CHAPTER XXXIX
“Oh, papa,” cried Joanna Huntley, bursting into Melmar’s study like a whirlwind, “they’re ill-using Desirée! they shut her out at the door among a crowd, and they threw stones at her, and she might have been killed but for Cosmo Livingstone. I’ll no’ stand it! I’ll rather go and take up a school and work for her mysel’.”
“What’s all this?” said Melmar, looking up in amazement from his newspaper; “another freak about this Frenchwoman—what is she to you?”
“She’s my friend,” said Joanna, “I never had a friend before, and I never want to have another. You never saw anybody like her in all your life; Melmar’s no’ good enough for her, if she could get it for her very own—but I think she would come here for me.”
“That would be kind,” said Mr. Huntley, taking a somewhat noisy pinch of snuff; “but if that’s all you have to tell me, it’ll keep. Go away and bother your mother; I’m busy to-day.”
“You know perfectly well that mamma’s no’ up,” said Joanna, “and if she was up, what’s the use of bothering her? Now, papa, I’ll tell you—I often think you’re a very, very ill man—and Patricia says you have a secret, and I know what keeps Oswald year after year away—but I’ll forgive you every thing if you’ll send for Desirée here.”
“You little monkey!” cried Melmar, swinging his arm through the air with a menaced blow. It did not fall on Joanna’s cheek, however, and perhaps was not meant to fall—which was all the better for the peace of the household—though feelings of honor or delicacy were not so transcendentally high in Melmar as to have made a parental chastisement a deadly affront to the young lady, even had it been inflicted. “You little brat!” repeated the incensed papa, growing red in the face, “how dare you come to me with such a speech—how dare you bother me with a couple of fools like Oswald and Patricia?—begone this moment, or I’ll—” “No, you will not, papa,” interrupted Joanna. “Oswald’s no’ a fool—and I’m no’ a monkey nor a brat, nor little either—and if any thing was to happen I would never forsake you, whatever you had done—but I like Desirée better than ever I liked any one—and she knows every thing—and she could teach me better than all the masters and mistresses in Edinburgh—and if you don’t send for her here to be my governess, I may go to school, but I’ll never learn a single thing again!”
Melmar was perfectly accustomed to be bullied by his youngest child; he had no ideal of feminine excellence to be shocked by Joanna’s rudeness, and in general rather enjoyed it, and took a certain pleasure in the disrespectful straightforwardness of the girl, who in reality was the only member of his family who had any love for him. His momentary passion soon evaporated—he laughed and shook his closed hand at her, no longer threateningly.
“If you like to grow up a dunce, Joan,” he said, with a chuckle, “what the deevil matter is’t to me?”
“Oh, yes, but it is, though,” said Joanna. “I know better—you like people to come to Melmar as well as Patricia does—and Patricia never can be very good for any thing. She canna draw, though she pretends—and she canna play, and she canna sing, and I could even dance better myself. It’s aye like lessons to see her and hear her—and nobody cares to come to see mamma—it’s no’ her fault, for she’s always in bed or on the sofa; but if I like to learn—do you hear, papa?—and I would like if Desirée was here—I know what Melmar might be!”
It was rather odd to look at Joanna, with her long, angular, girl’s figure, her red hair, and her bearing which promised nothing so little as the furthest off approach to elegance, and to listen to the confidence and boldness of this self-assertion—even her father laughed—but, perhaps because he was her father, did not fully perceive the grotesque contrast between her appearance and her words; on the contrary, Melmar was considerably impressed with these last, and put faith in them, a great deal more faith than he had ever put in Patricia’s prettiness and gentility, cultivated as these had been in the refined atmosphere of the Clapham school.
“You are a vain little blockhead, Joan,” said Mr. Huntley, “which I scarcely looked for—but it’s in the nature of woman. When Aunt Jean leaves you her fortune, we’ll see what a grand figure you’ll make in the country. A French governess, forsooth! the bairn’s crazy. I’ll get her to teach me.”
“She could teach you a great many things, papa,” said Joanna, with gravity, “so you need not laugh. I’m going to write to her this moment, and say she’s to come here—and you’re to write to Mrs. Payne and tell her what you’ll give, and how she’s to come, and every thing. Desirée is not pleased with Mrs. Payne.”
“What a pity!” said Melmar, laughing; “and possibly, Joan—you ought to consider—Desirée might not be pleased with me.”
