now possessed -me. “_That’s_ whom he was looking for.” - -“But how do you know?” - -“I know, I know, I know!” My exaltation grew. “And _you_ know, my -dear!” - -She didn’t deny this, but I required, I felt, not even so much telling -as that. She resumed in a moment, at any rate: “What if _he_ should see -him?” - -“Little Miles? That’s what he wants!” - -She looked immensely scared again. “The child?” - -“Heaven forbid! The man. He wants to appear to _them_.” That he might -was an awful conception, and yet, somehow, I could keep it at bay; -which, moreover, as we lingered there, was what I succeeded in -practically proving. I had an absolute certainty that I should see -again what I had already seen, but something within me said that by -offering myself bravely as the sole subject of such experience, by -accepting, by inviting, by surmounting it all, I should serve as an -expiatory victim and guard the tranquility of my companions. The -children, in especial, I should thus fence about and absolutely save. I -recall one of the last things I said that night to Mrs. Grose. - -“It does strike me that my pupils have never mentioned—” - -She looked at me hard as I musingly pulled up. “His having been here -and the time they were with him?” - -“The time they were with him, and his name, his presence, his history, -in any way.” - -“Oh, the little lady doesn’t remember. She never heard or knew.” - -“The circumstances of his death?” I thought with some intensity. -“Perhaps not. But Miles would remember—Miles would know.” - -“Ah, don’t try him!” broke from Mrs. Grose. - -I returned her the look she had given me. “Don’t be afraid.” I -continued to think. “It _is_ rather odd.” - -“That he has never spoken of him?” - -“Never by the least allusion. And you tell me they were ‘great -friends’?” - -“Oh, it wasn’t _him!_” Mrs. Grose with emphasis declared. “It was -Quint’s own fancy. To play with him, I mean—to spoil him.” She paused a -moment; then she added: “Quint was much too free.” - -This gave me, straight from my vision of his face—_such_ a face!—a -sudden sickness of disgust. “Too free with _my_ boy?” - -“Too free with everyone!” - -I forbore, for the moment, to analyze this description further than by -the reflection that a part of it applied to several of the members of -the household, of the half-dozen maids and men who were still of our -small colony. But there was everything, for our apprehension, in the -lucky fact that no discomfortable legend, no perturbation of scullions, -had ever, within anyone’s memory attached to the kind old place. It had -neither bad name nor ill fame, and Mrs. Grose, most apparently, only -desired to cling to me and to quake in silence. I even put her, the -very last thing of all, to the test. It was when, at midnight, she had -her hand on the schoolroom door to take leave. “I have it from you -then—for it’s of great importance—that he was definitely and admittedly -bad?” - -“Oh, not admittedly. _I_ knew it—but the master didn’t.” - -“And you never told him?” - -“Well, he didn’t like tale-bearing—he hated complaints. He was terribly -short with anything of that kind, and if people were all right to -_him_—” - -“He wouldn’t be bothered with more?” This squared well enough with my -impressions of him: he was not a trouble-loving gentleman, nor so very -particular perhaps about some of the company _he_ kept. All the same, I -pressed my interlocutress. “I promise you _I_ would have told!” - -She felt my discrimination. “I daresay I was wrong. But, really, I was -afraid.” - -“Afraid of what?” - -“Of things that man could do. Quint was so clever—he was so deep.” - -I took this in still more than, probably, I showed. “You weren’t afraid -of anything else? Not of his effect—?” - -“His effect?” she repeated with a face of anguish and waiting while I -faltered. - -“On innocent little precious lives. They were in your charge.” - -“No, they were not in mine!” she roundly and distressfully returned. -“The master believed in him and placed him here because he was supposed -not to be well and the country air so good for him. So he had -everything to say. Yes”—she let me have it—“even about _them_.” - -“Them—that creature?” I had to smother a kind of howl. “And you could -bear it!” - -“No. I couldn’t—and I can’t now!” And the poor woman burst into tears. - -A rigid control, from the next day, was, as I have said, to follow -them; yet how often and how passionately, for a week, we came back -together to the subject! Much as we had discussed it that Sunday night, -I was, in the immediate later hours in especial—for it may be imagined -whether I slept—still haunted with the shadow of something she had not -told me. I myself had kept back nothing, but there was a word Mrs. -Grose had kept back. I was sure, moreover, by morning, that this was -not from a failure of frankness, but because on every side there were -fears. It seems to me indeed, in retrospect, that by the time the -morrow’s sun was high I had restlessly read into the fact before us -almost all the meaning they were to receive from subsequent and more -cruel occurrences. What they gave me above all was just the sinister -figure of the living man—the dead one would keep awhile!—and of the -months he had continuously passed at Bly, which, added up, made a -formidable stretch. The limit of this evil time had arrived only when, -on the dawn of a winter’s morning, Peter Quint was found, by a laborer -going to early work, stone dead on the road from the village: a -catastrophe explained—superficially at least—by a visible wound to his -head; such a wound as might have been produced—and as, on the final -evidence, _had_ been—by a fatal slip, in the dark and after leaving the -public house, on the steepish icy slope, a wrong path altogether, at -the bottom of which he lay. The icy slope, the turn mistaken at night -and in liquor, accounted for much—practically, in the end and after the -inquest and boundless chatter, for everything; but there had been -matters in his life—strange passages and perils, secret disorders, -vices more than suspected—that would have accounted for a good deal -more. - -I scarce know how to put my story into words that shall be a credible -picture of my state of mind; but I was in these days literally able to -find a joy in the extraordinary flight of heroism the occasion demanded -of me. I now saw that I had been asked for a service admirable and -difficult; and there would be a greatness in letting it be seen—oh, in -the right quarter!—that I could succeed where many another girl might -have failed. It was an immense help to me—I confess I rather applaud -myself as I look back!—that I saw my service so strongly and so simply. -I was there to protect and defend the little creatures in the world the -most bereaved and the most lovable, the appeal of whose helplessness -had suddenly become only too explicit, a deep, constant ache of one’s -own committed heart. We were cut off, really, together; we were united -in our danger. They had nothing but me, and I—well, I had _them_. It -was in short a magnificent chance. This chance presented itself to me -in an image richly material. I was a screen—I was to stand before them. -The more I saw, the less they would. I began to watch them in a stifled -suspense, a disguised excitement that might well, had it continued too -long, have turned to something like madness. What saved me, as I now -see, was that it turned to something else altogether. It didn’t last as -suspense—it was superseded by horrible proofs. Proofs, I say, yes—from -the moment I really took hold. - -This moment dated from an afternoon hour that I happened to spend in -the grounds with the younger of my pupils alone. We had left Miles -indoors, on the red cushion of a deep window seat; he had wished to -finish a book, and I had been glad to encourage a purpose so laudable -in a young man whose only defect was an occasional excess of the -restless. His sister, on the contrary, had been alert to come out, and -I strolled with her half an hour, seeking the shade, for the sun was -still high and the day exceptionally warm. I was aware afresh, with -her, as we went, of how, like her brother, she contrived—it was the -charming thing in both children—to let me alone without appearing to -drop me and to accompany me without appearing to surround. They were -never importunate and yet never listless. My attention to them all -really went to seeing them amuse themselves immensely without me: this -was a spectacle they seemed actively to prepare and that engaged me as -an active admirer. I walked in a world of their invention—they had no -occasion whatever to draw upon mine; so that my time was taken only -with being, for them, some remarkable person or thing that the game of -the moment required and that was merely, thanks to my superior, my -exalted stamp, a happy and highly distinguished sinecure. I forget what -I was on the present occasion; I only remember that I was something -very important and very quiet and that Flora was playing very hard. We -were on the edge of the lake, and, as we had lately begun geography, -the lake was the Sea of Azof. - -Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the other -side of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. The way this -knowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing in the world—the -strangest, that is, except the very much stranger in which it quickly -merged itself. I had sat down with a piece of work—for I was something -or other that could sit—on the old stone bench which overlooked the -pond; and in this position I began to take in with certitude, and yet -without direct vision, the presence, at a distance, of a third person. -The old trees, the thick shrubbery, made a great and pleasant shade, -but it was all suffused with the brightness of the hot, still hour. -There was no ambiguity in anything; none whatever, at least, in the -conviction I from one moment to another found myself forming as to what -I should see straight before me and across the lake as a consequence of -raising my eyes. They were attached at this juncture to the stitching -in which I was engaged, and I can feel once more the spasm of my effort -not to move them till I should so have steadied myself as to be able to -make up my mind what to do. There was an alien object in view—a figure -whose right of presence I instantly, passionately questioned. I -recollect counting over perfectly the possibilities, reminding myself -that nothing was more natural, for instance, then the appearance of one -of the men about the place, or even of a messenger, a postman, or a -tradesman’s boy, from the village. That reminder had as little effect -on my practical certitude as I was conscious—still even without -looking—of its having upon the character and attitude of our visitor. -Nothing was more natural than that these things should be the other -things that they absolutely were not. - -Of the positive identity of the apparition I would assure myself as -soon as the small clock of my courage should have ticked out the right -second; meanwhile, with an effort that was already sharp enough, I -transferred my eyes straight to little Flora, who, at the moment, was -about ten yards away. My heart had stood still for an instant with the -wonder and terror of the question whether she too would see; and I held -my breath while I waited for what a cry from her, what some sudden -innocent sign either of interest or of alarm, would tell me. I waited, -but nothing came; then, in the first place—and there is something more -dire in this, I feel, than in anything I have to relate—I was -determined by a sense that, within a minute, all sounds from her had -previously dropped; and, in the second, by the circumstance that, also -within the minute, she had, in her play, turned her back to the water. -This was her attitude when I at last looked at her—looked with the -confirmed conviction that we were still, together, under direct -personal notice. She had picked up a small flat piece of wood, which -happened to have in it a little hole that had evidently suggested to -her the idea of sticking in another fragment that might figure as a -mast and make the thing a boat. This second morsel, as I watched her, -she was very markedly and intently attempting to tighten in its place. -My apprehension of what she was doing sustained me so that after some -seconds I felt I was ready for more. Then I again shifted my eyes—I -faced what I had to face. - - -VII - -I got hold of Mrs. Grose as soon after this as I could; and I can give -no intelligible account of how I fought out the interval. Yet I still -hear myself cry as I fairly threw myself into her arms: “They -_know_—it’s too monstrous: they know, they know!” - -“And what on earth—?” I felt her incredulity as she held me. - -“Why, all that _we_ know—and heaven knows what else besides!” Then, as -she released me, I made it out to her, made it out perhaps only now -with full coherency even to myself. “Two hours ago, in the garden”—I -could scarce articulate—“Flora _saw!_” - -Mrs. Grose took it as she might have taken a blow in the stomach. “She -has told you?” she panted. - -“Not a word—that’s the horror. She kept it to herself! The child of -eight, _that_ child!” Unutterable still, for me, was the stupefaction -of it. - -Mrs. Grose, of course, could only gape the wider. “Then how do you -know?” - -“I was there—I saw with my eyes: saw that she was perfectly aware.” - -“Do you mean aware of _him?_” - -“No—of _her_.” I was conscious as I spoke that I looked prodigious -things, for I got the slow reflection of them in my companion’s face. -“Another person—this time; but a figure of quite as unmistakable horror -and evil: a woman in black, pale and dreadful—with such an air also, -and such a face!—on the other side of the lake. I was there with the -child—quiet for the hour; and in the midst of it she came.” - -“Came how—from where?” - -“From where they come from! She just appeared and stood there—but not -so near.” - -“And without coming nearer?” - -“Oh, for the effect and the feeling, she might have been as close as -you!” - -My friend, with an odd impulse, fell back a step. “Was she someone -you’ve never seen?” - -“Yes. But someone the child has. Someone _you_ have.” Then, to show how -I had thought it all out: “My predecessor—the one who died.” - -“Miss Jessel?” - -“Miss Jessel. You don’t believe me?” I pressed. - -She turned right and left in her distress. “How can you be sure?” - -This drew from me, in the state of my nerves, a flash of impatience. -“Then ask Flora—_she’s_ sure!” But I had no sooner spoken than I caught -myself up. “No, for God’s sake, _don’t!_ She’ll say she isn’t—she’ll -lie!” - -Mrs. Grose was not too bewildered instinctively to protest. “Ah, how -_can_ you?” - -“Because I’m clear. Flora doesn’t want me to know.” - -“It’s only then to spare you.” - -“No, no—there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I see -in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I don’t know what I -_don’t_ see—what I _don’t_ fear!” - -Mrs. Grose tried to keep up with me. “You mean you’re afraid of seeing -her again?” - -“Oh, no; that’s nothing—now!” Then I explained. “It’s of _not_ seeing -her.” - -But my companion only looked wan. “I don’t understand you.” - -“Why, it’s that the child may keep it up—and that the child assuredly -_will_—without my knowing it.” - -At the image of this possibility Mrs. Grose for a moment collapsed, yet -presently to pull herself together again, as if from the positive force -of the sense of what, should we yield an inch, there would really be to -give way to. “Dear, dear—we must keep our heads! And after all, if she -doesn’t mind it—!” She even tried a grim joke. “Perhaps she likes it!” - -“Likes _such_ things—a scrap of an infant!” - -“Isn’t it just a proof of her blessed innocence?” my friend bravely -inquired. - -She brought me, for the instant, almost round. “Oh, we must clutch at -_that_—we must cling to it! If it isn’t a proof of what you say, it’s a -proof of—God knows what! For the woman’s a horror of horrors.” - -Mrs. Grose, at this, fixed her eyes a minute on the ground; then at -last raising them, “Tell me how you know,” she said. - -“Then you admit it’s what she was?” I cried. - -“Tell me how you know,” my friend simply repeated. - -“Know? By seeing her! By the way she looked.” - -“At you, do you mean—so wickedly?” - -“Dear me, no—I could have borne that. She gave me never a glance. She -only fixed the child.” - -Mrs. Grose tried to see it. “Fixed her?” - -“Ah, with such awful eyes!” - -She stared at mine as if they might really have resembled them. “Do you -mean of dislike?” - -“God help us, no. Of something much worse.” - -“Worse than dislike?”—this left her indeed at a loss. - -“With a determination—indescribable. With a kind of fury of intention.” - -I made her turn pale. “Intention?” - -“To get hold of her.” Mrs. Grose—her eyes just lingering on mine—gave a -shudder and walked to the window; and while she stood there looking out -I completed my statement. “_That’s_ what Flora knows.” - -After a little she turned round. “The person was in black, you say?” - -“In mourning—rather poor, almost shabby. But—yes—with extraordinary -beauty.” I now recognized to what I had at last, stroke by stroke, -brought the victim of my confidence, for she quite visibly weighed -this. “Oh, handsome—very, very,” I insisted; “wonderfully handsome. But -infamous.” - -She slowly came back to me. “Miss Jessel—_was_ infamous.” She once more -took my hand in both her own, holding it as tight as if to fortify me -against the increase of alarm I might draw from this disclosure. “They -were both infamous,” she finally said. - -So, for a little, we faced it once more together; and I found -absolutely a degree of help in seeing it now so straight. “I -appreciate,” I said, “the great decency of your not having hitherto -spoken; but the time has certainly come to give me the whole thing.” -She appeared to assent to this, but still only in silence; seeing which -I went on: “I must have it now. Of what did she die? Come, there was -something between them.” - -“There was everything.” - -“In spite of the difference—?” - -“Oh, of their rank, their condition”—she brought it woefully out. -“_She_ was a lady.” - -I turned it over; I again saw. “Yes—she was a lady.” - -“And he so dreadfully below,” said Mrs. Grose. - -I felt that I doubtless needn’t press too hard, in such company, on the -place of a servant in the scale; but there was nothing to prevent an -acceptance of my companion’s own measure of my predecessor’s abasement. -There was a way to deal with that, and I dealt; the more readily for my -full vision—on the evidence—of our employer’s late clever, good-looking -“own” man; impudent, assured, spoiled, depraved. “The fellow was a -hound.” - -Mrs. Grose considered as if it were perhaps a little a case for a sense -of shades. “I’ve never seen one like him. He did what he wished.” - -“With _her?_” - -“With them all.” - -It was as if now in my friend’s own eyes Miss Jessel had again -appeared. I seemed at any rate, for an instant, to see their evocation -of her as distinctly as I had seen her by the pond; and I brought out -with decision: “It must have been also what _she_ wished!” - -Mrs. Grose’s face signified that it had been indeed, but she said at -the same time: “Poor woman—she paid for it!” - -“Then you do know what she died of?” I asked. - -“No—I know nothing. I wanted not to know; I was glad enough I didn’t; -and I thanked heaven she was well out of this!” - -“Yet you had, then, your idea—” - -“Of her real reason for leaving? Oh, yes—as to that. She couldn’t have -stayed. Fancy it here—for a governess! And afterward I imagined—and I -still imagine. And what I imagine is dreadful.” - -“Not so dreadful as what _I_ do,” I replied; on which I must have shown -her—as I was indeed but too conscious—a front of miserable defeat. It -brought out again all her compassion for me, and at the renewed touch -of her kindness my power to resist broke down. I burst, as I had, the -other time, made her burst, into tears; she took me to her motherly -breast, and my lamentation overflowed. “I don’t do it!” I sobbed in -despair; “I don’t save or shield them! It’s far worse than I -dreamed—they’re lost!” - - -VIII - -What I had said to Mrs. Grose was true enough: there were in the matter -I had put before her depths and possibilities that I lacked resolution -to sound; so that when we met once more in the wonder of it we were of -a common mind about the duty of resistance to extravagant fancies. We -were to keep our heads if we should keep nothing else—difficult indeed -as that might be in the face of what, in our prodigious experience, was -least to be questioned. Late that night, while the house slept, we had -another talk in my room, when she went all the way with me as to its -being beyond doubt that I had seen exactly what I had seen. To hold her -perfectly in the pinch of that, I found I had only to ask her how, if I -had “made it up,” I came to be able to give, of each of the persons -appearing to me, a picture disclosing, to the last detail, their -special marks—a portrait on the exhibition of which she had instantly -recognized and named them. She wished of course—small blame to her!—to -sink the whole subject; and I was quick to assure her that my own -interest in it had now violently taken the form of a search for the way -to escape from it. I encountered her on the ground of a probability -that with recurrence—for recurrence we took for granted—I should get -used to my danger, distinctly professing that my personal exposure had -suddenly become the least of my discomforts. It was my new suspicion -that was intolerable; and yet even to this complication the later hours -of the day had brought a little ease. - -On leaving her, after my first outbreak, I had of course returned to my -pupils, associating the right remedy for my dismay with that sense of -their charm which I had already found to be a thing I could positively -cultivate and which had never failed me yet. I had simply, in other -words, plunged afresh into Flora’s special society and there become -aware—it was almost a luxury!—that she could put her little conscious -hand straight upon the spot that ached. She had looked at me in sweet -speculation and then had accused me to my face of having “cried.” I had -supposed I had brushed away the ugly signs: but I could literally—for -the time, at all events—rejoice, under this fathomless charity, that -they had not entirely disappeared. To gaze into the depths of blue of -the child’s eyes and pronounce their loveliness a trick of premature -cunning was to be guilty of a cynicism in preference to which I -naturally preferred to abjure my judgment and, so far as might be, my -agitation. I couldn’t abjure for merely wanting to, but I could repeat -to Mrs. Grose—as I did there, over and over, in the small hours—that -with their voices in the air, their pressure on one’s heart, and their -fragrant faces against one’s cheek, everything fell to the ground but -their incapacity and their beauty. It was a pity that, somehow, to -settle this once for all, I had equally to re-enumerate the signs of -subtlety that, in the afternoon, by the lake had made a miracle of my -show of self-possession. It was a pity to be obliged to reinvestigate -the certitude of the moment itself and repeat how it had come to me as -a revelation that the inconceivable communion I then surprised was a -matter, for either party, of habit. It was a pity that I should have -had to quaver out again the reasons for my not having, in my delusion, -so much as questioned that the little girl saw our visitant even as I -actually saw Mrs. Grose herself, and that she wanted, by just so much -as she did thus see, to make me suppose she didn’t, and at the same -time, without showing anything, arrive at a guess as to whether I -myself did! It was a pity that I needed once more to describe the -portentous little activity by which she sought to divert my -attention—the perceptible increase of movement, the greater intensity -of play, the singing, the gabbling of nonsense, and the invitation to -romp. - -Yet if I had not indulged, to prove there was nothing in it, in this -review, I should have missed the two or three dim elements of comfort -that still remained to me. I should not for instance have been able to -asseverate to my friend that I was certain—which was so much to the -good—that _I_ at least had not betrayed myself. I should not have been -prompted, by stress of need, by desperation of mind—I scarce know what -to call it—to invoke such further aid to intelligence as might spring -from pushing my colleague fairly to the wall. She had told me, bit by -bit, under pressure, a great deal; but a small shifty spot on the wrong -side of it all still sometimes brushed my brow like the wing of a bat; -and I remember how on this occasion—for the sleeping house and the -concentration alike of our danger and our watch seemed to help—I felt -the importance of giving the last jerk to the curtain. “I don’t believe -anything so horrible,” I recollect saying; “no, let us put it -definitely, my dear, that I don’t. But if I did, you know, there’s a -thing I should require now, just without sparing you the least bit -more—oh, not a scrap, come!—to get out of you. What was it you had in -mind when, in our distress, before Miles came back, over the letter -from his school, you said, under my insistence, that you didn’t pretend -for him that he had not literally _ever_ been ‘bad’? He has _not_ -literally ‘ever,’ in these weeks that I myself have lived with him and -so closely watched him; he has been an imperturbable little prodigy of -delightful, lovable goodness. Therefore you might perfectly have made -the claim for him if you had not, as it happened, seen an exception to -take. What was your exception, and to what passage in your personal -observation of him did you refer?” - -It was a dreadfully austere inquiry, but levity was not our note, and, -at any rate, before the gray dawn admonished us to separate I had got -my answer. What my friend had had in mind proved to be immensely to the -purpose. It was neither more nor less than the circumstance that for a -period of several months Quint and the boy had been perpetually -together. It was in fact the very appropriate truth that she had -ventured to criticize the propriety, to hint at the incongruity, of so -close an alliance, and even to go so far on the subject as a frank -overture to Miss Jessel. Miss Jessel had, with a most strange manner, -requested her to mind her business, and the good woman had, on this, -directly approached little Miles. What she had said to him, since I -pressed, was that _she_ liked to see young gentlemen not forget their -station. - -I pressed again, of course, at this. “You reminded him that Quint was -only a base menial?” - -“As you might say! And it was his answer, for one thing, that was bad.” - -“And for another thing?” I waited. “He repeated your words to Quint?” - -“No, not that. It’s just what he _wouldn’t!_” she could still impress -upon me. “I was sure, at any rate,” she added, “that he didn’t. But he -denied certain occasions.” - -“What occasions?” - -“When they had been about together quite as if Quint were his tutor—and -a very grand one—and Miss Jessel only for the little lady. When he had -gone off with the fellow, I mean, and spent hours with him.” - -“He then prevaricated about it—he said he hadn’t?” Her assent was clear -enough to cause me to add in a moment: “I see. He lied.” - -“Oh!” Mrs. Grose mumbled. This was a suggestion that it didn’t matter; -which indeed she backed up by a further remark. “You see, after all, -Miss Jessel didn’t mind. She didn’t forbid him.” - -I considered. “Did he put that to you as a justification?” - -At this she dropped again. “No, he never spoke of it.” - -“Never mentioned her in connection with Quint?” - -She saw, visibly flushing, where I was coming out. “Well, he didn’t -show anything. He denied,” she repeated; “he denied.” - -Lord, how I pressed her now! “So that you could see he knew what was -between the two wretches?” - -“I don’t know—I don’t know!” the poor woman groaned. - -“You do know, you dear thing,” I replied; “only you haven’t my dreadful -boldness of mind, and you keep back, out of timidity and modesty and -delicacy, even the impression that, in the past, when you had, without -my aid, to flounder about in silence, most of all made you miserable. -But I shall get it out of you yet! There was something in the boy that -suggested to you,” I continued, “that he covered and concealed their -relation.” - -“Oh, he couldn’t prevent—” - -“Your learning the truth? I daresay! But, heavens,” I fell, with -vehemence, athinking, “what it shows that they must, to that extent, -have succeeded in making of him!” - -“Ah, nothing that’s not nice _now!_” Mrs. Grose lugubriously pleaded. - -“I don’t wonder you looked queer,” I persisted, “when I mentioned to -you the letter from his school!” - -“I doubt if I looked as queer as you!” she retorted with homely force. -“And if he was so bad then as that comes to, how is he such an angel -now?” - -“Yes, indeed—and if he was a fiend at school! How, how, how? Well,” I -said in my torment, “you must put it to me again, but I shall not be -able to tell you for some days. Only, put it to me again!” I cried in a -way that made my friend stare. “There are directions in which I must -not for the present let myself go.” Meanwhile I returned to her first -example—the one to which she had just previously referred—of the boy’s -happy capacity for an occasional slip. “If Quint—on your remonstrance -at the time you speak of—was a base menial, one of the things Miles -said to you, I find myself guessing, was that you were another.” Again -her admission was so adequate that I continued: “And you forgave him -that?” - -“Wouldn’t _you?_” - -“Oh, yes!” And we exchanged there, in the stillness, a sound of the -oddest amusement. Then I went on: “At all events, while he was with the -man—” - -“Miss Flora was with the woman. It suited them all!” - -It suited me, too, I felt, only too well; by which I mean that it -suited exactly the particularly deadly view I was in the very act of -forbidding myself to entertain. But I so far succeeded in checking the -expression of this view that I will throw, just here, no further light -on it than may be offered by the mention of my final observation to -Mrs. Grose. “His having lied and been impudent are, I confess, less -engaging specimens than I had hoped to have from you of the outbreak in -him of the little natural man. Still,” I mused, “They must do, for they -make me feel more than ever that I must watch.” - -It made me blush, the next minute, to see in my friend’s face how much -more unreservedly she had forgiven him than her anecdote struck me as -presenting to my own tenderness an occasion for doing. This came out -when, at the schoolroom door, she quitted me. “Surely you don’t accuse -_him_—” - -“Of carrying on an intercourse that he conceals from me? Ah, remember -that, until further evidence, I now accuse nobody.” Then, before -shutting her out to go, by another passage, to her own place, “I must -just wait,” I wound up. - - -IX - -I waited and waited, and the days, as they elapsed, took something from -my consternation. A very few of them, in fact, passing, in constant -sight of my pupils, without a fresh incident, sufficed to give to -grievous fancies and even to odious memories a kind of brush of the -sponge. I have spoken of the surrender to their extraordinary childish -grace as a thing I could actively cultivate, and it may be imagined if -I neglected now to address myself to this source for whatever it would -yield. Stranger than I can express, certainly, was the effort to -struggle against my new lights; it would doubtless have been, however, -a greater tension still had it not been so frequently successful. I -used to wonder how my little charges could help guessing that I thought -strange things about them; and the circumstances that these things only -made them more interesting was not by itself a direct aid to keeping -them in the dark. I trembled lest they should see that they _were_ so -immensely more interesting. Putting things at the worst, at all events, -as in meditation I so often did, any clouding of their innocence could -only be—blameless and foredoomed as they were—a reason the more for -taking risks. There were moments when, by an irresistible impulse, I -found myself catching them up and pressing them to my heart. As soon as -I had done so I used to say to myself: “What will they think of that? -Doesn’t it betray too much?” It would have been easy to get into a sad, -wild tangle about how much I might betray; but the real account, I -feel, of the hours of peace that I could still enjoy was that the -immediate charm of my companions was a beguilement still effective even -under the shadow of the possibility that it was studied. For if it -occurred to me that I might occasionally excite suspicion by the little -outbreaks of my sharper passion for them, so too I remember wondering -if I mightn’t see a queerness in the traceable increase of their own -demonstrations. - -They were at this period extravagantly and preternaturally fond of me; -which, after all, I could reflect, was no more than a graceful response -in children perpetually bowed over and hugged. The homage of which they -were so lavish succeeded, in truth, for my nerves, quite as well as if -I never appeared to myself, as I may say, literally to catch them at a -purpose in it. They had never, I think, wanted to do so many things for -their poor protectress; I mean—though they got their lessons better and -better, which was naturally what would please her most—in the way of -diverting, entertaining, surprising her; reading her passages, telling -her stories, acting her charades, pouncing out at her, in disguises, as -animals and historical characters, and above all astonishing her by the -“pieces” they had secretly got by heart and could interminably recite. -I should never get to the bottom—were I to let myself go even now—of -the prodigious private commentary, all under still more private -correction, with which, in these days, I overscored their full hours. -They had shown me from the first a facility for everything, a general -faculty which, taking a fresh start, achieved remarkable flights. They -got their little tasks as if they loved them, and indulged, from the -mere exuberance of the gift, in the most unimposed little miracles of -memory. They not only popped out at me as tigers and as Romans, but as -Shakespeareans, astronomers, and navigators. This was so singularly the -case that it had presumably much to do with the fact as to which, at -the present day, I am at a loss for a different explanation: I allude -to my unnatural composure on the subject of another school for Miles. -What I remember is that I was content not, for the time, to open the -question, and that contentment must have sprung from the sense of his -perpetually striking show of cleverness. He was too clever for a bad -governess, for a parson’s daughter, to spoil; and the strangest if not -the brightest thread in the pensive embroidery I just spoke of was the -impression I might have got, if I had dared to work it out, that he was -under some influence operating in his small intellectual life as a -tremendous incitement. - -If it was easy to reflect, however, that such a boy could postpone -school, it was at least as marked that for such a boy to have been -“kicked out” by a schoolmaster was a mystification without end. Let me -add that in their company now—and I was careful almost never to be out -of it—I could follow no scent very far. We lived in a cloud of music -and love and success and private theatricals. The musical sense in each -of the children was of the quickest, but the elder in especial had a -marvelous knack of catching and repeating. The schoolroom piano broke -into all gruesome fancies; and when that failed there were -confabulations in corners, with a sequel of one of them going out in -the highest spirits in order to “come in” as something new. I had had -brothers myself, and it was no revelation to me that little girls could -be slavish idolaters of little boys. What surpassed everything was that -there was a little boy in the world who could have for the inferior -age, sex, and intelligence so fine a consideration. They were -extraordinarily at one, and to say that they never either quarreled or -complained is to make the note of praise coarse for their quality of -sweetness. Sometimes, indeed, when I dropped into coarseness, I perhaps -came across traces of little understandings between them by which one -of them should keep me occupied while the other slipped away. There is -a _naïf_ side, I suppose, in all diplomacy; but if my pupils practiced -upon me, it was surely with the minimum of grossness. It was all in the -other quarter that, after a lull, the grossness broke out. - -I find that I really hang back; but I must take my plunge. In going on -with the record of what was hideous at Bly, I not only challenge the -most liberal faith—for which I little care; but—and this is another -matter—I renew what I myself suffered, I again push my way through it -to the end. There came suddenly an hour after which, as I look back, -the affair seems to me to have been all pure suffering; but I have at -least reached the heart of it, and the straightest road out is -doubtless to advance. One evening—with nothing to lead up or to prepare -it—I felt the cold touch of the impression that had breathed on me the -night of my arrival and which, much lighter then, as I have mentioned, -I should probably have made little of in memory had my subsequent -sojourn been less agitated. I had not gone to bed; I sat reading by a -couple of candles. There was a roomful of old books at Bly—last-century -fiction, some of it, which, to the extent of a distinctly deprecated -renown, but never to so much as that of a stray specimen, had reached -the sequestered home and appealed to the unavowed curiosity of my -youth. I remember that the book I had in my hand was Fielding’s -_Amelia_; also that I was wholly awake. I recall further both a general -conviction that it was horribly late and a particular objection to -looking at my watch. I figure, finally, that the white curtain draping, -in the fashion of those days, the head of Flora’s little bed, shrouded, -as I had assured myself long before, the perfection of childish rest. I -recollect in short that, though I was deeply interested in my author, I -found myself, at the turn of a page and with his spell all scattered, -looking straight up from him and hard at the door of my room. There was -a moment during which I listened, reminded of the faint sense I had -had, the first night, of there being something undefinably astir in the -house, and noted the soft breath of the open casement just move the -half-drawn blind. Then, with all the marks of a deliberation that must -have seemed magnificent had there been anyone to admire it, I laid down -my book, rose to my feet, and, taking a candle, went straight out of -the room and, from the passage, on which my light made little -impression, noiselessly closed and locked the door. - -I can say now neither what determined nor what guided me, but I went -straight along the lobby, holding my candle high, till I came within -sight of the tall window that presided over the great turn of the -staircase. At this point I precipitately found myself aware of three -things. They were practically simultaneous, yet they had flashes of -succession. My candle, under a bold flourish, went out, and I -perceived, by the uncovered window, that the yielding dusk of earliest -morning rendered it unnecessary. Without it, the next instant, I saw -that there was someone on the stair. I speak of sequences, but I -required no lapse of seconds to stiffen myself for a third encounter -with Quint. The apparition had reached the landing halfway up and was -therefore on the spot nearest the window, where at sight of me, it -stopped short and fixed me exactly as it had fixed me from the tower -and from the garden. He knew me as well as I knew him; and so, in the -cold, faint twilight, with a glimmer in the high glass and another on -the polish of the oak stair below, we faced each other in our common -intensity. He was absolutely, on this occasion, a living, detestable, -dangerous presence. But that was not the wonder of wonders; I reserve -this distinction for quite another circumstance: the circumstance that -dread had unmistakably quitted me and that there was nothing in me -there that didn’t meet and measure him. - -I had plenty of anguish after that extraordinary moment, but I had, -thank God, no terror. And he knew I had not—I found myself at the end -of an instant magnificently aware of this. I felt, in a fierce rigor of -confidence, that if I stood my ground a minute I should cease—for the -time, at least—to have him to reckon with; and during the minute, -accordingly, the thing was as human and hideous as a real interview: -hideous just because it _was_ human, as human as to have met alone, in -the small hours, in a sleeping house, some enemy, some adventurer, some -criminal. It was the dead silence of our long gaze at such close -quarters that gave the whole horror, huge as it was, its only note of -the unnatural. If I had met a murderer in such a place and at such an -hour, we still at least would have spoken. Something would have passed, -in life, between us; if nothing had passed, one of us would have moved. -The moment was so prolonged that it would have taken but little more to -make me doubt if even _I_ were in life. I can’t express what followed -it save by saying that the silence itself—which was indeed in a manner -an attestation of my strength—became the element into which I saw the -figure disappear; in which I definitely saw it turn as I might have -seen the low wretch to which it had once belonged turn on receipt of an -order, and pass, with my eyes on the villainous back that no hunch -could have more disfigured, straight down the staircase and into the -darkness in which the next bend was lost. - - -X - -I remained awhile at the top of the stair, but with the effect -presently of understanding that when my visitor had gone, he had gone: -then I returned to my room. The foremost thing I saw there by the light -of the candle I had left burning was that Flora’s little bed was empty; -and on this I caught my breath with all the terror that, five minutes -before, I had been able to resist. I dashed at the place in which I had -left her lying and over which (for the small silk counterpane and the -sheets were disarranged) the white curtains had been deceivingly pulled -forward; then my step, to my unutterable relief, produced an answering -sound: I perceived an agitation of the window blind, and the child, -ducking down, emerged rosily from the other side of it. She stood there -in so much of her candor and so little of her nightgown, with her pink -bare feet and the golden glow of her curls. She looked intensely grave, -and I had never had such a sense of losing an advantage acquired (the -thrill of which had just been so prodigious) as on my consciousness -that she addressed me with a reproach. “You naughty: where _have_ you -been?”—instead of challenging her own irregularity I found myself -arraigned and explaining. She herself explained, for that matter, with -the loveliest, eagerest simplicity. She had known suddenly, as she lay -there, that I was out of the room, and had jumped up to see what had -become of me. I had dropped, with the joy of her reappearance, back -into my chair—feeling then, and then only, a little faint; and she had -pattered straight over to me, thrown herself upon my knee, given -herself to be held with the flame of the candle full in the wonderful -little face that was still flushed with sleep. I remember closing my -eyes an instant, yieldingly, consciously, as before the excess of -something beautiful that shone out of the blue of her own. “You were -looking for me out of the window?” I said. “You thought I might be -walking in the grounds?” - -“Well, you know, I thought someone was”—she never blanched as she -smiled out that at me. - -Oh, how I looked at her now! “And did you see anyone?” - -“Ah, _no!_” she returned, almost with the full privilege of childish -inconsequence, resentfully, though with a long sweetness in her little -drawl of the negative. - -At that moment, in the state of my nerves, I absolutely believed she -lied; and if I once more closed my eyes it was before the dazzle of the -three or four possible ways in which I might take this up. One of -these, for a moment, tempted me with such singular intensity that, to -withstand it, I must have gripped my little girl with a spasm that, -wonderfully, she submitted to without a cry or a sign of fright. Why -not break out at her on the spot and have it all over?—give it to her -straight in her lovely little lighted face? “You see, you see, you -_know_ that you do and that you already quite suspect I believe it; -therefore, why not frankly confess it to me, so that we may at least -live with it together and learn perhaps, in the strangeness of our -fate, where we are and what it means?” This solicitation dropped, alas, -as it came: if I could immediately have succumbed to it I might have -spared myself—well, you’ll see what. Instead of succumbing I sprang -again to my feet, looked at her bed, and took a helpless middle way. -“Why did you pull the curtain over the place to make me think you were -still there?” - -Flora luminously considered; after which, with her little divine smile: -“Because I don’t like to frighten you!” - -“But if I had, by your idea, gone out—?” - -She absolutely declined to be puzzled; she turned her eyes to the flame -of the candle as if the question were as irrelevant, or at any rate as -impersonal, as Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine. “Oh, but you know,” she -quite adequately answered, “that you might come back, you dear, and -that you _have!_” And after a little, when she had got into bed, I had, -for a long time, by almost sitting on her to hold her hand, to prove -that I recognized the pertinence of my return. - -You may imagine the general complexion, from that moment, of my nights. -I repeatedly sat up till I didn’t know when; I selected moments when my -roommate unmistakably slept, and, stealing out, took noiseless turns in -the passage and even pushed as far as to where I had last met Quint. -But I never met him there again; and I may as well say at once that I -on no other occasion saw him in the house. I just missed, on the -staircase, on the other hand, a different adventure. Looking down it -from the top I once recognized the presence of a woman seated on one of -the lower steps with her back presented to me, her body half-bowed and -her head, in an attitude of woe, in her hands. I had been there but an -instant, however, when she vanished without looking round at me. I -knew, nonetheless, exactly what dreadful face she had to show; and I -wondered whether, if instead of being above I had been below, I should -have had, for going up, the same nerve I had lately shown Quint. Well, -there continued to be plenty of chance for nerve. On the eleventh night -after my latest encounter with that gentleman—they were all numbered -now—I had an alarm that perilously skirted it and that indeed, from the -particular quality of its unexpectedness, proved quite my sharpest -shock. It was precisely the first night during this series that, weary -with watching, I had felt that I might again without laxity lay myself -down at my old hour. I slept immediately and, as I afterward knew, till -about one o’clock; but when I woke it was to sit straight up, as -completely roused as if a hand had shook me. I had left a light -burning, but it was now out, and I felt an instant certainty that Flora -had extinguished it. This brought me to my feet and straight, in the -darkness, to her bed, which I found she had left. A glance at the -window enlightened me further, and the striking of a match completed -the picture. - -The child had again got up—this time blowing out the taper, and had -again, for some purpose of observation or response, squeezed in behind -the blind and was peering out into the night. That she now saw—as she -had not, I had satisfied myself, the previous time—was proved to me by -the fact that she was disturbed neither by my reillumination nor by the -haste I made to get into slippers and into a wrap. Hidden, protected, -absorbed, she evidently rested on the sill—the casement opened -forward—and gave herself up. There was a great still moon to help her, -and this fact had counted in my quick decision. She was face to face -with the apparition we had met at the lake, and could now communicate -with it as she had not then been able to do. What I, on my side, had to -care for was, without disturbing her, to reach, from the corridor, some -other window in the same quarter. I got to the door without her hearing -me; I got out of it, closed it, and listened, from the other side, for -some sound from her. While I stood in the passage I had my eyes on her -brother’s door, which was but ten steps off and which, indescribably, -produced in me a renewal of the strange impulse that I lately spoke of -as my temptation. What if I should go straight in and march to _his_ -window?—what if, by risking to his boyish bewilderment a revelation of -my motive, I should throw across the rest of the mystery the long -halter of my boldness? - -This thought held me sufficiently to make me cross to his threshold and -pause again. I preternaturally listened; I figured to myself what might -portentously be; I wondered if his bed were also empty and he too were -secretly at watch. It was a deep, soundless minute, at the end of which -my impulse failed. He was quiet; he might be innocent; the risk was -hideous; I turned away. There was a figure in the grounds—a figure -prowling for a sight, the visitor with whom Flora was engaged; but it -was not the visitor most concerned with my boy. I hesitated afresh, but -on other grounds and only for a few seconds; then I had made my choice. -There were empty rooms at Bly, and it was only a question of choosing -the right one. The right one suddenly presented itself to me as the -lower one—though high above the gardens—in the solid corner of the -house that I have spoken of as the old tower. This was a large, square -chamber, arranged with some state as a bedroom, the extravagant size of -which made it so inconvenient that it had not for years, though kept by -Mrs. Grose in exemplary order, been occupied. I had often admired it -and I knew my way about in it; I had only, after just faltering at the -first chill gloom of its disuse, to pass across it and unbolt as -quietly as I could one of the shutters. Achieving this transit, I -uncovered the glass without a sound and, applying my face to the pane, -was able, the darkness without being much less than within, to see that -I commanded the right direction. Then I saw something more. The moon -made the night extraordinarily penetrable and showed me on the lawn a -person, diminished by distance, who stood there motionless and as if -fascinated, looking up to where I had appeared—looking, that is, not so -much straight at me as at something that was apparently above me. There -was clearly another person above me—there was a person on the tower; -but the presence on the lawn was not in the least what I had conceived -and had confidently hurried to meet. The presence on the lawn—I felt -sick as I made it out—was poor little Miles himself. - - -XI - -It was not till late next day that I spoke to Mrs. Grose; the rigor -with which I kept my pupils in sight making it often difficult to meet -her privately, and the more as we each felt the importance of not -provoking—on the part of the servants quite as much as on that of the -children—any suspicion of a secret flurry or that of a discussion of -mysteries. I drew a great security in this particular from her mere -smooth aspect. There was nothing in her fresh face to pass on to others -my horrible confidences. She believed me, I was sure, absolutely: if -she hadn’t I don’t know what would have become of me, for I couldn’t -have borne the business alone. But she was a magnificent monument to -the blessing of a want of imagination, and if she could see in our -little charges nothing but their beauty and amiability, their happiness -and cleverness, she had no direct communication with the sources of my -trouble. If they had been at all visibly blighted or battered, she -would doubtless have grown, on tracing it back, haggard enough to match -them; as matters stood, however, I could feel her, when she surveyed -them, with her large white arms folded and the habit of serenity in all -her look, thank the Lord’s mercy that if they were ruined the pieces -would still serve. Flights of fancy gave place, in her mind, to a -steady fireside glow, and I had already begun to perceive how, with the -development of the conviction that—as time went on without a public -accident—our young things could, after all, look out for themselves, -she addressed her greatest solicitude to the sad case presented by -their instructress. That, for myself, was a sound simplification: I -could engage that, to the world, my face should tell no tales, but it -would have been, in the conditions, an immense added strain to find -myself anxious about hers. - -At the hour I now speak of she had joined me, under pressure, on the -terrace, where, with the lapse of the season, the afternoon sun was now -agreeable; and we sat there together while, before us, at a distance, -but within call if we wished, the children strolled to and fro in one -of their most manageable moods. They moved slowly, in unison, below us, -over the lawn, the boy, as they went, reading aloud from a storybook -and passing his arm round his sister to keep her quite in touch. Mrs. -Grose watched them with positive placidity; then I caught the -suppressed intellectual creak with which she conscientiously turned to -take from me a view of the back of the tapestry. I had made her a -receptacle of lurid things, but there was an odd recognition of my -superiority—my accomplishments and my function—in her patience under my -pain. She offered her mind to my disclosures as, had I wished to mix a -witch’s broth and proposed it with assurance, she would have held out a -large clean saucepan. This had become thoroughly her attitude by the -time that, in my recital of the events of the night, I reached the -point of what Miles had said to me when, after seeing him, at such a -monstrous hour, almost on the very spot where he happened now to be, I -had gone down to bring him in; choosing then, at the window, with a -concentrated need of not alarming the house, rather that method than a -signal more resonant. I had left her meanwhile in little doubt of my -small hope of representing with success even to her actual sympathy my -sense of the real splendor of the little inspiration with which, after -I had got him into the house, the boy met my final articulate -challenge. As soon as I appeared in the moonlight on the terrace, he -had come to me as straight as possible; on which I had taken his hand -without a word and led him, through the dark spaces, up the staircase -where Quint had so hungrily hovered for him, along the lobby where I -had listened and trembled, and so to his forsaken room. - -Not a sound, on the way, had passed between us, and I had wondered—oh, -_how_ I had wondered!—if he were groping about in his little mind for -something plausible and not too grotesque. It would tax his invention, -certainly, and I felt, this time, over his real embarrassment, a -curious thrill of triumph. It was a sharp trap for the inscrutable! He -couldn’t play any longer at innocence; so how the deuce would he get -out of it? There beat in me indeed, with the passionate throb of this -question an equal dumb appeal as to how the deuce _I_ should. I was -confronted at last, as never yet, with all the risk attached even now -to sounding my own horrid note. I remember in fact that as we pushed -into his little chamber, where the bed had not been slept in at all and -the window, uncovered to the moonlight, made the place so clear that -there was no need of striking a match—I remember how I suddenly -dropped, sank upon the edge of the bed from the force of the idea that -he must know how he really, as they say, “had” me. He could do what he -liked, with all his cleverness to help him, so long as I should -continue to defer to the old tradition of the criminality of those -caretakers of the young who minister to superstitions and fears. He -“had” me indeed, and in a cleft stick; for who would ever absolve me, -who would consent that I should go unhung, if, by the faintest tremor -of an overture, I were the first to introduce into our perfect -intercourse an element so dire? No, no: it was useless to attempt to -convey to Mrs. Grose, just as it is scarcely less so to attempt to -suggest here, how, in our short, stiff brush in the dark, he fairly -shook me with admiration. I was of course thoroughly kind and merciful; -never, never yet had I placed on his little shoulders hands of such -tenderness as those with which, while I rested against the bed, I held -him there well under fire. I had no alternative but, in form at least, -to put it to him. - -“You must tell me now—and all the truth. What did you go out for? What -were you doing there?” - -I can still see his wonderful smile, the whites of his beautiful eyes, -and the uncovering of his little teeth shine to me in the dusk. “If I -tell you why, will you understand?” My heart, at this, leaped into my -mouth. _Would_ he tell me why? I found no sound on my lips to press it, -and I was aware of replying only with a vague, repeated, grimacing nod. -He was gentleness itself, and while I wagged my head at him he stood -there more than ever a little fairy prince. It was his brightness -indeed that gave me a respite. Would it be so great if he were really -going to tell me? “Well,” he said at last, “just exactly in order that -you should do this.” - -“Do what?” - -“Think me—for a change—_bad!_” I shall never forget the sweetness and -gaiety with which he brought out the word, nor how, on top of it, he -bent forward and kissed me. It was practically the end of everything. I -met his kiss and I had to make, while I folded him for a minute in my -arms, the most stupendous effort not to cry. He had given exactly the -account of himself that permitted least of my going behind it, and it -was only with the effect of confirming my acceptance of it that, as I -presently glanced about the room, I could say— - -“Then you didn’t undress at all?” - -He fairly glittered in the gloom. “Not at all. I sat up and read.” - -“And when did you go down?” - -“At midnight. When I’m bad I _am_ bad!” - -“I see, I see—it’s charming. But how could you be sure I would know -it?” - -“Oh, I arranged that with Flora.” His answers rang out with a -readiness! “She was to get up and look out.” - -“Which is what she did do.” It was I who fell into the trap! - -“So she disturbed you, and, to see what she was looking at, you also -looked—you saw.” - -“While you,” I concurred, “caught your death in the night air!” - -He literally bloomed so from this exploit that he could afford -radiantly to assent. “How otherwise should I have been bad enough?” he -asked. Then, after another embrace, the incident and our interview -closed on my recognition of all the reserves of goodness that, for his -joke, he had been able to draw upon. - - -XII - -The particular impression I had received proved in the morning light, I -repeat, not quite successfully presentable to Mrs. Grose, though I -reinforced it with the mention of still another remark that he had made -before we separated. “It all lies in half a dozen words,” I said to -her, “words that really settle the matter. ‘Think, you know, what I -_might_ do!’ He threw that off to show me how good he is. He knows down -to the ground what he ‘might’ do. That’s what he gave them a taste of -at school.” - -“Lord, you do change!” cried my friend. - -“I don’t change—I simply make it out. The four, depend upon it, -perpetually meet. If on either of these last nights you had been with -either child, you would clearly have understood. The more I’ve watched -and waited the more I’ve felt that if there were nothing else to make -it sure it would be made so by the systematic silence of each. _Never_, -by a slip of the tongue, have they so much as alluded to either of -their old friends, any more than Miles has alluded to his expulsion. -Oh, yes, we may sit here and look at them, and they may show off to us -there to their fill; but even while they pretend to be lost in their -fairytale they’re steeped in their vision of the dead restored. He’s -not reading to her,” I declared; “they’re talking of _them_—they’re -talking horrors! I go on, I know, as if I were crazy; and it’s a wonder -I’m not. What I’ve seen would have made _you_ so; but it has only made -me more lucid, made me get hold of still other things.” - -My lucidity must have seemed awful, but the charming creatures who were -victims of it, passing and repassing in their interlocked sweetness, -gave my colleague something to hold on by; and I felt how tight she -held as, without stirring in the breath of my passion, she covered them -still with her eyes. “Of what other things have you got hold?” - -“Why, of the very things that have delighted, fascinated, and yet, at -bottom, as I now so strangely see, mystified and troubled me. Their -more than earthly beauty, their absolutely unnatural goodness. It’s a -game,” I went on; “it’s a policy and a fraud!” - -“On the part of little darlings—?” - -“As yet mere lovely babies? Yes, mad as that seems!” The very act of -bringing it out really helped me to trace it—follow it all up and piece -it all together. “They haven’t been good—they’ve only been absent. It -has been easy to live with them, because they’re simply leading a life -of their own. They’re not mine—they’re not ours. They’re his and -they’re hers!” - -“Quint’s and that woman’s?” - -“Quint’s and that woman’s. They want to get to them.” - -Oh, how, at this, poor Mrs. Grose appeared to study them! “But for -what?” - -“For the love of all the evil that, in those dreadful days, the pair -put into them. And to ply them with that evil still, to keep up the -work of demons, is what brings the others back.” - -“Laws!” said my friend under her breath. The exclamation was homely, -but it revealed a real acceptance of my further proof of what, in the -bad time—for there had been a worse even than this!—must have occurred. -There could have been no such justification for me as the plain assent -of her experience to whatever depth of depravity I found credible in -our brace of scoundrels. It was in obvious submission of memory that -she brought out after a moment: “They _were_ rascals! But what can they -now do?” she pursued. - -“Do?” I echoed so loud that Miles and Flora, as they passed at their -distance, paused an instant in their walk and looked at us. “Don’t they -do enough?” I demanded in a lower tone, while the children, having -smiled and nodded and kissed hands to us, resumed their exhibition. We -were held by it a minute; then I answered: “They can destroy them!” At -this my companion did turn, but the inquiry she launched was a silent -one, the effect of which was to make me more explicit. “They don’t -know, as yet, quite how—but they’re trying hard. They’re seen only -across, as it were, and beyond—in strange places and on high places, -the top of towers, the roof of houses, the outside of windows, the -further edge of pools; but there’s a deep design, on either side, to -shorten the distance and overcome the obstacle; and the success of the -tempters is only a question of time. They’ve only to keep to their -suggestions of danger.” - -“For the children to come?” - -“And perish in the attempt!” Mrs. Grose slowly got up, and I -scrupulously added: “Unless, of course, we can prevent!” - -Standing there before me while I kept my seat, she visibly turned -things over. “Their uncle must do the preventing. He must take them -away.” - -“And who’s to make him?” - -She had been scanning the distance, but she now dropped on me a foolish -face. “You, miss.” - -“By writing to him that his house is poisoned and his little nephew and -niece mad?” - -“But if they _are_, miss?” - -“And if I am myself, you mean? That’s charming news to be sent him by a -governess whose prime undertaking was to give him no worry.” - -Mrs. Grose considered, following the children again. “Yes, he do hate -worry. That was the great reason—” - -“Why those fiends took him in so long? No doubt, though his -indifference must have been awful. As I’m not a fiend, at any rate, I -shouldn’t take him in.” - -My companion, after an instant and for all answer, sat down again and -grasped my arm. “Make him at any rate come to you.” - -I stared. “To _me?_” I had a sudden fear of what she might do. “‘Him’?” - -“He ought to _be_ here—he ought to help.” - -I quickly rose, and I think I must have shown her a queerer face than -ever yet. “You see me asking him for a visit?” No, with her eyes on my -face she evidently couldn’t. Instead of it even—as a woman reads -another—she could see what I myself saw: his derision, his amusement, -his contempt for the breakdown of my resignation at being left alone -and for the fine machinery I had set in motion to attract his attention -to my slighted charms. She didn’t know—no one knew—how proud I had been -to serve him and to stick to our terms; yet she nonetheless took the -measure, I think, of the warning I now gave her. “If you should so lose -your head as to appeal to him for me—” - -She was really frightened. “Yes, miss?” - -“I would leave, on the spot, both him and you.” - - -XIII - -It was all very well to join them, but speaking to them proved quite as -much as ever an effort beyond my strength—offered, in close quarters, -difficulties as insurmountable as before. This situation continued a -month, and with new aggravations and particular notes, the note above -all, sharper and sharper, of the small ironic consciousness on the part -of my pupils. It was not, I am as sure today as I was sure then, my -mere infernal imagination: it was absolutely traceable that they were -aware of my predicament and that this strange relation made, in a -manner, for a long time, the air in which we moved. I don’t mean that -they had their tongues in their cheeks or did anything vulgar, for that -was not one of their dangers: I do mean, on the other hand, that the -element of the unnamed and untouched became, between us, greater than -any other, and that so much avoidance could not have been so -successfully effected without a great deal of tacit arrangement. It was -as if, at moments, we were perpetually coming into sight of subjects -before which we must stop short, turning suddenly out of alleys that we -perceived to be blind, closing with a little bang that made us look at -each other—for, like all bangs, it was something louder than we had -intended—the doors we had indiscreetly opened. All roads lead to Rome, -and there were times when it might have struck us that almost every -branch of study or subject of conversation skirted forbidden ground. -Forbidden ground was the question of the return of the dead in general -and of whatever, in especial, might survive, in memory, of the friends -little children had lost. There were days when I could have sworn that -one of them had, with a small invisible nudge, said to the other: “She -thinks she’ll do it this time—but she _won’t!_” To “do it” would have -been to indulge for instance—and for once in a way—in some direct -reference to the lady who had prepared them for my discipline. They had -a delightful endless appetite for passages in my own history, to which -I had again and again treated them; they were in possession of -everything that had ever happened to me, had had, with every -circumstance the story of my smallest adventures and of those of my -brothers and sisters and of the cat and the dog at home, as well as -many particulars of the eccentric nature of my father, of the furniture -and arrangement of our house, and of the conversation of the old women -of our village. There were things enough, taking one with another, to -chatter about, if one went very fast and knew by instinct when to go -round. They pulled with an art of their own the strings of my invention -and my memory; and nothing else perhaps, when I thought of such -occasions afterward, gave me so the suspicion of being watched from -under cover. It was in any case over _my_ life, _my_ past, and _my_ -friends alone that we could take anything like our ease—a state of -affairs that led them sometimes without the least pertinence to break -out into sociable reminders. I was invited—with no visible -connection—to repeat afresh Goody Gosling’s celebrated _mot_ or to -confirm the details already supplied as to the cleverness of the -vicarage pony. - -It was partly at such junctures as these and partly at quite different -ones that, with the turn my matters had now taken, my predicament, as I -have called it, grew most sensible. The fact that the days passed for -me without another encounter ought, it would have appeared, to have -done something toward soothing my nerves. Since the light brush, that -second night on the upper landing, of the presence of a woman at the -foot of the stair, I had seen nothing, whether in or out of the house, -that one had better not have seen. There was many a corner round which -I expected to come upon Quint, and many a situation that, in a merely -sinister way, would have favored the appearance of Miss Jessel. The -summer had turned, the summer had gone; the autumn had dropped upon Bly -and had blown out half our lights. The place, with its gray sky and -withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like -a theater after the performance—all strewn with crumpled playbills. -There were exactly states of the air, conditions of sound and of -stillness, unspeakable impressions of the _kind_ of ministering moment, -that brought back to me, long enough to catch it, the feeling of the -medium in which, that June evening out of doors, I had had my first -sight of Quint, and in which, too, at those other instants, I had, -after seeing him through the window, looked for him in vain in the -circle of shrubbery. I recognized the signs, the portents—I recognized -the moment, the spot. But they remained unaccompanied and empty, and I -continued unmolested; if unmolested one could call a young woman whose -sensibility had, in the most extraordinary fashion, not declined but -deepened. I had said in my talk with Mrs. Grose on that horrid scene of -Flora’s by the lake—and had perplexed her by so saying—that it would -from that moment distress me much more to lose my power than to keep -it. I had then expressed what was vividly in my mind: the truth that, -whether the children really saw or not—since, that is, it was not yet -definitely proved—I greatly preferred, as a safeguard, the fullness of -my own exposure. I was ready to know the very worst that was to be -known. What I had then had an ugly glimpse of was that my eyes might be -sealed just while theirs were most opened. Well, my eyes _were_ sealed, -it appeared, at present—a consummation for which it seemed blasphemous -not to thank God. There was, alas, a difficulty about that: I would -have thanked him with all my soul had I not had in a proportionate -measure this conviction of the secret of my pupils. - -How can I retrace today the strange steps of my obsession? There were -times of our being together when I would have been ready to swear that, -literally, in my presence, but with my direct sense of it closed, they -had visitors who were known and were welcome. Then it was that, had I -not been deterred by the very chance that such an injury might prove -greater than the injury to be averted, my exultation would have broken -out. “They’re here, they’re here, you little wretches,” I would have -cried, “and you can’t deny it now!” The little wretches denied it with -all the added volume of their sociability and their tenderness, in just -the crystal depths of which—like the flash of a fish in a stream—the -mockery of their advantage peeped up. The shock, in truth, had sunk -into me still deeper than I knew on the night when, looking out to see -either Quint or Miss Jessel under the stars, I had beheld the boy over -whose rest I watched and who had immediately brought in with him—had -straightway, there, turned it on me—the lovely upward look with which, -from the battlements above me, the hideous apparition of Quint had -played. If it was a question of a scare, my discovery on this occasion -had scared me more than any other, and it was in the condition of -nerves produced by it that I made my actual inductions. They harassed -me so that sometimes, at odd moments, I shut myself up audibly to -rehearse—it was at once a fantastic relief and a renewed despair—the -manner in which I might come to the point. I approached it from one -side and the other while, in my room, I flung myself about, but I -always broke down in the monstrous utterance of names. As they died -away on my lips, I said to myself that I should indeed help them to -represent something infamous, if, by pronouncing them, I should violate -as rare a little case of instinctive delicacy as any schoolroom, -probably, had ever known. When I said to myself: “_They_ have the -manners to be silent, and you, trusted as you are, the baseness to -speak!” I felt myself crimson and I covered my face with my hands. -After these secret scenes I chattered more than ever, going on volubly -enough till one of our prodigious, palpable hushes occurred—I can call -them nothing else—the strange, dizzy lift or swim (I try for terms!) -into a stillness, a pause of all life, that had nothing to do with the -more or less noise that at the moment we might be engaged in making and -that I could hear through any deepened exhilaration or quickened -recitation or louder strum of the piano. Then it was that the others, -the outsiders, were there. Though they were not angels, they “passed,” -as the French say, causing me, while they stayed, to tremble with the -fear of their addressing to their younger victims some yet more -infernal message or more vivid image than they had thought good enough -for myself. - -What it was most impossible to get rid of was the cruel idea that, -whatever I had seen, Miles and Flora saw _more_—things terrible and -unguessable and that sprang from dreadful passages of intercourse in -the past. Such things naturally left on the surface, for the time, a -chill which we vociferously denied that we felt; and we had, all three, -with repetition, got into such splendid training that we went, each -time, almost automatically, to mark the close of the incident, through -the very same movements. It was striking of the children, at all -events, to kiss me inveterately with a kind of wild irrelevance and -never to fail—one or the other—of the precious question that had helped -us through many a peril. “When do you think he _will_ come? Don’t you -think we _ought_ to write?”—there was nothing like that inquiry, we -found by experience, for carrying off an awkwardness. “He” of course -was their uncle in Harley Street; and we lived in much profusion of -theory that he might at any moment arrive to mingle in our circle. It -was impossible to have given less encouragement than he had done to -such a doctrine, but if we had not had the doctrine to fall back upon -we should have deprived each other of some of our finest exhibitions. -He never wrote to them—that may have been selfish, but it was a part of -the flattery of his trust of me; for the way in which a man pays his -highest tribute to a woman is apt to be but by the more festal -celebration of one of the sacred laws of his comfort; and I held that I -carried out the spirit of the pledge given not to appeal to him when I -let my charges understand that their own letters were but charming -literary exercises. They were too beautiful to be posted; I kept them -myself; I have them all to this hour. This was a rule indeed which only -added to the satiric effect of my being plied with the supposition that -he might at any moment be among us. It was exactly as if my charges -knew how almost more awkward than anything else that might be for me. -There appears to me, moreover, as I look back, no note in all this more -extraordinary than the mere fact that, in spite of my tension and of -their triumph, I never lost patience with them. Adorable they must in -truth have been, I now reflect, that I didn’t in these days hate them! -Would exasperation, however, if relief had longer been postponed, -finally have betrayed me? It little matters, for relief arrived. I call -it relief, though it was only the relief that a snap brings to a strain -or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day of suffocation. It was at least -change, and it came with a rush. - - -XIV - -Walking to church a certain Sunday morning, I had little Miles at my -side and his sister, in advance of us and at Mrs. Grose’s, well in -sight. It was a crisp, clear day, the first of its order for some time; -the night had brought a touch of frost, and the autumn air, bright and -sharp, made the church bells almost gay. It was an odd accident of -thought that I should have happened at such a moment to be particularly -and very gratefully struck with the obedience of my little charges. Why -did they never resent my inexorable, my perpetual society? Something or -other had brought nearer home to me that I had all but pinned the boy -to my shawl and that, in the way our companions were marshaled before -me, I might have appeared to provide against some danger of rebellion. -I was like a gaoler with an eye to possible surprises and escapes. But -all this belonged—I mean their magnificent little surrender—just to the -special array of the facts that were most abysmal. Turned out for -Sunday by his uncle’s tailor, who had had a free hand and a notion of -pretty waistcoats and of his grand little air, Miles’s whole title to -independence, the rights of his sex and situation, were so stamped upon -him that if he had suddenly struck for freedom I should have had -nothing to say. I was by the strangest of chances wondering how I -should meet him when the revolution unmistakably occurred. I call it a -revolution because I now see how, with the word he spoke, the curtain -rose on the last act of my dreadful drama, and the catastrophe was -precipitated. “Look here, my dear, you know,” he charmingly said, “when -in the world, please, am I going back to school?” - -Transcribed here the speech sounds harmless enough, particularly as -uttered in the sweet, high, casual pipe with which, at all -interlocutors, but above all at his eternal governess, he threw off -intonations as if he were tossing roses. There was something in them -that always made one “catch,” and I caught, at any rate, now so -effectually that I stopped as short as if one of the trees of the park -had fallen across the road. There was something new, on the spot, -between us, and he was perfectly aware that I recognized it, though, to -enable me to do so, he had no need to look a whit less candid and -charming than usual. I could feel in him how he already, from my at -first finding nothing to reply, perceived the advantage he had gained. -I was so slow to find anything that he had plenty of time, after a -minute, to continue with his suggestive but inconclusive smile: “You -know, my dear, that for a fellow to be with a lady _always_—!” His “my -dear” was constantly on his lips for me, and nothing could have -expressed more the exact shade of the sentiment with which I desired to -inspire my pupils than its fond familiarity. It was so respectfully -easy. - -But, oh, how I felt that at present I must pick my own phrases! I -remember that, to gain time, I tried to laugh, and I seemed to see in -the beautiful face with which he watched me how ugly and queer I -looked. “And always with the same lady?” I returned. - -He neither blanched nor winked. The whole thing was virtually out -between us. “Ah, of course, she’s a jolly, ‘perfect’ lady; but, after -all, I’m a fellow, don’t you see? that’s—well, getting on.” - -I lingered there with him an instant ever so kindly. “Yes, you’re -getting on.” Oh, but I felt helpless! - -I have kept to this day the heartbreaking little idea of how he seemed -to know that and to play with it. “And you can’t say I’ve not been -awfully good, can you?” - -I laid my hand on his shoulder, for, though I felt how much better it -would have been to walk on, I was not yet quite able. “No, I can’t say -that, Miles.” - -“Except just that one night, you know—!” - -“That one night?” I couldn’t look as straight as he. - -“Why, when I went down—went out of the house.” - -“Oh, yes. But I forget what you did it for.” - -“You forget?”