Part 18

‘No, that is just what I think. She is quite satisfied as she is: to go out with her Pakenham cousins, probably to their annoyance and against their will, and to be taken to places where she knew nobody, would be no pleasure to my little girl. She is such a thoroughly reasonable, sensible, understanding child. I am so glad that you agree with me on that point, James.’

While she was speaking the Rector began to think that perhaps all was not said in that hasty opinion of his, and that a man consulted by his nearest relation should not be moved by any little trifling feeling--like that which might be legitimate enough in a mother, about his own girls. And he said, ‘Stop a little, Emily. You’re still quite a young woman, but life is uncertain. Perhaps, you know, if anything were to happen to you:--as long as you are there, that is all right, of course--but she would be very forlorn, poor little thing, if she were left----’

‘There would be you and Jane, James. You would both be very kind to her.’ But Lady William was a little startled by what he said. It is startling to all, however little objection we may have to that catastrophe, even however desirable it may be, to be spoken to abruptly of our own death.

‘Both my wife and I are older than you are, and we could introduce her to nobody in--well, in her father’s rank of life. If she married it would probably be a curate--the Marquis of Portcullis’s niece!’

‘Oh, if it were no worse than a curate!’ said Lady William, with a laugh. The laugh was a little strained, and under her eyes there was a hot, red colour which did not consort with laughter. She grew suddenly very grave, and added hurriedly, ‘That was not exactly all. James, in case of the--risk of which you were speaking, do you think as Mrs. Swinford does----’

‘What, Emily?’ He was frightened when he saw the excitement that seemed to come over her.

‘Well! That the family would have a right to--examine into--and have all the papers about--my marriage, and her birth, and all that.’

It was of Lady William’s marriage alone that Mrs. Swinford had spoken, but it made it a little easier to state it so.

‘Oh!’ said the Rector, startled. ‘Well,’ he added, ‘I suppose it’s a very good thing to have your papers all in order, and saves trouble afterwards. It is so seldom that people take the trouble to do it. I am sure I don’t know anything about my own marriage certificate, though I furnish them to other people. Have you got them all?’

Lady William’s face blanched out of its momentarily high colour. ‘I have got none of them,’ she said, in a faint voice.

‘Well, there is no particular harm in that. I don’t know who has--not me, I am sure. What does your friend want you to do--send these things to the Marquis? What does the Marquis want with Mab’s baptismal certificate? My dear Emily, I suppose that woman, being partly French, thinks that you should always have your _papiers_ in order? There could not be greater nonsense.’

‘Do you really think so? I did myself. Why should there ever be any question? Nobody asks you, as you say, for your marriage certificate, James.’

‘No,’ said the Rector; but he added, looking at the question from a purely professional point of view, ‘of course, you can get that sort of thing, when it’s wanted, at a moment’s, at least, at a day’s notice. Where were you married, Emily?’

She was evidently not prepared for this question, and came to herself with a little start. The colour forsook her cheeks. She clasped her hands together nervously. ‘Oh James, that is what gives it its sting. I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘Is that dreadful? Is it dangerous? Might it throw a doubt? My father went with me, that is the only thing--to London somewhere.’

‘I knew you were not married at home,’ said Mr. Plowden, rising up and placing himself in front of the fireplace. ‘I knew there was something queer about it. In the name of wonder, Emily, why, if my father went with you, didn’t he have you married at home? He can’t, in that case, have disapproved.’

‘I don’t think he disapproved.’

‘Then why, _why_ weren’t you married at home? My father went with you, and you don’t know? What a very queer business! And who went with you beside my father?’

‘Old Meredith, do you remember, who used to be my nurse--and a lady. But Meredith is dead, and papa is dead--and the other----’

‘This grows rather funny,’ said the Rector. ‘I mean it isn’t funny at all. So there is nobody living who was there, and you don’t know where it was? Does your friend, Mrs. Swinford, know these circumstances, Emily, and does she want to frighten you? It would be like her amiable temper.’

‘James, tell me, is there any real reason to fear?’

‘Oh, dear, no. Of course not; the only thing is to find the place. Of course, it must be on the register. What a queer thing not to know the church you were married in! I thought a woman always remembered that, whatever she forgot.’