“You are kind whiles—when you like, papa,” said Joanna, taking this possibility into serious consideration, and fixing her sharp black eyes upon her father, with half an entreaty, half a defiance.
Somehow this appeal, which he did not expect, was quite a stroke of victory, and silenced Melmar. He laughed once more in his loud and not very mirthful fashion, and the end of the odd colloquy was, that Joanna conquered, and that, to the utter amazement of mother, sister, and Aunt Jean, the approaching advent of a French governess for Joanna became a recognized event in the house. Patricia spent one good long summer afternoon crying over it.
“No one ever thought of getting a governess for me!” sobbed Patricia, through a deluge of spiteful tears.
And Aunt Jean put up her spectacles from her eyes, and listened to the news which Joanna shouted into her ear, and shook her head.
“If she’s a Papist it’s a tempting of Providence,” said Aunt Jean, “and they’re a’ Papists, if they’re no’ infidels. She may be nice enough and bonnie enough, but I canna approve of it, Joan. I never had any broo of foreigners a’ my days. Deseery? fhat ca’ you her name? I like names to be Christian-like, for my part. Did ever ye hear that, or the like o’ that, in the Scriptures? Na, Joan, it’s very far from likely she should please me.”
“Her name is Desirée, and it means desired; it’s like a Bible name for that,” cried Joanna. “My name means nothing at all that ever I heard of—it’s just a copy of a boy’s—and I would not have copied a man if anybody had asked me.”
“What’s that the bairn says?” said Aunt Jean. “I like old-fashioned plain names, for my part, but that’s to be looked for in an old woman; but I can tell you, Joan, I’m never easy in my mind about French folk—and never can tell fha they may turn out to be; and ’deed in this house, it’s no canny; and I never have ony comfort in my mind about your brother Oswald, kenning faur he was.”
“Why is it not canny in this house, Aunt Jean?” asked Joanna.
“Eh, fhat’s that?” said the old woman, who heard perfectly, “fhat’s no canny? just the Pope o’ Rome, Joan, and a’ his devilries; and they’re as fu’ o’ wiles, every ane, as if ilka bairn was bred up a priest. Oh, fie, na! you ma ca’ her desired, if you like, but she’s no’ desired by me.”
“Desired!” cried Patricia; “a little creature of a governess, that is sure always to be scheming and trying to be taken notice of, and making herself as good as we are. It’s just a great shame! it’s nothing else! no one ever thought of a governess for me. But it’s strange how I always get slighted, whatever happens. I don’t think any one in the world cares for me!”
“Fhat’s Patricia greeting about?” said Aunt Jean, “eh, bairns! if I were as young as you I would save up a’ my tears for real troubles. You’ve never kent but good fortune a’ your days, but that’s no’ to say ill fortune can never come. Whisht then, ye silly thing! I can see you, though I canna hear you. Fhat’s she greeting for, Joan? eh! speak louder, I canna hear.”
“Because Desirée is coming,” shouted Joan.
“Aweel, aweel, maybe I’m little better mysel’,” said the old woman. “I’m just a prejudiced auld wife, I like my ain country best—but’s no malice and envie with me; fhat ails Patricia at her for a stranger she doesna ken? She’s keen enough about strangers when they come in her ain way. You’re a wild lassie, Joan, you’re no’ just fhat I would like to see you—but there’s nae malice in you, so far as I ken.”
“Oh, Auntie Jean,” cried Joanna, with enthusiasm, “wait till you see what I shall be when Desirée comes!”