—he spoke with the sweet extravagance of childish -reproach. “Why, it was to show you I could!” - -“Oh, yes, you could.” - -“And I can again.” - -I felt that I might, perhaps, after all, succeed in keeping my wits -about me. “Certainly. But you won’t.” - -“No, not _that_ again. It was nothing.” - -“It was nothing,” I said. “But we must go on.” - -He resumed our walk with me, passing his hand into my arm. “Then when -_am_ I going back?” - -I wore, in turning it over, my most responsible air. “Were you very -happy at school?” - -He just considered. “Oh, I’m happy enough anywhere!” - -“Well, then,” I quavered, “if you’re just as happy here—!” - -“Ah, but that isn’t everything! Of course _you_ know a lot—” - -“But you hint that you know almost as much?” I risked as he paused. - -“Not half I want to!” Miles honestly professed. “But it isn’t so much -that.” - -“What is it, then?” - -“Well—I want to see more life.” - -“I see; I see.” We had arrived within sight of the church and of -various persons, including several of the household of Bly, on their -way to it and clustered about the door to see us go in. I quickened our -step; I wanted to get there before the question between us opened up -much further; I reflected hungrily that, for more than an hour, he -would have to be silent; and I thought with envy of the comparative -dusk of the pew and of the almost spiritual help of the hassock on -which I might bend my knees. I seemed literally to be running a race -with some confusion to which he was about to reduce me, but I felt that -he had got in first when, before we had even entered the churchyard, he -threw out— - -“I want my own sort!” - -It literally made me bound forward. “There are not many of your own -sort, Miles!” I laughed. “Unless perhaps dear little Flora!” - -“You really compare me to a baby girl?” - -This found me singularly weak. “Don’t you, then, _love_ our sweet -Flora?” - -“If I didn’t—and you, too; if I didn’t—!” he repeated as if retreating -for a jump, yet leaving his thought so unfinished that, after we had -come into the gate, another stop, which he imposed on me by the -pressure of his arm, had become inevitable. Mrs. Grose and Flora had -passed into the church, the other worshippers had followed, and we -were, for the minute, alone among the old, thick graves. We had paused, -on the path from the gate, by a low, oblong, tablelike tomb. - -“Yes, if you didn’t—?” - -He looked, while I waited, at the graves. “Well, you know what!” But he -didn’t move, and he presently produced something that made me drop -straight down on the stone slab, as if suddenly to rest. “Does my uncle -think what _you_ think?” - -I markedly rested. “How do you know what I think?” - -“Ah, well, of course I don’t; for it strikes me you never tell me. But -I mean does _he_ know?” - -“Know what, Miles?” - -“Why, the way I’m going on.” - -I perceived quickly enough that I could make, to this inquiry, no -answer that would not involve something of a sacrifice of my employer. -Yet it appeared to me that we were all, at Bly, sufficiently sacrificed -to make that venial. “I don’t think your uncle much cares.” - -Miles, on this, stood looking at me. “Then don’t you think he can be -made to?” - -“In what way?” - -“Why, by his coming down.” - -“But who’ll get him to come down?” - -“_I_ will!” the boy said with extraordinary brightness and emphasis. He -gave me another look charged with that expression and then marched off -alone into church. - - -XV - -The business was practically settled from the moment I never followed -him. It was a pitiful surrender to agitation, but my being aware of -this had somehow no power to restore me. I only sat there on my tomb -and read into what my little friend had said to me the fullness of its -meaning; by the time I had grasped the whole of which I had also -embraced, for absence, the pretext that I was ashamed to offer my -pupils and the rest of the congregation such an example of delay. What -I said to myself above all was that Miles had got something out of me -and that the proof of it, for him, would be just this awkward collapse. -He had got out of me that there was something I was much afraid of and -that he should probably be able to make use of my fear to gain, for his -own purpose, more freedom. My fear was of having to deal with the -intolerable question of the grounds of his dismissal from school, for -that was really but the question of the horrors gathered behind. That -his uncle should arrive to treat with me of these things was a solution -that, strictly speaking, I ought now to have desired to bring on; but I -could so little face the ugliness and the pain of it that I simply -procrastinated and lived from hand to mouth. The boy, to my deep -discomposure, was immensely in the right, was in a position to say to -me: “Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of this -interruption of my studies, or you cease to expect me to lead with you -a life that’s so unnatural for a boy.” What was so unnatural for the -particular boy I was concerned with was this sudden revelation of a -consciousness and a plan. - -That was what really overcame me, what prevented my going in. I walked -round the church, hesitating, hovering; I reflected that I had already, -with him, hurt myself beyond repair. Therefore I could patch up -nothing, and it was too extreme an effort to squeeze beside him into -the pew: he would be so much more sure than ever to pass his arm into -mine and make me sit there for an hour in close, silent contact with -his commentary on our talk. For the first minute since his arrival I -wanted to get away from him. As I paused beneath the high east window -and listened to the sounds of worship, I was taken with an impulse that -might master me, I felt, completely should I give it the least -encouragement. I might easily put an end to my predicament by getting -away altogether. Here was my chance; there was no one to stop me; I -could give the whole thing up—turn my back and retreat. It was only a -question of hurrying again, for a few preparations, to the house which -the attendance at church of so many of the servants would practically -have left unoccupied. No one, in short, could blame me if I should just -drive desperately off. What was it to get away if I got away only till -dinner? That would be in a couple of hours, at the end of which—I had -the acute prevision—my little pupils would play at innocent wonder -about my nonappearance in their train. - -“What _did_ you do, you naughty, bad thing? Why in the world, to worry -us so—and take our thoughts off, too, don’t you know?—did you desert us -at the very door?” I couldn’t meet such questions nor, as they asked -them, their false little lovely eyes; yet it was all so exactly what I -should have to meet that, as the prospect grew sharp to me, I at last -let myself go. - -I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away; I came -straight out of the churchyard and, thinking hard, retraced my steps -through the park. It seemed to me that by the time I reached the house -I had made up my mind I would fly. The Sunday stillness both of the -approaches and of the interior, in which I met no one, fairly excited -me with a sense of opportunity. Were I to get off quickly, this way, I -should get off without a scene, without a word. My quickness would have -to be remarkable, however, and the question of a conveyance was the -great one to settle. Tormented, in the hall, with difficulties and -obstacles, I remember sinking down at the foot of the -staircase—suddenly collapsing there on the lowest step and then, with a -revulsion, recalling that it was exactly where more than a month -before, in the darkness of night and just so bowed with evil things, I -had seen the specter of the most horrible of women. At this I was able -to straighten myself; I went the rest of the way up; I made, in my -bewilderment, for the schoolroom, where there were objects belonging to -me that I should have to take. But I opened the door to find again, in -a flash, my eyes unsealed. In the presence of what I saw I reeled -straight back upon my resistance. - -Seated at my own table in clear noonday light I saw a person whom, -without my previous experience, I should have taken at the first blush -for some housemaid who might have stayed at home to look after the -place and who, availing herself of rare relief from observation and of -the schoolroom table and my pens, ink, and paper, had applied herself -to the considerable effort of a letter to her sweetheart. There was an -effort in the way that, while her arms rested on the table, her hands -with evident weariness supported her head; but at the moment I took -this in I had already become aware that, in spite of my entrance, her -attitude strangely persisted. Then it was—with the very act of its -announcing itself—that her identity flared up in a change of posture. -She rose, not as if she had heard me, but with an indescribable grand -melancholy of indifference and detachment, and, within a dozen feet of -me, stood there as my vile predecessor. Dishonored and tragic, she was -all before me; but even as I fixed and, for memory, secured it, the -awful image passed away. Dark as midnight in her black dress, her -haggard beauty and her unutterable woe, she had looked at me long -enough to appear to say that her right to sit at my table was as good -as mine to sit at hers. While these instants lasted, indeed, I had the -extraordinary chill of feeling that it was I who was the intruder. It -was as a wild protest against it that, actually addressing her—“You -terrible, miserable woman!”—I heard myself break into a sound that, by -the open door, rang through the long passage and the empty house. She -looked at me as if she heard me, but I had recovered myself and cleared -the air. There was nothing in the room the next minute but the sunshine -and a sense that I must stay. - - -XVI - -I had so perfectly expected that the return of my pupils would be -marked by a demonstration that I was freshly upset at having to take -into account that they were dumb about my absence. Instead of gaily -denouncing and caressing me, they made no allusion to my having failed -them, and I was left, for the time, on perceiving that she too said -nothing, to study Mrs. Grose’s odd face. I did this to such purpose -that I made sure they had in some way bribed her to silence; a silence -that, however, I would engage to break down on the first private -opportunity. This opportunity came before tea: I secured five minutes -with her in the housekeeper’s room, where, in the twilight, amid a -smell of lately baked bread, but with the place all swept and -garnished, I found her sitting in pained placidity before the fire. So -I see her still, so I see her best: facing the flame from her straight -chair in the dusky, shining room, a large clean image of the “put -away”—of drawers closed and locked and rest without a remedy. - -“Oh, yes, they asked me to say nothing; and to please them—so long as -they were there—of course I promised. But what had happened to you?” - -“I only went with you for the walk,” I said. “I had then to come back -to meet a friend.” - -She showed her surprise. “A friend—_you?_” - -“Oh, yes, I have a couple!” I laughed. “But did the children give you a -reason?” - -“For not alluding to your leaving us? Yes; they said you would like it -better. Do you like it better?” - -My face had made her rueful. “No, I like it worse!” But after an -instant I added: “Did they say why I should like it better?” - -“No; Master Miles only said, ‘We must do nothing but what she likes!’” - -“I wish indeed he would. And what did Flora say?” - -“Miss Flora was too sweet. She said, ‘Oh, of course, of course!’—and I -said the same.” - -I thought a moment. “You were too sweet, too—I can hear you all. But -nonetheless, between Miles and me, it’s now all out.” - -“All out?” My companion stared. “But what, miss?” - -“Everything. It doesn’t matter. I’ve made up my mind. I came home, my -dear,” I went on, “for a talk with Miss Jessel.” - -I had by this time formed the habit of having Mrs. Grose literally well -in hand in advance of my sounding that note; so that even now, as she -bravely blinked under the signal of my word, I could keep her -comparatively firm. “A talk! Do you mean she spoke?” - -“It came to that. I found her, on my return, in the schoolroom.” - -“And what did she say?” I can hear the good woman still, and the candor -of her stupefaction. - -“That she suffers the torments—!” - -It was this, of a truth, that made her, as she filled out my picture, -gape. “Do you mean,” she faltered, “—of the lost?” - -“Of the lost. Of the damned. And that’s why, to share them—” I faltered -myself with the horror of it. - -But my companion, with less imagination, kept me up. “To share them—?” - -“She wants Flora.” Mrs. Grose might, as I gave it to her, fairly have -fallen away from me had I not been prepared. I still held her there, to -show I was. “As I’ve told you, however, it doesn’t matter.” - -“Because you’ve made up your mind? But to what?” - -“To everything.” - -“And what do you call ‘everything’?” - -“Why, sending for their uncle.” - -“Oh, miss, in pity do,” my friend broke out. “ah, but I will, I _will!_ -I see it’s the only way. What’s ‘out,’ as I told you, with Miles is -that if he thinks I’m afraid to—and has ideas of what he gains by -that—he shall see he’s mistaken. Yes, yes; his uncle shall have it here -from me on the spot (and before the boy himself, if necessary) that if -I’m to be reproached with having done nothing again about more school—” - -“Yes, miss—” my companion pressed me. - -“Well, there’s that awful reason.” - -There were now clearly so many of these for my poor colleague that she -was excusable for being vague. “But—a—which?” - -“Why, the letter from his old place.” - -“You’ll show it to the master?” - -“I ought to have done so on the instant.” - -“Oh, no!” said Mrs. Grose with decision. - -“I’ll put it before him,” I went on inexorably, “that I can’t undertake -to work the question on behalf of a child who has been expelled—” - -“For we’ve never in the least known what!” Mrs. Grose declared. - -“For wickedness. For what else—when he’s so clever and beautiful and -perfect? Is he stupid? Is he untidy? Is he infirm? Is he ill-natured? -He’s exquisite—so it can be only _that_; and that would open up the -whole thing. After all,” I said, “it’s their uncle’s fault. If he left -here such people—!” - -“He didn’t really in the least know them. The fault’s mine.” She had -turned quite pale. - -“Well, you shan’t suffer,” I answered. - -“The children shan’t!” she emphatically returned. - -I was silent awhile; we looked at each other. “Then what am I to tell -him?” - -“You needn’t tell him anything. _I’ll_ tell him.” - -I measured this. “Do you mean you’ll write—?” Remembering she couldn’t, -I caught myself up. “How do you communicate?” - -“I tell the bailiff. _He_ writes.” - -“And should you like him to write our story?” - -My question had a sarcastic force that I had not fully intended, and it -made her, after a moment, inconsequently break down. The tears were -again in her eyes. “Ah, miss, _you_ write!” - -“Well—tonight,” I at last answered; and on this we separated. - - -XVII - -I went so far, in the evening, as to make a beginning. The weather had -changed back, a great wind was abroad, and beneath the lamp, in my -room, with Flora at peace beside me, I sat for a long time before a -blank sheet of paper and listened to the lash of the rain and the -batter of the gusts. Finally I went out, taking a candle; I crossed the -passage and listened a minute at Miles’s door. What, under my endless -obsession, I had been impelled to listen for was some betrayal of his -not being at rest, and I presently caught one, but not in the form I -had expected. His voice tinkled out. “I say, you there—come in.” It was -a gaiety in the gloom! - -I went in with my light and found him, in bed, very wide awake, but -very much at his ease. “Well, what are _you_ up to?” he asked with a -grace of sociability in which it occurred to me that Mrs. Grose, had -she been present, might have looked in vain for proof that anything was -“out.” - -I stood over him with my candle. “How did you know I was there?” - -“Why, of course I heard you. Did you fancy you made no noise? You’re -like a troop of cavalry!” he beautifully laughed. - -“Then you weren’t asleep?” - -“Not much! I lie awake and think.” - -I had put my candle, designedly, a short way off, and then, as he held -out his friendly old hand to me, had sat down on the edge of his bed. -“What is it,” I asked, “that you think of?” - -“What in the world, my dear, but _you?_” - -“Ah, the pride I take in your appreciation doesn’t insist on that! I -had so far rather you slept.” - -“Well, I think also, you know, of this queer business of ours.” - -I marked the coolness of his firm little hand. “Of what queer business, -Miles?” - -“Why, the way you bring me up. And all the rest!” - -I fairly held my breath a minute, and even from my glimmering taper -there was light enough to show how he smiled up at me from his pillow. -“What do you mean by all the rest?” - -“Oh, you know, you know!” - -I could say nothing for a minute, though I felt, as I held his hand and -our eyes continued to meet, that my silence had all the air of -admitting his charge and that nothing in the whole world of reality was -perhaps at that moment so fabulous as our actual relation. “Certainly -you shall go back to school,” I said, “if it be that that troubles you. -But not to the old place—we must find another, a better. How could I -know it did trouble you, this question, when you never told me so, -never spoke of it at all?” His clear, listening face, framed in its -smooth whiteness, made him for the minute as appealing as some wistful -patient in a children’s hospital; and I would have given, as the -resemblance came to me, all I possessed on earth really to be the nurse -or the sister of charity who might have helped to cure him. Well, even -as it was, I perhaps might help! “Do you know you’ve never said a word -to me about your school—I mean the old one; never mentioned it in any -way?” - -He seemed to wonder; he smiled with the same loveliness. But he clearly -gained time; he waited, he called for guidance. “Haven’t I?” It wasn’t -for _me_ to help him—it was for the thing I had met! - -Something in his tone and the expression of his face, as I got this -from him, set my heart aching with such a pang as it had never yet -known; so unutterably touching was it to see his little brain puzzled -and his little resources taxed to play, under the spell laid on him, a -part of innocence and consistency. “No, never—from the hour you came -back. You’ve never mentioned to me one of your masters, one of your -comrades, nor the least little thing that ever happened to you at -school. Never, little Miles—no, never—have you given me an inkling of -anything that _may_ have happened there. Therefore you can fancy how -much I’m in the dark. Until you came out, that way, this morning, you -had, since the first hour I saw you, scarce even made a reference to -anything in your previous life. You seemed so perfectly to accept the -present.” It was extraordinary how my absolute conviction of his secret -precocity (or whatever I might call the poison of an influence that I -dared but half to phrase) made him, in spite of the faint breath of his -inward trouble, appear as accessible as an older person—imposed him -almost as an intellectual equal. “I thought you wanted to go on as you -are.” - -It struck me that at this he just faintly colored. He gave, at any -rate, like a convalescent slightly fatigued, a languid shake of his -head. “I don’t—I don’t. I want to get away.” - -“You’re tired of Bly?” - -“Oh, no, I like Bly.” - -“Well, then—?” - -“Oh, _you_ know what a boy wants!” - -I felt that I didn’t know so well as Miles, and I took temporary -refuge. “You want to go to your uncle?” - -Again, at this, with his sweet ironic face, he made a movement on the -pillow. “Ah, you can’t get off with that!” - -I was silent a little, and it was I, now, I think, who changed color. -“My dear, I don’t want to get off!” - -“You can’t, even if you do. You can’t, you can’t!”—he lay beautifully -staring. “My uncle must come down, and you must completely settle -things.” - -“If we do,” I returned with some spirit, “you may be sure it will be to -take you quite away.” - -“Well, don’t you understand that that’s exactly what I’m working for? -You’ll have to tell him—about the way you’ve let it all drop: you’ll -have to tell him a tremendous lot!” - -The exultation with which he uttered this helped me somehow, for the -instant, to meet him rather more. “And how much will _you_, Miles, have -to tell him? There are things he’ll ask you!” - -He turned it over. “Very likely. But what things?” - -“The things you’ve never told me. To make up his mind what to do with -you. He can’t send you back—” - -“Oh, I don’t want to go back!” he broke in. “I want a new field.” - -He said it with admirable serenity, with positive unimpeachable gaiety; -and doubtless it was that very note that most evoked for me the -poignancy, the unnatural childish tragedy, of his probable reappearance -at the end of three months with all this bravado and still more -dishonor. It overwhelmed me now that I should never be able to bear -that, and it made me let myself go. I threw myself upon him and in the -tenderness of my pity I embraced him. “Dear little Miles, dear little -Miles—!” - -My face was close to his, and he let me kiss him, simply taking it with -indulgent good humor. “Well, old lady?” - -“Is there nothing—nothing at all that you want to tell me?” - -He turned off a little, facing round toward the wall and holding up his -hand to look at as one had seen sick children look. “I’ve told you—I -told you this morning.” - -Oh, I was sorry for him! “That you just want me not to worry you?” - -He looked round at me now, as if in recognition of my understanding -him; then ever so gently, “To let me alone,” he replied. - -There was even a singular little dignity in it, something that made me -release him, yet, when I had slowly risen, linger beside him. God knows -I never wished to harass him, but I felt that merely, at this, to turn -my back on him was to abandon or, to put it more truly, to lose him. -“I’ve just begun a letter to your uncle,” I said. - -“Well, then, finish it!” - -I waited a minute. “What happened before?” - -He gazed up at me again. “Before what?” - -“Before you came back. And before you went away.” - -For some time he was silent, but he continued to meet my eyes. “What -happened?” - -It made me, the sound of the words, in which it seemed to me that I -caught for the very first time a small faint quaver of consenting -consciousness—it made me drop on my knees beside the bed and seize once -more the chance of possessing him. “Dear little Miles, dear little -Miles, if you _knew_ how I want to help you! It’s only that, it’s -nothing but that, and I’d rather die than give you a pain or do you a -wrong—I’d rather die than hurt a hair of you. Dear little Miles”—oh, I -brought it out now even if I _should_ go too far—“I just want you to -help me to save you!” But I knew in a moment after this that I had gone -too far. The answer to my appeal was instantaneous, but it came in the -form of an extraordinary blast and chill, a gust of frozen air, and a -shake of the room as great as if, in the wild wind, the casement had -crashed in. The boy gave a loud, high shriek, which, lost in the rest -of the shock of sound, might have seemed, indistinctly, though I was so -close to him, a note either of jubilation or of terror. I jumped to my -feet again and was conscious of darkness. So for a moment we remained, -while I stared about me and saw that the drawn curtains were unstirred -and the window tight. “Why, the candle’s out!” I then cried. - -“It was I who blew it, dear!” said Miles. - - -XVIII - -The next day, after lessons, Mrs. Grose found a moment to say to me -quietly: “Have you written, miss?” - -“Yes—I’ve written.” But I didn’t add—for the hour—that my letter, -sealed and directed, was still in my pocket. There would be time enough -to send it before the messenger should go to the village. Meanwhile -there had been, on the part of my pupils, no more brilliant, more -exemplary morning. It was exactly as if they had both had at heart to -gloss over any recent little friction. They performed the dizziest -feats of arithmetic, soaring quite out of _my_ feeble range, and -perpetrated, in higher spirits than ever, geographical and historical -jokes. It was conspicuous of course in Miles in particular that he -appeared to wish to show how easily he could let me down. This child, -to my memory, really lives in a setting of beauty and misery that no -words can translate; there was a distinction all his own in every -impulse he revealed; never was a small natural creature, to the -uninitiated eye all frankness and freedom, a more ingenious, a more -extraordinary little gentleman. I had perpetually to guard against the -wonder of contemplation into which my initiated view betrayed me; to -check the irrelevant gaze and discouraged sigh in which I constantly -both attacked and renounced the enigma of what such a little gentleman -could have done that deserved a penalty. Say that, by the dark prodigy -I knew, the imagination of all evil _had_ been opened up to him: all -the justice within me ached for the proof that it could ever have -flowered into an act. - -He had never, at any rate, been such a little gentleman as when, after -our early dinner on this dreadful day, he came round to me and asked if -I shouldn’t like him, for half an hour, to play to me. David playing to -Saul could never have shown a finer sense of the occasion. It was -literally a charming exhibition of tact, of magnanimity, and quite -tantamount to his saying outright: “The true knights we love to read -about never push an advantage too far. I know what you mean now: you -mean that—to be let alone yourself and not followed up—you’ll cease to -worry and spy upon me, won’t keep me so close to you, will let me go -and come. Well, I ‘come,’ you see—but I don’t go! There’ll be plenty of -time for that. I do really delight in your society, and I only want to -show you that I contended for a principle.” It may be imagined whether -I resisted this appeal or failed to accompany him again, hand in hand, -to the schoolroom. He sat down at the old piano and played as he had -never played; and if there are those who think he had better have been -kicking a football I can only say that I wholly agree with them. For at -the end of a time that under his influence I had quite ceased to -measure, I started up with a strange sense of having literally slept at -my post. It was after luncheon, and by the schoolroom fire, and yet I -hadn’t really, in the least, slept: I had only done something much -worse—I had forgotten. Where, all this time, was Flora? When I put the -question to Miles, he played on a minute before answering and then -could only say: “Why, my dear, how do _I_ know?”—breaking moreover into -a happy laugh which, immediately after, as if it were a vocal -accompaniment, he prolonged into incoherent, extravagant song. - -I went straight to my room, but his sister was not there; then, before -going downstairs, I looked into several others. As she was nowhere -about she would surely be with Mrs. Grose, whom, in the comfort of that -theory, I accordingly proceeded in quest of. I found her where I had -found her the evening before, but she met my quick challenge with -blank, scared ignorance. She had only supposed that, after the repast, -I had carried off both the children; as to which she was quite in her -right, for it was the very first time I had allowed the little girl out -of my sight without some special provision. Of course now indeed she -might be with the maids, so that the immediate thing was to look for -her without an air of alarm. This we promptly arranged between us; but -when, ten minutes later and in pursuance of our arrangement, we met in -the hall, it was only to report on either side that after guarded -inquiries we had altogether failed to trace her. For a minute there, -apart from observation, we exchanged mute alarms, and I could feel with -what high interest my friend returned me all those I had from the first -given her. - -“She’ll be above,” she presently said—“in one of the rooms you haven’t -searched.” - -“No; she’s at a distance.” I had made up my mind. “She has gone out.” - -Mrs. Grose stared. “Without a hat?” - -I naturally also looked volumes. “Isn’t that woman always without one?” - -“She’s with _her?_” - -“She’s with _her!_” I declared. “We must find them.” - -My hand was on my friend’s arm, but she failed for the moment, -confronted with such an account of the matter, to respond to my -pressure. She communed, on the contrary, on the spot, with her -uneasiness. “And where’s Master Miles?” - -“Oh, _he’s_ with Quint. They’re in the schoolroom.” - -“Lord, miss!” My view, I was myself aware—and therefore I suppose my -tone—had never yet reached so calm an assurance. - -“The trick’s played,” I went on; “they’ve successfully worked their -plan. He found the most divine little way to keep me quiet while she -went off.” - -“‘Divine’?” Mrs. Grose bewilderedly echoed. - -“Infernal, then!” I almost cheerfully rejoined. “He has provided for -himself as well. But come!” - -She had helplessly gloomed at the upper regions. “You leave him—?” - -“So long with Quint? Yes—I don’t mind that now.” - -She always ended, at these moments, by getting possession of my hand, -and in this manner she could at present still stay me. But after -gasping an instant at my sudden resignation, “Because of your letter?” -she eagerly brought out. - -I quickly, by way of answer, felt for my letter, drew it forth, held it -up, and then, freeing myself, went and laid it on the great hall table. -“Luke will take it,” I said as I came back. I reached the house door -and opened it; I was already on the steps. - -My companion still demurred: the storm of the night and the early -morning had dropped, but the afternoon was damp and gray. I came down -to the drive while she stood in the doorway. “You go with nothing on?” - -“What do I care when the child has nothing? I can’t wait to dress,” I -cried, “and if you must do so, I leave you. Try meanwhile, yourself, -upstairs.” - -“With _them?_” Oh, on this, the poor woman promptly joined me! - - -XIX - -We went straight to the lake, as it was called at Bly, and I daresay -rightly called, though I reflect that it may in fact have been a sheet -of water less remarkable than it appeared to my untraveled eyes. My -acquaintance with sheets of water was small, and the pool of Bly, at -all events on the few occasions of my consenting, under the protection -of my pupils, to affront its surface in the old flat-bottomed boat -moored there for our use, had impressed me both with its extent and its -agitation. The usual place of embarkation was half a mile from the -house, but I had an intimate conviction that, wherever Flora might be, -she was not near home. She had not given me the slip for any small -adventure, and, since the day of the very great one that I had shared -with her by the pond, I had been aware, in our walks, of the quarter to -which she most inclined. This was why I had now given to Mrs. Grose’s -steps so marked a direction—a direction that made her, when she -perceived it, oppose a resistance that showed me she was freshly -mystified. “You’re going to the water, Miss?—you think she’s _in_—?” - -“She may be, though the depth is, I believe, nowhere very great. But -what I judge most likely is that she’s on the spot from which, the -other day, we saw together what I told you.” - -“When she pretended not to see—?” - -“With that astounding self-possession? I’ve always been sure she wanted -to go back alone. And now her brother has managed it for her.” - -Mrs. Grose still stood where she had stopped. “You suppose they really -_talk_ of them?” - -“I could meet this with a confidence! They say things that, if we heard -them, would simply appall us.” - -“And if she _is_ there—” - -“Yes?” - -“Then Miss Jessel is?” - -“Beyond a doubt. You shall see.” - -“Oh, thank you!” my friend cried, planted so firm that, taking it in, I -went straight on without her. By the time I reached the pool, however, -she was close behind me, and I knew that, whatever, to her -apprehension, might befall me, the exposure of my society struck her as -her least danger. She exhaled a moan of relief as we at last came in -sight of the greater part of the water without a sight of the child. -There was no trace of Flora on that nearer side of the bank where my -observation of her had been most startling, and none on the opposite -edge, where, save for a margin of some twenty yards, a thick copse came -down to the water. The pond, oblong in shape, had a width so scant -compared to its length that, with its ends out of view, it might have -been taken for a scant river. We looked at the empty expanse, and then -I felt the suggestion of my friend’s eyes. I knew what she meant and I -replied with a negative headshake. - -“No, no; wait! She has taken the boat.” - -My companion stared at the vacant mooring place and then again across -the lake. “Then where is it?” - -“Our not seeing it is the strongest of proofs. She has used it to go -over, and then has managed to hide it.” - -“All alone—that child?” - -“She’s not alone, and at such times she’s not a child: she’s an old, -old woman.” I scanned all the visible shore while Mrs. Grose took -again, into the queer element I offered her, one of her plunges of -submission; then I pointed out that the boat might perfectly be in a -small refuge formed by one of the recesses of the pool, an indentation -masked, for the hither side, by a projection of the bank and by a clump -of trees growing close to the water. - -“But if the boat’s there, where on earth’s _she?_” my colleague -anxiously asked. - -“That’s exactly what we must learn.” And I started to walk further. - -“By going all the way round?” - -“Certainly, far as it is. It will take us but ten minutes, but it’s far -enough to have made the child prefer not to walk. She went straight -over.” - -“Laws!” cried my friend again; the chain of my logic was ever too much -for her. It dragged her at my heels even now, and when we had got -halfway round—a devious, tiresome process, on ground much broken and by -a path choked with overgrowth—I paused to give her breath. I sustained -her with a grateful arm, assuring her that she might hugely help me; -and this started us afresh, so that in the course of but few minutes -more we reached a point from which we found the boat to be where I had -supposed it. It had been intentionally left as much as possible out of -sight and was tied to one of the stakes of a fence that came, just -there, down to the brink and that had been an assistance to -disembarking. I recognized, as I looked at the pair of short, thick -oars, quite safely drawn up, the prodigious character of the feat for a -little girl; but I had lived, by this time, too long among wonders and -had panted to too many livelier measures. There was a gate in the -fence, through which we passed, and that brought us, after a trifling -interval, more into the open. Then, “There she is!” we both exclaimed -at once. - -Flora, a short way off, stood before us on the grass and smiled as if -her performance was now complete. The next thing she did, however, was -to stoop straight down and pluck—quite as if it were all she was there -for—a big, ugly spray of withered fern. I instantly became sure she had -just come out of the copse. She waited for us, not herself taking a -step, and I was conscious of the rare solemnity with which we presently -approached her. She smiled and smiled, and we met; but it was all done -in a silence by this time flagrantly ominous. Mrs. Grose was the first -to break the spell: she threw herself on her knees and, drawing the -child to her breast, clasped in a long embrace the little tender, -yielding body. While this dumb convulsion lasted I could only watch -it—which I did the more intently when I saw Flora’s face peep at me -over our companion’s shoulder. It was serious now—the flicker had left -it; but it strengthened the pang with which I at that moment envied -Mrs. Grose the simplicity of _her_ relation. Still, all this while, -nothing more passed between us save that Flora had let her foolish fern -again drop to the ground. What she and I had virtually said to each -other was that pretexts were useless now. When Mrs. Grose finally got -up she kept the child’s hand, so that the two were still before me; and -the singular reticence of our communion was even more marked in the -frank look she launched me. “I’ll be hanged,” it said, “if _I’ll_ -speak!” - -It was Flora who, gazing all over me in candid wonder, was the first. -She was struck with our bareheaded aspect. “Why, where are your -things?” - -“Where yours are, my dear!” I promptly returned. - -She had already got back her gaiety, and appeared to take this as an -answer quite sufficient. “And where’s Miles?” she went on. - -There was something in the small valor of it that quite finished me: -these three words from her were, in a flash like the glitter of a drawn -blade, the jostle of the cup that my hand, for weeks and weeks, had -held high and full to the brim that now, even before speaking, I felt -overflow in a deluge. “I’ll tell you if you’ll tell _me_—” I heard -myself say, then heard the tremor in which it broke. - -“Well, what?” - -Mrs. Grose’s suspense blazed at me, but it was too late now, and I -brought the thing out handsomely. “Where, my pet, is Miss Jessel?” - - -XX - -Just as in the churchyard with Miles, the whole thing was upon us. Much -as I had made of the fact that this name had never once, between us, -been sounded, the quick, smitten glare with which the child’s face now -received it fairly likened my breach of the silence to the smash of a -pane of glass. It added to the interposing cry, as if to stay the blow, -that Mrs. Grose, at the same instant, uttered over my violence—the -shriek of a creature scared, or rather wounded, which, in turn, within -a few seconds, was completed by a gasp of my own. I seized my -colleague’s arm. “She’s there, she’s there!” - -Miss Jessel stood before us on the opposite bank exactly as she had -stood the other time, and I remember, strangely, as the first feeling -now produced in me, my thrill of joy at having brought on a proof. She -was there, and I was justified; she was there, and I was neither cruel -nor mad. She was there for poor scared Mrs. Grose, but she was there -most for Flora; and no moment of my monstrous time was perhaps so -extraordinary as that in which I consciously threw out to her—with the -sense that, pale and ravenous demon as she was, she would catch and -understand it—an inarticulate message of gratitude. She rose erect on -the spot my friend and I had lately quitted, and there was not, in all -the long reach of her desire, an inch of her evil that fell short. This -first vividness of vision and emotion were things of a few seconds, -during which Mrs. Grose’s dazed blink across to where I pointed struck -me as a sovereign sign that she too at last saw, just as it carried my -own eyes precipitately to the child. The revelation then of the manner -in which Flora was affected startled me, in truth, far more than it -would have done to find her also merely agitated, for direct dismay was -of course not what I had expected. Prepared and on her guard as our -pursuit had actually made her, she would repress every betrayal; and I -was therefore shaken, on the spot, by my first glimpse of the -particular one for which I had not allowed. To see her, without a -convulsion of her small pink face, not even feign to glance in the -direction of the prodigy I announced, but only, instead of that, turn -at _me_ an expression of hard, still gravity, an expression absolutely -new and unprecedented and that appeared to read and accuse and judge -me—this was a stroke that somehow converted the little girl herself -into the very presence that could make me quail. I quailed even though -my certitude that she thoroughly saw was never greater than at that -instant, and in the immediate need to defend myself I called it -passionately to witness. “She’s there, you little unhappy thing—there, -there, _there_, and you see her as well as you see me!” I had said -shortly before to Mrs. Grose that she was not at these times a child, -but an old, old woman, and that description of her could not have been -more strikingly confirmed than in the way in which, for all answer to -this, she simply showed me, without a concession, an admission, of her -eyes, a countenance of deeper and deeper, of indeed suddenly quite -fixed, reprobation. I was by this time—if I can put the whole thing at -all together—more appalled at what I may properly call her manner than -at anything else, though it was simultaneously with this that I became -aware of having Mrs. Grose also, and very formidably, to reckon with. -My elder companion, the next moment, at any rate, blotted out -everything but her own flushed face and her loud, shocked protest, a -burst of high disapproval. “What a dreadful turn, to be sure, miss! -Where on earth do you see anything?” - -I could only grasp her more quickly yet, for even while she spoke the -hideous plain presence stood undimmed and undaunted. It had already -lasted a minute, and it lasted while I continued, seizing my colleague, -quite thrusting her at it and presenting her to it, to insist with my -pointing hand. “You don’t see her exactly as _we_ see?—you mean to say -you don’t now—_now?_ She’s as big as a blazing fire! Only look, dearest -woman, _look_—!” She looked, even as I did, and gave me, with her deep -groan of negation, repulsion, compassion—the mixture with her pity of -her relief at her exemption—a sense, touching to me even then, that she -would have backed me up if she could. I might well have needed that, -for with this hard blow of the proof that her eyes were hopelessly -sealed I felt my own situation horribly crumble, I felt—I saw—my livid -predecessor press, from her position, on my defeat, and I was -conscious, more than all, of what I should have from this instant to -deal with in the astounding little attitude of Flora. Into this -attitude Mrs. Grose immediately and violently entered, breaking, even -while there pierced through my sense of ruin a prodigious private -triumph, into breathless reassurance. - -“She isn’t there, little lady, and nobody’s there—and you never see -nothing, my sweet! How can poor Miss Jessel—when poor Miss Jessel’s -dead and buried? _We_ know, don’t we, love?”—and she appealed, -blundering in, to the child. “It’s all a mere mistake and a worry and a -joke—and we’ll go home as fast as we can!” - -Our companion, on this, had responded with a strange, quick primness of -propriety, and they were again, with Mrs. Grose on her feet, united, as -it were, in pained opposition to me. Flora continued to fix me with her -small mask of reprobation, and even at that minute I prayed God to -forgive me for seeming to see that, as she stood there holding tight to -our friend’s dress, her incomparable childish beauty had suddenly -failed, had quite vanished. I’ve said it already—she was literally, she -was hideously, hard; she had turned common and almost ugly. “I don’t -know what you mean. I see nobody. I see nothing. I never _have_. I -think you’re cruel. I don’t like you!” Then, after this deliverance, -which might have been that of a vulgarly pert little girl in the -street, she hugged Mrs. Grose more closely and buried in her skirts the -dreadful little face. In this position she produced an almost furious -wail. “Take me away, take me away—oh, take me away from _her!_” - -“From _me?_” I panted. - -“From you—from you!” she cried. - -Even Mrs. Grose looked across at me dismayed, while I had nothing to do -but communicate again with the figure that, on the opposite bank, -without a movement, as rigidly still as if catching, beyond the -interval, our voices, was as vividly there for my disaster as it was -not there for my service. The wretched child had spoken exactly as if -she had got from some outside source each of her stabbing little words, -and I could therefore, in the full despair of all I had to accept, but -sadly shake my head at her. “If I had ever doubted, all my doubt would -at present have gone. I’ve been living with the miserable truth, and -now it has only too much closed round me. Of course I’ve lost you: I’ve -interfered, and you’ve seen—under _her_ dictation”—with which I faced, -over the pool again, our infernal witness—“the easy and perfect way to -meet it. I’ve done my best, but I’ve lost you. Goodbye.” For Mrs. Grose -I had an imperative, an almost frantic “Go, go!” before which, in -infinite distress, but mutely possessed of the little girl and clearly -convinced, in spite of her blindness, that something awful had occurred -and some collapse engulfed us, she retreated, by the way we had come, -as fast as she could move. - -Of what first happened when I was left alone I had no subsequent -memory. I only knew that at the end of, I suppose, a quarter of an -hour, an odorous dampness and roughness, chilling and piercing my -trouble, had made me understand that I must have thrown myself, on my -face, on the ground and given way to a wildness of grief. I must have -lain there long and cried and sobbed, for when I raised my head the day -was almost done. I got up and looked a moment, through the twilight, at -the gray pool and its blank, haunted edge, and then I took, back to the -house, my dreary and difficult course. When I reached the gate in the -fence the boat, to my surprise, was gone, so that I had a fresh -reflection to make on Flora’s extraordinary command of the situation. -She passed that night, by the most tacit, and I should add, were not -the word so grotesque a false note, the happiest of arrangements, with -Mrs. Grose. I saw neither of them on my return, but, on the other hand, -as by an ambiguous compensation, I saw a great deal of Miles. I saw—I -can use no other phrase—so much of him that it was as if it were more -than it had ever been. No evening I had passed at Bly had the -portentous quality of this one; in spite of which—and in spite also of -the deeper depths of consternation that had opened beneath my -feet—there was literally, in the ebbing actual, an extraordinarily -sweet sadness. On reaching the house I had never so much as looked for -the boy; I had simply gone straight to my room to change what I was -wearing and to take in, at a glance, much material testimony to Flora’s -rupture. Her little belongings had all been removed. When later, by the -schoolroom fire, I was served with tea by the usual maid, I indulged, -on the article of my other pupil, in no inquiry whatever. He had his -freedom now—he might have it to the end! Well, he did have it; and it -consisted—in part at least—of his coming in at about eight o’clock and -sitting down with me in silence. On the removal of the tea things I had -blown out the candles and drawn my chair closer: I was conscious of a -mortal coldness and felt as if I should never again be warm. So, when -he appeared, I was sitting in the glow with my thoughts. He paused a -moment by the door as if to look at me; then—as if to share them—came -to the other side of the hearth and sank into a chair. We sat there in -absolute stillness; yet he wanted, I felt, to be with me. - - -XXI - -Before a new day, in my room, had fully broken, my eyes opened to Mrs. -Grose, who had come to my bedside with worse news. Flora was so -markedly feverish that an illness was perhaps at hand; she had passed a -night of extreme unrest, a night agitated above all by fears that had -for their subject not in the least her former, but wholly her present, -governess. It was not against the possible re-entrance of Miss Jessel -on the scene that she protested—it was conspicuously and passionately -against mine. I was promptly on my feet of course, and with an immense -deal to ask; the more that my friend had discernibly now girded her -loins to meet me once more. This I felt as soon as I had put to her the -question of her sense of the child’s sincerity as against my own. “She -persists in denying to you that she saw, or has ever seen, anything?” - -My visitor’s trouble, truly, was great. “Ah, miss, it isn’t a matter on -which I can push her! Yet it isn’t either, I must say, as if I much -needed to. It has made her, every inch of her, quite old.” - -“Oh, I see her perfectly from here. She resents, for all the world like -some high little personage, the imputation on her truthfulness and, as -it were, her respectability. ‘Miss Jessel indeed—_she!_’ Ah, she’s -‘respectable,’ the chit! The impression she gave me there yesterday -was, I assure you, the very strangest of all; it was quite beyond any -of the others. I _did_ put my foot in it! She’ll never speak to me -again.” - -Hideous and obscure as it all was, it held Mrs. Grose briefly silent; -then she granted my point with a frankness which, I made sure, had more -behind it. “I think indeed, miss, she never will. She do have a grand -manner about it!” - -“And that manner”—I summed it up—“is practically what’s the matter with -her now!” - -Oh, that manner, I could see in my visitor’s face, and not a little -else besides! “She asks me every three minutes if I think you’re coming -in.” - -“I see—I see.” I, too, on my side, had so much more than worked it out. -“Has she said to you since yesterday—except to repudiate her -familiarity with anything so dreadful—a single other word about Miss -Jessel?” - -“Not one, miss. And of course you know,” my friend added, “I took it -from her, by the lake, that, just then and there at least, there _was_ -nobody.” - -“Rather! and, naturally, you take it from her still.” - -“I don’t contradict her. What else can I do?” - -“Nothing in the world! You’ve the cleverest little person to deal with. -They’ve made them—their two friends, I mean—still cleverer even than -nature did; for it was wondrous material to play on! Flora has now her -grievance, and she’ll work it to the end.” - -“Yes, miss; but to _what_ end?” - -“Why, that of dealing with me to her uncle. She’ll make me out to him -the lowest creature—!” - -I winced at the fair show of the scene in Mrs. Grose’s face; she looked -for a minute as if she sharply saw them together. “And him who thinks -so well of you!” - -“He has an odd way—it comes over me now,” I laughed, “—of proving it! -But that doesn’t matter. What Flora wants, of course, is to get rid of -me.” - -My companion bravely concurred. “Never again to so much as look at -you.” - -“So that what you’ve come to me now for,” I asked, “is to speed me on -my way?” Before she had time to reply, however, I had her in check. -“I’ve a better idea—the result of my reflections. My going _would_ seem -the right thing, and on Sunday I was terribly near it. Yet that won’t -do. It’s _you_ who must go. You must take Flora.” - -My visitor, at this, did speculate. “But where in the world—?” - -“Away from here. Away from _them_. Away, even most of all, now, from -me. Straight to her uncle.” - -“Only to tell on you—?” - -“No, not ‘only’! To leave me, in addition, with my remedy.” - -She was still vague. “And what _is_ your remedy?” - -“Your loyalty, to begin with. And then Miles’s.” - -She looked at me hard. “Do you think he—?” - -“Won’t, if he has the chance, turn on me? Yes, I venture still to think -it. At all events, I want to try. Get off with his sister as soon as -possible and leave me with him alone.” I was amazed, myself, at the -spirit I had still in reserve, and therefore perhaps a trifle the more -disconcerted at the way in which, in spite of this fine example of it, -she hesitated. “There’s one thing, of course,” I went on: “they -mustn’t, before she goes, see each other for three seconds.” Then it -came over me that, in spite of Flora’s presumable sequestration from -the instant of her return from the pool, it might already be too late. -“Do you mean,” I anxiously asked, “that they _have_ met?” - -At this she quite flushed. “Ah, miss, I’m not such a fool as that! If -I’ve been obliged to leave her three or four times, it has been each -time with one of the maids, and at present, though she’s alone, she’s -locked in safe. And yet—and yet!” There were too many things. - -“And yet what?” - -“Well, are you so sure of the little gentleman?” - -“I’m not sure of anything but _you_. But I have, since last evening, a -new hope. I think he wants to give me an opening. I do believe -that—poor little exquisite wretch!—he wants to speak. Last evening, in -the firelight and the silence, he sat with me for two hours as if it -were just coming.” - -Mrs. Grose looked hard, through the window, at the gray, gathering day. -“And did it come?” - -“No, though I waited and waited, I confess it didn’t, and it was -without a breach of the silence or so much as a faint allusion to his -sister’s condition and absence that we at last kissed for good night. -All the same,” I continued, “I can’t, if her uncle sees her, consent to -his seeing her brother without my having given the boy—and most of all -because things have got so bad—a little more time.” - -My friend appeared on this ground more reluctant than I could quite -understand. “What do you mean by more time?” - -“Well, a day or two—really to bring it out. He’ll then be on _my_ -side—of which you see the importance. If nothing comes, I shall only -fail, and you will, at the worst, have helped me by doing, on your -arrival in town, whatever you may have found possible.” So I put it -before her, but she continued for a little so inscrutably embarrassed -that I came again to her aid. “Unless, indeed,” I wound up, “you really -want _not_ to go.” - -I could see it, in her face, at last clear itself; she put out her hand -to me as a pledge. “I’ll go—I’ll go. I’ll go this morning.” - -I wanted to be very just. “If you _should_ wish still to wait, I would -engage she shouldn’t see me.” - -“No, no: it’s the place itself. She must leave it.” She held me a -moment with heavy eyes, then brought out the rest. “Your idea’s the -right one. I myself, miss—” - -“Well?” - -“I can’t stay.” - -The look she gave me with it made me jump at possibilities. “You mean -that, since yesterday, you _have_ seen—?” - -She shook her head with dignity. “I’ve _heard_—!” - -“Heard?” - -“From that child—horrors! There!” she sighed with tragic relief. “On my -honor, miss, she says things—!” But at this evocation she broke down; -she dropped, with a sudden sob, upon my sofa and, as I had seen her do -before, gave way to all the grief of it. - -It was quite in another manner that I, for my part, let myself go. “Oh, -thank God!” - -She sprang up again at this, drying her eyes with a groan. “‘Thank -God’?” - -“It so justifies me!” - -“It does that, miss!” - -I couldn’t have desired more emphasis, but I just hesitated. “She’s so -horrible?” - -I saw my colleague scarce knew how to put it. “Really shocking.” - -“And about me?” - -“About you, miss—since you must have it. It’s beyond everything, for a -young lady; and I can’t think wherever she must have picked up—” - -“The appalling language she applied to me? I can, then!” I broke in -with a laugh that was doubtless significant enough. - -It only, in truth, left my friend still more grave. “Well, perhaps I -ought to also—since I’ve heard some of it before! Yet I can’t bear it,” -the poor woman went on while, with the same movement, she glanced, on -my dressing table, at the face of my watch. “But I must go back.” - -I kept her, however. “Ah, if you can’t bear it—!” - -“How can I stop with her, you mean? Why, just _for_ that: to get her -away. Far from this,” she pursued, “far from _them_—” - -“She may be different? She may be free?” I seized her almost with joy. -“Then, in spite of yesterday, you _believe_—” - -“In such doings?” Her simple description of them required, in the light -of her expression, to be carried no further, and she gave me the whole -thing as she had never done. “I believe.” - -Yes, it was a joy, and we were still shoulder to shoulder: if I might -continue sure of that I should care but little what else happened. My -support in the presence of disaster would be the same as it had been in -my early need of confidence, and if my friend would answer for my -honesty, I would answer for all the rest. On the point of taking leave -of her, nonetheless, I was to some extent embarrassed. “There’s one -thing, of course—it occurs to me—to remember. My letter, giving the -alarm, will have reached town before you.” - -I now perceived still more how she had been beating about the bush and -how weary at last it had made her. “Your letter won’t have got there. -Your letter never went.” - -“What then became of it?” - -“Goodness knows! Master Miles—” - -“Do you mean _he_ took it?” I gasped. - -She hung fire, but she overcame her reluctance. “I mean that I saw -yesterday, when I came back with Miss Flora, that it wasn’t where you -had put it. Later in the evening I had the chance to question Luke, and -he declared that he had neither noticed nor touched it.” We could only -exchange, on this, one of our deeper mutual soundings, and it was Mrs. -Grose who first brought up the plumb with an almost elated “You see!” - -“Yes, I see that if Miles took it instead he probably will have read it -and destroyed it.” - -“And don’t you see anything else?” - -I faced her a moment with a sad smile. “It strikes me that by this time -your eyes are open even wider than mine.” - -They proved to be so indeed, but she could still blush, almost, to show -it. “I make out now what he must have done at school.” And she gave, in -her simple sharpness, an almost droll disillusioned nod. “He stole!” - -I turned it over—I tried to be more judicial. “Well—perhaps.” - -She looked as if she found me unexpectedly calm. “He stole _letters!_” - -She couldn’t know my reasons for a calmness after all pretty shallow; -so I showed them off as I might. “I hope then it was to more purpose -than in this case! The note, at any rate, that I put on the table -yesterday,” I pursued, “will have given him so scant an advantage—for -it contained only the bare demand for an interview—that he is already -much ashamed of having gone so far for so little, and that what he had -on his mind last evening was precisely the need of confession.” I -seemed to myself, for the instant, to have mastered it, to see it all. -“Leave us, leave us”—I was already, at the door, hurrying her off. -“I’ll get it out of him. He’ll meet me—he’ll confess. If he confesses, -he’s saved. And if he’s saved—” - -“Then _you_ are?” The dear woman kissed me on this, and I took her -farewell. “I’ll save you without him!” she cried as she went. - - -XXII - -Yet it was when she had got off—and I missed her on the spot—that the -great pinch really came. If I had counted on what it would give me to -find myself alone with Miles, I speedily perceived, at least, that it -would give me a measure. No hour of my stay in fact was so assailed -with apprehensions as that of my coming down to learn that the carriage -containing Mrs. Grose and my younger pupil had already rolled out of -the gates. Now I _was_, I said to myself, face to face with the -elements, and for much of the rest of the day, while I fought my -weakness, I could consider that I had been supremely rash. It was a -tighter place still than I had yet turned round in; all the more that, -for the first time, I could see in the aspect of others a confused -reflection of the crisis. What had happened naturally caused them all -to stare; there was too little of the explained, throw out whatever we -might, in the suddenness of my colleague’s act. The maids and the men -looked blank; the effect of which on my nerves was an aggravation until -I saw the necessity of making it a positive aid. It was precisely, in -short, by just clutching the helm that I avoided total wreck; and I -dare say that, to bear up at all, I became, that morning, very grand -and very dry. I welcomed the consciousness that I was charged with much -to do, and I caused it to be known as well that, left thus to myself, I -was quite remarkably firm. I wandered with that manner, for the next -hour or two, all over the place and looked, I have no doubt, as if I -were ready for any onset. So, for the benefit of whom it might concern, -I paraded with a sick heart. - -The person it appeared least to concern proved to be, till dinner, -little Miles himself. My perambulations had given me, meanwhile, no -glimpse of him, but they had tended to make more public the change -taking place in our relation as a consequence of his having at the -piano, the day before, kept me, in Flora’s interest, so beguiled and -befooled. The stamp of publicity had of course been fully given by her -confinement and departure, and the change itself was now ushered in by -our nonobservance of the regular custom of the schoolroom. He had -already disappeared when, on my way down, I pushed open his door, and I -learned below that he had breakfasted—in the presence of a couple of -the maids—with Mrs. Grose and his sister. He had then gone out, as he -said, for a stroll; than which nothing, I reflected, could better have -expressed his frank view of the abrupt transformation of my office. -What he would not permit this office to consist of was yet to be -settled: there was a queer relief, at all events—I mean for myself in -especial—in the renouncement of one pretension. If so much had sprung -to the surface, I scarce put it too strongly in saying that what had -perhaps sprung highest was the absurdity of our prolonging the fiction -that I had anything more to teach him. It sufficiently stuck out that, -by tacit little tricks in which even more than myself he carried out -the care for my dignity, I had had to appeal to him to let me off -straining to meet him on the ground of his true capacity. He had at any -rate his freedom now; I was never to touch it again; as I had amply -shown, moreover, when, on his joining me in the schoolroom the previous -night, I had uttered, on the subject of the interval just concluded, -neither challenge nor hint. I had too much, from this moment, my other -ideas. Yet when he at last arrived, the difficulty of applying them, -the accumulations of my problem, were brought straight home to me by -the beautiful little presence on which what had occurred had as yet, -for the eye, dropped neither stain nor shadow. - -To mark, for the house, the high state I cultivated I decreed that my -meals with the boy should be served, as we called it, downstairs; so -that I had been awaiting him in the ponderous pomp of the room outside -of the window of which I had had from Mrs. Grose, that first scared -Sunday, my flash of something it would scarce have done to call light. -Here at present I felt afresh—for I had felt it again and again—how my -equilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, the will to shut -my eyes as tight as possible to the truth that what I had to deal with -was, revoltingly, against nature. I could only get on at all by taking -“nature” into my confidence and my account, by treating my monstrous -ordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, and unpleasant, but -demanding, after all, for a fair front, only another turn of the screw -of ordinary human virtue. No attempt, nonetheless, could well require -more tact than just this attempt to supply, one’s self, _all_ the -nature. How could I put even a little of that article into a -suppression of reference to what had occurred? How, on the other hand, -could I make reference without a new plunge into the hideous obscure? -Well, a sort of answer, after a time, had come to me, and it was so far -confirmed as that I was met, incontestably, by the quickened vision of -what was rare in my little companion. It was indeed as if he had found -even now—as he had so often found at lessons—still some other delicate -way to ease me off. Wasn’t there light in the fact which, as we shared -our solitude, broke out with a specious glitter it had never yet quite -worn?—the fact that (opportunity aiding, precious opportunity which had -now come) it would be preposterous, with a child so endowed, to forego -the help one might wrest from absolute intelligence? What had his -intelligence been given him for but to save him? Mightn’t one, to reach -his mind, risk the stretch of an angular arm over his character? It was -as if, when we were face to face in the dining room, he had literally -shown me the way. The roast mutton was on the table, and I had -dispensed with attendance. Miles, before he sat down, stood a moment -with his hands in his pockets and looked at the joint, on which he -seemed on the point of passing some humorous judgment. But what he -presently produced was: “I say, my dear, is she really very awfully -ill?” - -“Little Flora? Not so bad but that she’ll presently be better. London -will set her up. Bly had ceased to agree with her. Come here and take -your mutton.” - -He alertly obeyed me, carried the plate carefully to his seat, and, -when he was established, went on. “Did Bly disagree with her so -terribly suddenly?” - -“Not so suddenly as you might think. One had seen it coming on.” - -“Then why didn’t you get her off before?” - -“Before what?” - -“Before she became too ill to travel.” - -I found myself prompt. “She’s _not_ too ill to travel: she only might -have become so if she had stayed. This was just the moment to seize. -The journey will dissipate the influence”—oh, I was grand!—“and carry -it off.” - -“I see, I see”—Miles, for that matter, was grand, too. He settled to -his repast with the charming little “table manner” that, from the day -of his arrival, had relieved me of all grossness of admonition. -Whatever he had been driven from school for, it was not for ugly -feeding. He was irreproachable, as always, today; but he was -unmistakably more conscious. He was discernibly trying to take for -granted more things than he found, without assistance, quite easy; and -he dropped into peaceful silence while he felt his situation. Our meal -was of the briefest—mine a vain pretense, and I had the things -immediately removed. While this was done Miles stood again with his -hands in his little pockets and his back to me—stood and looked out of -the wide window through which, that other day, I had seen what pulled -me up. We continued silent while the maid was with us—as silent, it -whimsically occurred to me, as some young couple who, on their wedding -journey, at the inn, feel shy in the presence of the waiter. He turned -round only when the waiter had left us. “Well—so we’re alone!” - - -XXIII - -“Oh, more or less.” I fancy my smile was pale. “Not absolutely. We -shouldn’t like that!” I went on. - -“No—I suppose we shouldn’t. Of course we have the others.” - -“We have the others—we have indeed the others,” I concurred. - -“Yet even though we have them,” he returned, still with his hands in -his pockets and planted there in front of me, “they don’t much count, -do they?” - -I made the best of it, but I felt wan. “It depends on what you call -‘much’!” - -“Yes”—with all accommodation—“everything depends!” On this, however, he -faced to the window again and presently reached it with his vague, -restless, cogitating step. He remained there awhile, with his forehead -against the glass, in contemplation of the stupid shrubs I knew and the -dull things of November. I had always my hypocrisy of “work,” behind -which, now, I gained the sofa. Steadying myself with it there as I had -repeatedly done at those moments of torment that I have described as -the moments of my knowing the children to be given to something from -which I was barred, I sufficiently obeyed my habit of being prepared -for the worst. But an extraordinary impression dropped on me as I -extracted a meaning from the boy’s embarrassed back—none other than the -impression that I was not barred now. This inference grew in a few -minutes to sharp intensity and seemed bound up with the direct -perception that it was positively _he_ who was. The frames and squares -of the great window were a kind of image, for him, of a kind of -failure. I felt that I saw him, at any rate, shut in or shut out. He -was admirable, but not comfortable: I took it in with a throb of hope. -Wasn’t he looking, through the haunted pane, for something he couldn’t -see?—and wasn’t it the first time in the whole business that he had -known such a lapse? The first, the very first: I found it a splendid -portent. It made him anxious, though he watched himself; he had been -anxious all day and, even while in his usual sweet little manner he sat -at table, had needed all his small strange genius to give it a gloss. -When he at last turned round to meet me, it was almost as if this -genius had succumbed. “Well, I think I’m glad Bly agrees with _me!_” - -“You would certainly seem to have seen, these twenty-four hours, a good -deal more of it than for some time before. I hope,” I went on bravely, -“that you’ve been enjoying yourself.” - -“Oh, yes, I’ve been ever so far; all round about—miles and miles away. -I’ve never been so free.” - -He had really a manner of his own, and I could only try to keep up with -him. “Well, do you like it?” - -He stood there smiling; then at last he put into two words—“Do -_you?_”—more discrimination than I had ever heard two words contain. -Before I had time to deal with that, however, he continued as if with -the sense that this was an impertinence to be softened. “Nothing could -be more charming than the way you take it, for of course if we’re alone -together now it’s you that are alone most. But I hope,” he threw in, -“you don’t particularly mind!” - -“Having to do with you?” I asked. “My dear child, how can I help -minding? Though I’ve renounced all claim to your company—you’re so -beyond me—I at least greatly enjoy it. What else should I stay on for?” - -He looked at me more directly, and the expression of his face, graver -now, struck me as the most beautiful I had ever found in it. “You stay -on just for _that?_” - -“Certainly. I stay on as your friend and from the tremendous interest I -take in you till something can be done for you that may be more worth -your while. That needn’t surprise you.” My voice trembled so that I -felt it impossible to suppress the shake. “Don’t you remember how I -told you, when I came and sat on your bed the night of the storm, that -there was nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you?” - -“Yes, yes!” He, on his side, more and more visibly nervous, had a tone -to master; but he was so much more successful than I that, laughing out -through his gravity, he could pretend we were pleasantly jesting. “Only -that, I think, was to get me to do something for _you!_” - -“It was partly to get you to do something,” I conceded. “But, you know, -you didn’t do it.” - -“Oh, yes,” he said with the brightest superficial eagerness, “you -wanted me to tell you something.” - -“That’s it. Out, straight out. What you have on your mind, you know.” - -“Ah, then, is _that_ what you’ve stayed over for?” - -He spoke with a gaiety through which I could still catch the finest -little quiver of resentful passion; but I can’t begin to express the -effect upon me of an implication of surrender even so faint. It was as -if what I had yearned for had come at last only to astonish me. “Well, -yes—I may as well make a clean breast of it, it was precisely for -that.” - -He waited so long that I supposed it for the purpose of repudiating the -assumption on which my action had been founded; but what he finally -said was: “Do you mean now—here?” - -“There couldn’t be a better place or time.” He looked round him -uneasily, and I had the rare—oh, the queer!—impression of the very -first symptom I had seen in him of the approach of immediate fear. It -was as if he were suddenly afraid of me—which struck me indeed as -perhaps the best thing to make him. Yet in the very pang of the effort -I felt it vain to try sternness, and I heard myself the next instant so -gentle as to be almost grotesque. “You want so to go out again?” - -“Awfully!” He smiled at me heroically, and the touching little bravery -of it was enhanced by his actually flushing with pain. He had picked up -his hat, which he had brought in, and stood twirling it in a way that -gave me, even as I was just nearly reaching port, a perverse horror of -what I was doing. To do it in _any_ way was an act of violence, for -what did it consist of but the obtrusion of the idea of grossness and -guilt on a small helpless creature who had been for me a revelation of -the possibilities of beautiful intercourse? Wasn’t it base to create -for a being so exquisite a mere alien awkwardness? I suppose I now read -into our situation a clearness it couldn’t have had at the time, for I -seem to see our poor eyes already lighted with some spark of a -prevision of the anguish that was to come. So we circled about, with -terrors and scruples, like fighters not daring to close. But it was for -each other we feared! That kept us a little longer suspended and -unbruised. “I’ll tell you everything,” Miles said—“I mean I’ll tell you -anything you like. You’ll stay on with me, and we shall both be all -right, and I _will_ tell you—I _will_. But not now.” - -“Why not now?” - -My insistence turned him from me and kept him once more at his window -in a silence during which, between us, you might have heard a pin drop. -Then he was before me again with the air of a person for whom, outside, -someone who had frankly to be reckoned with was waiting. “I have to see -Luke.” - -I had not yet reduced him to quite so vulgar a lie, and I felt -proportionately ashamed. But, horrible as it was, his lies made up my -truth. I achieved thoughtfully a few loops of my knitting. “Well, then, -go to Luke, and I’ll wait for what you promise. Only, in return for -that, satisfy, before you leave me, one very much smaller request.” - -He looked as if he felt he had succeeded enough to be able still a -little to bargain. “Very much smaller—?” - -“Yes, a mere fraction of the whole. Tell me”—oh, my work preoccupied -me, and I was offhand!—“if, yesterday afternoon, from the table in the -hall, you took, you know, my letter.” - - -XXIV - -My sense of how he received this suffered for a minute from something -that I can describe only as a fierce split of my attention—a stroke -that at first, as I sprang straight up, reduced me to the mere blind -movement of getting hold of him, drawing him close, and, while I just -fell for support against the nearest piece of furniture, instinctively -keeping him with his back to the window. The appearance was full upon -us that I had already had to deal with here: Peter Quint had come into -view like a sentinel before a prison. The next thing I saw was that, -from outside, he had reached the window, and then I knew that, close to -the glass and glaring in through it, he offered once more to the room -his white face of damnation. It represents but grossly what took place -within me at the sight to say that on the second my decision was made; -yet I believe that no woman so overwhelmed ever in so short a time -recovered her grasp of the _act_. It came to me in the very horror of -the immediate presence that the act would be, seeing and facing what I -saw and faced, to keep the boy himself unaware. The inspiration—I can -call it by no other name—was that I felt how voluntarily, how -transcendently, I _might_. It was like fighting with a demon for a -human soul, and when I had fairly so appraised it I saw how the human -soul—held out, in the tremor of my hands, at arm’s length—had a perfect -dew of sweat on a lovely childish forehead. The face that was close to -mine was as white as the face against the glass, and out of it -presently came a sound, not low nor weak, but as if from much further -away, that I drank like a waft of fragrance. - -“Yes—I took it.” - -At this, with a moan of joy, I enfolded, I drew him close; and while I -held him to my breast, where I could feel in the sudden fever of his -little body the tremendous pulse of his little heart, I kept my eyes on -the thing at the window and saw it move and shift its posture. I have -likened it to a sentinel, but its slow wheel, for a moment, was rather -the prowl of a baffled beast. My present quickened courage, however, -was such that, not too much to let it through, I had to shade, as it -were, my flame. Meanwhile the glare of the face was again at the -window, the scoundrel fixed as if to watch and wait. It was the very -confidence that I might now defy him, as well as the positive -certitude, by this time, of the child’s unconsciousness, that made me -go on. “What did you take it for?” - -“To see what you said about me.” - -“You opened the letter?” - -“I opened it.” - -My eyes were now, as I held him off a little again, on Miles’s own -face, in which the collapse of mockery showed me how complete was the -ravage of uneasiness. What was prodigious was that at last, by my -success, his sense was sealed and his communication stopped: he knew -that he was in presence, but knew not of what, and knew still less that -I also was and that I did know. And what did this strain of trouble -matter when my eyes went back to the window only to see that the air -was clear again and—by my personal triumph—the influence quenched? -There was nothing there. I felt that the cause was mine and that I -should surely get _all_. “And you found nothing!”—I let my elation out. - -He gave the most mournful, thoughtful little headshake. “Nothing.” - -“Nothing, nothing!” I almost shouted in my joy. - -“Nothing, nothing,” he sadly repeated. - -I kissed his forehead; it was drenched. “So what have you done with -it?” - -“I’ve burned it.” - -“Burned it?” It was now or never. “Is that what you did at school?” - -Oh, what this brought up! “At school?” - -“Did you take letters?—or other things?” - -“Other things?” He appeared now to be thinking of something far off and -that reached him only through the pressure of his anxiety. Yet it did -reach him. “Did I _steal?_” - -I felt myself redden to the roots of my hair as well as wonder if it -were more strange to put to a gentleman such a question or to see him -take it with allowances that gave the very distance of his fall in the -world. “Was it for that you mightn’t go back?” - -The only thing he felt was rather a dreary little surprise. “Did you -know I mightn’t go back?” - -“I know everything.” - -He gave me at this the longest and strangest look. “Everything?” - -“Everything. Therefore _did_ you—?” But I couldn’t say it again. - -Miles could, very simply. “No. I didn’t steal.” - -My face must have shown him I believed him utterly; yet my hands—but it -was for pure tenderness—shook him as if to ask him why, if it was all -for nothing, he had condemned me to months of torment. “What then did -you do?” - -He looked in vague pain all round the top of the room and drew his -breath, two or three times over, as if with difficulty. He might have -been standing at the bottom of the sea and raising his eyes to some -faint green twilight. “Well—I said things.” - -“Only that?” - -“They thought it was enough!” - -“To turn you out for?” - -Never, truly, had a person “turned out” shown so little to explain it -as this little person! He appeared to weigh my question, but in a -manner quite detached and almost helpless. “Well, I suppose I -oughtn’t.” - -“But to whom did you say them?” - -He evidently tried to remember, but it dropped—he had lost it. “I don’t -know!” - -He almost smiled at me in the desolation of his surrender, which was -indeed practically, by this time, so complete that I ought to have left -it there. But I was infatuated—I was blind with victory, though even -then the very effect that was to have brought him so much nearer was -already that of added separation. “Was it to everyone?” I asked. - -“No; it was only to—” But he gave a sick little headshake. “I don’t -remember their names.” - -“Were they then so many?” - -“No—only a few. Those I liked.” - -Those he liked? I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker -obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity -the appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent. It was for the -instant confounding and bottomless, for if he _were_ innocent, what -then on earth was _I?