Volume VII Part 16 (2/2)
As they pa.s.sed the parlor door on their way down to dinner, Mrs.
Pendleton's merry laugh rang out and Elsie caught a glimpse of the golden hair under the red lamp and the fugitive glimpse of Mr. Barlow's bald spot.
About two days later, as the girl came in from an afternoon's shopping, and was on her way upstairs, her mother called to her. Something in the sound of it attracted her attention. She hurried down the few steps and into her mother's room. Mrs. Howard was sitting over by the window in the fading light, with a strange look upon her face. An open telegram lay in her lap. Elsie went up to her quickly.
”What is it, mother?”
Mrs. Howard handed her the telegram.
”Your father,” she said.
Elsie Howard read the simple announcement in silence. Then she looked up, the last trace of an old bitterness in her faint smile.
”We will miss him,” she said.
”Elsie!” cried her mother. It was a tone the girl had never heard from her before. Her eyes fell.
”No, it wasn't nice to say it. I am sorry. But I can't forget what life was with him.” She raised her eyes to her mother's. ”It was simply h.e.l.l, mother; you can't have forgotten. You have said it yourself so often. We can not deny that it is a relief to know--”
”Hush, Elsie, never let me hear you say anything like that again.”
”Forgive me, mother,” said the girl with quick remorse. ”I never will. I don't think I have ever felt that death makes such things so different, and I didn't realize how you would--look at it.”
”My child, he was your father,” said Mrs. Howard in a low voice. Then Elsie saw the tears in her mother's eyes.
”_Such_ a shock to her,” Mrs. Pendleton murmured, sympathetically, to Elsie. ”I know, Miss Elsie; I can feel for her--” Elsie mechanically thought of the last hours of Mr. Pendleton, then recalled herself with a start. ”Death always _is_ a shock,” Mrs. Pendleton finished gracefully, ”even when one most expects it. You must let me know if there is anything I can do.”
Later in the evening she communicated the astonis.h.i.+ng news to Mrs.
Hilary, who e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed freely: ”Only fancy!” and ”How very extraordinary!”
”Didn't you think he had been dead a hundred years?” exclaimed Mrs.
Pendleton.
”One never can tell in the states,” responded Mrs. Hilary conservatively. ”Divorce is so common over here. It isn't the thing at all in England, you know.”
Mrs. Pendleton stared.
”But they were not divorced, only separated. Do you never do that--in England?”
”Divorced people are not received at court, you know,” explained Mrs.
Hilary.
Mrs. Pendleton's glance lingered upon the Englishwoman's immobile face and a laugh broke into her words.
”But when you are in Rome, you do as the Romans--is that it, Mrs.
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