‘I was a frightened girl,’ said Lady William. ‘I didn’t know what they were going to do with me. I was sent down from the Hall at midnight, as I thought in disgrace--though I could not tell for what. There was a great tumult in the house. Mr. Swinford, who was so quiet, in the midst of it all; and then my husband came down here with me, and my father was called up to speak to him and then it was all like a flash of lightning. I was taken up to London two days after, and there I was married. It was a little old church, in a district which I didn’t know.’

‘How is it I never heard anything of this before?’

‘How can I tell?’ she said. ‘I was taken away, frightened, not knowing what had happened. Oh, I suppose that I was not unwilling: I did not understand it: but my father was there--and he liked it, James. He said it was a great match for me, and, though it was so hurried, I was not to mind. After, I understood better--but at the time not at all.’

‘It must have been by special license,’ said the Rector; ‘but why in the name of wonder didn’t my father have it here?--Why---- But I suppose it’s no use saying why and why. There must have been reasons----’ He looked at his sister fixedly, yet avoiding her eye.

But Lady William neither met nor avoided his look. She sat before him, pale, with an air of deep and melancholy recollection. ‘Oh, there were reasons,’ she said, shaking her head sadly. ‘It was years before I found them out. I would rather not enter into them even now--reasons which for a time made life odious to me. It had not been very happy before. Don’t let us speak of that.’

‘They were reasons--which Mrs. Swinford knew!’

‘Don’t speak of her to me,’ said Lady William. ‘I was a fool to go near her, to see her again. Knew! ah, indeed she knew--indeed she knew! She was my patroness, my kind friend. My father thought it such a fine thing for me to be at the Hall. Oh, James, why should a girl be allowed to live when she has no mother? She ought to be put away in her mother’s coffin, and not enter helpless into the world.’

‘In my opinion fathers are some good,’ said the Rector, with severity.

And then a few hot tears fell from his sister’s eyes. ‘Poor papa!’ she said. Mr. Plowden added nothing to this phrase. They remained silent, both thinking of the parent who had not indeed been very wise, but always kind. After a while Lady William resumed: ‘He approved: if he had not approved--I should never---- But what could I do against my father? And Miss Mansfield told me I should be ungrateful to the friend who had made such a match for me.’

‘Who was Miss Mansfield, Emily?’

‘The lady I told you of--a cousin of Mrs. Swinford’s, who was with me that day.’

‘And is she dead, too?’

‘I think not. No; Leo Swinford said something of her the other day--that she had been here.’

‘Then she must be found, Emily.’

Lady William gave him a startled look. ‘Do you think, then, James, after all, it is necessary to go into all that again--to rake up everything? Oh! when I think of it--the hurry, the strangers, the unknown place, which looked as if there was shame in it----’

‘My dear Emily, it is only the hurry and the unknown place that make it important. As soon as you know where to write to find the marriage in the register it does not matter, you can let it rest. But now that I know--even if Mrs. Swinford had never said a word--I shall not rest till I find it out.’

‘Then I wish,’ she said, with returning spirit, ‘that I had said nothing to you on the subject, James.’

‘Don’t say that. To whom should you go but to your brother? And be sure I’ll find it out, Emily. I don’t like to say a word that will hurt you. I am afraid you have been the victim of some plot or other, my poor girl.’

She did not answer for a moment, then she said: ‘I cannot have been without blame myself. I was pleased with the promotion, I suppose, and with the romance, and all that. Romance! it seemed so strange to be carried away, to be married almost in spite of myself; and I suppose the name---- It is all very vague and dreadful, though at the time I was dazzled, and it sounded like something in a story. I wonder, rather, that you do not despise your sister, James.’

‘Poor Emily!’ he said, patting her shoulder with his hand.

XXIV

Mrs. Plowden awaited with some anxiety the appearance of her sister-in-law in the drawing-room, which was an ordeal which Lady William would have liked much to escape. But as this was not possible, she submitted to it with as good a grace as might be. The Rector kindly led the way, saying on the threshold: ‘Here is Emily, Jane,’ as if that had been at all necessary; as if they had not all been on the outlook for her appearance for the last half-hour. Mrs. Plowden took her by the hand, and led her to a comfortable sofa in the corner, which was where she took her friends when they had something to say to her, or she something to say to them. ‘My dear Emily,’ she said, ‘I hear you have been sadly worried about something, and, of course, you know I have been trying to guess. You have heard from Reginald again?’

