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.
110
HENRY JAMES 111
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.
112 THE TURN OF THE SCREW
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.”
HENRY JAMES 113
“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 grey. 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!
