Mrs. Molesworth

“ Little as you have said, Miss Morion, I thank you for that little—more even than if you had said more—for I trust your every word. The question of returning to India,” he went on, “seems to me almost decided, and for myself I don’t mind. But I have always shrunk from it for—for a wife. There is so much that goes against the grain for a girl—a woman—of refinement and all that sort of thing.”
“But,” said Frances, more timidly than she had yet spoken, “if two people really care for each other, must not that make all the difference in the world?” ”

“ I would sacrifice a good deal rather than let it go from the old name.”
“Some way must be found out of the difficulty,” he said at last, aloud. “We cannot stand by and see these two young lives clouded and perhaps spoilt, and Betty looks a fragile, sensitive little creature.”
“She is stronger than you would think; strong enough and deep enough to suffer a good deal,” answered Frances; but, as Mr Morion glanced at the grave young face beside him, it struck him that Betty would be by no means the only one on whom all this trouble would leave its mark. ”

“ Madeleine’s pleasant brown eyes sparkled with gratification.
“I do like you to say so,” she said, “for I know you mean it, little as I feel I deserve it. Don’t you think,” she continued, “that real praise always makes one feel very humble?”
“Yes,” said Frances, with a smile, “your thinking so much of mine has that effect on me at this moment.”
“Please leave off paying each other compliments,” said Eira, “I want to hear some more about Mrs Conrad Littlewood. Is she always called ‘Elise?’ her real name is Elizabeth, I know. I don’t think Elise suits a very stately, ‘grande dame’ sort of person!” ”

“ Mr Morion listened in silence, and Mrs Littlewood, fearing that for once she had allowed prejudice to overcome her good sense, with a glance at his impassive face, went on again in a different tone.
“I will tell you whom I have taken a great fancy to,” she said; “and that is that charming little Betty! There is no need to see much of her to fall in love with her! She is so perfectly sweet and naïve, candid and transparent as the day.” ”

“ Betty replied. “I like our own poor people far better. But Frances and Eira—and Madeleine too—have taken to rushing off here this winter, as often as they can get; once or twice a week sometimes.”
“What for?” asked Miss Charlemont. “Sketching? I don’t mean out of doors, of course, but the people themselves?” and as, at that moment, a woman passing along the road—a young and handsome woman—looked up with a smile and a half-graceful, half-bashful gesture of greeting, she added, glancing at her, “Is she a model of yours?” ”

“ And the effect of this humanising influence on the elder man was of the happiest, not only as regarded himself, but for his family also. Yet in those days something at Fir Cottage felt out of gear; now and then it almost seemed as if Frances and her next sister had to some extent exchanged natures, Frances’ spirits were fitful and uncertain, at times verging on excitement, then again lapsing into unusual dreaminess and absent-mindedness, while Betty was quiet, self-possessed, and, to all outward appearance at least, calm and equable. ”

“ There’s nobody to see it.”
“Come now, Betty,” said Frances, “don’t be untrue to your own belief. Beauty of any kind is always worth having. Let us be thankful that, living in the country, we never can be without the possibility of some, even in our indoor life. What would you do, Betty, if we lived in a grey—no, drab-coloured—street in some terrible town?”
“Do? I should die!” replied Betty.
“I shouldn’t,” said Eira. “I’d get to know some people, and that, after all, is more interesting than still life. ”

“ Frances, for once, was feeling too tired to rise to her sister’s little fit of excitement, though she smiled to herself in the darkness with pleasure, as she realised that if Betty’s spirits were apt to sink very much below par, they were ready enough to rise again on very small provocation.
“She is still so young,” thought the elder sister; “so much younger than most girls of her age. If only I had a little more in my power for her and Eira!” ”

“ Not only his three daughters but even poor Lady Emma looked aghast at this unexpected fulmination.
“It is too bad,” thought the younger girls to themselves, “that we should be scolded beforehand for a state of things which will probably never come to pass.”
“And it is no good,” said Betty afterwards, when she found herself alone with Eira, “no good trying to get up the tiniest little bit of excitement or variety in our lives. Papa is too bad! I’m going to give up trying for anything, except a sort of stupid lethargic contentment. Perhaps that’s what people mean by the discipline of life.” ”

“ It was the dullest of dull weather; the very thought of Christmas seemed out of place.
“It is as if the sun had really said ‘good-bye’ to us for ever,” remarked Betty one day. “I am growing so stupefied that I think the only living creatures I now envy are dormice. Don’t you think, Eira, that Providence, if that isn’t irreverent, might have arranged for human beings to have a good long sleep of several months together, if, or when, they have absolutely nothing to do which it would in the least matter to themselves or any one else if they left undone?” ”

