POOR MOTHER
I think that nothing in the world shows truer affection than that
curious resentment against any change in the appearance of those
we love.
Regina, all unconscious of the gossip that with her for its central
figure was floating about the Park, went slowly down the road in the
direction of Ye Dene. Truth to tell, she was a little shy of facing her
family in her new guise. It was then after six o'clock; in fact, it was
fast approaching the hour of seven. Now it happened that Julia had been
off on an expedition to town with one of the Marksby girls, and had only
arrived home about ten minutes previously, and being tired had gone into
the pleasant sitting-room which she and Maudie had hitherto shared
between them. When Mrs. Whittaker came up the covered way Julia saw her
from where she was sitting, for both the sitting-room door and the front
door were wide open.
"Hullo, mother, are you back?" she called out.
Regina with a certain accession of color and a certain acceleration of
heart beating, replied with a pleasant word and walked into Julia's
sitting-room.
"Oh, you've not been back long?" she said.
Julia did not reply. It was not perhaps a remark that called for any
special attention in the way of answer, but if it had it would have been
all the same.
"Why, _mother_--" and she stared at Regina as if she were indeed fitted
for the padded room which had been mentioned a few minutes previously.
"I have got a new toque," said Regina.
"Oh, the toque is all right--a little big--"
"I don't think so. It was chosen for me by a Frenchwoman whose taste is
indisputable."
"I have not always found French taste indisputable," said Julia,
remembering with a certain shame some of the purchases that she and
Maudie had made in days gone by. "Your toque's all right, but what have
you been doing to your hair?"
"I have had my hair shampooed and brushed, and I intend to wear it in
another mode."
"It looks horrid!" said Julia.
"I don't think so," answered Regina, her color still heightened and a
great accession of dignity in her manner. "You do not always wear your
hair the same, why should I? I have got to that time of life when what
suited me at thirty does not still suit me at fifty, and my hair showed
signs of wearing off the forehead, and I do not like a bald forehead
either in a man or a woman."
"Oh, I daresay you are right. Of course, you are at liberty to make
whatever sort of a guy you like of yourself, only don't ask me to admire
it, that's all."
The tone was rude, and Regina felt stabbed to the heart.
"I do not always admire your taste in dress, Julia," she said very
quietly. "I sometimes think that if a mother had all her life had a
frightful wart on her nose, her children would resent its removal
because they had grown accustomed to it. I have chosen, my dear, to do
my hair in a new fashion, and I am not to be turned from my purpose by
even your wishes. I have come to the conclusion that I have paid too
little attention in the past to the details which most women think of
paramount importance. I am going to change all that and I have begun
with my hair and my toque."
She did not wait for Julia to reply, but turned and went quietly and
quickly out of the room, leaving Julia speechless and astonished.
"Now, what has happened to her?" said Julia. "Why should she, all at
once, take to altering herself like that? Surely mother isn't going to
be frivolous in her old age. I wonder what daddy will say. She's going
to 'alter all that.' Well, of course--she's at liberty to please
herself. I suppose I ought not to have jumped on her like that--poor
mother!"
She got up and ran up the broad and shallow stairs, knocked at her
mother's door, and, without waiting for an answer, entered the room.
"I say, mother," she said.
Regina was standing before the glass, evidently in the act of taking the
pins out of her hat. She turned round.
"You want me?" she asked. Her tone was quite pleasant and sweet, but
there was an indefinable sense of woundedness about it which touched
Julia to the very quick.
"Oh, I say, mother, I was beastly rude to you just now. But I didn't
mean to be."
"I am sure you didn't."
"You see, when one has a mother that one thinks an awful lot of, and who
always wears her hair the same, one feels sort of blank when she makes
herself look different. But I was rude, and I'm awfully sorry; I didn't
mean it for that."
She came to the side of the dressing-table and stood looking at her
mother with honest, troubled eyes. Regina caught her by the hand and
drew her to her ample bosom.
"I felt myself growing such a frump," she said. "I don't know when, I
think it was about the time of Maudie's wedding, that I felt, all at
once, that I was getting into a fossil like all other women workers. I
never saw it all those years till about that time, and I hated myself
for being frumpy and ridiculous."
"You never were that to us," said Julia, with quick reproach. "I hope
you never thought we thought so, for we never did."
"Well, well, well, I will wear my hair this way for a little while, and
if you and dear father do not like it I will put it back into the old
way again. It is bad for the hair to dress it always in the same
fashion."
"Well, now I come to think of it, it looks awfully nice, and you've
lovely hair and a glorious complexion."