_ Paralyzed, while it lasted, by the mere brush of -the question, I let him go a little, so that, with a deep-drawn sigh, -he turned away from me again; which, as he faced toward the clear -window, I suffered, feeling that I had nothing now there to keep him -from. “And did they repeat what you said?” I went on after a moment. - -He was soon at some distance from me, still breathing hard and again -with the air, though now without anger for it, of being confined -against his will. Once more, as he had done before, he looked up at the -dim day as if, of what had hitherto sustained him, nothing was left but -an unspeakable anxiety. “Oh, yes,” he nevertheless replied—“they must -have repeated them. To those _they_ liked,” he added. - -There was, somehow, less of it than I had expected; but I turned it -over. “And these things came round—?” - -“To the masters? Oh, yes!” he answered very simply. “But I didn’t know -they’d tell.” - -“The masters? They didn’t—they’ve never told. That’s why I ask you.” - -He turned to me again his little beautiful fevered face. “Yes, it was -too bad.” - -“Too bad?” - -“What I suppose I sometimes said. To write home.” - -I can’t name the exquisite pathos of the contradiction given to such a -speech by such a speaker; I only know that the next instant I heard -myself throw off with homely force: “Stuff and nonsense!” But the next -after that I must have sounded stern enough. “What _were_ these -things?” - -My sternness was all for his judge, his executioner; yet it made him -avert himself again, and that movement made _me_, with a single bound -and an irrepressible cry, spring straight upon him. For there again, -against the glass, as if to blight his confession and stay his answer, -was the hideous author of our woe—the white face of damnation. I felt a -sick swim at the drop of my victory and all the return of my battle, so -that the wildness of my veritable leap only served as a great betrayal. -I saw him, from the midst of my act, meet it with a divination, and on -the perception that even now he only guessed, and that the window was -still to his own eyes free, I let the impulse flame up to convert the -climax of his dismay into the very proof of his liberation. “No more, -no more, no more!” I shrieked, as I tried to press him against me, to -my visitant. - -“Is she _here?_” Miles panted as he caught with his sealed eyes the -direction of my words. Then as his strange “she” staggered me and, with -a gasp, I echoed it, “Miss Jessel, Miss Jessel!” he with a sudden fury -gave me back. - -I seized, stupefied, his supposition—some sequel to what we had done to -Flora, but this made me only want to show him that it was better still -than that. “It’s not Miss Jessel! But it’s at the window—straight -before us. It’s _there_—the coward horror, there for the last time!” - -At this, after a second in which his head made the movement of a -baffled dog’s on a scent and then gave a frantic little shake for air -and light, he was at me in a white rage, bewildered, glaring vainly -over the place and missing wholly, though it now, to my sense, filled -the room like the taste of poison, the wide, overwhelming presence. -“It’s _he?_” - -I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice to -challenge him. “Whom do you mean by ‘he’?” - -“Peter Quint—you devil!” His face gave again, round the room, its -convulsed supplication. “_Where?_” - -They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his -tribute to my devotion. “What does he matter now, my own?—what will he -_ever_ matter? _I_ have you,” I launched at the beast, “but he has lost -you forever!” Then, for the demonstration of my work, “There, _there!_” -I said to Miles. - -But he had already jerked straight round, stared, glared again, and -seen but the quiet day. With the stroke of the loss I was so proud of -he uttered the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss, and the grasp -with which I recovered him might have been that of catching him in his -fall. I caught him, yes, I held him—it may be imagined with what a -passion; but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was -that I held. We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, -dispossessed, had stopped. - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TURN OF THE SCREW *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Turn of the Screw</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Henry James</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February, 1995 [eBook #209]<br /> -[Most recently updated: September 17, 2022]</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Judith Boss</div> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TURN OF THE SCREW ***</div> - -<h1>The Turn of the Screw</h1> - -<h2 class="no-break">by Henry James</h2> - -<hr /> - -<h2>Contents</h2> - -<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#intro01">THE TURN OF THE SCREW</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap01">I</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap02">II</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap03">III</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap04">IV</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap05">V</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap06">VI</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap07">VII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap09">IX</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap10">X</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap11">XI</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap12">XII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap15">XV</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap18">XVIII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap19">XIX</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap20">XX</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap21">XXI</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap22">XXII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap23">XXIII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap24">XXIV</a></td> -</tr> - -</table> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="intro01"></a>THE TURN OF THE SCREW</h2> - -<p> -The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the -obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a -strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody -happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation -had fallen on a child. The case, I may mention, was that of an apparition in -just such an old house as had gathered us for the occasion—an appearance, -of a dreadful kind, to a little boy sleeping in the room with his mother and -waking her up in the terror of it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and -soothe him to sleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she had -succeeded in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. It was this -observation that drew from Douglas—not immediately, but later in the -evening—a reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call -attention. Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which I saw he -was not following. This I took for a sign that he had himself something to -produce and that we should only have to wait. We waited in fact till two nights -later; but that same evening, before we scattered, he brought out what was in -his mind. -</p> - -<p> -“I quite agree—in regard to Griffin’s ghost, or whatever it -was—that its appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds -a particular touch. But it’s not the first occurrence of its charming -kind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the effect -another turn of the screw, what do you say to <i>two</i> -children—?” -</p> - -<p> -“We say, of course,” somebody exclaimed, “that they give two -turns! Also that we want to hear about them.” -</p> - -<p> -I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got up to present his -back, looking down at his interlocutor with his hands in his pockets. -“Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. It’s quite too -horrible.” This, naturally, was declared by several voices to give the -thing the utmost price, and our friend, with quiet art, prepared his triumph by -turning his eyes over the rest of us and going on: “It’s beyond -everything. Nothing at all that I know touches it.” -</p> - -<p> -“For sheer terror?” I remember asking. -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at a loss how to -qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made a little wincing grimace. -“For dreadful—dreadfulness!” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, how delicious!” cried one of the women. -</p> - -<p> -He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead of me, he saw -what he spoke of. “For general uncanny ugliness and horror and -pain.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well then,” I said, “just sit right down and begin.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log, watched it an instant. Then -as he faced us again: “I can’t begin. I shall have to send to -town.” There was a unanimous groan at this, and much reproach; after -which, in his preoccupied way, he explained. “The story’s written. -It’s in a locked drawer—it has not been out for years. I could -write to my man and enclose the key; he could send down the packet as he finds -it.” It was to me in particular that he appeared to propound -this—appeared almost to appeal for aid not to hesitate. He had broken a -thickness of ice, the formation of many a winter; had had his reasons for a -long silence. The others resented postponement, but it was just his scruples -that charmed me. I adjured him to write by the first post and to agree with us -for an early hearing; then I asked him if the experience in question had been -his own. To this his answer was prompt. “Oh, thank God, no!” -</p> - -<p> -“And is the record yours? You took the thing down?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing but the impression. I took that <i>here</i>”—he -tapped his heart. “I’ve never lost it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then your manuscript—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Is in old, faded ink, and in the most beautiful hand.” He hung -fire again. “A woman’s. She has been dead these twenty years. She -sent me the pages in question before she died.” They were all listening -now, and of course there was somebody to be arch, or at any rate to draw the -inference. But if he put the inference by without a smile it was also without -irritation. “She was a most charming person, but she was ten years older -than I. She was my sister’s governess,” he quietly said. “She -was the most agreeable woman I’ve ever known in her position; she would -have been worthy of any whatever. It was long ago, and this episode was long -before. I was at Trinity, and I found her at home on my coming down the second -summer. I was much there that year—it was a beautiful one; and we had, in -her off-hours, some strolls and talks in the garden—talks in which she -struck me as awfully clever and nice. Oh yes; don’t grin: I liked her -extremely and am glad to this day to think she liked me, too. If she -hadn’t she wouldn’t have told me. She had never told anyone. It -wasn’t simply that she said so, but that I knew she hadn’t. I was -sure; I could see. You’ll easily judge why when you hear.” -</p> - -<p> -“Because the thing had been such a scare?” -</p> - -<p> -He continued to fix me. “You’ll easily judge,” he repeated: -“<i>you</i> will.” -</p> - -<p> -I fixed him, too. “I see. She was in love.” -</p> - -<p> -He laughed for the first time. “You <i>are</i> acute. Yes, she was in -love. That is, she had been. That came out—she couldn’t tell her -story without its coming out. I saw it, and she saw I saw it; but neither of us -spoke of it. I remember the time and the place—the corner of the lawn, -the shade of the great beeches and the long, hot summer afternoon. It -wasn’t a scene for a shudder; but oh—!” He quitted the fire -and dropped back into his chair. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll receive the packet Thursday morning?” I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“Probably not till the second post.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well then; after dinner—” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll all meet me here?” He looked us round again. -“Isn’t anybody going?” It was almost the tone of hope. -</p> - -<p> -“Everybody will stay!” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>I</i> will”—and “<i>I</i> will!” cried the -ladies whose departure had been fixed. Mrs. Griffin, however, expressed the -need for a little more light. “Who was it she was in love with?” -</p> - -<p> -“The story will tell,” I took upon myself to reply. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I can’t wait for the story!” -</p> - -<p> -“The story <i>won’t</i> tell,” said Douglas; “not in -any literal, vulgar way.” -</p> - -<p> -“More’s the pity, then. That’s the only way I ever -understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“Won’t <i>you</i> tell, Douglas?” somebody else inquired. -</p> - -<p> -He sprang to his feet again. “Yes—tomorrow. Now I must go to bed. -Good night.” And quickly catching up a candlestick, he left us slightly -bewildered. From our end of the great brown hall we heard his step on the -stair; whereupon Mrs. Griffin spoke. “Well, if I don’t know who she -was in love with, I know who <i>he</i> was.” -</p> - -<p> -“She was ten years older,” said her husband. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Raison de plus</i>—at that age! But it’s rather nice, his -long reticence.” -</p> - -<p> -“Forty years!” Griffin put in. -</p> - -<p> -“With this outbreak at last.” -</p> - -<p> -“The outbreak,” I returned, “will make a tremendous occasion -of Thursday night;” and everyone so agreed with me that, in the light of -it, we lost all attention for everything else. The last story, however -incomplete and like the mere opening of a serial, had been told; we handshook -and “candlestuck,” as somebody said, and went to bed. -</p> - -<p> -I knew the next day that a letter containing the key had, by the first post, -gone off to his London apartments; but in spite of—or perhaps just on -account of—the eventual diffusion of this knowledge we quite let him -alone till after dinner, till such an hour of the evening, in fact, as might -best accord with the kind of emotion on which our hopes were fixed. Then he -became as communicative as we could desire and indeed gave us his best reason -for being so. We had it from him again before the fire in the hall, as we had -had our mild wonders of the previous night. It appeared that the narrative he -had promised to read us really required for a proper intelligence a few words -of prologue. Let me say here distinctly, to have done with it, that this -narrative, from an exact transcript of my own made much later, is what I shall -presently give. Poor Douglas, before his death—when it was in -sight—committed to me the manuscript that reached him on the third of -these days and that, on the same spot, with immense effect, he began to read to -our hushed little circle on the night of the fourth. The departing ladies who -had said they would stay didn’t, of course, thank heaven, stay: they -departed, in consequence of arrangements made, in a rage of curiosity, as they -professed, produced by the touches with which he had already worked us up. But -that only made his little final auditory more compact and select, kept it, -round the hearth, subject to a common thrill. -</p> - -<p> -The first of these touches conveyed that the written statement took up the tale -at a point after it had, in a manner, begun. The fact to be in possession of -was therefore that his old friend, the youngest of several daughters of a poor -country parson, had, at the age of twenty, on taking service for the first time -in the schoolroom, come up to London, in trepidation, to answer in person an -advertisement that had already placed her in brief correspondence with the -advertiser. This person proved, on her presenting herself, for judgment, at a -house in Harley Street, that impressed her as vast and imposing—this -prospective patron proved a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such a -figure as had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered, -anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage. One could easily fix his type; it -never, happily, dies out. He was handsome and bold and pleasant, off-hand and -gay and kind. He struck her, inevitably, as gallant and splendid, but what took -her most of all and gave her the courage she afterward showed was that he put -the whole thing to her as a kind of favor, an obligation he should gratefully -incur. She conceived him as rich, but as fearfully extravagant—saw him -all in a glow of high fashion, of good looks, of expensive habits, of charming -ways with women. He had for his own town residence a big house filled with the -spoils of travel and the trophies of the chase; but it was to his country home, -an old family place in Essex, that he wished her immediately to proceed. -</p> - -<p> -He had been left, by the death of their parents in India, guardian to a small -nephew and a small niece, children of a younger, a military brother, whom he -had lost two years before. These children were, by the strangest of chances for -a man in his position—a lone man without the right sort of experience or -a grain of patience—very heavily on his hands. It had all been a great -worry and, on his own part doubtless, a series of blunders, but he immensely -pitied the poor chicks and had done all he could; had in particular sent them -down to his other house, the proper place for them being of course the country, -and kept them there, from the first, with the best people he could find to look -after them, parting even with his own servants to wait on them and going down -himself, whenever he might, to see how they were doing. The awkward thing was -that they had practically no other relations and that his own affairs took up -all his time. He had put them in possession of Bly, which was healthy and -secure, and had placed at the head of their little establishment—but -below stairs only—an excellent woman, Mrs. Grose, whom he was sure his -visitor would like and who had formerly been maid to his mother. She was now -housekeeper and was also acting for the time as superintendent to the little -girl, of whom, without children of her own, she was, by good luck, extremely -fond. There were plenty of people to help, but of course the young lady who -should go down as governess would be in supreme authority. She would also have, -in holidays, to look after the small boy, who had been for a term at -school—young as he was to be sent, but what else could be done?—and -who, as the holidays were about to begin, would be back from one day to the -other. There had been for the two children at first a young lady whom they had -had the misfortune to lose. She had done for them quite beautifully—she -was a most respectable person—till her death, the great awkwardness of -which had, precisely, left no alternative but the school for little Miles. Mrs. -Grose, since then, in the way of manners and things, had done as she could for -Flora; and there were, further, a cook, a housemaid, a dairywoman, an old pony, -an old groom, and an old gardener, all likewise thoroughly respectable. -</p> - -<p> -So far had Douglas presented his picture when someone put a question. -“And what did the former governess die of?—of so much -respectability?” -</p> - -<p> -Our friend’s answer was prompt. “That will come out. I don’t -anticipate.” -</p> - -<p> -“Excuse me—I thought that was just what you <i>are</i> -doing.” -</p> - -<p> -“In her successor’s place,” I suggested, “I should have -wished to learn if the office brought with it—” -</p> - -<p> -“Necessary danger to life?” Douglas completed my thought. -“She did wish to learn, and she did learn. You shall hear tomorrow what -she learned. Meanwhile, of course, the prospect struck her as slightly grim. -She was young, untried, nervous: it was a vision of serious duties and little -company, of really great loneliness. She hesitated—took a couple of days -to consult and consider. But the salary offered much exceeded her modest -measure, and on a second interview she faced the music, she engaged.” And -Douglas, with this, made a pause that, for the benefit of the company, moved me -to throw in— -</p> - -<p> -“The moral of which was of course the seduction exercised by the splendid -young man. She succumbed to it.” -</p> - -<p> -He got up and, as he had done the night before, went to the fire, gave a stir -to a log with his foot, then stood a moment with his back to us. “She saw -him only twice.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, but that’s just the beauty of her passion.” -</p> - -<p> -A little to my surprise, on this, Douglas turned round to me. “It -<i>was</i> the beauty of it. There were others,” he went on, “who -hadn’t succumbed. He told her frankly all his difficulty—that for -several applicants the conditions had been prohibitive. They were, somehow, -simply afraid. It sounded dull—it sounded strange; and all the more so -because of his main condition.” -</p> - -<p> -“Which was—?” -</p> - -<p> -“That she should never trouble him—but never, never: neither appeal -nor complain nor write about anything; only meet all questions herself, receive -all moneys from his solicitor, take the whole thing over and let him alone. She -promised to do this, and she mentioned to me that when, for a moment, -disburdened, delighted, he held her hand, thanking her for the sacrifice, she -already felt rewarded.” -</p> - -<p> -“But was that all her reward?” one of the ladies asked. -</p> - -<p> -“She never saw him again.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” said the lady; which, as our friend immediately left us -again, was the only other word of importance contributed to the subject till, -the next night, by the corner of the hearth, in the best chair, he opened the -faded red cover of a thin old-fashioned gilt-edged album. The whole thing took -indeed more nights than one, but on the first occasion the same lady put -another question. “What is your title?” -</p> - -<p> -“I haven’t one.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>I</i> have!” I said. But Douglas, without heeding me, had -begun to read with a fine clearness that was like a rendering to the ear of the -beauty of his author’s hand. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap01"></a>I</h2> - -<p> -I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little -seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to meet his -appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days—found myself -doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this state of mind I -spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that carried me to the stopping -place at which I was to be met by a vehicle from the house. This convenience, I -was told, had been ordered, and I found, toward the close of the June -afternoon, a commodious fly in waiting for me. Driving at that hour, on a -lovely day, through a country to which the summer sweetness seemed to offer me -a friendly welcome, my fortitude mounted afresh and, as we turned into the -avenue, encountered a reprieve that was probably but a proof of the point to -which it had sunk. I suppose I had expected, or had dreaded, something so -melancholy that what greeted me was a good surprise. I remember as a most -pleasant impression the broad, clear front, its open windows and fresh curtains -and the pair of maids looking out; I remember the lawn and the bright flowers -and the crunch of my wheels on the gravel and the clustered treetops over which -the rooks circled and cawed in the golden sky. The scene had a greatness that -made it a different affair from my own scant home, and there immediately -appeared at the door, with a little girl in her hand, a civil person who -dropped me as decent a curtsy as if I had been the mistress or a distinguished -visitor. I had received in Harley Street a narrower notion of the place, and -that, as I recalled it, made me think the proprietor still more of a gentleman, -suggested that what I was to enjoy might be something beyond his promise. -</p> - -<p> -I had no drop again till the next day, for I was carried triumphantly through -the following hours by my introduction to the younger of my pupils. The little -girl who accompanied Mrs. Grose appeared to me on the spot a creature so -charming as to make it a great fortune to have to do with her. She was the most -beautiful child I had ever seen, and I afterward wondered that my employer had -not told me more of her. I slept little that night—I was too much -excited; and this astonished me, too, I recollect, remained with me, adding to -my sense of the liberality with which I was treated. The large, impressive -room, one of the best in the house, the great state bed, as I almost felt it, -the full, figured draperies, the long glasses in which, for the first time, I -could see myself from head to foot, all struck me—like the extraordinary -charm of my small charge—as so many things thrown in. It was thrown in as -well, from the first moment, that I should get on with Mrs. Grose in a relation -over which, on my way, in the coach, I fear I had rather brooded. The only -thing indeed that in this early outlook might have made me shrink again was the -clear circumstance of her being so glad to see me. I perceived within half an -hour that she was so glad—stout, simple, plain, clean, wholesome -woman—as to be positively on her guard against showing it too much. I -wondered even then a little why she should wish not to show it, and that, with -reflection, with suspicion, might of course have made me uneasy. -</p> - -<p> -But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a connection with -anything so beatific as the radiant image of my little girl, the vision of -whose angelic beauty had probably more than anything else to do with the -restlessness that, before morning, made me several times rise and wander about -my room to take in the whole picture and prospect; to watch, from my open -window, the faint summer dawn, to look at such portions of the rest of the -house as I could catch, and to listen, while, in the fading dusk, the first -birds began to twitter, for the possible recurrence of a sound or two, less -natural and not without, but within, that I had fancied I heard. There had been -a moment when I believed I recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child; there -had been another when I found myself just consciously starting as at the -passage, before my door, of a light footstep. But these fancies were not marked -enough not to be thrown off, and it is only in the light, or the gloom, I -should rather say, of other and subsequent matters that they now come back to -me. To watch, teach, “form” little Flora would too evidently be the -making of a happy and useful life. It had been agreed between us downstairs -that after this first occasion I should have her as a matter of course at -night, her small white bed being already arranged, to that end, in my room. -What I had undertaken was the whole care of her, and she had remained, just -this last time, with Mrs. Grose only as an effect of our consideration for my -inevitable strangeness and her natural timidity. In spite of this -timidity—which the child herself, in the oddest way in the world, had -been perfectly frank and brave about, allowing it, without a sign of -uncomfortable consciousness, with the deep, sweet serenity indeed of one of -Raphael’s holy infants, to be discussed, to be imputed to her, and to -determine us—I feel quite sure she would presently like me. It was part -of what I already liked Mrs. Grose herself for, the pleasure I could see her -feel in my admiration and wonder as I sat at supper with four tall candles and -with my pupil, in a high chair and a bib, brightly facing me, between them, -over bread and milk. There were naturally things that in Flora’s presence -could pass between us only as prodigious and gratified looks, obscure and -roundabout allusions. -</p> - -<p> -“And the little boy—does he look like her? Is he too so very -remarkable?” -</p> - -<p> -One wouldn’t flatter a child. “Oh, miss, <i>most</i> remarkable. If -you think well of this one!”—and she stood there with a plate in -her hand, beaming at our companion, who looked from one of us to the other with -placid heavenly eyes that contained nothing to check us. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes; if I do—?” -</p> - -<p> -“You <i>will</i> be carried away by the little gentleman!” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, that, I think, is what I came for—to be carried away. -I’m afraid, however,” I remember feeling the impulse to add, -“I’m rather easily carried away. I was carried away in -London!” -</p> - -<p> -I can still see Mrs. Grose’s broad face as she took this in. “In -Harley Street?” -</p> - -<p> -“In Harley Street.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, miss, you’re not the first—and you won’t be the -last.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I’ve no pretension,” I could laugh, “to being the -only one. My other pupil, at any rate, as I understand, comes back -tomorrow?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not tomorrow—Friday, miss. He arrives, as you did, by the coach, -under care of the guard, and is to be met by the same carriage.” -</p> - -<p> -I forthwith expressed that the proper as well as the pleasant and friendly -thing would be therefore that on the arrival of the public conveyance I should -be in waiting for him with his little sister; an idea in which Mrs. Grose -concurred so heartily that I somehow took her manner as a kind of comforting -pledge—never falsified, thank heaven!—that we should on every -question be quite at one. Oh, she was glad I was there! -</p> - -<p> -What I felt the next day was, I suppose, nothing that could be fairly called a -reaction from the cheer of my arrival; it was probably at the most only a -slight oppression produced by a fuller measure of the scale, as I walked round -them, gazed up at them, took them in, of my new circumstances. They had, as it -were, an extent and mass for which I had not been prepared and in the presence -of which I found myself, freshly, a little scared as well as a little proud. -Lessons, in this agitation, certainly suffered some delay; I reflected that my -first duty was, by the gentlest arts I could contrive, to win the child into -the sense of knowing me. I spent the day with her out-of-doors; I arranged with -her, to her great satisfaction, that it should be she, she only, who might show -me the place. She showed it step by step and room by room and secret by secret, -with droll, delightful, childish talk about it and with the result, in half an -hour, of our becoming immense friends. Young as she was, I was struck, -throughout our little tour, with her confidence and courage with the way, in -empty chambers and dull corridors, on crooked staircases that made me pause and -even on the summit of an old machicolated square tower that made me dizzy, her -morning music, her disposition to tell me so many more things than she asked, -rang out and led me on. I have not seen Bly since the day I left it, and I -daresay that to my older and more informed eyes it would now appear -sufficiently contracted. But as my little conductress, with her hair of gold -and her frock of blue, danced before me round corners and pattered down -passages, I had the view of a castle of romance inhabited by a rosy sprite, -such a place as would somehow, for diversion of the young idea, take all color -out of storybooks and fairytales. Wasn’t it just a storybook over which I -had fallen adoze and adream? No; it was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient -house, embodying a few features of a building still older, half-replaced and -half-utilized, in which I had the fancy of our being almost as lost as a -handful of passengers in a great drifting ship. Well, I was, strangely, at the -helm! -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap02"></a>II</h2> - -<p> -This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to meet, as -Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; and all the more for an incident that, -presenting itself the second evening, had deeply disconcerted me. The first day -had been, on the whole, as I have expressed, reassuring; but I was to see it -wind up in keen apprehension. The postbag, that evening—it came -late—contained a letter for me, which, however, in the hand of my -employer, I found to be composed but of a few words enclosing another, -addressed to himself, with a seal still unbroken. “This, I recognize, is -from the headmaster, and the headmaster’s an awful bore. Read him, -please; deal with him; but mind you don’t report. Not a word. I’m -off!” I broke the seal with a great effort—so great a one that I -was a long time coming to it; took the unopened missive at last up to my room -and only attacked it just before going to bed. I had better have let it wait -till morning, for it gave me a second sleepless night. With no counsel to take, -the next day, I was full of distress; and it finally got so the better of me -that I determined to open myself at least to Mrs. Grose. -</p> - -<p> -“What does it mean? The child’s dismissed his school.” -</p> - -<p> -She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then, visibly, with a quick -blankness, seemed to try to take it back. “But aren’t they -all—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Sent home—yes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never go back -at all.” -</p> - -<p> -Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. “They won’t take -him?” -</p> - -<p> -“They absolutely decline.” -</p> - -<p> -At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me; I saw them fill with -good tears. “What has he done?” -</p> - -<p> -I hesitated; then I judged best simply to hand her my letter—which, -however, had the effect of making her, without taking it, simply put her hands -behind her. She shook her head sadly. “Such things are not for me, -miss.” -</p> - -<p> -My counselor couldn’t read! I winced at my mistake, which I attenuated as -I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it to her; then, faltering in the -act and folding it up once more, I put it back in my pocket. “Is he -really <i>bad</i>?” -</p> - -<p> -The tears were still in her eyes. “Do the gentlemen say so?” -</p> - -<p> -“They go into no particulars. They simply express their regret that it -should be impossible to keep him. That can have only one meaning.” Mrs. -Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask me what this meaning might -be; so that, presently, to put the thing with some coherence and with the mere -aid of her presence to my own mind, I went on: “That he’s an injury -to the others.” -</p> - -<p> -At this, with one of the quick turns of simple folk, she suddenly flamed up. -“Master Miles! <i>him</i> an injury?” -</p> - -<p> -There was such a flood of good faith in it that, though I had not yet seen the -child, my very fears made me jump to the absurdity of the idea. I found myself, -to meet my friend the better, offering it, on the spot, sarcastically. -“To his poor little innocent mates!” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s too dreadful,” cried Mrs. Grose, “to say such -cruel things! Why, he’s scarce ten years old.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes; it would be incredible.” -</p> - -<p> -She was evidently grateful for such a profession. “See him, miss, first. -<i>Then</i> believe it!” I felt forthwith a new impatience to see him; it -was the beginning of a curiosity that, for all the next hours, was to deepen -almost to pain. Mrs. Grose was aware, I could judge, of what she had produced -in me, and she followed it up with assurance. “You might as well believe -it of the little lady. Bless her,” she added the next -moment—“<i>look</i> at her!” -</p> - -<p> -I turned and saw that Flora, whom, ten minutes before, I had established in the -schoolroom with a sheet of white paper, a pencil, and a copy of nice -“round O’s,” now presented herself to view at the open door. -She expressed in her little way an extraordinary detachment from disagreeable -duties, looking to me, however, with a great childish light that seemed to -offer it as a mere result of the affection she had conceived for my person, -which had rendered necessary that she should follow me. I needed nothing more -than this to feel the full force of Mrs. Grose’s comparison, and, -catching my pupil in my arms, covered her with kisses in which there was a sob -of atonement. -</p> - -<p> -Nonetheless, the rest of the day I watched for further occasion to approach my -colleague, especially as, toward evening, I began to fancy she rather sought to -avoid me. I overtook her, I remember, on the staircase; we went down together, -and at the bottom I detained her, holding her there with a hand on her arm. -“I take what you said to me at noon as a declaration that -<i>you’ve</i> never known him to be bad.” -</p> - -<p> -She threw back her head; she had clearly, by this time, and very honestly, -adopted an attitude. “Oh, never known him—I don’t pretend -<i>that!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -I was upset again. “Then you <i>have</i> known him—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes indeed, miss, thank God!” -</p> - -<p> -On reflection I accepted this. “You mean that a boy who never -is—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Is no boy for <i>me!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -I held her tighter. “You like them with the spirit to be naughty?” -Then, keeping pace with her answer, “So do I!” I eagerly brought -out. “But not to the degree to contaminate—” -</p> - -<p> -“To contaminate?”—my big word left her at a loss. I explained -it. “To corrupt.” -</p> - -<p> -She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her an odd laugh. -“Are you afraid he’ll corrupt <i>you?</i>” She put the -question with such a fine bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly -doubtless, to match her own, I gave way for the time to the apprehension of -ridicule. -</p> - -<p> -But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped up in another -place. “What was the lady who was here before?” -</p> - -<p> -“The last governess? She was also young and pretty—almost as young -and almost as pretty, miss, even as you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her!” I recollect -throwing off. “He seems to like us young and pretty!” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, he <i>did</i>,” Mrs. Grose assented: “it was the way he -liked everyone!” She had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself -up. “I mean that’s <i>his</i> way—the master’s.” -</p> - -<p> -I was struck. “But of whom did you speak first?” -</p> - -<p> -She looked blank, but she colored. “Why, of <i>him</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of the master?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of who else?” -</p> - -<p> -There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I had lost my -impression of her having accidentally said more than she meant; and I merely -asked what I wanted to know. “Did <i>she</i> see anything in the -boy—?” -</p> - -<p> -“That wasn’t right? She never told me.” -</p> - -<p> -I had a scruple, but I overcame it. “Was she -careful—particular?” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose appeared to try to be conscientious. “About some -things—yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“But not about all?” -</p> - -<p> -Again she considered. “Well, miss—she’s gone. I won’t -tell tales.” -</p> - -<p> -“I quite understand your feeling,” I hastened to reply; but I -thought it, after an instant, not opposed to this concession to pursue: -“Did she die here?” -</p> - -<p> -“No—she went off.” -</p> - -<p> -I don’t know what there was in this brevity of Mrs. Grose’s that -struck me as ambiguous. “Went off to die?” Mrs. Grose looked -straight out of the window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right to -know what young persons engaged for Bly were expected to do. “She was -taken ill, you mean, and went home?” -</p> - -<p> -“She was not taken ill, so far as appeared, in this house. She left it, -at the end of the year, to go home, as she said, for a short holiday, to which -the time she had put in had certainly given her a right. We had then a young -woman—a nursemaid who had stayed on and who was a good girl and clever; -and <i>she</i> took the children altogether for the interval. But our young -lady never came back, and at the very moment I was expecting her I heard from -the master that she was dead.” -</p> - -<p> -I turned this over. “But of what?” -</p> - -<p> -“He never told me! But please, miss,” said Mrs. Grose, “I -must get to my work.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap03"></a>III</h2> - -<p> -Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just -preoccupations, a snub that could check the growth of our mutual esteem. We -met, after I had brought home little Miles, more intimately than ever on the -ground of my stupefaction, my general emotion: so monstrous was I then ready to -pronounce it that such a child as had now been revealed to me should be under -an interdict. I was a little late on the scene, and I felt, as he stood -wistfully looking out for me before the door of the inn at which the coach had -put him down, that I had seen him, on the instant, without and within, in the -great glow of freshness, the same positive fragrance of purity, in which I had, -from the first moment, seen his little sister. He was incredibly beautiful, and -Mrs. Grose had put her finger on it: everything but a sort of passion of -tenderness for him was swept away by his presence. What I then and there took -him to my heart for was something divine that I have never found to the same -degree in any child—his indescribable little air of knowing nothing in -the world but love. It would have been impossible to carry a bad name with a -greater sweetness of innocence, and by the time I had got back to Bly with him -I remained merely bewildered—so far, that is, as I was not -outraged—by the sense of the horrible letter locked up in my room, in a -drawer. As soon as I could compass a private word with Mrs. Grose I declared to -her that it was grotesque. -</p> - -<p> -She promptly understood me. “You mean the cruel charge—?” -</p> - -<p> -“It doesn’t live an instant. My dear woman, <i>look</i> at -him!” -</p> - -<p> -She smiled at my pretention to have discovered his charm. “I assure you, -miss, I do nothing else! What will you say, then?” she immediately added. -</p> - -<p> -“In answer to the letter?” I had made up my mind. -“Nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -“And to his uncle?” -</p> - -<p> -I was incisive. “Nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -“And to the boy himself?” -</p> - -<p> -I was wonderful. “Nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -She gave with her apron a great wipe to her mouth. “Then I’ll stand -by you. We’ll see it out.” -</p> - -<p> -“We’ll see it out!” I ardently echoed, giving her my hand to -make it a vow. -</p> - -<p> -She held me there a moment, then whisked up her apron again with her detached -hand. “Would you mind, miss, if I used the freedom—” -</p> - -<p> -“To kiss me? No!” I took the good creature in my arms and, after we -had embraced like sisters, felt still more fortified and indignant. -</p> - -<p> -This, at all events, was for the time: a time so full that, as I recall the way -it went, it reminds me of all the art I now need to make it a little distinct. -What I look back at with amazement is the situation I accepted. I had -undertaken, with my companion, to see it out, and I was under a charm, -apparently, that could smooth away the extent and the far and difficult -connections of such an effort. I was lifted aloft on a great wave of -infatuation and pity. I found it simple, in my ignorance, my confusion, and -perhaps my conceit, to assume that I could deal with a boy whose education for -the world was all on the point of beginning. I am unable even to remember at -this day what proposal I framed for the end of his holidays and the resumption -of his studies. Lessons with me, indeed, that charming summer, we all had a -theory that he was to have; but I now feel that, for weeks, the lessons must -have been rather my own. I learned something—at first, -certainly—that had not been one of the teachings of my small, smothered -life; learned to be amused, and even amusing, and not to think for the morrow. -It was the first time, in a manner, that I had known space and air and freedom, -all the music of summer and all the mystery of nature. And then there was -consideration—and consideration was sweet. Oh, it was a trap—not -designed, but deep—to my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps to my -vanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable. The best way to picture it all -is to say that I was off my guard. They gave me so little trouble—they -were of a gentleness so extraordinary. I used to speculate—but even this -with a dim disconnectedness—as to how the rough future (for all futures -are rough!) would handle them and might bruise them. They had the bloom of -health and happiness; and yet, as if I had been in charge of a pair of little -grandees, of princes of the blood, for whom everything, to be right, would have -to be enclosed and protected, the only form that, in my fancy, the afteryears -could take for them was that of a romantic, a really royal extension of the -garden and the park. It may be, of course, above all, that what suddenly broke -into this gives the previous time a charm of stillness—that hush in which -something gathers or crouches. The change was actually like the spring of a -beast. -</p> - -<p> -In the first weeks the days were long; they often, at their finest, gave me -what I used to call my own hour, the hour when, for my pupils, teatime and -bedtime having come and gone, I had, before my final retirement, a small -interval alone. Much as I liked my companions, this hour was the thing in the -day I liked most; and I liked it best of all when, as the light faded—or -rather, I should say, the day lingered and the last calls of the last birds -sounded, in a flushed sky, from the old trees—I could take a turn into -the grounds and enjoy, almost with a sense of property that amused and -flattered me, the beauty and dignity of the place. It was a pleasure at these -moments to feel myself tranquil and justified; doubtless, perhaps, also to -reflect that by my discretion, my quiet good sense and general high propriety, -I was giving pleasure—if he ever thought of it!—to the person to -whose pressure I had responded. What I was doing was what he had earnestly -hoped and directly asked of me, and that I <i>could</i>, after all, do it -proved even a greater joy than I had expected. I daresay I fancied myself, in -short, a remarkable young woman and took comfort in the faith that this would -more publicly appear. Well, I needed to be remarkable to offer a front to the -remarkable things that presently gave their first sign. -</p> - -<p> -It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour: the children were -tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll. One of the thoughts that, as I -don’t in the least shrink now from noting, used to be with me in these -wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story suddenly to -meet someone. Someone would appear there at the turn of a path and would stand -before me and smile and approve. I didn’t ask more than that—I only -asked that he should <i>know;</i> and the only way to be sure he knew would be -to see it, and the kind light of it, in his handsome face. That was exactly -present to me—by which I mean the face was—when, on the first of -these occasions, at the end of a long June day, I stopped short on emerging -from one of the plantations and coming into view of the house. What arrested me -on the spot—and with a shock much greater than any vision had allowed -for—was the sense that my imagination had, in a flash, turned real. He -did stand there!—but high up, beyond the lawn and at the very top of the -tower to which, on that first morning, little Flora had conducted me. This -tower was one of a pair—square, incongruous, crenelated -structures—that were distinguished, for some reason, though I could see -little difference, as the new and the old. They flanked opposite ends of the -house and were probably architectural absurdities, redeemed in a measure indeed -by not being wholly disengaged nor of a height too pretentious, dating, in -their gingerbread antiquity, from a romantic revival that was already a -respectable past. I admired them, had fancies about them, for we could all -profit in a degree, especially when they loomed through the dusk, by the -grandeur of their actual battlements; yet it was not at such an elevation that -the figure I had so often invoked seemed most in place. -</p> - -<p> -It produced in me, this figure, in the clear twilight, I remember, two distinct -gasps of emotion, which were, sharply, the shock of my first and that of my -second surprise. My second was a violent perception of the mistake of my first: -the man who met my eyes was not the person I had precipitately supposed. There -came to me thus a bewilderment of vision of which, after these years, there is -no living view that I can hope to give. An unknown man in a lonely place is a -permitted object of fear to a young woman privately bred; and the figure that -faced me was—a few more seconds assured me—as little anyone else I -knew as it was the image that had been in my mind. I had not seen it in Harley -Street—I had not seen it anywhere. The place, moreover, in the strangest -way in the world, had, on the instant, and by the very fact of its appearance, -become a solitude. To me at least, making my statement here with a deliberation -with which I have never made it, the whole feeling of the moment returns. It -was as if, while I took in—what I did take in—all the rest of the -scene had been stricken with death. I can hear again, as I write, the intense -hush in which the sounds of evening dropped. The rooks stopped cawing in the -golden sky, and the friendly hour lost, for the minute, all its voice. But -there was no other change in nature, unless indeed it were a change that I saw -with a stranger sharpness. The gold was still in the sky, the clearness in the -air, and the man who looked at me over the battlements was as definite as a -picture in a frame. That’s how I thought, with extraordinary quickness, -of each person that he might have been and that he was not. We were confronted -across our distance quite long enough for me to ask myself with intensity who -then he was and to feel, as an effect of my inability to say, a wonder that in -a few instants more became intense. -</p> - -<p> -The great question, or one of these, is, afterward, I know, with regard to -certain matters, the question of how long they have lasted. Well, this matter -of mine, think what you will of it, lasted while I caught at a dozen -possibilities, none of which made a difference for the better, that I could -see, in there having been in the house—and for how long, above -all?—a person of whom I was in ignorance. It lasted while I just bridled -a little with the sense that my office demanded that there should be no such -ignorance and no such person. It lasted while this visitant, at all -events—and there was a touch of the strange freedom, as I remember, in -the sign of familiarity of his wearing no hat—seemed to fix me, from his -position, with just the question, just the scrutiny through the fading light, -that his own presence provoked. We were too far apart to call to each other, -but there was a moment at which, at shorter range, some challenge between us, -breaking the hush, would have been the right result of our straight mutual -stare. He was in one of the angles, the one away from the house, very erect, as -it struck me, and with both hands on the ledge. So I saw him as I see the -letters I form on this page; then, exactly, after a minute, as if to add to the -spectacle, he slowly changed his place—passed, looking at me hard all the -while, to the opposite corner of the platform. Yes, I had the sharpest sense -that during this transit he never took his eyes from me, and I can see at this -moment the way his hand, as he went, passed from one of the crenelations to the -next. He stopped at the other corner, but less long, and even as he turned away -still markedly fixed me. He turned away; that was all I knew. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IV</h2> - -<p> -It was not that I didn’t wait, on this occasion, for more, for I was -rooted as deeply as I was shaken. Was there a “secret” at -Bly—a mystery of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in -unsuspected confinement? I can’t say how long I turned it over, or how -long, in a confusion of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had had my -collision; I only recall that when I re-entered the house darkness had quite -closed in. Agitation, in the interval, certainly had held me and driven me, for -I must, in circling about the place, have walked three miles; but I was to be, -later on, so much more overwhelmed that this mere dawn of alarm was a -comparatively human chill. The most singular part of it, in fact—singular -as the rest had been—was the part I became, in the hall, aware of in -meeting Mrs. Grose. This picture comes back to me in the general -train—the impression, as I received it on my return, of the wide white -panelled space, bright in the lamplight and with its portraits and red carpet, -and of the good surprised look of my friend, which immediately told me she had -missed me. It came to me straightway, under her contact, that, with plain -heartiness, mere relieved anxiety at my appearance, she knew nothing whatever -that could bear upon the incident I had there ready for her. I had not -suspected in advance that her comfortable face would pull me up, and I somehow -measured the importance of what I had seen by my thus finding myself hesitate -to mention it. Scarce anything in the whole history seems to me so odd as this -fact that my real beginning of fear was one, as I may say, with the instinct of -sparing my companion. On the spot, accordingly, in the pleasant hall and with -her eyes on me, I, for a reason that I couldn’t then have phrased, -achieved an inward resolution—offered a vague pretext for my lateness -and, with the plea of the beauty of the night and of the heavy dew and wet -feet, went as soon as possible to my room. -</p> - -<p> -Here it was another affair; here, for many days after, it was a queer affair -enough. There were hours, from day to day—or at least there were moments, -snatched even from clear duties—when I had to shut myself up to think. It -was not so much yet that I was more nervous than I could bear to be as that I -was remarkably afraid of becoming so; for the truth I had now to turn over was, -simply and clearly, the truth that I could arrive at no account whatever of the -visitor with whom I had been so inexplicably and yet, as it seemed to me, so -intimately concerned. It took little time to see that I could sound without -forms of inquiry and without exciting remark any domestic complications. The -shock I had suffered must have sharpened all my senses; I felt sure, at the end -of three days and as the result of mere closer attention, that I had not been -practiced upon by the servants nor made the object of any “game.” -Of whatever it was that I knew, nothing was known around me. There was but one -sane inference: someone had taken a liberty rather gross. That was what, -repeatedly, I dipped into my room and locked the door to say to myself. We had -been, collectively, subject to an intrusion; some unscrupulous traveler, -curious in old houses, had made his way in unobserved, enjoyed the prospect -from the best point of view, and then stolen out as he came. If he had given me -such a bold hard stare, that was but a part of his indiscretion. The good -thing, after all, was that we should surely see no more of him. -</p> - -<p> -This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that what, -essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming work. My -charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, and through nothing could -I so like it as through feeling that I could throw myself into it in trouble. -The attraction of my small charges was a constant joy, leading me to wonder -afresh at the vanity of my original fears, the distaste I had begun by -entertaining for the probable gray prose of my office. There was to be no gray -prose, it appeared, and no long grind; so how could work not be charming that -presented itself as daily beauty? It was all the romance of the nursery and the -poetry of the schoolroom. I don’t mean by this, of course, that we -studied only fiction and verse; I mean I can express no otherwise the sort of -interest my companions inspired. How can I describe that except by saying that -instead of growing used to them—and it’s a marvel for a governess: -I call the sisterhood to witness!—I made constant fresh discoveries. -There was one direction, assuredly, in which these discoveries stopped: deep -obscurity continued to cover the region of the boy’s conduct at school. -It had been promptly given me, I have noted, to face that mystery without a -pang. Perhaps even it would be nearer the truth to say that—without a -word—he himself had cleared it up. He had made the whole charge absurd. -My conclusion bloomed there with the real rose flush of his innocence: he was -only too fine and fair for the little horrid, unclean school-world, and he had -paid a price for it. I reflected acutely that the sense of such differences, -such superiorities of quality, always, on the part of the majority—which -could include even stupid, sordid headmasters—turn infallibly to the -vindictive. -</p> - -<p> -Both the children had a gentleness (it was their only fault, and it never made -Miles a muff) that kept them—how shall I express it?—almost -impersonal and certainly quite unpunishable. They were like the cherubs of the -anecdote, who had—morally, at any rate—nothing to whack! I remember -feeling with Miles in especial as if he had had, as it were, no history. We -expect of a small child a scant one, but there was in this beautiful little boy -something extraordinarily sensitive, yet extraordinarily happy, that, more than -in any creature of his age I have seen, struck me as beginning anew each day. -He had never for a second suffered. I took this as a direct disproof of his -having really been chastised. If he had been wicked he would have -“caught” it, and I should have caught it by the rebound—I -should have found the trace. I found nothing at all, and he was therefore an -angel. He never spoke of his school, never mentioned a comrade or a master; and -I, for my part, was quite too much disgusted to allude to them. Of course I was -under the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly -knew I was. But I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to any pain, and I -had more pains than one. I was in receipt in these days of disturbing letters -from home, where things were not going well. But with my children, what things -in the world mattered? That was the question I used to put to my scrappy -retirements. I was dazzled by their loveliness. -</p> - -<p> -There was a Sunday—to get on—when it rained with such force and for -so many hours that there could be no procession to church; in consequence of -which, as the day declined, I had arranged with Mrs. Grose that, should the -evening show improvement, we would attend together the late service. The rain -happily stopped, and I prepared for our walk, which, through the park and by -the good road to the village, would be a matter of twenty minutes. Coming -downstairs to meet my colleague in the hall, I remembered a pair of gloves that -had required three stitches and that had received them—with a publicity -perhaps not edifying—while I sat with the children at their tea, served -on Sundays, by exception, in that cold, clean temple of mahogany and brass, the -“grown-up” dining room. The gloves had been dropped there, and I -turned in to recover them. The day was gray enough, but the afternoon light -still lingered, and it enabled me, on crossing the threshold, not only to -recognize, on a chair near the wide window, then closed, the articles I wanted, -but to become aware of a person on the other side of the window and looking -straight in. One step into the room had sufficed; my vision was instantaneous; -it was all there. The person looking straight in was the person who had already -appeared to me. He appeared thus again with I won’t say greater -distinctness, for that was impossible, but with a nearness that represented a -forward stride in our intercourse and made me, as I met him, catch my breath -and turn cold. He was the same—he was the same, and seen, this time, as -he had been seen before, from the waist up, the window, though the dining room -was on the ground floor, not going down to the terrace on which he stood. His -face was close to the glass, yet the effect of this better view was, strangely, -only to show me how intense the former had been. He remained but a few -seconds—long enough to convince me he also saw and recognized; but it was -as if I had been looking at him for years and had known him always. Something, -however, happened this time that had not happened before; his stare into my -face, through the glass and across the room, was as deep and hard as then, but -it quitted me for a moment during which I could still watch it, see it fix -successively several other things. On the spot there came to me the added shock -of a certitude that it was not for me he had come there. He had come for -someone else. -</p> - -<p> -The flash of this knowledge—for it was knowledge in the midst of -dread—produced in me the most extraordinary effect, started as I stood -there, a sudden vibration of duty and courage. I say courage because I was -beyond all doubt already far gone. I bounded straight out of the door again, -reached that of the house, got, in an instant, upon the drive, and, passing -along the terrace as fast as I could rush, turned a corner and came full in -sight. But it was in sight of nothing now—my visitor had vanished. I -stopped, I almost dropped, with the real relief of this; but I took in the -whole scene—I gave him time to reappear. I call it time, but how long was -it? I can’t speak to the purpose today of the duration of these things. -That kind of measure must have left me: they couldn’t have lasted as they -actually appeared to me to last. The terrace and the whole place, the lawn and -the garden beyond it, all I could see of the park, were empty with a great -emptiness. There were shrubberies and big trees, but I remember the clear -assurance I felt that none of them concealed him. He was there or was not -there: not there if I didn’t see him. I got hold of this; then, -instinctively, instead of returning as I had come, went to the window. It was -confusedly present to me that I ought to place myself where he had stood. I did -so; I applied my face to the pane and looked, as he had looked, into the room. -As if, at this moment, to show me exactly what his range had been, Mrs. Grose, -as I had done for himself just before, came in from the hall. With this I had -the full image of a repetition of what had already occurred. She saw me as I -had seen my own visitant; she pulled up short as I had done; I gave her -something of the shock that I had received. She turned white, and this made me -ask myself if I had blanched as much. She stared, in short, and retreated on -just <i>my</i> lines, and I knew she had then passed out and come round to me -and that I should presently meet her. I remained where I was, and while I -waited I thought of more things than one. But there’s only one I take -space to mention. I wondered why <i>she</i> should be scared. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap05"></a>V</h2> - -<p> -Oh, she let me know as soon as, round the corner of the house, she loomed again -into view. “What in the name of goodness is the matter—?” She -was now flushed and out of breath. -</p> - -<p> -I said nothing till she came quite near. “With me?” I must have -made a wonderful face. “Do I show it?” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re as white as a sheet. You look awful.” -</p> - -<p> -I considered; I could meet on this, without scruple, any innocence. My need to -respect the bloom of Mrs. Grose’s had dropped, without a rustle, from my -shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not with what I kept back. I -put out my hand to her and she took it; I held her hard a little, liking to -feel her close to me. There was a kind of support in the shy heave of her -surprise. “You came for me for church, of course, but I can’t -go.” -</p> - -<p> -“Has anything happened?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. You must know now. Did I look very queer?” -</p> - -<p> -“Through this window? Dreadful!” -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I said, “I’ve been frightened.” Mrs. -Grose’s eyes expressed plainly that <i>she</i> had no wish to be, yet -also that she knew too well her place not to be ready to share with me any -marked inconvenience. Oh, it was quite settled that she <i>must</i> share! -“Just what you saw from the dining room a minute ago was the effect of -that. What <i>I</i> saw—just before—was much worse.” -</p> - -<p> -Her hand tightened. “What was it?” -</p> - -<p> -“An extraordinary man. Looking in.” -</p> - -<p> -“What extraordinary man?” -</p> - -<p> -“I haven’t the least idea.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose gazed round us in vain. “Then where is he gone?” -</p> - -<p> -“I know still less.” -</p> - -<p> -“Have you seen him before?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—once. On the old tower.” -</p> - -<p> -She could only look at me harder. “Do you mean he’s a -stranger?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, very much!” -</p> - -<p> -“Yet you didn’t tell me?” -</p> - -<p> -“No—for reasons. But now that you’ve guessed—” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose’s round eyes encountered this charge. “Ah, I -haven’t guessed!” she said very simply. “How can I if -<i>you</i> don’t imagine?” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t in the very least.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve seen him nowhere but on the tower?” -</p> - -<p> -“And on this spot just now.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose looked round again. “What was he doing on the tower?” -</p> - -<p> -“Only standing there and looking down at me.” -</p> - -<p> -She thought a minute. “Was he a gentleman?” -</p> - -<p> -I found I had no need to think. “No.” She gazed in deeper wonder. -“No.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then nobody about the place? Nobody from the village?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nobody—nobody. I didn’t tell you, but I made sure.” -</p> - -<p> -She breathed a vague relief: this was, oddly, so much to the good. It only went -indeed a little way. “But if he isn’t a gentleman—” -</p> - -<p> -“What <i>is</i> he? He’s a horror.” -</p> - -<p> -“A horror?” -</p> - -<p> -“He’s—God help me if I know <i>what</i> he is!” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose looked round once more; she fixed her eyes on the duskier distance, -then, pulling herself together, turned to me with abrupt inconsequence. -“It’s time we should be at church.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I’m not fit for church!” -</p> - -<p> -“Won’t it do you good?” -</p> - -<p> -“It won’t do <i>them!</i>— I nodded at the house. -</p> - -<p> -“The children?” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t leave them now.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re afraid—?” -</p> - -<p> -I spoke boldly. “I’m afraid of <i>him</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose’s large face showed me, at this, for the first time, the -faraway faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute: I somehow made out in it -the delayed dawn of an idea I myself had not given her and that was as yet -quite obscure to me. It comes back to me that I thought instantly of this as -something I could get from her; and I felt it to be connected with the desire -she presently showed to know more. “When was it—on the -tower?” -</p> - -<p> -“About the middle of the month. At this same hour.” -</p> - -<p> -“Almost at dark,” said Mrs. Grose. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, no, not nearly. I saw him as I see you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then how did he get in?” -</p> - -<p> -“And how did he get out?” I laughed. “I had no opportunity to -ask him! This evening, you see,” I pursued, “he has not been able -to get in.” -</p> - -<p> -“He only peeps?” -</p> - -<p> -“I hope it will be confined to that!” She had now let go my hand; -she turned away a little. I waited an instant; then I brought out: “Go to -church. Goodbye. I must watch.” -</p> - -<p> -Slowly she faced me again. “Do you fear for them?” -</p> - -<p> -We met in another long look. “Don’t <i>you?</i>” Instead of -answering she came nearer to the window and, for a minute, applied her face to -the glass. “You see how he could see,” I meanwhile went on. -</p> - -<p> -She didn’t move. “How long was he here?” -</p> - -<p> -“Till I came out. I came to meet him.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose at last turned round, and there was still more in her face. -“<i>I</i> couldn’t have come out.” -</p> - -<p> -“Neither could I!” I laughed again. “But I did come. I have -my duty.” -</p> - -<p> -“So have I mine,” she replied; after which she added: “What -is he like?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve been dying to tell you. But he’s like nobody.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nobody?” she echoed. -</p> - -<p> -“He has no hat.” Then seeing in her face that she already, in this, -with a deeper dismay, found a touch of picture, I quickly added stroke to -stroke. “He has red hair, very red, close-curling, and a pale face, long -in shape, with straight, good features and little, rather queer whiskers that -are as red as his hair. His eyebrows are, somehow, darker; they look -particularly arched and as if they might move a good deal. His eyes are sharp, -strange—awfully; but I only know clearly that they’re rather small -and very fixed. His mouth’s wide, and his lips are thin, and except for -his little whiskers he’s quite clean-shaven. He gives me a sort of sense -of looking like an actor.” -</p> - -<p> -“An actor!” It was impossible to resemble one less, at least, than -Mrs. Grose at that moment. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve never seen one, but so I suppose them. He’s tall, -active, erect,” I continued, “but never—no, never!—a -gentleman.” -</p> - -<p> -My companion’s face had blanched as I went on; her round eyes started and -her mild mouth gaped. “A gentleman?” she gasped, confounded, -stupefied: “a gentleman <i>he?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“You know him then?” -</p> - -<p> -She visibly tried to hold herself. “But he <i>is</i> handsome?” -</p> - -<p> -I saw the way to help her. “Remarkably!” -</p> - -<p> -“And dressed—?” -</p> - -<p> -“In somebody’s clothes.” “They’re smart, but -they’re not his own.” -</p> - -<p> -She broke into a breathless affirmative groan: “They’re the -master’s!” -</p> - -<p> -I caught it up. “You <i>do</i> know him?” -</p> - -<p> -She faltered but a second. “Quint!” she cried. -</p> - -<p> -“Quint?” -</p> - -<p> -“Peter Quint—his own man, his valet, when he was here!” -</p> - -<p> -“When the master was?” -</p> - -<p> -Gaping still, but meeting me, she pieced it all together. “He never wore -his hat, but he did wear—well, there were waistcoats missed. They were -both here—last year. Then the master went, and Quint was alone.” -</p> - -<p> -I followed, but halting a little. “Alone?” -</p> - -<p> -“Alone with <i>us</i>.” Then, as from a deeper depth, “In -charge,” she added. -</p> - -<p> -“And what became of him?” -</p> - -<p> -She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. “He went, -too,” she brought out at last. -</p> - -<p> -“Went where?” -</p> - -<p> -Her expression, at this, became extraordinary. “God knows where! He -died.” -</p> - -<p> -“Died?” I almost shrieked. -</p> - -<p> -She seemed fairly to square herself, plant herself more firmly to utter the -wonder of it. “Yes. Mr. Quint is dead.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap06"></a>VI</h2> - -<p> -It took of course more than that particular passage to place us together in -presence of what we had now to live with as we could—my dreadful -liability to impressions of the order so vividly exemplified, and my -companion’s knowledge, henceforth—a knowledge half consternation -and half compassion—of that liability. There had been, this evening, -after the revelation left me, for an hour, so prostrate—there had been, -for either of us, no attendance on any service but a little service of tears -and vows, of prayers and promises, a climax to the series of mutual challenges -and pledges that had straightway ensued on our retreating together to the -schoolroom and shutting ourselves up there to have everything out. The result -of our having everything out was simply to reduce our situation to the last -rigor of its elements. She herself had seen nothing, not the shadow of a -shadow, and nobody in the house but the governess was in the governess’s -plight; yet she accepted without directly impugning my sanity the truth as I -gave it to her, and ended by showing me, on this ground, an awestricken -tenderness, an expression of the sense of my more than questionable privilege, -of which the very breath has remained with me as that of the sweetest of human -charities. -</p> - -<p> -What was settled between us, accordingly, that night, was that we thought we -might bear things together; and I was not even sure that, in spite of her -exemption, it was she who had the best of the burden. I knew at this hour, I -think, as well as I knew later, what I was capable of meeting to shelter my -pupils; but it took me some time to be wholly sure of what my honest ally was -prepared for to keep terms with so compromising a contract. I was queer company -enough—quite as queer as the company I received; but as I trace over what -we went through I see how much common ground we must have found in the one idea -that, by good fortune, <i>could</i> steady us. It was the idea, the second -movement, that led me straight out, as I may say, of the inner chamber of my -dread. I could take the air in the court, at least, and there Mrs. Grose could -join me. Perfectly can I recall now the particular way strength came to me -before we separated for the night. We had gone over and over every feature of -what I had seen. -</p> - -<p> -“He was looking for someone else, you say—someone who was not -you?” -</p> - -<p> -“He was looking for little Miles.” A portentous clearness now -possessed me. “<i>That’s</i> whom he was looking for.” -</p> - -<p> -“But how do you know?” -</p> - -<p> -“I know, I know, I know!” My exaltation grew. “And <i>you</i> -know, my dear!” -</p> - -<p> -She didn’t deny this, but I required, I felt, not even so much telling as -that. She resumed in a moment, at any rate: “What if <i>he</i> should see -him?” -</p> - -<p> -“Little Miles? That’s what he wants!” -</p> - -<p> -She looked immensely scared again. “The child?” -</p> - -<p> -“Heaven forbid! The man. He wants to appear to <i>them</i>.” That -he might was an awful conception, and yet, somehow, I could keep it at bay; -which, moreover, as we lingered there, was what I succeeded in practically -proving. I had an absolute certainty that I should see again what I had already -seen, but something within me said that by offering myself bravely as the sole -subject of such experience, by accepting, by inviting, by surmounting it all, I -should serve as an expiatory victim and guard the tranquility of my companions. -The children, in especial, I should thus fence about and absolutely save. I -recall one of the last things I said that night to Mrs. Grose. -</p> - -<p> -“It does strike me that my pupils have never mentioned—” -</p> - -<p> -She looked at me hard as I musingly pulled up. “His having been here and -the time they were with him?” -</p> - -<p> -“The time they were with him, and his name, his presence, his history, in -any way.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, the little lady doesn’t remember. She never heard or -knew.” -</p> - -<p> -“The circumstances of his death?” I thought with some intensity. -“Perhaps not. But Miles would remember—Miles would know.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, don’t try him!” broke from Mrs. Grose. -</p> - -<p> -I returned her the look she had given me. “Don’t be afraid.” -I continued to think. “It <i>is</i> rather odd.” -</p> - -<p> -“That he has never spoken of him?” -</p> - -<p> -“Never by the least allusion. And you tell me they were ‘great -friends’?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, it wasn’t <i>him!</i>” Mrs. Grose with emphasis -declared. “It was Quint’s own fancy. To play with him, I -mean—to spoil him.” She paused a moment; then she added: -“Quint was much too free.” -</p> - -<p> -This gave me, straight from my vision of his face—<i>such</i> a -face!—a sudden sickness of disgust. “Too free with <i>my</i> -boy?” -</p> - -<p> -“Too free with everyone!” -</p> - -<p> -I forbore, for the moment, to analyze this description further than by the -reflection that a part of it applied to several of the members of the -household, of the half-dozen maids and men who were still of our small colony. -But there was everything, for our apprehension, in the lucky fact that no -discomfortable legend, no perturbation of scullions, had ever, within -anyone’s memory attached to the kind old place. It had neither bad name -nor ill fame, and Mrs. Grose, most apparently, only desired to cling to me and -to quake in silence. I even put her, the very last thing of all, to the test. -It was when, at midnight, she had her hand on the schoolroom door to take -leave. “I have it from you then—for it’s of great -importance—that he was definitely and admittedly bad?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, not admittedly. <i>I</i> knew it—but the master -didn’t.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you never told him?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, he didn’t like tale-bearing—he hated complaints. He -was terribly short with anything of that kind, and if people were all right to -<i>him</i>—” -</p> - -<p> -“He wouldn’t be bothered with more?” This squared well enough -with my impressions of him: he was not a trouble-loving gentleman, nor so very -particular perhaps about some of the company <i>he</i> kept. All the same, I -pressed my interlocutress. “I promise you <i>I</i> would have told!” -</p> - -<p> -She felt my discrimination. “I daresay I was wrong. But, really, I was -afraid.” -</p> - -<p> -“Afraid of what?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of things that man could do. Quint was so clever—he was so -deep.” -</p> - -<p> -I took this in still more than, probably, I showed. “You weren’t -afraid of anything else? Not of his effect—?” -</p> - -<p> -“His effect?” she repeated with a face of anguish and waiting while -I faltered. -</p> - -<p> -“On innocent little precious lives. They were in your charge.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, they were not in mine!” she roundly and distressfully -returned. “The master believed in him and placed him here because he was -supposed not to be well and the country air so good for him. So he had -everything to say. Yes”—she let me have it—“even about -<i>them</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“Them—that creature?” I had to smother a kind of howl. -“And you could bear it!” -</p> - -<p> -“No. I couldn’t—and I can’t now!” And the poor -woman burst into tears. -</p> - -<p> -A rigid control, from the next day, was, as I have said, to follow them; yet -how often and how passionately, for a week, we came back together to the -subject! Much as we had discussed it that Sunday night, I was, in the immediate -later hours in especial—for it may be imagined whether I -slept—still haunted with the shadow of something she had not told me. I -myself had kept back nothing, but there was a word Mrs. Grose had kept back. I -was sure, moreover, by morning, that this was not from a failure of frankness, -but because on every side there were fears. It seems to me indeed, in -retrospect, that by the time the morrow’s sun was high I had restlessly -read into the fact before us almost all the meaning they were to receive from -subsequent and more cruel occurrences. What they gave me above all was just the -sinister figure of the living man—the dead one would keep -awhile!