RELUCTANT FEET.
‘Standing with reluctant feet,
Where womanhood and childhood meet.’
Fenella did not see her mother on the following morning until she
descended to the breakfast-room, but their meeting then seemed to atone
for everything that had gone before. Mrs Barrington was looking her
best, for she had no intention of letting her young daughter into her
secrets too soon. Eliza Bennett had already arranged her golden-tinted
hair into its many twists and curls, and a pale blue cashmere dressing
gown, trimmed with swan’s-down, greatly enhanced the effect of the
powder on her delicate complexion, and the touch of carmine she had
applied to her lips.
‘Oh, mamma, how beautiful you look!’ was the girl’s first greeting,
and the admiration was genuine. Mrs Barrington’s style and attire were
so totally opposed to anything she had been accustomed to see at the
convent, that Fenella thought she was the rarest, daintiest vision of
beauty that had ever burst upon her sight. She had always considered
her friend Honorée pretty, because she loved her; but Honorée’s
looks became commonplace by comparison with those of her mother. Mrs
Barrington was not displeased at the compliment. She was so vain that
all flattery was welcome to her, even when it came from the lips of an
inexperienced child, fresh from her convent school. She bridled and
smiled, and told Fenella she was a silly girl to say such things of an
old woman whom no one else considered worth looking at.
‘An old woman, mamma! How can you say so?’ cried her daughter. ‘Do you
know, my greatest wonder is to find you still so young? I don’t know
what I can have been thinking about, but I really expected you to be
quite middle-aged, and perhaps have grey hair by this time.’
‘Foolish child,’ murmured Mrs Barrington, though rather consciously.
‘Yes; am I not? I suppose it is because I have been away so many years
that I make such a mistake. And another thing, mamma, I always fancied
your hair was dark. I used to tell the girls at school that my mother
had dark hair. I seem quite to have forgotten it was golden--and such
a pretty golden too--the prettiest colour, I think, that I have ever
seen. How could I be so silly as to forget it?’
‘Children have usually short memories, and take all sorts of fancies
into their heads,’ replied Mrs Barrington, with a visible increase
of colour. ‘I daresay you dreamt it, my dear. But let us take our
breakfast, for I have to go shopping this morning.’
‘How delightful that will be,’ chattered Fenella, as she poured out the
tea. ‘There was a girl at Ansprach who lived in London, and she used
to tell us so much about the shops. Are you going to buy me some new
dresses, mamma?’
‘I don’t know, my dear,’ said Mrs Barrington.
She had come downstairs determined, before breakfast was over, to tell
her daughter of the absolute necessity of her going to the sea-side;
but somehow, looking into those fearless grey eyes, the task became
more difficult than it had seemed to be.
‘I am not sure whether you will require new dresses till the summer
is over,’ she went on; ‘for I have several that can be altered nicely
for you, and you will be at a quiet sea-side place where your convent
uniform will do as well as anything else.’
‘Shall we?’ exclaimed Fenella eagerly; ‘oh, I am very glad of that! To
be at some quiet place with you, where we shall be always together, and
there will be no tiresome balls and parties to take you away in the
evenings, will be just like heaven, won’t it? And we shall be able to
bathe, and to sit on the beach all day, and if Bennett will cut out my
frocks, I will make them myself--I love work, and _chère mère_ used to
say I was the quickest worker in the school.’
So ran on Fenella, never doubting but that wherever she went, her
mother would go too. For what other reason than to be with her had she
been sent home from Ansprach. But Mrs Barrington did not immediately
respond. Practised deceiver as she was, she required a little time, in
order to frame a politic reply.
‘I don’t think you need trouble yourself about the work, my dear,’
she said after a pause; ‘Bennett will do all that you require, and I
want you to enjoy yourself, and get all the strength you can during
your visit to the sea. You will never be able to stand a London life,
Fenella, if you don’t grow strong. I shall want you to go to balls and
parties with me by-and-by, and that is very fatiguing for anybody. And,
of course, you must bathe--every day--and be in the open air as much as
you can. You have evidently been shut up too much at Ansprach.’
