Part 23 (1/2)
”I am so glad to see you, my dear,” she said, kissing Elisabeth; ”it is lonely in this big house all by myself.”
”It is always rather lonely to be in state,” Elisabeth replied, returning her salute. ”I wonder if kings find it lonely all by themselves in pleasures and palaces. I expect they do, but they put up with the loneliness for the sake of the stateliness; and you could hardly find a statelier house than this to be lonely in, if you tried.”
”Yes; it is a beautiful place,” agreed Mrs. Herbert listlessly.
Elisabeth wondered what was wrong, but she did not ask; she knew that Mrs. Herbert would confide in her very soon. People very rarely were reserved with Elisabeth; she was often amazed at the rapidity with which they opened their inmost hearts to her. Probably this accounted in some measure for her slowness in understanding Christopher, who had made it a point of honour not to open his inmost heart to her.
”Don't the woods look lovely?” she said cheerfully, pretending not to notice anything. ”I can't help seeing that the trees are beautiful with their gilt leaves, but it goes against my principles to own it, because I do so hate the autumn. I wish we could change our four seasons for two springs and two summers. I am so happy in the summer, and still happier in the spring looking forward to it; but I am wretched in the winter because I am cold, and still wretcheder in the autumn thinking that I'm going to be even colder.”
”Yes; the woods are pretty--very pretty indeed.”
”I am so glad you have come while the leaves are still on. I wanted you to see Felicia's home at its very best; and, at its best, it is a home that any woman might be proud of.”
Mrs. Herbert's lip trembled. ”It is indeed a most beautiful home, and I am sure Felicia has everything to make her happy.”
”And she is happy, Mrs. Herbert; I don't think I ever saw anybody so perfectly happy as Felicia is now. I'm afraid I could never be quite as satisfied with any impossible ideal of a husband as she is with Alan; I should want to quarrel with him just for the fun of the thing, and to find out his faults for the pleasure of correcting them. A man as faultless as Alan--I mean as faultless as Felicia considers Alan--would bore me; but he suits her down to the ground.”
But even then Mrs. Herbert did not smile; instead of that her light blue eyes filled with tears. ”Oh! my dear,” she said, with a sob in her voice, ”Felicia is ashamed of me.”
For all her high spirits, Elisabeth generally recognised tragedy when she met it face to face; and she knew that she was meeting it now. So she spoke very gently--
”My dear Mrs. Herbert, whatever do you mean? I am sure you are not very strong, and so your nerves are out of joint, and make you imagine things.”
”No, my love; it is no imagination on my part. I only wish it were. Who can know Felicia as well as her mother knows her--her mother who has wors.h.i.+pped her and toiled for her ever since she was a little baby? And I, who can read her through and through, feel that she is ashamed of me.” And the tears overflowed, and rolled down Mrs. Herbert's faded cheeks.
Elisabeth's heart swelled with an immense pity, for her quick insight told her that Mrs. Herbert was not mistaken; but all she said was--
”I think you are making mountains out of molehills. Lots of girls lose their heads a bit when first they are married, and seem to regard marriage as a special invention and prerogative of their own, which ent.i.tles them to give themselves air _ad libitum_; but they soon grow out of it.”
Mrs. Herbert shook her head sorrowfully; her tongue was loosed and she spake plain. ”Oh! it isn't like that with Felicia; I should think nothing of that. I remember when first I was married I thought that no unmarried woman knew anything, and that no married woman knew anything but myself; but, as you say, I soon grew out of that. Why, I was quite ready, after I had been married a couple of months, to teach my dear mother all about housekeeping; and finely she laughed at me for it. But Felicia doesn't trouble to teach me anything; she thinks it isn't worth while.”
”Oh! I can not believe that Felicia is like that. You must be mistaken.”
”Mistaken in my own child, whom I carried in my arms as a little baby?
No, my dear; there are some things about which mothers can never be mistaken, G.o.d help them! Do you think I did not understand when the carriage came round to-day to take her and Alan to return Lady Patchingham's visit, and Felicia said, 'Mamma won't go with us to-day, Alan dear, because the wind is in the east, and it always gives her a cold to drive in an open carriage when the wind is in the east'? Oh! I saw plain enough that she didn't want me to go with them to Lady Patchingham's; but I only thanked her and said I would rather stay indoors, as it would be safer for me. When they had started I went out and looked at the weather-c.o.c.k for myself; it pointed southwest.” And the big tears rolled down faster than ever.
Elisabeth did not know what to say; so she wisely said nothing, but took Mrs. Herbert's hand in hers and stroked it.
”Perhaps, my dear, I did wrong in allowing Felicia to marry a man who is not a true believer, and this is my punishment.”
”Oh! no, no, Mrs. Herbert; I don't believe that G.o.d ever punishes for the sake of punis.h.i.+ng. He has to train us, and the training hurts sometimes; but when it does, I think He minds even more than we do.”
”Well, my love, I can not say; it is not for us to inquire into the counsels of the Almighty. But I did it for the best; I did, indeed. I did so want Felicia to be happy.”
”I am sure you did.”
”You see, all my life I had taken an inferior position socially, and the iron of it had entered into my soul. I daresay it was sinful of me, but I used to mind so dreadfully when my husband and I were always asked to second-rate parties, and introduced to second-rate people; and I longed and prayed that my darling Felicia should be spared the misery and the humiliation which I had had to undergo. You won't understand it, Elisabeth. People in a good position never do; but to be alternately snubbed and patronized all one's life, as I have been, makes social intercourse one long-drawn-out agony to a sensitive woman. So I prayed--how I prayed!--that my beautiful daughter should never suffer as I have done.”