A MOTHER’S WELCOME.
‘What’s this world? Thy school, O Misery!
Our only lesson is to learn to suffer,
And he, who knows not that, is born for nothing.’
_Young_.
It was now several years since Mrs Barrington had had either the
means or the disposition to keep up a house of her own, and so she
lived in furnished rooms in South Audley Street, which fulfilled all
her requirements when she was in London, which was seldom. She had
been left in very comfortable circumstances by her late husband, but
she had frittered away all the available portion of her income until
she was really seriously encumbered. The fact is, Mrs Barrington
had been a beauty and a coquette, and much admired in her younger
days, and she considered she had thrown herself away when she married
Captain Barrington. She had always intended to purchase a fortune at
least, if not a title, with her good looks; and then he had come in
her light and blinded her to her own interests, and she had married
him and got neither. It had been a source of constant grievance and
many quarrels between them during the captain’s lifetime, and when he
died his widow began to consider whether she might not yet retrieve
her youthful error, and spend the rest of her days as the beginning
should have been. She was still good-looking and not old, and had many
admirers. But these things do not always mean marriage, and though
Mrs Barrington had not given up all hope, it was certainly dwindling,
and her temper suffered terribly as the fact became more and more
patent to her senses. Of course the first thing had been to get rid of
Fenella,--widows, with daughters as tall as themselves, find it no use
to look young,--besides, it was so much easier to talk of her ‘sweet
child’ and her ‘dear little girl,’ from whom it was such a cruel trial
to be parted, whilst Fenella was safe at Ansprach, and there was no
chance of her intruding her long arms and legs into the midst of the
conversation.
So the girl had been kept at school for five years whilst the mother
tried her luck at a second throw of Fortune’s wheel. But as yet the
hoped-for prizes had all turned up blanks. For Mrs Barrington had
overstepped her mark. Instead of contenting herself with the good
looks that Heaven had given her, she had supplemented them with so
much powder and rouge and hair-dye that she had frightened the men
away. They would come and lounge in her drawing-room, or take her to
the theatre, or meet her at Mentone or Wiesbaden by the dozen, but
they would not propose. They treated her to presents and flowers and
opera boxes and everything but offers of marriage, and they talked of
her amongst themselves as of rather a better sort of courtesan, and
that was all. No one of them in his senses ever thought of making her
his wife, and the consciousness of failure had begun to dawn upon Mrs
Barrington’s mind and make her more ill-tempered and fractious than
ever. And yet there was no doubt that she was a very pretty woman--much
prettier, most men would have thought, than her daughter Fenella; but
her face, like her life, was a lie, and nothing is more patent to the
world than that. When Mrs Barrington found that she had been a widow
for some years, and had no chance of changing her condition, she
redoubled her energies to charm, and wasted her money in the effort.
She spent a small fortune in dresses and pigments; passed half her
time in foreign watering-places, and at last committed the fatal
error of attempting to retrieve some of her lavish expenditure at the
gaming-tables. At the moment Fenella was returned on her hands, Mrs
Barrington was really more impecunious than she had been for years.
So she had let her apartments in South Audley Street for a good sum
for the London season, and was about to join her friend Lady Wilson
in passing a few months at Mentone. There was another reason for her
leaving England in this company. Lady Wilson’s husband was still alive
and well, but she had a son of about five-and-twenty, a moonstruck,
æsthetic youth, who raved on the subject of Mrs Barrington’s golden
_chevelure_ and ivory teeth (not knowing that she kept the one in a
bottle and her dentist made the other), and the widow believed that,
with a little flattery and a few _têtes-à-tête_, she might conquer the
fledgling baronet. He might not become ‘Sir Henry,’ it was true, for
years--but still it was something to look forward to, and time was
waning, as Mrs Barrington had been compelled at last to acknowledge to
herself.
Under these circumstances, it may be supposed that the reverend
mother’s letter, announcing that she must send Fenella home at once,
was the most unwelcome news she could have received. She had had Eliza
Bennett up on that occasion and confided to her all her hopes and
fears. She had conjured her to go to Ansprach, and by hook or by crook
to induce the nuns to keep her daughter, at all events until this
eventful season was past.