‘Don’t you like bathing, mamma?’
‘No, my dear! it doesn’t agree with me, nor the sea-side either! I am
generally ill there.’
Fenella’s face grew ominously grave.
‘Oh, mother, don’t go then! What does my health signify in comparison
with yours? Besides, I am really stronger than I look--and now I am
with you again, I am sure I shall be quite well. We mustn’t go to the
sea, mamma; I shall be wretched if we do.’
‘My dear, I have already taken a doctor’s opinion on the subject, and
he says it is absolutely necessary you should have the benefit of sea
air. At all risks, therefore, _you_ must go to the sea.’
The tears started into Fenella’s eyes. A suspicion of the truth darted
on her.
‘Come, come, I must have no fretting,’ said her mother, as she rose
from table; ‘we have all to make sacrifices sometimes in this world,
dear, and you will never find me backward, I hope, in setting you a
brave example. And now I must leave you for my shopping.’
‘Mayn’t I go with you, mamma?’ pleaded Fenella as she resolutely
swallowed an ominous feeling that had risen in her throat. ‘I will be
ready before you are!’
Mrs Barrington looked the girl from head to foot.
‘I would take you directly, Fenella, but not this morning, my love, you
see you are scarcely suitably dressed to drive about town. Besides, I
am going out on a very uninteresting errand, and shall visit none of
the fine shops your schoolfellows spoke to you about. My business lies
entirely with house-agents and coach-builders. But if you feel inclined
for a walk, Bennett shall take you into the park, or down Regent
Street, where you will see all the prettiest things in London.’
‘No thank you, mamma,’ replied the girl, in a disappointed tone. ‘If I
can’t go with you, I would rather stay at home till you return.’
‘Just as you please, my dear. I shall be home to luncheon,’ said Mrs
Barrington, as smiling sweetly she tripped up to her room. On the
threshold she met Eliza Bennett.
‘Just fancy!’ she exclaimed. ‘Miss Fenella’s taken it into her head
to sulk because I refused to let her accompany me out driving this
morning. As if I could be seen with a girl dressed up such an object
as she is! But if she’s going to turn out sulky, there’ll be an end of
all peace between us, Bennett. I hate a sullen temper. Her poor father
had it, you remember; and what words it made between us! It was bad
enough from a husband, but I never could endure it from a daughter.’
‘I don’t think Miss Fenella is sulky, ma’am,’ replied Bennett; ‘but I
fancy she’s a little disappointed at finding things different from what
she expected.’
‘Different! How different?’ snapped Mrs Barrington.
‘She hasn’t seen much of you since she came home, ma’am.’
‘How could she expect to do so when I have all these engagements? Give
me the black satin cloak, Bennett, and the velvet bonnet.’
‘Shall you be gone long, ma’am?’
‘No; I shall be back to luncheon. I am going out early on purpose to be
at home when Mr Wilson calls. He is sure to look in this afternoon. And
mind, Bennett, if any one comes whilst I am away, they are _not_ to be
admitted. Say I am out, and shall not be back till three o’clock. Do
you understand?’
‘Yes, ma’am--only, did you not say I was to go to French’s this morning
about the cleaning of your lace?’
‘Of course! and so you must go, or it will not be done in time. How
provoking! You ought to be here to answer the door in case of visitors.’
‘Can’t Mrs Watson do it, ma’am?’
‘She is so stupid; she never understands an order.’
‘I’ll make her understand, ma’am; it’s easy enough. No one is to be
admitted on any account, and Miss Fenella will be quite happy with her
books whilst I’m away. I sha’n’t be gone more than half-an-hour.’
‘Very well, Bennett. I leave it to you,’ said Mrs Barrington, as she
descended to the carriage in waiting for her.
The servant saw her drive away, and then returned to the
breakfast-room, where she found Fenella in a very dejected attitude,
looking out at the leads from the back window.
