'Oh, she has, she has!' cried the girl, sobbing with an odd effect as she put forth this pretension for her sister.
'Then she's worse than I thought. I don't mind them so much when they are merry but I hate them when they are sentimental.'
'She's so changedso changed!' Laura Wing went on.
'Never, never, my dear: c'est de naissance.'
'You never knew my mother,' returned the girl; 'when I think of mother' The words failed her while she sobbed.
'I daresay she was very nice,' said Lady Davenant gently. 'It would take that to account for you: such women as Selina are always easily enough accounted for. I didn't mean it was inheritedfor that sort of thing skips about. I daresay there was some improper ancestressexcept that you Americans don't seem to have ancestresses.'
Laura gave no sign of having heard these observations; she was occupied in brushing away her tears. 'Everything is so changedyou don't know,' she remarked in a moment. 'Nothing could have been happiernothing could have been sweeter. And now to be so dependentso helplessso poor!'
'Have you nothing at all?' asked Lady Davenant, with simplicity.
'Only enough to pay for my clothes.'
'That's a good deal, for a girl. You are uncommonly dressy, you know.'
'I'm sorry I seem so. That's just the way I don't want to look.'
'You Americans can't help it; you "wear" your very features and your eyes look as if they had just been sent home. But I confess you are not so smart as Selina.'
'Yes, isn't she splendid?' Laura exclaimed, with proud inconsequence. 'And the worse she is the better she looks.'
'Oh my child, if the bad women looked as bad as they are! It's only the good ones who can afford that,' the old lady murmured.
'It was the last thing I ever thought ofthat I should be ashamed,' said Laura.
'Oh, keep your shame till you have more to do with it. It's like lending your umbrellawhen you have only one.'
'If anything were to happenpubliclyI should die, I should die!' the girl exclaimed passionately and with a motion that carried her to her feet. This time she settled herself for departure. Lady Davenant's admonition rather frightened than sustained her.
The old woman leaned back in her chair, looking up at her. 'It would be very bad, I daresay. But it wouldn't prevent me from taking you in.'
Laura Wing returned her look, with eyes slightly distended, musing. 'Think of having to come to that!'
Lady Davenant burst out laughing. 'Yes, yes, you must come; you are so original!'
'I don't mean that I don't feel your kindness,' the girl broke out, blushing. 'But to be only protectedalways protected: is that a life?'
'Most women are only too thankful and I am bound to say I think you are difficile.' Lady Davenant used a good many French words, in the old-fashioned manner and with a pronunciation not perfectly pure: when she did so she reminded Laura Wing of Mrs. Gore's novels. 'But you shall be better protected than even by me. Nous verrons cela. Only you must stop cryingthis isn't a crying country.'
'No, one must have courage here. It takes courage to marry for such a reason.'
'Any reason is good enough that keeps a woman from being an old maid. Besides, you will like him.'
'He must like me first,' said the girl, with a sad smile.
'There's the American again! It isn't necessary. You are too proudyou expect too much.'
'I'm proud for what I amthat's very certain. But I don't expect anything,' Laura Wing declared. 'That's the only form my pride takes. Please give my love to Mrs. Berrington. I am so sorryso sorry,' she went on, to change the talk from the subject of her marrying. She wanted to marry but she wanted also not to want it and, above all, not to appear to. She lingered in the room, moving about a little; the place was always so pleasant to her that to go awayto return to her own barren homehad the effect of forfeiting a sort of privilege of sanctuary. The afternoon had faded but the lamps had been brought in, the smell of flowers was in the air and the old house of Plash seemed to recognise the hour that suited it best. The quiet old lady in the firelight, encompassed with the symbolic security of chintz and water-colour, gave her a sudden vision of how blessed it would be to jump all the middle dangers of life and have arrived at the end, safely, sensibly, with a cap and gloves and consideration and memories. 'And, Lady Davenant, what does she think?' she asked abruptly, stopping short and referring to Mrs. Berrington.
'Think? Bless your soul, she doesn't do that! If she did, the things she says would be unpardonable.'
'The things she says?'
'That's what makes them so beautifulthat they are not spoiled by preparation. You could never think of them for her.' The girl smiled at this description of the dearest friend of her interlocutress, but she wondered a little what Lady Davenant would say to visitors about her if she should accept a refuge under her roof. Her speech was after all a flattering proof of confidence. 'She wishes it had been youI happen to know that,' said the old woman.
'It had been me?'
'That Lionel had taken a fancy to.'
'I wouldn't have married him,' Laura rejoined, after a moment.