—and of the months he had continuously passed at Bly, which, added -up, made a formidable stretch. The limit of this evil time had arrived only -when, on the dawn of a winter’s morning, Peter Quint was found, by a -laborer going to early work, stone dead on the road from the village: a -catastrophe explained—superficially at least—by a visible wound to -his head; such a wound as might have been produced—and as, on the final -evidence, <i>had</i> been—by a fatal slip, in the dark and after leaving -the public house, on the steepish icy slope, a wrong path altogether, at the -bottom of which he lay. The icy slope, the turn mistaken at night and in -liquor, accounted for much—practically, in the end and after the inquest -and boundless chatter, for everything; but there had been matters in his -life—strange passages and perils, secret disorders, vices more than -suspected—that would have accounted for a good deal more. -</p> - -<p> -I scarce know how to put my story into words that shall be a credible picture -of my state of mind; but I was in these days literally able to find a joy in -the extraordinary flight of heroism the occasion demanded of me. I now saw that -I had been asked for a service admirable and difficult; and there would be a -greatness in letting it be seen—oh, in the right quarter!—that I -could succeed where many another girl might have failed. It was an immense help -to me—I confess I rather applaud myself as I look back!—that I saw -my service so strongly and so simply. I was there to protect and defend the -little creatures in the world the most bereaved and the most lovable, the -appeal of whose helplessness had suddenly become only too explicit, a deep, -constant ache of one’s own committed heart. We were cut off, really, -together; we were united in our danger. They had nothing but me, and -I—well, I had <i>them</i>. It was in short a magnificent chance. This -chance presented itself to me in an image richly material. I was a -screen—I was to stand before them. The more I saw, the less they would. I -began to watch them in a stifled suspense, a disguised excitement that might -well, had it continued too long, have turned to something like madness. What -saved me, as I now see, was that it turned to something else altogether. It -didn’t last as suspense—it was superseded by horrible proofs. -Proofs, I say, yes—from the moment I really took hold. -</p> - -<p> -This moment dated from an afternoon hour that I happened to spend in the -grounds with the younger of my pupils alone. We had left Miles indoors, on the -red cushion of a deep window seat; he had wished to finish a book, and I had -been glad to encourage a purpose so laudable in a young man whose only defect -was an occasional excess of the restless. His sister, on the contrary, had been -alert to come out, and I strolled with her half an hour, seeking the shade, for -the sun was still high and the day exceptionally warm. I was aware afresh, with -her, as we went, of how, like her brother, she contrived—it was the -charming thing in both children—to let me alone without appearing to drop -me and to accompany me without appearing to surround. They were never -importunate and yet never listless. My attention to them all really went to -seeing them amuse themselves immensely without me: this was a spectacle they -seemed actively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer. I walked -in a world of their invention—they had no occasion whatever to draw upon -mine; so that my time was taken only with being, for them, some remarkable -person or thing that the game of the moment required and that was merely, -thanks to my superior, my exalted stamp, a happy and highly distinguished -sinecure. I forget what I was on the present occasion; I only remember that I -was something very important and very quiet and that Flora was playing very -hard. We were on the edge of the lake, and, as we had lately begun geography, -the lake was the Sea of Azof. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the other side of the -Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. The way this knowledge gathered in -me was the strangest thing in the world—the strangest, that is, except -the very much stranger in which it quickly merged itself. I had sat down with a -piece of work—for I was something or other that could sit—on the -old stone bench which overlooked the pond; and in this position I began to take -in with certitude, and yet without direct vision, the presence, at a distance, -of a third person. The old trees, the thick shrubbery, made a great and -pleasant shade, but it was all suffused with the brightness of the hot, still -hour. There was no ambiguity in anything; none whatever, at least, in the -conviction I from one moment to another found myself forming as to what I -should see straight before me and across the lake as a consequence of raising -my eyes. They were attached at this juncture to the stitching in which I was -engaged, and I can feel once more the spasm of my effort not to move them till -I should so have steadied myself as to be able to make up my mind what to do. -There was an alien object in view—a figure whose right of presence I -instantly, passionately questioned. I recollect counting over perfectly the -possibilities, reminding myself that nothing was more natural, for instance, -then the appearance of one of the men about the place, or even of a messenger, -a postman, or a tradesman’s boy, from the village. That reminder had as -little effect on my practical certitude as I was conscious—still even -without looking—of its having upon the character and attitude of our -visitor. Nothing was more natural than that these things should be the other -things that they absolutely were not. -</p> - -<p> -Of the positive identity of the apparition I would assure myself as soon as the -small clock of my courage should have ticked out the right second; meanwhile, -with an effort that was already sharp enough, I transferred my eyes straight to -little Flora, who, at the moment, was about ten yards away. My heart had stood -still for an instant with the wonder and terror of the question whether she too -would see; and I held my breath while I waited for what a cry from her, what -some sudden innocent sign either of interest or of alarm, would tell me. I -waited, but nothing came; then, in the first place—and there is something -more dire in this, I feel, than in anything I have to relate—I was -determined by a sense that, within a minute, all sounds from her had previously -dropped; and, in the second, by the circumstance that, also within the minute, -she had, in her play, turned her back to the water. This was her attitude when -I at last looked at her—looked with the confirmed conviction that we were -still, together, under direct personal notice. She had picked up a small flat -piece of wood, which happened to have in it a little hole that had evidently -suggested to her the idea of sticking in another fragment that might figure as -a mast and make the thing a boat. This second morsel, as I watched her, she was -very markedly and intently attempting to tighten in its place. My apprehension -of what she was doing sustained me so that after some seconds I felt I was -ready for more. Then I again shifted my eyes—I faced what I had to face. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap07"></a>VII</h2> - -<p> -I got hold of Mrs. Grose as soon after this as I could; and I can give no -intelligible account of how I fought out the interval. Yet I still hear myself -cry as I fairly threw myself into her arms: “They -<i>know</i>—it’s too monstrous: they know, they know!” -</p> - -<p> -“And what on earth—?” I felt her incredulity as she held me. -</p> - -<p> -“Why, all that <i>we</i> know—and heaven knows what else -besides!” Then, as she released me, I made it out to her, made it out -perhaps only now with full coherency even to myself. “Two hours ago, in -the garden”—I could scarce articulate—“Flora -<i>saw!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose took it as she might have taken a blow in the stomach. “She -has told you?” she panted. -</p> - -<p> -“Not a word—that’s the horror. She kept it to herself! The -child of eight, <i>that</i> child!” Unutterable still, for me, was the -stupefaction of it. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose, of course, could only gape the wider. “Then how do you -know?” -</p> - -<p> -“I was there—I saw with my eyes: saw that she was perfectly -aware.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean aware of <i>him?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“No—of <i>her</i>.” I was conscious as I spoke that I looked -prodigious things, for I got the slow reflection of them in my -companion’s face. “Another person—this time; but a figure of -quite as unmistakable horror and evil: a woman in black, pale and -dreadful—with such an air also, and such a face!—on the other side -of the lake. I was there with the child—quiet for the hour; and in the -midst of it she came.” -</p> - -<p> -“Came how—from where?” -</p> - -<p> -“From where they come from! She just appeared and stood there—but -not so near.” -</p> - -<p> -“And without coming nearer?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, for the effect and the feeling, she might have been as close as -you!” -</p> - -<p> -My friend, with an odd impulse, fell back a step. “Was she someone -you’ve never seen?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. But someone the child has. Someone <i>you</i> have.” Then, to -show how I had thought it all out: “My predecessor—the one who -died.” -</p> - -<p> -“Miss Jessel?” -</p> - -<p> -“Miss Jessel. You don’t believe me?” I pressed. -</p> - -<p> -She turned right and left in her distress. “How can you be sure?” -</p> - -<p> -This drew from me, in the state of my nerves, a flash of impatience. -“Then ask Flora—<i>she’s</i> sure!” But I had no sooner -spoken than I caught myself up. “No, for God’s sake, -<i>don’t!</i> She’ll say she isn’t—she’ll -lie!” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose was not too bewildered instinctively to protest. “Ah, how -<i>can</i> you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Because I’m clear. Flora doesn’t want me to know.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s only then to spare you.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no—there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I -see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I don’t know what I -<i>don’t</i> see—what I <i>don’t</i> fear!” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose tried to keep up with me. “You mean you’re afraid of -seeing her again?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, no; that’s nothing—now!” Then I explained. -“It’s of <i>not</i> seeing her.” -</p> - -<p> -But my companion only looked wan. “I don’t understand you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, it’s that the child may keep it up—and that the child -assuredly <i>will</i>—without my knowing it.” -</p> - -<p> -At the image of this possibility Mrs. Grose for a moment collapsed, yet -presently to pull herself together again, as if from the positive force of the -sense of what, should we yield an inch, there would really be to give way to. -“Dear, dear—we must keep our heads! And after all, if she -doesn’t mind it—!” She even tried a grim joke. “Perhaps -she likes it!” -</p> - -<p> -“Likes <i>such</i> things—a scrap of an infant!” -</p> - -<p> -“Isn’t it just a proof of her blessed innocence?” my friend -bravely inquired. -</p> - -<p> -She brought me, for the instant, almost round. “Oh, we must clutch at -<i>that</i>—we must cling to it! If it isn’t a proof of what you -say, it’s a proof of—God knows what! For the woman’s a horror -of horrors.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose, at this, fixed her eyes a minute on the ground; then at last -raising them, “Tell me how you know,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Then you admit it’s what she was?” I cried. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me how you know,” my friend simply repeated. -</p> - -<p> -“Know? By seeing her! By the way she looked.” -</p> - -<p> -“At you, do you mean—so wickedly?” -</p> - -<p> -“Dear me, no—I could have borne that. She gave me never a glance. -She only fixed the child.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose tried to see it. “Fixed her?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, with such awful eyes!” -</p> - -<p> -She stared at mine as if they might really have resembled them. “Do you -mean of dislike?” -</p> - -<p> -“God help us, no. Of something much worse.” -</p> - -<p> -“Worse than dislike?”—this left her indeed at a loss. -</p> - -<p> -“With a determination—indescribable. With a kind of fury of -intention.” -</p> - -<p> -I made her turn pale. “Intention?” -</p> - -<p> -“To get hold of her.” Mrs. Grose—her eyes just lingering on -mine—gave a shudder and walked to the window; and while she stood there -looking out I completed my statement. “<i>That’s</i> what Flora -knows.” -</p> - -<p> -After a little she turned round. “The person was in black, you -say?” -</p> - -<p> -“In mourning—rather poor, almost shabby. But—yes—with -extraordinary beauty.” I now recognized to what I had at last, stroke by -stroke, brought the victim of my confidence, for she quite visibly weighed -this. “Oh, handsome—very, very,” I insisted; -“wonderfully handsome. But infamous.” -</p> - -<p> -She slowly came back to me. “Miss Jessel—<i>was</i> -infamous.” She once more took my hand in both her own, holding it as -tight as if to fortify me against the increase of alarm I might draw from this -disclosure. “They were both infamous,” she finally said. -</p> - -<p> -So, for a little, we faced it once more together; and I found absolutely a -degree of help in seeing it now so straight. “I appreciate,” I -said, “the great decency of your not having hitherto spoken; but the time -has certainly come to give me the whole thing.” She appeared to assent to -this, but still only in silence; seeing which I went on: “I must have it -now. Of what did she die? Come, there was something between them.” -</p> - -<p> -“There was everything.” -</p> - -<p> -“In spite of the difference—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, of their rank, their condition”—she brought it woefully -out. “<i>She</i> was a lady.” -</p> - -<p> -I turned it over; I again saw. “Yes—she was a lady.” -</p> - -<p> -“And he so dreadfully below,” said Mrs. Grose. -</p> - -<p> -I felt that I doubtless needn’t press too hard, in such company, on the -place of a servant in the scale; but there was nothing to prevent an acceptance -of my companion’s own measure of my predecessor’s abasement. There -was a way to deal with that, and I dealt; the more readily for my full -vision—on the evidence—of our employer’s late clever, -good-looking “own” man; impudent, assured, spoiled, depraved. -“The fellow was a hound.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose considered as if it were perhaps a little a case for a sense of -shades. “I’ve never seen one like him. He did what he -wished.” -</p> - -<p> -“With <i>her?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“With them all.” -</p> - -<p> -It was as if now in my friend’s own eyes Miss Jessel had again appeared. -I seemed at any rate, for an instant, to see their evocation of her as -distinctly as I had seen her by the pond; and I brought out with decision: -“It must have been also what <i>she</i> wished!” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose’s face signified that it had been indeed, but she said at the -same time: “Poor woman—she paid for it!” -</p> - -<p> -“Then you do know what she died of?” I asked. -</p> - -<p> -“No—I know nothing. I wanted not to know; I was glad enough I -didn’t; and I thanked heaven she was well out of this!” -</p> - -<p> -“Yet you had, then, your idea—” -</p> - -<p> -“Of her real reason for leaving? Oh, yes—as to that. She -couldn’t have stayed. Fancy it here—for a governess! And afterward -I imagined—and I still imagine. And what I imagine is dreadful.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not so dreadful as what <i>I</i> do,” I replied; on which I must -have shown her—as I was indeed but too conscious—a front of -miserable defeat. It brought out again all her compassion for me, and at the -renewed touch of her kindness my power to resist broke down. I burst, as I had, -the other time, made her burst, into tears; she took me to her motherly breast, -and my lamentation overflowed. “I don’t do it!” I sobbed in -despair; “I don’t save or shield them! It’s far worse than I -dreamed—they’re lost!” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap08"></a>VIII</h2> - -<p> -What I had said to Mrs. Grose was true enough: there were in the matter I had -put before her depths and possibilities that I lacked resolution to sound; so -that when we met once more in the wonder of it we were of a common mind about -the duty of resistance to extravagant fancies. We were to keep our heads if we -should keep nothing else—difficult indeed as that might be in the face of -what, in our prodigious experience, was least to be questioned. Late that -night, while the house slept, we had another talk in my room, when she went all -the way with me as to its being beyond doubt that I had seen exactly what I had -seen. To hold her perfectly in the pinch of that, I found I had only to ask her -how, if I had “made it up,” I came to be able to give, of each of -the persons appearing to me, a picture disclosing, to the last detail, their -special marks—a portrait on the exhibition of which she had instantly -recognized and named them. She wished of course—small blame to -her!—to sink the whole subject; and I was quick to assure her that my own -interest in it had now violently taken the form of a search for the way to -escape from it. I encountered her on the ground of a probability that with -recurrence—for recurrence we took for granted—I should get used to -my danger, distinctly professing that my personal exposure had suddenly become -the least of my discomforts. It was my new suspicion that was intolerable; and -yet even to this complication the later hours of the day had brought a little -ease. -</p> - -<p> -On leaving her, after my first outbreak, I had of course returned to my pupils, -associating the right remedy for my dismay with that sense of their charm which -I had already found to be a thing I could positively cultivate and which had -never failed me yet. I had simply, in other words, plunged afresh into -Flora’s special society and there become aware—it was almost a -luxury!—that she could put her little conscious hand straight upon the -spot that ached. She had looked at me in sweet speculation and then had accused -me to my face of having “cried.” I had supposed I had brushed away -the ugly signs: but I could literally—for the time, at all -events—rejoice, under this fathomless charity, that they had not entirely -disappeared. To gaze into the depths of blue of the child’s eyes and -pronounce their loveliness a trick of premature cunning was to be guilty of a -cynicism in preference to which I naturally preferred to abjure my judgment -and, so far as might be, my agitation. I couldn’t abjure for merely -wanting to, but I could repeat to Mrs. Grose—as I did there, over and -over, in the small hours—that with their voices in the air, their -pressure on one’s heart, and their fragrant faces against one’s -cheek, everything fell to the ground but their incapacity and their beauty. It -was a pity that, somehow, to settle this once for all, I had equally to -re-enumerate the signs of subtlety that, in the afternoon, by the lake had made -a miracle of my show of self-possession. It was a pity to be obliged to -reinvestigate the certitude of the moment itself and repeat how it had come to -me as a revelation that the inconceivable communion I then surprised was a -matter, for either party, of habit. It was a pity that I should have had to -quaver out again the reasons for my not having, in my delusion, so much as -questioned that the little girl saw our visitant even as I actually saw Mrs. -Grose herself, and that she wanted, by just so much as she did thus see, to -make me suppose she didn’t, and at the same time, without showing -anything, arrive at a guess as to whether I myself did! It was a pity that I -needed once more to describe the portentous little activity by which she sought -to divert my attention—the perceptible increase of movement, the greater -intensity of play, the singing, the gabbling of nonsense, and the invitation to -romp. -</p> - -<p> -Yet if I had not indulged, to prove there was nothing in it, in this review, I -should have missed the two or three dim elements of comfort that still remained -to me. I should not for instance have been able to asseverate to my friend that -I was certain—which was so much to the good—that <i>I</i> at least -had not betrayed myself. I should not have been prompted, by stress of need, by -desperation of mind—I scarce know what to call it—to invoke such -further aid to intelligence as might spring from pushing my colleague fairly to -the wall. She had told me, bit by bit, under pressure, a great deal; but a -small shifty spot on the wrong side of it all still sometimes brushed my brow -like the wing of a bat; and I remember how on this occasion—for the -sleeping house and the concentration alike of our danger and our watch seemed -to help—I felt the importance of giving the last jerk to the curtain. -“I don’t believe anything so horrible,” I recollect saying; -“no, let us put it definitely, my dear, that I don’t. But if I did, -you know, there’s a thing I should require now, just without sparing you -the least bit more—oh, not a scrap, come!—to get out of you. What -was it you had in mind when, in our distress, before Miles came back, over the -letter from his school, you said, under my insistence, that you didn’t -pretend for him that he had not literally <i>ever</i> been ‘bad’? -He has <i>not</i> literally ‘ever,’ in these weeks that I myself -have lived with him and so closely watched him; he has been an imperturbable -little prodigy of delightful, lovable goodness. Therefore you might perfectly -have made the claim for him if you had not, as it happened, seen an exception -to take. What was your exception, and to what passage in your personal -observation of him did you refer?” -</p> - -<p> -It was a dreadfully austere inquiry, but levity was not our note, and, at any -rate, before the gray dawn admonished us to separate I had got my answer. What -my friend had had in mind proved to be immensely to the purpose. It was neither -more nor less than the circumstance that for a period of several months Quint -and the boy had been perpetually together. It was in fact the very appropriate -truth that she had ventured to criticize the propriety, to hint at the -incongruity, of so close an alliance, and even to go so far on the subject as a -frank overture to Miss Jessel. Miss Jessel had, with a most strange manner, -requested her to mind her business, and the good woman had, on this, directly -approached little Miles. What she had said to him, since I pressed, was that -<i>she</i> liked to see young gentlemen not forget their station. -</p> - -<p> -I pressed again, of course, at this. “You reminded him that Quint was -only a base menial?” -</p> - -<p> -“As you might say! And it was his answer, for one thing, that was -bad.” -</p> - -<p> -“And for another thing?” I waited. “He repeated your words to -Quint?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, not that. It’s just what he <i>wouldn’t!</i>” she -could still impress upon me. “I was sure, at any rate,” she added, -“that he didn’t. But he denied certain occasions.” -</p> - -<p> -“What occasions?” -</p> - -<p> -“When they had been about together quite as if Quint were his -tutor—and a very grand one—and Miss Jessel only for the little -lady. When he had gone off with the fellow, I mean, and spent hours with -him.” -</p> - -<p> -“He then prevaricated about it—he said he hadn’t?” Her -assent was clear enough to cause me to add in a moment: “I see. He -lied.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” Mrs. Grose mumbled. This was a suggestion that it -didn’t matter; which indeed she backed up by a further remark. “You -see, after all, Miss Jessel didn’t mind. She didn’t forbid -him.” -</p> - -<p> -I considered. “Did he put that to you as a justification?” -</p> - -<p> -At this she dropped again. “No, he never spoke of it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Never mentioned her in connection with Quint?” -</p> - -<p> -She saw, visibly flushing, where I was coming out. “Well, he didn’t -show anything. He denied,” she repeated; “he denied.” -</p> - -<p> -Lord, how I pressed her now! “So that you could see he knew what was -between the two wretches?” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know—I don’t know!” the poor woman -groaned. -</p> - -<p> -“You do know, you dear thing,” I replied; “only you -haven’t my dreadful boldness of mind, and you keep back, out of timidity -and modesty and delicacy, even the impression that, in the past, when you had, -without my aid, to flounder about in silence, most of all made you miserable. -But I shall get it out of you yet! There was something in the boy that -suggested to you,” I continued, “that he covered and concealed -their relation.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, he couldn’t prevent—” -</p> - -<p> -“Your learning the truth? I daresay! But, heavens,” I fell, with -vehemence, athinking, “what it shows that they must, to that extent, have -succeeded in making of him!” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, nothing that’s not nice <i>now!</i>” Mrs. Grose -lugubriously pleaded. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t wonder you looked queer,” I persisted, “when I -mentioned to you the letter from his school!” -</p> - -<p> -“I doubt if I looked as queer as you!” she retorted with homely -force. “And if he was so bad then as that comes to, how is he such an -angel now?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, indeed—and if he was a fiend at school! How, how, how? -Well,” I said in my torment, “you must put it to me again, but I -shall not be able to tell you for some days. Only, put it to me again!” I -cried in a way that made my friend stare. “There are directions in which -I must not for the present let myself go.” Meanwhile I returned to her -first example—the one to which she had just previously referred—of -the boy’s happy capacity for an occasional slip. “If Quint—on -your remonstrance at the time you speak of—was a base menial, one of the -things Miles said to you, I find myself guessing, was that you were -another.” Again her admission was so adequate that I continued: -“And you forgave him that?” -</p> - -<p> -“Wouldn’t <i>you?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes!” And we exchanged there, in the stillness, a sound of the -oddest amusement. Then I went on: “At all events, while he was with the -man—” -</p> - -<p> -“Miss Flora was with the woman. It suited them all!” -</p> - -<p> -It suited me, too, I felt, only too well; by which I mean that it suited -exactly the particularly deadly view I was in the very act of forbidding myself -to entertain. But I so far succeeded in checking the expression of this view -that I will throw, just here, no further light on it than may be offered by the -mention of my final observation to Mrs. Grose. “His having lied and been -impudent are, I confess, less engaging specimens than I had hoped to have from -you of the outbreak in him of the little natural man. Still,” I mused, -“They must do, for they make me feel more than ever that I must -watch.” -</p> - -<p> -It made me blush, the next minute, to see in my friend’s face how much -more unreservedly she had forgiven him than her anecdote struck me as -presenting to my own tenderness an occasion for doing. This came out when, at -the schoolroom door, she quitted me. “Surely you don’t accuse -<i>him</i>—” -</p> - -<p> -“Of carrying on an intercourse that he conceals from me? Ah, remember -that, until further evidence, I now accuse nobody.” Then, before shutting -her out to go, by another passage, to her own place, “I must just -wait,” I wound up. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap09"></a>IX</h2> - -<p> -I waited and waited, and the days, as they elapsed, took something from my -consternation. A very few of them, in fact, passing, in constant sight of my -pupils, without a fresh incident, sufficed to give to grievous fancies and even -to odious memories a kind of brush of the sponge. I have spoken of the -surrender to their extraordinary childish grace as a thing I could actively -cultivate, and it may be imagined if I neglected now to address myself to this -source for whatever it would yield. Stranger than I can express, certainly, was -the effort to struggle against my new lights; it would doubtless have been, -however, a greater tension still had it not been so frequently successful. I -used to wonder how my little charges could help guessing that I thought strange -things about them; and the circumstances that these things only made them more -interesting was not by itself a direct aid to keeping them in the dark. I -trembled lest they should see that they <i>were</i> so immensely more -interesting. Putting things at the worst, at all events, as in meditation I so -often did, any clouding of their innocence could only be—blameless and -foredoomed as they were—a reason the more for taking risks. There were -moments when, by an irresistible impulse, I found myself catching them up and -pressing them to my heart. As soon as I had done so I used to say to myself: -“What will they think of that? Doesn’t it betray too much?” -It would have been easy to get into a sad, wild tangle about how much I might -betray; but the real account, I feel, of the hours of peace that I could still -enjoy was that the immediate charm of my companions was a beguilement still -effective even under the shadow of the possibility that it was studied. For if -it occurred to me that I might occasionally excite suspicion by the little -outbreaks of my sharper passion for them, so too I remember wondering if I -mightn’t see a queerness in the traceable increase of their own -demonstrations. -</p> - -<p> -They were at this period extravagantly and preternaturally fond of me; which, -after all, I could reflect, was no more than a graceful response in children -perpetually bowed over and hugged. The homage of which they were so lavish -succeeded, in truth, for my nerves, quite as well as if I never appeared to -myself, as I may say, literally to catch them at a purpose in it. They had -never, I think, wanted to do so many things for their poor protectress; I -mean—though they got their lessons better and better, which was naturally -what would please her most—in the way of diverting, entertaining, -surprising her; reading her passages, telling her stories, acting her charades, -pouncing out at her, in disguises, as animals and historical characters, and -above all astonishing her by the “pieces” they had secretly got by -heart and could interminably recite. I should never get to the -bottom—were I to let myself go even now—of the prodigious private -commentary, all under still more private correction, with which, in these days, -I overscored their full hours. They had shown me from the first a facility for -everything, a general faculty which, taking a fresh start, achieved remarkable -flights. They got their little tasks as if they loved them, and indulged, from -the mere exuberance of the gift, in the most unimposed little miracles of -memory. They not only popped out at me as tigers and as Romans, but as -Shakespeareans, astronomers, and navigators. This was so singularly the case -that it had presumably much to do with the fact as to which, at the present -day, I am at a loss for a different explanation: I allude to my unnatural -composure on the subject of another school for Miles. What I remember is that I -was content not, for the time, to open the question, and that contentment must -have sprung from the sense of his perpetually striking show of cleverness. He -was too clever for a bad governess, for a parson’s daughter, to spoil; -and the strangest if not the brightest thread in the pensive embroidery I just -spoke of was the impression I might have got, if I had dared to work it out, -that he was under some influence operating in his small intellectual life as a -tremendous incitement. -</p> - -<p> -If it was easy to reflect, however, that such a boy could postpone school, it -was at least as marked that for such a boy to have been “kicked -out” by a schoolmaster was a mystification without end. Let me add that -in their company now—and I was careful almost never to be out of -it—I could follow no scent very far. We lived in a cloud of music and -love and success and private theatricals. The musical sense in each of the -children was of the quickest, but the elder in especial had a marvelous knack -of catching and repeating. The schoolroom piano broke into all gruesome -fancies; and when that failed there were confabulations in corners, with a -sequel of one of them going out in the highest spirits in order to “come -in” as something new. I had had brothers myself, and it was no revelation -to me that little girls could be slavish idolaters of little boys. What -surpassed everything was that there was a little boy in the world who could -have for the inferior age, sex, and intelligence so fine a consideration. They -were extraordinarily at one, and to say that they never either quarreled or -complained is to make the note of praise coarse for their quality of sweetness. -Sometimes, indeed, when I dropped into coarseness, I perhaps came across traces -of little understandings between them by which one of them should keep me -occupied while the other slipped away. There is a <i>naïf</i> side, I suppose, -in all diplomacy; but if my pupils practiced upon me, it was surely with the -minimum of grossness. It was all in the other quarter that, after a lull, the -grossness broke out. -</p> - -<p> -I find that I really hang back; but I must take my plunge. In going on with the -record of what was hideous at Bly, I not only challenge the most liberal -faith—for which I little care; but—and this is another -matter—I renew what I myself suffered, I again push my way through it to -the end. There came suddenly an hour after which, as I look back, the affair -seems to me to have been all pure suffering; but I have at least reached the -heart of it, and the straightest road out is doubtless to advance. One -evening—with nothing to lead up or to prepare it—I felt the cold -touch of the impression that had breathed on me the night of my arrival and -which, much lighter then, as I have mentioned, I should probably have made -little of in memory had my subsequent sojourn been less agitated. I had not -gone to bed; I sat reading by a couple of candles. There was a roomful of old -books at Bly—last-century fiction, some of it, which, to the extent of a -distinctly deprecated renown, but never to so much as that of a stray specimen, -had reached the sequestered home and appealed to the unavowed curiosity of my -youth. I remember that the book I had in my hand was Fielding’s -<i>Amelia</i>; also that I was wholly awake. I recall further both a general -conviction that it was horribly late and a particular objection to looking at -my watch. I figure, finally, that the white curtain draping, in the fashion of -those days, the head of Flora’s little bed, shrouded, as I had assured -myself long before, the perfection of childish rest. I recollect in short that, -though I was deeply interested in my author, I found myself, at the turn of a -page and with his spell all scattered, looking straight up from him and hard at -the door of my room. There was a moment during which I listened, reminded of -the faint sense I had had, the first night, of there being something -undefinably astir in the house, and noted the soft breath of the open casement -just move the half-drawn blind. Then, with all the marks of a deliberation that -must have seemed magnificent had there been anyone to admire it, I laid down my -book, rose to my feet, and, taking a candle, went straight out of the room and, -from the passage, on which my light made little impression, noiselessly closed -and locked the door. -</p> - -<p> -I can say now neither what determined nor what guided me, but I went straight -along the lobby, holding my candle high, till I came within sight of the tall -window that presided over the great turn of the staircase. At this point I -precipitately found myself aware of three things. They were practically -simultaneous, yet they had flashes of succession. My candle, under a bold -flourish, went out, and I perceived, by the uncovered window, that the yielding -dusk of earliest morning rendered it unnecessary. Without it, the next instant, -I saw that there was someone on the stair. I speak of sequences, but I required -no lapse of seconds to stiffen myself for a third encounter with Quint. The -apparition had reached the landing halfway up and was therefore on the spot -nearest the window, where at sight of me, it stopped short and fixed me exactly -as it had fixed me from the tower and from the garden. He knew me as well as I -knew him; and so, in the cold, faint twilight, with a glimmer in the high glass -and another on the polish of the oak stair below, we faced each other in our -common intensity. He was absolutely, on this occasion, a living, detestable, -dangerous presence. But that was not the wonder of wonders; I reserve this -distinction for quite another circumstance: the circumstance that dread had -unmistakably quitted me and that there was nothing in me there that -didn’t meet and measure him. -</p> - -<p> -I had plenty of anguish after that extraordinary moment, but I had, thank God, -no terror. And he knew I had not—I found myself at the end of an instant -magnificently aware of this. I felt, in a fierce rigor of confidence, that if I -stood my ground a minute I should cease—for the time, at least—to -have him to reckon with; and during the minute, accordingly, the thing was as -human and hideous as a real interview: hideous just because it <i>was</i> -human, as human as to have met alone, in the small hours, in a sleeping house, -some enemy, some adventurer, some criminal. It was the dead silence of our long -gaze at such close quarters that gave the whole horror, huge as it was, its -only note of the unnatural. If I had met a murderer in such a place and at such -an hour, we still at least would have spoken. Something would have passed, in -life, between us; if nothing had passed, one of us would have moved. The moment -was so prolonged that it would have taken but little more to make me doubt if -even <i>I</i> were in life. I can’t express what followed it save by -saying that the silence itself—which was indeed in a manner an -attestation of my strength—became the element into which I saw the figure -disappear; in which I definitely saw it turn as I might have seen the low -wretch to which it had once belonged turn on receipt of an order, and pass, -with my eyes on the villainous back that no hunch could have more disfigured, -straight down the staircase and into the darkness in which the next bend was -lost. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap10"></a>X</h2> - -<p> -I remained awhile at the top of the stair, but with the effect presently of -understanding that when my visitor had gone, he had gone: then I returned to my -room. The foremost thing I saw there by the light of the candle I had left -burning was that Flora’s little bed was empty; and on this I caught my -breath with all the terror that, five minutes before, I had been able to -resist. I dashed at the place in which I had left her lying and over which (for -the small silk counterpane and the sheets were disarranged) the white curtains -had been deceivingly pulled forward; then my step, to my unutterable relief, -produced an answering sound: I perceived an agitation of the window blind, and -the child, ducking down, emerged rosily from the other side of it. She stood -there in so much of her candor and so little of her nightgown, with her pink -bare feet and the golden glow of her curls. She looked intensely grave, and I -had never had such a sense of losing an advantage acquired (the thrill of which -had just been so prodigious) as on my consciousness that she addressed me with -a reproach. “You naughty: where <i>have</i> you -been?”—instead of challenging her own irregularity I found myself -arraigned and explaining. She herself explained, for that matter, with the -loveliest, eagerest simplicity. She had known suddenly, as she lay there, that -I was out of the room, and had jumped up to see what had become of me. I had -dropped, with the joy of her reappearance, back into my chair—feeling -then, and then only, a little faint; and she had pattered straight over to me, -thrown herself upon my knee, given herself to be held with the flame of the -candle full in the wonderful little face that was still flushed with sleep. I -remember closing my eyes an instant, yieldingly, consciously, as before the -excess of something beautiful that shone out of the blue of her own. “You -were looking for me out of the window?” I said. “You thought I -might be walking in the grounds?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you know, I thought someone was”—she never blanched as -she smiled out that at me. -</p> - -<p> -Oh, how I looked at her now! “And did you see anyone?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, <i>no!</i>” she returned, almost with the full privilege of -childish inconsequence, resentfully, though with a long sweetness in her little -drawl of the negative. -</p> - -<p> -At that moment, in the state of my nerves, I absolutely believed she lied; and -if I once more closed my eyes it was before the dazzle of the three or four -possible ways in which I might take this up. One of these, for a moment, -tempted me with such singular intensity that, to withstand it, I must have -gripped my little girl with a spasm that, wonderfully, she submitted to without -a cry or a sign of fright. Why not break out at her on the spot and have it all -over?—give it to her straight in her lovely little lighted face? -“You see, you see, you <i>know</i> that you do and that you already quite -suspect I believe it; therefore, why not frankly confess it to me, so that we -may at least live with it together and learn perhaps, in the strangeness of our -fate, where we are and what it means?” This solicitation dropped, alas, -as it came: if I could immediately have succumbed to it I might have spared -myself—well, you’ll see what. Instead of succumbing I sprang again -to my feet, looked at her bed, and took a helpless middle way. “Why did -you pull the curtain over the place to make me think you were still -there?” -</p> - -<p> -Flora luminously considered; after which, with her little divine smile: -“Because I don’t like to frighten you!” -</p> - -<p> -“But if I had, by your idea, gone out—?” -</p> - -<p> -She absolutely declined to be puzzled; she turned her eyes to the flame of the -candle as if the question were as irrelevant, or at any rate as impersonal, as -Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine. “Oh, but you know,” she quite -adequately answered, “that you might come back, you dear, and that you -<i>have!</i>” And after a little, when she had got into bed, I had, for a -long time, by almost sitting on her to hold her hand, to prove that I -recognized the pertinence of my return. -</p> - -<p> -You may imagine the general complexion, from that moment, of my nights. I -repeatedly sat up till I didn’t know when; I selected moments when my -roommate unmistakably slept, and, stealing out, took noiseless turns in the -passage and even pushed as far as to where I had last met Quint. But I never -met him there again; and I may as well say at once that I on no other occasion -saw him in the house. I just missed, on the staircase, on the other hand, a -different adventure. Looking down it from the top I once recognized the -presence of a woman seated on one of the lower steps with her back presented to -me, her body half-bowed and her head, in an attitude of woe, in her hands. I -had been there but an instant, however, when she vanished without looking round -at me. I knew, nonetheless, exactly what dreadful face she had to show; and I -wondered whether, if instead of being above I had been below, I should have -had, for going up, the same nerve I had lately shown Quint. Well, there -continued to be plenty of chance for nerve. On the eleventh night after my -latest encounter with that gentleman—they were all numbered now—I -had an alarm that perilously skirted it and that indeed, from the particular -quality of its unexpectedness, proved quite my sharpest shock. It was precisely -the first night during this series that, weary with watching, I had felt that I -might again without laxity lay myself down at my old hour. I slept immediately -and, as I afterward knew, till about one o’clock; but when I woke it was -to sit straight up, as completely roused as if a hand had shook me. I had left -a light burning, but it was now out, and I felt an instant certainty that Flora -had extinguished it. This brought me to my feet and straight, in the darkness, -to her bed, which I found she had left. A glance at the window enlightened me -further, and the striking of a match completed the picture. -</p> - -<p> -The child had again got up—this time blowing out the taper, and had -again, for some purpose of observation or response, squeezed in behind the -blind and was peering out into the night. That she now saw—as she had -not, I had satisfied myself, the previous time—was proved to me by the -fact that she was disturbed neither by my reillumination nor by the haste I -made to get into slippers and into a wrap. Hidden, protected, absorbed, she -evidently rested on the sill—the casement opened forward—and gave -herself up. There was a great still moon to help her, and this fact had counted -in my quick decision. She was face to face with the apparition we had met at -the lake, and could now communicate with it as she had not then been able to -do. What I, on my side, had to care for was, without disturbing her, to reach, -from the corridor, some other window in the same quarter. I got to the door -without her hearing me; I got out of it, closed it, and listened, from the -other side, for some sound from her. While I stood in the passage I had my eyes -on her brother’s door, which was but ten steps off and which, -indescribably, produced in me a renewal of the strange impulse that I lately -spoke of as my temptation. What if I should go straight in and march to -<i>his</i> window?—what if, by risking to his boyish bewilderment a -revelation of my motive, I should throw across the rest of the mystery the long -halter of my boldness? -</p> - -<p> -This thought held me sufficiently to make me cross to his threshold and pause -again. I preternaturally listened; I figured to myself what might portentously -be; I wondered if his bed were also empty and he too were secretly at watch. It -was a deep, soundless minute, at the end of which my impulse failed. He was -quiet; he might be innocent; the risk was hideous; I turned away. There was a -figure in the grounds—a figure prowling for a sight, the visitor with -whom Flora was engaged; but it was not the visitor most concerned with my boy. -I hesitated afresh, but on other grounds and only for a few seconds; then I had -made my choice. There were empty rooms at Bly, and it was only a question of -choosing the right one. The right one suddenly presented itself to me as the -lower one—though high above the gardens—in the solid corner of the -house that I have spoken of as the old tower. This was a large, square chamber, -arranged with some state as a bedroom, the extravagant size of which made it so -inconvenient that it had not for years, though kept by Mrs. Grose in exemplary -order, been occupied. I had often admired it and I knew my way about in it; I -had only, after just faltering at the first chill gloom of its disuse, to pass -across it and unbolt as quietly as I could one of the shutters. Achieving this -transit, I uncovered the glass without a sound and, applying my face to the -pane, was able, the darkness without being much less than within, to see that I -commanded the right direction. Then I saw something more. The moon made the -night extraordinarily penetrable and showed me on the lawn a person, diminished -by distance, who stood there motionless and as if fascinated, looking up to -where I had appeared—looking, that is, not so much straight at me as at -something that was apparently above me. There was clearly another person above -me—there was a person on the tower; but the presence on the lawn was not -in the least what I had conceived and had confidently hurried to meet. The -presence on the lawn—I felt sick as I made it out—was poor little -Miles himself. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap11"></a>XI</h2> - -<p> -It was not till late next day that I spoke to Mrs. Grose; the rigor with which -I kept my pupils in sight making it often difficult to meet her privately, and -the more as we each felt the importance of not provoking—on the part of -the servants quite as much as on that of the children—any suspicion of a -secret flurry or that of a discussion of mysteries. I drew a great security in -this particular from her mere smooth aspect. There was nothing in her fresh -face to pass on to others my horrible confidences. She believed me, I was sure, -absolutely: if she hadn’t I don’t know what would have become of -me, for I couldn’t have borne the business alone. But she was a -magnificent monument to the blessing of a want of imagination, and if she could -see in our little charges nothing but their beauty and amiability, their -happiness and cleverness, she had no direct communication with the sources of -my trouble. If they had been at all visibly blighted or battered, she would -doubtless have grown, on tracing it back, haggard enough to match them; as -matters stood, however, I could feel her, when she surveyed them, with her -large white arms folded and the habit of serenity in all her look, thank the -Lord’s mercy that if they were ruined the pieces would still serve. -Flights of fancy gave place, in her mind, to a steady fireside glow, and I had -already begun to perceive how, with the development of the conviction -that—as time went on without a public accident—our young things -could, after all, look out for themselves, she addressed her greatest -solicitude to the sad case presented by their instructress. That, for myself, -was a sound simplification: I could engage that, to the world, my face should -tell no tales, but it would have been, in the conditions, an immense added -strain to find myself anxious about hers. -</p> - -<p> -At the hour I now speak of she had joined me, under pressure, on the terrace, -where, with the lapse of the season, the afternoon sun was now agreeable; and -we sat there together while, before us, at a distance, but within call if we -wished, the children strolled to and fro in one of their most manageable moods. -They moved slowly, in unison, below us, over the lawn, the boy, as they went, -reading aloud from a storybook and passing his arm round his sister to keep her -quite in touch. Mrs. Grose watched them with positive placidity; then I caught -the suppressed intellectual creak with which she conscientiously turned to take -from me a view of the back of the tapestry. I had made her a receptacle of -lurid things, but there was an odd recognition of my superiority—my -accomplishments and my function—in her patience under my pain. She -offered her mind to my disclosures as, had I wished to mix a witch’s -broth and proposed it with assurance, she would have held out a large clean -saucepan. This had become thoroughly her attitude by the time that, in my -recital of the events of the night, I reached the point of what Miles had said -to me when, after seeing him, at such a monstrous hour, almost on the very spot -where he happened now to be, I had gone down to bring him in; choosing then, at -the window, with a concentrated need of not alarming the house, rather that -method than a signal more resonant. I had left her meanwhile in little doubt of -my small hope of representing with success even to her actual sympathy my sense -of the real splendor of the little inspiration with which, after I had got him -into the house, the boy met my final articulate challenge. As soon as I -appeared in the moonlight on the terrace, he had come to me as straight as -possible; on which I had taken his hand without a word and led him, through the -dark spaces, up the staircase where Quint had so hungrily hovered for him, -along the lobby where I had listened and trembled, and so to his forsaken room. -</p> - -<p> -Not a sound, on the way, had passed between us, and I had wondered—oh, -<i>how</i> I had wondered!—if he were groping about in his little mind -for something plausible and not too grotesque. It would tax his invention, -certainly, and I felt, this time, over his real embarrassment, a curious thrill -of triumph. It was a sharp trap for the inscrutable! He couldn’t play any -longer at innocence; so how the deuce would he get out of it? There beat in me -indeed, with the passionate throb of this question an equal dumb appeal as to -how the deuce <i>I</i> should. I was confronted at last, as never yet, with all -the risk attached even now to sounding my own horrid note. I remember in fact -that as we pushed into his little chamber, where the bed had not been slept in -at all and the window, uncovered to the moonlight, made the place so clear that -there was no need of striking a match—I remember how I suddenly dropped, -sank upon the edge of the bed from the force of the idea that he must know how -he really, as they say, “had” me. He could do what he liked, with -all his cleverness to help him, so long as I should continue to defer to the -old tradition of the criminality of those caretakers of the young who minister -to superstitions and fears. He “had” me indeed, and in a cleft -stick; for who would ever absolve me, who would consent that I should go -unhung, if, by the faintest tremor of an overture, I were the first to -introduce into our perfect intercourse an element so dire? No, no: it was -useless to attempt to convey to Mrs. Grose, just as it is scarcely less so to -attempt to suggest here, how, in our short, stiff brush in the dark, he fairly -shook me with admiration. I was of course thoroughly kind and merciful; never, -never yet had I placed on his little shoulders hands of such tenderness as -those with which, while I rested against the bed, I held him there well under -fire. I had no alternative but, in form at least, to put it to him. -</p> - -<p> -“You must tell me now—and all the truth. What did you go out for? -What were you doing there?” -</p> - -<p> -I can still see his wonderful smile, the whites of his beautiful eyes, and the -uncovering of his little teeth shine to me in the dusk. “If I tell you -why, will you understand?” My heart, at this, leaped into my mouth. -<i>Would</i> he tell me why? I found no sound on my lips to press it, and I was -aware of replying only with a vague, repeated, grimacing nod. He was gentleness -itself, and while I wagged my head at him he stood there more than ever a -little fairy prince. It was his brightness indeed that gave me a respite. Would -it be so great if he were really going to tell me? “Well,” he said -at last, “just exactly in order that you should do this.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do what?” -</p> - -<p> -“Think me—for a change—<i>bad!</i>” I shall never -forget the sweetness and gaiety with which he brought out the word, nor how, on -top of it, he bent forward and kissed me. It was practically the end of -everything. I met his kiss and I had to make, while I folded him for a minute -in my arms, the most stupendous effort not to cry. He had given exactly the -account of himself that permitted least of my going behind it, and it was only -with the effect of confirming my acceptance of it that, as I presently glanced -about the room, I could say— -</p> - -<p> -“Then you didn’t undress at all?” -</p> - -<p> -He fairly glittered in the gloom. “Not at all. I sat up and read.” -</p> - -<p> -“And when did you go down?” -</p> - -<p> -“At midnight. When I’m bad I <i>am</i> bad!” -</p> - -<p> -“I see, I see—it’s charming. But how could you be sure I -would know it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I arranged that with Flora.” His answers rang out with a -readiness! “She was to get up and look out.” -</p> - -<p> -“Which is what she did do.” It was I who fell into the trap! -</p> - -<p> -“So she disturbed you, and, to see what she was looking at, you also -looked—you saw.” -</p> - -<p> -“While you,” I concurred, “caught your death in the night -air!” -</p> - -<p> -He literally bloomed so from this exploit that he could afford radiantly to -assent. “How otherwise should I have been bad enough?” he asked. -Then, after another embrace, the incident and our interview closed on my -recognition of all the reserves of goodness that, for his joke, he had been -able to draw upon. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap12"></a>XII</h2> - -<p> -The particular impression I had received proved in the morning light, I repeat, -not quite successfully presentable to Mrs. Grose, though I reinforced it with -the mention of still another remark that he had made before we separated. -“It all lies in half a dozen words,” I said to her, “words -that really settle the matter. ‘Think, you know, what I <i>might</i> -do!’ He threw that off to show me how good he is. He knows down to the -ground what he ‘might’ do. That’s what he gave them a taste -of at school.” -</p> - -<p> -“Lord, you do change!” cried my friend. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t change—I simply make it out. The four, depend upon -it, perpetually meet. If on either of these last nights you had been with -either child, you would clearly have understood. The more I’ve watched -and waited the more I’ve felt that if there were nothing else to make it -sure it would be made so by the systematic silence of each. <i>Never</i>, by a -slip of the tongue, have they so much as alluded to either of their old -friends, any more than Miles has alluded to his expulsion. Oh, yes, we may sit -here and look at them, and they may show off to us there to their fill; but -even while they pretend to be lost in their fairytale they’re steeped in -their vision of the dead restored. He’s not reading to her,” I -declared; “they’re talking of <i>them</i>—they’re -talking horrors! I go on, I know, as if I were crazy; and it’s a wonder -I’m not. What I’ve seen would have made <i>you</i> so; but it has -only made me more lucid, made me get hold of still other things.” -</p> - -<p> -My lucidity must have seemed awful, but the charming creatures who were victims -of it, passing and repassing in their interlocked sweetness, gave my colleague -something to hold on by; and I felt how tight she held as, without stirring in -the breath of my passion, she covered them still with her eyes. “Of what -other things have you got hold?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, of the very things that have delighted, fascinated, and yet, at -bottom, as I now so strangely see, mystified and troubled me. Their more than -earthly beauty, their absolutely unnatural goodness. It’s a game,” -I went on; “it’s a policy and a fraud!” -</p> - -<p> -“On the part of little darlings—?” -</p> - -<p> -“As yet mere lovely babies? Yes, mad as that seems!” The very act -of bringing it out really helped me to trace it—follow it all up and -piece it all together. “They haven’t been good—they’ve -only been absent. It has been easy to live with them, because they’re -simply leading a life of their own. They’re not mine—they’re -not ours. They’re his and they’re hers!” -</p> - -<p> -“Quint’s and that woman’s?” -</p> - -<p> -“Quint’s and that woman’s. They want to get to them.” -</p> - -<p> -Oh, how, at this, poor Mrs. Grose appeared to study them! “But for -what?” -</p> - -<p> -“For the love of all the evil that, in those dreadful days, the pair put -into them. And to ply them with that evil still, to keep up the work of demons, -is what brings the others back.” -</p> - -<p> -“Laws!” said my friend under her breath. The exclamation was -homely, but it revealed a real acceptance of my further proof of what, in the -bad time—for there had been a worse even than this!—must have -occurred. There could have been no such justification for me as the plain -assent of her experience to whatever depth of depravity I found credible in our -brace of scoundrels. It was in obvious submission of memory that she brought -out after a moment: “They <i>were</i> rascals! But what can they now -do?” she pursued. -</p> - -<p> -“Do?” I echoed so loud that Miles and Flora, as they passed at -their distance, paused an instant in their walk and looked at us. -“Don’t they do enough?” I demanded in a lower tone, while the -children, having smiled and nodded and kissed hands to us, resumed their -exhibition. We were held by it a minute; then I answered: “They can -destroy them!” At this my companion did turn, but the inquiry she -launched was a silent one, the effect of which was to make me more explicit. -“They don’t know, as yet, quite how—but they’re trying -hard. They’re seen only across, as it were, and beyond—in strange -places and on high places, the top of towers, the roof of houses, the outside -of windows, the further edge of pools; but there’s a deep design, on -either side, to shorten the distance and overcome the obstacle; and the success -of the tempters is only a question of time. They’ve only to keep to their -suggestions of danger.” -</p> - -<p> -“For the children to come?” -</p> - -<p> -“And perish in the attempt!” Mrs. Grose slowly got up, and I -scrupulously added: “Unless, of course, we can prevent!” -</p> - -<p> -Standing there before me while I kept my seat, she visibly turned things over. -“Their uncle must do the preventing. He must take them away.” -</p> - -<p> -“And who’s to make him?” -</p> - -<p> -She had been scanning the distance, but she now dropped on me a foolish face. -“You, miss.” -</p> - -<p> -“By writing to him that his house is poisoned and his little nephew and -niece mad?” -</p> - -<p> -“But if they <i>are</i>, miss?” -</p> - -<p> -“And if I am myself, you mean? That’s charming news to be sent him -by a governess whose prime undertaking was to give him no worry.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose considered, following the children again. “Yes, he do hate -worry. That was the great reason—” -</p> - -<p> -“Why those fiends took him in so long? No doubt, though his indifference -must have been awful. As I’m not a fiend, at any rate, I shouldn’t -take him in.” -</p> - -<p> -My companion, after an instant and for all answer, sat down again and grasped -my arm. “Make him at any rate come to you.” -</p> - -<p> -I stared. “To <i>me?</i>” I had a sudden fear of what she might do. -“‘Him’?” -</p> - -<p> -“He ought to <i>be</i> here—he ought to help.” -</p> - -<p> -I quickly rose, and I think I must have shown her a queerer face than ever yet. -“You see me asking him for a visit?” No, with her eyes on my face -she evidently couldn’t. Instead of it even—as a woman reads -another—she could see what I myself saw: his derision, his amusement, his -contempt for the breakdown of my resignation at being left alone and for the -fine machinery I had set in motion to attract his attention to my slighted -charms. She didn’t know—no one knew—how proud I had been to -serve him and to stick to our terms; yet she nonetheless took the measure, I -think, of the warning I now gave her. “If you should so lose your head as -to appeal to him for me—” -</p> - -<p> -She was really frightened. “Yes, miss?” -</p> - -<p> -“I would leave, on the spot, both him and you.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap13"></a>XIII</h2> - -<p> -It was all very well to join them, but speaking to them proved quite as much as -ever an effort beyond my strength—offered, in close quarters, -difficulties as insurmountable as before. This situation continued a month, and -with new aggravations and particular notes, the note above all, sharper and -sharper, of the small ironic consciousness on the part of my pupils. It was -not, I am as sure today as I was sure then, my mere infernal imagination: it -was absolutely traceable that they were aware of my predicament and that this -strange relation made, in a manner, for a long time, the air in which we moved. -I don’t mean that they had their tongues in their cheeks or did anything -vulgar, for that was not one of their dangers: I do mean, on the other hand, -that the element of the unnamed and untouched became, between us, greater than -any other, and that so much avoidance could not have been so successfully -effected without a great deal of tacit arrangement. It was as if, at moments, -we were perpetually coming into sight of subjects before which we must stop -short, turning suddenly out of alleys that we perceived to be blind, closing -with a little bang that made us look at each other—for, like all bangs, -it was something louder than we had intended—the doors we had -indiscreetly opened. All roads lead to Rome, and there were times when it might -have struck us that almost every branch of study or subject of conversation -skirted forbidden ground. Forbidden ground was the question of the return of -the dead in general and of whatever, in especial, might survive, in memory, of -the friends little children had lost. There were days when I could have sworn -that one of them had, with a small invisible nudge, said to the other: -“She thinks she’ll do it this time—but she -<i>won’t!</i>” To “do it” would have been to indulge -for instance—and for once in a way—in some direct reference to the -lady who had prepared them for my discipline. They had a delightful endless -appetite for passages in my own history, to which I had again and again treated -them; they were in possession of everything that had ever happened to me, had -had, with every circumstance the story of my smallest adventures and of those -of my brothers and sisters and of the cat and the dog at home, as well as many -particulars of the eccentric nature of my father, of the furniture and -arrangement of our house, and of the conversation of the old women of our -village. There were things enough, taking one with another, to chatter about, -if one went very fast and knew by instinct when to go round. They pulled with -an art of their own the strings of my invention and my memory; and nothing else -perhaps, when I thought of such occasions afterward, gave me so the suspicion -of being watched from under cover. It was in any case over <i>my</i> life, -<i>my</i> past, and <i>my</i> friends alone that we could take anything like -our ease—a state of affairs that led them sometimes without the least -pertinence to break out into sociable reminders. I was invited—with no -visible connection—to repeat afresh Goody Gosling’s celebrated -<i>mot</i> or to confirm the details already supplied as to the cleverness of -the vicarage pony. -</p> - -<p> -It was partly at such junctures as these and partly at quite different ones -that, with the turn my matters had now taken, my predicament, as I have called -it, grew most sensible. The fact that the days passed for me without another -encounter ought, it would have appeared, to have done something toward soothing -my nerves. Since the light brush, that second night on the upper landing, of -the presence of a woman at the foot of the stair, I had seen nothing, whether -in or out of the house, that one had better not have seen. There was many a -corner round which I expected to come upon Quint, and many a situation that, in -a merely sinister way, would have favored the appearance of Miss Jessel. The -summer had turned, the summer had gone; the autumn had dropped upon Bly and had -blown out half our lights. The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, -its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the -performance—all strewn with crumpled playbills. There were exactly states -of the air, conditions of sound and of stillness, unspeakable impressions of -the <i>kind</i> of ministering moment, that brought back to me, long enough to -catch it, the feeling of the medium in which, that June evening out of doors, I -had had my first sight of Quint, and in which, too, at those other instants, I -had, after seeing him through the window, looked for him in vain in the circle -of shrubbery. I recognized the signs, the portents—I recognized the -moment, the spot. But they remained unaccompanied and empty, and I continued -unmolested; if unmolested one could call a young woman whose sensibility had, -in the most extraordinary fashion, not declined but deepened. I had said in my -talk with Mrs. Grose on that horrid scene of Flora’s by the -lake—and had perplexed her by so saying—that it would from that -moment distress me much more to lose my power than to keep it. I had then -expressed what was vividly in my mind: the truth that, whether the children -really saw or not—since, that is, it was not yet definitely -proved—I greatly preferred, as a safeguard, the fullness of my own -exposure. I was ready to know the very worst that was to be known. What I had -then had an ugly glimpse of was that my eyes might be sealed just while theirs -were most opened. Well, my eyes <i>were</i> sealed, it appeared, at -present—a consummation for which it seemed blasphemous not to thank God. -There was, alas, a difficulty about that: I would have thanked him with all my -soul had I not had in a proportionate measure this conviction of the secret of -my pupils. -</p> - -<p> -How can I retrace today the strange steps of my obsession? There were times of -our being together when I would have been ready to swear that, literally, in my -presence, but with my direct sense of it closed, they had visitors who were -known and were welcome. Then it was that, had I not been deterred by the very -chance that such an injury might prove greater than the injury to be averted, -my exultation would have broken out. “They’re here, they’re -here, you little wretches,” I would have cried, “and you -can’t deny it now!” The little wretches denied it with all the -added volume of their sociability and their tenderness, in just the crystal -depths of which—like the flash of a fish in a stream—the mockery of -their advantage peeped up. The shock, in truth, had sunk into me still deeper -than I knew on the night when, looking out to see either Quint or Miss Jessel -under the stars, I had beheld the boy over whose rest I watched and who had -immediately brought in with him—had straightway, there, turned it on -me—the lovely upward look with which, from the battlements above me, the -hideous apparition of Quint had played. If it was a question of a scare, my -discovery on this occasion had scared me more than any other, and it was in the -condition of nerves produced by it that I made my actual inductions. They -harassed me so that sometimes, at odd moments, I shut myself up audibly to -rehearse—it was at once a fantastic relief and a renewed -despair—the manner in which I might come to the point. I approached it -from one side and the other while, in my room, I flung myself about, but I -always broke down in the monstrous utterance of names. As they died away on my -lips, I said to myself that I should indeed help them to represent something -infamous, if, by pronouncing them, I should violate as rare a little case of -instinctive delicacy as any schoolroom, probably, had ever known. When I said -to myself: “<i>They</i> have the manners to be silent, and you, trusted -as you are, the baseness to speak!” I felt myself crimson and I covered -my face with my hands. After these secret scenes I chattered more than ever, -going on volubly enough till one of our prodigious, palpable hushes -occurred—I can call them nothing else—the strange, dizzy lift or -swim (I try for terms!) into a stillness, a pause of all life, that had nothing -to do with the more or less noise that at the moment we might be engaged in -making and that I could hear through any deepened exhilaration or quickened -recitation or louder strum of the piano. Then it was that the others, the -outsiders, were there. Though they were not angels, they “passed,” -as the French say, causing me, while they stayed, to tremble with the fear of -their addressing to their younger victims some yet more infernal message or -more vivid image than they had thought good enough for myself. -</p> - -<p> -What it was most impossible to get rid of was the cruel idea that, whatever I -had seen, Miles and Flora saw <i>more</i>—things terrible and unguessable -and that sprang from dreadful passages of intercourse in the past. Such things -naturally left on the surface, for the time, a chill which we vociferously -denied that we felt; and we had, all three, with repetition, got into such -splendid training that we went, each time, almost automatically, to mark the -close of the incident, through the very same movements. It was striking of the -children, at all events, to kiss me inveterately with a kind of wild -irrelevance and never to fail—one or the other—of the precious -question that had helped us through many a peril. “When do you think he -<i>will</i> come? Don’t you think we <i>ought</i> to -write?”—there was nothing like that inquiry, we found by -experience, for carrying off an awkwardness. “He” of course was -their uncle in Harley Street; and we lived in much profusion of theory that he -might at any moment arrive to mingle in our circle. It was impossible to have -given less encouragement than he had done to such a doctrine, but if we had not -had the doctrine to fall back upon we should have deprived each other of some -of our finest exhibitions. He never wrote to them—that may have been -selfish, but it was a part of the flattery of his trust of me; for the way in -which a man pays his highest tribute to a woman is apt to be but by the more -festal celebration of one of the sacred laws of his comfort; and I held that I -carried out the spirit of the pledge given not to appeal to him when I let my -charges understand that their own letters were but charming literary exercises. -They were too beautiful to be posted; I kept them myself; I have them all to -this hour. This was a rule indeed which only added to the satiric effect of my -being plied with the supposition that he might at any moment be among us. It -was exactly as if my charges knew how almost more awkward than anything else -that might be for me. There appears to me, moreover, as I look back, no note in -all this more extraordinary than the mere fact that, in spite of my tension and -of their triumph, I never lost patience with them. Adorable they must in truth -have been, I now reflect, that I didn’t in these days hate them! Would -exasperation, however, if relief had longer been postponed, finally have -betrayed me? It little matters, for relief arrived. I call it relief, though it -was only the relief that a snap brings to a strain or the burst of a -thunderstorm to a day of suffocation. It was at least change, and it came with -a rush. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap14"></a>XIV</h2> - -<p> -Walking to church a certain Sunday morning, I had little Miles at my side and -his sister, in advance of us and at Mrs. Grose’s, well in sight. It was a -crisp, clear day, the first of its order for some time; the night had brought a -touch of frost, and the autumn air, bright and sharp, made the church bells -almost gay. It was an odd accident of thought that I should have happened at -such a moment to be particularly and very gratefully struck with the obedience -of my little charges. Why did they never resent my inexorable, my perpetual -society? Something or other had brought nearer home to me that I had all but -pinned the boy to my shawl and that, in the way our companions were marshaled -before me, I might have appeared to provide against some danger of rebellion. I -was like a gaoler with an eye to possible surprises and escapes. But all this -belonged—I mean their magnificent little surrender—just to the -special array of the facts that were most abysmal. Turned out for Sunday by his -uncle’s tailor, who had had a free hand and a notion of pretty waistcoats -and of his grand little air, Miles’s whole title to independence, the -rights of his sex and situation, were so stamped upon him that if he had -suddenly struck for freedom I should have had nothing to say. I was by the -strangest of chances wondering how I should meet him when the revolution -unmistakably occurred. I call it a revolution because I now see how, with the -word he spoke, the curtain rose on the last act of my dreadful drama, and the -catastrophe was precipitated. “Look here, my dear, you know,” he -charmingly said, “when in the world, please, am I going back to -school?” -</p> - -<p> -Transcribed here the speech sounds harmless enough, particularly as uttered in -the sweet, high, casual pipe with which, at all interlocutors, but above all at -his eternal governess, he threw off intonations as if he were tossing roses. -There was something in them that always made one “catch,” and I -caught, at any rate, now so effectually that I stopped as short as if one of -the trees of the park had fallen across the road. There was something new, on -the spot, between us, and he was perfectly aware that I recognized it, though, -to enable me to do so, he had no need to look a whit less candid and charming -than usual. I could feel in him how he already, from my at first finding -nothing to reply, perceived the advantage he had gained. I was so slow to find -anything that he had plenty of time, after a minute, to continue with his -suggestive but inconclusive smile: “You know, my dear, that for a fellow -to be with a lady <i>always</i>—!” His “my dear” was -constantly on his lips for me, and nothing could have expressed more the exact -shade of the sentiment with which I desired to inspire my pupils than its fond -familiarity. It was so respectfully easy. -</p> - -<p> -But, oh, how I felt that at present I must pick my own phrases! I remember -that, to gain time, I tried to laugh, and I seemed to see in the beautiful face -with which he watched me how ugly and queer I looked. “And always with -the same lady?” I returned. -</p> - -<p> -He neither blanched nor winked. The whole thing was virtually out between us. -“Ah, of course, she’s a jolly, ‘perfect’ lady; but, -after all, I’m a fellow, don’t you see? that’s—well, -getting on.” -</p> - -<p> -I lingered there with him an instant ever so kindly. “Yes, you’re -getting on.” Oh, but I felt helpless! -</p> - -<p> -I have kept to this day the heartbreaking little idea of how he seemed to know -that and to play with it. “And you can’t say I’ve not been -awfully good, can you?” -</p> - -<p> -I laid my hand on his shoulder, for, though I felt how much better it would -have been to walk on, I was not yet quite able. “No, I can’t say -that, Miles.” -</p> - -<p> -“Except just that one night, you know—!” -</p> - -<p> -“That one night?” I couldn’t look as straight as he. -</p> - -<p> -“Why, when I went down—went out of the house.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes. But I forget what you did it for.” -</p> - -<p> -“You forget?”—he spoke with the sweet extravagance of -childish reproach. “Why, it was to show you I could!” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes, you could.” -</p> - -<p> -“And I can again.” -</p> - -<p> -I felt that I might, perhaps, after all, succeed in keeping my wits about me. -“Certainly. But you won’t.