‘Come, Miss Fenella!’ she exclaimed. ‘I have to go out on a little
business for your mamma, and you must try and amuse yourself whilst I
am away. There isn’t much to see in this room, but if you’ll go into
the drawing-room, there’s a nice fire, and the piano, and plenty of
picture-books, and as soon as I come back I’ll dust it and set it in
order against the mistress has company in the afternoon.’
Fenella’s sad face brightened. Bennett’s words had suggested that she
might be of some use.
‘Is mamma going to have company?’ she exclaimed. ‘Let me set the
drawing-room in order for her, Bennett. I can do it just as well as
you. We always had to make our beds and keep the dormitories clean
at St Barbara. Will you give me a duster and a brush, and let me be
of use to you and mamma?’ she said, with a pleading look, as she
approached the servant’s side.
‘Of course I will, if it will give you any pleasure, miss,’ replied
Bennett; ‘although it don’t seem quite the right thing for your papa’s
daughter to do. Still, I don’t suppose your mamma will be angry, and
that’s the main point.’
‘I will run and get my apron,’ said Fenella, and a few minutes after
Bennett left her busily engaged dusting the books and ornaments in the
drawing-room.
‘Mind,’ said the servant to the owner of the apartments, as she
passed her in the hall on her way out, ‘if anybody calls whilst I’m
absent, you’re to say Mrs Barrington won’t be back till three. Do you
understand?’
‘Well, it’s not particularly difficult to understand,’ muttered the
woman, who didn’t like being dictated to by a servant.
Meanwhile Fenella, having dusted all the china and pictures, and looked
through the photograph albums (where the only portrait she recognised
was that of her father), remembered the piano, and opened it to try its
tone. One of the girl’s chief talents lay in music. She was too young
to be a finished instrumentalist, but she possessed a soprano voice of
unusual purity and power, which had been assiduously cultivated by the
Sisters of St Barbara, in order that she might perform in their choir.
To hear Fenella sing was like listening to a thrush at early morning
carolling in a lilac bush; her voice was so fresh and shrill, it
reminded you only of a bird that sang because it could not help
singing. It lacked as yet the modulation that comes only with
culture and experience, but it had that in it which every year would
lessen--the sound of nature and youth and gladness that could not be
restrained, and yet moved the listener to tears in remembering what he
had lost. The girl knew few songs and fewer ballads. Such compositions
spoke of earth rather than heaven, and had been condemned by the
good sisters as dangerous. But she had a glorious stock of hymns and
anthems--the grand old Catholic hymns for which the masters of their
art had not considered it _infra dig_. to compose the music, and with
which the most solemn acts of Faith of the Church were intimately
associated.
As Fenella opened her mother’s piano, the desire to sing came over her,
and without preface she placed her hands upon the notes and brought
out some such chords as Rossini loved to handle, or Mozart create. And
then her pure, young voice rose in unison, and a solemn chant sounded
through the rooms that made the woman in the hall pause with her broom
in her hand to listen. It was not often (if ever) that such sounds
had floated through these apartments. Mrs Barrington was no musician;
she kept her piano for the use of her friends rather than herself,
and such chords as were usually struck from it were of a decidedly
secular--not to say unholy--nature. So the woman in the hall leant on
her broom and said, ‘Well, I never!’
At that moment a gentleman came up the front steps and stood at the
door--which was open.
‘Is Mrs Barrington at home?’ he inquired.
‘No, sir, she ain’t; and she won’t be home till three o’clock.’
The visitor paused.
‘Surely that is Mrs Barrington’s piano that I hear?’ he said. ‘Are you
quite sure she is out?’
‘Quite sure, sir--at least so her servant told me just now. But I think
that’s the young lady as is playing the pianner.’
‘What young lady?’
‘Miss Barrington, sir; she came home yesterday from school.’
