"And I go to brave a world I hate,
And woo it o'er and o'er;
And tempt a wave and try a fate
Upon a stranger shore."
"I shall take the three children and you, too, or I shall not go at
all," says she, addressing her sister with an air of decision.
"If you have really made up your mind about it," says Mr. Monkton, "I
agree with you. The house in Harley street is big enough for a regiment,
and my mother says the servants will be in it on our arrival, if we
accept the invitation. Joyce will be a great comfort to us, and a help
on the journey over, the children are so fond of her."
Joyce turns her face to her brother-in-law and smiles in a little
pleased way. She has been so grave of late that they welcome a smile
from her now at any time, and even court k. The pretty lips, erstwhile
so prone to laughter, are now too serious by far. When, therefore,
Monkton or his wife go out of their way to gain a pleased glance from
her and succeed, both feel as if they had achieved a victory.
"Why have they offered us a separate establishment? Was there no room
for us in their own house?" asks Mrs. Monkton presently.
"I dare say they thought we should be happier, so--in a place of our
own."
"Well, I dare say we shall." She pauses for a moment. "Why are they in
town now--at this time of year? Why are they not in their country
house?"
"Ah! that is a last thorn in their flesh," says Monkton, with a quick
sigh. "They have had to let the old place to pay my brother's debts. He
is always a trouble to them. This last letter points to greater trouble
still."
"And in their trouble they have turned to you--to the little
grandchildren," says Joyce, softly. "One can understand it."
"Oh, yes. Oh, you should have told me," says Barbara, flushing as if
with pain. "I am the hardest person alive, I think. You think it?"
looking directly at her husband.
"I think only one thing of you," says Mr. Monkton, rising from the
breakfast table with a slight laugh. "It is what I have always thought,
that you are the dearest and loveliest thing on earth." The bantering
air he throws into this speech does not entirely deprive it of the
truthful tenderness that formed it. "There," says he, "that ought to
take the gloom off the brow of any well-regulated woman, coming as it
does from an eight-year-old husband."
"Oh, you must be older than that," says she, at which they all laugh
together.
"You are wise to go, Barbara," says Joyce, now in a livelier way, as if
that last quick, unexpected feeling of amusement has roused her to a
sharper sense of life. "If once they see you!--No, you mustn't put up
your shoulder like that--I tell you, if once they looked at you, they
would feel the measure of their folly."
"I shall end by fancying myself," says Mrs. Monkton, impatiently, "and
then you will all have fresh work cut out for you; the bringing of me
back to my proper senses. Well," with a sigh, "as I have to see them, I
wish----"
"What?"
"That I could be a heartier believer in your and Joyce's flattery, or
else, that they, your people, were not so prejudiced against me. It will
be an ordeal."
"When you are about it wish them a few grains of common sense," says her
husband wrathfully. "Just fancy the folly of an impertinence that
condemned a fellow being on no evidence whatsoever; neither eye nor ear
were brought in as witnesses."
"Oh, well," says she, considerably mollified by his defamation of his
people, "I dare say they are not so much to be blamed after all. And,"
with a little, quick laugh at her sister, "as Joyce says, my beauties
are still unknown to them; they will be delighted when they see me."
"They will, indeed," returns Joyce stolidly. "And so you are really
going to take me with you. Oh, I am glad. I haven't spent any of my
money this winter, Barbara; I have some, therefore, and I have always
wanted to see London."
"It will be a change for the children, too," says Barbara, with a
troubled sigh. "I suppose," to her husband, "they will think them very
countrified."
"Who?"
"Your mother--"
"What do you think of them?"
"Oh, that has got nothing to do with it."
"Everything rather. You are analyzing them. You are exalting an old
woman who has been unkind to you at the expense of the children who love
you!"
"Ah, she analyzes them because she too loves them," says Joyce. "It is
easy to pick faults in those who have a real hold upon our hearts. For
the rest--it doesn't concern us how the world regards them."
"It sounds as if it ought to read the other way round," says Monkton.