'Don't say that or you will make me think it won't be easy to help you. I shall depend upon you not to refuse anything so good.'
'I don't call him good. If he were good his wife would be better.'
'Very likely; and if you had married him he would be better, and that's more to the purpose. Lionel is as idiotic as a comic song, but you have cleverness for two.'
'And you have it for fifty, dear Lady Davenant. Never, neverI shall never marry a man I can't respect!' Laura Wing exclaimed.
She had come a little nearer her old friend and taken her hand; her companion held her a moment and with the other hand pushed aside one of the flaps of the waterproof. 'And what is it your clothing costs you?' asked Lady Davenant, looking at the dress underneath and not giving any heed to this declaration.
'I don't exactly know: it takes almost everything that is sent me from America. But that is dreadfully littleonly a few pounds. I am a wonderful manager. Besides,' the girl added, 'Selina wants one to be dressed.'
'And doesn't she pay any of your bills?'
'Why, she gives me everythingfood, shelter, carriages.'
'Does she never give you money?'
'I wouldn't take it,' said the girl. 'They need everything they havetheir life is tremendously expensive.'
'That I'll warrant!' cried the old woman. 'It was a most beautiful property, but I don't know what has become of it now. Ce n'est pas pour vous blesser, but the hole you Americans can make'
Laura interrupted immediately, holding up her head; Lady Davenant had dropped her hand and she had receded a step. 'Selina brought Lionel a very considerable fortune and every penny of it was paid.'
'Yes, I know it was; Mrs. Berrington told me it was most satisfactory. That's not always the case with the fortunes you young ladies are supposed to bring!' the old lady added, smiling.
The girl looked over her head a moment. 'Why do your men marry for money?'
'Why indeed, my dear? And before your troubles what used your father to give you for your personal expenses?'
'He gave us everything we askedwe had no particular allowance.'
'And I daresay you asked for everything?' said Lady Davenant.
'No doubt we were very dressy, as you say.'
'No wonder he went bankruptfor he did, didn't he?'
'He gave us everything we askedwe had no particular allowance.'
'And I daresay you asked for everything?' said Lady Davenant.
'No doubt we were very dressy, as you say.'
'No wonder he went bankruptfor he did, didn't he?'
'He had dreadful reverses but he only sacrificed himselfhe protected others.'
'Well, I know nothing about these things and I only ask pour me renseigner,' Mrs. Berrington's guest went on. 'And after their reverses your father and mother lived I think only a short time?'
Laura Wing had covered herself again with her mantle; her eyes were now bent upon the ground and, standing there before her companion with her umbrella and her air of momentary submission and self-control, she might very well have been a young person in reduced circumstances applying for a place. 'It was short enough but it seemedsome parts of itterribly long and painful. My poor fathermy dear father,' the girl went on. But her voice trembled and she checked herself.
'I feel as if I were cross-questioning you, which God forbid!' said Lady Davenant. 'But there is one thing I should really like to know. Did Lionel and his wife, when you were poor, come freely to your assistance?'
'They sent us money repeatedlyit was her money of course. It was almost all we had.'
'And if you have been poor and know what poverty is tell me this: has it made you afraid to marry a poor man?'
It seemed to Lady Davenant that in answer to this her young friend looked at her strangely; and then the old woman heard her say something that had not quite the heroic ring she expected. 'I am afraid of so many things to-day that I don't know where my fears end.'
'I have no patience with the highstrung way you take things. But I have to know, you know.'
'Oh, don't try to know any more shamesany more horrors!' the girl wailed with sudden passion, turning away.
Her companion got up, drew her round again and kissed her. 'I think you would fidget me,' she remarked as she released her. Then, as if this were too cheerless a leave-taking, she added in a gayer tone, as Laura had her hand on the door: 'Mind what I tell you, my dear; let her go!' It was to this that the girl's lesson in philosophy reduced itself, she reflected, as she walked back to Mellows in the rain, which had now come on, through the darkening park.