At this the color on Regina's cheeks deepened into a veritable rose
blush. Julia hurried on--"It's a beautiful hat," she said. "Where did
you get it? How did you light on this Frenchwoman? Was it very
expensive? It's worth it, whatever it cost."
"No," said Regina, "it was four guineas; I don't call that very
expensive for a hat with good feathers."
"Oh, not a bit! And even if it was, you can afford it. I think you are
quite right, now you have chucked the regeneration business, to start
regenerating your own person. I admit it gave me a shock when you came
in. You know, somehow one doesn't like the first idea of one's mother
being tampered with."
Then Regina told Julia how she came to put herself in the hands of
Madame Florence and the little Frenchwoman on the first floor--that is
to say, she told her in part, not giving her reasons, her actual
reasons, or the source of her information concerning them.
"But how will you do your hair to-morrow morning?"
"I do not know quite how I shall do it. I am going to Madame Florence
every day for a week, so that she may do it and get it into the proper
set. When she had arranged my hair she gave me a lesson on a dummy, so
that I really do know how things should be, and she thinks after a week
I shall be quite able to do it myself. Besides, as she says, it makes
such a difference--the way your hair is accustomed to go."
"You'll never be able to wave your own hair, mother."
"Well, I don't like to think about that part of it," said Regina.
"Darling," said Julia, feeling that she had smoothed over her previous
indiscretions, "why don't you have a maid? She would be so useful to
both of us. Think of somebody who would be able to make smart blouses,
do up frocks and touch up hats and generally make life easy and
comfortable. Why don't you have a maid?"
"It seems such an expense," said Regina.
"But you can afford it--I shall talk to father."
"If I did have a maid I should pay her myself; I shouldn't think of
coming on your father for an extravagance of that sort."
"Well, you have more money than you ever spend. Dearest, you have got
into the habit of going without things, and we have got into the habit
of regarding you as a person of no vanities, so that we resent it when
you show the smallest sign of anything feminine in your nature. Now I
come to look at you again," said Julia, with her head on one side, "I
think I do like you better like this. It is more important looking; it
seems to make your head more of a size with the rest of you. I like you
in black--you know, mother, you never wear black. Do you mind if I try
it on?"
"Why of course not." It was with pride that Regina stood by and saw her
daughter poise the beautiful black toque upon her own abundant locks.
"Oh yes, it's a ravishing hat," Julia declared. "I think I must go and
see your Madame Clementine. You won't mind?--Ah, there is daddy coming."
At that moment Alfred's solid footstep was heard upon the landing.
"Hullo, young woman," he said a moment later as he entered the room,
"got a new hat?"
"_It's mother's hat_," said Julia with emphasis and awaited
developments.
"Your mother's? Well, my dear, you have been doing yourself very well.
Why--bless my soul--what have you been doing to your head?"
"I have been having my hair brushed and cared for," said Regina, feeling
that she must take her bull by the horns and grasp her nettle without
delay.
"Why didn't they put it up as it was--let me look at you. I don't
know"--and he passed his thumb down one cheek and his fingers down the
other till they met at the lowest point of his chin, "I don't know--it
isn't you, you see."
"Don't say you dislike it, Alfred," said Regina, with pathetic
wistfulness.
"I don't say I dislike it, at the same time--it isn't you," he replied.
"Put the hat on--let's see you in it. Yes--I don't know. It's a pity to
hide a forehead like yours with all that loose hair. I know women are
all wearing it so; but at the same time, I think it is a pity."
"I've got to look such a frump, Alfred," said Regina, taking the hat off
again and patting her hair into place.
"No, my dear, that you never did. You have a distinctiveness all your
own. As to this new-fangled arrangement--well, if it pleases you to do
it that way, you must do it that way and we must get used to it.
Perhaps, in a little while, we shall like it better than as it was
before."
"But it does not meet with your unqualified approval, Alfred?" said
Regina.
"No, I can't say that it does."
"It makes me look younger," she asserted.
"But I don't want you to look younger. We were a very good match for
each other as we were, and I don't know that it _does_ make you look
younger. Well, well, let it be for a day or two till one gets accustomed
to the change. As it is, it doesn't seem right to have you, of all women
in the world, thinking about vanities."
"Why not?" said Regina in a very small voice.
At that moment Julia betook herself out of the room, shutting the door
as if she did not want to hear any more of what passed between her
parents.
"Why not?" repeated Regina.
"Well, they don't seem to be in keeping with you. One never thinks of
you as having nerves or the megrims, of being offended about nothing and
having to be coaxed back again into a good temper. You are the kind of
woman one gives a present to because one desires to give you pleasure,
not because you are to be made to forget some vexation or some
disappointment. You are unlike other women, Regina."
And Regina immediately decided that the hussy was a person of moods!