Chapter: This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to
meet, as Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; and all the more for
an incident that, presenting itself the second evening, had deeply
disconcerted me. The first day had been, on the whole, as I have
expressed, reassuring; but I was to see it wind up in keen apprehension.
The postbag, that evening--it came late--contained a letter for me,
which, however, in the hand of my employer, I found to be composed but
of a few words enclosing another, addressed to himself, with a seal
still unbroken. "This, I recognize, is from the headmaster, and the
headmaster's an awful bore. Read him, please; deal with him; but mind
you don't report. Not a word. I'm off!" I broke the seal with a great
effort--so great a one that I was a long time coming to it; took the
unopened missive at last up to my room and only attacked it just before
going to bed. I had better have let it wait till morning, for it gave me
a second sleepless night. With no counsel to take, the next day, I
was full of distress; and it finally got so the better of me that I
determined to open myself at least to Mrs. Grose.

"What does it mean? The child's dismissed his school."

She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then, visibly, with a
quick blankness, seemed to try to take it back. "But aren't they all--?"

"Sent home--yes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never go back at
all."

Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. "They won't take him?"

"They absolutely decline."

At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me; I saw them
fill with good tears. "What has he done?"

I hesitated; then I judged best simply to hand her my letter--which,
however, had the effect of making her, without taking it, simply put her
hands behind her. She shook her head sadly. "Such things are not for me,
miss."

My counselor couldn't read! I winced at my mistake, which I attenuated
as I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it to her; then,
faltering in the act and folding it up once more, I put it back in my
pocket. "Is he really BAD?"

The tears were still in her eyes. "Do the gentlemen say so?"

"They go into no particulars. They simply express their regret that it
should be impossible to keep him. That can have only one meaning."
Mrs. Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask me what
this meaning might be; so that, presently, to put the thing with some
coherence and with the mere aid of her presence to my own mind, I went
on: "That he's an injury to the others."

At this, with one of the quick turns of simple folk, she suddenly flamed
up. "Master Miles! HIM an injury?"

There was such a flood of good faith in it that, though I had not yet
seen the child, my very fears made me jump to the absurdity of the idea.
I found myself, to meet my friend the better, offering it, on the spot,
sarcastically. "To his poor little innocent mates!"

"It's too dreadful," cried Mrs. Grose, "to say such cruel things! Why,
he's scarce ten years old."

"Yes, yes; it would be incredible."

She was evidently grateful for such a profession. "See him, miss, first.
THEN believe it!" I felt forthwith a new impatience to see him; it was
the beginning of a curiosity that, for all the next hours, was to deepen
almost to pain. Mrs. Grose was aware, I could judge, of what she had
produced in me, and she followed it up with assurance. "You might as
well believe it of the little lady. Bless her," she added the next
moment--"LOOK at her!"

I turned and saw that Flora, whom, ten minutes before, I had established
in the schoolroom with a sheet of white paper, a pencil, and a copy of
nice "round o's," now presented herself to view at the open door.
She expressed in her little way an extraordinary detachment from
disagreeable duties, looking to me, however, with a great childish
light that seemed to offer it as a mere result of the affection she had
conceived for my person, which had rendered necessary that she should
follow me. I needed nothing more than this to feel the full force of
Mrs. Grose's comparison, and, catching my pupil in my arms, covered her
with kisses in which there was a sob of atonement.

Nonetheless, the rest of the day I watched for further occasion to
approach my colleague, especially as, toward evening, I began to fancy
she rather sought to avoid me. I overtook her, I remember, on the
staircase; we went down together, and at the bottom I detained her,
holding her there with a hand on her arm. "I take what you said to me at
noon as a declaration that YOU'VE never known him to be bad."

She threw back her head; she had clearly, by this time, and very
honestly, adopted an attitude. "Oh, never known him--I don't pretend
THAT!"

I was upset again. "Then you HAVE known him--?"

"Yes indeed, miss, thank God!"

On reflection I accepted this. "You mean that a boy who never is--?"

"Is no boy for ME!"

I held her tighter. "You like them with the spirit to be naughty?" Then,
keeping pace with her answer, "So do I!" I eagerly brought out. "But not
to the degree to contaminate--"

"To contaminate?"--my big word left her at a loss. I explained it. "To
corrupt."