CHAPTER XL
After a little time Desirée came to Melmar. She had been placed in charge of Mrs. Payne by an English lady, who had brought her from her home in France with the intention of making a nursery governess of the little girl, but who, finding her either insufficiently trained or not tractable enough, had transferred her, with the consent of her mother, to the Edinburgh boarding-school as half pupil, half teacher. When Melmar’s proposal came, Desirée, still indignant at her present ruler, accepted it eagerly, declared herself quite competent to act independently, and would not hear of anybody being consulted upon the matter. She herself, the little heroine said, with some state, would inform her mother, and she made her journey accordingly half in spite of Mrs. Payne, who, however, was by no means ill pleased to transfer so difficult a charge into other hands. Desirée arrived alone on an August afternoon, by the coach, in Kirkbride. The homely little Scotch village, so unlike any thing she had seen before, yet so pretty, dwelling on the banks of its little brown stream, pleased the girl’s fanciful imagination mightily. Two or three people—among them the servant from Melmar who had come to meet her—stood indolently in the sultry sunshine about the Norlaw Arms. In the shadow of the corner, bowed Jaacob’s weird figure toiled in the glow of the smithy. One or two women were at the door of the cottage which contained the widow’s mangle, and the opposite bank lay fair beneath the light, with that white gable of the manse beaming down among its trees like a smile. The wayward, excitable little Frenchwoman had a tender little heart beneath all her vivacity and caprices. Somehow her eyes sought instinctively that white house on the brae, and instinctively the little girl thought of her mother and sister. Ah, yes, this surely, and not Edinburgh, was her mother’s country! She had never seen it before, yet it seemed familiar to her; they could be at home here. And thoughts of acquiring that same white house, and bringing her mother to it in triumph, entered the wild little imagination. Women make fortunes in France now and then; she did not know any better, and she was a child. She vowed to herself to buy the white house on the brae and bring mamma there.
Melmar pleased Desirée, but not so much; she thought it a great deal too square and like a prison; and Patricia did not please her at all, as she was not very slow to intimate.
“Mademoiselle does not love me, Joanna,” she said to her pupil as they wandered about the banks of Tyne together, “to see every thing,” as Joanna said before they began their lessons; “and I never can love any one who does not love me.”
“Patricia does not love anybody,” cried Joanna, “unless maybe herself, and not herself either—right; but never mind, Desirée, I love you, and by-and-by so will Aunt Jean; and oh! if Oswald would only come home!”
“I hope he will not while I am here,” said Desirée, with a little frown; “see! how pretty the sun streams among the trees; but I do not like Melmar so well as that white house at the village; I should like to live there.”
“At the manse?” cried Joanna.
“What is the manse? it is not a great house; would they sell it?” said Desirée.
“Sell it!” Joanna laughed aloud in the contempt of superior knowledge; “but it’s only because you don’t know; they could as well sell the church as the manse.”
“I don’t want the church, however—it’s ugly,” said Desirée; “but if I had money I should buy that white house, and bring mamma and Maria there.”
“Eh, Desirée! your mamma is English—I heard you say so,” cried Joanna.
“Eh bien! did I ever tell you otherwise?” said the little Frenchwoman, impatiently; “she would love that white house on the hill.”
“Did she teach you to speak English?” asked Joanna, “because everybody says you speak so well for a Frenchwoman—and I think so myself; and papa said you looked quite English to him, and he thought he knew some one like you, and you were not like a foreigner at all.”
The pretty little shoulders gave an immediate shrug, which demonstrated their nationality with emphasis.
“Every one must think what every one pleases,” said Desirée. “Who, then, lives in that white house? I remember mamma once spoke of such a house, with a white gable and a great tree. Mamma loves rivers and trees. I think, when she was a child, she must have been here.”
“Why?” asked Joanna, opening her eyes wide.
“I know not why,” said Desirée, still with a little impatience, as she glanced hurriedly round with a sudden look of half-confused consideration; “but either some one has told me of this place, or I have been here in a dream.”
It was the loveliest dell of Tyne. The banks rose so high on either side, and were so richly dotted with trees, that it was only here and there, through breaks in the foliage, that you could catch a momentary glimpse of the brown river, foaming over a chance rock, or sparkling under some dropping line of sunshine which reached it, by sweet caprice and artifice of nature, through an avenue of divided branches. The path where the two girls stood together was at a considerable height above the stream; and close by them, in a miniature ravine, thickly fringed with shrubs, poured down a tiny, dazzling waterfall, white as foam against the background of dark soil and rocks, the special feature of the scene. Desirée stood looking at it with her little French hands clasped together, and the chiming of the water woke strange fancies in her mind. Had she seen it somewhere, in fairy-land or in dreams?—or had she heard of it in that time which was as good as either—when she was a child? She stood quite silent, saying nothing to Joanna, who soon grew weary of this pause, complimentary as it might be. Desirée was confused and did not know what to make of it. She said no more of the white house, and not much more of her own friends, and kept wondering to herself as she went back, answering Joanna’s questions and talking of their future lessons, what strange sentiment of recollection could have moved her in sight of that waterfall. It was very hard to make it out.