“ And when one is no longer very young the spring and buoyancy seem to go. When I was seventeen or eighteen I’d all sorts of happy fancies and expectations, but now—why, Francie, I’m twenty-four, and nothing has come.”
For a moment or two Frances walked on in silence.
“I dare say,” she said at last, “if we knew more of other lives, we should find a good many something like ours. And after all, Betty, one’s real life is what one is oneself.” ”

“ There are people, far poorer than we, I know, whose lives are ever so much fuller and wider. It is that,” she went on, speaking with unusual energy, “it is that that troubles me about you two! I want to see my way to helping you to make the best you can—in the very widest sense of the words—of your lives;” and her sweet eyes rested with almost maternal anxiety, pathetic to see in one still herself so young, on her two sisters.
“And you, you poor old darling!” said Eira, “what about your own life?”
“Oh!” said Frances, “I don’t feel as if I had any, separate from yours. ”

“ As Frances was handing him his cup of tea the front door bell rang. A thrill of expectancy passed through Betty and Eira.
“Who can that be?” said their father, in a tone of annoyance.
“It is probably Mr Littlewood,” said Lady Emma quietly, “calling to say good-bye. I was expecting him.”
“Very strange, then, that you didn’t mention it to me,” replied her husband acridly. “Am I in a fit state of health to be troubled with visitors to-day? Not that it signifies: he need not be admitted.” ”

“ On her side too, and consistently with her own character, Betty comported herself after a manner which won for her not only her elder sister’s admiration but increased respect.
“There is no lack of real strength about her,” thought Frances. “She will enter into nothing rashly or childishly, nor without grave consideration. And—at best it is not likely to be all roses for her: Mrs Littlewood may be attracted by Betty herself, but ‘the connection,’ as people call it, will not, most assuredly, find favour in her eyes. ”

“ The garden was skirted by a wood, fascinating yet alarming. Children’s memories are queer things.”
“Do you think it was near here?” said Frances, “anywhere about Craig Bay? If so, it would be interesting to revisit it.”
Betty and Eira glanced at her in mute admiration. How could she have the courage to address this exceedingly smart personage with such ease and self-possession? Nor did the manner of his reply diminish their wonder. He seemed to look at Frances as if he had not seen her before, though at the same time no one could possibly have accused him of the slightest touch of discourtesy. ”

“ A dreamy questioning came into her eyes as she spoke.
“I don’t see why she shouldn’t,” said Eira. “Of course neither you nor I can picture to ourselves any man being good enough for Frances, so we need not expect the impossible. But taking that for granted, I don’t see why she mightn’t get to care for this man. Indeed, she has liked him from the beginning, and stuck up for him against you. And as men go—of course we really don’t know any, but I suppose some books are more or less true to life?—as men go, I suppose any one would consider him very attractive.” ”

“ Mr Charlemont and Mr Darnley, on each side of Madeleine, were interesting her by a discussion on one of her pet hobbies in a philanthropic direction; and Frances, bringing up the rear with Mr Morion, found herself more nearly on common ground with him—thanks in part, no doubt, to the unexpected side-light Horace had thrown on his character—than a few hours previously she could have believed possible. And it was pleasant to her to feel that the young man’s influence bid fair to dissipate the prejudices she had half-unconsciously harboured. ”

“ If only there were any one, any woman, she could quite entirely confide in! If her mother had been what—in fiction at least—some mothers are to their daughters—closer, in fuller sympathy, more able, as it were, to recall her own youth and the perplexities, hopes, and fears which doubtless had their place in it—how gladly would Frances have confided in her! ”

“ Such things as fires and chilblains do not enter into one’s calculations; one’s own room, in nine cases out of ten, is a pleasant resort, and even if not so, are there not out-of-doors boudoirs by the dozen?
Dreary enough, though, the little room looked this evening, when by the light of one candle Betty and Eira established themselves as comfortably as circumstances allowed of, that is to say, on two little low basket-chairs, dismissed from the drawing-room long ago as too shabby, which had been one of their few luxuries in lessons days. ”

“ So absent-minded was she that she almost ran against a man walking rapidly in the opposite direction; it was not till his murmured “I beg your pardon” made her glance up quickly that she saw, to her amazement, that the newcomer was no other than Mr Ryder Morion. She gave a little exclamation of surprise, and somehow, almost in the same instant, the expression of his eyes, kind and somewhat concerned, sent through her a curious little instinct of hopefulness. ”

