Free What Maisie Knew by Henry James

Mrs. Wix how Mrs.
Beale seemed to like him she certainly couldn't tell her ladyship. In
the way the past revived for her there was a queer confusion. It was
because mamma hated papa that she used to want to know bad things of
him; but if at present she wanted to know the same of Sir Claude it was
quite from the opposite motive. She was awestruck at the manner in which
a lady might be affected through the passion mentioned by Mrs. Wix; she
held her breath with the sense of picking her steps among the tremendous
things of life. What she did, however, now, after the interview with
her mother, impart to Mrs. Wix was that, in spite of her having had her
"good" effect, as she called it—the effect she studied, the effect of
harmless vacancy—her ladyship's last words had been that her ladyship's
duty by her would be thoroughly done. Over this announcement governess
and pupil looked at each other in silent profundity; but as the weeks
went by it had no consequences that interfered gravely with the breezy
gallop of making up. Her ladyship's duty took at times the form of not
seeing her child for days together, and Maisie led her life in great
prosperity between Mrs. Wix and kind Sir Claude. Mrs. Wix had a new
dress and, as she was the first to proclaim, a better position; so it
all struck Maisie as a crowded brilliant life, with, for the time, Mrs.
Beale and Susan Ash simply "left out" like children not invited to a
Christmas party. Mrs. Wix had a secret terror which, like most of her
secret feelings, she discussed with her little companion, in great
solemnity, by the hour: the possibility of her ladyship's coming down
on them, in her sudden highbred way, with a school. But she had also
a balm to this fear in a conviction of the strength of Sir Claude's
grasp of the situation. He was too pleased—didn't he constantly say
as much?—with the good impression made, in a wide circle, by Ida's
sacrifices; and he came into the schoolroom repeatedly to let them know
how beautifully he felt everything had gone off and everything would go
on.
    He disappeared at times for days, when his patient friends understood
that her ladyship would naturally absorb him; but he always came back
with the drollest stories of where he had been, a wonderful picture of
society, and even with pretty presents that showed how in absence he
thought of his home. Besides giving Mrs. Wix by his conversation a sense
that they almost themselves "went out," he gave her a five-pound note
and the history of France and an umbrella with a malachite knob, and to
Maisie both chocolate-creams and story-books, besides a lovely greatcoat
(which he took her out all alone to buy) and ever so many games
in boxes, with printed directions, and a bright red frame for the
protection of his famous photograph. The games were, as he said, to
while away the evening hour; and the evening hour indeed often passed
in futile attempts on Mrs. Wix's part to master what "it said" on the
papers. When he asked the pair how they liked the games they always
replied "Oh immensely!" but they had earnest discussions as to whether
they hadn't better appeal to him frankly for aid to understand them.
This was a course their delicacy shrank from; they couldn't have told
exactly why, but it was a part of their tenderness for him not to let
him think they had trouble. What dazzled most was his kindness to Mrs.
Wix, not only the five-pound note and the "not forgetting" her, but
the perfect consideration, as she called it with an air to which her
sounding of the words gave the only grandeur Maisie was to have seen her
wear save on a certain occasion hereafter to be described, an occasion
when the poor lady was grander than all of them put together. He shook
hands with her, he recognised her, as she said, and above all, more than
once, he took her, with his stepdaughter, to the pantomime and, in the
crowd, coming out, publicly gave her his arm. When he met them in sunny
Piccadilly he made merry and turned and