She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her an odd laugh.
"Are you afraid he'll corrupt YOU?" She put the question with such a
fine bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, to match
her own, I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule.

But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped up in
another place. "What was the lady who was here before?"

"The last governess? She was also young and pretty--almost as young and
almost as pretty, miss, even as you."

"Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her!" I recollect
throwing off. "He seems to like us young and pretty!"

"Oh, he DID," Mrs. Grose assented: "it was the way he liked everyone!"
She had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself up. "I mean
that's HIS way--the master's."

I was struck. "But of whom did you speak first?"

She looked blank, but she colored. "Why, of HIM."

"Of the master?"

"Of who else?"

There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I had lost my
impression of her having accidentally said more than she meant; and I
merely asked what I wanted to know. "Did SHE see anything in the boy--?"

"That wasn't right? She never told me."

I had a scruple, but I overcame it. "Was she careful--particular?"

Mrs. Grose appeared to try to be conscientious. "About some
things--yes."

"But not about all?"

Again she considered. "Well, miss--she's gone. I won't tell tales."

"I quite understand your feeling," I hastened to reply; but I thought
it, after an instant, not opposed to this concession to pursue: "Did she
die here?"

"No--she went off."

I don't know what there was in this brevity of Mrs. Grose's that struck
me as ambiguous. "Went off to die?" Mrs. Grose looked straight out of
the window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right to know what
young persons engaged for Bly were expected to do. "She was taken ill,
you mean, and went home?"

"She was not taken ill, so far as appeared, in this house. She left it,
at the end of the year, to go home, as she said, for a short holiday,
to which the time she had put in had certainly given her a right. We
had then a young woman--a nursemaid who had stayed on and who was a good
girl and clever; and SHE took the children altogether for the interval.
But our young lady never came back, and at the very moment I was
expecting her I heard from the master that she was dead."

I turned this over. "But of what?"

"He never told me! But please, miss," said Mrs. Grose, "I must get to my
work."

 This rather surreal sense of command hits home two days later, as the Governess, with Flora in tow, goes to pick up Miles. She is unsettled by a letter she received from the children's uncle , with an enclosed letter from Miles's school. The letter basically says that Miles can't ever return to school, for reasons undisclosed. Though Mrs. Grose is illiterate and can't read the letter herself, the Governess interrogates Mrs. Grose about the boy; Mrs. Grose is appalled by the suggestion that Miles could be harmful to anyone. She passionately tells the Governess to withhold any judgment until she sees Miles in person. This eggs on the Governess's curiosity about the boy - she, in fact, can't wait to see him. Mrs. Grose suggests that Miles is as likely to be bad as Flora is; that is to say, it's impossible for him to misbehave. The Governess, won over anew by Flora's incredible cuteness, feels bad for even thinking poorly of either of the children. Despite her defense of Miles, the Governess notices Mrs. Grose being a little cagey as the day goes on. She confronts the poor housekeeper once more and asks if she has ever seen Miles to be bad at all. Mrs. Grose gets sassy and says that Miles is certainly naughty at times - after all, according to her, all boys should be a little bad sometimes. The Governess, attempting to delve further into this, suggests that she feels this way too, as long as the child in question doesn't corrupt others. Mrs. Grose laughs this off, asking if the Governess is afraid that Miles will corrupt her . On the day of Miles's arrival, the Governess makes one last attempt to find out more. She goes about it by asking about the former governess this time. There's a weird little confusion that goes on in this conversation with Mrs. Grose; the Governess suggests that the uncle in London prefers his employees to be young and pretty, while Mrs. Grose implies unintentionally that some other "he" likes everyone that way. Who, we wonder, is the "he" she's talking about? Mrs. Grose quickly claims that she's talking about the master , but it's not entirely clear. The previous governess apparently never mentioned anything odd about Miles. This raises some suspicion in our narrator, and she inquires about how "careful" this last governess was. Mrs. Grose replies that she was careful about some things, but not about others...we wonder what that means. The housekeeper refuses to say anything more about the previous governess. We just learn that she "went off" before she died, but Mrs. Grose doesn't know how or why she died in the end.