‘From Reginald?’ said Lady William. ‘Poor fellow! Ah, no. I wish I had. And who said I had been sadly worried? I had only some business I wanted to talk over with James.’

‘Not Reginald--really?’ said Mrs. Plowden. She was much relieved; but there sprang up in her a fresh curiosity, very lively and warm, to think, if it was not Reginald, what it could be? Of course she said to herself she would hear all about it from James; but she did not like to wait till the uncertain moment, never to be calculated on during the day, when she should find her husband alone.

And then it occurred to Lady William that to tell a half truth frankly as if it were the whole is sometimes a wise thing to do.

‘To tell the truth,’ she said, ‘I was asking James’s serious advice on that matter which you have so often spoken to me about, Jane--whether I should attempt to improve my acquaintance with the Pakenhams, and get Mab, now that she is almost old enough, introduced to the world in their way.’

‘Oh!’ cried Mrs. Plowden, making a very large mouthful of that word; astonishment, and satisfaction, and pride, and yet a little drawback of another feeling was in her tone. ‘So you are thinking at last, Emily, that there may be something in what I said.’

‘I always knew,’ said Lady William, ‘that there was a great deal of sense in what you said. But, I was very unwilling to do it, it must be allowed. And now Mrs. Swinford says the same thing; and though I am very doubtful whether it would be to Mab’s advantage, still--I am thinking it over once more.’

‘And what advice did you get from James? James is too like yourself in many ways, Emily, to be your best adviser.’

‘Do you think he is like myself?’ The Rector had gone back to his study after, as it were, introducing his sister into the feminine part of the house. ‘Well, perhaps,’ said Lady William, with a smile, ‘there may be a family resemblance. There is so far as this--that he is by no means certain, I think, of the advantage to Mab.’

‘Oh, what nonsense,’ said the Rector’s wife, ‘and what does he know about such things? Advantage! of course it would be an advantage. Dear me, to go to Court with the Ladies Pakenham, to be taken out into society by the Marchioness, to see the best of company at her uncle’s house! My dear Emily, you might just as well say, to confuse small things with great, that it would not be an advantage in the parish of Watcham to belong to the Rectory--and that is what nobody would say.’

The comparison was one which made Lady William smile, though she was not much inclined to smiling. ‘There are differences,’ she said, ‘however; for you could not but be kind to a girl thrown on your care. Whereas, I doubt very much if the Marchioness would be at all kind to a poor relation; and I don’t care to have my Mab thought of as a poor relation in any case.’

‘You are so proud,’ said the Rector’s wife; and then she said, with a laugh, ‘Fancy little Mab to be the one of us all that will see the great world, and make her curtsey to the Queen!’

If the Rector himself had thought of this, it would have been wonderful indeed that his wife should not think of it. She laughed continuously for a minute with an odd little trill in her laugh, looking at her own girls, who she could not help thinking were more worthy than Mab of such a distinction. It was a thing she had urged upon Mab’s mother since her child was ten. But now that it seemed an actual possibility, nay more than that--for Mrs. Plowden’s mind leaped forward to the ceremony, and already wondered what Mab would wear, and if feathers would really be wanted upon her little head--the ridicule of the thought that Mab, little Mab, would be the one to go to Court, an honour which was quite beyond the hopes of Emmy and Florry, gave their mother a shock of half-irritated feeling. That their cousin should have this glory would not hurt them--but still--if honours went by merit in this world how different things would be!

‘I wonder,’ said Lady William, as they walked home, ‘what your opinion, Mab, may be in the matter which everybody has been discussing. It was your little fortunes that Mrs. Swinford wanted to talk to me about yesterday, and that I have been advising about with Uncle James to-day.’

‘My little fortunes?’ said Mab. ‘I never knew I had any.’

‘Your future, perhaps, it would be better to say.’

‘My future! is that to be detached and put separate from other people’s like an odd piece in a puzzle? I don’t know still what you mean, mother!’

‘And yet it is plain enough,’ said Lady William, with a sigh. ‘The other girls here are all in their natural sphere. But you, Mab, are a bird of another species in a sparrow’s nest.’

‘I hope you don’t compare me to a cuckoo, mother.’

‘Something very different, my dear; the others are plain brown homely birds. Emmy and Florry will twitter under the eaves in some parsonage or other, probably all their lives; but you are a Pakenham.’

‘What’s a Pakenham?’ said Mab; ‘you speak as if it were a Plantagenet.’