‘Then I shall either be engaged or married to Mr Wilson, Bennett,’ she
had said. ‘It’s a dreadful come-down, I know, still, he will be the
baronet some day if he lives, and meanwhile, his mother will never let
him or his wife want for anything. And you know, Bennett dear, that I’m
dreadfully hard up. How I am ever to pay Madame Carrafine if I don’t
marry, beats me altogether, and Masters has threatened me with a suit
for the carriage hire if the account is not settled next quarter. You
must do this for me, Bennett--it’s a matter of life or death. Go to
Ansprach and persuade the reverend mother to keep the girl there till
Christmas. I promise to have her home then, but whatever you do, _don’t
bring her back with you_, or you’ll ruin all my plans.’
After which harangue, and fearing her mistress’s anger as she did,
it is not wonderful that Eliza Bennett positively trembled as the
cab approached South Audley Street. Fenella, on the other hand, was
trembling also, not with fear, but anticipation. ‘My mother, my own
mother,’ she kept on repeating with clasped hands. ‘Oh, Bennett, how
long we are getting to Audley Street! Tell the man to drive faster. I
feel as if I must get out and run until I reach her arms.’
It was now nearly seven o’clock in the evening--one delay and
another had made them longer than they ought to have been, and the
April twilight had deepened into dusk. Mrs Barrington was in her
dressing-room, with a very ill-tempered expression on her countenance,
attiring herself for a dinner-party. She wondered why Eliza Bennett
could not have managed to return home before, and she was put out
by the fact of having to wait upon herself; and so she was venting
her ill-humour by tearing laces and wrenching off buttons, and
using lady-like expletives under her breath in revenge for her own
carelessness. At last she heard a cab stop at the door.
‘There she is!’ she exclaimed; ‘thank goodness! What I should do
without that woman I don’t know. I am a perfect baby when she leaves me
to myself.’
A heavy step came up the stairs, and without any notice the door of
her room was thrown open. Mrs Barrington turned at the sound with an
expression of relief. Bennett was standing on the threshold.
‘So you’ve arrived at last,’ she said. ‘I thought you were never coming
home. I suppose you’ve made it all right with that old fool of a
reverend mother--’
Bennett did not answer at once, but advancing to the bed, threw
her bonnet and shawl upon it. She was trembling violently, but Mrs
Barrington was too selfish to notice her distress.
‘You are going out again this evening, ma’am,’ she said. ‘Let me help
you with your dress.’
She stood behind her mistress and commenced to lace up her dress, as
though she had only made a journey from the kitchen to the bedroom.
‘You have arrived in the very nick of time,’ laughed Mrs Barrington. ‘I
was just wondering what had become of you, and if I should send for Ann
to help me to dress; but I shall be in plenty of time now. I am engaged
to Lady Wilson, but we don’t dine till eight. And so you’ve settled it
all with the convent people, I suppose, and they’ll keep the child till
Christmas? What a relief! I should have gone out of my mind if they had
insisted upon sending her back.’
‘But, if you please, ma’am,’ stammered Bennett, as she stood pulling
the lace together, ‘I am sorry to say the reverend mother wouldn’t
hear any reason, and I was obliged to bring Miss Fenella back with me,
whether I would or no.’
‘_What!_’ cried the affectionate mother, who had not seen her only
child for five years, ‘do you mean to say that she has returned with
you now--that she is _here?_’
‘She is, indeed, ma’am. I couldn’t help it. I had no alternative. The
reverend mother declared Miss Fenella required change, and that if I
didn’t bring her to England she would send her over in charge of a
sister. So I thought it would be cheaper for me to comply; and we came
third class all the way. I knew it would put you out terribly, ma’am,
but I couldn’t help it--indeed, I couldn’t.’
‘Bennett,’ cried Mrs Barrington tragically, as she sank into a chair,
‘you have ruined all my prospects.’
‘Oh no, ma’am, don’t say that! pray don’t--for I’d lay down my life to
serve you at any time--as you know well; but this wasn’t my fault, as
Miss Fenella herself will tell you, and when they insisted on it, what
could I do but bring her along with me!’
‘But what am I to do with her?’ exclaimed her mistress. ‘Lady Wilson
wants to start on Friday, and the Foulkes are coming into these rooms
on Monday. It’s enough to drive me out of my senses. I believe I’m the
most unfortunate woman that was ever born.’
And real tears of vexation and perplexity began to roll down Mrs
Barrington’s painted cheeks. The sight seemed to move Eliza Bennett
powerfully, and she flung herself on her knees beside the lady’s chair.
