"Strength wanting judgment and policy to rule overturneth itself."
It was quite impossible, of course, that a first visit to Lady Monkton
should be a last from Barbara. Lady Monkton had called on her the very
day after her arrival in town, but Barbara had been out then. On the
occasion of the latter's return visit the old woman had explained that
going out was a trial to her, and Barbara, in spite of her unconquerable
dislike to her, had felt it to be her duty to go and see her now and
then. The children, too, had been a great resource. Sir George,
especially, had taken to Tommy, who was quite unabashed by the grandeur
of the stately, if faded, old rooms in the Belgravian mansion, but was
full of curiosity, and spent his visits to his grandfather
cross-examining him about divers matters--questionable and
otherwise--that tickled the old man and kept him laughing.
It had struck Barbara that Sir George had left off laughing for some
time. He looked haggard--uneasy--miserably expectant. She liked him
better than she liked Lady Monkton, and, though reserved with both,
relaxed more to him than to her mother-in-law. For one thing, Sir George
had been unmistakably appreciative of her beauty, and her soft voice and
pretty manners. He liked them all. Lady Monkton had probably noticed
them quite as keenly, but they had not pleased her. They were indeed an
offence. They had placed her in the wrong. As for old Miss L'Estrange,
the aunt, she regarded the young wife from the first with a dislike she
took no pains to conceal.
This afternoon, one of many that Barbara has given up to duty, finds her
as usual in Lady Monkton's drawing room listening to her mother-in-law's
comments on this and that, and trying to keep up her temper, for
Frederic's sake, when the old lady finds fault with her management of
the children.
The latter (that is, Tommy and Mabel) have been sent to the pantomime by
Sir George, and Barbara with her husband have dropped in towards the
close of the day to see Lady Monkton, with a view to recovering the
children there, and taking them home with them, Sir George having
expressed a wish to see the little ones after the play, and hear Tommy's
criticisms on it, which he promised himself would be lively. He had
already a great belief in the powers of Tommy's descriptions.
In the meantime the children have not returned, and conversation, it
must be confessed, languishes. Miss L'Estrange, who is present in a cap
of enormous dimensions and a temper calculated to make life hideous to
her neighbors, scarcely helps to render more bearable the dullness of
everything. Sir George in a corner is buttonholing Frederic and
saddening him with last accounts of the Scapegrace.
Barbara has come to her final pretty speech--silence seems
imminent--when suddenly Lady Monkton flings into it a bombshell that
explodes, and carries away with it all fear of commonplace dullness at
all events.
"You have a sister, I believe," says she to Barbara in a tone she fondly
but erroneously imagines gracious.
"Yes," says Barbara, softly but curtly. The fact that Joyce's existence
has never hitherto been alluded to by Lady Monkton renders her manner
even colder than usual, which is saying everything.
"She lives with you?"
"Yes," says Barbara again.
Lady Monkton, as if a little put out by the determined taciturnity of
her manner, moves forward on her seat, and pulls the lace lappets of her
dove-gray cap more over to the front impatiently. Long, soft lappets
they are, falling from a gem of a little cap, made of priceless lace,
and with a beautiful old face beneath to frame. A face like an old
miniature; and as stern as most of them, but charming for all that and
perfect in every line.
"Makes herself useful, no doubt," growls Miss L'Estrange from the
opposite lounge, her evil old countenance glowing with the desire to
offend. "That's why one harbors one's poor relations--to get something
out of them."
This is a double-barrelled explosion. One barrel for the detested wife
of the good Frederic, one for the sister she has befriended--to that
sister's cost.
"True," says Lady Monkton, with an uncivil little upward glance at
Barbara. For once--because it suits her--she has accepted her sister's
argument, and determined to take no heed of her scarcely veiled insult.
"She helps you, no doubt. Is useful with the children, I hope. Moneyless
girls should remember that they are born into the world to work, not to
idle."
"I am afraid she is not as much help to me as you evidently think
necessary," says Barbara smiling, but not pleasantly. "She is very
seldom at home; in the summer at all events." It is abominable to her to
think that these hateful old people should regard Joyce, her pretty
Joyce, as a mere servant, a sisterly maid-of-all-work.
"And if not with you--where then?" asks Lady Monkton, indifferently, and
as if more with a desire to keep up the dying conversation than from any
acute thirst for knowledge.
"She stays a good deal with Lady Baltimore," says Barbara, feeling
weary, and rather disgusted.
"Ah! indeed! Sort of companion--a governess, I suppose?"