"No, no. To love is to see faults, not to be blind to them. The old
reading is wrong," says Joyce.
"You are unfair, Freddy," declares his wife with dignity; "I would not
decry the children. I am only a little nervous as to their reception.
When I know that your father and mother are prepared to receive them as
my children, I know they will get but little mercy at their hands."
"That speech isn't like you," says Monkton, "but it is impossible to
blame you for it."
"They are the dearest children in the world," says Joyce. "Don't think
of them. They must succeed. Let them alone to fight their own battles."
"You may certainly depend upon Tommy," says his father. "For any
emergency that calls for fists and heels, where battle, murder and
sudden death are to be looked for, Tommy will be all there."
"Oh! I do hope he will be good," says his mother, half amused, but
plainly half terrified as well.
* * * * *
Two weeks later sees them settled in town, in the Harley street house,
that seems enormous and unfriendly to Mrs. Monkton, but delightful to
Joyce and the children, who wander from room to room and, under her
guidance, pretend to find bears and lions and bogies in every corner.
The meeting between Barbara and Lady Monkton had not been satisfactory.
There had been very little said on either side, but the chill that lay
on the whole interview had never thawed for a moment.
Barbara had been stiff and cold, if entirely polite, but not at all the
Barbara to whom her husband had been up to this accustomed. He did not
blame her for the change of front under the circumstances, but he could
hardly fail to regret it, and it puzzled him a great deal to know how
she did it.
He was dreadfully sorry about it secretly, and would have given very
much more than the whole thing was worth to let his father and mother
see his wife as she really is--the true Barbara.
Lady Monkton had been stiff, too; unpardonably so--as it was certainly
her place to make amends--to soften and smooth down the preliminary
embarrassment. But then she had never been framed for suavity of any
sort; and an old aunt of Monkton's, a sister of hers, had been present
during the interview, and had helped considerably to keep up the
frigidity of the atmosphere.
She was not a bad old woman at heart, this aunt. She had indeed from
time to time given up all her own small patrimony to help her sister to
get the eldest son out of his many disreputable difficulties. She had
done this, partly for the sake of the good old family names on both
sides, and partly because the younger George Monkton was very dear to
her.
From his early boyhood the scapegrace of the family had been her
admiration, and still remained so, in imagination. For years she had not
seen him, and perhaps this (that she considered a grievance) was a
kindness vouchsafed to her by Providence. Had she seen the pretty boy of
twenty years ago as he now is she would not have recognized him. The
change from the merry, blue-eyed, daring lad of the past to the bloated,
blear-eyed, reckless-looking man of to-day would have been a shock too
cruel for her to bear. But this she was not allowed to realize, and so
remained true to her belief in him, as she remembered him.
In spite of her many good qualities, she was, nevertheless, a dreadful
woman; the more dreadful to the ordinary visitor because of the false
front she wore, and the flashing purchased teeth that shone in her upper
jaw. She lived entirely with Sir George and Lady Monkton, having indeed
given them every penny that would have enabled her to live elsewhere.
Perhaps of all the many spites they owed their elder son, the fact that
his iniquities had inflicted upon them his maternal aunt for the rest of
her natural days, was the one that rankled keenest.
She disliked Frederic, not only intensely, but with an openness that had
its disadvantages--not for any greater reason than that he had behaved
himself so far in his journey through life more creditably than his
brother. She had always made a point against him of his undutiful
marriage, and never failed, to add fuel to the fire of his father's and
mother's resentment about it, whenever that fire seemed to burn low.
Altogether, she was by no means an amiable old lady, and, being very
hideous into the bargain, was not much run after by society generally.
She wasn't of the least consequence in any way, being not only old but
very poor; yet people dreaded her, and would slip away round doors and
corners to avoid her tongue. She succeeded, in spite of all drawbacks,
in making herself felt; and it was only one or two impervious beings,
such is Dicky Browne for example (who knew the Monktons well, and was
indeed distantly connected with them through his mother), who could
endure her manners with any attempt at equanimity.