‘Don’t, my dear mistress,’ she said pleadingly; ‘pray don’t give way
like that; you might make yourself ill. I will think of some plan for
Miss Fenella, by which she sha’n’t interfere with any of yours; only
don’t blame me, dear mistress, for what has happened, for I was as
helpless in it as the babe unborn.’
She grasped Mrs Barrington’s hand and kissed it as she spoke, but the
selfish creature pushed her away almost contemptuously.
‘There, there, Bennett, don’t mess me, for Heaven’s sake! You know how
I hate it. I suppose you couldn’t help it, as you say you couldn’t, but
it doesn’t show much wit on your part. All the reverend mothers in the
world wouldn’t have made _me_ bring that child home against my will,
and you may take your oath of that.’
Eliza Bennett was beginning to murmur something about her mistress
being so much cleverer and better and more persuasive than herself,
when the opening of the bedroom door made her rise suddenly to her
feet. There, on the threshold, stood Fenella, her cheeks burning with
excitement, her arms extended in anticipation.
‘Mother! dearest mother!’ she cried passionately.
Even Mrs Barrington was roused by the appeal. She made several steps
forward and folded the girl in her arms.
‘My dearest child,’ she said, ‘is this really you? I was just about
to send Bennett for you. Why, what a woman you’ve grown; inches above
me, I declare. I don’t think I should have known you had we met in the
street.’
She kissed Fenella as she spoke, but not warmly--Mrs Barrington never
kissed warmly. She did not know how to kiss. She always presented her
nose or a portion of her jaw to the dearest friends she possessed.
Possibly the habit had grown on her from a fear of spoiling the dainty
arrangement of rouge and powder with which her face was embellished,
but it had become a custom from which she never deviated. Fenella felt
the coldness of her mother’s embrace, even whilst it fell upon her
cheek, and, worn out with fatigue and excitement and disappointment,
she burst into tears.
‘Dearest mother!’ she exclaimed, ‘don’t be angry with me for coming up
before you sent for me; but I could not wait downstairs any longer. I
felt as if my heart would burst with longing. Oh, mamma, what a time it
is since we met! I thought I was never going to see you again.’
‘That was a very silly thing to think,’ replied Mrs Barrington sweetly,
as she disengaged herself from the girl’s clinging clasp, which she
feared would prove rather detrimental to her dinner dress. ‘Of course
I should have had you home soon, dear Fenella, only it was not very
convenient just at present, as I am expecting to go abroad in a day or
two with some friends.’
‘Oh, I will be no trouble to you, darling mother,’ said Fenella,
smiling through her tears. ‘I will wait on you and be your maid, and I
can always sit at home, when you go out, with my books or my work. I
sha’n’t want any other amusement.’
‘I am afraid you would soon get tired of that, dear,’ said Mrs
Barrington, drawing down her lip complacently. ‘And I am not what I
was, Fenella. I have had much trouble and sorrow in this life beside
the loss of your poor papa, and they have robbed me of the little
spirits I was possessed.’
‘Oh no, they haven’t! You look as young as ever, mamma. Isn’t it
strange that you shouldn’t have a grey hair in your head yet--but I
am glad of it. I shouldn’t like my beautiful mother to turn grey like
other women.’
‘Silly child,’ remonstrated Mrs Barrington, with a smile. ‘But you
must be very hungry; you haven’t had your tea yet. Bennett, take Miss
Fenella downstairs again, and see what they may have to give you. I
think there were some cutlets left from luncheon. And let the child
have a glass of wine--she looks very thin and pale; it will be better
for her than tea. And we will discuss the subject we were speaking of
just now when I return home to-night.’
‘Don’t send me from you, mamma,’ said Fenella entreatingly. ‘Let me
wait here till you are ready to come down too.’
‘But, my dear, I am going out to dinner. I shall have to leave the
house in ten minutes.’
The girl’s face fell.
‘Going out! and on our first evening too. Oh, I _am_ sorry. Couldn’t
you put it off and stay at home with me? I have so much to say to you,
mamma. It is so hard to part with you again so soon.’
‘I feel it too, my dear Fenella, I can assure you; but my engagement
is almost a business one, at all events of the utmost importance, and
I cannot possibly postpone it. It _is_ provoking, isn’t it? but then
I hardly expected you to-night, and we can have a long talk together
to-morrow. Besides, you must be very tired after such a journey, and
should go to bed early.’
