Confessions of a Young Lady: Her Doings and Misdoings

"I don't understand either. That's why I want M. Doumer to explain. He has been trampling on Miss Frazer, and broken her heart, so that she's crying her eyes out."

The landlady person had not quite closed the door when showing me into the room, but had remained standing with her back to it, holding the handle in her hand. Now she turned right round, carefully shut it fast, and moved two or three steps towards me. There was something in her behaviour which, in a person in her position, I thought odd.

"Who are you?"

She asked the question in an exceedingly inquisitorial sort of way. I held up my chin as high as I could in the air.

"I am Molly Boyes."

"Molly Boyes?" She seemed to be searching in her mind for something with which to associate the name. "I don't remember to have heard of you."

"Perhaps not. I shouldn't think it likely that you had. I don't suppose that M. Doumer talks to everyone about all of his pupils."

"Are you one of his pupils?

"I am. I am at Lingfield House School, and I have been in his French class for now going on for four terms."

"And who's Miss- What's-her-name? Is she another of the pupils?"

"Miss Frazer is one of our governesses; and if he thinks that because she is an Englishwoman he can use her as if she were a football he's mistaken."

"Use her as if she were a football? What do you mean? What's he been doing to her?"

"He's broken her heart, that's what he's been doing to her. And when I came away just now she was crying so that if someone doesn't stop her soon I know she'll do herself an injury."

The landlady person made a noise with her nose which I should describe as a sniff. She straightened herself up as if she were trying to add another three or four inches to her stature, which would not have made her very tall even if she had succeeded.

"I thought as much. I have suspected it for months. But I am not one to speak unless I know. The man's a regular Bluebeard."

"A regular Bluebeard! – M. Doumer!"

"A complete Don Juan. I have long been convinced of it. He fascinates every woman he comes across. But he doesn't care."

The idea of calling that barrel-shaped monster, with his shining yellow head and scrubbing-brush physiognomy, a "complete Don Juan" so filled me with astonishment that for a second or two I could only look my feelings.

"M. Doumer is not like my idea of Don Juan in the very least."

"Indeed! And pray what do you know about Don Juan? A chit of your age! At my time of life I suppose I may be allowed to know something of what I'm talking about, and I tell you that I'm persuaded that he breaks hearts like walnuts."

"But-he's so ugly!"

"Ugly! Maximilian Doumer ugly! Misguided girl! But it's not becoming that I should discuss such subjects with a mere child like you. I know what I know. But it is none the less my duty on that account to see that he trifles with no woman's affections. And as his wife my duty shall be done."

When she said that I do believe the blood nearly froze in my veins. I am sure it turned cold, because I know I shivered from head to foot. His wife? She said his wife. And all the time I had been taking her for his landlady and an old maid, and had been calling M. Doumer ugly, and accusing him to her face of breaking Miss Frazer's heart. I do not know why, but I had never imagined for a single moment that he could be anything but a bachelor. We girls at Mrs Sawyer's had always taken it for granted that he was. At least, the general impression on my mind was that we had. The horror of the situation deprived me of the use of the tiny scrap of sense which I possessed. My own impulse was to run for it. But it was far from being Madame Doumer's intention that I should do anything of the kind. And though I think that she was in every respect smaller than I was, I am convinced that I never encountered a person of whom I all at once felt so much afraid. I stammered out something.

"I-I'm afraid I must go."

I made a faltering movement towards the door. She simply placed herself in my way and crushed me.

"You must what?"

"I-I shall be late for dinner."

"Then you will be late for dinner. You will not quit this apartment until M. Doumer returns. Not that that will necessitate your being detained long, because here he is."

I had been desirous of seeing M. Doumer, even anxious. In order to do so I had gone a good deal out of my way, and behaved in a characteristically considerate manner. But so far as I could judge, amid the rush of very curious sensations with which I was struggling, on a sudden, the entire situation had changed. It was far from being my wish to have an interview with him at that particular moment. Quite the contrary. I really do not know what I would not have given-certainly all the remainder of that term's pocket-money! – to have escaped such an encounter. Picture, therefore, my sensations when I heard the garden gate slam, the front door open, a heavy footstep enter the hall, and, on Madame Doumer opening the sitting-room door, perceived her husband standing without.

"Here is someone who wants to see you."

The lady's tone was sour as sour could be, and what she said was perfectly untrue. I could have wanted nothing less. I should have been only too glad to have been able to disappear up the chimney on a broomstick, or on nothing at all, if I could only have got out of that room. In came M. Doumer, all smiles and smirks, looking to me more shiny-headed and scrubbing-brush faced than ever.

"Ah! – it is Miss Boyes! – Sarah" – he addressed his wife as Sarah, and she looked it-"this is one of my charming pupils at Lingfield House School."

"So she's not an impostor. That's something." The insinuation made my cheeks flame. "You appear to have a number of charming pupils, M. Doumer. Is Miss Frazer one of them?"

"Miss Frazer? Who is Miss Frazer?" He turned to me. "Is that the young lady who joined the class a week or two ago? I have forgotten her name."

I was tongue-tied. A conviction was stealing over me that the whole thing was a hideous mistake, that I had been making a spectacle of myself on an unusually handsome scale. The tone in which he put his question was sincerity itself. It was impossible to suspect him of an intention to deceive. At least I should have thought so, though it pleased his wife, apparently, to think otherwise.

"It is odd that you should have forgotten the name of the woman whose heart you have broken."

"Whose heart I have broken?"

"Though perhaps that is because it has become such a frequent custom of yours to trample your victims under foot that one more or less is hardly worth your noticing."

"My dear, I do not understand."

He evidently did not. He looked from one to the other of us as if struck by a sudden foreboding that there was trouble in the air. Such a comical-looking distress came over his peculiar physiognomy that I positively began to feel sorry for him.

"Still, considering that a short time ago she was crying to such a degree that it was feared that she might do herself an injury-all because of you! – it does seem strange that you cannot even remember her name."

He held out his hands in front of him in the funny way we knew so well.

"My dear, of what are you talking? I wish that you would explain."

"It seems that that is what she wants you to do. She has sent this insignificant child to demand an explanation."

He turned to me.

"She has sent you? Who has sent you? Miss Frazer? – who is Miss Frazer?"

"She's one of the governesses."

"One of the governesses? – which of the governesses?"

"So there are several. It is to be hoped that you haven't broken the hearts of the entire staff. It is plain that you know them all."

"My dear, I have to meet these ladies in the performance of my duties."