Mr Henry Wilson (for it was he) stood and deliberated with himself for
a moment. He had heard that the fascinating widow, who occupied most
of his thoughts at the present time, had a daughter, but he had always
imagined she was a little girl of five or six years old. Everything
connected with Mrs Barrington was naturally interesting to him, and
he suddenly conceived a desire to see the little girl and judge for
himself. So he turned to his informant and said,--
‘If Miss Barrington is at home, I will go upstairs and leave my message
with her.’
This proposal not in any way infringing (as the woman thought) on Eliza
Bennett’s admonition, she led the way to the drawing-room, and opening
the door, announced Mr Wilson as ‘a gentleman to see your ma, miss,’
and retired, leaving him in the presence of Fenella.
The girl rose from the piano as he appeared, but was in nowise abashed
by his entrance. She only made him a slight reverence (after the
polite fashion in which foreign children are educated), and brought
forward a chair for his acceptance, which Mr Wilson, colouring scarlet,
seized from her hand with alacrity. Then he seated himself awkwardly
enough--the unexpected appearance of this fine young woman so entirely
upset his mental equilibrium--whilst Fenella sat opposite, calmly
waiting to hear him address her.
‘I think I must be mistaken,’ he stammered at last. ‘The person
who admitted me said Miss Barrington was at home, but it is quite
impossible that you can be the daughter of my friend Mrs Barrington.’
Fenella looked puzzled, and knit her white brows.
‘Because I am not so pretty as she is, do you mean?’ she said
ingenuously.
‘Oh, Miss Barrington, how could you suppose such a thing? No, indeed!
but I imagined--I had an idea that Mrs Barrington’s daughter was quite
a little girl.’
‘Had you? How funny. Did mamma never tell you, then? I know I am tall
for my age, but I was sixteen last birthday, so I ought to be tall,
ought I not?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ replied Mr Wilson; ‘and you are really, then, Fenella
Barrington?’
‘Yes, I am Fenella. I came from the Convent at Ansprach yesterday with
our maid Bennett, but mamma and I are soon going away again to some
place abroad where I can get well, for I am not very strong. Mamma has
gone out on business, but she will be back to lunch. Do you want to see
her?’
‘I did call for that purpose, but I am very well pleased to see you
instead.’
‘Ah, now! you are laughing, I am sure. I know I cannot be a bit like
mamma to any one. She is so beautiful and so good.’
‘I quite agree with you; but there are different sorts of beauty in the
world. Was it your voice that I heard singing when I entered the house?’
At this question Fenella _did_ blush, but she answered frankly,--
‘Yes, it was I--’
‘Would it be too much to ask you to sing again? I love music dearly.’
‘Do you? But I don’t think you would care for mine. I don’t know any
songs--only hymns and chants.’
‘But sacred music is the most glorious music in the world,’ said Mr
Wilson.
‘If you think so, I will sing again,’ replied Fenella quietly, and she
sat down to the piano, and her fresh young voice rung out the notes of
an air from Mendelssohn’s Hymn of Praise.
‘It is charming!--delicious! How I should like my mother to hear you!’
exclaimed her visitor, when she had concluded.
‘I don’t think mamma would like me to sing before company,’ said
the girl. ‘She says I am too young for parties yet. And who is your
mother?’ she added naïvely.
‘She is called Lady Wilson, and is a great friend of Mrs Barrington’s.’
‘Then, perhaps, I may be allowed to sing to her; I cannot say. Are
those flowers for my mother?’ she continued, looking at a hothouse
bouquet that Mr Wilson carried in his hand. He had intended them for
an offering to the fair widow, but somehow his fealty wavered, and he
thought he should like to give them to her daughter instead. He was a
man of the world, and to utter a white lie was no difficulty to him.
‘No!’ he answered boldly, as he held them towards her. ‘I brought them
for you.’
Her look of childish delight repaid him for the onus he had taken on
himself. The improbability of the circumstance, when he had confessed
himself unaware of her being in London, never seemed to strike her.