‘May I sleep with you, mamma?’ asked Fenella eagerly.
Mrs Barrington shrugged her shoulders and glanced at her French
bedstead.
‘My dear girl,’ she replied, ‘I am afraid there would be no room for
such a long creature as you are in my diminutive couch. What is her
height, should you think, Bennett? She looks a perfect grenadier to me.
It seems quite impossible she should be my daughter.’
‘I should say Miss Fenella was a good bit over five feet,’ said Eliza
Bennett.
‘I am five feet five inches,’ interposed the girl mournfully.
‘An awful height, my dear child; just three inches too tall for a
woman. We shall have to look out for a guardsman for you. However, you
won’t look so tall, perhaps, when you’ve filled out a little, and get
into decent frocks. How those old nuns can let you go about such an
object I can’t think.’
‘All the convent pupils wear the same dress, mamma.’
‘Well, I suppose so; and it does well enough for a hole like Ansprach.
And now you had better go with Bennett and get your tea. You positively
look as white as a sheet.’
‘Mayn’t I stay and help you to dress, mamma?’ demanded Fenella more
timidly. ‘I am not at all in a hurry for my tea, and I want to be with
you to the very last.’
But this would not have suited Mrs Barrington, who had to put some
fresh layers of white and pink upon the cheeks over which Fenella had
incautiously wept, before she could encounter the lights of Lady
Wilson’s drawing-room.
‘No, my dear, I couldn’t think of it, and there is positively nothing
more to do, for, as you see, Bennett has fastened my dress, and I have
only my cloak to put on. Take Miss Fenella down with you, Eliza,’ she
said, with a meaning glance at the servant, ‘and see that she is made
comfortable. And put her to bed early--she must need rest.’
‘And am I to sit up for you, ma’am?’ demanded Bennett, whose eyes were
red for want of sleep.
‘Yes; I think so; I must speak to you about this matter of going
abroad, and all the rest of it. I sha’n’t be late; but if I am you
can lie down on the couch till I return. Good-night, my dear child,’
continued Mrs Barrington as she presented her chin to Fenella; ‘mind
you sleep well, and we will see what we can do about getting you some
other dresses to-morrow,’ and in another minute Fenella and the
servant found themselves on the landing with the bedroom door closed
behind them. They followed each other to the dining-room in silence.
The girl’s heart was so full she could not trust herself to speak,
and Bennett did not know what to say to console her. The comfortable
meal was soon upon the table, for Mrs Barrington was an epicure in
her feminine way, and loved good eating and good service--but Fenella
scarcely tasted anything. Eliza Bennett, after the belief of her class,
pressed her young mistress to eat and drink, as the best cure for the
disappointment under which she saw she was labouring; but Fenella was
sick at heart, and after having swallowed a cup of tea, sat with folded
hands over the fire, thinking to herself. She had listened eagerly at
first for the sound of her mother’s footstep descending the stairs, in
hopes that Mrs Barrington would look into the dining-room, to give her
one more kiss, but such sentimentalism was not in that lady’s nature.
She had gone straight from her bedroom to the carriage that was waiting
for her, and driven off to her friend Lady Wilson, with but one thought
disturbing her mind--how she was to get rid of the encumbrance that had
been unexpectedly thrust upon her. She was not blind to the advantages
of her daughter’s appearance. She had seen at a glance, notwithstanding
the unsightly convent uniform, that Fenella would shortly be, not only
a woman, but a very handsome woman. She had dreaded having some awkward
school-girl--all arms and legs, red elbows and splay feet--thrust
upon her, but the reality was worse than the anticipation. The lanky
school-girl would have been only a nuisance; but this fair, straight
lily with her lovely, speaking eyes and earnest manner threatened to
become a formidable rival. With all her conceit and self-appreciation,
Mrs Barrington could not be blind to the fact that, were her daughter
seen by her side, she would throw her charms considerably in the shade:
might even make young Wilson, who was more in love with women than with
any particular woman, waver in his half-formed allegiance to herself.
There was no doubt about it--if the widow was to succeed in making a
second marriage, it would not be with Fenella standing and looking
on--and the puzzle was, how to get rid of her.