A long pause. Mrs. Monkton's dark eyes grow dangerously bright, and a
quick color springs into her cheeks.
"No!" begins she, in a low but indignant tone, and then suppresses
herself. She can't, she mustn't quarrel with Freddy's people! "My sister
is neither companion nor governess to Lady Baltimore," says she icily.
"She is only her friend."
"Friend?" repeats the old lady, as if not quite understanding.
"A great friend," repeats Barbara calmly. Lady Monkton's astonishment is
even more insulting than her first question. But Barbara has made up her
mind to bear all things.
"There are friends and friends," puts in Miss L'Estrange with her most
offensive air.
A very embarrassing silence falls on this, Barbara would say nothing
more, an inborn sense of dignity forbidding her. But this does not
prevent a very natural desire on her part to look at her husband, not so
much to claim his support as to know if he has heard.
One glance assures her that he has. A pause in the conversation with his
father has enabled him to hear everything. Barbara has just time to note
that his brow is black and his lips ominously compressed before she sees
him advance toward his mother.
"You seem to, be very singularly ignorant of my wife's status in
society----" he is beginning is a rather terrible tone, when Barbara,
with a little graceful gesture, checks him. She puts out her hand and
smiles up at him, a wonderful smile under the circumstances.
"Ah! that is just it," she says, sweetly, but with determination. "She
is ignorant where we are concerned--Joyce and I. If she had only spared
time to ask a little question or two! But as it is----" The whole speech
is purposely vague, but full of contemptuous rebuke, delicately veiled.
"It is nothing, I assure you, Freddy. Your mother is not to be blamed.
She has not understood. That is all."
"I fail even now to understand," says the old lady, with a somewhat
tremulous attempt at self-assertion.
"So do I," says the antique upon the lounge near her, bristling with a
wrath so warm that it has unsettled the noble structure on her head, and
placed it in quite an artful situation, right over her left ear. "I see
nothing to create wrath in the mind of any one, in the idea of a
young--er----" She comes to a dead pause; she had plainly been going to
say young person--but Frederic's glare had been too much for her. It has
frightened her into good behavior, and she changes the obnoxious word
into one more complaisant.
"A young what?" demands he imperiously, freezing his aunt with a stony
stare.
"Young girl!" returns she, toning down a little, but still betraying
malevolence of a very advanced order in her voice and expression. "I see
nothing derogatory in the idea of a young girl devoid of fortune taking
a----"
Again she would have said something insulting. The word "situation" is
on her lips; but the venom in her is suppressed a second time by her
nephew.
"Go on," says he, sternly.
"Taking a--er--position in a nice family," says she, almost spitting out
the words like a bad old cat.
"She has a position in a very nice family," says Monkton readily. "In
mine! As companion, friend, playfellow, in fact anything you like of the
light order of servitude. We all serve, my dear aunt, though that idea
doesn't seem to have come home to you. We must all be in bondage to each
other in this world--the only real freedom is to be gained in the world
to come. You have never thought of that? Well, think of it now. To be
kind, to be sympathetic, to be even Commonly civil to people is to
fulfil the law's demands."
"You go too far; she is old, Freddy," Barbara has scarcely time to
whisper, when the door is thrown open, and Dicky Browne, followed by
Felix Dysart, enters the room.
It is a relief to everybody. Lady Monkton rises to receive them with a
smile: Miss L'Estrange looks into the teapot. Plainly she can still see
some tea leaves there. Rising, she inclines the little silver kettle
over them, and creates a second deluge. She has again made tea. May she
be forgiven!
"Going to give us some tea, Miss L'Estrange?" says Dicky, bearing down
upon her with a beaming face. She has given him some before this. "One
can always depend upon you for a good cup. Ah, thanks. Dysart, I can
recommend this. Have a cup; do."
"No, thank you," says Dysart, who has secured a seat next to Barbara,
and is regarding her anxiously, while replying to her questions of
surprise at seeing him in town at this time of year. She is surprised
too, and a little shocked to see him look so ill.
Dicky is still holding a brilliant conversation with Miss L'Estrange,
who, to him, is a joy for ever.
"Didn't expect to see me here again so soon, eh?" says he, with a
cheerful smile.
"There you are wrong," returns that spinster, in the hoarse croak that
distinguishes her. "The fact that you were here yesterday and couldn't
reasonably be supposed to come again for a week, made it at once a
certainty that you would turn up immediately. The unexpected is what
always happens where you are concerned."