‘Did you _really?_’ she exclaimed, as she buried her face in the roses
and hyacinths and stephanotis of which the bouquet was composed. ‘How
kind of you to think of me--and when I love flowers so dearly. But I
shall give them to my mother. You won’t mind that, will you?--because
I have nothing to give her that is really my own, and it seems so
hard not to be able to give to those we love. If I had thousands and
thousands of pounds, I would spend them all upon my mother.’
‘You are very fond of your mother, Miss Barrington.’
‘Of course I am; and I have no father, you know. My papa died when I
was only ten years old. Have you seen his likeness?’
‘I don’t think I have,’ said Mr Wilson, rather uneasily, the virtues
of the late Captain Barrington not having formed the usual topic of
conversation between the widow and himself.
Fenella dropped her bouquet, and flew for the photograph book.
‘Here he is!’ she exclaimed, as she presented it open to her visitor.
‘Hasn’t he a nice, good face? Some people think I am very like papa,
and I am always so proud to hear them say so. And he was clever too, as
well as good. And my poor mother has had to live without him all this
time--isn’t it sad for her?’
‘Very sad,’ replied Henry Wilson, not knowing what else to say.
‘Bennett thinks that is the reason mamma has kept me so long at
Ansprach,’ resumed Fenella, in a mysterious voice, ‘because I remind
her too painfully of papa; but I hope she won’t love me the less for
that, now that I have come home again.’
‘And are you not going back to school, Miss Barrington?’
‘No!--never, I think; for as soon as I have grown strong and well, I
am to go out to balls and parties with mamma. I don’t know whether I
shall care much for them, but I shall love to go with mamma everywhere,
and look at her when I am not speaking to her. It is so very, _very_
long, you see, since we have been together.’
‘I can quite understand your pleasure at the reunion,’ replied Mr
Wilson, rising; ‘and now, I think, I have intruded on your time long
enough, Miss Barrington, and had better take my leave.’
‘Won’t you wait to see mamma?’ demanded Fenella. ‘She will be back to
lunch.’
‘Not this morning, thank you. Will you give Mrs Barrington my kindest
regards, and say that, if quite convenient to her, I will look in
to-morrow afternoon to let her know the final arrangements for our
starting on Friday?’
‘Are we all going together, then?’ exclaimed Fenella brightly. ‘Oh,
that will be very nice! and I shall be able to sing to you whenever
you wish me to do so.’
‘I shall claim your promise until, I am afraid, you will regret having
given it,’ he answered, and then he bowed himself out of the room, and
left Fenella smiling and nodding above her bunch of roses and hyacinths.
‘What a nice, kind man!’ she thought as the door closed behind him. ‘If
all mamma’s friends are like him, I sha’n’t be frightened of meeting
them. But I must put my lovely flowers in water, lest they should fade
before she returns.’
Meanwhile Henry Wilson went back to his mother’s house with somewhat
of a cloud upon his brow, which she was not slow to detect. For Lady
Wilson, though a hard woman, was a good mother, and this was her only
child.
‘Henry,’ she asked, ‘what is the matter with you?’ and he answered,--
‘Nothing! don’t bother me,’ after the manner of men.
But Lady Wilson was not to be put off in that way.
‘Mrs Barrington is at the bottom of this,’ she said; ‘it’s no use your
trying to deceive me. There is always some worry about that woman
now-a-days, and I wish she had been at the bottom of the sea before I
had consented to her making one of our party to Mentone.’
‘I’ve not even seen Mrs Barrington this morning,’ replied her son.
‘But you have been to her house! Whom did you see?’
‘I saw her daughter.’
‘Her daughter! What! has she got that child home? What does she intend
to do with her? She can’t bring her to Mentone. I hate children in the
house. They upset everything.’
‘But she isn’t a child,’ interposed Mr Wilson, who was only too glad
to have an opportunity of retailing his news. ‘She is quite a young
woman, and twice the size of her mother! I never was so astonished in
my life. She sings charmingly, and told me she was sixteen on her last
birthday.’
‘Sixteen last birthday,’ repeated Lady Wilson, as she made rapid mental
calculations. And then she turned round and pounced upon her son.