Had there been plenty of money at hand, the thing would have been easy
enough. Mrs Barrington would have sent her off to some sanatorium or
sea-side boarding school, and said the dear child’s health required
it. All difficulties vanish when the purse is full. But she had
barely enough coin to accomplish her plan of sharing Lady Wilson’s
housekeeping for a few months at Mentone, and certainly none to spare
for the requirements of a daughter, to keep whom it would take as much
as to keep herself.
At the Convent of Saint Barbara it was all such smooth sailing. The
nuns had taken the girl in for the whole year, and boarded and educated
her for twenty pounds, and had become so used to Mrs Barrington’s
pleadings, for a little indulgence in the matter of payment, that they
had ceased to press even for that. But now they refused to keep Fenella
there any longer, and she supposed they would be sending in their
horrid bill, and she would be compelled to pay it, added to those of
Masters and Carrafine, and all the rest.
It was too provoking--enough to make any woman curse the day when she
had become a mother! And so fidgeting and perplexed, Mrs Barrington
went to her friend’s house, and looked so pensive and mournfully sweet
all through dinner, that she very nearly brought young Wilson to book
the same evening, and had it only been a little later in the season,
and she had been able to draw him out upon a moonlit balcony, she
quite believed it would have been an accomplished thing. Meanwhile, by
means of languishing glances and well-directed sighs, she did her best
to excite his warmest interests; whilst her disappointed young daughter
sat at home with the servant, and tried to keep up an appearance of
cheerfulness, until it was time for her to go to bed. But the attempt
could hardly be termed a success.
Fenella talked of her convent life, and the occupations she had pursued
there, and her voice faltered as she mentioned Honorée St Just, and
the probabilities of seeing her again. The girl’s grief at parting
with her friend was genuine; but there would have been no room for it
that night had she been in the possession of her mother’s new-found
love to comfort her. And, although she did not yet acknowledge it to
herself, the cold disappointment and regret that were weighing down
her heart, were not for her friends at Ansprach, but for the void
that had taken their place, the empty home to which she had come, the
sorry welcome that had awaited her. She chattered on of the kindness
of the nuns, and the love the little children had borne her, and the
fear she entertained lest she should never meet Honorée again, until
her over-wrought feelings reached their climax, and found vent in an
hysterical burst of tears. Of course the servant declared she was
over-tired, and must go to rest at once, and Fenella obeyed without
demur, and lay down in the room prepared for her, with a weary sense of
loneliness and pain.
Eliza Bennett attended on her as her mother ought to have done, and sat
in the room whilst the girl knelt down and addressed her simple prayers
to Heaven.
Captain Barrington had been both loved and pitied by his servants, and
this one, although she was so strangely devoted to his frivolous widow,
had not forgotten Fenella’s father, and felt all the more drawn to the
girl because of her likeness to him. She waited till the last word of
the prayer had been uttered, and Fenella had risen to her feet, and
then she took her in her arms, as if she had been her own child, and
laid her gently down in her bed.
‘Don’t you fret, my dear,’ she whispered compassionately, ‘your mamma’s
a bit flurried and put out to-night by our coming in so suddenly, but
she will be better to-morrow. She’ll come to see things in a different
light, and that what must be must be; and then you’ll feel more at
home-like with her. The mistress was always a hard one to move; but
when she can’t alter a matter, she generally makes the best of it. So
don’t you think nothing of her manner nor her words, but go to sleep
like a good child, and she’ll be very different in the morning.’
But all the effect of Eliza Bennett’s speech was to make Fenella
cling to her tighter and weep more convulsively. She did not utter a
complaint against her mother or her reception. She only cried till she
could cry no longer, and her eyes closed from sheer exhaustion. And
then Bennett kissed the fair, sweet face very tenderly, and laid it
down upon the pillow, and watched by Fenella till there was no chance
of her waking again. Her sympathies were roused on behalf of her dead
master’s child, and, though she didn’t know how she should do it, and
the mere thought of such a thing made her tremble, she was determined
to plead her cause with Mrs Barrington as soon as ever she came home.
She took up her station in her mistress’s room for that purpose, but
she had argued the point with herself and nodded off to sleep, and
started up to recommence her argument, and nodded off to sleep again,
at least a dozen times, before that selfish little lady’s latch-key was
heard to turn in the hall door, and she came upstairs to rouse Eliza
Bennett in good earnest.
[Illustration: Decorative]
[Illustration: Decorative]