And no doubt it was because Desirée’s mother was English that Aunt Jane could not keep up her prejudice against the foreigner, but gradually lapsed to Joanna’s opinion, and day by day fell in love with the little stranger. She was not a very, very good girl—she was rather the reverse, if truth must be told. She had no small amount of pretty little French affectations, and when she was naughty fell back upon her own language, especially with Patricia, whose Clapham French was not much different from the French of Stratford-atte-Bowe, and who began with vigor and reality to entertain, not a feeble prejudice but a hearty dislike, to the invader. Neither did she do what good governesses are so like to do, at least in novels—she did not take the place of her negligent daughters with the invalid Mrs. Huntley, nor remodel the disorderly household. Sometimes, indeed, out of pure hatred to things ugly, Desirée put a sofa-cover straight, or spread down a corner of the crumb-cloth; but she did not captivate the servants, and charm the young ladies into good order and good behavior; she exercised no very astonishing influence in that way over even Joanna. She was by no means a model young lady in herself, and had no special authority, so far as she was aware of. She taught her pupil, who was one half bigger than herself, to speak French very tolerably, and to practice a certain time every day. She took charge of Joanna’s big hands, and twisted, and coaxed, and pinched them into a less clumsy thump, upon the trembling keys of the piano. She mollified her companion’s manners even unconsciously, and suggested improvements in the red hair and brown merino frock; but having done this, Desirée was not aware of having any special charge of the general morals and well-being of the family; she was rather a critic of the same, indeed, but she was not a Mentor nor a reformer. She obeyed what rules there were in the sloven house—she shrugged her little French shoulders at the discomforts and quarrels. She sometimes pouted, or curled her little disdainful upper lip; but she took nobody’s part save Joanna’s, whom she always defended manfully. It was not a particularly brilliant or entertaining life for Desirée. Melmar himself, with his grizzled red hair, and heated face; Mrs. Huntley, who sometimes never left her room all day, and who, when she did, lay on a sofa; Patricia, who was spiteful, and did her utmost to shut out both Joanna and Desirée when any visitors came to break the tedium—were not remarkably delightful companions; and as the winter closed in, and there were long evenings, and less pleasure out of doors—winter, when all the fires looked half choked, and would not burn, and when a perennial fog seemed to lie over Melmar, did not increase the comforts of the house. Yet it happened that Desirée was by no means unhappy; perhaps at sixteen it is hard to be really unhappy, even when one feels one ought, unless one has some very positive reason for it. Joanna and she sat together at the scrambling breakfast, which Patricia was always too late for; then they went to the music lesson, which tried Joanna’s patience grievously, but which Desirée managed to get some fun out of, and endured with great philosophy. Then they read together, and the unfortunate Joanna inked her fingers over her French exercise. In the afternoon they walked—save when Joanna was compelled to accompany her sister “in the carriage,” a state ceremonial in which the little governess was never privileged to share; and after their return from their walk, Desirée taught her pupil all manner of fine needleworks, in which she was herself more than usually learned, and which branch of knowledge was highly prized by Aunt Jean, and even by Mrs. Huntley. Such was the course of study pursued by Joanna under the charge of her little governess of sixteen.
CHAPTER XLI
“A French governess!—she is not French, though she might be born in France. Anybody might be born in France,” said Patricia, with some scorn; “but her mother was Scotch—no, not English, Joanna, I know better—just some Scotchwoman from the country; I should not wonder if she was a little impostor, after all.”
“You had better take care,” cried Joanna, “I’m easier affronted than Desirée; you had better not say much more to me.”
“It is true though,” said Patricia, with triumph; “she took quite a fancy to Kirkbride, when she came first, and was sure she had heard of the Kelpie waterfall. I expect it will turn out some poor family from this quarter that have gone to France and changed their name. Joanna may be as foolish about her as she likes, but I know she never was a true Frenchwoman by her look. I have seen French people many a time in England.”
“Yet you always look as if you would like to eat Desirée when she speaks to you in French,” said Joanna, with a spice of malice; “if you knew French people, you should like the language.”
“Low people don’t pronounce as ladies do,” said Patricia. “Perhaps she was not even born in France, for all she says—and I am quite sure her mother was some country girl from near Kirkbride.”
“What is that you say?” said Melmar, who was present, and whose attention had at last been caught by the discussion.