"One of my many charms," says Mr. Browne gayly, hiding his untasted cup
by a skillful movement behind the sugar bowl. "Variety, you know, is
ever charming. I'm a various person, therefore I'm charming."
"Are you?" says Miss L'Estrange, grimly.
"Can you look at me and doubt it?" demands Mr. Browne, deep reproach in
his eyes.
"I can," returns Miss L'Estrange, presenting an uncompromising front. "I
can also suggest to you that those lumps of sugar are meant to put in
the cups with the tea, not to be consumed wholesale. Sugar, plain, is
ruinous to the stomach and disastrous to the teeth."
"True, true," says Mr. Browne, absently, "and both mine are so pretty."
Miss L'Estrange rises to her feet and confronts him with a stony glare.
"Both what?" demands she.
"Eh? Why, both of them," persists Mr. Browne.
"I think, Richard, that the sooner you return to your hotel, or whatever
low haunt you have chosen as your present abode, the better it will be
for all present."
"Why so?" demands Mr. Browne, indignantly. "What have I done now?"
"You know very well, sir," says Miss L'estrange. "Your language is
disgraceful. You take an opportunity of turning an innocent remark of
mine, a kindly warning, into a ribald----"
"Good heavens!" says he, uplifting brows and hands. "I never yet knew it
was ribaldry to talk about one's teeth."
"You were not talking about your teeth," says Miss L'Estrange sternly.
"You said distinctly 'both of them.'"
"Just so," says Dicky. "I've only got two."
"Is that the truth, Richard?" with increasing majesty.
"Honest Injun," says Mr. Browne, unabashed. "And they are out of sight.
All you can see have been purchased, and I assure you, dear Miss
L'Estrange," with anxious earnestness, "paid for. One guinea the entire
set; a single tooth, two-and-six. Who'd be without 'em?"
"Well, I'm sorry to hear it," says Miss L'Estrange reseating herself and
regarding him still with manifest distrust. "To lose one's teeth so
early in life speaks badly for one's moral conduct. Anyhow, I shan't
allow you to destroy your guinea's worth. I shall remove temptation from
your path."
Lifting the sugar bowl she removes it to her right side, thus laying
bare the fact that Mr. Browne's cup of tea is still full to the brim.
It is the last stroke.
"Drink your tea," says she to the stricken Dicky in a tone that admits
of no delay. He drinks it.
Meantime, Barbara has been very kind to Felix Dysart, answering his
roundabout questions that always have Joyce as their central meaning.
One leading remark of his is to the effect that he is covered with
astonishment to find her and Monkton in London. Is he surprised. Well,
no doubt, yes. Joyce is in town, too, but she has not come out with her
to-day. Have they been to the theatre? Very often; Joyce, especially, is
quite devoted to it. Do they go much to the picture galleries? Well, to
one or two. There is so much to be done, and the children are rather
exigeant, and demand all the afternoon. But she had heard Joyce say that
she was going to-morrow to Doré's Gallery. She thought Tommy ought to be
shown something more improving than clowns and wild animals and toy
shops.
Mr. Dysart, at this point, said he thought Miss Kavanagh was more
reflective than one taking a careless view of her might believe.
Barbara laughed.
"Do you take the reflective view?" says she.
"Do you recommend me to take the careless one?" demands he, now looking
fully at her. There is a good deal of meaning in his question, but
Barbara declines to recognize it. She feels she has gone far enough in
that little betrayal about Doré's Gallery. She refuses to take another
step; she is already, indeed, a little frightened by what she has done
If Joyce should hear of it--oh----And yet how could she refrain from
giving that small push to so deserving a cause?
"No, no; I recommend nothing," says she, still laughing. "Where are you
staying?"
"With my cousins, the Seaton Dysarts. They had to come up to town about
a tooth, or a headache, or neuralgia, or something; we shall never quite
know what, as it has disappeared, whatever it is. Give me London smoke
as a perfect cure for most ailments. It is astonishing what remarkable
recoveries it can boast. Vera and her husband are like a couple of
children. Even the pantomime isn't too much for them."
"That reminds me the children ought to be here by this time," says Mrs.
Monkton, drawing out her watch. "They went to the afternoon performance.
I really think," anxiously, "they are very late----"
She has hardly spoken when a sound of little running feet up the stairs
outside sets her maternal fears at rest. Nearer and nearer they sound;
they stop, there is a distant scuffle, the door is thrown violently
open, and Tommy and Mabel literally fall into the room.