Part 28 (1/2)
”Do you mean if we go off and leave him with her?--” Mrs. Wix put the question to the back of her pupil's head. ”It WON'T help him. It will be his ruin. He'll have got nothing. He'll have lost everything. It will be his utter destruction, for he's certain after a while to loathe her.”
”Then when he loathes her”--it was astonis.h.i.+ng how she caught the idea--”he'll just come right after us!” Maisie announced.
”Never.”
”Never?”
”She'll keep him. She'll hold him for ever.”
Maisie doubted. ”When he 'loathes' her?”
”That won't matter. She won't loathe HIM. People don't!” Mrs. Wix brought up.
”Some do. Mamma does,” Maisie contended.
”Mamma does NOT!” It was startling--her friend contradicted her flat.
”She loves him--she adores him. A woman knows.” Mrs. Wix spoke not only as if Maisie were not a woman, but as if she would never be one. ”_I_ know!” she cried.
”Then why on earth has she left him?”
Mrs. Wix hesitated. ”He hates HER. Don't stoop so--lift up your hair.
You know how I'm affected toward him,” she added with dignity; ”but you must also know that I see clear.”
Maisie all this time was trying hard to do likewise. ”Then if she has left him for that why shouldn't Mrs. Beale leave him?”
”Because she's not such a fool!”
”Not such a fool as mamma?”
”Precisely--if you WILL have it. Does it look like her leaving him?”
Mrs. Wix enquired. She brooded again; then she went on with more intensity: ”Do you want to know really and truly why? So that she may be his wretchedness and his punishment.”
”His punishment?”--this was more than as yet Maisie could quite accept.
”For what?”
”For everything. That's what will happen: he'll be tied to her for ever.
She won't mind in the least his hating her, and she won't hate him back.
She'll only hate US.”
”Us?” the child faintly echoed.
”She'll hate YOU.”
”Me? Why, I brought them together!” Maisie resentfully cried.
”You brought them together.” There was a completeness in Mrs. Wix's a.s.sent. ”Yes; it was a pretty job. Sit down.” She began to brush her pupil's hair and, as she took up the ma.s.s of it with some force of hand, went on with a sharp recall: ”Your mother adored him at first--it might have lasted. But he began too soon with Mrs. Beale. As you say,”
she pursued with a brisk application of the brush, ”you brought them together.”