“I say Joanna’s French governess is not French, papa. Her mother was a Scotchwoman and came from this country,” cried Patricia, eagerly. “I think she belongs to some poor family who have gone abroad and changed their name—perhaps her father was a poacher, or something, and had to run away.”
“And that is all because Desirée thinks she must have heard her mamma speak of the Kelpie waterfall,” said Joanna; “because she thought she knew it as soon as she saw it—that is all!—did you ever hear the like, papa?”
Melmar’s face grew redder, as was its wont when he was at all disturbed. He laid down his paper.
“She thought she knew the Kelpie, did she?—hum! and her mother is a Scotchwoman—for that matter, so is yours. What is to be made of that, eh, Patricia?”
“I never denied where I belonged to,” said Patricia, reddening with querulous anger; “and I did not speak to you, papa, so you need not take the trouble to answer. But her mother was Scotch—and I do not believe she is a proper Frenchwoman at all. I never did think so; and as for a governess, Joanna could learn as much from mamma’s maid.”
Joanna burst out immediately into a loud defense, and denunciation of her sister. Melmar took no notice what, ever of their quarrel, but he still grew redder in the face, twisted about his newspaper, got up and walked to the window, and displayed a general uneasiness. He was perfectly indifferent as to the tone and bearing of his daughters, but he was not indifferent to what they said in this quarrel, which was all about Desirée. Presently, however, both the voices ceased with some abruptness. Melmar looked round with curiosity. Desirée herself had entered the room, and what his presence had not even checked, her presence put an end to. Desirée wore a brown merino frock, like Joanna, with a little band and buckle round the waist, and sleeves which were puffed out at the shoulders, and plain at the wrists, according to the fashion of the time. It had no ornament whatever except a narrow binding of velvet at the neck and sleeves, and was not so long as to hide the handsome little feet, which were not in velvet slippers, but in stout little shoes of patent leather, more suitable a great deal for Melmar, and the place she held there. The said little feet came in lightly, yet not noiselessly, and both the sisters turned with an immediate acknowledgment of the stranger’s entrance. Patricia’s delicate pink cheeks were flushed with anger, and Joanna looked eager and defiant, but quarrels were so very common between them that Desirée took no notice of this one. She came to a table near which Melmar was standing, and opened a drawer in it to get Joanna’s needlework.
“You promised to have—oh, such an impossible piece, done to-day!” said Desirée, “and look, you naughty Joanna!—look here.”
She shook out a delicate piece of embroidery as she spoke, with a merry laugh. It was a highly-instructive bit of work, done in a regular succession of the most delicate perfection and the utmost bungling, to wit, Desirée’s own performance and the performance of her pupil. As the little governess clapped her hands over it, Joanna drew near and put her arms round the waist of her young teacher, overtopping her by all her own red head and half her big shoulders.
“I’ll never do it like you, Desirée,” said the girl, half in real affection, half with the benevolent purpose of aggravating her sister. “I’ll never do any thing so well as you, if I live to be as old as Aunt Jean.”
“Ah, then, you will need no governess,” said Desirée, “and if you did it as well as I, now, you should not want me, Joanna. I shall leave it for you there—and now it is time to come for one little half hour to the music. Will mademoiselle do us the honor to come and listen? It shall be only one little half hour.”
“No, thank you! I don’t care to hear girls at their lessons—and Joanna’s time is always so bad,” said the fretful Patricia. “Oh, I can’t help having an ear! I can hear only too well, thank you, where I am.”