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, not <i>that</i> again. It was nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -“It was nothing,” I said. “But we must go on.” -</p> - -<p> -He resumed our walk with me, passing his hand into my arm. “Then when -<i>am</i> I going back?” -</p> - -<p> -I wore, in turning it over, my most responsible air. “Were you very happy -at school?” -</p> - -<p> -He just considered. “Oh, I’m happy enough anywhere!” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, then,” I quavered, “if you’re just as happy -here—!” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, but that isn’t everything! Of course <i>you</i> know a -lot—” -</p> - -<p> -“But you hint that you know almost as much?” I risked as he paused. -</p> - -<p> -“Not half I want to!” Miles honestly professed. “But it -isn’t so much that.” -</p> - -<p> -“What is it, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well—I want to see more life.” -</p> - -<p> -“I see; I see.” We had arrived within sight of the church and of -various persons, including several of the household of Bly, on their way to it -and clustered about the door to see us go in. I quickened our step; I wanted to -get there before the question between us opened up much further; I reflected -hungrily that, for more than an hour, he would have to be silent; and I thought -with envy of the comparative dusk of the pew and of the almost spiritual help -of the hassock on which I might bend my knees. I seemed literally to be running -a race with some confusion to which he was about to reduce me, but I felt that -he had got in first when, before we had even entered the churchyard, he threw -out— -</p> - -<p> -“I want my own sort!” -</p> - -<p> -It literally made me bound forward. “There are not many of your own sort, -Miles!” I laughed. “Unless perhaps dear little Flora!” -</p> - -<p> -“You really compare me to a baby girl?” -</p> - -<p> -This found me singularly weak. “Don’t you, then, <i>love</i> our -sweet Flora?” -</p> - -<p> -“If I didn’t—and you, too; if I didn’t—!” -he repeated as if retreating for a jump, yet leaving his thought so unfinished -that, after we had come into the gate, another stop, which he imposed on me by -the pressure of his arm, had become inevitable. Mrs. Grose and Flora had passed -into the church, the other worshippers had followed, and we were, for the -minute, alone among the old, thick graves. We had paused, on the path from the -gate, by a low, oblong, tablelike tomb. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, if you didn’t—?” -</p> - -<p> -He looked, while I waited, at the graves. “Well, you know what!” -But he didn’t move, and he presently produced something that made me drop -straight down on the stone slab, as if suddenly to rest. “Does my uncle -think what <i>you</i> think?” -</p> - -<p> -I markedly rested. “How do you know what I think?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, well, of course I don’t; for it strikes me you never tell me. -But I mean does <i>he</i> know?” -</p> - -<p> -“Know what, Miles?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, the way I’m going on.” -</p> - -<p> -I perceived quickly enough that I could make, to this inquiry, no answer that -would not involve something of a sacrifice of my employer. Yet it appeared to -me that we were all, at Bly, sufficiently sacrificed to make that venial. -“I don’t think your uncle much cares.” -</p> - -<p> -Miles, on this, stood looking at me. “Then don’t you think he can -be made to?” -</p> - -<p> -“In what way?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, by his coming down.” -</p> - -<p> -“But who’ll get him to come down?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>I</i> will!” the boy said with extraordinary brightness and -emphasis. He gave me another look charged with that expression and then marched -off alone into church. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap15"></a>XV</h2> - -<p> -The business was practically settled from the moment I never followed him. It -was a pitiful surrender to agitation, but my being aware of this had somehow no -power to restore me. I only sat there on my tomb and read into what my little -friend had said to me the fullness of its meaning; by the time I had grasped -the whole of which I had also embraced, for absence, the pretext that I was -ashamed to offer my pupils and the rest of the congregation such an example of -delay. What I said to myself above all was that Miles had got something out of -me and that the proof of it, for him, would be just this awkward collapse. He -had got out of me that there was something I was much afraid of and that he -should probably be able to make use of my fear to gain, for his own purpose, -more freedom. My fear was of having to deal with the intolerable question of -the grounds of his dismissal from school, for that was really but the question -of the horrors gathered behind. That his uncle should arrive to treat with me -of these things was a solution that, strictly speaking, I ought now to have -desired to bring on; but I could so little face the ugliness and the pain of it -that I simply procrastinated and lived from hand to mouth. The boy, to my deep -discomposure, was immensely in the right, was in a position to say to me: -“Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of this interruption of -my studies, or you cease to expect me to lead with you a life that’s so -unnatural for a boy.” What was so unnatural for the particular boy I was -concerned with was this sudden revelation of a consciousness and a plan. -</p> - -<p> -That was what really overcame me, what prevented my going in. I walked round -the church, hesitating, hovering; I reflected that I had already, with him, -hurt myself beyond repair. Therefore I could patch up nothing, and it was too -extreme an effort to squeeze beside him into the pew: he would be so much more -sure than ever to pass his arm into mine and make me sit there for an hour in -close, silent contact with his commentary on our talk. For the first minute -since his arrival I wanted to get away from him. As I paused beneath the high -east window and listened to the sounds of worship, I was taken with an impulse -that might master me, I felt, completely should I give it the least -encouragement. I might easily put an end to my predicament by getting away -altogether. Here was my chance; there was no one to stop me; I could give the -whole thing up—turn my back and retreat. It was only a question of -hurrying again, for a few preparations, to the house which the attendance at -church of so many of the servants would practically have left unoccupied. No -one, in short, could blame me if I should just drive desperately off. What was -it to get away if I got away only till dinner? That would be in a couple of -hours, at the end of which—I had the acute prevision—my little -pupils would play at innocent wonder about my nonappearance in their train. -</p> - -<p> -“What <i>did</i> you do, you naughty, bad thing? Why in the world, to -worry us so—and take our thoughts off, too, don’t you -know?—did you desert us at the very door?” I couldn’t meet -such questions nor, as they asked them, their false little lovely eyes; yet it -was all so exactly what I should have to meet that, as the prospect grew sharp -to me, I at last let myself go. -</p> - -<p> -I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away; I came straight out -of the churchyard and, thinking hard, retraced my steps through the park. It -seemed to me that by the time I reached the house I had made up my mind I would -fly. The Sunday stillness both of the approaches and of the interior, in which -I met no one, fairly excited me with a sense of opportunity. Were I to get off -quickly, this way, I should get off without a scene, without a word. My -quickness would have to be remarkable, however, and the question of a -conveyance was the great one to settle. Tormented, in the hall, with -difficulties and obstacles, I remember sinking down at the foot of the -staircase—suddenly collapsing there on the lowest step and then, with a -revulsion, recalling that it was exactly where more than a month before, in the -darkness of night and just so bowed with evil things, I had seen the specter of -the most horrible of women. At this I was able to straighten myself; I went the -rest of the way up; I made, in my bewilderment, for the schoolroom, where there -were objects belonging to me that I should have to take. But I opened the door -to find again, in a flash, my eyes unsealed. In the presence of what I saw I -reeled straight back upon my resistance. -</p> - -<p> -Seated at my own table in clear noonday light I saw a person whom, without my -previous experience, I should have taken at the first blush for some housemaid -who might have stayed at home to look after the place and who, availing herself -of rare relief from observation and of the schoolroom table and my pens, ink, -and paper, had applied herself to the considerable effort of a letter to her -sweetheart. There was an effort in the way that, while her arms rested on the -table, her hands with evident weariness supported her head; but at the moment I -took this in I had already become aware that, in spite of my entrance, her -attitude strangely persisted. Then it was—with the very act of its -announcing itself—that her identity flared up in a change of posture. She -rose, not as if she had heard me, but with an indescribable grand melancholy of -indifference and detachment, and, within a dozen feet of me, stood there as my -vile predecessor. Dishonored and tragic, she was all before me; but even as I -fixed and, for memory, secured it, the awful image passed away. Dark as -midnight in her black dress, her haggard beauty and her unutterable woe, she -had looked at me long enough to appear to say that her right to sit at my table -was as good as mine to sit at hers. While these instants lasted, indeed, I had -the extraordinary chill of feeling that it was I who was the intruder. It was -as a wild protest against it that, actually addressing her—“You -terrible, miserable woman!”—I heard myself break into a sound that, -by the open door, rang through the long passage and the empty house. She looked -at me as if she heard me, but I had recovered myself and cleared the air. There -was nothing in the room the next minute but the sunshine and a sense that I -must stay. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap16"></a>XVI</h2> - -<p> -I had so perfectly expected that the return of my pupils would be marked by a -demonstration that I was freshly upset at having to take into account that they -were dumb about my absence. Instead of gaily denouncing and caressing me, they -made no allusion to my having failed them, and I was left, for the time, on -perceiving that she too said nothing, to study Mrs. Grose’s odd face. I -did this to such purpose that I made sure they had in some way bribed her to -silence; a silence that, however, I would engage to break down on the first -private opportunity. This opportunity came before tea: I secured five minutes -with her in the housekeeper’s room, where, in the twilight, amid a smell -of lately baked bread, but with the place all swept and garnished, I found her -sitting in pained placidity before the fire. So I see her still, so I see her -best: facing the flame from her straight chair in the dusky, shining room, a -large clean image of the “put away”—of drawers closed and -locked and rest without a remedy. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes, they asked me to say nothing; and to please them—so long -as they were there—of course I promised. But what had happened to -you?” -</p> - -<p> -“I only went with you for the walk,” I said. “I had then to -come back to meet a friend.” -</p> - -<p> -She showed her surprise. “A friend—<i>you?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes, I have a couple!” I laughed. “But did the children -give you a reason?” -</p> - -<p> -“For not alluding to your leaving us? Yes; they said you would like it -better. Do you like it better?” -</p> - -<p> -My face had made her rueful. “No, I like it worse!” But after an -instant I added: “Did they say why I should like it better?” -</p> - -<p> -“No; Master Miles only said, ‘We must do nothing but what she -likes!’” -</p> - -<p> -“I wish indeed he would. And what did Flora say?” -</p> - -<p> -“Miss Flora was too sweet. She said, ‘Oh, of course, of -course!’—and I said the same.” -</p> - -<p> -I thought a moment. “You were too sweet, too—I can hear you all. -But nonetheless, between Miles and me, it’s now all out.” -</p> - -<p> -“All out?” My companion stared. “But what, miss?” -</p> - -<p> -“Everything. It doesn’t matter. I’ve made up my mind. I came -home, my dear,” I went on, “for a talk with Miss Jessel.” -</p> - -<p> -I had by this time formed the habit of having Mrs. Grose literally well in hand -in advance of my sounding that note; so that even now, as she bravely blinked -under the signal of my word, I could keep her comparatively firm. “A -talk! Do you mean she spoke?” -</p> - -<p> -“It came to that. I found her, on my return, in the schoolroom.” -</p> - -<p> -“And what did she say?” I can hear the good woman still, and the -candor of her stupefaction. -</p> - -<p> -“That she suffers the torments—!” -</p> - -<p> -It was this, of a truth, that made her, as she filled out my picture, gape. -“Do you mean,” she faltered, “—of the lost?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of the lost. Of the damned. And that’s why, to share -them—” I faltered myself with the horror of it. -</p> - -<p> -But my companion, with less imagination, kept me up. “To share -them—?” -</p> - -<p> -“She wants Flora.” Mrs. Grose might, as I gave it to her, fairly -have fallen away from me had I not been prepared. I still held her there, to -show I was. “As I’ve told you, however, it doesn’t -matter.” -</p> - -<p> -“Because you’ve made up your mind? But to what?” -</p> - -<p> -“To everything.” -</p> - -<p> -“And what do you call ‘everything’?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, sending for their uncle.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, miss, in pity do,” my friend broke out. “ah, but I will, -I <i>will!</i> I see it’s the only way. What’s ‘out,’ -as I told you, with Miles is that if he thinks I’m afraid to—and -has ideas of what he gains by that—he shall see he’s mistaken. Yes, -yes; his uncle shall have it here from me on the spot (and before the boy -himself, if necessary) that if I’m to be reproached with having done -nothing again about more school—” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, miss—” my companion pressed me. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, there’s that awful reason.” -</p> - -<p> -There were now clearly so many of these for my poor colleague that she was -excusable for being vague. “But—a—which?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, the letter from his old place.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll show it to the master?” -</p> - -<p> -“I ought to have done so on the instant.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, no!” said Mrs. Grose with decision. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll put it before him,” I went on inexorably, “that I -can’t undertake to work the question on behalf of a child who has been -expelled—” -</p> - -<p> -“For we’ve never in the least known what!” Mrs. Grose -declared. -</p> - -<p> -“For wickedness. For what else—when he’s so clever and -beautiful and perfect? Is he stupid? Is he untidy? Is he infirm? Is he -ill-natured? He’s exquisite—so it can be only <i>that</i>; and that -would open up the whole thing. After all,” I said, “it’s -their uncle’s fault. If he left here such people—!” -</p> - -<p> -“He didn’t really in the least know them. The fault’s -mine.” She had turned quite pale. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you shan’t suffer,” I answered. -</p> - -<p> -“The children shan’t!” she emphatically returned. -</p> - -<p> -I was silent awhile; we looked at each other. “Then what am I to tell -him?” -</p> - -<p> -“You needn’t tell him anything. <i>I’ll</i> tell him.” -</p> - -<p> -I measured this. “Do you mean you’ll write—?” -Remembering she couldn’t, I caught myself up. “How do you -communicate?” -</p> - -<p> -“I tell the bailiff. <i>He</i> writes.” -</p> - -<p> -“And should you like him to write our story?” -</p> - -<p> -My question had a sarcastic force that I had not fully intended, and it made -her, after a moment, inconsequently break down. The tears were again in her -eyes. “Ah, miss, <i>you</i> write!” -</p> - -<p> -“Well—tonight,” I at last answered; and on this we separated. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap17"></a>XVII</h2> - -<p> -I went so far, in the evening, as to make a beginning. The weather had changed -back, a great wind was abroad, and beneath the lamp, in my room, with Flora at -peace beside me, I sat for a long time before a blank sheet of paper and -listened to the lash of the rain and the batter of the gusts. Finally I went -out, taking a candle; I crossed the passage and listened a minute at -Miles’s door. What, under my endless obsession, I had been impelled to -listen for was some betrayal of his not being at rest, and I presently caught -one, but not in the form I had expected. His voice tinkled out. “I say, -you there—come in.” It was a gaiety in the gloom! -</p> - -<p> -I went in with my light and found him, in bed, very wide awake, but very much -at his ease. “Well, what are <i>you</i> up to?” he asked with a -grace of sociability in which it occurred to me that Mrs. Grose, had she been -present, might have looked in vain for proof that anything was -“out.” -</p> - -<p> -I stood over him with my candle. “How did you know I was there?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, of course I heard you. Did you fancy you made no noise? -You’re like a troop of cavalry!” he beautifully laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“Then you weren’t asleep?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not much! I lie awake and think.” -</p> - -<p> -I had put my candle, designedly, a short way off, and then, as he held out his -friendly old hand to me, had sat down on the edge of his bed. “What is -it,” I asked, “that you think of?” -</p> - -<p> -“What in the world, my dear, but <i>you?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, the pride I take in your appreciation doesn’t insist on that! -I had so far rather you slept.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I think also, you know, of this queer business of ours.” -</p> - -<p> -I marked the coolness of his firm little hand. “Of what queer business, -Miles?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, the way you bring me up. And all the rest!” -</p> - -<p> -I fairly held my breath a minute, and even from my glimmering taper there was -light enough to show how he smiled up at me from his pillow. “What do you -mean by all the rest?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you know, you know!” -</p> - -<p> -I could say nothing for a minute, though I felt, as I held his hand and our -eyes continued to meet, that my silence had all the air of admitting his charge -and that nothing in the whole world of reality was perhaps at that moment so -fabulous as our actual relation. “Certainly you shall go back to -school,” I said, “if it be that that troubles you. But not to the -old place—we must find another, a better. How could I know it did trouble -you, this question, when you never told me so, never spoke of it at all?” -His clear, listening face, framed in its smooth whiteness, made him for the -minute as appealing as some wistful patient in a children’s hospital; and -I would have given, as the resemblance came to me, all I possessed on earth -really to be the nurse or the sister of charity who might have helped to cure -him. Well, even as it was, I perhaps might help! “Do you know -you’ve never said a word to me about your school—I mean the old -one; never mentioned it in any way?” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to wonder; he smiled with the same loveliness. But he clearly gained -time; he waited, he called for guidance. “Haven’t I?” It -wasn’t for <i>me</i> to help him—it was for the thing I had met! -</p> - -<p> -Something in his tone and the expression of his face, as I got this from him, -set my heart aching with such a pang as it had never yet known; so unutterably -touching was it to see his little brain puzzled and his little resources taxed -to play, under the spell laid on him, a part of innocence and consistency. -“No, never—from the hour you came back. You’ve never -mentioned to me one of your masters, one of your comrades, nor the least little -thing that ever happened to you at school. Never, little Miles—no, -never—have you given me an inkling of anything that <i>may</i> have -happened there. Therefore you can fancy how much I’m in the dark. Until -you came out, that way, this morning, you had, since the first hour I saw you, -scarce even made a reference to anything in your previous life. You seemed so -perfectly to accept the present.” It was extraordinary how my absolute -conviction of his secret precocity (or whatever I might call the poison of an -influence that I dared but half to phrase) made him, in spite of the faint -breath of his inward trouble, appear as accessible as an older -person—imposed him almost as an intellectual equal. “I thought you -wanted to go on as you are.” -</p> - -<p> -It struck me that at this he just faintly colored. He gave, at any rate, like a -convalescent slightly fatigued, a languid shake of his head. “I -don’t—I don’t. I want to get away.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re tired of Bly?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, no, I like Bly.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, then—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>you</i> know what a boy wants!” -</p> - -<p> -I felt that I didn’t know so well as Miles, and I took temporary refuge. -“You want to go to your uncle?” -</p> - -<p> -Again, at this, with his sweet ironic face, he made a movement on the pillow. -“Ah, you can’t get off with that!” -</p> - -<p> -I was silent a little, and it was I, now, I think, who changed color. “My -dear, I don’t want to get off!” -</p> - -<p> -“You can’t, even if you do. You can’t, you -can’t!”—he lay beautifully staring. “My uncle must come -down, and you must completely settle things.” -</p> - -<p> -“If we do,” I returned with some spirit, “you may be sure it -will be to take you quite away.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, don’t you understand that that’s exactly what -I’m working for? You’ll have to tell him—about the way -you’ve let it all drop: you’ll have to tell him a tremendous -lot!” -</p> - -<p> -The exultation with which he uttered this helped me somehow, for the instant, -to meet him rather more. “And how much will <i>you</i>, Miles, have to -tell him? There are things he’ll ask you!” -</p> - -<p> -He turned it over. “Very likely. But what things?” -</p> - -<p> -“The things you’ve never told me. To make up his mind what to do -with you. He can’t send you back—” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I don’t want to go back!” he broke in. “I want a -new field.” -</p> - -<p> -He said it with admirable serenity, with positive unimpeachable gaiety; and -doubtless it was that very note that most evoked for me the poignancy, the -unnatural childish tragedy, of his probable reappearance at the end of three -months with all this bravado and still more dishonor. It overwhelmed me now -that I should never be able to bear that, and it made me let myself go. I threw -myself upon him and in the tenderness of my pity I embraced him. “Dear -little Miles, dear little Miles—!” -</p> - -<p> -My face was close to his, and he let me kiss him, simply taking it with -indulgent good humor. “Well, old lady?” -</p> - -<p> -“Is there nothing—nothing at all that you want to tell me?” -</p> - -<p> -He turned off a little, facing round toward the wall and holding up his hand to -look at as one had seen sick children look. “I’ve told you—I -told you this morning.” -</p> - -<p> -Oh, I was sorry for him! “That you just want me not to worry you?” -</p> - -<p> -He looked round at me now, as if in recognition of my understanding him; then -ever so gently, “To let me alone,” he replied. -</p> - -<p> -There was even a singular little dignity in it, something that made me release -him, yet, when I had slowly risen, linger beside him. God knows I never wished -to harass him, but I felt that merely, at this, to turn my back on him was to -abandon or, to put it more truly, to lose him. “I’ve just begun a -letter to your uncle,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, then, finish it!” -</p> - -<p> -I waited a minute. “What happened before?” -</p> - -<p> -He gazed up at me again. “Before what?” -</p> - -<p> -“Before you came back. And before you went away.” -</p> - -<p> -For some time he was silent, but he continued to meet my eyes. “What -happened?” -</p> - -<p> -It made me, the sound of the words, in which it seemed to me that I caught for -the very first time a small faint quaver of consenting consciousness—it -made me drop on my knees beside the bed and seize once more the chance of -possessing him. “Dear little Miles, dear little Miles, if you <i>knew</i> -how I want to help you! It’s only that, it’s nothing but that, and -I’d rather die than give you a pain or do you a wrong—I’d -rather die than hurt a hair of you. Dear little Miles”—oh, I -brought it out now even if I <i>should</i> go too far—“I just want -you to help me to save you!” But I knew in a moment after this that I had -gone too far. The answer to my appeal was instantaneous, but it came in the -form of an extraordinary blast and chill, a gust of frozen air, and a shake of -the room as great as if, in the wild wind, the casement had crashed in. The boy -gave a loud, high shriek, which, lost in the rest of the shock of sound, might -have seemed, indistinctly, though I was so close to him, a note either of -jubilation or of terror. I jumped to my feet again and was conscious of -darkness. So for a moment we remained, while I stared about me and saw that the -drawn curtains were unstirred and the window tight. “Why, the -candle’s out!” I then cried. -</p> - -<p> -“It was I who blew it, dear!” said Miles. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap18"></a>XVIII</h2> - -<p> -The next day, after lessons, Mrs. Grose found a moment to say to me quietly: -“Have you written, miss?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—I’ve written.” But I didn’t add—for -the hour—that my letter, sealed and directed, was still in my pocket. -There would be time enough to send it before the messenger should go to the -village. Meanwhile there had been, on the part of my pupils, no more brilliant, -more exemplary morning. It was exactly as if they had both had at heart to -gloss over any recent little friction. They performed the dizziest feats of -arithmetic, soaring quite out of <i>my</i> feeble range, and perpetrated, in -higher spirits than ever, geographical and historical jokes. It was conspicuous -of course in Miles in particular that he appeared to wish to show how easily he -could let me down. This child, to my memory, really lives in a setting of -beauty and misery that no words can translate; there was a distinction all his -own in every impulse he revealed; never was a small natural creature, to the -uninitiated eye all frankness and freedom, a more ingenious, a more -extraordinary little gentleman. I had perpetually to guard against the wonder -of contemplation into which my initiated view betrayed me; to check the -irrelevant gaze and discouraged sigh in which I constantly both attacked and -renounced the enigma of what such a little gentleman could have done that -deserved a penalty. Say that, by the dark prodigy I knew, the imagination of -all evil <i>had</i> been opened up to him: all the justice within me ached for -the proof that it could ever have flowered into an act. -</p> - -<p> -He had never, at any rate, been such a little gentleman as when, after our -early dinner on this dreadful day, he came round to me and asked if I -shouldn’t like him, for half an hour, to play to me. David playing to -Saul could never have shown a finer sense of the occasion. It was literally a -charming exhibition of tact, of magnanimity, and quite tantamount to his saying -outright: “The true knights we love to read about never push an advantage -too far. I know what you mean now: you mean that—to be let alone yourself -and not followed up—you’ll cease to worry and spy upon me, -won’t keep me so close to you, will let me go and come. Well, I -‘come,’ you see—but I don’t go! There’ll be -plenty of time for that. I do really delight in your society, and I only want -to show you that I contended for a principle.” It may be imagined whether -I resisted this appeal or failed to accompany him again, hand in hand, to the -schoolroom. He sat down at the old piano and played as he had never played; and -if there are those who think he had better have been kicking a football I can -only say that I wholly agree with them. For at the end of a time that under his -influence I had quite ceased to measure, I started up with a strange sense of -having literally slept at my post. It was after luncheon, and by the schoolroom -fire, and yet I hadn’t really, in the least, slept: I had only done -something much worse—I had forgotten. Where, all this time, was Flora? -When I put the question to Miles, he played on a minute before answering and -then could only say: “Why, my dear, how do <i>I</i> -know?”—breaking moreover into a happy laugh which, immediately -after, as if it were a vocal accompaniment, he prolonged into incoherent, -extravagant song. -</p> - -<p> -I went straight to my room, but his sister was not there; then, before going -downstairs, I looked into several others. As she was nowhere about she would -surely be with Mrs. Grose, whom, in the comfort of that theory, I accordingly -proceeded in quest of. I found her where I had found her the evening before, -but she met my quick challenge with blank, scared ignorance. She had only -supposed that, after the repast, I had carried off both the children; as to -which she was quite in her right, for it was the very first time I had allowed -the little girl out of my sight without some special provision. Of course now -indeed she might be with the maids, so that the immediate thing was to look for -her without an air of alarm. This we promptly arranged between us; but when, -ten minutes later and in pursuance of our arrangement, we met in the hall, it -was only to report on either side that after guarded inquiries we had -altogether failed to trace her. For a minute there, apart from observation, we -exchanged mute alarms, and I could feel with what high interest my friend -returned me all those I had from the first given her. -</p> - -<p> -“She’ll be above,” she presently said—“in one of -the rooms you haven’t searched.” -</p> - -<p> -“No; she’s at a distance.” I had made up my mind. “She -has gone out.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose stared. “Without a hat?” -</p> - -<p> -I naturally also looked volumes. “Isn’t that woman always without -one?” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s with <i>her?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s with <i>her!</i>” I declared. “We must find -them.” -</p> - -<p> -My hand was on my friend’s arm, but she failed for the moment, confronted -with such an account of the matter, to respond to my pressure. She communed, on -the contrary, on the spot, with her uneasiness. “And where’s Master -Miles?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>he’s</i> with Quint. They’re in the -schoolroom.” -</p> - -<p> -“Lord, miss!” My view, I was myself aware—and therefore I -suppose my tone—had never yet reached so calm an assurance. -</p> - -<p> -“The trick’s played,” I went on; “they’ve -successfully worked their plan. He found the most divine little way to keep me -quiet while she went off.” -</p> - -<p> -“‘Divine’?” Mrs. Grose bewilderedly echoed. -</p> - -<p> -“Infernal, then!” I almost cheerfully rejoined. “He has -provided for himself as well. But come!” -</p> - -<p> -She had helplessly gloomed at the upper regions. “You leave -him—?” -</p> - -<p> -“So long with Quint? Yes—I don’t mind that now.” -</p> - -<p> -She always ended, at these moments, by getting possession of my hand, and in -this manner she could at present still stay me. But after gasping an instant at -my sudden resignation, “Because of your letter?” she eagerly -brought out. -</p> - -<p> -I quickly, by way of answer, felt for my letter, drew it forth, held it up, and -then, freeing myself, went and laid it on the great hall table. “Luke -will take it,” I said as I came back. I reached the house door and opened -it; I was already on the steps. -</p> - -<p> -My companion still demurred: the storm of the night and the early morning had -dropped, but the afternoon was damp and gray. I came down to the drive while -she stood in the doorway. “You go with nothing on?” -</p> - -<p> -“What do I care when the child has nothing? I can’t wait to -dress,” I cried, “and if you must do so, I leave you. Try -meanwhile, yourself, upstairs.” -</p> - -<p> -“With <i>them?</i>” Oh, on this, the poor woman promptly joined me! -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap19"></a>XIX</h2> - -<p> -We went straight to the lake, as it was called at Bly, and I daresay rightly -called, though I reflect that it may in fact have been a sheet of water less -remarkable than it appeared to my untraveled eyes. My acquaintance with sheets -of water was small, and the pool of Bly, at all events on the few occasions of -my consenting, under the protection of my pupils, to affront its surface in the -old flat-bottomed boat moored there for our use, had impressed me both with its -extent and its agitation. The usual place of embarkation was half a mile from -the house, but I had an intimate conviction that, wherever Flora might be, she -was not near home. She had not given me the slip for any small adventure, and, -since the day of the very great one that I had shared with her by the pond, I -had been aware, in our walks, of the quarter to which she most inclined. This -was why I had now given to Mrs. Grose’s steps so marked a -direction—a direction that made her, when she perceived it, oppose a -resistance that showed me she was freshly mystified. “You’re going -to the water, Miss?—you think she’s <i>in</i>—?” -</p> - -<p> -“She may be, though the depth is, I believe, nowhere very great. But what -I judge most likely is that she’s on the spot from which, the other day, -we saw together what I told you.” -</p> - -<p> -“When she pretended not to see—?” -</p> - -<p> -“With that astounding self-possession? I’ve always been sure she -wanted to go back alone. And now her brother has managed it for her.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose still stood where she had stopped. “You suppose they really -<i>talk</i> of them?” -</p> - -<p> -“I could meet this with a confidence! They say things that, if we heard -them, would simply appall us.” -</p> - -<p> -“And if she <i>is</i> there—” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes?” -</p> - -<p> -“Then Miss Jessel is?” -</p> - -<p> -“Beyond a doubt. You shall see.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, thank you!” my friend cried, planted so firm that, taking it -in, I went straight on without her. By the time I reached the pool, however, -she was close behind me, and I knew that, whatever, to her apprehension, might -befall me, the exposure of my society struck her as her least danger. She -exhaled a moan of relief as we at last came in sight of the greater part of the -water without a sight of the child. There was no trace of Flora on that nearer -side of the bank where my observation of her had been most startling, and none -on the opposite edge, where, save for a margin of some twenty yards, a thick -copse came down to the water. The pond, oblong in shape, had a width so scant -compared to its length that, with its ends out of view, it might have been -taken for a scant river. We looked at the empty expanse, and then I felt the -suggestion of my friend’s eyes. I knew what she meant and I replied with -a negative headshake. -</p> - -<p> -“No, no; wait! She has taken the boat.” -</p> - -<p> -My companion stared at the vacant mooring place and then again across the lake. -“Then where is it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Our not seeing it is the strongest of proofs. She has used it to go -over, and then has managed to hide it.” -</p> - -<p> -“All alone—that child?” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s not alone, and at such times she’s not a child: -she’s an old, old woman.” I scanned all the visible shore while -Mrs. Grose took again, into the queer element I offered her, one of her plunges -of submission; then I pointed out that the boat might perfectly be in a small -refuge formed by one of the recesses of the pool, an indentation masked, for -the hither side, by a projection of the bank and by a clump of trees growing -close to the water. -</p> - -<p> -“But if the boat’s there, where on earth’s <i>she?</i>” -my colleague anxiously asked. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s exactly what we must learn.” And I started to walk -further. -</p> - -<p> -“By going all the way round?” -</p> - -<p> -“Certainly, far as it is. It will take us but ten minutes, but it’s -far enough to have made the child prefer not to walk. She went straight -over.” -</p> - -<p> -“Laws!” cried my friend again; the chain of my logic was ever too -much for her. It dragged her at my heels even now, and when we had got halfway -round—a devious, tiresome process, on ground much broken and by a path -choked with overgrowth—I paused to give her breath. I sustained her with -a grateful arm, assuring her that she might hugely help me; and this started us -afresh, so that in the course of but few minutes more we reached a point from -which we found the boat to be where I had supposed it. It had been -intentionally left as much as possible out of sight and was tied to one of the -stakes of a fence that came, just there, down to the brink and that had been an -assistance to disembarking. I recognized, as I looked at the pair of short, -thick oars, quite safely drawn up, the prodigious character of the feat for a -little girl; but I had lived, by this time, too long among wonders and had -panted to too many livelier measures. There was a gate in the fence, through -which we passed, and that brought us, after a trifling interval, more into the -open. Then, “There she is!” we both exclaimed at once. -</p> - -<p> -Flora, a short way off, stood before us on the grass and smiled as if her -performance was now complete. The next thing she did, however, was to stoop -straight down and pluck—quite as if it were all she was there for—a -big, ugly spray of withered fern. I instantly became sure she had just come out -of the copse. She waited for us, not herself taking a step, and I was conscious -of the rare solemnity with which we presently approached her. She smiled and -smiled, and we met; but it was all done in a silence by this time flagrantly -ominous. Mrs. Grose was the first to break the spell: she threw herself on her -knees and, drawing the child to her breast, clasped in a long embrace the -little tender, yielding body. While this dumb convulsion lasted I could only -watch it—which I did the more intently when I saw Flora’s face peep -at me over our companion’s shoulder. It was serious now—the flicker -had left it; but it strengthened the pang with which I at that moment envied -Mrs. Grose the simplicity of <i>her</i> relation. Still, all this while, -nothing more passed between us save that Flora had let her foolish fern again -drop to the ground. What she and I had virtually said to each other was that -pretexts were useless now. When Mrs. Grose finally got up she kept the -child’s hand, so that the two were still before me; and the singular -reticence of our communion was even more marked in the frank look she launched -me. “I’ll be hanged,” it said, “if <i>I’ll</i> -speak!” -</p> - -<p> -It was Flora who, gazing all over me in candid wonder, was the first. She was -struck with our bareheaded aspect. “Why, where are your things?” -</p> - -<p> -“Where yours are, my dear!” I promptly returned. -</p> - -<p> -She had already got back her gaiety, and appeared to take this as an answer -quite sufficient. “And where’s Miles?” she went on. -</p> - -<p> -There was something in the small valor of it that quite finished me: these -three words from her were, in a flash like the glitter of a drawn blade, the -jostle of the cup that my hand, for weeks and weeks, had held high and full to -the brim that now, even before speaking, I felt overflow in a deluge. -“I’ll tell you if you’ll tell <i>me</i>—” I heard -myself say, then heard the tremor in which it broke. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, what?” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose’s suspense blazed at me, but it was too late now, and I -brought the thing out handsomely. “Where, my pet, is Miss Jessel?” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap20"></a>XX</h2> - -<p> -Just as in the churchyard with Miles, the whole thing was upon us. Much as I -had made of the fact that this name had never once, between us, been sounded, -the quick, smitten glare with which the child’s face now received it -fairly likened my breach of the silence to the smash of a pane of glass. It -added to the interposing cry, as if to stay the blow, that Mrs. Grose, at the -same instant, uttered over my violence—the shriek of a creature scared, -or rather wounded, which, in turn, within a few seconds, was completed by a -gasp of my own. I seized my colleague’s arm. “She’s there, -she’s there!” -</p> - -<p> -Miss Jessel stood before us on the opposite bank exactly as she had stood the -other time, and I remember, strangely, as the first feeling now produced in me, -my thrill of joy at having brought on a proof. She was there, and I was -justified; she was there, and I was neither cruel nor mad. She was there for -poor scared Mrs. Grose, but she was there most for Flora; and no moment of my -monstrous time was perhaps so extraordinary as that in which I consciously -threw out to her—with the sense that, pale and ravenous demon as she was, -she would catch and understand it—an inarticulate message of gratitude. -She rose erect on the spot my friend and I had lately quitted, and there was -not, in all the long reach of her desire, an inch of her evil that fell short. -This first vividness of vision and emotion were things of a few seconds, during -which Mrs. Grose’s dazed blink across to where I pointed struck me as a -sovereign sign that she too at last saw, just as it carried my own eyes -precipitately to the child. The revelation then of the manner in which Flora -was affected startled me, in truth, far more than it would have done to find -her also merely agitated, for direct dismay was of course not what I had -expected. Prepared and on her guard as our pursuit had actually made her, she -would repress every betrayal; and I was therefore shaken, on the spot, by my -first glimpse of the particular one for which I had not allowed. To see her, -without a convulsion of her small pink face, not even feign to glance in the -direction of the prodigy I announced, but only, instead of that, turn at -<i>me</i> an expression of hard, still gravity, an expression absolutely new -and unprecedented and that appeared to read and accuse and judge me—this -was a stroke that somehow converted the little girl herself into the very -presence that could make me quail. I quailed even though my certitude that she -thoroughly saw was never greater than at that instant, and in the immediate -need to defend myself I called it passionately to witness. “She’s -there, you little unhappy thing—there, there, <i>there</i>, and you see -her as well as you see me!” I had said shortly before to Mrs. Grose that -she was not at these times a child, but an old, old woman, and that description -of her could not have been more strikingly confirmed than in the way in which, -for all answer to this, she simply showed me, without a concession, an -admission, of her eyes, a countenance of deeper and deeper, of indeed suddenly -quite fixed, reprobation. I was by this time—if I can put the whole thing -at all together—more appalled at what I may properly call her manner than -at anything else, though it was simultaneously with this that I became aware of -having Mrs. Grose also, and very formidably, to reckon with. My elder -companion, the next moment, at any rate, blotted out everything but her own -flushed face and her loud, shocked protest, a burst of high disapproval. -“What a dreadful turn, to be sure, miss! Where on earth do you see -anything?” -</p> - -<p> -I could only grasp her more quickly yet, for even while she spoke the hideous -plain presence stood undimmed and undaunted. It had already lasted a minute, -and it lasted while I continued, seizing my colleague, quite thrusting her at -it and presenting her to it, to insist with my pointing hand. “You -don’t see her exactly as <i>we</i> see?—you mean to say you -don’t now—<i>now?</i> She’s as big as a blazing fire! Only -look, dearest woman, <i>look</i>—!” She looked, even as I did, and -gave me, with her deep groan of negation, repulsion, compassion—the -mixture with her pity of her relief at her exemption—a sense, touching to -me even then, that she would have backed me up if she could. I might well have -needed that, for with this hard blow of the proof that her eyes were hopelessly -sealed I felt my own situation horribly crumble, I felt—I saw—my -livid predecessor press, from her position, on my defeat, and I was conscious, -more than all, of what I should have from this instant to deal with in the -astounding little attitude of Flora. Into this attitude Mrs. Grose immediately -and violently entered, breaking, even while there pierced through my sense of -ruin a prodigious private triumph, into breathless reassurance. -</p> - -<p> -“She isn’t there, little lady, and nobody’s there—and -you never see nothing, my sweet! How can poor Miss Jessel—when poor Miss -Jessel’s dead and buried? <i>We</i> know, don’t we, -love?”—and she appealed, blundering in, to the child. -“It’s all a mere mistake and a worry and a joke—and -we’ll go home as fast as we can!” -</p> - -<p> -Our companion, on this, had responded with a strange, quick primness of -propriety, and they were again, with Mrs. Grose on her feet, united, as it -were, in pained opposition to me. Flora continued to fix me with her small mask -of reprobation, and even at that minute I prayed God to forgive me for seeming -to see that, as she stood there holding tight to our friend’s dress, her -incomparable childish beauty had suddenly failed, had quite vanished. -I’ve said it already—she was literally, she was hideously, hard; -she had turned common and almost ugly. “I don’t know what you mean. -I see nobody. I see nothing. I never <i>have</i>. I think you’re cruel. I -don’t like you!” Then, after this deliverance, which might have -been that of a vulgarly pert little girl in the street, she hugged Mrs. Grose -more closely and buried in her skirts the dreadful little face. In this -position she produced an almost furious wail. “Take me away, take me -away—oh, take me away from <i>her!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“From <i>me?</i>” I panted. -</p> - -<p> -“From you—from you!” she cried. -</p> - -<p> -Even Mrs. Grose looked across at me dismayed, while I had nothing to do but -communicate again with the figure that, on the opposite bank, without a -movement, as rigidly still as if catching, beyond the interval, our voices, was -as vividly there for my disaster as it was not there for my service. The -wretched child had spoken exactly as if she had got from some outside source -each of her stabbing little words, and I could therefore, in the full despair -of all I had to accept, but sadly shake my head at her. “If I had ever -doubted, all my doubt would at present have gone. I’ve been living with -the miserable truth, and now it has only too much closed round me. Of course -I’ve lost you: I’ve interfered, and you’ve seen—under -<i>her</i> dictation”—with which I faced, over the pool again, our -infernal witness—“the easy and perfect way to meet it. I’ve -done my best, but I’ve lost you. Goodbye.” For Mrs. Grose I had an -imperative, an almost frantic “Go, go!” before which, in infinite -distress, but mutely possessed of the little girl and clearly convinced, in -spite of her blindness, that something awful had occurred and some collapse -engulfed us, she retreated, by the way we had come, as fast as she could move. -</p> - -<p> -Of what first happened when I was left alone I had no subsequent memory. I only -knew that at the end of, I suppose, a quarter of an hour, an odorous dampness -and roughness, chilling and piercing my trouble, had made me understand that I -must have thrown myself, on my face, on the ground and given way to a wildness -of grief. I must have lain there long and cried and sobbed, for when I raised -my head the day was almost done. I got up and looked a moment, through the -twilight, at the gray pool and its blank, haunted edge, and then I took, back -to the house, my dreary and difficult course. When I reached the gate in the -fence the boat, to my surprise, was gone, so that I had a fresh reflection to -make on Flora’s extraordinary command of the situation. She passed that -night, by the most tacit, and I should add, were not the word so grotesque a -false note, the happiest of arrangements, with Mrs. Grose. I saw neither of -them on my return, but, on the other hand, as by an ambiguous compensation, I -saw a great deal of Miles. I saw—I can use no other phrase—so much -of him that it was as if it were more than it had ever been. No evening I had -passed at Bly had the portentous quality of this one; in spite of -which—and in spite also of the deeper depths of consternation that had -opened beneath my feet—there was literally, in the ebbing actual, an -extraordinarily sweet sadness. On reaching the house I had never so much as -looked for the boy; I had simply gone straight to my room to change what I was -wearing and to take in, at a glance, much material testimony to Flora’s -rupture. Her little belongings had all been removed. When later, by the -schoolroom fire, I was served with tea by the usual maid, I indulged, on the -article of my other pupil, in no inquiry whatever. He had his freedom -now—he might have it to the end! Well, he did have it; and it -consisted—in part at least—of his coming in at about eight -o’clock and sitting down with me in silence. On the removal of the tea -things I had blown out the candles and drawn my chair closer: I was conscious -of a mortal coldness and felt as if I should never again be warm. So, when he -appeared, I was sitting in the glow with my thoughts. He paused a moment by the -door as if to look at me; then—as if to share them—came to the -other side of the hearth and sank into a chair. We sat there in absolute -stillness; yet he wanted, I felt, to be with me. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap21"></a>XXI</h2> - -<p> -Before a new day, in my room, had fully broken, my eyes opened to Mrs. Grose, -who had come to my bedside with worse news. Flora was so markedly feverish that -an illness was perhaps at hand; she had passed a night of extreme unrest, a -night agitated above all by fears that had for their subject not in the least -her former, but wholly her present, governess. It was not against the possible -re-entrance of Miss Jessel on the scene that she protested—it was -conspicuously and passionately against mine. I was promptly on my feet of -course, and with an immense deal to ask; the more that my friend had -discernibly now girded her loins to meet me once more. This I felt as soon as I -had put to her the question of her sense of the child’s sincerity as -against my own. “She persists in denying to you that she saw, or has ever -seen, anything?” -</p> - -<p> -My visitor’s trouble, truly, was great. “Ah, miss, it isn’t a -matter on which I can push her! Yet it isn’t either, I must say, as if I -much needed to. It has made her, every inch of her, quite old.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I see her perfectly from here. She resents, for all the world like -some high little personage, the imputation on her truthfulness and, as it were, -her respectability. ‘Miss Jessel indeed—<i>she!</i>’ Ah, -she’s ‘respectable,’ the chit! The impression she gave me -there yesterday was, I assure you, the very strangest of all; it was quite -beyond any of the others. I <i>did</i> put my foot in it! She’ll never -speak to me again.” -</p> - -<p> -Hideous and obscure as it all was, it held Mrs. Grose briefly silent; then she -granted my point with a frankness which, I made sure, had more behind it. -“I think indeed, miss, she never will. She do have a grand manner about -it!” -</p> - -<p> -“And that manner”—I summed it up—“is practically -what’s the matter with her now!” -</p> - -<p> -Oh, that manner, I could see in my visitor’s face, and not a little else -besides! “She asks me every three minutes if I think you’re coming -in.” -</p> - -<p> -“I see—I see.” I, too, on my side, had so much more than -worked it out. “Has she said to you since yesterday—except to -repudiate her familiarity with anything so dreadful—a single other word -about Miss Jessel?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not one, miss. And of course you know,” my friend added, “I -took it from her, by the lake, that, just then and there at least, there -<i>was</i> nobody.” -</p> - -<p> -“Rather! and, naturally, you take it from her still.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t contradict her. What else can I do?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing in the world! You’ve the cleverest little person to deal -with. They’ve made them—their two friends, I mean—still -cleverer even than nature did; for it was wondrous material to play on! Flora -has now her grievance, and she’ll work it to the end.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, miss; but to <i>what</i> end?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, that of dealing with me to her uncle. She’ll make me out to -him the lowest creature—!” -</p> - -<p> -I winced at the fair show of the scene in Mrs. Grose’s face; she looked -for a minute as if she sharply saw them together. “And him who thinks so -well of you!” -</p> - -<p> -“He has an odd way—it comes over me now,” I laughed, -“—of proving it! But that doesn’t matter. What Flora wants, -of course, is to get rid of me.” -</p> - -<p> -My companion bravely concurred. “Never again to so much as look at -you.” -</p> - -<p> -“So that what you’ve come to me now for,” I asked, “is -to speed me on my way?” Before she had time to reply, however, I had her -in check. “I’ve a better idea—the result of my reflections. -My going <i>would</i> seem the right thing, and on Sunday I was terribly near -it. Yet that won’t do. It’s <i>you</i> who must go. You must take -Flora.” -</p> - -<p> -My visitor, at this, did speculate. “But where in the -world—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Away from here. Away from <i>them</i>. Away, even most of all, now, from -me. Straight to her uncle.” -</p> - -<p> -“Only to tell on you—?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, not ‘only’! To leave me, in addition, with my -remedy.” -</p> - -<p> -She was still vague. “And what <i>is</i> your remedy?” -</p> - -<p> -“Your loyalty, to begin with. And then Miles’s.” -</p> - -<p> -She looked at me hard. “Do you think he—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Won’t, if he has the chance, turn on me? Yes, I venture still to -think it. At all events, I want to try. Get off with his sister as soon as -possible and leave me with him alone.” I was amazed, myself, at the -spirit I had still in reserve, and therefore perhaps a trifle the more -disconcerted at the way in which, in spite of this fine example of it, she -hesitated. “There’s one thing, of course,” I went on: -“they mustn’t, before she goes, see each other for three -seconds.” Then it came over me that, in spite of Flora’s presumable -sequestration from the instant of her return from the pool, it might already be -too late. “Do you mean,” I anxiously asked, “that they -<i>have</i> met?” -</p> - -<p> -At this she quite flushed. “Ah, miss, I’m not such a fool as that! -If I’ve been obliged to leave her three or four times, it has been each -time with one of the maids, and at present, though she’s alone, -she’s locked in safe. And yet—and yet!” There were too many -things. -</p> - -<p> -“And yet what?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, are you so sure of the little gentleman?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not sure of anything but <i>you</i>. But I have, since last -evening, a new hope. I think he wants to give me an opening. I do believe -that—poor little exquisite wretch!—he wants to speak. Last evening, -in the firelight and the silence, he sat with me for two hours as if it were -just coming.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Grose looked hard, through the window, at the gray, gathering day. -“And did it come?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, though I waited and waited, I confess it didn’t, and it was -without a breach of the silence or so much as a faint allusion to his -sister’s condition and absence that we at last kissed for good night. All -the same,” I continued, “I can’t, if her uncle sees her, -consent to his seeing her brother without my having given the boy—and -most of all because things have got so bad—a little more time.” -</p> - -<p> -My friend appeared on this ground more reluctant than I could quite understand. -“What do you mean by more time?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, a day or two—really to bring it out. He’ll then be on -<i>my</i> side—of which you see the importance. If nothing comes, I shall -only fail, and you will, at the worst, have helped me by doing, on your arrival -in town, whatever you may have found possible.” So I put it before her, -but she continued for a little so inscrutably embarrassed that I came again to -her aid. “Unless, indeed,” I wound up, “you really want -<i>not</i> to go.” -</p> - -<p> -I could see it, in her face, at last clear itself; she put out her hand to me -as a pledge. “I’ll go—I’ll go. I’ll go this -morning.” -</p> - -<p> -I wanted to be very just. “If you <i>should</i> wish still to wait, I -would engage she shouldn’t see me.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no: it’s the place itself. She must leave it.” She held -me a moment with heavy eyes, then brought out the rest. “Your -idea’s the right one. I myself, miss—” -</p> - -<p> -“Well?” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t stay.” -</p> - -<p> -The look she gave me with it made me jump at possibilities. “You mean -that, since yesterday, you <i>have</i> seen—?” -</p> - -<p> -She shook her head with dignity. “I’ve <i>heard</i>—!” -</p> - -<p> -“Heard?” -</p> - -<p> -“From that child—horrors! There!” she sighed with tragic -relief. “On my honor, miss, she says things—!” But at this -evocation she broke down; she dropped, with a sudden sob, upon my sofa and, as -I had seen her do before, gave way to all the grief of it. -</p> - -<p> -It was quite in another manner that I, for my part, let myself go. “Oh, -thank God!” -</p> - -<p> -She sprang up again at this, drying her eyes with a groan. “‘Thank -God’?” -</p> - -<p> -“It so justifies me!” -</p> - -<p> -“It does that, miss!” -</p> - -<p> -I couldn’t have desired more emphasis, but I just hesitated. -“She’s so horrible?” -</p> - -<p> -I saw my colleague scarce knew how to put it. “Really shocking.” -</p> - -<p> -“And about me?” -</p> - -<p> -“About you, miss—since you must have it. It’s beyond -everything, for a young lady; and I can’t think wherever she must have -picked up—” -</p> - -<p> -“The appalling language she applied to me? I can, then!” I broke in -with a laugh that was doubtless significant enough. -</p> - -<p> -It only, in truth, left my friend still more grave. “Well, perhaps I -ought to also—since I’ve heard some of it before! Yet I can’t -bear it,” the poor woman went on while, with the same movement, she -glanced, on my dressing table, at the face of my watch. “But I must go -back.” -</p> - -<p> -I kept her, however. “Ah, if you can’t bear it—!” -</p> - -<p> -“How can I stop with her, you mean? Why, just <i>for</i> that: to get her -away. Far from this,” she pursued, “far from -<i>them</i>—” -</p> - -<p> -“She may be different? She may be free?” I seized her almost with -joy. “Then, in spite of yesterday, you <i>believe</i>—” -</p> - -<p> -“In such doings?” Her simple description of them required, in the -light of her expression, to be carried no further, and she gave me the whole -thing as she had never done. “I believe.” -</p> - -<p> -Yes, it was a joy, and we were still shoulder to shoulder: if I might continue -sure of that I should care but little what else happened. My support in the -presence of disaster would be the same as it had been in my early need of -confidence, and if my friend would answer for my honesty, I would answer for -all the rest. On the point of taking leave of her, nonetheless, I was to some -extent embarrassed. “There’s one thing, of course—it occurs -to me—to remember. My letter, giving the alarm, will have reached town -before you.” -</p> - -<p> -I now perceived still more how she had been beating about the bush and how -weary at last it had made her. “Your letter won’t have got there. -Your letter never went.” -</p> - -<p> -“What then became of it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Goodness knows! Master Miles—” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean <i>he</i> took it?” I gasped. -</p> - -<p> -She hung fire, but she overcame her reluctance. “I mean that I saw -yesterday, when I came back with Miss Flora, that it wasn’t where you had -put it. Later in the evening I had the chance to question Luke, and he declared -that he had neither noticed nor touched it.” We could only exchange, on -this, one of our deeper mutual soundings, and it was Mrs. Grose who first -brought up the plumb with an almost elated “You see!” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I see that if Miles took it instead he probably will have read it -and destroyed it.” -</p> - -<p> -“And don’t you see anything else?” -</p> - -<p> -I faced her a moment with a sad smile. “It strikes me that by this time -your eyes are open even wider than mine.” -</p> - -<p> -They proved to be so indeed, but she could still blush, almost, to show it. -“I make out now what he must have done at school.” And she gave, in -her simple sharpness, an almost droll disillusioned nod. “He -stole!” -</p> - -<p> -I turned it over—I tried to be more judicial. -“Well—perhaps.” -</p> - -<p> -She looked as if she found me unexpectedly calm. “He stole -<i>letters!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -She couldn’t know my reasons for a calmness after all pretty shallow; so -I showed them off as I might. “I hope then it was to more purpose than in -this case! The note, at any rate, that I put on the table yesterday,” I -pursued, “will have given him so scant an advantage—for it -contained only the bare demand for an interview—that he is already much -ashamed of having gone so far for so little, and that what he had on his mind -last evening was precisely the need of confession.” I seemed to myself, -for the instant, to have mastered it, to see it all. “Leave us, leave -us”—I was already, at the door, hurrying her off. “I’ll -get it out of him. He’ll meet me—he’ll confess. If he -confesses, he’s saved. And if he’s saved—” -</p> - -<p> -“Then <i>you</i> are?” The dear woman kissed me on this, and I took -her farewell. “I’ll save you without him!” she cried as she -went. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap22"></a>XXII</h2> - -<p> -Yet it was when she had got off—and I missed her on the spot—that -the great pinch really came. If I had counted on what it would give me to find -myself alone with Miles, I speedily perceived, at least, that it would give me -a measure. No hour of my stay in fact was so assailed with apprehensions as -that of my coming down to learn that the carriage containing Mrs. Grose and my -younger pupil had already rolled out of the gates. Now I <i>was</i>, I said to -myself, face to face with the elements, and for much of the rest of the day, -while I fought my weakness, I could consider that I had been supremely rash. It -was a tighter place still than I had yet turned round in; all the more that, -for the first time, I could see in the aspect of others a confused reflection -of the crisis. What had happened naturally caused them all to stare; there was -too little of the explained, throw out whatever we might, in the suddenness of -my colleague’s act. The maids and the men looked blank; the effect of -which on my nerves was an aggravation until I saw the necessity of making it a -positive aid. It was precisely, in short, by just clutching the helm that I -avoided total wreck; and I dare say that, to bear up at all, I became, that -morning, very grand and very dry. I welcomed the consciousness that I was -charged with much to do, and I caused it to be known as well that, left thus to -myself, I was quite remarkably firm. I wandered with that manner, for the next -hour or two, all over the place and looked, I have no doubt, as if I were ready -for any onset. So, for the benefit of whom it might concern, I paraded with a -sick heart. -</p> - -<p> -The person it appeared least to concern proved to be, till dinner, little Miles -himself. My perambulations had given me, meanwhile, no glimpse of him, but they -had tended to make more public the change taking place in our relation as a -consequence of his having at the piano, the day before, kept me, in -Flora’s interest, so beguiled and befooled. The stamp of publicity had of -course been fully given by her confinement and departure, and the change itself -was now ushered in by our nonobservance of the regular custom of the -schoolroom. He had already disappeared when, on my way down, I pushed open his -door, and I learned below that he had breakfasted—in the presence of a -couple of the maids—with Mrs. Grose and his sister. He had then gone out, -as he said, for a stroll; than which nothing, I reflected, could better have -expressed his frank view of the abrupt transformation of my office. What he -would not permit this office to consist of was yet to be settled: there was a -queer relief, at all events—I mean for myself in especial—in the -renouncement of one pretension. If so much had sprung to the surface, I scarce -put it too strongly in saying that what had perhaps sprung highest was the -absurdity of our prolonging the fiction that I had anything more to teach him. -It sufficiently stuck out that, by tacit little tricks in which even more than -myself he carried out the care for my dignity, I had had to appeal to him to -let me off straining to meet him on the ground of his true capacity. He had at -any rate his freedom now; I was never to touch it again; as I had amply shown, -moreover, when, on his joining me in the schoolroom the previous night, I had -uttered, on the subject of the interval just concluded, neither challenge nor -hint. I had too much, from this moment, my other ideas. Yet when he at last -arrived, the difficulty of applying them, the accumulations of my problem, were -brought straight home to me by the beautiful little presence on which what had -occurred had as yet, for the eye, dropped neither stain nor shadow. -</p> - -<p> -To mark, for the house, the high state I cultivated I decreed that my meals -with the boy should be served, as we called it, downstairs; so that I had been -awaiting him in the ponderous pomp of the room outside of the window of which I -had had from Mrs. Grose, that first scared Sunday, my flash of something it -would scarce have done to call light. Here at present I felt afresh—for I -had felt it again and again—how my equilibrium depended on the success of -my rigid will, the will to shut my eyes as tight as possible to the truth that -what I had to deal with was, revoltingly, against nature. I could only get on -at all by taking “nature” into my confidence and my account, by -treating my monstrous ordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, and -unpleasant, but demanding, after all, for a fair front, only another turn of -the screw of ordinary human virtue. No attempt, nonetheless, could well require -more tact than just this attempt to supply, one’s self, <i>all</i> the -nature. How could I put even a little of that article into a suppression of -reference to what had occurred? How, on the other hand, could I make reference -without a new plunge into the hideous obscure? Well, a sort of answer, after a -time, had come to me, and it was so far confirmed as that I was met, -incontestably, by the quickened vision of what was rare in my little companion. -It was indeed as if he had found even now—as he had so often found at -lessons—still some other delicate way to ease me off. Wasn’t there -light in the fact which, as we shared our solitude, broke out with a specious -glitter it had never yet quite worn?—the fact that (opportunity aiding, -precious opportunity which had now come) it would be preposterous, with a child -so endowed, to forego the help one might wrest from absolute intelligence? What -had his intelligence been given him for but to save him? Mightn’t one, to -reach his mind, risk the stretch of an angular arm over his character? It was -as if, when we were face to face in the dining room, he had literally shown me -the way. The roast mutton was on the table, and I had dispensed with -attendance. Miles, before he sat down, stood a moment with his hands in his -pockets and looked at the joint, on which he seemed on the point of passing -some humorous judgment. But what he presently produced was: “I say, my -dear, is she really very awfully ill?” -</p> - -<p> -“Little Flora? Not so bad but that she’ll presently be better. -London will set her up. Bly had ceased to agree with her. Come here and take -your mutton.” -</p> - -<p> -He alertly obeyed me, carried the plate carefully to his seat, and, when he was -established, went on. “Did Bly disagree with her so terribly -suddenly?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not so suddenly as you might think. One had seen it coming on.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then why didn’t you get her off before?” -</p> - -<p> -“Before what?” -</p> - -<p> -“Before she became too ill to travel.” -</p> - -<p> -I found myself prompt. “She’s <i>not</i> too ill to travel: she -only might have become so if she had stayed. This was just the moment to seize. -The journey will dissipate the influence”—oh, I was -grand!—“and carry it off.” -</p> - -<p> -“I see, I see”—Miles, for that matter, was grand, too. He -settled to his repast with the charming little “table manner” that, -from the day of his arrival, had relieved me of all grossness of admonition. -Whatever he had been driven from school for, it was not for ugly feeding. He -was irreproachable, as always, today; but he was unmistakably more conscious. -He was discernibly trying to take for granted more things than he found, -without assistance, quite easy; and he dropped into peaceful silence while he -felt his situation. Our meal was of the briefest—mine a vain pretense, -and I had the things immediately removed. While this was done Miles stood again -with his hands in his little pockets and his back to me—stood and looked -out of the wide window through which, that other day, I had seen what pulled me -up. We continued silent while the maid was with us—as silent, it -whimsically occurred to me, as some young couple who, on their wedding journey, -at the inn, feel shy in the presence of the waiter. He turned round only when -the waiter had left us. “Well—so we’re alone!” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap23"></a>XXIII</h2> - -<p> -“Oh, more or less.” I fancy my smile was pale. “Not -absolutely. We shouldn’t like that!” I went on. -</p> - -<p> -“No—I suppose we shouldn’t. Of course we have the -others.” -</p> - -<p> -“We have the others—we have indeed the others,” I concurred. -</p> - -<p> -“Yet even though we have them,” he returned, still with his hands -in his pockets and planted there in front of me, “they don’t much -count, do they?” -</p> - -<p> -I made the best of it, but I felt wan. “It depends on what you call -‘much’!” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes”—with all accommodation—“everything -depends!” On this, however, he faced to the window again and presently -reached it with his vague, restless, cogitating step. He remained there awhile, -with his forehead against the glass, in contemplation of the stupid shrubs I -knew and the dull things of November. I had always my hypocrisy of -“work,” behind which, now, I gained the sofa. Steadying myself with -it there as I had repeatedly done at those moments of torment that I have -described as the moments of my knowing the children to be given to something -from which I was barred, I sufficiently obeyed my habit of being prepared for -the worst. But an extraordinary impression dropped on me as I extracted a -meaning from the boy’s embarrassed back—none other than the -impression that I was not barred now. This inference grew in a few minutes to -sharp intensity and seemed bound up with the direct perception that it was -positively <i>he</i> who was. The frames and squares of the great window were a kind -of image, for him, of a kind of failure. I felt that I saw him, at any rate, -shut in or shut out. He was admirable, but not comfortable: I took it in with a -throb of hope. Wasn’t he looking, through the haunted pane, for something -he couldn’t see?—and wasn’t it the first time in the whole -business that he had known such a lapse? The first, the very first: I found it -a splendid portent. It made him anxious, though he watched himself; he had been -anxious all day and, even while in his usual sweet little manner he sat at -table, had needed all his small strange genius to give it a gloss. When he at -last turned round to meet me, it was almost as if this genius had succumbed. -“Well, I think I’m glad Bly agrees with <i>me!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“You would certainly seem to have seen, these twenty-four hours, a good -deal more of it than for some time before. I hope,” I went on bravely, -“that you’ve been enjoying yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes, I’ve been ever so far; all round about—miles and -miles away. I’ve never been so free.” -</p> - -<p> -He had really a manner of his own, and I could only try to keep up with him. -“Well, do you like it?” -</p> - -<p> -He stood there smiling; then at last he put into two words—“Do -<i>you?</i>”—more discrimination than I had ever heard two words -contain. Before I had time to deal with that, however, he continued as if with -the sense that this was an impertinence to be softened. “Nothing could be -more charming than the way you take it, for of course if we’re alone -together now it’s you that are alone most. But I hope,” he threw -in, “you don’t particularly mind!” -</p> - -<p> -“Having to do with you?” I asked. “My dear child, how can I -help minding? Though I’ve renounced all claim to your -company—you’re so beyond me—I at least greatly enjoy it. What -else should I stay on for?” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me more directly, and the expression of his face, graver now, -struck me as the most beautiful I had ever found in it. “You stay on just -for <i>that?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“Certainly. I stay on as your friend and from the tremendous interest I -take in you till something can be done for you that may be more worth your -while. That needn’t surprise you.” My voice trembled so that I felt -it impossible to suppress the shake. “Don’t you remember how I told -you, when I came and sat on your bed the night of the storm, that there was -nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes!” He, on his side, more and more visibly nervous, had a -tone to master; but he was so much more successful than I that, laughing out -through his gravity, he could pretend we were pleasantly jesting. “Only -that, I think, was to get me to do something for <i>you!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“It was partly to get you to do something,” I conceded. “But, -you know, you didn’t do it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes,” he said with the brightest superficial eagerness, -“you wanted me to tell you something.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s it. Out, straight out. What you have on your mind, you -know.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, then, is <i>that</i> what you’ve stayed over for?” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke with a gaiety through which I could still catch the finest little -quiver of resentful passion; but I can’t begin to express the effect upon -me of an implication of surrender even so faint. It was as if what I had -yearned for had come at last only to astonish me. “Well, yes—I may -as well make a clean breast of it, it was precisely for that.” -</p> - -<p> -He waited so long that I supposed it for the purpose of repudiating the -assumption on which my action had been founded; but what he finally said was: -“Do you mean now—here?” -</p> - -<p> -“There couldn’t be a better place or time.” He looked round -him uneasily, and I had the rare—oh, the queer!—impression of the -very first symptom I had seen in him of the approach of immediate fear. It was -as if he were suddenly afraid of me—which struck me indeed as perhaps the -best thing to make him. Yet in the very pang of the effort I felt it vain to -try sternness, and I heard myself the next instant so gentle as to be almost -grotesque. “You want so to go out again?” -</p> - -<p> -“Awfully!” He smiled at me heroically, and the touching little -bravery of it was enhanced by his actually flushing with pain. He had picked up -his hat, which he had brought in, and stood twirling it in a way that gave me, -even as I was just nearly reaching port, a perverse horror of what I was doing. -To do it in <i>any</i> way was an act of violence, for what did it consist of -but the obtrusion of the idea of grossness and guilt on a small helpless -creature who had been for me a revelation of the possibilities of beautiful -intercourse? Wasn’t it base to create for a being so exquisite a mere -alien awkwardness? I suppose I now read into our situation a clearness it -couldn’t have had at the time, for I seem to see our poor eyes already -lighted with some spark of a prevision of the anguish that was to come. So we -circled about, with terrors and scruples, like fighters not daring to close. -But it was for each other we feared! That kept us a little longer suspended and -unbruised. “I’ll tell you everything,” Miles -said—“I mean I’ll tell you anything you like. You’ll -stay on with me, and we shall both be all right, and I <i>will</i> tell -you—I <i>will</i>. But not now.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why not now?” -</p> - -<p> -My insistence turned him from me and kept him once more at his window in a -silence during which, between us, you might have heard a pin drop. Then he was -before me again with the air of a person for whom, outside, someone who had -frankly to be reckoned with was waiting. “I have to see Luke.” -</p> - -<p> -I had not yet reduced him to quite so vulgar a lie, and I felt proportionately -ashamed. But, horrible as it was, his lies made up my truth. I achieved -thoughtfully a few loops of my knitting. “Well, then, go to Luke, and -I’ll wait for what you promise. Only, in return for that, satisfy, before -you leave me, one very much smaller request.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked as if he felt he had succeeded enough to be able still a little to -bargain. “Very much smaller—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, a mere fraction of the whole. Tell me”—oh, my work -preoccupied me, and I was offhand!—“if, yesterday afternoon, from -the table in the hall, you took, you know, my letter.