‘Henry! haven’t I told you again and again that Mrs Barrington is much
older than she looks?’
‘I daresay she is. What does it matter to me?’ he answered consciously.
‘Well, I hope it doesn’t matter, but it’s the truth. She’s nearer forty
than thirty--in fact, I shouldn’t be surprised if she’s more than
forty; those niminy-piminy women with dolly features always manage
to keep their looks to the last. And so the girl’s a young woman, is
she? Why, her mother has always spoken of her as if she were still in
frilled trousers and frocks.’
‘Yes; she looks very young, of course, and her hair hangs down her
back; but she’s nearly as tall as I am, and she talks as composedly as
if she’d been “out” all her life. She’s deucedly pretty too, mother,
though not at all like Mrs Barrington.’
‘She’s none the worse for that,’ snapped Lady Wilson; ‘however, pretty
or not, I can’t have her at Mentone, and I shall write and tell her
mother so. Our party’s made up--it was with the greatest inconvenience
I could squeeze Mrs Barrington in, and a fifth person will upset
everything. Five people can’t go in a carriage, nor an opera box, nor a
coupé; it would split us into two parties at once, and I won’t have it.
If Mrs Barrington has decided to take her daughter abroad, they must go
by themselves. Give me my blottingbook and inkstand, Henry, and let me
write and settle this matter at once.’
‘You won’t say anything to make Mrs Barrington think we don’t want
_her_,’ remarked the young man, as he complied with his mother’s
request.
‘I shall say just what I told you--that we can’t make room for the
girl; that is all. I know you are very partial to the widow’s society,
Henry,’ she continued pointedly, ‘though I sincerely trust there will
never be anything but friendship between you; but you must see that, if
she takes her daughter abroad, you will not enjoy even that unmolested.
Did Miss Barrington appear to know anything of her mother’s plans?’
‘Yes; she spoke of it as a settled thing that she was to accompany her
abroad for the sake of her health.’
‘What impertinence! and without consulting me!’ replied Lady Wilson, as
she commenced to write her letter. ‘However, Mrs Barrington shall soon
know my mind on the matter.’
‘Let me see what you have said,’ pleaded her son, as he leant over her
shoulder.
‘Certainly. I wish to have no secrets from you, Henry.’
He read the note through, and sighed.
‘Is it not right?’ demanded his mother.
‘Yes; I don’t see what else you could have said. Miss Barrington’s
presence would certainly prove a great kill-joy to the party.’
‘Ah! my son,’ said Lady Wilson, as she looked up affectionately in his
face, ‘perhaps, did I consult my own interests, I might put myself
out of the way to receive this young lady, for her mother is not a
favourite companion of mine. But I want you to see this woman as she is
in her own home, Henry--selfish, vain, and worldly--and when you have
done that, I will leave the issue of it to your own good sense.’
‘Hush, mother,’ he said gently; ‘don’t discuss her faults--it gives me
pain!’
‘I know it does; so does the surgeon’s probe when it touches a secret
wound. But I cannot believe, Henry, but that you would rather know
the worst before marriage than after, and this note will help to show
it you. Mrs Barrington has been separated for five years from her
only child, who returns home--(how it is that she _has_ returned is a
mystery to me)--just in time to interfere with her mother’s plans of
pleasure! Let us see which the widow prefers--her daughter or herself!
There is little doubt which she _should_ prefer, and, I think, even you
will acknowledge that a bad mother is scarcely likely to make a good
wife. Oh, Henry, Henry! twenty-five and forty--’
‘No, no, mother; she _can’t_ be forty!’
‘My boy, I tell you she _is_. Why, that would only make her twenty-four
years old when this girl was born, and--’
‘Give me your note and I will see it is sent at once,’ cried her son,
as he seized the letter and left the room, to avoid further discussion
of a subject which was beginning to make him feel ashamed as well as
miserable.
[Illustration: Decorative]
[Illustration: Decorative]