Desirée made a very slight smiling curtsey to her opponent, and pressed Joanna’s arm lightly with her fingers to keep down the retort which trembled on that young lady’s lips. Then they went away together to the little supplementary musical lesson. Melmar had never turned round, nor taken the slightest notice, but he observed, notwithstanding, not only all that was done, but all that was looked and said, and it struck him, perhaps for the first time, that the English of Desirée was perfectly familiar and harmonious English, and that she never either paused for a word nor translated the idiom of one tongue into the speech of another. Uneasy suspicions began to play about his mind: he could scarcely say what he feared, yet he feared something. The little governess was French undeniably and emphatically—and yet she was not French, either, yet bore an unexplainable something of familiarity and home-likeness which had won for her the heart of Aunt Jean, and had startled himself unawares from her first introduction to Melmar. He stood at the window, looking out upon the blank, winterly landscape, the leafless trees in the distance, the damp grass and evergreens near the door, as the cheerful notes of Joanna’s music came stealing through the cold passages. The music was not in bad time, and it was in good taste, for Joanna was ambitious, and Desirée, though not an extraordinary musician herself, kept her pupil to this study with the most tenacious perseverance. As Melmar listened, vague thoughts, almost of fear, stole over him. He had been a lawyer, and a lawyer of a low class, smart in schemes and trickeries. He was ready to suspect everybody of cunning and the mean cleverness of deceit. Perhaps this was a little spy whom he fostered in his house. Perhaps her presence in the Edinburgh school was a trick to attract Joanna, and her presence here a successful plot to undermine and find out himself. His face grew redder still as he “put things together;” and by the time the music ceased, Melmar had concocted and found out (it is so easy to find out what one has concocted one’s own self,) a very pretty little conspiracy. He had found it out, he was persuaded, and it should go no further—trust him for that!
Accordingly, when his daughter and her governess returned, Melmar paid them a compliment upon their music, and was disposed to be friendly, as it appeared. Finally, after he had exhausted such subjects of chat as occurred to him, he got up, looking at Desirée, who was now busy with her embroidery.
“I rather think, mademoiselle, you have been more than three months here,” said Melmar, “and I have been inconsiderate and ungallant enough to forget the time. I’ll speak with you about that in my study, if you’ll favor me by coming there. I never speak of business but in my own room—eh, Joan? You got your thrashings there when you were young enough. Where does mademoiselle give you them now?”
“Don’t be foolish, papa,” said Joanna, jerking her head aside as he pinched her ear. “What do you want of Desirée? if it’s for Patricia, and you’re going to teaze her, I’ll not let her go, whatever you say.”
“And it is not quite three months, yet,” said Desirée, looking up with a smile. “Monsieur is too kind, but it still wants a week of the time.”
“Then, lest I should forget again when the week was over, we’ll settle it now, mademoiselle,” said Melmar. Desirée rose immediately to follow him. They went away through the long passage, he leading, suspicious and stealthy, she going after him, with the little feet which rang frankly upon the stones. Desirée thought the study miserable when she went into it. She longed to throw open the window, to clear out the choked fire—she did not wonder that her pupil’s papa had a heated face, even before dinner; the wonder seemed how any one could breathe here.
They had a conference of some duration, which gradually diverged from Desirée’s little salary, which was a matter easily settled. Mr. Huntley took an interest in her family. He asked a great many questions, which the girl answered with a certain frankness and a certain reserve, the frankness being her own, and the reserve attributable to a letter which Desirée kept in her pocket, and beyond the instructions of which nothing could have tempted her to pass. Mr. Huntley learned a great deal during that interview, though not exactly what he expected and intended to learn. The afternoon was darkening, and as he sat in the dubious light, with the window and the yew-tree on the other side of him, he became more and more like the big, brindled, watchful cat, which he had so great a tendency to resemble. Then he dismissed “mademoiselle” with a kindly caution. He thought she had better not mention—not even to any one in the house, that her mother was a Scotchwoman—as she was French herself, he thought the less said about that the better—he would not even speak of it much to Joanna, he thought, if she would take his advice—it might injure her prospects in life—and with this fatherly advice he sent Desirée away.
When she was gone, he looked out stealthily for some one else, though he had taken previous precautions to make sure that no one could listen. It was Patricia for whom her father looked, poor little delicate Patricia, who would steal about those stone-cold passages, and linger in all manner of draughts at half-closed doors, to gain a little clandestine information. When Melmar had watched a few minutes, he discovered her stealing out of a little store-room close by, and pounced upon the poor little stealthy, chilly figure. He did not care that the grasp of his fingers hurt her delicate shoulders, and that her teeth chattered with cold; he drew her roughly into the dusk of the study, where the pale window and the black yew were by no means counterbalanced by any light from the fire. Once here, Patricia began to vindicate herself, and upbraid papa’s cruelty. Her father silenced her with a threatening gesture.
“At it again!” said Melmar; “what the deevil business have you with my affairs? let me but catch you prying when there is any thing to learn, and for all your airs, I’ll punish you! you little cankered elf! hold your tongue, and hear what I have to say to you. If I hear another word against that governess, French or no French—or if you try your hand at aggravating her, as I know you have done, I’ll turn you out of this house!”