"Have they had any more visitors?" I asked. "Have you seen the man of
the pocket-book again?"
Isabel shook her head.
"No," she replied; "I am pretty sure no one but Dr Meeke has crossed
their threshold since you were with us. How _deadlily_ dull it must be
for them--one day just like another all the year round, excepting the
variety the seasons must bring!"
"And added to that," I said, "this winter, the daily suspense as to what
the doctor would say about their brother, who is their darling, I am
perfectly certain. Oh, poor people, poor people!"
After this conversation I do not think the Greys were alluded to again
during Isabel's stay with us. She had told me all there was to tell,
and even had there been more news, she would probably not have heard it,
her father not being at Millflowers. The two or three weeks of her
visit passed all too quickly, far too quickly for me, for more reasons
than the pleasure of her society. She had scarcely left us when the
preparations began for my stay in London, which, to suit our cousin's--
Lady Bretton's--arrangements, was to be rather earlier than had been
originally intended. Mother was a little surprised at my distaste for
the idea of it. She knew I was not specially shy, nor constitutionally
timid, like dear little Isabel, and I myself could scarcely explain why
the prospect had so little attraction for me.
"It is just that I shall feel `out of it all,'" I said, "and Lady
Bretton will think me stupider than I am, and will wish she hadn't
troubled herself about me! I know it will be like that, mother. I do
wish you would give it up, even now."
But mother, as I have said, could be firm enough when occasion called
for it, besides which, I well knew that any appeal to my father would be
worse than useless, and only irritate him. So mother ignored my last
sentence altogether.
"It is a very bad plan," she said quietly, "to put your own imaginings
into your anticipations of another person's feelings towards or about
you. Nothing is more misleading--it blocks the way to any sympathy
between you. I know Regina Bretton very well, otherwise I would not
have accepted her proposal. She is the sort of woman who will enjoy
your inexperience, as well as"--mother went on, with a little mischief
in her tone--"smartening you up generally. She loves being appealed to;
then, too, she is your godmother, and _really_ thoroughly kind-hearted."
The remembrance of this and other reassuring remarks of a similar kind
did comfort me a little. Still more so the sight of my godmother's
kind, handsome face when I saw her for the first time coming downstairs
to receive me on the afternoon of my arrival at her house. Nothing
could have been more affectionate or _un_-alarming than her manner of
welcome.
"I would have gone to the station to meet you," she said, "but it is
often more embarrassing than pleasant, when people are not quite sure of
each other by sight. Then I knew, too, that you had your maid with you,
and indeed, dear, as regards actual travelling, you are far more
experienced than I; you have had so much of it."
Trifling as was this remark, it helped to put me at my ease; it showed a
wish on my hostess's part to say something pleasant and gratifying.
Surely it would be well if there were a little more of this sort of
thing among us English people? As a rule, we are so terribly afraid of
agreeable impulses, reserving all approach to commendation or admiration
till absolutely sure of good grounds for such. Yet the same caution
does not hold on the converse side. An air of cold criticism, in itself
more discouraging very often than an openly disagreeable remark, is as a
rule accepted as correct. May it not be that in this particular people
deceive themselves, and at the root of our unattractive reserve and
so-called terror of flattering, there often lurks an underlying spirit
of reluctance to discern or allow, even to ourselves, the best points of
another? Still worse, not impossibly, in many instances some more or
less specious touch of jealousy?
I have wandered a little from the case in point, which is scarcely a
typical one. On my kind cousin's part there could have been no
conceivable temptation to disparagement of me in any way. Not even of
my youth, for its benefits were still practically hers. She had
magnificent health, was still as pretty as she had ever been--some
indeed said prettier; she was surrounded by friends, many of whom at
least--most, let us hope--were attached to her by reason of her own
unspoilt, unselfish character, far more than by that of her prosperous
and important position.
There was but one blank page in her life. She had no children of her
own, though the devotion of the best of husbands, as was hers, scarcely
allowed her to realise this one great want.
Still, it was not everybody--by any means far from it--who would have
had the kindly tact to receive me as she did, almost from the very first
winning my confidence and setting me at my ease, amidst these new
surroundings.
It was still quite early in the spring, and I did not feel overwhelmed
by the contrast of town life with our almost exceptionally quiet one at
home. This I was very glad of, though even in the midst of the season I
doubt if my godmother would have allowed any extreme in the way of going
out. What she did, she has often said, she liked to enjoy, and her
happy nature was ready to do so. She threw herself with hearty interest
into the many things which were new to me, though of course not so to
her. I scarcely think any girl ever saw all best worth seeing in London
under pleasanter auspices than I did.
And so the days and weeks passed on, bringing with them no twinge of
home-sickness to me. My letters to mother and to Isabel, some of which,
now faded and yellowing, have come into my hands again of late years,
tell of a very happy passage in my life.
The time was already approaching for my return home, at least allusions
had begun to be made to its probable date, when I one day received a
note in an unfamiliar hand. I glanced at the signature as one sometimes
does in such a case, before thoroughly mastering the contents.
But at the first moment it only added to my perplexity.
"Payne?" I repeated, "Edith Payne? who can she be?" Then the name of
the southern resort where we had spent our last winter abroad caught my
eye, also the words--"Rupert specially asks to be remembered to you"--
and recalled to me the recollection of the nice boys and their gentle
little mother whom we had made friends with. Circumstances had, after
all, not tended to keeping up the acquaintanceship hitherto, for the
younger brother's joining Moore at school had been delayed till quite
recently, though it was to this having now taken place that I owed the
kind little letter and invitation which it contained.
Mrs Payne wrote, hoping that I would at least spend a day with them, if
not two or three days; she would be so interested to hear my home news,
and Rupert, the incipient novelist, was more than delighted at the idea
of meeting me again.
Now, as it happened, and as really _does_ happen in fact as well as in
fiction, though people are so fond of saying that coincidences
principally exist in story-books, this proposal came just at the right
time. When I told my godmother of it, I noticed at first a touch of
hesitation in her manner.
"Mrs _Payne_?" she said. "Not _old_ friends of yours, are they? I
don't remember about them."
I explained to her when and where we had met, adding that I believed the
father was a lawyer of very good standing. Her face cleared.
"Oh yes!" she exclaimed. "I know who they are now, thoroughly good
people, a little old-fashioned perhaps. And you think your parents
would be quite pleased for you to renew the acquaintance?"
"I'm sure of it," I said; "but don't you think it would be enough to go
there to luncheon one day? I am so perfectly happy here, I don't want
to go anywhere else."
"Dear," was the reply, "I do like to hear you say so. Having you is
almost"--and here the tiny shadow that sometimes crept into her eyes was
for a moment perceptible--"_almost_ like having a daughter of my own.
But as it happens--I know I may be quite frank with you--it would answer
rather well for you to go to these good people for a couple of days or
so. Say next Friday to the Monday after? Henry and I have a rather
special invitation for those days, and though I had not dreamt of
mentioning it to you, now that this has turned up, it all seems to fit
in, for my husband would like me to go with him to his uncle's."
I was of course only too glad to be in no way a difficulty to my hosts,
so I wrote at once both to Mrs Payne, suggesting the date named, and to
mother, telling her what I had done in the matter. And all came to pass
in accordance with our plan. The following Friday found me driving
across the park to the rather sombre but stately square where the Paynes
had lived for many years.