Part 89 (2/2)

Mrs Jones saw that she must say something to help him on.

'We are only too glad to have her society and aid. I a.s.sure you she has been invaluable in the parish, and is beloved by every one.'

'Exactly; I perceive a wonderful change in her; she is gentler, and less excitable. I feel that you--that your husband--in short, I mean--that--hem--'

'Freda has such a fine natural character, Mr Gwynne.'

'Precisely; I would say that I am convinced you would not influence her, and so forth, in remaining away from--you understand--from me, in short.'

'Certainly not. I should be very glad to think that she would return and live happily at her natural home, sorry as I should be to lose her.'

'Thank you very much indeed; you have always been her true friend. I am very anxious--so we are all you see--Lady Mary would like a companion--Harold attends to her better than to any one else. I hope you like Harold; ah--yes--he is a fine boy, and so talented; and you know--to be sure. I should wish to have Freda to read with me again; I a.s.sure you I miss her in many ways. And the colonel and Mrs Vaughan--the children--in fact--in short--you understand?'

'Perfectly, and will not throw any obstacle in the way of Freda's remaining at home.'

'Thank you very much. You are a true friend, Mrs Jones; thank you.'

Mrs Jones made a point of repeating that conversation to Freda, whose look of blank dismay quite startled her.

'Oh! Serena, you want to get rid of me. I could never live this kind of life again. Lady Mary would kill me in another month; not an idea in common. Her daughter is fifty times more endurable, for she is innocent in her silliness. And then that cranky, exigeant colonel, longing to make love to me if I would let him; the stiff dinner parties, tiresome people, spoilt children--though I do delight in Harold and Winnie and Gwynne and Dot and baby, too, for that much--and--'

'And your father,' quietly suggested Mrs Jones.

'I never thought you would wish me to leave you, Serena. Those happy, useful days! The poor, the schools, the church!'

'They are everywhere, my love.'

'But so different. I never felt so happy or useful before I lived with you in London.'

'The change is in yourself, not in the place.'

'Oh! Serena, this is cruel! I could live with my father anywhere, but the others--impossible.'

'Think it over. You know that you have a home with us whenever you like; that it would be my pleasure as well as interest to have you always.

That we shall miss you in every possible way; still duty is duty. As long as your father did not care, and Lady Mary was rather glad to have the Park to herself, the thing was, perhaps, different, at any rate Freda was not then the Freda she is now.

'Serena, you are a bitter-sweet, and a horrible little apple that is.'

'But they say it makes good cider.'

'At any rate you ought not to influence me. I will not decide whilst you are here, and that is all I will promise. If I do, it will be to go to you undoubtedly. But I will think it over.'

That very night before she went to bed, Freda did think it over, sitting by the fire in her delightful, warm, well-lighted, well-furnished bedroom; but she could not come to any determination. She made out a sort of debtor and creditor account in her own head, and cashed it according to her somewhat imperfect notions of book-keeping.

'My father--of course I owe him a great deal in the way of duty and love; but he owes me something for letting me have my own way all my life, bringing me up with the notion that I should be an heiress, and then disappointing me by marrying a woman whom I utterly despise. Lady Mary--I owe her nothing whatever, beyond the common proper treatment that one must give to every one; she, on the contrary, owes me compensation for marrying my father when I am sure he didn't want her, and certainly I did not.

'Colonel Vaughan--I don't owe him anything beyond a little improvement in my style of singing and drawing; yes, I owe him a heavy debt of grat.i.tude for not proposing for me instead of Wilhelmina, for a.s.suredly I should have married him, and he owes me something for making a fool of me. Wilhelmina--I owe her a good deal, firstly, for despising her, laughing at her, ridiculing her--and she all the time better than I was, for she never retaliated--and secondly, for trying to prejudice the colonel against her. Harold--I owe him the love of a sister, and he owes me nothing as yet; here I am decidedly debtor. The poor, of course, wherever one is, one owes them a great debt of Christian charity and love; and I must confess that they are not quite so well seen to as when Gladys was my almoner; but then she is here again to see to them, and that, on her own responsibility, and it is Lady Mary's place to care for them now.

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