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap24"></a>XXIV</h2> - -<p> -My sense of how he received this suffered for a minute from something that I -can describe only as a fierce split of my attention—a stroke that at -first, as I sprang straight up, reduced me to the mere blind movement of -getting hold of him, drawing him close, and, while I just fell for support -against the nearest piece of furniture, instinctively keeping him with his back -to the window. The appearance was full upon us that I had already had to deal -with here: Peter Quint had come into view like a sentinel before a prison. The -next thing I saw was that, from outside, he had reached the window, and then I -knew that, close to the glass and glaring in through it, he offered once more -to the room his white face of damnation. It represents but grossly what took -place within me at the sight to say that on the second my decision was made; -yet I believe that no woman so overwhelmed ever in so short a time recovered -her grasp of the <i>act</i>. It came to me in the very horror of the immediate -presence that the act would be, seeing and facing what I saw and faced, to keep -the boy himself unaware. The inspiration—I can call it by no other -name—was that I felt how voluntarily, how transcendently, I <i>might</i>. -It was like fighting with a demon for a human soul, and when I had fairly so -appraised it I saw how the human soul—held out, in the tremor of my -hands, at arm’s length—had a perfect dew of sweat on a lovely -childish forehead. The face that was close to mine was as white as the face -against the glass, and out of it presently came a sound, not low nor weak, but -as if from much further away, that I drank like a waft of fragrance. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—I took it.” -</p> - -<p> -At this, with a moan of joy, I enfolded, I drew him close; and while I held him -to my breast, where I could feel in the sudden fever of his little body the -tremendous pulse of his little heart, I kept my eyes on the thing at the window -and saw it move and shift its posture. I have likened it to a sentinel, but its -slow wheel, for a moment, was rather the prowl of a baffled beast. My present -quickened courage, however, was such that, not too much to let it through, I -had to shade, as it were, my flame. Meanwhile the glare of the face was again -at the window, the scoundrel fixed as if to watch and wait. It was the very -confidence that I might now defy him, as well as the positive certitude, by -this time, of the child’s unconsciousness, that made me go on. -“What did you take it for?” -</p> - -<p> -“To see what you said about me.” -</p> - -<p> -“You opened the letter?” -</p> - -<p> -“I opened it.” -</p> - -<p> -My eyes were now, as I held him off a little again, on Miles’s own face, -in which the collapse of mockery showed me how complete was the ravage of -uneasiness. What was prodigious was that at last, by my success, his sense was -sealed and his communication stopped: he knew that he was in presence, but knew -not of what, and knew still less that I also was and that I did know. And what -did this strain of trouble matter when my eyes went back to the window only to -see that the air was clear again and—by my personal triumph—the -influence quenched? There was nothing there. I felt that the cause was mine and -that I should surely get <i>all</i>. “And you found -nothing!”—I let my elation out. -</p> - -<p> -He gave the most mournful, thoughtful little headshake. “Nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing, nothing!” I almost shouted in my joy. -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing, nothing,” he sadly repeated. -</p> - -<p> -I kissed his forehead; it was drenched. “So what have you done with -it?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve burned it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Burned it?” It was now or never. “Is that what you did at -school?” -</p> - -<p> -Oh, what this brought up! “At school?” -</p> - -<p> -“Did you take letters?—or other things?” -</p> - -<p> -“Other things?” He appeared now to be thinking of something far off -and that reached him only through the pressure of his anxiety. Yet it did reach -him. “Did I <i>steal?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -I felt myself redden to the roots of my hair as well as wonder if it were more -strange to put to a gentleman such a question or to see him take it with -allowances that gave the very distance of his fall in the world. “Was it -for that you mightn’t go back?” -</p> - -<p> -The only thing he felt was rather a dreary little surprise. “Did you know -I mightn’t go back?” -</p> - -<p> -“I know everything.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave me at this the longest and strangest look. “Everything?” -</p> - -<p> -“Everything. Therefore <i>did</i> you—?” But I couldn’t -say it again. -</p> - -<p> -Miles could, very simply. “No. I didn’t steal.” -</p> - -<p> -My face must have shown him I believed him utterly; yet my hands—but it -was for pure tenderness—shook him as if to ask him why, if it was all for -nothing, he had condemned me to months of torment. “What then did you -do?” -</p> - -<p> -He looked in vague pain all round the top of the room and drew his breath, two -or three times over, as if with difficulty. He might have been standing at the -bottom of the sea and raising his eyes to some faint green twilight. -“Well—I said things.” -</p> - -<p> -“Only that?” -</p> - -<p> -“They thought it was enough!” -</p> - -<p> -“To turn you out for?” -</p> - -<p> -Never, truly, had a person “turned out” shown so little to explain -it as this little person! He appeared to weigh my question, but in a manner -quite detached and almost helpless. “Well, I suppose I -oughtn’t.” -</p> - -<p> -“But to whom did you say them?” -</p> - -<p> -He evidently tried to remember, but it dropped—he had lost it. “I -don’t know!” -</p> - -<p> -He almost smiled at me in the desolation of his surrender, which was indeed -practically, by this time, so complete that I ought to have left it there. But -I was infatuated—I was blind with victory, though even then the very -effect that was to have brought him so much nearer was already that of added -separation. “Was it to everyone?” I asked. -</p> - -<p> -“No; it was only to—” But he gave a sick little headshake. -“I don’t remember their names.” -</p> - -<p> -“Were they then so many?” -</p> - -<p> -“No—only a few. Those I liked.” -</p> - -<p> -Those he liked? I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker -obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity the -appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent. It was for the instant -confounding and bottomless, for if he <i>were</i> innocent, what then on earth -was <i>I?</i> Paralyzed, while it lasted, by the mere brush of the question, I -let him go a little, so that, with a deep-drawn sigh, he turned away from me -again; which, as he faced toward the clear window, I suffered, feeling that I -had nothing now there to keep him from. “And did they repeat what you -said?” I went on after a moment. -</p> - -<p> -He was soon at some distance from me, still breathing hard and again with the -air, though now without anger for it, of being confined against his will. Once -more, as he had done before, he looked up at the dim day as if, of what had -hitherto sustained him, nothing was left but an unspeakable anxiety. “Oh, -yes,” he nevertheless replied—“they must have repeated them. -To those <i>they</i> liked,” he added. -</p> - -<p> -There was, somehow, less of it than I had expected; but I turned it over. -“And these things came round—?” -</p> - -<p> -“To the masters? Oh, yes!” he answered very simply. “But I -didn’t know they’d tell.” -</p> - -<p> -“The masters? They didn’t—they’ve never told. -That’s why I ask you.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned to me again his little beautiful fevered face. “Yes, it was too -bad.” -</p> - -<p> -“Too bad?” -</p> - -<p> -“What I suppose I sometimes said. To write home.” -</p> - -<p> -I can’t name the exquisite pathos of the contradiction given to such a -speech by such a speaker; I only know that the next instant I heard myself -throw off with homely force: “Stuff and nonsense!” But the next -after that I must have sounded stern enough. “What <i>were</i> these -things?” -</p> - -<p> -My sternness was all for his judge, his executioner; yet it made him avert -himself again, and that movement made <i>me</i>, with a single bound and an -irrepressible cry, spring straight upon him. For there again, against the -glass, as if to blight his confession and stay his answer, was the hideous -author of our woe—the white face of damnation. I felt a sick swim at the -drop of my victory and all the return of my battle, so that the wildness of my -veritable leap only served as a great betrayal. I saw him, from the midst of my -act, meet it with a divination, and on the perception that even now he only -guessed, and that the window was still to his own eyes free, I let the impulse -flame up to convert the climax of his dismay into the very proof of his -liberation. “No more, no more, no more!” I shrieked, as I tried to -press him against me, to my visitant. -</p> - -<p> -“Is she <i>here?</i>” Miles panted as he caught with his sealed -eyes the direction of my words. Then as his strange “she” staggered -me and, with a gasp, I echoed it, “Miss Jessel, Miss Jessel!” he -with a sudden fury gave me back. -</p> - -<p> -I seized, stupefied, his supposition—some sequel to what we had done to -Flora, but this made me only want to show him that it was better still than -that. “It’s not Miss Jessel! But it’s at the -window—straight before us. It’s <i>there</i>—the coward -horror, there for the last time!” -</p> - -<p> -At this, after a second in which his head made the movement of a baffled -dog’s on a scent and then gave a frantic little shake for air and light, -he was at me in a white rage, bewildered, glaring vainly over the place and -missing wholly, though it now, to my sense, filled the room like the taste of -poison, the wide, overwhelming presence. “It’s <i>he?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice to challenge -him. “Whom do you mean by ‘he’?” -</p> - -<p> -“Peter Quint—you devil!” His face gave again, round the room, -its convulsed supplication. “<i>Where?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his tribute to -my devotion. “What does he matter now, my own?—what will he -<i>ever</i> matter? <i>I</i> have you,” I launched at the beast, -“but he has lost you forever!” Then, for the demonstration of my -work, “There, <i>there!</i>” I said to Miles. -</p> - -<p> -But he had already jerked straight round, stared, glared again, and seen but -the quiet day. With the stroke of the loss I was so proud of he uttered the cry -of a creature hurled over an abyss, and the grasp with which I recovered him -might have been that of catching him in his fall. I caught him, yes, I held -him—it may be imagined with what a passion; but at the end of a minute I -began to feel what it truly was that I held. We were alone with the quiet day, -and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TURN OF THE SCREW ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* - - - - - -The text is from the first American appearance in book form. - - -THE TURN OF THE SCREW - - -The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, -but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas -Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, -I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it -was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen -on a child. The case, I may mention, was that of an apparition -in just such an old house as had gathered us for the occasion-- -an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to a little boy sleeping -in the room with his mother and waking her up in the terror of it; -waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him to sleep again, -but to encounter also, herself, before she had succeeded in doing so, -the same sight that had shaken him. It was this observation -that drew from Douglas--not immediately, but later in the evening-- -a reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call attention. -Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which I saw -he was not following. This I took for a sign that he had himself -something to produce and that we should only have to wait. -We waited in fact till two nights later; but that same evening, -before we scattered, he brought out what was in his mind. - -"I quite agree--in regard to Griffin's ghost, or whatever it was-- -that its appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, -adds a particular touch. But it's not the first occurrence -of its charming kind that I know to have involved a child. -If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw, -what do you say to TWO children--?" - -"We say, of course," somebody exclaimed, "that they give two turns! -Also that we want to hear about them." - -I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got up -to present his back, looking down at his interlocutor with his -hands in his pockets. "Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. -It's quite too horrible." This, naturally, was declared by several -voices to give the thing the utmost price, and our friend, -with quiet art, prepared his triumph by turning his eyes -over the rest of us and going on: "It's beyond everything. -Nothing at all that I know touches it." - -"For sheer terror?" I remember asking. - -He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at a loss how to -qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made a little wincing grimace. -"For dreadful--dreadfulness!" - -"Oh, how delicious!" cried one of the women. - -He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead of me, he saw -what he spoke of. "For general uncanny ugliness and horror and pain." - -"Well then," I said, "just sit right down and begin." - -He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log, watched it -an instant. Then as he faced us again: "I can't begin. -I shall have to send to town." There was a unanimous groan -at this, and much reproach; after which, in his preoccupied way, -he explained. "The story's written. It's in a locked drawer-- -it has not been out for years. I could write to my man and -enclose the key; he could send down the packet as he finds it." -It was to me in particular that he appeared to propound this-- -appeared almost to appeal for aid not to hesitate. -He had broken a thickness of ice, the formation of many a winter; -had had his reasons for a long silence. The others resented -postponement, but it was just his scruples that charmed me. -I adjured him to write by the first post and to agree with us -for an early hearing; then I asked him if the experience -in question had been his own. To this his answer was prompt. -"Oh, thank God, no!" - -"And is the record yours? You took the thing down?" - -"Nothing but the impression. I took that HERE"--he tapped his heart. -"I've never lost it." - -"Then your manuscript--?" - -"Is in old, faded ink, and in the most beautiful hand." He hung -fire again. "A woman's. She has been dead these twenty years. -She sent me the pages in question before she died." -They were all listening now, and of course there was somebody -to be arch, or at any rate to draw the inference. But if he put -the inference by without a smile it was also without irritation. -"She was a most charming person, but she was ten years older -than I. She was my sister's governess," he quietly said. -"She was the most agreeable woman I've ever known in her position; -she would have been worthy of any whatever. It was long ago, -and this episode was long before. I was at Trinity, -and I found her at home on my coming down the second summer. -I was much there that year--it was a beautiful one; and we had, -in her off-hours, some strolls and talks in the garden-- -talks in which she struck me as awfully clever and nice. -Oh yes; don't grin: I liked her extremely and am glad to this day -to think she liked me, too. If she hadn't she wouldn't have told me. -She had never told anyone. It wasn't simply that she said so, -but that I knew she hadn't. I was sure; I could see. -You'll easily judge why when you hear." - -"Because the thing had been such a scare?" - -He continued to fix me. "You'll easily judge," he repeated: -"YOU will." - -I fixed him, too. "I see. She was in love." - -He laughed for the first time. "You ARE acute. -Yes, she was in love. That is, she had been. That came out-- -she couldn't tell her story without its coming out. -I saw it, and she saw I saw it; but neither of us spoke of it. -I remember the time and the place--the corner of the lawn, -the shade of the great beeches and the long, hot summer afternoon. -It wasn't a scene for a shudder; but oh--!" He quitted the fire -and dropped back into his chair. - -"You'll receive the packet Thursday morning?" I inquired. - -"Probably not till the second post." - -"Well then; after dinner--" - -"You'll all meet me here?" He looked us round again. "Isn't anybody going?" -It was almost the tone of hope. - -"Everybody will stay!" - -"_I_ will" --and "_I_ will!" cried the ladies whose departure -had been fixed. Mrs. Griffin, however, expressed the need -for a little more light. "Who was it she was in love with?" - -"The story will tell," I took upon myself to reply. - -"Oh, I can't wait for the story!" - -"The story WON'T tell," said Douglas; "not in any literal, vulgar way." - -"More's the pity, then. That's the only way I ever understand." - -"Won't YOU tell, Douglas?" somebody else inquired. - -He sprang to his feet again. "Yes--tomorrow. Now I must go to bed. -Good night." And quickly catching up a candlestick, he left -us slightly bewildered. From our end of the great brown hall -we heard his step on the stair; whereupon Mrs. Griffin spoke. -"Well, if I don't know who she was in love with, I know -who HE was." - -"She was ten years older," said her husband. - -"Raison de plus--at that age! But it's rather nice, -his long reticence." - -"Forty years!" Griffin put in. - -"With this outbreak at last." - -"The outbreak," I returned, "will make a tremendous occasion -of Thursday night;" and everyone so agreed with me that, -in the light of it, we lost all attention for everything else. -The last story, however incomplete and like the mere opening -of a serial, had been told; we handshook and "candlestuck," -as somebody said, and went to bed. - -I knew the next day that a letter containing the key had, -by the first post, gone off to his London apartments; -but in spite of--or perhaps just on account of--the eventual -diffusion of this knowledge we quite let him alone till -after dinner, till such an hour of the evening, in fact, -as might best accord with the kind of emotion on which our -hopes were fixed. Then he became as communicative as we could -desire and indeed gave us his best reason for being so. -We had it from him again before the fire in the hall, -as we had had our mild wonders of the previous night. -It appeared that the narrative he had promised to read us really -required for a proper intelligence a few words of prologue. -Let me say here distinctly, to have done with it, -that this narrative, from an exact transcript of my own made -much later, is what I shall presently give. Poor Douglas, -before his death--when it was in sight--committed to me -the manuscript that reached him on the third of these days -and that, on the same spot, with immense effect, he began -to read to our hushed little circle on the night of the fourth. -The departing ladies who had said they would stay didn't, -of course, thank heaven, stay: they departed, in consequence -of arrangements made, in a rage of curiosity, as they professed, -produced by the touches with which he had already worked us up. -But that only made his little final auditory more compact and select, -kept it, round the hearth, subject to a common thrill. - -The first of these touches conveyed that the written statement -took up the tale at a point after it had, in a manner, begun. -The fact to be in possession of was therefore that his old friend, -the youngest of several daughters of a poor country parson, -had, at the age of twenty, on taking service for the first time -in the schoolroom, come up to London, in trepidation, to answer -in person an advertisement that had already placed her in brief -correspondence with the advertiser. This person proved, on her -presenting herself, for judgment, at a house in Harley Street, -that impressed her as vast and imposing--this prospective -patron proved a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, -such a figure as had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, -before a fluttered, anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage. -One could easily fix his type; it never, happily, dies out. -He was handsome and bold and pleasant, offhand and gay and kind. -He struck her, inevitably, as gallant and splendid, -but what took her most of all and gave her the courage she -afterward showed was that he put the whole thing to her as -a kind of favor, an obligation he should gratefully incur. -She conceived him as rich, but as fearfully extravagant-- -saw him all in a glow of high fashion, of good looks, -of expensive habits, of charming ways with women. -He had for his own town residence a big house filled -with the spoils of travel and the trophies of the chase; -but it was to his country home, an old family place in Essex, -that he wished her immediately to proceed. - -He had been left, by the death of their parents in India, -guardian to a small nephew and a small niece, children of a younger, -a military brother, whom he had lost two years before. -These children were, by the strangest of chances for a man -in his position--a lone man without the right sort of -experience or a grain of patience--very heavily on his hands. -It had all been a great worry and, on his own part doubtless, -a series of blunders, but he immensely pitied the poor chicks -and had done all he could; had in particular sent them -down to his other house, the proper place for them being -of course the country, and kept them there, from the first, -with the best people he could find to look after them, -parting even with his own servants to wait on them and going -down himself, whenever he might, to see how they were doing. -The awkward thing was that they had practically no other -relations and that his own affairs took up all his time. -He had put them in possession of Bly, which was healthy and secure, -and had placed at the head of their little establishment-- -but below stairs only--an excellent woman, Mrs. Grose, -whom he was sure his visitor would like and who had formerly been -maid to his mother. She was now housekeeper and was also acting -for the time as superintendent to the little girl, of whom, -without children of her own, she was, by good luck, extremely fond. -There were plenty of people to help, but of course the young lady -who should go down as governess would be in supreme authority. -She would also have, in holidays, to look after the small boy, -who had been for a term at school--young as he was to be sent, -but what else could be done?--and who, as the holidays were -about to begin, would be back from one day to the other. -There had been for the two children at first a young lady -whom they had had the misfortune to lose. She had done -for them quite beautifully--she was a most respectable person-- -till her death, the great awkwardness of which had, precisely, -left no alternative but the school for little Miles. -Mrs. Grose, since then, in the way of manners and things, -had done as she could for Flora; and there were, further, a cook, -a housemaid, a dairywoman, an old pony, an old groom, -and an old gardener, all likewise thoroughly respectable. - -So far had Douglas presented his picture when someone put a question. -"And what did the former governess die of?--of so much respectability?" - -Our friend's answer was prompt. "That will come out. -I don't anticipate." - -"Excuse me--I thought that was just what you ARE doing." - -"In her successor's place," I suggested, "I should have wished to learn -if the office brought with it--" - -"Necessary danger to life?" Douglas completed my thought. -"She did wish to learn, and she did learn. You shall hear tomorrow -what she learned. Meanwhile, of course, the prospect struck her -as slightly grim. She was young, untried, nervous: it was a vision -of serious duties and little company, of really great loneliness. -She hesitated--took a couple of days to consult and consider. -But the salary offered much exceeded her modest measure, -and on a second interview she faced the music, she engaged." -And Douglas, with this, made a pause that, for the benefit -of the company, moved me to throw in-- - -"The moral of which was of course the seduction exercised by the splendid -young man. She succumbed to it." - -He got up and, as he had done the night before, went to the fire, -gave a stir to a log with his foot, then stood a moment with his back to us. -"She saw him only twice." - -"Yes, but that's just the beauty of her passion." - -A little to my surprise, on this, Douglas turned round to me. -"It WAS the beauty of it. There were others," he went on, -"who hadn't succumbed. He told her frankly all his difficulty-- -that for several applicants the conditions had been prohibitive. -They were, somehow, simply afraid. It sounded dull--it sounded strange; -and all the more so because of his main condition." - -"Which was--?" - -"That she should never trouble him--but never, never: -neither appeal nor complain nor write about anything; -only meet all questions herself, receive all moneys from -his solicitor, take the whole thing over and let him alone. -She promised to do this, and she mentioned to me that when, -for a moment, disburdened, delighted, he held her hand, -thanking her for the sacrifice, she already felt rewarded." - -"But was that all her reward?" one of the ladies asked. - -"She never saw him again." - -"Oh!" said the lady; which, as our friend immediately left us again, -was the only other word of importance contributed to the subject till, -the next night, by the corner of the hearth, in the best chair, -he opened the faded red cover of a thin old-fashioned gilt-edged album. -The whole thing took indeed more nights than one, but on the first occasion -the same lady put another question. "What is your title?" - -"I haven't one." - -"Oh, _I_ have!" I said. But Douglas, without heeding me, -had begun to read with a fine clearness that was like a rendering -to the ear of the beauty of his author's hand. - - - - I - - -I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, -a little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, -to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days-- -found myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. -In this state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, -swinging coach that carried me to the stopping place at which I -was to be met by a vehicle from the house. This convenience, -I was told, had been ordered, and I found, toward the close -of the June afternoon, a commodious fly in waiting for me. -Driving at that hour, on a lovely day, through a country to which -the summer sweetness seemed to offer me a friendly welcome, -my fortitude mounted afresh and, as we turned into the avenue, -encountered a reprieve that was probably but a proof of the point -to which it had sunk. I suppose I had expected, or had dreaded, -something so melancholy that what greeted me was a good surprise. -I remember as a most pleasant impression the broad, clear front, -its open windows and fresh curtains and the pair of maids -looking out; I remember the lawn and the bright flowers and -the crunch of my wheels on the gravel and the clustered treetops -over which the rooks circled and cawed in the golden sky. -The scene had a greatness that made it a different affair from -my own scant home, and there immediately appeared at the door, -with a little girl in her hand, a civil person who dropped me as decent -a curtsy as if I had been the mistress or a distinguished visitor. -I had received in Harley Street a narrower notion of the place, -and that, as I recalled it, made me think the proprietor still -more of a gentleman, suggested that what I was to enjoy might be -something beyond his promise. - -I had no drop again till the next day, for I was carried -triumphantly through the following hours by my introduction -to the younger of my pupils. The little girl who accompanied -Mrs. Grose appeared to me on the spot a creature so charming -as to make it a great fortune to have to do with her. -She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, and I afterward -wondered that my employer had not told me more of her. -I slept little that night--I was too much excited; -and this astonished me, too, I recollect, remained with me, -adding to my sense of the liberality with which I was treated. -The large, impressive room, one of the best in the house, the great -state bed, as I almost felt it, the full, figured draperies, -the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see -myself from head to foot, all struck me--like the extraordinary -charm of my small charge--as so many things thrown in. -It was thrown in as well, from the first moment, that I -should get on with Mrs. Grose in a relation over which, -on my way, in the coach, I fear I had rather brooded. -The only thing indeed that in this early outlook might have -made me shrink again was the clear circumstance of her being -so glad to see me. I perceived within half an hour that she -was so glad--stout, simple, plain, clean, wholesome woman-- -as to be positively on her guard against showing it too much. -I wondered even then a little why she should wish not to show it, -and that, with reflection, with suspicion, might of course -have made me uneasy. - -But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a -connection with anything so beatific as the radiant image of my -little girl, the vision of whose angelic beauty had probably -more than anything else to do with the restlessness that, -before morning, made me several times rise and wander -about my room to take in the whole picture and prospect; -to watch, from my open window, the faint summer dawn, -to look at such portions of the rest of the house as I -could catch, and to listen, while, in the fading dusk, -the first birds began to twitter, for the possible recurrence -of a sound or two, less natural and not without, but within, -that I had fancied I heard. There had been a moment when I -believed I recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child; -there had been another when I found myself just consciously -starting as at the passage, before my door, of a light footstep. -But these fancies were not marked enough not to be thrown off, -and it is only in the light, or the gloom, I should rather say, -of other and subsequent matters that they now come back to me. -To watch, teach, "form" little Flora would too evidently -be the making of a happy and useful life. It had been -agreed between us downstairs that after this first occasion -I should have her as a matter of course at night, her small -white bed being already arranged, to that end, in my room. -What I had undertaken was the whole care of her, and she -had remained, just this last time, with Mrs. Grose only as -an effect of our consideration for my inevitable strangeness -and her natural timidity. In spite of this timidity-- -which the child herself, in the oddest way in the world, -had been perfectly frank and brave about, allowing it, -without a sign of uncomfortable consciousness, with the deep, -sweet serenity indeed of one of Raphael's holy infants, -to be discussed, to be imputed to her, and to determine us-- -I feel quite sure she would presently like me. It was part -of what I already liked Mrs. Grose herself for, the pleasure I -could see her feel in my admiration and wonder as I sat at supper -with four tall candles and with my pupil, in a high chair and -a bib, brightly facing me, between them, over bread and milk. -There were naturally things that in Flora's presence could -pass between us only as prodigious and gratified looks, -obscure and roundabout allusions. - -"And the little boy--does he look like her? Is he too so very remarkable?" - -One wouldn't flatter a child. "Oh, miss, MOST remarkable. -If you think well of this one!"--and she stood there with a plate -in her hand, beaming at our companion, who looked from one of us -to the other with placid heavenly eyes that contained nothing -to check us. - -"Yes; if I do--?" - -"You WILL be carried away by the little gentleman!" - -"Well, that, I think, is what I came for--to be carried away. -I'm afraid, however," I remember feeling the impulse to add, -"I'm rather easily carried away. I was carried away in London!" - -I can still see Mrs. Grose's broad face as she took this in. -"In Harley Street?" - -"In Harley Street." - -"Well, miss, you're not the first--and you won't be the last." - -"Oh, I've no pretension," I could laugh, "to being the only one. -My other pupil, at any rate, as I understand, comes back tomorrow?" - -"Not tomorrow--Friday, miss. He arrives, as you did, by the coach, -under care of the guard, and is to be met by the same carriage." - -I forthwith expressed that the proper as well as the pleasant and -friendly thing would be therefore that on the arrival of the public -conveyance I should be in waiting for him with his little sister; -an idea in which Mrs. Grose concurred so heartily that I somehow -took her manner as a kind of comforting pledge--never falsified, -thank heaven!--that we should on every question be quite at one. -Oh, she was glad I was there! - -What I felt the next day was, I suppose, nothing that could -be fairly called a reaction from the cheer of my arrival; -it was probably at the most only a slight oppression produced -by a fuller measure of the scale, as I walked round them, -gazed up at them, took them in, of my new circumstances. -They had, as it were, an extent and mass for which I had not -been prepared and in the presence of which I found myself, -freshly, a little scared as well as a little proud. -Lessons, in this agitation, certainly suffered some delay; -I reflected that my first duty was, by the gentlest arts I -could contrive, to win the child into the sense of knowing me. -I spent the day with her out-of-doors; I arranged with her, -to her great satisfaction, that it should be she, she only, -who might show me the place. She showed it step by step -and room by room and secret by secret, with droll, delightful, -childish talk about it and with the result, in half an hour, -of our becoming immense friends. Young as she was, I was struck, -throughout our little tour, with her confidence and courage -with the way, in empty chambers and dull corridors, on crooked -staircases that made me pause and even on the summit of an old -machicolated square tower that made me dizzy, her morning music, -her disposition to tell me so many more things than she asked, -rang out and led me on. I have not seen Bly since the day -I left it, and I daresay that to my older and more informed -eyes it would now appear sufficiently contracted. But as my -little conductress, with her hair of gold and her frock of blue, -danced before me round corners and pattered down passages, -I had the view of a castle of romance inhabited by a rosy sprite, -such a place as would somehow, for diversion of the young idea, -take all color out of storybooks and fairytales. -Wasn't it just a storybook over which I had fallen adoze -and adream? No; it was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient house, -embodying a few features of a building still older, half-replaced and -half-utilized, in which I had the fancy of our being almost -as lost as a handful of passengers in a great drifting ship. -Well, I was, strangely, at the helm! - - - - II - - -This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over -with Flora to meet, as Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; -and all the more for an incident that, presenting itself -the second evening, had deeply disconcerted me. -The first day had been, on the whole, as I have expressed, -reassuring; but I was to see it wind up in keen apprehension. -The postbag, that evening--it came late--contained a letter -for me, which, however, in the hand of my employer, -I found to be composed but of a few words enclosing another, -addressed to himself, with a seal still unbroken. "This, I recognize, -is from the headmaster, and the headmaster's an awful bore. -Read him, please; deal with him; but mind you don't report. -Not a word. I'm off!" I broke the seal with a great effort-- -so great a one that I was a long time coming to it; -took the unopened missive at last up to my room and only -attacked it just before going to bed. I had better have let it -wait till morning, for it gave me a second sleepless night. -With no counsel to take, the next day, I was full of distress; -and it finally got so the better of me that I determined -to open myself at least to Mrs. Grose. - -"What does it mean? The child's dismissed his school." - -She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then, visibly, -with a quick blankness, seemed to try to take it back. -"But aren't they all--?" - -"Sent home--yes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never go -back at all." - -Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. "They won't take him?" - -"They absolutely decline." - -At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me; -I saw them fill with good tears. "What has he done?" - -I hesitated; then I judged best simply to hand her my letter-- -which, however, had the effect of making her, without taking it, -simply put her hands behind her. She shook her head sadly. -"Such things are not for me, miss." - -My counselor couldn't read! I winced at my mistake, which I -attenuated as I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it -to her; then, faltering in the act and folding it up once more, -I put it back in my pocket. "Is he really BAD?" - -The tears were still in her eyes. "Do the gentlemen say so?" - -"They go into no particulars. They simply express their regret that it -should be impossible to keep him. That can have only one meaning." -Mrs. Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask me what this -meaning might be; so that, presently, to put the thing with some coherence -and with the mere aid of her presence to my own mind, I went on: -"That he's an injury to the others." - -At this, with one of the quick turns of simple folk, she suddenly flamed up. -"Master Miles! HIM an injury?" - -There was such a flood of good faith in it that, though I had not yet -seen the child, my very fears made me jump to the absurdity of the idea. -I found myself, to meet my friend the better, offering it, -on the spot, sarcastically. "To his poor little innocent mates!" - -"It's too dreadful," cried Mrs. Grose, "to say such cruel things! -Why, he's scarce ten years old." - -"Yes, yes; it would be incredible." - -She was evidently grateful for such a profession. "See him, miss, first. -THEN believe it!" I felt forthwith a new impatience to see him; -it was the beginning of a curiosity that, for all the next hours, -was to deepen almost to pain. Mrs. Grose was aware, I could judge, -of what she had produced in me, and she followed it up with assurance. -"You might as well believe it of the little lady. Bless her," -she added the next moment--"LOOK at her!" - -I turned and saw that Flora, whom, ten minutes before, I had established -in the schoolroom with a sheet of white paper, a pencil, and a copy -of nice "round o's," now presented herself to view at the open door. -She expressed in her little way an extraordinary detachment from -disagreeable duties, looking to me, however, with a great childish light -that seemed to offer it as a mere result of the affection she had conceived -for my person, which had rendered necessary that she should follow me. -I needed nothing more than this to feel the full force of Mrs. Grose's -comparison, and, catching my pupil in my arms, covered her with kisses -in which there was a sob of atonement. - -Nonetheless, the rest of the day I watched for further occasion -to approach my colleague, especially as, toward evening, -I began to fancy she rather sought to avoid me. I overtook her, -I remember, on the staircase; we went down together, and at the -bottom I detained her, holding her there with a hand on her arm. -"I take what you said to me at noon as a declaration that -YOU'VE never known him to be bad." - -She threw back her head; she had clearly, by this time, -and very honestly, adopted an attitude. "Oh, never known him-- -I don't pretend THAT!" - -I was upset again. "Then you HAVE known him--?" - -"Yes indeed, miss, thank God!" - -On reflection I accepted this. "You mean that a boy who never is--?" - -"Is no boy for ME!" - -I held her tighter. "You like them with the spirit to be naughty?" -Then, keeping pace with her answer, "So do I!" I eagerly brought out. -"But not to the degree to contaminate--" - -"To contaminate?"--my big word left her at a loss. -I explained it. "To corrupt." - -She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her an odd laugh. -"Are you afraid he'll corrupt YOU?" She put the question with such a fine -bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, to match her own, -I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule. - -But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped -up in another place. "What was the lady who was here before?" - -"The last governess? She was also young and pretty-- -almost as young and almost as pretty, miss, even as you." - -"Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her!" -I recollect throwing off. "He seems to like us young and pretty!" - -"Oh, he DID," Mrs. Grose assented: "it was the way he liked everyone!" -She had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself up. -"I mean that's HIS way--the master's." - -I was struck. "But of whom did you speak first?" - -She looked blank, but she colored. "Why, of HIM." - -"Of the master?" - -"Of who else?" - -There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I -had lost my impression of her having accidentally said more -than she meant; and I merely asked what I wanted to know. -"Did SHE see anything in the boy--?" - -"That wasn't right? She never told me." - -I had a scruple, but I overcame it. "Was she careful--particular?" - -Mrs. Grose appeared to try to be conscientious. -"About some things--yes." - -"But not about all?" - -Again she considered. "Well, miss--she's gone. -I won't tell tales." - -"I quite understand your feeling," I hastened to reply; but I thought it, -after an instant, not opposed to this concession to pursue: -"Did she die here?" - -"No--she went off." - -I don't know what there was in this brevity of Mrs. Grose's that struck -me as ambiguous. "Went off to die?" Mrs. Grose looked straight -out of the window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right -to know what young persons engaged for Bly were expected to do. -"She was taken ill, you mean, and went home?" - -"She was not taken ill, so far as appeared, in this house. -She left it, at the end of the year, to go home, as she said, -for a short holiday, to which the time she had put in had -certainly given her a right. We had then a young woman-- -a nursemaid who had stayed on and who was a good girl and clever; -and SHE took the children altogether for the interval. -But our young lady never came back, and at the very moment I -was expecting her I heard from the master that she was dead." - -I turned this over. "But of what?" - -"He never told me! But please, miss," said Mrs. Grose, -"I must get to my work." - - - - III - - -Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just -preoccupations, a snub that could check the growth of our mutual esteem. -We met, after I had brought home little Miles, more intimately -than ever on the ground of my stupefaction, my general emotion: -so monstrous was I then ready to pronounce it that such a child -as had now been revealed to me should be under an interdict. -I was a little late on the scene, and I felt, as he stood wistfully -looking out for me before the door of the inn at which the coach had -put him down, that I had seen him, on the instant, without and within, -in the great glow of freshness, the same positive fragrance of purity, -in which I had, from the first moment, seen his little sister. -He was incredibly beautiful, and Mrs. Grose had put her finger on it: -everything but a sort of passion of tenderness for him was swept away -by his presence. What I then and there took him to my heart for was -something divine that I have never found to the same degree in any child-- -his indescribable little air of knowing nothing in the world but love. -It would have been impossible to carry a bad name with a greater -sweetness of innocence, and by the time I had got back to Bly with him -I remained merely bewildered--so far, that is, as I was not outraged-- -by the sense of the horrible letter locked up in my room, in a drawer. -As soon as I could compass a private word with Mrs. Grose I declared -to her that it was grotesque. - -She promptly understood me. "You mean the cruel charge--?" - -"It doesn't live an instant. My dear woman, LOOK at him!" - -She smiled at my pretention to have discovered his charm. -"I assure you, miss, I do nothing else! What will you say, then?" -she immediately added. - -"In answer to the letter?" I had made up my mind. "Nothing." - -"And to his uncle?" - -I was incisive. "Nothing." - -"And to the boy himself?" - -I was wonderful. "Nothing." - -She gave with her apron a great wipe to her mouth. "Then I'll stand by you. -We'll see it out." - -"We'll see it out!" I ardently echoed, giving her my hand to make -it a vow. - -She held me there a moment, then whisked up her apron again with her -detached hand. "Would you mind, miss, if I used the freedom--" - -"To kiss me? No!" I took the good creature in my arms and, after we -had embraced like sisters, felt still more fortified and indignant. - -This, at all events, was for the time: a time so full that, -as I recall the way it went, it reminds me of all the art -I now need to make it a little distinct. What I look -back at with amazement is the situation I accepted. -I had undertaken, with my companion, to see it out, and I was -under a charm, apparently, that could smooth away the extent -and the far and difficult connections of such an effort. -I was lifted aloft on a great wave of infatuation and pity. -I found it simple, in my ignorance, my confusion, and perhaps -my conceit, to assume that I could deal with a boy whose -education for the world was all on the point of beginning. -I am unable even to remember at this day what proposal I framed -for the end of his holidays and the resumption of his studies. -Lessons with me, indeed, that charming summer, we all had -a theory that he was to have; but I now feel that, for weeks, -the lessons must have been rather my own. I learned something-- -at first, certainly--that had not been one of the teachings of -my small, smothered life; learned to be amused, and even amusing, -and not to think for the morrow. It was the first time, -in a manner, that I had known space and air and freedom, -all the music of summer and all the mystery of nature. -And then there was consideration--and consideration was sweet. -Oh, it was a trap--not designed, but deep--to my imagination, -to my delicacy, perhaps to my vanity; to whatever, in me, -was most excitable. The best way to picture it all is to say -that I was off my guard. They gave me so little trouble-- -they were of a gentleness so extraordinary. I used to speculate-- -but even this with a dim disconnectedness--as to how the rough future -(for all futures are rough!) would handle them and might bruise them. -They had the bloom of health and happiness; and yet, -as if I had been in charge of a pair of little grandees, -of princes of the blood, for whom everything, to be right, -would have to be enclosed and protected, the only form that, -in my fancy, the afteryears could take for them was that of -a romantic, a really royal extension of the garden and the park. -It may be, of course, above all, that what suddenly broke -into this gives the previous time a charm of stillness-- -that hush in which something gathers or crouches. -The change was actually like the spring of a beast. - -In the first weeks the days were long; they often, at their finest, -gave me what I used to call my own hour, the hour when, for my pupils, -teatime and bedtime having come and gone, I had, before my final retirement, -a small interval alone. Much as I liked my companions, this hour was -the thing in the day I liked most; and I liked it best of all when, -as the light faded--or rather, I should say, the day lingered and the last -calls of the last birds sounded, in a flushed sky, from the old trees-- -I could take a turn into the grounds and enjoy, almost with a sense -of property that amused and flattered me, the beauty and dignity of -the place. It was a pleasure at these moments to feel myself tranquil -and justified; doubtless, perhaps, also to reflect that by my discretion, -my quiet good sense and general high propriety, I was giving pleasure-- -if he ever thought of it!--to the person to whose pressure I had responded. -What I was doing was what he had earnestly hoped and directly asked of me, -and that I COULD, after all, do it proved even a greater joy than I -had expected. I daresay I fancied myself, in short, a remarkable young -woman and took comfort in the faith that this would more publicly appear. -Well, I needed to be remarkable to offer a front to the remarkable things -that presently gave their first sign. - -It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour: -the children were tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll. -One of the thoughts that, as I don't in the least shrink now -from noting, used to be with me in these wanderings was that it -would be as charming as a charming story suddenly to meet someone. -Someone would appear there at the turn of a path and would stand -before me and smile and approve. I didn't ask more than that-- -I only asked that he should KNOW; and the only way to be sure he knew -would be to see it, and the kind light of it, in his handsome face. -That was exactly present to me--by which I mean the face was-- -when, on the first of these occasions, at the end of a long -June day, I stopped short on emerging from one of the plantations -and coming into view of the house. What arrested me on the spot-- -and with a shock much greater than any vision had allowed for-- -was the sense that my imagination had, in a flash, turned real. -He did stand there!--but high up, beyond the lawn and at the very top of -the tower to which, on that first morning, little Flora had conducted me. -This tower was one of a pair--square, incongruous, crenelated structures-- -that were distinguished, for some reason, though I could see -little difference, as the new and the old. They flanked opposite -ends of the house and were probably architectural absurdities, -redeemed in a measure indeed by not being wholly disengaged nor -of a height too pretentious, dating, in their gingerbread antiquity, -from a romantic revival that was already a respectable past. -I admired them, had fancies about them, for we could all profit -in a degree, especially when they loomed through the dusk, -by the grandeur of their actual battlements; yet it was not at -such an elevation that the figure I had so often invoked seemed -most in place. - -It produced in me, this figure, in the clear twilight, I remember, -two distinct gasps of emotion, which were, sharply, the shock -of my first and that of my second surprise. My second was a -violent perception of the mistake of my first: the man who met -my eyes was not the person I had precipitately supposed. -There came to me thus a bewilderment of vision of which, -after these years, there is no living view that I can hope to give. -An unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object of fear -to a young woman privately bred; and the figure that faced -me was--a few more seconds assured me--as little anyone -else I knew as it was the image that had been in my mind. -I had not seen it in Harley Street--I had not seen it anywhere. -The place, moreover, in the strangest way in the world, had, -on the instant, and by the very fact of its appearance, -become a solitude. To me at least, making my statement -here with a deliberation with which I have never made it, -the whole feeling of the moment returns. It was as if, -while I took in--what I did take in--all the rest of the scene -had been stricken with death. I can hear again, as I write, -the intense hush in which the sounds of evening dropped. -The rooks stopped cawing in the golden sky, and the friendly -hour lost, for the minute, all its voice. But there was no -other change in nature, unless indeed it were a change that I -saw with a stranger sharpness. The gold was still in the sky, -the clearness in the air, and the man who looked at me over -the battlements was as definite as a picture in a frame. -That's how I thought, with extraordinary quickness, -of each person that he might have been and that he was not. -We were confronted across our distance quite long enough for me -to ask myself with intensity who then he was and to feel, -as an effect of my inability to say, a wonder that in a few -instants more became intense. - -The great question, or one of these, is, afterward, I know, -with regard to certain matters, the question of how long -they have lasted. Well, this matter of mine, think what you -will of it, lasted while I caught at a dozen possibilities, -none of which made a difference for the better, that I could see, -in there having been in the house--and for how long, above all?-- -a person of whom I was in ignorance. It lasted while I -just bridled a little with the sense that my office demanded -that there should be no such ignorance and no such person. -It lasted while this visitant, at all events--and there was a touch -of the strange freedom, as I remember, in the sign of familiarity -of his wearing no hat--seemed to fix me, from his position, -with just the question, just the scrutiny through the fading light, -that his own presence provoked. We were too far apart -to call to each other, but there was a moment at which, -at shorter range, some challenge between us, breaking the hush, -would have been the right result of our straight mutual stare. -He was in one of the angles, the one away from the house, -very erect, as it struck me, and with both hands on the ledge. -So I saw him as I see the letters I form on this page; -then, exactly, after a minute, as if to add to the spectacle, -he slowly changed his place--passed, looking at me hard all -the while, to the opposite corner of the platform. Yes, I had -the sharpest sense that during this transit he never took his -eyes from me, and I can see at this moment the way his hand, -as he went, passed from one of the crenelations to the next. -He stopped at the other corner, but less long, and even -as he turned away still markedly fixed me. He turned away; -that was all I knew. - - - - IV - - -It was not that I didn't wait, on this occasion, -for more, for I was rooted as deeply as I was shaken. -Was there a "secret" at Bly--a mystery of Udolpho or an insane, -an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected confinement? -I can't say how long I turned it over, or how long, in a confusion -of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had had my collision; -I only recall that when I re-entered the house darkness had quite -closed in. Agitation, in the interval, certainly had held me -and driven me, for I must, in circling about the place, have walked -three miles; but I was to be, later on, so much more overwhelmed -that this mere dawn of alarm was a comparatively human chill. -The most singular part of it, in fact--singular as the rest had been-- -was the part I became, in the hall, aware of in meeting Mrs. Grose. -This picture comes back to me in the general train--the impression, -as I received it on my return, of the wide white panelled space, -bright in the lamplight and with its portraits and red carpet, -and of the good surprised look of my friend, which immediately -told me she had missed me. It came to me straightway, -under her contact, that, with plain heartiness, mere relieved -anxiety at my appearance, she knew nothing whatever that -could bear upon the incident I had there ready for her. -I had not suspected in advance that her comfortable face would -pull me up, and I somehow measured the importance of what I -had seen by my thus finding myself hesitate to mention it. -Scarce anything in the whole history seems to me so odd -as this fact that my real beginning of fear was one, -as I may say, with the instinct of sparing my companion. -On the spot, accordingly, in the pleasant hall and with her -eyes on me, I, for a reason that I couldn't then have phrased, -achieved an inward resolution--offered a vague pretext -for my lateness and, with the plea of the beauty of the night -and of the heavy dew and wet feet, went as soon as possible -to my room. - -Here it was another affair; here, for many days after, -it was a queer affair enough. There were hours, from day -to day--or at least there were moments, snatched even from -clear duties--when I had to shut myself up to think. -It was not so much yet that I was more nervous than I could -bear to be as that I was remarkably afraid of becoming so; -for the truth I had now to turn over was, simply and clearly, -the truth that I could arrive at no account whatever of -the visitor with whom I had been so inexplicably and yet, -as it seemed to me, so intimately concerned. It took little -time to see that I could sound without forms of inquiry -and without exciting remark any domestic complications. -The shock I had suffered must have sharpened all my senses; -I felt sure, at the end of three days and as the result -of mere closer attention, that I had not been practiced -upon by the servants nor made the object of any "game." -Of whatever it was that I knew, nothing was known around me. -There was but one sane inference: someone had taken -a liberty rather gross. That was what, repeatedly, I dipped -into my room and locked the door to say to myself. -We had been, collectively, subject to an intrusion; -some unscrupulous traveler, curious in old houses, had made -his way in unobserved, enjoyed the prospect from the best point -of view, and then stolen out as he came. If he had given me -such a bold hard stare, that was but a part of his indiscretion. -The good thing, after all, was that we should surely see -no more of him. - -This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that what, -essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming work. -My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, and through nothing -could I so like it as through feeling that I could throw myself into it -in trouble. The attraction of my small charges was a constant joy, -leading me to wonder afresh at the vanity of my original fears, the distaste -I had begun by entertaining for the probable gray prose of my office. -There was to be no gray prose, it appeared, and no long grind; -so how could work not be charming that presented itself as daily beauty? -It was all the romance of the nursery and the poetry of the schoolroom. -I don't mean by this, of course, that we studied only fiction -and verse; I mean I can express no otherwise the sort of interest -my companions inspired. How can I describe that except by saying that -instead of growing used to them--and it's a marvel for a governess: -I call the sisterhood to witness!--I made constant fresh discoveries. -There was one direction, assuredly, in which these discoveries stopped: -deep obscurity continued to cover the region of the boy's conduct at school. -It had been promptly given me, I have noted, to face that mystery without -a pang. Perhaps even it would be nearer the truth to say that--without -a word--he himself had cleared it up. He had made the whole charge absurd. -My conclusion bloomed there with the real rose flush of his innocence: -he was only too fine and fair for the little horrid, unclean school world, -and he had paid a price for it. I reflected acutely that the sense -of such differences, such superiorities of quality, always, on the part -of the majority--which could include even stupid, sordid headmasters-- -turn infallibly to the vindictive. - -Both the children had a gentleness (it was their only fault, -and it never made Miles a muff) that kept them--how shall I -express it?--almost impersonal and certainly quite unpunishable. -They were like the cherubs of the anecdote, who had-- -morally, at any rate--nothing to whack! I remember feeling -with Miles in especial as if he had had, as it were, no history. -We expect of a small child a scant one, but there was in this -beautiful little boy something extraordinarily sensitive, -yet extraordinarily happy, that, more than in any creature -of his age I have seen, struck me as beginning anew each day. -He had never for a second suffered. I took this as a -direct disproof of his having really been chastised. -If he had been wicked he would have "caught" it, and I should -have caught it by the rebound--I should have found the trace. -I found nothing at all, and he was therefore an angel. -He never spoke of his school, never mentioned a comrade or a master; -and I, for my part, was quite too much disgusted to allude to them. -Of course I was under the spell, and the wonderful part -is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew I was. -But I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to any pain, -and I had more pains than one. I was in receipt in these days -of disturbing letters from home, where things were not going well. -But with my children, what things in the world mattered? -That was the question I used to put to my scrappy retirements. -I was dazzled by their loveliness. - -There was a Sunday--to get on--when it rained with such force -and for so many hours that there could be no procession to church; -in consequence of which, as the day declined, I had arranged -with Mrs. Grose that, should the evening show improvement, -we would attend together the late service. The rain happily stopped, -and I prepared for our walk, which, through the park and by the -good road to the village, would be a matter of twenty minutes. -Coming downstairs to meet my colleague in the hall, I remembered a pair -of gloves that had required three stitches and that had received them-- -with a publicity perhaps not edifying--while I sat with the children -at their tea, served on Sundays, by exception, in that cold, -clean temple of mahogany and brass, the "grown-up" dining room. -The gloves had been dropped there, and I turned in to recover them. -The day was gray enough, but the afternoon light still lingered, -and it enabled me, on crossing the threshold, not only to recognize, -on a chair near the wide window, then closed, the articles I wanted, -but to become aware of a person on the other side of the window -and looking straight in. One step into the room had sufficed; -my vision was instantaneous; it was all there. The person looking -straight in was the person who had already appeared to me. -He appeared thus again with I won't say greater distinctness, -for that was impossible, but with a nearness that represented -a forward stride in our intercourse and made me, as I met him, -catch my breath and turn cold. He was the same--he was the same, -and seen, this time, as he had been seen before, from the waist up, -the window, though the dining room was on the ground floor, not going -down to the terrace on which he stood. His face was close to the glass, -yet the effect of this better view was, strangely, only to show me -how intense the former had been. He remained but a few seconds-- -long enough to convince me he also saw and recognized; but it was -as if I had been looking at him for years and had known him always. -Something, however, happened this time that had not happened before; -his stare into my face, through the glass and across the room, -was as deep and hard as then, but it quitted me for a moment -during which I could still watch it, see it fix successively -several other things. On the spot there came to me the added -shock of a certitude that it was not for me he had come there. -He had come for someone else. - -The flash of this knowledge--for it was knowledge in the midst -of dread--produced in me the most extraordinary effect, -started as I stood there, a sudden vibration of duty and courage. -I say courage because I was beyond all doubt already far gone. -I bounded straight out of the door again, reached that of the house, -got, in an instant, upon the drive, and, passing along the terrace -as fast as I could rush, turned a corner and came full in sight. -But it was in sight of nothing now--my visitor had vanished. -I stopped, I almost dropped, with the real relief of this; -but I took in the whole scene--I gave him time to reappear. -I call it time, but how long was it? I can't speak -to the purpose today of the duration of these things. -That kind of measure must have left me: they couldn't -have lasted as they actually appeared to me to last. -The terrace and the whole place, the lawn and the garden beyond it, -all I could see of the park, were empty with a great emptiness. -There were shrubberies and big trees, but I remember -the clear assurance I felt that none of them concealed him. -He was there or was not there: not there if I didn't see him. -I got hold of this; then, instinctively, instead of returning -as I had come, went to the window. It was confusedly present -to me that I ought to place myself where he had stood. -I did so; I applied my face to the pane and looked, -as he had looked, into the room. As if, at this moment, -to show me exactly what his range had been, Mrs. Grose, -as I had done for himself just before, came in from the hall. -With this I had the full image of a repetition of what had -already occurred. She saw me as I had seen my own visitant; -she pulled up short as I had done; I gave her something -of the shock that I had received. She turned white, -and this made me ask myself if I had blanched as much. -She stared, in short, and retreated on just MY lines, -and I knew she had then passed out and come round to me -and that I should presently meet her. I remained where I was, -and while I waited I thought of more things than one. -But there's only one I take space to mention. I wondered why -SHE should be scared. - - - - V - - -Oh, she let me know as soon as, round the corner of the house, she loomed -again into view. "What in the name of goodness is the matter--?" -She was now flushed and out of breath. - -I said nothing till she came quite near. "With me?" -I must have made a wonderful face. "Do I show it?" - -"You're as white as a sheet. You look awful." - -I considered; I could meet on this, without scruple, any innocence. -My need to respect the bloom of Mrs. Grose's had dropped, -without a rustle, from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant -it was not with what I kept back. I put out my hand to her and she -took it; I held her hard a little, liking to feel her close to me. -There was a kind of support in the shy heave of her surprise. -"You came for me for church, of course, but I can't go." - -"Has anything happened?" - -"Yes. You must know now. Did I look very queer?" - -"Through this window? Dreadful!" - -"Well," I said, "I've been frightened." Mrs. Grose's eyes expressed -plainly that SHE had no wish to be, yet also that she knew too well -her place not to be ready to share with me any marked inconvenience. -Oh, it was quite settled that she MUST share! "Just what you -saw from the dining room a minute ago was the effect of that. -What _I_ saw--just before--was much worse." - -Her hand tightened. "What was it?" - -"An extraordinary man. Looking in." - -"What extraordinary man?" - -"I haven't the least idea." - -Mrs. Grose gazed round us in vain. "Then where is he gone?" - -"I know still less." - -"Have you seen him before?" - -"Yes--once. On the old tower." - -She could only look at me harder. "Do you mean he's a stranger?" - -"Oh, very much!" - -"Yet you didn't tell me?" - -"No--for reasons. But now that you've guessed--" - -Mrs. Grose's round eyes encountered this charge. "Ah, I haven't guessed!" -she said very simply. "How can I if YOU don't imagine?" - -"I don't in the very least." - -"You've seen him nowhere but on the tower?" - -"And on this spot just now." - -Mrs. Grose looked round again. "What was he doing on the tower?" - -"Only standing there and looking down at me." - -She thought a minute. "Was he a gentleman?" - -I found I had no need to think. "No." She gazed in deeper wonder. "No." - -"Then nobody about the place? Nobody from the village?" - -"Nobody--nobody. I didn't tell you, but I made sure." - -She breathed a vague relief: this was, oddly, so much to the good. -It only went indeed a little way. "But if he isn't a gentleman--" - -"What IS he? He's a horror." - -"A horror?" - -"He's--God help me if I know WHAT he is!" - -Mrs. Grose looked round once more; she fixed her eyes on the duskier distance, -then, pulling herself together, turned to me with abrupt inconsequence. -"It's time we should be at church." - -"Oh, I'm not fit for church!" - -"Won't it do you good?" - -"It won't do THEM--! I nodded at the house. - -"The children?" - -"I can't leave them now." - -"You're afraid--?" - -I spoke boldly. "I'm afraid of HIM." - -Mrs. Grose's large face showed me, at this, for the first time, -the faraway faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute: -I somehow made out in it the delayed dawn of an idea I myself -had not given her and that was as yet quite obscure to me. -It comes back to me that I thought instantly of this -as something I could get from her; and I felt it to be -connected with the desire she presently showed to know more. -"When was it--on the tower?" - -"About the middle of the month. At this same hour." - -"Almost at dark," said Mrs. Grose. - -"Oh, no, not nearly. I saw him as I see you." - -"Then how did he get in?" - -"And how did he get out?" I laughed. "I had no opportunity to ask him! -This evening, you see," I pursued, "he has not been able to get in." - -"He only peeps?" - -"I hope it will be confined to that!" She had now let go my hand; -she turned away a little. I waited an instant; then I brought out: -"Go to church. Goodbye. I must watch." - -Slowly she faced me again. "Do you fear for them?" - -We met in another long look. "Don't YOU?" Instead of answering she came -nearer to the window and, for a minute, applied her face to the glass. -"You see how he could see," I meanwhile went on. - -She didn't move. "How long was he here?" - -"Till I came out. I came to meet him." - -Mrs. Grose at last turned round, and there was still more in her face. -"_I_ couldn't have come out." - -"Neither could I!" I laughed again. "But I did come. -I have my duty." - -"So have I mine," she replied; after which she added: -"What is he like?" - -"I've been dying to tell you. But he's like nobody." - -"Nobody?" she echoed. - -"He has no hat." Then seeing in her face that she already, -in this, with a deeper dismay, found a touch of picture, -I quickly added stroke to stroke. "He has red hair, very red, -close-curling, and a pale face, long in shape, with straight, -good features and little, rather queer whiskers that are as red -as his hair. His eyebrows are, somehow, darker; they look -particularly arched and as if they might move a good deal. -His eyes are sharp, strange--awfully; but I only know clearly -that they're rather small and very fixed. His mouth's wide, -and his lips are thin, and except for his little whiskers he's -quite clean-shaven. He gives me a sort of sense of looking -like an actor." - -"An actor!" It was impossible to resemble one less, at least, -than Mrs. Grose at that moment. - -"I've never seen one, but so I suppose them. He's tall, active, erect," -I continued, "but never--no, never!--a gentleman." - -My companion's face had blanched as I went on; her round -eyes started and her mild mouth gaped. "A gentleman?" -she gasped, confounded, stupefied: "a gentleman HE?" - -"You know him then?" - -She visibly tried to hold herself. "But he IS handsome?" - -I saw the way to help her. "Remarkably!" - -"And dressed--?" - -"In somebody's clothes. "They're smart, but they're not his own." - -She broke into a breathless affirmative groan: "They're the master's!" - -I caught it up. "You DO know him?" - -She faltered but a second. "Quint!" she cried. - -"Quint?" - -"Peter Quint--his own man, his valet, when he was here!" - -"When the master was?" - -Gaping still, but meeting me, she pieced it all together. -"He never wore his hat, but he did wear--well, there were -waistcoats missed. They were both here--last year. -Then the master went, and Quint was alone." - -I followed, but halting a little. "Alone?" - -"Alone with US." Then, as from a deeper depth, "In charge," she added. - -"And what became of him?" - -She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. -"He went, too," she brought out at last. - -"Went where?" - -Her expression, at this, became extraordinary. "God knows where! -He died." - -"Died?" I almost shrieked. - -She seemed fairly to square herself, plant herself more firmly to utter -the wonder of it. "Yes. Mr. Quint is dead." - - - - VI - - -It took of course more than that particular passage to place us -together in presence of what we had now to live with as we could-- -my dreadful liability to impressions of the order so vividly -exemplified, and my companion's knowledge, henceforth--a knowledge -half consternation and half compassion--of that liability. -There had been, this evening, after the revelation left me, -for an hour, so prostrate--there had been, for either of us, -no attendance on any service but a little service of tears and vows, -of prayers and promises, a climax to the series of mutual challenges -and pledges that had straightway ensued on our retreating together to -the schoolroom and shutting ourselves up there to have everything out. -The result of our having everything out was simply to reduce -our situation to the last rigor of its elements. She herself had -seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the house -but the governess was in the governess's plight; yet she accepted -without directly impugning my sanity the truth as I gave it to her, -and ended by showing me, on this ground, an awestricken tenderness, -an expression of the sense of my more than questionable privilege, -of which the very breath has remained with me as that of the sweetest -of human charities. - -What was settled between us, accordingly, that night, was that we -thought we might bear things together; and I was not even sure that, -in spite of her exemption, it was she who had the best of the burden. -I knew at this hour, I think, as well as I knew later, what I was -capable of meeting to shelter my pupils; but it took me some time -to be wholly sure of what my honest ally was prepared for to keep -terms with so compromising a contract. I was queer company enough-- -quite as queer as the company I received; but as I trace over -what we went through I see how much common ground we must have -found in the one idea that, by good fortune, COULD steady us. -It was the idea, the second movement, that led me straight out, -as I may say, of the inner chamber of my dread. I could take -the air in the court, at least, and there Mrs. Grose could join me. -Perfectly can I recall now the particular way strength came to me -before we separated for the night. We had gone over and over every -feature of what I had seen. - -"He was looking for someone else, you say--someone who was not you?" - -"He was looking for little Miles." A portentous clearness now possessed me. -"THAT'S whom he was looking for." - -"But how do you know?" - -"I know, I know, I know!" My exaltation grew. "And YOU know, my dear!" - -She didn't deny this, but I required, I felt, not even so much -telling as that. She resumed in a moment, at any rate: -"What if HE should see him?" - -"Little Miles? That's what he wants!" - -She looked immensely scared again. "The child?" - -"Heaven forbid! The man. He wants to appear to THEM." -That he might was an awful conception, and yet, somehow, I could -keep it at bay; which, moreover, as we lingered there, -was what I succeeded in practically proving. I had an absolute -certainty that I should see again what I had already seen, -but something within me said that by offering myself bravely -as the sole subject of such experience, by accepting, by inviting, -by surmounting it all, I should serve as an expiatory victim -and guard the tranquility of my companions. The children, -in especial, I should thus fence about and absolutely save. -I recall one of the last things I said that night to Mrs. Grose. - -"It does strike me that my pupils have never mentioned--" - -She looked at me hard as I musingly pulled up. "His having been -here and the time they were with him?" - -"The time they were with him, and his name, his presence, his history, -in any way." - -"Oh, the little lady doesn't remember. She never heard or knew." - -"The circumstances of his death?" I thought with some intensity. -"Perhaps not. But Miles would remember--Miles would know." - -"Ah, don't try him!" broke from Mrs. Grose. - -I returned her the look she had given me. "Don't be afraid." -I continued to think. "It IS rather odd." - -"That he has never spoken of him?" - -"Never by the least allusion. And you tell me they were `great friends'?" - -"Oh, it wasn't HIM!" Mrs. Grose with emphasis declared. -"It was Quint's own fancy. To play with him, I mean-- -to spoil him." She paused a moment; then she added: -"Quint was much too free." - -This gave me, straight from my vision of his face--SUCH a face!-- -a sudden sickness of disgust. "Too free with MY boy?" - -"Too free with everyone!" - -I forbore, for the moment, to analyze this description further than -by the reflection that a part of it applied to several of the members -of the household, of the half-dozen maids and men who were still -of our small colony. But there was everything, for our apprehension, -in the lucky fact that no discomfortable legend, no perturbation -of scullions, had ever, within anyone's memory attached to the kind -old place. It had neither bad name nor ill fame, and Mrs. Grose, -most apparently, only desired to cling to me and to quake in silence. -I even put her, the very last thing of all, to the test. It was when, -at midnight, she had her hand on the schoolroom door to take leave. -"I have it from you then--for it's of great importance--that he was -definitely and admittedly bad?" - -"Oh, not admittedly. _I_ knew it--but the master didn't." - -"And you never told him?" - -"Well, he didn't like tale-bearing--he hated complaints. -He was terribly short with anything of that kind, and if people -were all right to HIM--" - -"He wouldn't be bothered with more?" This squared well enough -with my impressions of him: he was not a trouble-loving gentleman, -nor so very particular perhaps about some of the company HE kept. -All the same, I pressed my interlocutress. "I promise you _I_ -would have told!" - -She felt my discrimination. "I daresay I was wrong. -But, really, I was afraid." - -"Afraid of what?" - -"Of things that man could do. Quint was so clever--he was so deep." - -I took this in still more than, probably, I showed. -"You weren't afraid of anything else? Not of his effect--?" - -"His effect?" she repeated with a face of anguish and waiting -while I faltered. - -"On innocent little precious lives. They were in your charge." - -"No, they were not in mine!" she roundly and distressfully returned. -"The master believed in him and placed him here because he was -supposed not to be well and the country air so good for him. -So he had everything to say. Yes"--she let me have it--"even -about THEM." - -"Them--that creature?" I had to smother a kind of howl. -"And you could bear it!" - -"No. I couldn't--and I can't now!" And the poor woman burst into tears. - -A rigid control, from the next day, was, as I have said, to follow them; -yet how often and how passionately, for a week, we came back together -to the subject! Much as we had discussed it that Sunday night, I was, -in the immediate later hours in especial--for it may be imagined whether -I slept--still haunted with the shadow of something she had not told me. -I myself had kept back nothing, but there was a word Mrs. Grose had -kept back. I was sure, moreover, by morning, that this was not from -a failure of frankness, but because on every side there were fears. -It seems to me indeed, in retrospect, that by the time the morrow's sun -was high I had restlessly read into the fact before us almost all the -meaning they were to receive from subsequent and more cruel occurrences. -What they gave me above all was just the sinister figure of the living man-- -the dead one would keep awhile!