“ Frances sighed and folded up her work for the time, for there came the welcome sound of the tea-tray and its contents.
“They both might look so pretty,” she thought to herself. She watched Betty’s slight figure as she helped to arrange the cups and saucers with her little white hands, and Eira’s lovely hair as it glimmered and glowed in the firelight. “How is it that people will see things with such different eyes? If mamma could but see them as I do! and how, comparatively speaking, small effort might make them and their lives so different.” ”

“ Don’t you agree with me?”
“To tell you the truth,” said Mrs Littlewood, turning back the lace ruffles which fell so becomingly over her beautiful white hands, “to tell you the truth, I have seen too little of the eldest Miss Morion personally to be able to judge of her, and the characteristic that has struck you in her is not one that appeals to me in a young girl—not, of course, that she is very young, though living so entirely out of the world, of course, detracts from a girl’s savoir-faire. One may have the deficiencies of youth even when youth itself is past.” ”

“ Frances glanced at her little sister with satisfaction.
“Betty is looking ever so much better than last night,” thought she; “perhaps she is one of those people—they are often really the loveliest—who are at their best by daylight, though as far as dress goes she and Eira are almost more at a disadvantage than in the evening,” as her eyes strayed from her sister’s neat but unmistakably “home-made” country attire to the perfect finish and cut of Madeleine’s and Gertrude’s short-skirted “tailor” costumes. ”

“ Frances nodded slightly with a smile, Lady Emma’s attention being by this time happily distracted by some tactful observation from Mr Milne, who, to confess the truth, was not a little amused by what had just passed. And a few moments later the two visitors took their leave, the old lawyer shaking hands punctiliously with the four members of the family present; Mr Littlewood contenting himself with a touch of his hostess’ cold fingers, a more cordial clasp of Frances’ hand, and a vague bow in the direction of Eira, still in the sheltered corner so abruptly deserted by Betty. ”

“ After all, how difficult it is to get at even one’s own real self! That afternoon when I first found out about Horace and Betty—was what I felt all a mistake? Was it only mortification? I begin to think so, and that there is no need for me to examine the wound—that there is no wound, scarcely a scratch! ”

“ Why, she has never had a lesson in her life! Can’t we do anything about her dress, however? She always looks nice, perfectly nice, but almost too plain, too severe, as if she had retired from the world and was above such things as dress and looks.”
“Perhaps it’s just that that attracts him in her,” said Betty—“the difference, I mean, between her and the fashionable girls he is accustomed to.”
“Yes,” replied Eira, “up to a certain point that’s all very well, but no man would like to have a wife, however beautiful she was, who did not to some extent look like other people. ”

“ Betty’s face expressed some self-reproach. “Eira,” she said. “We should not have let her go alone to the village. She always does the disagreeable things.”
Frances’ hand was lying on her knee. Betty took it in hers as she spoke and stroked it. To the elder sister the little action said much. It seemed as if in some intuitive way the coldness or constraint which had been creeping in between them for the first time in their lives was melting away, though by no visible agency. ”

“ By degrees Betty and Eira gained courage enough to glance at the stranger, now that his attention was taken up by their mother and sister.
He was young and—yes—he was decidedly good-looking. Rather fair than dark, with something winning and ingratiating about his whole manner and bearing, in spite of the decided tone and air of complete self-possession, if not self-confidence—almost amounting to lordly indifference to the effect he might produce on others. ”

“ Do you remember, Eira, the dreams we had of catching a lamb and taking it home for a pet? We were to hide it somewhere or other.”
“Yes,” replied Eira, “in the china closet out of the nursery, and get up in the night to play with it, and then put it to sleep in each of our beds in turn. It was never to grow any bigger, it was always to be a lambkin.”
“And so it has remained,” said Frances, smiling, “and always will! That is one of the comforts of dream-life: nobody gets older, or uglier, or anything they shouldn’t. ”

“ Sorrow and disappointment and perplexity, bravely borne in so many cases, unsuspected even. How much sorrow there had been, how much was yet to come! How many fatal mistakes, inexplicable shortcomings, whose results stretched far!
For it was almost impossible to sit there alone in the quiet dusk, without her thoughts reverting to the strange old story of her own ancestress’ lack of good faith, from which indirectly she and those dearest to her were even now suffering.
“Our lives would have been so different!” thought Frances, “our lives and characters and everything about us. ”