II
The children were still at tea and poor Miss Steet sat between them, consoling herself with strong cups, crunching melancholy morsels of toast and dropping an absent gaze on her little companions as they exchanged small, loud remarks. She always sighed when Laura came init was her way of expressing appreciation of the visitand she was the one person whom the girl frequently saw who seemed to her more unhappy than herself. But Laura envied hershe thought her position had more dignity than that of her employer's dependent sister. Miss Steet had related her life to the children's pretty young aunt and this personage knew that though it had had painful elements nothing so disagreeable had ever befallen her or was likely to befall her as the odious possibility of her sister's making a scandal. She had two sisters (Laura knew all about them) and one of them was married to a clergyman in Staffordshire (a very ugly part) and had seven children and four hundred a year; while the other, the eldest, was enormously stout and filled (it was a good deal of a squeeze) a position as matron in an orphanage at Liverpool. Neither of them seemed destined to go into the English divorce-court, and such a circumstance on the part of one's near relations struck Laura as in itself almost sufficient to constitute happiness. Miss Steet never lived in a state of nervous anxietyeverything about her was respectable. She made the girl almost angry sometimes, by her drooping, martyr-like air: Laura was near breaking out at her with, 'Dear me, what have you got to complain of? Don't you earn your living like an honest girl and are you obliged to see things going on about you that you hate?'
But she could not say things like that to her, because she had promised Selina, who made a great point of this, that she would never be too familiar with her. Selina was not without her ideas of decorumvery far from it indeed; only she erected them in such queer places. She was not familiar with her children's governess; she was not even familiar with the children themselves. That was why after all it was impossible to address much of a remonstrance to Miss Steet when she sat as if she were tied to the stake and the fagots were being lighted. If martyrs in this situation had tea and cold meat served them they would strikingly have resembled the provoking young woman in the schoolroom at Mellows. Laura could not have denied that it was natural she should have liked it better if Mrs. Berrington would sometimes just look in and give a sign that she was pleased with her system; but poor Miss Steet only knew by the servants or by Laura whether Mrs. Berrington were at home or not: she was for the most part not, and the governess had a way of silently intimating (it was the manner she put her head on one side when she looked at Scratch and Parsonof course she called them Geordie and Ferdy) that she was immensely handicapped and even that they were. Perhaps they were, though they certainly showed it little in their appearance and manner, and Laura was at least sure that if Selina had been perpetually dropping in Miss Steet would have taken that discomfort even more tragically. The sight of this young woman's either real or fancied wrongs did not diminish her conviction that she herself would have found courage to become a governess. She would have had to teach very young children, for she believed she was too ignorant for higher flights. But Selina would never have consented to thatshe would have considered it a disgrace or even worsea pose. Laura had proposed to her six months before that she should dispense with a paid governess and suffer her to take charge of the little boys: in that way she should not feel so completely dependentshe should be doing something in return. 'And pray what would happen when you came to dinner? Who would look after them then?' Mrs. Berrington had demanded, with a very shocked air. Laura had replied that perhaps it was not absolutely necessary that she should come to dinnershe could dine early, with the children; and that if her presence in the drawing-room should be required the children had their nurseand what did they have their nurse for? Selina looked at her as if she was deplorably superficial and told her that they had their nurse to dress them and look after their clothesdid she wish the poor little ducks to go in rags? She had her own ideas of thoroughness and when Laura hinted that after all at that hour the children were in bed she declared that even when they were asleep she desired the governess to be at handthat was the way a mother felt who really took an interest. Selina was wonderfully thorough; she said something about the evening hours in the quiet schoolroom being the proper time for the governess to 'get up' the children's lessons for the next day. Laura Wing was conscious of her own ignorance; nevertheless she presumed to believe that she could have taught Geordie and Ferdy the alphabet without anticipatory nocturnal researches. She wondered what her sister supposed Miss Steet taught themwhether she had a cheap theory that they were in Latin and algebra.
The governess's evening hours in the quiet schoolroom would have suited Laura wellso at least she believed; by touches of her own she would make the place even prettier than it was already, and in the winter nights, near the bright fire, she would get through a delightful course of reading. There was the question of a new piano (the old one was pretty badMiss Steet had a finger!) and perhaps she should have to ask Selina for thatbut it would be all. The schoolroom at Mellows was not a charmless place and the girl often wished that she might have spent her own early years in so dear a scene. It was a sort of panelled parlour, in a wing, and looked out on the great cushiony lawns and a part of the terrace where the peacocks used most to spread their tails. There were quaint old maps on the wall, and 'collections'birds and shellsunder glass cases, and there was a wonderful pictured screen which old Mrs. Berrington had made when Lionel was young out of primitive woodcuts illustrative of nursery-tales. The place was a setting for rosy childhood, and Laura believed her sister never knew how delightful Scratch and Parson looked there. Old Mrs. Berrington had known in the case of Lionelit had all been arranged for him. That was the story told by ever so many other things in the house, which betrayed the full perception of a comfortable, liberal, deeply domestic effect, addressed to eternities of possession, characteristic thirty years before of the unquestioned and unquestioning old lady whose sofas and 'corners' (she had perhaps been the first person in England to have corners) demonstrated the most of her cleverness.