--and of the months he had continuously -passed at Bly, which, added up, made a formidable stretch. -The limit of this evil time had arrived only when, on the dawn of a -winter's morning, Peter Quint was found, by a laborer going to early work, -stone dead on the road from the village: a catastrophe explained-- -superficially at least--by a visible wound to his head; such a wound -as might have been produced--and as, on the final evidence, HAD been-- -by a fatal slip, in the dark and after leaving the public house, -on the steepish icy slope, a wrong path altogether, at the bottom of -which he lay. The icy slope, the turn mistaken at night and in liquor, -accounted for much--practically, in the end and after the inquest and -boundless chatter, for everything; but there had been matters in his life-- -strange passages and perils, secret disorders, vices more than suspected-- -that would have accounted for a good deal more. - -I scarce know how to put my story into words that shall be -a credible picture of my state of mind; but I was in these days -literally able to find a joy in the extraordinary flight of -heroism the occasion demanded of me. I now saw that I had been -asked for a service admirable and difficult; and there would -be a greatness in letting it be seen--oh, in the right quarter!-- -that I could succeed where many another girl might have failed. -It was an immense help to me--I confess I rather applaud myself -as I look back!--that I saw my service so strongly and so simply. -I was there to protect and defend the little creatures in -the world the most bereaved and the most lovable, the appeal -of whose helplessness had suddenly become only too explicit, -a deep, constant ache of one's own committed heart. -We were cut off, really, together; we were united in our danger. -They had nothing but me, and I--well, I had THEM. It -was in short a magnificent chance. This chance presented -itself to me in an image richly material. I was a screen-- -I was to stand before them. The more I saw, the less they would. -I began to watch them in a stifled suspense, a disguised -excitement that might well, had it continued too long, -have turned to something like madness. What saved me, -as I now see, was that it turned to something else altogether. -It didn't last as suspense--it was superseded by horrible proofs. -Proofs, I say, yes--from the moment I really took hold. - -This moment dated from an afternoon hour that I happened -to spend in the grounds with the younger of my pupils alone. -We had left Miles indoors, on the red cushion of a deep -window seat; he had wished to finish a book, and I had been -glad to encourage a purpose so laudable in a young man whose -only defect was an occasional excess of the restless. -His sister, on the contrary, had been alert to come out, -and I strolled with her half an hour, seeking the shade, -for the sun was still high and the day exceptionally warm. -I was aware afresh, with her, as we went, of how, -like her brother, she contrived--it was the charming thing -in both children--to let me alone without appearing to drop -me and to accompany me without appearing to surround. -They were never importunate and yet never listless. -My attention to them all really went to seeing them amuse -themselves immensely without me: this was a spectacle they seemed -actively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer. -I walked in a world of their invention--they had no occasion whatever -to draw upon mine; so that my time was taken only with being, -for them, some remarkable person or thing that the game of -the moment required and that was merely, thanks to my superior, -my exalted stamp, a happy and highly distinguished sinecure. -I forget what I was on the present occasion; I only remember -that I was something very important and very quiet and that Flora -was playing very hard. We were on the edge of the lake, and, as we -had lately begun geography, the lake was the Sea of Azof. - -Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the -other side of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. -The way this knowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing -in the world--the strangest, that is, except the very much -stranger in which it quickly merged itself. I had sat down with -a piece of work--for I was something or other that could sit-- -on the old stone bench which overlooked the pond; and in this -position I began to take in with certitude, and yet without -direct vision, the presence, at a distance, of a third person. -The old trees, the thick shrubbery, made a great and pleasant shade, -but it was all suffused with the brightness of the hot, still hour. -There was no ambiguity in anything; none whatever, at least, -in the conviction I from one moment to another found myself -forming as to what I should see straight before me and across -the lake as a consequence of raising my eyes. They were attached -at this juncture to the stitching in which I was engaged, -and I can feel once more the spasm of my effort not to move them -till I should so have steadied myself as to be able to make up -my mind what to do. There was an alien object in view--a figure -whose right of presence I instantly, passionately questioned. -I recollect counting over perfectly the possibilities, -reminding myself that nothing was more natural, for instance, -then the appearance of one of the men about the place, or even -of a messenger, a postman, or a tradesman's boy, from the village. -That reminder had as little effect on my practical -certitude as I was conscious--still even without looking-- -of its having upon the character and attitude of our visitor. -Nothing was more natural than that these things should be -the other things that they absolutely were not. - -Of the positive identity of the apparition I would assure myself -as soon as the small clock of my courage should have ticked out the -right second; meanwhile, with an effort that was already sharp enough, -I transferred my eyes straight to little Flora, who, at the moment, -was about ten yards away. My heart had stood still for an instant -with the wonder and terror of the question whether she too would see; -and I held my breath while I waited for what a cry from her, what some -sudden innocent sign either of interest or of alarm, would tell me. -I waited, but nothing came; then, in the first place--and there is -something more dire in this, I feel, than in anything I have to relate-- -I was determined by a sense that, within a minute, all sounds from her -had previously dropped; and, in the second, by the circumstance that, -also within the minute, she had, in her play, turned her back to the water. -This was her attitude when I at last looked at her--looked with the confirmed -conviction that we were still, together, under direct personal notice. -She had picked up a small flat piece of wood, which happened to have in it -a little hole that had evidently suggested to her the idea of sticking -in another fragment that might figure as a mast and make the thing a boat. -This second morsel, as I watched her, she was very markedly and intently -attempting to tighten in its place. My apprehension of what she was doing -sustained me so that after some seconds I felt I was ready for more. -Then I again shifted my eyes--I faced what I had to face. - - - - VII - - -I got hold of Mrs. Grose as soon after this as I could; and I can -give no intelligible account of how I fought out the interval. -Yet I still hear myself cry as I fairly threw myself into her arms: -"They KNOW--it's too monstrous: they know, they know!" - -"And what on earth--?" I felt her incredulity as she held me. - -"Why, all that WE know--and heaven knows what else besides!" -Then, as she released me, I made it out to her, made it out perhaps only -now with full coherency even to myself. "Two hours ago, in the garden"-- -I could scarce articulate--"Flora SAW!" - -Mrs. Grose took it as she might have taken a blow in the stomach. -"She has told you?" she panted. - -"Not a word--that's the horror. She kept it to herself! -The child of eight, THAT child!" Unutterable still, -for me, was the stupefaction of it. - -Mrs. Grose, of course, could only gape the wider. -"Then how do you know?" - -"I was there--I saw with my eyes: saw that she was perfectly aware." - -"Do you mean aware of HIM?" - -"No--of HER." I was conscious as I spoke that I looked -prodigious things, for I got the slow reflection of them -in my companion's face. "Another person--this time; -but a figure of quite as unmistakable horror and evil: -a woman in black, pale and dreadful--with such an air also, -and such a face!--on the other side of the lake. -I was there with the child--quiet for the hour; and in the midst -of it she came." - -"Came how--from where?" - -"From where they come from! She just appeared and stood there-- -but not so near." - -"And without coming nearer?" - -"Oh, for the effect and the feeling, she might have been as close as you!" - -My friend, with an odd impulse, fell back a step. -"Was she someone you've never seen?" - -"Yes. But someone the child has. Someone YOU have." -Then, to show how I had thought it all out: "My predecessor-- -the one who died." - -"Miss Jessel?" - -"Miss Jessel. You don't believe me?" I pressed. - -She turned right and left in her distress. "How can you be sure?" - -This drew from me, in the state of my nerves, a flash of impatience. -"Then ask Flora--SHE'S sure!" But I had no sooner spoken -than I caught myself up. "No, for God's sake, DON'T!" -She'll say she isn't--she'll lie!" - -Mrs. Grose was not too bewildered instinctively to protest. -"Ah, how CAN you?" - -"Because I'm clear. Flora doesn't want me to know." - -"It's only then to spare you." - -"No, no--there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, -the more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. -I don't know what I DON'T see--what I DON'T fear!" - -Mrs. Grose tried to keep up with me. "You mean you're afraid -of seeing her again?" - -"Oh, no; that's nothing--now!" Then I explained. -"It's of NOT seeing her." - -But my companion only looked wan. "I don't understand you." - -"Why, it's that the child may keep it up--and that the child assuredly -WILL--without my knowing it." - -At the image of this possibility Mrs. Grose for a moment collapsed, -yet presently to pull herself together again, as if from the positive -force of the sense of what, should we yield an inch, there would -really be to give way to. "Dear, dear--we must keep our heads! -And after all, if she doesn't mind it--!" She even tried a grim joke. -"Perhaps she likes it!" - -"Likes SUCH things--a scrap of an infant!" - -"Isn't it just a proof of her blessed innocence?" my friend bravely inquired. - -She brought me, for the instant, almost round. -"Oh, we must clutch at THAT--we must cling to it! -If it isn't a proof of what you say, it's a proof of--God knows what! -For the woman's a horror of horrors." - -Mrs. Grose, at this, fixed her eyes a minute on the ground; -then at last raising them, "Tell me how you know," she said. - -"Then you admit it's what she was?" I cried. - -"Tell me how you know," my friend simply repeated. - -"Know? By seeing her! By the way she looked." - -"At you, do you mean--so wickedly?" - -"Dear me, no--I could have borne that. She gave me never a glance. -She only fixed the child." - -Mrs. Grose tried to see it. "Fixed her?" - -"Ah, with such awful eyes!" - -She stared at mine as if they might really have resembled them. -"Do you mean of dislike?" - -"God help us, no. Of something much worse." - -"Worse than dislike?--this left her indeed at a loss. - -"With a determination--indescribable. With a kind of fury of intention." - -I made her turn pale. "Intention?" - -"To get hold of her." Mrs. Grose--her eyes just lingering -on mine--gave a shudder and walked to the window; -and while she stood there looking out I completed my statement. -"THAT'S what Flora knows." - -After a little she turned round. "The person was in black, you say?" - -"In mourning--rather poor, almost shabby. But--yes--with -extraordinary beauty." I now recognized to what I had at last, -stroke by stroke, brought the victim of my confidence, for she quite -visibly weighed this. "Oh, handsome--very, very," I insisted; -"wonderfully handsome. But infamous." - -She slowly came back to me. "Miss Jessel--WAS infamous." -She once more took my hand in both her own, holding it -as tight as if to fortify me against the increase of alarm I -might draw from this disclosure. "They were both infamous," -she finally said. - -So, for a little, we faced it once more together; and I found absolutely -a degree of help in seeing it now so straight. "I appreciate," -I said, "the great decency of your not having hitherto spoken; -but the time has certainly come to give me the whole thing." -She appeared to assent to this, but still only in silence; -seeing which I went on: "I must have it now. Of what did she die? -Come, there was something between them." - -"There was everything." - -"In spite of the difference--?" - -"Oh, of their rank, their condition"--she brought it woefully out. -"SHE was a lady." - -I turned it over; I again saw. "Yes--she was a lady." - -"And he so dreadfully below," said Mrs. Grose. - -I felt that I doubtless needn't press too hard, in such company, -on the place of a servant in the scale; but there was nothing to prevent -an acceptance of my companion's own measure of my predecessor's abasement. -There was a way to deal with that, and I dealt; the more readily -for my full vision--on the evidence--of our employer's late clever, -good-looking "own" man; impudent, assured, spoiled, depraved. -"The fellow was a hound." - -Mrs. Grose considered as if it were perhaps a little a case -for a sense of shades. "I've never seen one like him. -He did what he wished." - -"With HER?" - -"With them all." - -It was as if now in my friend's own eyes Miss Jessel had again appeared. -I seemed at any rate, for an instant, to see their evocation of her as -distinctly as I had seen her by the pond; and I brought out with decision: -"It must have been also what SHE wished!" - -Mrs. Grose's face signified that it had been indeed, but she said -at the same time: "Poor woman--she paid for it!" - -"Then you do know what she died of?" I asked. - -"No--I know nothing. I wanted not to know; I was glad enough I didn't; -and I thanked heaven she was well out of this!" - -"Yet you had, then, your idea--" - -"Of her real reason for leaving? Oh, yes--as to that. -She couldn't have stayed. Fancy it here--for a governess! -And afterward I imagined--and I still imagine. And what I -imagine is dreadful." - -"Not so dreadful as what _I_ do," I replied; on which I must -have shown her--as I was indeed but too conscious--a front of -miserable defeat. It brought out again all her compassion for me, -and at the renewed touch of her kindness my power to resist broke down. -I burst, as I had, the other time, made her burst, into tears; -she took me to her motherly breast, and my lamentation overflowed. -"I don't do it!" I sobbed in despair; "I don't save or shield them! -It's far worse than I dreamed--they're lost!" - - - - VIII - - -What I had said to Mrs. Grose was true enough: there were in the matter I -had put before her depths and possibilities that I lacked resolution to sound; -so that when we met once more in the wonder of it we were of a common mind -about the duty of resistance to extravagant fancies. We were to keep our -heads if we should keep nothing else--difficult indeed as that might be in -the face of what, in our prodigious experience, was least to be questioned. -Late that night, while the house slept, we had another talk in my room, -when she went all the way with me as to its being beyond doubt that I -had seen exactly what I had seen. To hold her perfectly in the pinch -of that, I found I had only to ask her how, if I had "made it up," -I came to be able to give, of each of the persons appearing to me, -a picture disclosing, to the last detail, their special marks--a portrait -on the exhibition of which she had instantly recognized and named them. -She wished of course--small blame to her!--to sink the whole subject; -and I was quick to assure her that my own interest in it had now -violently taken the form of a search for the way to escape from it. -I encountered her on the ground of a probability that with recurrence-- -for recurrence we took for granted--I should get used to my danger, -distinctly professing that my personal exposure had suddenly become -the least of my discomforts. It was my new suspicion that was intolerable; -and yet even to this complication the later hours of the day had brought -a little ease. - -On leaving her, after my first outbreak, I had of course returned -to my pupils, associating the right remedy for my dismay with -that sense of their charm which I had already found to be a thing -I could positively cultivate and which had never failed me yet. -I had simply, in other words, plunged afresh into Flora's -special society and there become aware--it was almost a luxury!-- -that she could put her little conscious hand straight upon -the spot that ached. She had looked at me in sweet speculation -and then had accused me to my face of having "cried." -I had supposed I had brushed away the ugly signs: but I -could literally--for the time, at all events--rejoice, under this -fathomless charity, that they had not entirely disappeared. -To gaze into the depths of blue of the child's eyes and pronounce -their loveliness a trick of premature cunning was to be guilty -of a cynicism in preference to which I naturally preferred -to abjure my judgment and, so far as might be, my agitation. -I couldn't abjure for merely wanting to, but I could repeat -to Mrs. Grose--as I did there, over and over, in the small hours-- -that with their voices in the air, their pressure on one's heart, -and their fragrant faces against one's cheek, everything fell -to the ground but their incapacity and their beauty. -It was a pity that, somehow, to settle this once for all, -I had equally to re-enumerate the signs of subtlety that, -in the afternoon, by the lake had made a miracle of my show -of self-possession. It was a pity to be obliged to reinvestigate -the certitude of the moment itself and repeat how it had come -to me as a revelation that the inconceivable communion I -then surprised was a matter, for either party, of habit. -It was a pity that I should have had to quaver out again -the reasons for my not having, in my delusion, so much -as questioned that the little girl saw our visitant even -as I actually saw Mrs. Grose herself, and that she wanted, -by just so much as she did thus see, to make me suppose she -didn't, and at the same time, without showing anything, -arrive at a guess as to whether I myself did! It was a pity -that I needed once more to describe the portentous little activity -by which she sought to divert my attention--the perceptible -increase of movement, the greater intensity of play, the singing, -the gabbling of nonsense, and the invitation to romp. - -Yet if I had not indulged, to prove there was nothing in it, -in this review, I should have missed the two or three dim elements -of comfort that still remained to me. I should not for instance have -been able to asseverate to my friend that I was certain--which was -so much to the good--that _I_ at least had not betrayed myself. -I should not have been prompted, by stress of need, by desperation -of mind--I scarce know what to call it--to invoke such further -aid to intelligence as might spring from pushing my colleague -fairly to the wall. She had told me, bit by bit, under pressure, -a great deal; but a small shifty spot on the wrong side of it -all still sometimes brushed my brow like the wing of a bat; -and I remember how on this occasion--for the sleeping house and -the concentration alike of our danger and our watch seemed to help-- -I felt the importance of giving the last jerk to the curtain. -"I don't believe anything so horrible," I recollect saying; -"no, let us put it definitely, my dear, that I don't. But if I did, -you know, there's a thing I should require now, just without sparing -you the least bit more--oh, not a scrap, come!--to get out of you. -What was it you had in mind when, in our distress, before Miles came back, -over the letter from his school, you said, under my insistence, -that you didn't pretend for him that he had not literally EVER -been `bad'? He has NOT literally `ever,' in these weeks that I -myself have lived with him and so closely watched him; he has been -an imperturbable little prodigy of delightful, lovable goodness. -Therefore you might perfectly have made the claim for him -if you had not, as it happened, seen an exception to take. -What was your exception, and to what passage in your personal -observation of him did you refer?" - -It was a dreadfully austere inquiry, but levity was not our note, and, at any -rate, before the gray dawn admonished us to separate I had got my answer. -What my friend had had in mind proved to be immensely to the purpose. -It was neither more nor less than the circumstance that for a period -of several months Quint and the boy had been perpetually together. -It was in fact the very appropriate truth that she had ventured to criticize -the propriety, to hint at the incongruity, of so close an alliance, -and even to go so far on the subject as a frank overture to Miss Jessel. -Miss Jessel had, with a most strange manner, requested her to mind her -business, and the good woman had, on this, directly approached little Miles. -What she had said to him, since I pressed, was that SHE liked to see -young gentlemen not forget their station. - -I pressed again, of course, at this. "You reminded him that Quint -was only a base menial?" - -"As you might say! And it was his answer, for one thing, -that was bad." - -"And for another thing?" I waited. "He repeated your words to Quint?" - -"No, not that. It's just what he WOULDN'T!" she could -still impress upon me. "I was sure, at any rate," she added, -"that he didn't. But he denied certain occasions." - -"What occasions?" - -"When they had been about together quite as if Quint were his tutor-- -and a very grand one--and Miss Jessel only for the little lady. -When he had gone off with the fellow, I mean, and spent hours with him." - -"He then prevaricated about it--he said he hadn't?" -Her assent was clear enough to cause me to add in a moment: -"I see. He lied." - -"Oh!" Mrs. Grose mumbled. This was a suggestion that it didn't matter; -which indeed she backed up by a further remark. "You see, after all, -Miss Jessel didn't mind. She didn't forbid him." - -I considered. "Did he put that to you as a justification?" - -At this she dropped again. "No, he never spoke of it." - -"Never mentioned her in connection with Quint?" - -She saw, visibly flushing, where I was coming out. "Well, he didn't -show anything. He denied," she repeated; "he denied." - -Lord, how I pressed her now! "So that you could see he knew -what was between the two wretches?" - -"I don't know--I don't know!" the poor woman groaned. - -"You do know, you dear thing," I replied; "only you haven't -my dreadful boldness of mind, and you keep back, out of timidity -and modesty and delicacy, even the impression that, in the past, -when you had, without my aid, to flounder about in silence, -most of all made you miserable. But I shall get it out of you yet! -There was something in the boy that suggested to you," I continued, -"that he covered and concealed their relation." - -"Oh, he couldn't prevent--" - -"Your learning the truth? I daresay! But, heavens," I fell, -with vehemence, athinking, "what it shows that they must, -to that extent, have succeeded in making of him!" - -"Ah, nothing that's not nice NOW!" Mrs. Grose lugubriously pleaded. - -"I don't wonder you looked queer," I persisted, "when I mentioned -to you the letter from his school!" - -"I doubt if I looked as queer as you!" she retorted with homely force. -"And if he was so bad then as that comes to, how is he such an angel now?" - -"Yes, indeed--and if he was a fiend at school! How, how, how? -Well," I said in my torment, "you must put it to me again, -but I shall not be able to tell you for some days. Only, put it -to me again!" I cried in a way that made my friend stare. -"There are directions in which I must not for the present -let myself go." Meanwhile I returned to her first example-- -the one to which she had just previously referred-- -of the boy's happy capacity for an occasional slip. -"If Quint--on your remonstrance at the time you speak of-- -was a base menial, one of the things Miles said to you, -I find myself guessing, was that you were another." -Again her admission was so adequate that I continued: -"And you forgave him that?" - -"Wouldn't YOU?" - -"Oh, yes!" And we exchanged there, in the stillness, -a sound of the oddest amusement. Then I went on: -"At all events, while he was with the man--" - -"Miss Flora was with the woman. It suited them all!" - -It suited me, too, I felt, only too well; by which I mean -that it suited exactly the particularly deadly view I -was in the very act of forbidding myself to entertain. -But I so far succeeded in checking the expression of this view -that I will throw, just here, no further light on it than may be -offered by the mention of my final observation to Mrs. Grose. -"His having lied and been impudent are, I confess, less engaging -specimens than I had hoped to have from you of the outbreak in him -of the little natural man. Still," I mused, "They must do, -for they make me feel more than ever that I must watch." - -It made me blush, the next minute, to see in my friend's face -how much more unreservedly she had forgiven him than her anecdote -struck me as presenting to my own tenderness an occasion for doing. -This came out when, at the schoolroom door, she quitted me. -"Surely you don't accuse HIM--" - -"Of carrying on an intercourse that he conceals from me? -Ah, remember that, until further evidence, I now accuse nobody." -Then, before shutting her out to go, by another passage, -to her own place, "I must just wait," I wound up. - - - - IX - - -I waited and waited, and the days, as they elapsed, -took something from my consternation. A very few of them, -in fact, passing, in constant sight of my pupils, -without a fresh incident, sufficed to give to grievous fancies -and even to odious memories a kind of brush of the sponge. -I have spoken of the surrender to their extraordinary -childish grace as a thing I could actively cultivate, -and it may be imagined if I neglected now to address myself -to this source for whatever it would yield. Stranger than I -can express, certainly, was the effort to struggle against my -new lights; it would doubtless have been, however, a greater -tension still had it not been so frequently successful. -I used to wonder how my little charges could help guessing that I -thought strange things about them; and the circumstances that -these things only made them more interesting was not by itself -a direct aid to keeping them in the dark. I trembled lest they -should see that they WERE so immensely more interesting. -Putting things at the worst, at all events, as in meditation I -so often did, any clouding of their innocence could only be-- -blameless and foredoomed as they were--a reason the more for -taking risks. There were moments when, by an irresistible impulse, -I found myself catching them up and pressing them to my heart. -As soon as I had done so I used to say to myself: -"What will they think of that? Doesn't it betray too much?" -It would have been easy to get into a sad, wild tangle about how -much I might betray; but the real account, I feel, of the hours -of peace that I could still enjoy was that the immediate -charm of my companions was a beguilement still effective -even under the shadow of the possibility that it was studied. -For if it occurred to me that I might occasionally excite -suspicion by the little outbreaks of my sharper passion for them, -so too I remember wondering if I mightn't see a queerness -in the traceable increase of their own demonstrations. - -They were at this period extravagantly and preternaturally fond -of me; which, after all, I could reflect, was no more than a -graceful response in children perpetually bowed over and hugged. -The homage of which they were so lavish succeeded, in truth, -for my nerves, quite as well as if I never appeared to myself, -as I may say, literally to catch them at a purpose in it. -They had never, I think, wanted to do so many things for their -poor protectress; I mean--though they got their lessons better -and better, which was naturally what would please her most-- -in the way of diverting, entertaining, surprising her; -reading her passages, telling her stories, acting her charades, -pouncing out at her, in disguises, as animals and historical -characters, and above all astonishing her by the "pieces" they -had secretly got by heart and could interminably recite. -I should never get to the bottom--were I to let myself go even now-- -of the prodigious private commentary, all under still more -private correction, with which, in these days, I overscored -their full hours. They had shown me from the first a facility -for everything, a general faculty which, taking a fresh start, -achieved remarkable flights. They got their little tasks -as if they loved them, and indulged, from the mere exuberance -of the gift, in the most unimposed little miracles of memory. -They not only popped out at me as tigers and as Romans, -but as Shakespeareans, astronomers, and navigators. -This was so singularly the case that it had presumably -much to do with the fact as to which, at the present day, -I am at a loss for a different explanation: I allude to my -unnatural composure on the subject of another school for Miles. -What I remember is that I was content not, for the time, -to open the question, and that contentment must have sprung -from the sense of his perpetually striking show of cleverness. -He was too clever for a bad governess, for a parson's daughter, -to spoil; and the strangest if not the brightest thread -in the pensive embroidery I just spoke of was the impression -I might have got, if I had dared to work it out, that he was -under some influence operating in his small intellectual life -as a tremendous incitement. - -If it was easy to reflect, however, that such a boy could postpone school, -it was at least as marked that for such a boy to have been -"kicked out" by a schoolmaster was a mystification without end. -Let me add that in their company now--and I was careful almost -never to be out of it--I could follow no scent very far. We lived -in a cloud of music and love and success and private theatricals. -The musical sense in each of the children was of the quickest, -but the elder in especial had a marvelous knack of catching and repeating. -The schoolroom piano broke into all gruesome fancies; and when that failed -there were confabulations in corners, with a sequel of one of them going -out in the highest spirits in order to "come in" as something new. -I had had brothers myself, and it was no revelation to me that little -girls could be slavish idolaters of little boys. What surpassed -everything was that there was a little boy in the world who could have -for the inferior age, sex, and intelligence so fine a consideration. -They were extraordinarily at one, and to say that they never either -quarreled or complained is to make the note of praise coarse for their -quality of sweetness. Sometimes, indeed, when I dropped into coarseness, -I perhaps came across traces of little understandings between them by -which one of them should keep me occupied while the other slipped away. -There is a naive side, I suppose, in all diplomacy; but if my pupils -practiced upon me, it was surely with the minimum of grossness. -It was all in the other quarter that, after a lull, the grossness broke out. - -I find that I really hang back; but I must take my plunge. -In going on with the record of what was hideous at Bly, -I not only challenge the most liberal faith--for which I -little care; but--and this is another matter--I renew what I -myself suffered, I again push my way through it to the end. -There came suddenly an hour after which, as I look back, -the affair seems to me to have been all pure suffering; -but I have at least reached the heart of it, -and the straightest road out is doubtless to advance. -One evening--with nothing to lead up or to prepare it-- -I felt the cold touch of the impression that had breathed -on me the night of my arrival and which, much lighter then, -as I have mentioned, I should probably have made little -of in memory had my subsequent sojourn been less agitated. -I had not gone to bed; I sat reading by a couple of candles. -There was a roomful of old books at Bly--last-century fiction, -some of it, which, to the extent of a distinctly deprecated renown, -but never to so much as that of a stray specimen, had reached -the sequestered home and appealed to the unavowed curiosity -of my youth. I remember that the book I had in my hand -was Fielding's Amelia; also that I was wholly awake. -I recall further both a general conviction that it was horribly -late and a particular objection to looking at my watch. -I figure, finally, that the white curtain draping, -in the fashion of those days, the head of Flora's -little bed, shrouded, as I had assured myself long before, -the perfection of childish rest. I recollect in short that, -though I was deeply interested in my author, I found myself, -at the turn of a page and with his spell all scattered, -looking straight up from him and hard at the door of my room. -There was a moment during which I listened, reminded of -the faint sense I had had, the first night, of there being -something undefinably astir in the house, and noted the soft -breath of the open casement just move the half-drawn blind. -Then, with all the marks of a deliberation that must have -seemed magnificent had there been anyone to admire it, -I laid down my book, rose to my feet, and, taking a candle, -went straight out of the room and, from the passage, -on which my light made little impression, noiselessly closed -and locked the door. - -I can say now neither what determined nor what guided me, but I went -straight along the lobby, holding my candle high, till I came within sight -of the tall window that presided over the great turn of the staircase. -At this point I precipitately found myself aware of three things. -They were practically simultaneous, yet they had flashes of succession. -My candle, under a bold flourish, went out, and I perceived, by the uncovered -window, that the yielding dusk of earliest morning rendered it unnecessary. -Without it, the next instant, I saw that there was someone on the stair. -I speak of sequences, but I required no lapse of seconds to stiffen -myself for a third encounter with Quint. The apparition had reached -the landing halfway up and was therefore on the spot nearest the window, -where at sight of me, it stopped short and fixed me exactly as it had fixed -me from the tower and from the garden. He knew me as well as I knew him; -and so, in the cold, faint twilight, with a glimmer in the high glass -and another on the polish of the oak stair below, we faced each -other in our common intensity. He was absolutely, on this occasion, -a living, detestable, dangerous presence. But that was not the wonder -of wonders; I reserve this distinction for quite another circumstance: -the circumstance that dread had unmistakably quitted me and that there -was nothing in me there that didn't meet and measure him. - -I had plenty of anguish after that extraordinary moment, -but I had, thank God, no terror. And he knew I had not--I found -myself at the end of an instant magnificently aware of this. -I felt, in a fierce rigor of confidence, that if I stood -my ground a minute I should cease--for the time, at least-- -to have him to reckon with; and during the minute, accordingly, -the thing was as human and hideous as a real interview: -hideous just because it WAS human, as human as to have -met alone, in the small hours, in a sleeping house, some enemy, -some adventurer, some criminal. It was the dead silence of our -long gaze at such close quarters that gave the whole horror, -huge as it was, its only note of the unnatural. If I had met -a murderer in such a place and at such an hour, we still at -least would have spoken. Something would have passed, in life, -between us; if nothing had passed, one of us would have moved. -The moment was so prolonged that it would have taken but little -more to make me doubt if even _I_ were in life. I can't -express what followed it save by saying that the silence itself-- -which was indeed in a manner an attestation of my strength-- -became the element into which I saw the figure disappear; -in which I definitely saw it turn as I might have seen the low -wretch to which it had once belonged turn on receipt of an order, -and pass, with my eyes on the villainous back that no hunch -could have more disfigured, straight down the staircase -and into the darkness in which the next bend was lost. - - - - X - - -I remained awhile at the top of the stair, but with the effect -presently of understanding that when my visitor had gone, he had gone: -then I returned to my room. The foremost thing I saw there -by the light of the candle I had left burning was that Flora's -little bed was empty; and on this I caught my breath with all -the terror that, five minutes before, I had been able to resist. -I dashed at the place in which I had left her lying and over which -(for the small silk counterpane and the sheets were disarranged) -the white curtains had been deceivingly pulled forward; -then my step, to my unutterable relief, produced an answering sound: -I perceived an agitation of the window blind, and the child, -ducking down, emerged rosily from the other side of it. -She stood there in so much of her candor and so little of her nightgown, -with her pink bare feet and the golden glow of her curls. -She looked intensely grave, and I had never had such a sense of losing -an advantage acquired (the thrill of which had just been so prodigious) -as on my consciousness that she addressed me with a reproach. -"You naughty: where HAVE you been?"--instead of challenging -her own irregularity I found myself arraigned and explaining. -She herself explained, for that matter, with the loveliest, -eagerest simplicity. She had known suddenly, as she lay there, -that I was out of the room, and had jumped up to see what had -become of me. I had dropped, with the joy of her reappearance, -back into my chair--feeling then, and then only, a little faint; -and she had pattered straight over to me, thrown herself upon -my knee, given herself to be held with the flame of the candle full -in the wonderful little face that was still flushed with sleep. -I remember closing my eyes an instant, yieldingly, consciously, -as before the excess of something beautiful that shone out of the blue -of her own. "You were looking for me out of the window?" I said. -"You thought I might be walking in the grounds?" - -"Well, you know, I thought someone was"--she never blanched as she -smiled out that at me. - -Oh, how I looked at her now! "And did you see anyone?" - -"Ah, NO!" she returned, almost with the full privilege -of childish inconsequence, resentfully, though with a long -sweetness in her little drawl of the negative. - -At that moment, in the state of my nerves, I absolutely believed -she lied; and if I once more closed my eyes it was before the dazzle -of the three or four possible ways in which I might take this up. -One of these, for a moment, tempted me with such singular intensity that, -to withstand it, I must have gripped my little girl with a spasm that, -wonderfully, she submitted to without a cry or a sign of fright. -Why not break out at her on the spot and have it all over?-- -give it to her straight in her lovely little lighted face? -"You see, you see, you KNOW that you do and that you already quite -suspect I believe it; therefore, why not frankly confess it to me, -so that we may at least live with it together and learn perhaps, -in the strangeness of our fate, where we are and what it means?" -This solicitation dropped, alas, as it came: if I could immediately -have succumbed to it I might have spared myself--well, you'll see what. -Instead of succumbing I sprang again to my feet, looked at her bed, -and took a helpless middle way. "Why did you pull the curtain -over the place to make me think you were still there?" - -Flora luminously considered; after which, with her little divine smile: -"Because I don't like to frighten you!" - -"But if I had, by your idea, gone out--?" - -She absolutely declined to be puzzled; she turned her eyes to the flame -of the candle as if the question were as irrelevant, or at any rate -as impersonal, as Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine. "Oh, but you know," -she quite adequately answered, "that you might come back, you dear, -and that you HAVE!" And after a little, when she had got into bed, -I had, for a long time, by almost sitting on her to hold her hand, -to prove that I recognized the pertinence of my return. - -You may imagine the general complexion, from that moment, of my nights. -I repeatedly sat up till I didn't know when; I selected moments when my -roommate unmistakably slept, and, stealing out, took noiseless turns -in the passage and even pushed as far as to where I had last met Quint. -But I never met him there again; and I may as well say at once -that I on no other occasion saw him in the house. I just missed, -on the staircase, on the other hand, a different adventure. -Looking down it from the top I once recognized the presence of a woman -seated on one of the lower steps with her back presented to me, -her body half-bowed and her head, in an attitude of woe, in her hands. -I had been there but an instant, however, when she vanished without -looking round at me. I knew, nonetheless, exactly what dreadful face -she had to show; and I wondered whether, if instead of being above I had -been below, I should have had, for going up, the same nerve I had lately -shown Quint. Well, there continued to be plenty of chance for nerve. -On the eleventh night after my latest encounter with that gentleman-- -they were all numbered now--I had an alarm that perilously skirted it -and that indeed, from the particular quality of its unexpectedness, -proved quite my sharpest shock. It was precisely the first night during -this series that, weary with watching, I had felt that I might again -without laxity lay myself down at my old hour. I slept immediately and, -as I afterward knew, till about one o'clock; but when I woke it was -to sit straight up, as completely roused as if a hand had shook me. -I had left a light burning, but it was now out, and I felt an instant -certainty that Flora had extinguished it. This brought me to my feet -and straight, in the darkness, to her bed, which I found she had left. -A glance at the window enlightened me further, and the striking of a match -completed the picture. - -The child had again got up--this time blowing out the taper, and had again, -for some purpose of observation or response, squeezed in behind -the blind and was peering out into the night. That she now saw-- -as she had not, I had satisfied myself, the previous time--was proved -to me by the fact that she was disturbed neither by my reillumination -nor by the haste I made to get into slippers and into a wrap. -Hidden, protected, absorbed, she evidently rested on the sill-- -the casement opened forward--and gave herself up. There was a great -still moon to help her, and this fact had counted in my quick decision. -She was face to face with the apparition we had met at the lake, -and could now communicate with it as she had not then been able to do. -What I, on my side, had to care for was, without disturbing her, -to reach, from the corridor, some other window in the same quarter. -I got to the door without her hearing me; I got out of it, closed it, -and listened, from the other side, for some sound from her. -While I stood in the passage I had my eyes on her brother's door, -which was but ten steps off and which, indescribably, produced in me -a renewal of the strange impulse that I lately spoke of as my temptation. -What if I should go straight in and march to HIS window?--what if, -by risking to his boyish bewilderment a revelation of my motive, -I should throw across the rest of the mystery the long halter -of my boldness? - -This thought held me sufficiently to make me cross to his -threshold and pause again. I preternaturally listened; I figured -to myself what might portentously be; I wondered if his bed were -also empty and he too were secretly at watch. It was a deep, -soundless minute, at the end of which my impulse failed. -He was quiet; he might be innocent; the risk was hideous; -I turned away. There was a figure in the grounds--a figure -prowling for a sight, the visitor with whom Flora was engaged; -but it was not the visitor most concerned with my boy. -I hesitated afresh, but on other grounds and only for a few seconds; -then I had made my choice. There were empty rooms at Bly, -and it was only a question of choosing the right one. -The right one suddenly presented itself to me as the lower one-- -though high above the gardens--in the solid corner of the house -that I have spoken of as the old tower. This was a large, -square chamber, arranged with some state as a bedroom, the extravagant -size of which made it so inconvenient that it had not for years, -though kept by Mrs. Grose in exemplary order, been occupied. -I had often admired it and I knew my way about in it; I had only, -after just faltering at the first chill gloom of its disuse, -to pass across it and unbolt as quietly as I could one of -the shutters. Achieving this transit, I uncovered the glass -without a sound and, applying my face to the pane, was able, -the darkness without being much less than within, to see that I -commanded the right direction. Then I saw something more. -The moon made the night extraordinarily penetrable and -showed me on the lawn a person, diminished by distance, -who stood there motionless and as if fascinated, looking up -to where I had appeared--looking, that is, not so much -straight at me as at something that was apparently above me. -There was clearly another person above me--there was a person -on the tower; but the presence on the lawn was not in the least -what I had conceived and had confidently hurried to meet. -The presence on the lawn--I felt sick as I made it out-- -was poor little Miles himself. - - - - XI - - -It was not till late next day that I spoke to Mrs. Grose; -the rigor with which I kept my pupils in sight making it often -difficult to meet her privately, and the more as we each felt -the importance of not provoking--on the part of the servants -quite as much as on that of the children--any suspicion -of a secret flurry or that of a discussion of mysteries. -I drew a great security in this particular from her mere -smooth aspect. There was nothing in her fresh face to pass -on to others my horrible confidences. She believed me, -I was sure, absolutely: if she hadn't I don't know what would -have become of me, for I couldn't have borne the business alone. -But she was a magnificent monument to the blessing of a want -of imagination, and if she could see in our little charges nothing -but their beauty and amiability, their happiness and cleverness, -she had no direct communication with the sources of my trouble. -If they had been at all visibly blighted or battered, she would -doubtless have grown, on tracing it back, haggard enough -to match them; as matters stood, however, I could feel her, -when she surveyed them, with her large white arms folded -and the habit of serenity in all her look, thank the Lord's -mercy that if they were ruined the pieces would still serve. -Flights of fancy gave place, in her mind, to a steady fireside glow, -and I had already begun to perceive how, with the development -of the conviction that--as time went on without a public accident-- -our young things could, after all, look out for themselves, -she addressed her greatest solicitude to the sad case presented -by their instructress. That, for myself, was a sound simplification: -I could engage that, to the world, my face should tell no tales, -but it would have been, in the conditions, an immense added -strain to find myself anxious about hers. - -At the hour I now speak of she had joined me, under pressure, -on the terrace, where, with the lapse of the season, the afternoon -sun was now agreeable; and we sat there together while, before us, -at a distance, but within call if we wished, the children -strolled to and fro in one of their most manageable moods. -They moved slowly, in unison, below us, over the lawn, the boy, -as they went, reading aloud from a storybook and passing -his arm round his sister to keep her quite in touch. -Mrs. Grose watched them with positive placidity; then I caught -the suppressed intellectual creak with which she conscientiously -turned to take from me a view of the back of the tapestry. -I had made her a receptacle of lurid things, but there was an odd -recognition of my superiority--my accomplishments and my function-- -in her patience under my pain. She offered her mind to my -disclosures as, had I wished to mix a witch's broth and proposed it -with assurance, she would have held out a large clean saucepan. -This had become thoroughly her attitude by the time that, -in my recital of the events of the night, I reached the point -of what Miles had said to me when, after seeing him, at such -a monstrous hour, almost on the very spot where he happened -now to be, I had gone down to bring him in; choosing then, -at the window, with a concentrated need of not alarming the house, -rather that method than a signal more resonant. I had left -her meanwhile in little doubt of my small hope of representing -with success even to her actual sympathy my sense of the real -splendor of the little inspiration with which, after I had got -him into the house, the boy met my final articulate challenge. -As soon as I appeared in the moonlight on the terrace, -he had come to me as straight as possible; on which I had taken -his hand without a word and led him, through the dark spaces, -up the staircase where Quint had so hungrily hovered for him, -along the lobby where I had listened and trembled, and so to -his forsaken room. - -Not a sound, on the way, had passed between us, and I had wondered-- -oh, HOW I had wondered!--if he were groping about in his -little mind for something plausible and not too grotesque. -It would tax his invention, certainly, and I felt, this time, -over his real embarrassment, a curious thrill of triumph. -It was a sharp trap for the inscrutable! He couldn't play any -longer at innocence; so how the deuce would he get out of it? -There beat in me indeed, with the passionate throb of this -question an equal dumb appeal as to how the deuce _I_ should. -I was confronted at last, as never yet, with all the risk -attached even now to sounding my own horrid note. -I remember in fact that as we pushed into his little chamber, -where the bed had not been slept in at all and the window, -uncovered to the moonlight, made the place so clear that there -was no need of striking a match--I remember how I suddenly dropped, -sank upon the edge of the bed from the force of the idea -that he must know how he really, as they say, "had" me. -He could do what he liked, with all his cleverness to help him, -so long as I should continue to defer to the old tradition -of the criminality of those caretakers of the young who -minister to superstitions and fears. He "had" me indeed, -and in a cleft stick; for who would ever absolve me, who would -consent that I should go unhung, if, by the faintest tremor -of an overture, I were the first to introduce into our perfect -intercourse an element so dire? No, no: it was useless -to attempt to convey to Mrs. Grose, just as it is scarcely -less so to attempt to suggest here, how, in our short, -stiff brush in the dark, he fairly shook me with admiration. -I was of course thoroughly kind and merciful; never, never yet -had I placed on his little shoulders hands of such tenderness -as those with which, while I rested against the bed, -I held him there well under fire. I had no alternative but, -in form at least, to put it to him. - -"You must tell me now--and all the truth. What did you go out for? -What were you doing there?" - -I can still see his wonderful smile, the whites of his beautiful eyes, -and the uncovering of his little teeth shine to me in the dusk. -"If I tell you why, will you understand?" My heart, -at this, leaped into my mouth. WOULD he tell me why? -I found no sound on my lips to press it, and I was aware -of replying only with a vague, repeated, grimacing nod. -He was gentleness itself, and while I wagged my head at -him he stood there more than ever a little fairy prince. -It was his brightness indeed that gave me a respite. -Would it be so great if he were really going to tell me? -"Well," he said at last, "just exactly in order that you -should do this." - -"Do what?" - -"Think me--for a change--BAD!" I shall never forget the sweetness -and gaiety with which he brought out the word, nor how, on top of it, -he bent forward and kissed me. It was practically the end of everything. -I met his kiss and I had to make, while I folded him for a minute -in my arms, the most stupendous effort not to cry. He had given exactly -the account of himself that permitted least of my going behind it, -and it was only with the effect of confirming my acceptance of it that, -as I presently glanced about the room, I could say-- - -"Then you didn't undress at all?" - -He fairly glittered in the gloom. "Not at all. -I sat up and read." - -"And when did you go down?" - -"At midnight. When I'm bad I AM bad!" - -"I see, I see--it's charming. But how could you be sure I would know it?" - -"Oh, I arranged that with Flora." His answers rang out with a readiness! -"She was to get up and look out." - -"Which is what she did do." It was I who fell into the trap! - -"So she disturbed you, and, to see what she was looking at, -you also looked--you saw." - -"While you," I concurred, "caught your death in the night air!" - -He literally bloomed so from this exploit that he could afford radiantly -to assent. "How otherwise should I have been bad enough?" he asked. -Then, after another embrace, the incident and our interview closed -on my recognition of all the reserves of goodness that, for his joke, -he had been able to draw upon. - - - - XII - - -The particular impression I had received proved in the morning light, -I repeat, not quite successfully presentable to Mrs. Grose, -though I reinforced it with the mention of still another remark -that he had made before we separated. "It all lies in half a -dozen words," I said to her, "words that really settle the matter. -'Think, you know, what I MIGHT do!' He threw that off to show -me how good he is. He knows down to the ground what he `might' do. -That's what he gave them a taste of at school." - -"Lord, you do change!" cried my friend. - -"I don't change--I simply make it out. The four, depend upon it, -perpetually meet. If on either of these last nights you had -been with either child, you would clearly have understood. -The more I've watched and waited the more I've felt that if -there were nothing else to make it sure it would be made -so by the systematic silence of each. NEVER, by a slip -of the tongue, have they so much as alluded to either of their -old friends, any more than Miles has alluded to his expulsion. -Oh, yes, we may sit here and look at them, and they may show -off to us there to their fill; but even while they pretend -to be lost in their fairytale they're steeped in their vision -of the dead restored. He's not reading to her," I declared; -"they're talking of THEM--they're talking horrors! -I go on, I know, as if I were crazy; and it's a wonder I'm not. -What I've seen would have made YOU so; but it has only made -me more lucid, made me get hold of still other things." - -My lucidity must have seemed awful, but the charming creatures -who were victims of it, passing and repassing in their -interlocked sweetness, gave my colleague something to hold on by; -and I felt how tight she held as, without stirring in the breath -of my passion, she covered them still with her eyes. -"Of what other things have you got hold?" - -"Why, of the very things that have delighted, fascinated, and yet, -at bottom, as I now so strangely see, mystified and troubled me. -Their more than earthly beauty, their absolutely unnatural goodness. -It's a game," I went on; "it's a policy and a fraud!" - -"On the part of little darlings--?" - -"As yet mere lovely babies? Yes, mad as that seems!" -The very act of bringing it out really helped me to -trace it--follow it all up and piece it all together. -"They haven't been good--they've only been absent. -It has been easy to live with them, because they're simply leading -a life of their own. They're not mine--they're not ours. -They're his and they're hers!" - -"Quint's and that woman's?" - -"Quint's and that woman's. They want to get to them." - -Oh, how, at this, poor Mrs. Grose appeared to study them! -"But for what?" - -"For the love of all the evil that, in those dreadful days, -the pair put into them. And to ply them with that evil still, -to keep up the work of demons, is what brings the others back." - -"Laws!" said my friend under her breath. The exclamation was homely, but it -revealed a real acceptance of my further proof of what, in the bad time-- -for there had been a worse even than this!--must have occurred. There could -have been no such justification for me as the plain assent of her experience -to whatever depth of depravity I found credible in our brace of scoundrels. -It was in obvious submission of memory that she brought out after a moment: -"They WERE rascals! But what can they now do?" she pursued. - -"Do?" I echoed so loud that Miles and Flora, as they passed at -their distance, paused an instant in their walk and looked at us. -"Don't they do enough?" I demanded in a lower tone, while the children, -having smiled and nodded and kissed hands to us, resumed their exhibition. -We were held by it a minute; then I answered: "They can destroy them!" -At this my companion did turn, but the inquiry she launched was -a silent one, the effect of which was to make me more explicit. -"They don't know, as yet, quite how--but they're trying hard. -They're seen only across, as it were, and beyond--in strange places -and on high places, the top of towers, the roof of houses, the outside -of windows, the further edge of pools; but there's a deep design, -on either side, to shorten the distance and overcome the obstacle; -and the success of the tempters is only a question of time. -They've only to keep to their suggestions of danger." - -"For the children to come?" - -"And perish in the attempt!" Mrs. Grose slowly got up, -and I scrupulously added: "Unless, of course, we can prevent!" - -Standing there before me while I kept my seat, she visibly -turned things over. "Their uncle must do the preventing. -He must take them away." - -"And who's to make him?" - -She had been scanning the distance, but she now dropped on me -a foolish face. "You, miss." - -"By writing to him that his house is poisoned and his little -nephew and niece mad?" - -"But if they ARE, miss?" - -"And if I am myself, you mean? That's charming news to be sent him -by a governess whose prime undertaking was to give him no worry." - -Mrs. Grose considered, following the children again. "Yes, he do hate worry. -That was the great reason--" - -"Why those fiends took him in so long? No doubt, though his -indifference must have been awful. As I'm not a fiend, -at any rate, I shouldn't take him in." - -My companion, after an instant and for all answer, sat down again -and grasped my arm. "Make him at any rate come to you." - -I stared. "To ME?" I had a sudden fear of what she might do. "'Him'?" - -"He ought to BE here--he ought to help." - -I quickly rose, and I think I must have shown her a queerer face -than ever yet. "You see me asking him for a visit?" No, with her -eyes on my face she evidently couldn't. Instead of it even-- -as a woman reads another--she could see what I myself saw: -his derision, his amusement, his contempt for the breakdown -of my resignation at being left alone and for the fine machinery I -had set in motion to attract his attention to my slighted charms. -She didn't know--no one knew--how proud I had been to serve -him and to stick to our terms; yet she nonetheless took -the measure, I think, of the warning I now gave her. -"If you should so lose your head as to appeal to him for me--" - -She was really frightened. "Yes, miss?" - -"I would leave, on the spot, both him and you." - - - - - XIII - - -It was all very well to join them, but speaking to them proved -quite as much as ever an effort beyond my strength--offered, -in close quarters, difficulties as insurmountable as before. -This situation continued a month, and with new aggravations -and particular notes, the note above all, sharper and sharper, -of the small ironic consciousness on the part of my pupils. -It was not, I am as sure today as I was sure then, my mere -infernal imagination: it was absolutely traceable that they -were aware of my predicament and that this strange relation made, -in a manner, for a long time, the air in which we moved. -I don't mean that they had their tongues in their cheeks or did -anything vulgar, for that was not one of their dangers: -I do mean, on the other hand, that the element of the unnamed -and untouched became, between us, greater than any other, -and that so much avoidance could not have been so successfully -effected without a great deal of tacit arrangement. -It was as if, at moments, we were perpetually coming into sight -of subjects before which we must stop short, turning suddenly -out of alleys that we perceived to be blind, closing with a little -bang that made us look at each other--for, like all bangs, -it was something louder than we had intended--the doors we -had indiscreetly opened. All roads lead to Rome, and there -were times when it might have struck us that almost every branch -of study or subject of conversation skirted forbidden ground. -Forbidden ground was the question of the return of the dead -in general and of whatever, in especial, might survive, -in memory, of the friends little children had lost. -There were days when I could have sworn that one of them had, -with a small invisible nudge, said to the other: -"She thinks she'll do it this time--but she WON'T!" To "do it" -would have been to indulge for instance--and for once in a way-- -in some direct reference to the lady who had prepared them for -my discipline. They had a delightful endless appetite for passages -in my own history, to which I had again and again treated them; -they were in possession of everything that had ever happened to me, -had had, with every circumstance the story of my smallest adventures -and of those of my brothers and sisters and of the cat and the dog -at home, as well as many particulars of the eccentric nature -of my father, of the furniture and arrangement of our house, -and of the conversation of the old women of our village. -There were things enough, taking one with another, to chatter about, -if one went very fast and knew by instinct when to go round. -They pulled with an art of their own the strings of my invention -and my memory; and nothing else perhaps, when I thought -of such occasions afterward, gave me so the suspicion of being -watched from under cover. It was in any case over MY life, -MY past, and MY friends alone that we could take anything -like our ease--a state of affairs that led them sometimes without -the least pertinence to break out into sociable reminders. -I was invited--with no visible connection--to repeat afresh -Goody Gosling's celebrated mot or to confirm the details -already supplied as to the cleverness of the vicarage pony. - -It was partly at such junctures as these and partly at quite -different ones that, with the turn my matters had now taken, -my predicament, as I have called it, grew most sensible. -The fact that the days passed for me without another encounter ought, -it would have appeared, to have done something toward soothing my nerves. -Since the light brush, that second night on the upper landing, -of the presence of a woman at the foot of the stair, I had seen nothing, -whether in or out of the house, that one had better not have seen. -There was many a corner round which I expected to come upon Quint, -and many a situation that, in a merely sinister way, would have favored -the appearance of Miss Jessel. The summer had turned, the summer had gone; -the autumn had dropped upon Bly and had blown out half our lights. -The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces -and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the performance-- -all strewn with crumpled playbills. There were exactly states of the air, -conditions of sound and of stillness, unspeakable impressions -of the KIND of ministering moment, that brought back to me, -long enough to catch it, the feeling of the medium in which, -that June evening out of doors, I had had my first sight of Quint, -and in which, too, at those other instants, I had, after seeing him -through the window, looked for him in vain in the circle of shrubbery. -I recognized the signs, the portents--I recognized the moment, the spot. -But they remained unaccompanied and empty, and I continued unmolested; -if unmolested one could call a young woman whose sensibility had, -in the most extraordinary fashion, not declined but deepened. -I had said in my talk with Mrs. Grose on that horrid scene of Flora's -by the lake--and had perplexed her by so saying--that it would from -that moment distress me much more to lose my power than to keep it. -I had then expressed what was vividly in my mind: the truth that, -whether the children really saw or not--since, that is, it was -not yet definitely proved--I greatly preferred, as a safeguard, -the fullness of my own exposure. I was ready to know the very worst -that was to be known. What I had then had an ugly glimpse of was -that my eyes might be sealed just while theirs were most opened. -Well, my eyes WERE sealed, it appeared, at present-- -a consummation for which it seemed blasphemous not to thank God. -There was, alas, a difficulty about that: I would have thanked -him with all my soul had I not had in a proportionate measure this -conviction of the secret of my pupils. - -How can I retrace today the strange steps of my obsession? -There were times of our being together when I would have been ready -to swear that, literally, in my presence, but with my direct sense -of it closed, they had visitors who were known and were welcome. -Then it was that, had I not been deterred by the very chance that -such an injury might prove greater than the injury to be averted, -my exultation would have broken out. "They're here, they're here, -you little wretches," I would have cried, "and you can't deny it now!" -The little wretches denied it with all the added volume of their -sociability and their tenderness, in just the crystal depths of which-- -like the flash of a fish in a stream--the mockery of their advantage -peeped up. The shock, in truth, had sunk into me still deeper -than I knew on the night when, looking out to see either Quint -or Miss Jessel under the stars, I had beheld the boy over whose -rest I watched and who had immediately brought in with him-- -had straightway, there, turned it on me--the lovely upward look with which, -from the battlements above me, the hideous apparition of Quint had played. -If it was a question of a scare, my discovery on this occasion -had scared me more than any other, and it was in the condition -of nerves produced by it that I made my actual inductions. -They harassed me so that sometimes, at odd moments, I shut myself -up audibly to rehearse--it was at once a fantastic relief and a -renewed despair--the manner in which I might come to the point. -I approached it from one side and the other while, in my room, -I flung myself about, but I always broke down in the monstrous -utterance of names. As they died away on my lips, I said to myself -that I should indeed help them to represent something infamous, -if, by pronouncing them, I should violate as rare a little case -of instinctive delicacy as any schoolroom, probably, had ever known. -When I said to myself: "THEY have the manners to be silent, -and you, trusted as you are, the baseness to speak!" -I felt myself crimson and I covered my face with my hands. -After these secret scenes I chattered more than ever, going on -volubly enough till one of our prodigious, palpable hushes occurred-- -I can call them nothing else--the strange, dizzy lift or swim -(I try for terms!) into a stillness, a pause of all life, that had -nothing to do with the more or less noise that at the moment we -might be engaged in making and that I could hear through any deepened -exhilaration or quickened recitation or louder strum of the piano. -Then it was that the others, the outsiders, were there. -Though they were not angels, they "passed," as the French say, -causing me, while they stayed, to tremble with the fear of their -addressing to their younger victims some yet more infernal message -or more vivid image than they had thought good enough for myself. - -What it was most impossible to get rid of was the cruel idea that, -whatever I had seen, Miles and Flora saw MORE--things terrible -and unguessable and that sprang from dreadful passages of intercourse -in the past. Such things naturally left on the surface, -for the time, a chill which we vociferously denied that we felt; -and we had, all three, with repetition, got into such splendid -training that we went, each time, almost automatically, to mark -the close of the incident, through the very same movements. -It was striking of the children, at all events, to kiss me inveterately -with a kind of wild irrelevance and never to fail--one or the other-- -of the precious question that had helped us through many a peril. -"When do you think he WILL come? Don't you think we OUGHT -to write?"--there was nothing like that inquiry, we found -by experience, for carrying off an awkwardness. "He" of course -was their uncle in Harley Street; and we lived in much profusion -of theory that he might at any moment arrive to mingle in our circle. -It was impossible to have given less encouragement than he had done -to such a doctrine, but if we had not had the doctrine to fall back upon -we should have deprived each other of some of our finest exhibitions. -He never wrote to them--that may have been selfish, but it was a part -of the flattery of his trust of me; for the way in which a man -pays his highest tribute to a woman is apt to be but by the more -festal celebration of one of the sacred laws of his comfort; -and I held that I carried out the spirit of the pledge given not -to appeal to him when I let my charges understand that their own -letters were but charming literary exercises. They were too beautiful -to be posted; I kept them myself; I have them all to this hour. -This was a rule indeed which only added to the satiric effect of my being -plied with the supposition that he might at any moment be among us. -It was exactly as if my charges knew how almost more awkward -than anything else that might be for me. There appears to me, -moreover, as I look back, no note in all this more extraordinary -than the mere fact that, in spite of my tension and of their triumph, -I never lost patience with them. Adorable they must in truth -have been, I now reflect, that I didn't in these days hate them! -Would exasperation, however, if relief had longer been postponed, -finally have betrayed me? It little matters, for relief arrived. -I call it relief, though it was only the relief that a snap brings -to a strain or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day of suffocation. -It was at least change, and it came with a rush. - - - - XIV - - -Walking to church a certain Sunday morning, I had little Miles at my side -and his sister, in advance of us and at Mrs. Grose's, well in sight. -It was a crisp, clear day, the first of its order for some time; -the night had brought a touch of frost, and the autumn air, bright and sharp, -made the church bells almost gay. It was an odd accident of thought -that I should have happened at such a moment to be particularly -and very gratefully struck with the obedience of my little charges. -Why did they never resent my inexorable, my perpetual society? -Something or other had brought nearer home to me that I had all but pinned -the boy to my shawl and that, in the way our companions were marshaled -before me, I might have appeared to provide against some danger of rebellion. -I was like a gaoler with an eye to possible surprises and escapes. -But all this belonged--I mean their magnificent little surrender-- -just to the special array of the facts that were most abysmal. -Turned out for Sunday by his uncle's tailor, who had had a free -hand and a notion of pretty waistcoats and of his grand little air, -Miles's whole title to independence, the rights of his sex and situation, -were so stamped upon him that if he had suddenly struck for freedom -I should have had nothing to say. I was by the strangest of chances -wondering how I should meet him when the revolution unmistakably occurred. -I call it a revolution because I now see how, with the word he spoke, -the curtain rose on the last act of my dreadful drama, and the catastrophe -was precipitated. "Look here, my dear, you know," he charmingly said, -"when in the world, please, am I going back to school?" - -Transcribed here the speech sounds harmless enough, -particularly as uttered in the sweet, high, casual pipe with which, -at all interlocutors, but above all at his eternal governess, -he threw off intonations as if he were tossing roses. -There was something in them that always made one "catch," and -I caught, at any rate, now so effectually that I stopped as short -as if one of the trees of the park had fallen across the road. -There was something new, on the spot, between us, and he was -perfectly aware that I recognized it, though, to enable me to do so, -he had no need to look a whit less candid and charming than usual. -I could feel in him how he already, from my at first finding -nothing to reply, perceived the advantage he had gained. -I was so slow to find anything that he had plenty of time, -after a minute, to continue with his suggestive but inconclusive smile: -"You know, my dear, that for a fellow to be with a lady ALWAYS--!" -His "my dear" was constantly on his lips for me, and nothing -could have expressed more the exact shade of the sentiment with -which I desired to inspire my pupils than its fond familiarity. -It was so respectfully easy. - -But, oh, how I felt that at present I must pick my own phrases! -I remember that, to gain time, I tried to laugh, and I seemed to see in -the beautiful face with which he watched me how ugly and queer I looked. -"And always with the same lady?" I returned. - -He neither blanched nor winked. The whole thing was virtually out -between us. "Ah, of course, she's a jolly, `perfect' lady; but, after all, -I'm a fellow, don't you see? that's--well, getting on." - -I lingered there with him an instant ever so kindly. -"Yes, you're getting on." Oh, but I felt helpless! - -I have kept to this day the heartbreaking little idea -of how he seemed to know that and to play with it. -"And you can't say I've not been awfully good, can you?" - -I laid my hand on his shoulder, for, though I felt how much -better it would have been to walk on, I was not yet quite able. -"No, I can't say that, Miles." - -"Except just that one night, you know--!" - -"That one night?" I couldn't look as straight as he. - -"Why, when I went down--went out of the house." - -"Oh, yes. But I forget what you did it for." - -"You forget?"--he spoke with the sweet extravagance of childish reproach. -"Why, it was to show you I could!" - -"Oh, yes, you could." - -"And I can again." - -I felt that I might, perhaps, after all, succeed in keeping -my wits about me. "Certainly. But you won't." - -"No, not THAT again. It was nothing." - -"It was nothing," I said. "But we must go on." - -He resumed our walk with me, passing his hand into my arm. -"Then when AM I going back?" - -I wore, in turning it over, my most responsible air. -"Were you very happy at school?" - -He just considered. "Oh, I'm happy enough anywhere!" - -"Well, then," I quavered, "if you're just as happy here--!" - -"Ah, but that isn't everything! Of course YOU know a lot--" - -"But you hint that you know almost as much?" I risked as he paused. - -"Not half I want to!" Miles honestly professed. -"But it isn't so much that." - -"What is it, then?" - -"Well--I want to see more life." - -"I see; I see." We had arrived within sight of the church and -of various persons, including several of the household of Bly, -on their way to it and clustered about the door to see us go in. -I quickened our step; I wanted to get there before the question -between us opened up much further; I reflected hungrily that, -for more than an hour, he would have to be silent; and I thought -with envy of the comparative dusk of the pew and of the almost -spiritual help of the hassock on which I might bend my knees. -I seemed literally to be running a race with some confusion -to which he was about to reduce me, but I felt that he had got -in first when, before we had even entered the churchyard, -he threw out-- - -"I want my own sort!" - -It literally made me bound forward. "There are not many of your -own sort, Miles!" I laughed. "Unless perhaps dear little Flora!" - -"You really compare me to a baby girl?" - -This found me singularly weak. "Don't you, then, LOVE -our sweet Flora?" - -"If I didn't--and you, too; if I didn't--!" he repeated as if -retreating for a jump, yet leaving his thought so unfinished that, -after we had come into the gate, another stop, which he imposed -on me by the pressure of his arm, had become inevitable. -Mrs. Grose and Flora had passed into the church, the other -worshippers had followed, and we were, for the minute, -alone among the old, thick graves. We had paused, on the path -from the gate, by a low, oblong, tablelike tomb. - -"Yes, if you didn't--?" - -He looked, while I waited, at the graves. "Well, you know what!" -But he didn't move, and he presently produced something that made -me drop straight down on the stone slab, as if suddenly to rest. -"Does my uncle think what YOU think?" - -I markedly rested. "How do you know what I think?" - -"Ah, well, of course I don't; for it strikes me you never tell me. -But I mean does HE know?" - -"Know what, Miles?" - -"Why, the way I'm going on." - -I perceived quickly enough that I could make, to this inquiry, -no answer that would not involve something of a sacrifice -of my employer. Yet it appeared to me that we were all, -at Bly, sufficiently sacrificed to make that venial. -"I don't think your uncle much cares." - -Miles, on this, stood looking at me. "Then don't you think he can -be made to?" - -"In what way?" - -"Why, by his coming down." - -"But who'll get him to come down?" - -"_I_ will!" the boy said with extraordinary brightness and emphasis. -He gave me another look charged with that expression and then marched -off alone into church. - - - - XV - - -The business was practically settled from the moment I -never followed him. It was a pitiful surrender to agitation, -but my being aware of this had somehow no power to restore me. -I only sat there on my tomb and read into what my little -friend had said to me the fullness of its meaning; -by the time I had grasped the whole of which I had also embraced, -for absence, the pretext that I was ashamed to offer my pupils -and the rest of the congregation such an example of delay. -What I said to myself above all was that Miles had got something -out of me and that the proof of it, for him, would be just this -awkward collapse. He had got out of me that there was something -I was much afraid of and that he should probably be able to make -use of my fear to gain, for his own purpose, more freedom. -My fear was of having to deal with the intolerable question -of the grounds of his dismissal from school, for that was -really but the question of the horrors gathered behind. -That his uncle should arrive to treat with me of these things -was a solution that, strictly speaking, I ought now to have -desired to bring on; but I could so little face the ugliness -and the pain of it that I simply procrastinated and lived -from hand to mouth. The boy, to my deep discomposure, -was immensely in the right, was in a position to say to me: -"Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of this -interruption of my studies, or you cease to expect me -to lead with you a life that's so unnatural for a boy." -What was so unnatural for the particular boy I was concerned -with was this sudden revelation of a consciousness and a plan. - -That was what really overcame me, what prevented my going in. -I walked round the church, hesitating, hovering; I reflected -that I had already, with him, hurt myself beyond repair. -Therefore I could patch up nothing, and it was too -extreme an effort to squeeze beside him into the pew: -he would be so much more sure than ever to pass his arm -into mine and make me sit there for an hour in close, -silent contact with his commentary on our talk. For the first -minute since his arrival I wanted to get away from him. -As I paused beneath the high east window and listened to the sounds -of worship, I was taken with an impulse that might master me, -I felt, completely should I give it the least encouragement. -I might easily put an end to my predicament by getting -away altogether. Here was my chance; there was no one to stop me; -I could give the whole thing up--turn my back and retreat. -It was only a question of hurrying again, for a few preparations, -to the house which the attendance at church of so many of -the servants would practically have left unoccupied. No one, -in short, could blame me if I should just drive desperately off. -What was it to get away if I got away only till dinner? -That would be in a couple of hours, at the end of which-- -I had the acute prevision--my little pupils would play at -innocent wonder about my nonappearance in their train. - -"What DID you do, you naughty, bad thing? Why in the world, -to worry us so--and take our thoughts off, too, don't you know?-- -did you desert us at the very door?" I couldn't meet such -questions nor, as they asked them, their false little lovely eyes; -yet it was all so exactly what I should have to meet that, -as the prospect grew sharp to me, I at last let myself go. - -I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away; I came straight -out of the churchyard and, thinking hard, retraced my steps through the park. -It seemed to me that by the time I reached the house I had made up my mind I -would fly. The Sunday stillness both of the approaches and of the interior, -in which I met no one, fairly excited me with a sense of opportunity. -Were I to get off quickly, this way, I should get off without a scene, -without a word. My quickness would have to be remarkable, however, -and the question of a conveyance was the great one to settle. -Tormented, in the hall, with difficulties and obstacles, I remember -sinking down at the foot of the staircase--suddenly collapsing there -on the lowest step and then, with a revulsion, recalling that it -was exactly where more than a month before, in the darkness of night -and just so bowed with evil things, I had seen the specter of the most -horrible of women. At this I was able to straighten myself; I went -the rest of the way up; I made, in my bewilderment, for the schoolroom, -where there were objects belonging to me that I should have to take. -But I opened the door to find again, in a flash, my eyes unsealed. -In the presence of what I saw I reeled straight back upon my resistance. - -Seated at my own table in clear noonday light I saw a person whom, -without my previous experience, I should have taken at -the first blush for some housemaid who might have stayed -at home to look after the place and who, availing herself -of rare relief from observation and of the schoolroom -table and my pens, ink, and paper, had applied herself -to the considerable effort of a letter to her sweetheart. -There was an effort in the way that, while her arms rested on -the table, her hands with evident weariness supported her head; -but at the moment I took this in I had already become aware that, -in spite of my entrance, her attitude strangely persisted. -Then it was--with the very act of its announcing itself-- -that her identity flared up in a change of posture. -She rose, not as if she had heard me, but with an indescribable -grand melancholy of indifference and detachment, and, within a -dozen feet of me, stood there as my vile predecessor. -Dishonored and tragic, she was all before me; but even as I -fixed and, for memory, secured it, the awful image passed away. -Dark as midnight in her black dress, her haggard beauty and her -unutterable woe, she had looked at me long enough to appear to say -that her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers. -While these instants lasted, indeed, I had the extraordinary -chill of feeling that it was I who was the intruder. -It was as a wild protest against it that, actually addressing -her--"You terrible, miserable woman!"--I heard myself break -into a sound that, by the open door, rang through the long -passage and the empty house. She looked at me as if she -heard me, but I had recovered myself and cleared the air. -There was nothing in the room the next minute but the sunshine -and a sense that I must stay. - - - - XVI - - -I had so perfectly expected that the return of my pupils would -be marked by a demonstration that I was freshly upset at having -to take into account that they were dumb about my absence. -Instead of gaily denouncing and caressing me, they made no allusion -to my having failed them, and I was left, for the time, on perceiving -that she too said nothing, to study Mrs. Grose's odd face. -I did this to such purpose that I made sure they had in some -way bribed her to silence; a silence that, however, I would -engage to break down on the first private opportunity. -This opportunity came before tea: I secured five minutes -with her in the housekeeper's room, where, in the twilight, -amid a smell of lately baked bread, but with the place all -swept and garnished, I found her sitting in pained placidity -before the fire. So I see her still, so I see her best: -facing the flame from her straight chair in the dusky, -shining room, a large clean image of the "put away"-- -of drawers closed and locked and rest without a remedy. - -"Oh, yes, they asked me to say nothing; and to please them-- -so long as they were there--of course I promised. -But what had happened to you?" - -"I only went with you for the walk," I said. "I had then to come -back to meet a friend." - -She showed her surprise. "A friend--YOU?" - -"Oh, yes, I have a couple!" I laughed. "But did the children give -you a reason?" - -"For not alluding to your leaving us? Yes; they said you would -like it better. Do you like it better?" - -My face had made her rueful. "No, I like it worse!" -But after an instant I added: "Did they say why I should -like it better?" - -"No; Master Miles only said, "We must do nothing but what she likes!" - -"I wish indeed he would. And what did Flora say?" - -"Miss Flora was too sweet. She said, `Oh, of course, of course!'-- -and I said the same." - -I thought a moment. "You were too sweet, too--I can hear you all. -But nonetheless, between Miles and me, it's now all out." - -"All out?" My companion stared. "But what, miss?" - -"Everything. It doesn't matter. I've made up my mind. -I came home, my dear," I went on, "for a talk with Miss Jessel." - -I had by this time formed the habit of having Mrs. Grose -literally well in hand in advance of my sounding that note; -so that even now, as she bravely blinked under the signal -of my word, I could keep her comparatively firm. "A talk! -Do you mean she spoke?" - -"It came to that. I found her, on my return, in the schoolroom." - -"And what did she say?" I can hear the good woman still, -and the candor of her stupefaction. - -"That she suffers the torments--!" - -It was this, of a truth, that made her, as she filled out my picture, gape. -"Do you mean," she faltered, "--of the lost?" - -"Of the lost. Of the damned. And that's why, to share them-" -I faltered myself with the horror of it. - -But my companion, with less imagination, kept me up. -"To share them--?" - -"She wants Flora." Mrs. Grose might, as I gave it to her, fairly have fallen -away from me had I not been prepared. I still held her there, to show I was. -"As I've told you, however, it doesn't matter." - -"Because you've made up your mind? But to what?" - -"To everything." - -"And what do you call `everything'?" - -"Why, sending for their uncle." - -"Oh, miss, in pity do," my friend broke out. - -"ah, but I will, I WILL! I see it's the only way. -What's `out,' as I told you, with Miles is that if he thinks -I'm afraid to--and has ideas of what he gains by that-- -he shall see he's mistaken. Yes, yes; his uncle shall have it -here from me on the spot (and before the boy himself, if necessary) -that if I'm to be reproached with having done nothing again -about more school--" - -"Yes, miss--" my companion pressed me. - -"Well, there's that awful reason." - -There were now clearly so many of these for my poor colleague that she -was excusable for being vague. "But--a-- which?" - -"Why, the letter from his old place." - -"You'll show it to the master?" - -"I ought to have done so on the instant." - -"Oh, no!" said Mrs. Grose with decision. - -"I'll put it before him," I went on inexorably, "that I can't undertake -to work the question on behalf of a child who has been expelled--" - -"For we've never in the least known what!" Mrs. Grose declared. - -"For wickedness. For what else--when he's so clever and beautiful -and perfect? Is he stupid? Is he untidy? Is he infirm? -Is he ill-natured? He's exquisite--so it can be only THAT; -and that would open up the whole thing. After all," I said, -"it's their uncle's fault. If he left here such people--!" - -"He didn't really in the least know them. The fault's mine." -She had turned quite pale. - -"Well, you shan't suffer," I answered. - -"The children shan't!" she emphatically returned. - -I was silent awhile; we looked at each other. "Then what am -I to tell him?" - -"You needn't tell him anything. _I_'ll tell him." - -I measured this. "Do you mean you'll write--?" Remembering she couldn't, I -caught myself up. "How do you communicate?" - -"I tell the bailiff. HE writes." - -"And should you like him to write our story?" - -My question had a sarcastic force that I had not fully intended, -and it made her, after a moment, inconsequently break down. -The tears were again in her eyes. "Ah, miss, YOU write!" - -"Well--tonight," I at last answered; and on this we separated. - - - - XVII - - -I went so far, in the evening, as to make a beginning. -The weather had changed back, a great wind was abroad, -and beneath the lamp, in my room, with Flora at peace beside me, -I sat for a long time before a blank sheet of paper and -listened to the lash of the rain and the batter of the gusts. -Finally I went out, taking a candle; I crossed the passage -and listened a minute at Miles's door. What, under my -endless obsession, I had been impelled to listen for was some -betrayal of his not being at rest, and I presently caught one, -but not in the form I had expected. His voice tinkled out. -"I say, you there--come in." It was a gaiety in the gloom! - -I went in with my light and found him, in bed, very wide awake, -but very much at his ease. "Well, what are YOU up to?" -he asked with a grace of sociability in which it occurred -to me that Mrs. Grose, had she been present, might have looked -in vain for proof that anything was "out." - -I stood over him with my candle. "How did you know I was there?" - -"Why, of course I heard you. Did you fancy you made no noise? -You're like a troop of cavalry!" he beautifully laughed. - -"Then you weren't asleep?" - -"Not much! I lie awake and think." - -I had put my candle, designedly, a short way off, and then, as he held -out his friendly old hand to me, had sat down on the edge of his bed. -"What is it," I asked, "that you think of?" - -"What in the world, my dear, but YOU?" - -"Ah, the pride I take in your appreciation doesn't insist on that! -I had so far rather you slept." - -"Well, I think also, you know, of this queer business of ours." - -I marked the coolness of his firm little hand. -"Of what queer business, Miles?" - -"Why, the way you bring me up. And all the rest!" - -I fairly held my breath a minute, and even from my glimmering taper -there was light enough to show how he smiled up at me from his pillow. -"What do you mean by all the rest?" - -"Oh, you know, you know!" - -I could say nothing for a minute, though I felt, as I held -his hand and our eyes continued to meet, that my silence -had all the air of admitting his charge and that nothing -in the whole world of reality was perhaps at that moment -so fabulous as our actual relation. "Certainly you shall go -back to school," I said, "if it be that that troubles you. -But not to the old place--we must find another, a better. -How could I know it did trouble you, this question, -when you never told me so, never spoke of it at all?" -His clear, listening face, framed in its smooth whiteness, -made him for the minute as appealing as some wistful -patient in a children's hospital; and I would have given, -as the resemblance came to me, all I possessed on earth really -to be the nurse or the sister of charity who might have helped -to cure him. Well, even as it was, I perhaps might help! -"Do you know you've never said a word to me about your school-- -I mean the old one; never mentioned it in any way?" - -He seemed to wonder; he smiled with the same loveliness. -But he clearly gained time; he waited, he called for guidance. -"Haven't I?" It wasn't for ME to help him--it was for -the thing I had met! - -Something in his tone and the expression of his face, as I -got this from him, set my heart aching with such a pang as it -had never yet known; so unutterably touching was it to see his -little brain puzzled and his little resources taxed to play, -under the spell laid on him, a part of innocence and consistency. -"No, never--from the hour you came back. You've never -mentioned to me one of your masters, one of your comrades, -nor the least little thing that ever happened to you at school. -Never, little Miles--no, never--have you given me an inkling -of anything that MAY have happened there. Therefore you -can fancy how much I'm in the dark. Until you came out, -that way, this morning, you had, since the first hour I saw you, -scarce even made a reference to anything in your previous life. -You seemed so perfectly to accept the present." It was -extraordinary how my absolute conviction of his secret precocity -(or whatever I might call the poison of an influence that I -dared but half to phrase) made him, in spite of the faint -breath of his inward trouble, appear as accessible as an -older person--imposed him almost as an intellectual equal. -"I thought you wanted to go on as you are." - -It struck me that at this he just faintly colored. He gave, at any rate, -like a convalescent slightly fatigued, a languid shake of his head. -"I don't--I don't. I want to get away." - -"You're tired of Bly?" - -"Oh, no, I like Bly." - -"Well, then--?" - -"Oh, YOU know what a boy wants!" - -I felt that I didn't know so well as Miles, and I took temporary refuge. -"You want to go to your uncle?" - -Again, at this, with his sweet ironic face, he made a movement on the pillow. -"Ah, you can't get off with that!" - -I was silent a little, and it was I, now, I think, who changed color. -"My dear, I don't want to get off!" - -"You can't, even if you do. You can't, you can't!"-- -he lay beautifully staring. "My uncle must come down, -and you must completely settle things." - -"If we do," I returned with some spirit, "you may be sure it -will be to take you quite away." - -"Well, don't you understand that that's exactly what I'm working for? -You'll have to tell him--about the way you've let it all drop: -you'll have to tell him a tremendous lot!" - -The exultation with which he uttered this helped -me somehow, for the instant, to meet him rather more. -"And how much will YOU, Miles, have to tell him? -There are things he'll ask you!" - -He turned it over. "Very likely. But what things?" - -"The things you've never told me. To make up his mind what to do with you. -He can't send you back--" - -"Oh, I don't want to go back!" he broke in. "I want a new field." - -He said it with admirable serenity, with positive unimpeachable gaiety; -and doubtless it was that very note that most evoked for me the poignancy, -the unnatural childish tragedy, of his probable reappearance at the end of -three months with all this bravado and still more dishonor. It overwhelmed me -now that I should never be able to bear that, and it made me let myself go. -I threw myself upon him and in the tenderness of my pity I embraced him. -"Dear little Miles, dear little Miles--!" - -My face was close to his, and he let me kiss him, simply taking it -with indulgent good humor. "Well, old lady?" - -"Is there nothing--nothing at all that you want to tell me?" - -He turned off a little, facing round toward the wall and holding -up his hand to look at as one had seen sick children look. -"I've told you--I told you this morning." - -Oh, I was sorry for him! "That you just want me not to worry you?" - -He looked round at me now, as if in recognition of my understanding him; -then ever so gently, "To let me alone," he replied. - -There was even a singular little dignity in it, something that made -me release him, yet, when I had slowly risen, linger beside him. -God knows I never wished to harass him, but I felt that merely, at this, -to turn my back on him was to abandon or, to put it more truly, to lose him. -"I've just begun a letter to your uncle," I said. - -"Well, then, finish it!" - -I waited a minute. "What happened before?" - -He gazed up at me again. "Before what?" - -"Before you came back. And before you went away." - -For some time he was silent, but he continued to meet my eyes. -"What happened?" - -It made me, the sound of the words, in which it seemed to me -that I caught for the very first time a small faint quaver -of consenting consciousness--it made me drop on my knees beside -the bed and seize once more the chance of possessing him. -"Dear little Miles, dear little Miles, if you KNEW how I -want to help you! It's only that, it's nothing but that, -and I'd rather die than give you a pain or do you a wrong-- -I'd rather die than hurt a hair of you. Dear little Miles"-- -oh, I brought it out now even if I SHOULD go too far--"I -just want you to help me to save you!" But I knew in a moment -after this that I had gone too far. The answer to my appeal -was instantaneous, but it came in the form of an extraordinary -blast and chill, a gust of frozen air, and a shake of the room -as great as if, in the wild wind, the casement had crashed in. -The boy gave a loud, high shriek, which, lost in the rest -of the shock of sound, might have seemed, indistinctly, though I -was so close to him, a note either of jubilation or of terror. -I jumped to my feet again and was conscious of darkness. -So for a moment we remained, while I stared about me and saw -that the drawn curtains were unstirred and the window tight. -"Why, the candle's out!" I then cried. - -"It was I who blew it, dear!" said Miles. - - - - XVIII - - -The next day, after lessons, Mrs. Grose found a moment to say to me quietly: -"Have you written, miss?" - -"Yes--I've written." But I didn't add--for the hour--that my letter, -sealed and directed, was still in my pocket. There would be time -enough to send it before the messenger should go to the village. -Meanwhile there had been, on the part of my pupils, no more brilliant, -more exemplary morning. It was exactly as if they had both had at heart -to gloss over any recent little friction. They performed the dizziest feats -of arithmetic, soaring quite out of MY feeble range, and perpetrated, -in higher spirits than ever, geographical and historical jokes. -It was conspicuous of course in Miles in particular that he appeared -to wish to show how easily he could let me down. This child, to my memory, -really lives in a setting of beauty and misery that no words can translate; -there was a distinction all his own in every impulse he revealed; -never was a small natural creature, to the uninitiated eye all frankness -and freedom, a more ingenious, a more extraordinary little gentleman. -I had perpetually to guard against the wonder of contemplation into which my -initiated view betrayed me; to check the irrelevant gaze and discouraged -sigh in which I constantly both attacked and renounced the enigma of -what such a little gentleman could have done that deserved a penalty. -Say that, by the dark prodigy I knew, the imagination of all evil HAD -been opened up to him: all the justice within me ached for the proof -that it could ever have flowered into an act. - -He had never, at any rate, been such a little gentleman -as when, after our early dinner on this dreadful day, -he came round to me and asked if I shouldn't like him, -for half an hour, to play to me. David playing to Saul -could never have shown a finer sense of the occasion. -It was literally a charming exhibition of tact, of magnanimity, -and quite tantamount to his saying outright: "The true knights -we love to read about never push an advantage too far. -I know what you mean now: you mean that--to be let alone yourself -and not followed up--you'll cease to worry and spy upon me, -won't keep me so close to you, will let me go and come. -Well, I `come,' you see--but I don't go! There'll be plenty -of time for that. I do really delight in your society, -and I only want to show you that I contended for a principle." -It may be imagined whether I resisted this appeal or failed -to accompany him again, hand in hand, to the schoolroom. -He sat down at the old piano and played as he had never played; -and if there are those who think he had better have been kicking -a football I can only say that I wholly agree with them. -For at the end of a time that under his influence I had -quite ceased to measure, I started up with a strange sense -of having literally slept at my post. It was after luncheon, -and by the schoolroom fire, and yet I hadn't really, -in the least, slept: I had only done something much worse-- -I had forgotten. Where, all this time, was Flora? -When I put the question to Miles, he played on a minute -before answering and then could only say: "Why, my dear, -how do _I_ know?"--breaking moreover into a happy laugh which, -immediately after, as if it were a vocal accompaniment, -he prolonged into incoherent, extravagant song. - -I went straight to my room, but his sister was not there; -then, before going downstairs, I looked into several others. -As she was nowhere about she would surely be with Mrs. Grose, whom, -in the comfort of that theory, I accordingly proceeded in quest of. -I found her where I had found her the evening before, -but she met my quick challenge with blank, scared ignorance. -She had only supposed that, after the repast, I had carried -off both the children; as to which she was quite in her right, -for it was the very first time I had allowed the little -girl out of my sight without some special provision. -Of course now indeed she might be with the maids, so that the -immediate thing was to look for her without an air of alarm. -This we promptly arranged between us; but when, ten minutes -later and in pursuance of our arrangement, we met in the hall, -it was only to report on either side that after guarded inquiries -we had altogether failed to trace her. For a minute there, -apart from observation, we exchanged mute alarms, and I could -feel with what high interest my friend returned me all those I -had from the first given her. - -"She'll be above," she presently said--"in one of the rooms -you haven't searched." - -"No; she's at a distance." I had made up my mind. -"She has gone out." - -Mrs. Grose stared. "Without a hat?" - -I naturally also looked volumes. "Isn't that woman always without one?" - -"She's with HER?" - -"She's with HER!" I declared. "We must find them." - -My hand was on my friend's arm, but she failed for the moment, -confronted with such an account of the matter, to respond to my pressure. -She communed, on the contrary, on the spot, with her uneasiness. -"And where's Master Miles?" - -"Oh, HE'S with Quint. They're in the schoolroom." - -"Lord, miss!" My view, I was myself aware--and therefore I suppose my tone-- -had never yet reached so calm an assurance. - -"The trick's played," I went on; "they've successfully worked their plan. -He found the most divine little way to keep me quiet while she went off." - -"'Divine'?" Mrs. Grose bewilderedly echoed. - -"Infernal, then!" I almost cheerfully rejoined. -"He has provided for himself as well. But come!" - -She had helplessly gloomed at the upper regions. -"You leave him--?" - -"So long with Quint? Yes--I don't mind that now." - -She always ended, at these moments, by getting possession of -my hand, and in this manner she could at present still stay me. -But after gasping an instant at my sudden resignation, -"Because of your letter?" she eagerly brought out. - -I quickly, by way of answer, felt for my letter, drew it forth, held it up, -and then, freeing myself, went and laid it on the great hall table. -"Luke will take it," I said as I came back. I reached the house door -and opened it; I was already on the steps. - -My companion still demurred: the storm of the night and the early -morning had dropped, but the afternoon was damp and gray. -I came down to the drive while she stood in the doorway. -"You go with nothing on?" - -"What do I care when the child has nothing? I can't wait -to dress," I cried, "and if you must do so, I leave you. -Try meanwhile, yourself, upstairs." - -"With THEM?" Oh, on this, the poor woman promptly joined me! - - - - XIX - - -We went straight to the lake, as it was called at Bly, and I daresay -rightly called, though I reflect that it may in fact have been a sheet -of water less remarkable than it appeared to my untraveled eyes. -My acquaintance with sheets of water was small, and the pool -of Bly, at all events on the few occasions of my consenting, -under the protection of my pupils, to affront its surface -in the old flat-bottomed boat moored there for our use, -had impressed me both with its extent and its agitation. -The usual place of embarkation was half a mile from the house, -but I had an intimate conviction that, wherever Flora might be, -she was not near home. She had not given me the slip for any -small adventure, and, since the day of the very great one -that I had shared with her by the pond, I had been aware, -in our walks, of the quarter to which she most inclined. -This was why I had now given to Mrs. Grose's steps so marked -a direction--a direction that made her, when she perceived it, -oppose a resistance that showed me she was freshly mystified. -"You're going to the water, Miss?--you think she's IN--?" - -"She may be, though the depth is, I believe, nowhere very great. -But what I judge most likely is that she's on the spot from which, -the other day, we saw together what I told you." - -"When she pretended not to see--?" - -"With that astounding self-possession? I've always been sure she wanted -to go back alone. And now her brother has managed it for her." - -Mrs. Grose still stood where she had stopped. "You suppose they -really TALK of them?" - -"I could meet this with a confidence! "They say things that, -if we heard them, would simply appall us." - -"And if she IS there--" - -"Yes?" - -"Then Miss Jessel is?" - -"Beyond a doubt. You shall see." - -"Oh, thank you!" my friend cried, planted so firm that, -taking it in, I went straight on without her. By the time -I reached the pool, however, she was close behind me, and I -knew that, whatever, to her apprehension, might befall me, -the exposure of my society struck her as her least danger. -She exhaled a moan of relief as we at last came in sight -of the greater part of the water without a sight of the child. -There was no trace of Flora on that nearer side of the bank -where my observation of her had been most startling, -and none on the opposite edge, where, save for a margin -of some twenty yards, a thick copse came down to the water. -The pond, oblong in shape, had a width so scant compared -to its length that, with its ends out of view, it might have -been taken for a scant river. We looked at the empty expanse, -and then I felt the suggestion of my friend's eyes. -I knew what she meant and I replied with a negative headshake. - -"No, no; wait! She has taken the boat." - -My companion stared at the vacant mooring place and then again across -the lake. "Then where is it?" - -"Our not seeing it is the strongest of proofs. She has used it to go over, -and then has managed to hide it." - -"All alone--that child?" - -"She's not alone, and at such times she's not a child: she's an old, -old woman." I scanned all the visible shore while Mrs. Grose took again, -into the queer element I offered her, one of her plunges of submission; -then I pointed out that the boat might perfectly be in a small refuge -formed by one of the recesses of the pool, an indentation masked, -for the hither side, by a projection of the bank and by a clump of trees -growing close to the water. - -"But if the boat's there, where on earth's SHE?" -my colleague anxiously asked. - -"That's exactly what we must learn." And I started to walk further. - -"By going all the way round?" - -"Certainly, far as it is. It will take us but ten minutes, -but it's far enough to have made the child prefer not to walk. -She went straight over." - -"Laws!" cried my friend again; the chain of my logic was ever -too much for her. It dragged her at my heels even now, -and when we had got halfway round--a devious, tiresome process, -on ground much broken and by a path choked with overgrowth-- -I paused to give her breath. I sustained her with a grateful arm, -assuring her that she might hugely help me; and this started -us afresh, so that in the course of but few minutes more we reached -a point from which we found the boat to be where I had supposed it. -It had been intentionally left as much as possible out of sight -and was tied to one of the stakes of a fence that came, just there, -down to the brink and that had been an assistance to disembarking. -I recognized, as I looked at the pair of short, thick oars, -quite safely drawn up, the prodigious character of the feat -for a little girl; but I had lived, by this time, too long -among wonders and had panted to too many livelier measures. -There was a gate in the fence, through which we passed, -and that brought us, after a trifling interval, more into the open. -Then, "There she is!" we both exclaimed at once. - -Flora, a short way off, stood before us on the grass and smiled -as if her performance was now complete. The next thing she did, -however, was to stoop straight down and pluck--quite as if it -were all she was there for--a big, ugly spray of withered fern. -I instantly became sure she had just come out of the copse. -She waited for us, not herself taking a step, and I was -conscious of the rare solemnity with which we presently -approached her. She smiled and smiled, and we met; but it -was all done in a silence by this time flagrantly ominous. -Mrs. Grose was the first to break the spell: she threw -herself on her knees and, drawing the child to her breast, -clasped in a long embrace the little tender, yielding body. -While this dumb convulsion lasted I could only watch it-- -which I did the more intently when I saw Flora's face peep -at me over our companion's shoulder. It was serious now-- -the flicker had left it; but it strengthened the pang with which I -at that moment envied Mrs. Grose the simplicity of HER relation. -Still, all this while, nothing more passed between us save -that Flora had let her foolish fern again drop to the ground. -What she and I had virtually said to each other was that -pretexts were useless now. When Mrs. Grose finally got up she -kept the child's hand, so that the two were still before me; -and the singular reticence of our communion was even more -marked in the frank look she launched me. "I'll be hanged," -it said, "if _I_'ll speak!" - -It was Flora who, gazing all over me in candid wonder, -was the first. She was struck with our bareheaded aspect. -"Why, where are your things?" - -"Where yours are, my dear!" I promptly returned. - -She had already got back her gaiety, and appeared to take -this as an answer quite sufficient. "And where's Miles?" -she went on. - -There was something in the small valor of it that quite finished me: -these three words from her were, in a flash like the glitter of a -drawn blade, the jostle of the cup that my hand, for weeks and weeks, -had held high and full to the brim that now, even before speaking, -I felt overflow in a deluge. "I'll tell you if you'll tell ME--" -I heard myself say, then heard the tremor in which it broke. - -"Well, what?" - -Mrs. Grose's suspense blazed at me, but it was too late now, -and I brought the thing out handsomely. "Where, my pet, -is Miss Jessel?" - - - - XX - - -Just as in the churchyard with Miles, the whole thing was upon us. -Much as I had made of the fact that this name had never once, -between us, been sounded, the quick, smitten glare with -which the child's face now received it fairly likened -my breach of the silence to the smash of a pane of glass. -It added to the interposing cry, as if to stay the blow, -that Mrs. Grose, at the same instant, uttered over my violence-- -the shriek of a creature scared, or rather wounded, which, in turn, -within a few seconds, was completed by a gasp of my own. -I seized my colleague's arm. "She's there, she's there!" - -Miss Jessel stood before us on the opposite bank exactly as she -had stood the other time, and I remember, strangely, as the -first feeling now produced in me, my thrill of joy at having -brought on a proof. She was there, and I was justified; -she was there, and I was neither cruel nor mad. -She was there for poor scared Mrs. Grose, but she was there -most for Flora; and no moment of my monstrous time was perhaps -so extraordinary as that in which I consciously threw out to her-- -with the sense that, pale and ravenous demon as she was, she would -catch and understand it--an inarticulate message of gratitude. -She rose erect on the spot my friend and I had lately quitted, -and there was not, in all the long reach of her desire, -an inch of her evil that fell short. This first vividness -of vision and emotion were things of a few seconds, -during which Mrs. Grose's dazed blink across to where I pointed -struck me as a sovereign sign that she too at last saw, -just as it carried my own eyes precipitately to the child. -The revelation then of the manner in which Flora was affected -startled me, in truth, far more than it would have done to find -her also merely agitated, for direct dismay was of course not -what I had expected. Prepared and on her guard as our pursuit -had actually made her, she would repress every betrayal; -and I was therefore shaken, on the spot, by my first -glimpse of the particular one for which I had not allowed. -To see her, without a convulsion of her small pink face, not even -feign to glance in the direction of the prodigy I announced, -but only, instead of that, turn at ME an expression of hard, -still gravity, an expression absolutely new and unprecedented -and that appeared to read and accuse and judge me-- -this was a stroke that somehow converted the little girl -herself into the very presence that could make me quail. -I quailed even though my certitude that she thoroughly saw -was never greater than at that instant, and in the immediate -need to defend myself I called it passionately to witness. -"She's there, you little unhappy thing--there, there, THERE, -and you see her as well as you see me!" I had said shortly -before to Mrs. Grose that she was not at these times a child, -but an old, old woman, and that description of her could not -have been more strikingly confirmed than in the way in which, -for all answer to this, she simply showed me, without a concession, -an admission, of her eyes, a countenance of deeper and deeper, -of indeed suddenly quite fixed, reprobation. I was by this time-- -if I can put the whole thing at all together--more appalled -at what I may properly call her manner than at anything else, -though it was simultaneously with this that I became aware -of having Mrs. Grose also, and very formidably, to reckon with. -My elder companion, the next moment, at any rate, blotted out -everything but her own flushed face and her loud, shocked protest, -a burst of high disapproval. "What a dreadful turn, -to be sure, miss! Where on earth do you see anything?" - -I could only grasp her more quickly yet, for even while she -spoke the hideous plain presence stood undimmed and undaunted. -It had already lasted a minute, and it lasted while I continued, -seizing my colleague, quite thrusting her at it and presenting her to it, -to insist with my pointing hand. "You don't see her exactly as WE see?-- -you mean to say you don't now--NOW? She's as big as a blazing fire! -Only look, dearest woman, LOOK--!" She looked, even as I did, -and gave me, with her deep groan of negation, repulsion, compassion-- -the mixture with her pity of her relief at her exemption--a sense, -touching to me even then, that she would have backed me up if she could. -I might well have needed that, for with this hard blow of the proof that -her eyes were hopelessly sealed I felt my own situation horribly crumble, -I felt--I saw--my livid predecessor press, from her position, on my defeat, -and I was conscious, more than all, of what I should have from this -instant to deal with in the astounding little attitude of Flora. -Into this attitude Mrs. Grose immediately and violently entered, -breaking, even while there pierced through my sense of ruin a prodigious -private triumph, into breathless reassurance. - -"She isn't there, little lady, and nobody's there--and you never see nothing, -my sweet! How can poor Miss Jessel--when poor Miss Jessel's dead and buried? -WE know, don't we, love?--and she appealed, blundering in, to the child. -"It's all a mere mistake and a worry and a joke--and we'll go home as fast -as we can!" - -Our companion, on this, had responded with a strange, -quick primness of propriety, and they were again, with Mrs. Grose -on her feet, united, as it were, in pained opposition to me. -Flora continued to fix me with her small mask of reprobation, -and even at that minute I prayed God to forgive me for seeming -to see that, as she stood there holding tight to our friend's dress, -her incomparable childish beauty had suddenly failed, -had quite vanished. I've said it already--she was literally, -she was hideously, hard; she had turned common and almost ugly. -"I don't know what you mean. I see nobody. I see nothing. -I never HAVE. I think you're cruel. I don't like you!" -Then, after this deliverance, which might have been that of a -vulgarly pert little girl in the street, she hugged Mrs. Grose -more closely and buried in her skirts the dreadful little face. -In this position she produced an almost furious wail. -"Take me away, take me away--oh, take me away from HER!" - -"From ME?" I panted. - -"From you--from you!" she cried. - -Even Mrs. Grose looked across at me dismayed, while I had -nothing to do but communicate again with the figure that, -on the opposite bank, without a movement, as rigidly still -as if catching, beyond the interval, our voices, was as vividly -there for my disaster as it was not there for my service. -The wretched child had spoken exactly as if she had got from -some outside source each of her stabbing little words, and I -could therefore, in the full despair of all I had to accept, -but sadly shake my head at her. "If I had ever doubted, -all my doubt would at present have gone. I've been living with -the miserable truth, and now it has only too much closed round me. -Of course I've lost you: I've interfered, and you've seen-- -under HER dictation"--with which I faced, over the pool again, -our infernal witness--"the easy and perfect way to meet it. -I've done my best, but I've lost you. Goodbye." For Mrs. Grose -I had an imperative, an almost frantic "Go, go!" before which, -in infinite distress, but mutely possessed of the little girl -and clearly convinced, in spite of her blindness, that something -awful had occurred and some collapse engulfed us, she retreated, -by the way we had come, as fast as she could move. - -Of what first happened when I was left alone I had no subsequent memory. -I only knew that at the end of, I suppose, a quarter of an hour, -an odorous dampness and roughness, chilling and piercing -my trouble, had made me understand that I must have thrown myself, -on my face, on the ground and given way to a wildness of grief. -I must have lain there long and cried and sobbed, for when I raised -my head the day was almost done. I got up and looked a moment, -through the twilight, at the gray pool and its blank, haunted edge, -and then I took, back to the house, my dreary and difficult course. -When I reached the gate in the fence the boat, to my surprise, was gone, -so that I had a fresh reflection to make on Flora's extraordinary -command of the situation. She passed that night, by the most tacit, -and I should add, were not the word so grotesque a false note, -the happiest of arrangements, with Mrs. Grose. I saw neither of them -on my return, but, on the other hand, as by an ambiguous compensation, -I saw a great deal of Miles. I saw--I can use no other phrase-- -so much of him that it was as if it were more than it had ever been. -No evening I had passed at Bly had the portentous quality of this one; -in spite of which--and in spite also of the deeper depths of -consternation that had opened beneath my feet--there was literally, -in the ebbing actual, an extraordinarily sweet sadness. -On reaching the house I had never so much as looked for the boy; -I had simply gone straight to my room to change what I was wearing -and to take in, at a glance, much material testimony to Flora's rupture. -Her little belongings had all been removed. When later, -by the schoolroom fire, I was served with tea by the usual maid, -I indulged, on the article of my other pupil, in no inquiry whatever. -He had his freedom now--he might have it to the end! Well, he did -have it; and it consisted--in part at least--of his coming -in at about eight o'clock and sitting down with me in silence. -On the removal of the tea things I had blown out the candles -and drawn my chair closer: I was conscious of a mortal coldness -and felt as if I should never again be warm. So, when he appeared, -I was sitting in the glow with my thoughts. He paused a moment -by the door as if to look at me; then--as if to share them-- -came to the other side of the hearth and sank into a chair. -We sat there in absolute stillness; yet he wanted, I felt, -to be with me. - - - - XXI - - -Before a new day, in my room, had fully broken, my eyes opened -to Mrs. Grose, who had come to my bedside with worse news. -Flora was so markedly feverish that an illness was perhaps at hand; -she had passed a night of extreme unrest, a night agitated above -all by fears that had for their subject not in the least her former, -but wholly her present, governess. It was not against the possible -re-entrance of Miss Jessel on the scene that she protested-- -it was conspicuously and passionately against mine. I was promptly -on my feet of course, and with an immense deal to ask; the more that my -friend had discernibly now girded her loins to meet me once more. -This I felt as soon as I had put to her the question of her sense -of the child's sincerity as against my own. "She persists in denying -to you that she saw, or has ever seen, anything?" - -My visitor's trouble, truly, was great. "Ah, miss, it isn't a matter on which -I can push her! Yet it isn't either, I must say, as if I much needed to. -It has made her, every inch of her, quite old." - -"Oh, I see her perfectly from here. She resents, for all -the world like some high little personage, the imputation -on her truthfulness and, as it were, her respectability. -`Miss Jessel indeed--SHE!' Ah, she's `respectable,' the chit! -The impression she gave me there yesterday was, I assure you, -the very strangest of all; it was quite beyond any of the others. -I DID put my foot in it! She'll never speak to me again." - -Hideous and obscure as it all was, it held Mrs. Grose briefly silent; -then she granted my point with a frankness which, I made sure, -had more behind it. "I think indeed, miss, she never will. -She do have a grand manner about it!" - -"And that manner"--I summed it up--"is practically what's the matter -with her now!" - -Oh, that manner, I could see in my visitor's face, and not -a little else besides! "She asks me every three minutes if I -think you're coming in." - -"I see--I see." I, too, on my side, had so much more than worked it out. -"Has she said to you since yesterday--except to repudiate her familiarity -with anything so dreadful--a single other word about Miss Jessel?" - -"Not one, miss. And of course you know," my friend added, -"I took it from her, by the lake, that, just then and there -at least, there WAS nobody." - -"Rather! and, naturally, you take it from her still." - -"I don't contradict her. What else can I do?" - -"Nothing in the world! You've the cleverest little person to deal with. -They've made them--their two friends, I mean--still cleverer -even than nature did; for it was wondrous material to play on! -Flora has now her grievance, and she'll work it to the end." - -"Yes, miss; but to WHAT end?" - -"Why, that of dealing with me to her uncle. She'll make me out to him -the lowest creature--!" - -I winced at the fair show of the scene in Mrs. Grose's face; -she looked for a minute as if she sharply saw them together. -"And him who thinks so well of you!" - -"He has an odd way--it comes over me now," I laughed,"--of proving it! -But that doesn't matter. What Flora wants, of course, is to get rid of me." - -My companion bravely concurred. "Never again to so much as look at you." - -"So that what you've come to me now for," I asked, "is to speed me on -my way?" Before she had time to reply, however, I had her in check. -"I've a better idea--the result of my reflections. My going WOULD seem -the right thing, and on Sunday I was terribly near it. Yet that won't do. -It's YOU who must go. You must take Flora." - -My visitor, at this, did speculate. "But where in the world--?" - -"Away from here. Away from THEM. Away, even most of all, now, from me. -Straight to her uncle." - -"Only to tell on you--?" - -"No, not `only'! To leave me, in addition, with my remedy." - -She was still vague. "And what IS your remedy?" - -"Your loyalty, to begin with. And then Miles's." - -She looked at me hard. "Do you think he--?" - -"Won't, if he has the chance, turn on me? Yes, I venture still -to think it. At all events, I want to try. Get off with his -sister as soon as possible and leave me with him alone." -I was amazed, myself, at the spirit I had still in reserve, -and therefore perhaps a trifle the more disconcerted -at the way in which, in spite of this fine example of it, -she hesitated. "There's one thing, of course," I went on: -"they mustn't, before she goes, see each other for three seconds." -Then it came over me that, in spite of Flora's presumable -sequestration from the instant of her return from the pool, -it might already be too late. "Do you mean," I anxiously asked, -"that they HAVE met?" - -At this she quite flushed. "Ah, miss, I'm not such a fool as that! -If I've been obliged to leave her three or four times, -it has been each time with one of the maids, and at present, -though she's alone, she's locked in safe. And yet--and yet!" -There were too many things. - -"And yet what?" - -"Well, are you so sure of the little gentleman?" - -"I'm not sure of anything but YOU. But I have, since last evening, -a new hope. I think he wants to give me an opening. -I do believe that--poor little exquisite wretch!--he wants to speak. -Last evening, in the firelight and the silence, he sat with me -for two hours as if it were just coming." - -Mrs. Grose looked hard, through the window, at the gray, gathering day. -"And did it come?" - -"No, though I waited and waited, I confess it didn't, and it was -without a breach of the silence or so much as a faint allusion to his -sister's condition and absence that we at last kissed for good night. -All the same," I continued, "I can't, if her uncle sees her, -consent to his seeing her brother without my having given the boy-- -and most of all because things have got so bad--a little more time." - -My friend appeared on this ground more reluctant than I could -quite understand. "What do you mean by more time?" - -"Well, a day or two--really to bring it out. He'll then be on -MY side--of which you see the importance. If nothing comes, -I shall only fail, and you will, at the worst, have helped me by doing, -on your arrival in town, whatever you may have found possible." -So I put it before her, but she continued for a little so inscrutably -embarrassed that I came again to her aid. "Unless, indeed," -I wound up, "you really want NOT to go." - -I could see it, in her face, at last clear itself; -she put out her hand to me as a pledge. "I'll go--I'll go. -I'll go this morning." - -I wanted to be very just. "If you SHOULD wish still to wait, -I would engage she shouldn't see me." - -"No, no: it's the place itself. She must leave it." -She held me a moment with heavy eyes, then brought out the rest. -"Your idea's the right one. I myself, miss--" - -"Well?" - -"I can't stay." - -The look she gave me with it made me jump at possibilities. -"You mean that, since yesterday, you HAVE seen--?" - -She shook her head with dignity. "I've HEARD--!" - -"Heard?" - -"From that child--horrors! There!" she sighed with tragic relief. -"On my honor, miss, she says things--!" But at this evocation she broke down; -she dropped, with a sudden sob, upon my sofa and, as I had seen her do before, -gave way to all the grief of it. - -It was quite in another manner that I, for my part, let myself go. -"Oh, thank God!" - -She sprang up again at this, drying her eyes with a groan. "'Thank God'?" - -"It so justifies me!" - -"It does that, miss!" - -I couldn't have desired more emphasis, but I just hesitated. -"She's so horrible?" - -I saw my colleague scarce knew how to put it. "Really shocking." - -"And about me?" - -"About you, miss--since you must have it. It's beyond everything, -for a young lady; and I can't think wherever she must have picked up--" - -"The appalling language she applied to me? I can, then!" -I broke in with a laugh that was doubtless significant enough. - -It only, in truth, left my friend still more grave. -"Well, perhaps I ought to also--since I've heard some of it before! -Yet I can't bear it," the poor woman went on while, with the same movement, -she glanced, on my dressing table, at the face of my watch. -"But I must go back." - -I kept her, however. "Ah, if you can't bear it--!" - -"How can I stop with her, you mean? Why, just FOR that: -to get her away. Far from this," she pursued, "far from THEM-" - -"She may be different? She may be free?" I seized her almost with joy. -"Then, in spite of yesterday, you BELIEVE--" - -"In such doings?" Her simple description of them required, -in the light of her expression, to be carried no further, -and she gave me the whole thing as she had never done. -"I believe." - -Yes, it was a joy, and we were still shoulder to shoulder: if I might -continue sure of that I should care but little what else happened. -My support in the presence of disaster would be the same as it had -been in my early need of confidence, and if my friend would answer -for my honesty, I would answer for all the rest. On the point of -taking leave of her, nonetheless, I was to some extent embarrassed. -"There's one thing, of course--it occurs to me--to remember. -My letter, giving the alarm, will have reached town before you." - -I now perceived still more how she had been beating about the bush and -how weary at last it had made her. "Your letter won't have got there. -Your letter never went." - -"What then became of it?" - -"Goodness knows! Master Miles--" - -"Do you mean HE took it?" I gasped. - -She hung fire, but she overcame her reluctance. "I mean that I saw yesterday, -when I came back with Miss Flora, that it wasn't where you had put it. -Later in the evening I had the chance to question Luke, and he declared -that he had neither noticed nor touched it." We could only exchange, on this, -one of our deeper mutual soundings, and it was Mrs. Grose who first brought -up the plumb with an almost elated "You see!" - -"Yes, I see that if Miles took it instead he probably will have read it -and destroyed it." - -"And don't you see anything else?" - -I faced her a moment with a sad smile. "It strikes me that by this -time your eyes are open even wider than mine." - -They proved to be so indeed, but she could still blush, almost, to show it. -"I make out now what he must have done at school." And she gave, -in her simple sharpness, an almost droll disillusioned nod. "He stole!" - -I turned it over--I tried to be more judicial. "Well--perhaps." - -She looked as if she found me unexpectedly calm. -"He stole LETTERS!" - -She couldn't know my reasons for a calmness after all -pretty shallow; so I showed them off as I might. -"I hope then it was to more purpose than in this case! -The note, at any rate, that I put on the table yesterday," -I pursued, "will have given him so scant an advantage-- -for it contained only the bare demand for an interview-- -that he is already much ashamed of having gone so far -for so little, and that what he had on his mind last evening -was precisely the need of confession." I seemed to myself, -for the instant, to have mastered it, to see it all. -"Leave us, leave us"--I was already, at the door, hurrying her off. -"I'll get it out of him. He'll meet me--he'll confess. -If he confesses, he's saved. And if he's saved--" - -"Then YOU are?" The dear woman kissed me on this, -and I took her farewell. "I'll save you without him!" -she cried as she went. - - - - XXII - - -Yet it was when she had got off--and I missed her on the spot-- -that the great pinch really came. If I had counted on -what it would give me to find myself alone with Miles, -I speedily perceived, at least, that it would give me a measure. -No hour of my stay in fact was so assailed with apprehensions -as that of my coming down to learn that the carriage containing -Mrs. Grose and my younger pupil had already rolled out of the gates. -Now I WAS, I said to myself, face to face with the elements, -and for much of the rest of the day, while I fought -my weakness, I could consider that I had been supremely rash. -It was a tighter place still than I had yet turned round in; -all the more that, for the first time, I could see in -the aspect of others a confused reflection of the crisis. -What had happened naturally caused them all to stare; -there was too little of the explained, throw out whatever we might, -in the suddenness of my colleague's act. The maids and the men -looked blank; the effect of which on my nerves was an aggravation -until I saw the necessity of making it a positive aid. -It was precisely, in short, by just clutching the helm -that I avoided total wreck; and I dare say that, to bear up -at all, I became, that morning, very grand and very dry. -I welcomed the consciousness that I was charged with much to do, -and I caused it to be known as well that, left thus to myself, -I was quite remarkably firm. I wandered with that manner, -for the next hour or two, all over the place and looked, -I have no doubt, as if I were ready for any onset. -So, for the benefit of whom it might concern, I paraded -with a sick heart. - -The person it appeared least to concern proved to be, -till dinner, little Miles himself. My perambulations had -given me, meanwhile, no glimpse of him, but they had tended -to make more public the change taking place in our relation -as a consequence of his having at the piano, the day before, -kept me, in Flora's interest, so beguiled and befooled. -The stamp of publicity had of course been fully given by her -confinement and departure, and the change itself was now ushered -in by our nonobservance of the regular custom of the schoolroom. -He had already disappeared when, on my way down, I pushed -open his door, and I learned below that he had breakfasted-- -in the presence of a couple of the maids--with Mrs. Grose -and his sister. He had then gone out, as he said, for a stroll; -than which nothing, I reflected, could better have expressed -his frank view of the abrupt transformation of my office. -What he would not permit this office to consist of was yet -to be settled: there was a queer relief, at all events--I mean -for myself in especial--in the renouncement of one pretension. -If so much had sprung to the surface, I scarce put it too -strongly in saying that what had perhaps sprung highest -was the absurdity of our prolonging the fiction that I had -anything more to teach him. It sufficiently stuck out that, -by tacit little tricks in which even more than myself he carried -out the care for my dignity, I had had to appeal to him to let me -off straining to meet him on the ground of his true capacity. -He had at any rate his freedom now; I was never to touch it again; -as I had amply shown, moreover, when, on his joining me in -the schoolroom the previous night, I had uttered, on the subject -of the interval just concluded, neither challenge nor hint. -I had too much, from this moment, my other ideas. -Yet when he at last arrived, the difficulty of applying them, -the accumulations of my problem, were brought straight home to me -by the beautiful little presence on which what had occurred -had as yet, for the eye, dropped neither stain nor shadow. - -To mark, for the house, the high state I cultivated I -decreed that my meals with the boy should be served, -as we called it, downstairs; so that I had been awaiting -him in the ponderous pomp of the room outside of the window -of which I had had from Mrs. Grose, that first scared Sunday, -my flash of something it would scarce have done to call light. -Here at present I felt afresh--for I had felt it again and again-- -how my equilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, -the will to shut my eyes as tight as possible to the truth -that what I had to deal with was, revoltingly, against nature. -I could only get on at all by taking "nature" into my -confidence and my account, by treating my monstrous -ordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, -and unpleasant, but demanding, after all, for a fair front, -only another turn of the screw of ordinary human virtue. -No attempt, nonetheless, could well require more tact than -just this attempt to supply, one's self, ALL the nature. -How could I put even a little of that article into a suppression -of reference to what had occurred? How, on the other hand, could I -make reference without a new plunge into the hideous obscure? -Well, a sort of answer, after a time, had come to me, and it -was so far confirmed as that I was met, incontestably, by the -quickened vision of what was rare in my little companion. -It was indeed as if he had found even now--as he had so often -found at lessons--still some other delicate way to ease me off. -Wasn't there light in the fact which, as we shared our solitude, -broke out with a specious glitter it had never yet quite worn?-- -the fact that (opportunity aiding, precious opportunity which had -now come) it would be preposterous, with a child so endowed, -to forego the help one might wrest from absolute intelligence? -What had his intelligence been given him for but to save him? -Mightn't one, to reach his mind, risk the stretch of an angular -arm over his character? It was as if, when we were face -to face in the dining room, he had literally shown me the way. -The roast mutton was on the table, and I had dispensed -with attendance. Miles, before he sat down, stood a moment -with his hands in his pockets and looked at the joint, -on which he seemed on the point of passing some humorous judgment. -But what he presently produced was: "I say, my dear, is she -really very awfully ill?" - -"Little Flora? Not so bad but that she'll presently be better. -London will set her up. Bly had ceased to agree with her. -Come here and take your mutton." - -He alertly obeyed me, carried the plate carefully -to his seat, and, when he was established, went on. -"Did Bly disagree with her so terribly suddenly?" - -"Not so suddenly as you might think. One had seen it coming on." - -"Then why didn't you get her off before?" - -"Before what?" - -"Before she became too ill to travel." - -I found myself prompt. "She's NOT too ill to travel: -she only might have become so if she had stayed. -This was just the moment to seize. The journey will dissipate -the influence"--oh, I was grand!--"and carry it off." - -"I see, I see"--Miles, for that matter, was grand, too. He settled -to his repast with the charming little "table manner" that, from the day -of his arrival, had relieved me of all grossness of admonition. -Whatever he had been driven from school for, it was not for ugly feeding. -He was irreproachable, as always, today; but he was unmistakably -more conscious. He was discernibly trying to take for granted -more things than he found, without assistance, quite easy; -and he dropped into peaceful silence while he felt his situation. -Our meal was of the briefest--mine a vain pretense, and I had the things -immediately removed. While this was done Miles stood again with his -hands in his little pockets and his back to me--stood and looked -out of the wide window through which, that other day, I had seen -what pulled me up. We continued silent while the maid was with us-- -as silent, it whimsically occurred to me, as some young couple who, -on their wedding journey, at the inn, feel shy in the presence -of the waiter. He turned round only when the waiter had left us. -"Well--so we're alone!" - - - - XXIII - - -"Oh, more or less." I fancy my smile was pale. "Not absolutely. -We shouldn't like that!" I went on. - -"No--I suppose we shouldn't. Of course we have the others." - -"We have the others--we have indeed the others," I concurred. - -"Yet even though we have them," he returned, still with his -hands in his pockets and planted there in front of me, -"they don't much count, do they?" - -I made the best of it, but I felt wan. -"It depends on what you call `much'!" - -"Yes"--with all accommodation--"everything depends!" -On this, however, he faced to the window again and presently -reached it with his vague, restless, cogitating step. -He remained there awhile, with his forehead against the glass, -in contemplation of the stupid shrubs I knew and the dull -things of November. I had always my hypocrisy of "work," -behind which, now, I gained the sofa. Steadying myself -with it there as I had repeatedly done at those moments -of torment that I have described as the moments of my knowing -the children to be given to something from which I was barred, -I sufficiently obeyed my habit of being prepared for the worst. -But an extraordinary impression dropped on me as I -extracted a meaning from the boy's embarrassed back-- -none other than the impression that I was not barred now. -This inference grew in a few minutes to sharp intensity -and seemed bound up with the direct perception that it was -positively HE who was. The frames and squares of the great -window were a kind of image, for him, of a kind of failure. -I felt that I saw him, at any rate, shut in or shut out. -He was admirable, but not comfortable: I took it in with a -throb of hope. Wasn't he looking, through the haunted pane, -for something he couldn't see?--and wasn't it the first time -in the whole business that he had known such a lapse? -The first, the very first: I found it a splendid portent. -It made him anxious, though he watched himself; he had been -anxious all day and, even while in his usual sweet little -manner he sat at table, had needed all his small strange -genius to give it a gloss. When he at last turned round -to meet me, it was almost as if this genius had succumbed. -"Well, I think I'm glad Bly agrees with ME!" - -"You would certainly seem to have seen, these twenty-four hours, -a good deal more of it than for some time before. I hope," -I went on bravely, "that you've been enjoying yourself." - -"Oh, yes, I've been ever so far; all round about--miles and miles away. -I've never been so free." - -He had really a manner of his own, and I could only try to keep up with him. -"Well, do you like it?" - -He stood there smiling; then at last he put into two words--"Do YOU?"-- -more discrimination than I had ever heard two words contain. -Before I had time to deal with that, however, he continued as if -with the sense that this was an impertinence to be softened. -"Nothing could be more charming than the way you take it, for of -course if we're alone together now it's you that are alone most. -But I hope," he threw in, "you don't particularly mind!" - -"Having to do with you?" I asked. "My dear child, how can I help minding? -Though I've renounced all claim to your company--you're so beyond me-- -I at least greatly enjoy it. What else should I stay on for?" - -He looked at me more directly, and the expression of his face, -graver now, struck me as the most beautiful I had ever found in it. -"You stay on just for THAT?" - -"Certainly. I stay on as your friend and from the tremendous -interest I take in you till something can be done for you -that may be more worth your while. That needn't surprise you." -My voice trembled so that I felt it impossible to suppress the shake. -"Don't you remember how I told you, when I came and sat on your -bed the night of the storm, that there was nothing in the world I -wouldn't do for you?" - -"Yes, yes!" He, on his side, more and more visibly nervous, had a tone -to master; but he was so much more successful than I that, laughing out -through his gravity, he could pretend we were pleasantly jesting. -"Only that, I think, was to get me to do something for YOU!" - -"It was partly to get you to do something," I conceded. -"But, you know, you didn't do it." - -"Oh, yes," he said with the brightest superficial eagerness, -"you wanted me to tell you something." - -"That's it. Out, straight out. What you have on your mind, you know." - -"Ah, then, is THAT what you've stayed over for?" - -He spoke with a gaiety through which I could still catch the finest -little quiver of resentful passion; but I can't begin to express -the effect upon me of an implication of surrender even so faint. -It was as if what I had yearned for had come at last only to -astonish me. "Well, yes--I may as well make a clean breast of it. -it was precisely for that." - -He waited so long that I supposed it for the purpose of repudiating the -assumption on which my action had been founded; but what he finally said was: -"Do you mean now--here?" - -"There couldn't be a better place or time." He looked round him uneasily, -and I had the rare--oh, the queer!--impression of the very first symptom I had -seen in him of the approach of immediate fear. It was as if he were suddenly -afraid of me--which struck me indeed as perhaps the best thing to make him. -Yet in the very pang of the effort I felt it vain to try sternness, -and I heard myself the next instant so gentle as to be almost grotesque. -"You want so to go out again?" - -"Awfully!" He smiled at me heroically, and the touching little -bravery of it was enhanced by his actually flushing with pain. -He had picked up his hat, which he had brought in, and stood -twirling it in a way that gave me, even as I was just nearly -reaching port, a perverse horror of what I was doing. -To do it in ANY way was an act of violence, for what did -it consist of but the obtrusion of the idea of grossness -and guilt on a small helpless creature who had been for me -a revelation of the possibilities of beautiful intercourse? -Wasn't it base to create for a being so exquisite a mere -alien awkwardness? I suppose I now read into our situation -a clearness it couldn't have had at the time, for I seem to see -our poor eyes already lighted with some spark of a prevision -of the anguish that was to come. So we circled about, -with terrors and scruples, like fighters not daring to close. -But it was for each other we feared! That kept us a little -longer suspended and unbruised. "I'll tell you everything," -Miles said--"I mean I'll tell you anything you like. -You'll stay on with me, and we shall both be all right, -and I WILL tell you--I WILL. But not now." - -"Why not now?" - -My insistence turned him from me and kept him once more at his window -in a silence during which, between us, you might have heard a pin drop. -Then he was before me again with the air of a person for whom, -outside, someone who had frankly to be reckoned with was waiting. -"I have to see Luke." - -I had not yet reduced him to quite so vulgar a lie, and I felt -proportionately ashamed. But, horrible as it was, his lies made -up my truth. I achieved thoughtfully a few loops of my knitting. -"Well, then, go to Luke, and I'll wait for what you promise. -Only, in return for that, satisfy, before you leave me, -one very much smaller request." - -He looked as if he felt he had succeeded enough to be able still -a little to bargain. "Very much smaller--?" - -"Yes, a mere fraction of the whole. Tell me"--oh, my work preoccupied me, -and I was offhand!--"if, yesterday afternoon, from the table in the hall, -you took, you know, my letter." - - - - XXIV - - -My sense of how he received this suffered for a minute from something -that I can describe only as a fierce split of my attention-- -a stroke that at first, as I sprang straight up, reduced me to -the mere blind movement of getting hold of him, drawing him close, -and, while I just fell for support against the nearest piece -of furniture, instinctively keeping him with his back to the window. -The appearance was full upon us that I had already had to deal with here: -Peter Quint had come into view like a sentinel before a prison. -The next thing I saw was that, from outside, he had reached the window, -and then I knew that, close to the glass and glaring in through it, -he offered once more to the room his white face of damnation. -It represents but grossly what took place within me at the sight -to say that on the second my decision was made; yet I believe that no -woman so overwhelmed ever in so short a time recovered her grasp -of the ACT. It came to me in the very horror of the immediate -presence that the act would be, seeing and facing what I saw -and faced, to keep the boy himself unaware. The inspiration-- -I can call it by no other name--was that I felt how voluntarily, -how transcendently, I MIGHT. It was like fighting with a demon -for a human soul, and when I had fairly so appraised it I saw how -the human soul--held out, in the tremor of my hands, at arm's length-- -had a perfect dew of sweat on a lovely childish forehead. -The face that was close to mine was as white as the face against -the glass, and out of it presently came a sound, not low nor weak, -but as if from much further away, that I drank like a waft of fragrance. - -"Yes--I took it." - -At this, with a moan of joy, I enfolded, I drew him close; -and while I held him to my breast, where I could feel in the sudden -fever of his little body the tremendous pulse of his little heart, -I kept my eyes on the thing at the window and saw it move and shift -its posture. I have likened it to a sentinel, but its slow wheel, -for a moment, was rather the prowl of a baffled beast. -My present quickened courage, however, was such that, not too -much to let it through, I had to shade, as it were, my flame. -Meanwhile the glare of the face was again at the window, the scoundrel -fixed as if to watch and wait. It was the very confidence -that I might now defy him, as well as the positive certitude, -by this time, of the child's unconsciousness, that made me go on. -"What did you take it for?" - -"To see what you said about me." - -"You opened the letter?" - -"I opened it." - -My eyes were now, as I held him off a little again, -on Miles's own face, in which the collapse of mockery -showed me how complete was the ravage of uneasiness. -What was prodigious was that at last, by my success, -his sense was sealed and his communication stopped: -he knew that he was in presence, but knew not of what, -and knew still less that I also was and that I did know. -And what did this strain of trouble matter when my eyes -went back to the window only to see that the air was clear -again and--by my personal triumph--the influence quenched? -There was nothing there. I felt that the cause was mine -and that I should surely get ALL. "And you found nothing!"-- -I let my elation out. - -He gave the most mournful, thoughtful little headshake. "Nothing." - -"Nothing, nothing!" I almost shouted in my joy. - -"Nothing, nothing," he sadly repeated. - -I kissed his forehead; it was drenched. "So what have you done with it?" - -"I've burned it." - -"Burned it?" It was now or never. "Is that what you did at school?" - -Oh, what this brought up! "At school?" - -"Did you take letters?--or other things?" - -"Other things?" He appeared now to be thinking of something far -off and that reached him only through the pressure of his anxiety. -Yet it did reach him. "Did I STEAL?" - -I felt myself redden to the roots of my hair as well as wonder if it were -more strange to put to a gentleman such a question or to see him take it -with allowances that gave the very distance of his fall in the world. -"Was it for that you mightn't go back?" - -The only thing he felt was rather a dreary little surprise. -"Did you know I mightn't go back?" - -"I know everything." - -He gave me at this the longest and strangest look. "Everything?" - -"Everything. Therefore DID you--?" But I couldn't say it again. - -Miles could, very simply. "No. I didn't steal." - -My face must have shown him I believed him utterly; yet my hands-- -but it was for pure tenderness--shook him as if to ask him why, -if it was all for nothing, he had condemned me to months of torment. -"What then did you do?" - -He looked in vague pain all round the top of the room and drew his breath, -two or three times over, as if with difficulty. He might have been standing -at the bottom of the sea and raising his eyes to some faint green twilight. -"Well--I said things." - -"Only that?" - -"They thought it was enough!" - -"To turn you out for?" - -Never, truly, had a person "turned out" shown so little -to explain it as this little person! He appeared to weigh -my question, but in a manner quite detached and almost helpless. -"Well, I suppose I oughtn't." - -"But to whom did you say them?" - -He evidently tried to remember, but it dropped--he had lost it. -"I don't know!" - -He almost smiled at me in the desolation of his surrender, -which was indeed practically, by this time, so complete that I -ought to have left it there. But I was infatuated--I was blind -with victory, though even then the very effect that was to have -brought him so much nearer was already that of added separation. -"Was it to everyone?" I asked. - -"No; it was only to--" But he gave a sick little headshake. -"I don't remember their names." - -"Were they then so many?" - -"No--only a few. Those I liked." - -Those he liked? I seemed to float not into clearness, but into -a darker obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out -of my very pity the appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent. -It was for the instant confounding and bottomless, for if he -WERE innocent, what then on earth was _I_? Paralyzed, while it lasted, -by the mere brush of the question, I let him go a little, so that, -with a deep-drawn sigh, he turned away from me again; which, as he faced -toward the clear window, I suffered, feeling that I had nothing -now there to keep him from. "And did they repeat what you said?" -I went on after a moment. - -He was soon at some distance from me, still breathing hard and again with -the air, though now without anger for it, of being confined against his will. -Once more, as he had done before, he looked up at the dim day as if, of what -had hitherto sustained him, nothing was left but an unspeakable anxiety. -"Oh, yes," he nevertheless replied--"they must have repeated them. -To those THEY liked," he added. - -There was, somehow, less of it than I had expected; but I turned it over. -"And these things came round--?" - -"To the masters? Oh, yes!" he answered very simply. -"But I didn't know they'd tell." - -"The masters? They didn't--they've never told. -That's why I ask you." - -He turned to me again his little beautiful fevered face. -"Yes, it was too bad." - -"Too bad?" - -"What I suppose I sometimes said. To write home." - -I can't name the exquisite pathos of the contradiction given to such -a speech by such a speaker; I only know that the next instant I -heard myself throw off with homely force: "Stuff and nonsense!" -But the next after that I must have sounded stern enough. -"What WERE these things?" - -My sternness was all for his judge, his executioner; yet it made him -avert himself again, and that movement made ME, with a single bound -and an irrepressible cry, spring straight upon him. For there again, -against the glass, as if to blight his confession and stay his answer, -was the hideous author of our woe--the white face of damnation. -I felt a sick swim at the drop of my victory and all the return of my battle, -so that the wildness of my veritable leap only served as a great betrayal. -I saw him, from the midst of my act, meet it with a divination, -and on the perception that even now he only guessed, and that the window -was still to his own eyes free, I let the impulse flame up to convert -the climax of his dismay into the very proof of his liberation. -"No more, no more, no more!" I shrieked, as I tried to press him against me, -to my visitant. - -"Is she HERE?" Miles panted as he caught with his sealed eyes -the direction of my words. Then as his strange "she" staggered -me and, with a gasp, I echoed it, "Miss Jessel, Miss Jessel!" -he with a sudden fury gave me back. - -I seized, stupefied, his supposition--some sequel to what we -had done to Flora, but this made me only want to show him -that it was better still than that. "It's not Miss Jessel! -But it's at the window--straight before us. It's THERE-- -the coward horror, there for the last time!" - -At this, after a second in which his head made the movement of a -baffled dog's on a scent and then gave a frantic little shake for air -and light, he was at me in a white rage, bewildered, glaring vainly -over the place and missing wholly, though it now, to my sense, -filled the room like the taste of poison, the wide, overwhelming presence. -"It's HE?" - -I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice -to challenge him. "Whom do you mean by `he'?" - -"Peter Quint--you devil!" His face gave again, round the room, -its convulsed supplication. "WHERE?" - -They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name -and his tribute to my devotion. "What does he matter now, -my own?--what will he EVER matter? _I_ have you," -I launched at the beast, "but he has lost you forever!" -Then, for the demonstration of my work, "There, THERE!" -I said to Miles. - -But he had already jerked straight round, stared, glared again, -and seen but the quiet day. With the stroke of the loss I was -so proud of he uttered the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss, -and the grasp with which I recovered him might have been that -of catching him in his fall. I caught him, yes, I held him-- -it may be imagined with what a passion; but at the end -of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that I held. -We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, -dispossessed, had stopped. - - - - -End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Turn of the Screw - - diff --git a/old/tturn10.zip b/old/tturn10.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 88b1bb5..0000000 --- a/old/tturn10.zip +++ /dev/null |