‘Well, not so grand, perhaps--but still it is different. And I have brought you up only like what I was myself: a little country girl.’

‘Only like what you were yourself! You know very well, mother, and it’s unkind to remind me of it, that if I were to live a hundred years I should never get to be like you. It’s Emmy that’s like you. I’m not envious; but to think that your daughter should be a little--just a--Pakenham, as you say; and Emmy like you!’

‘She is not very like me--if I’m any judge myself,’ Lady William said.

‘She is not half nor a quarter so pretty as you are, mammy dear.’

‘You little flatterer! Emmy is a much better girl than I ever was, Mab, and perhaps that’s pretty much the same thing. She is a much better girl to tell the truth than my own little girl is.’

‘I know; my own opinion is that Emmy is too good. She is never out of temper, always puts up with everything, is bored by nobody. That, I understand, is one reason why--as you say, mother. For I think, to tell the truth, that to look really nice, and be like a human woman, you must not be quite so good.’

‘That is a dangerous doctrine, Mab. And it is not the question; which is, what do you think? The Pakenhams are more or less fashionable, and of course they have a fine position. With them you would see a little of the world. You would meet people very different from any you ever see here in the village. I am told that I ought to make advances to them; to tell them of my child who is growing up, and ought to be introduced properly into the world.’

‘Oh, is that what it means?’ said Mab. ‘Tell me more about them, that I may be able to judge. I don’t know anything at all about them, and how can I say?’

Lady William’s heart sank a little at this calm and judicial tone on the part of her child. She, too, jumped, as Mrs. Plowden had done, to the spectacle of Mab’s presentation under the wing of the Marchioness, and at all that might follow.

‘I have never seen Lady Pakenham or the girls. Your uncle I have seen, and he was--not unkind. No, I am sure he was not in the least unkind; he did what he could for me. He took a little notice of you as a baby, and so did the other brother--your uncle John. They were not clever, nor distinguished in any way; but they were by no means without feeling.’

‘That was when my father died.’

Lady William, who had rarely to Mab said anything about her father, nodded her head. Her eyes had a dreamy look, fixed far away. Mab never was sure whether it was for grief that her mother was so reticent, or from some other cause.

‘And do you mean to say, mother,’ said Mab, ‘that my aunt--if she is my aunt--never came near you when you were in such trouble?’

‘She is just exactly as much your aunt as your uncle James’s wife is--neither less nor more. No, she never came near me. But I was not surprised. It happened in Paris, and then I came away as soon as I could to this little place. I neither expected her to come to Paris, which would have been absurd: nor to come after me here, where she knew I would be among my own people.’

‘Why,’ said Mab, ‘you would have gone! You would not have minded if it had been in Paris, or at the end of the world.’

‘I do a great many foolish things,’ said Lady William, with a smile, ‘that wise people don’t do; besides they hadn’t approved much, as was natural. Substantially kind is what you may call them, practically kind your uncles were that, and have been----’

‘And yet I am seventeen and I have never seen them.’

‘If you had been a boy,’ said Lady William, ‘they would have felt their duty more; a girl is supposed to be best with her mother. You must not be surprised at that, my dear child. Your uncle Pakenham has always supplied all your wants.’

‘You never showed me any of his letters----’

‘His letters! oh, he is not a man who writes letters. His lawyer does all that; but substantially, he has been very kind.’

‘Mother,’ said Mab, ‘instead of wishing to know these people, to visit them, and all that, I’ll tell you what I should like to do. I should like to be able to work for you, and throw their money in their face--which is what you mean, I suppose, when you say they are substantially kind.’

‘That would be very foolish, Mab; the money is your right, and for that matter mine too.’

‘It may be right, but I should like to fling it in their faces all the same. Had my father nothing to leave us, to give us to live on, that you should have to accept it from them?’

Lady William made no answer for some time. Then she said in a low tone: ‘Your father had many things to do. I cannot enter into such questions, Mab; you are not old enough. No; we were destitute but for them.’

‘You had money of your own, mother?’

‘Fortunately,’ said Lady William, ‘that did not come to me till after.’ And then she stopped short and bit her lip with annoyance. ‘I didn’t do much with it when it did come,’ she said. ‘I gave it to your poor uncle Reginald. He was to make his fortune, poor fellow, and ours.’

‘Perhaps he may yet, mother.’

‘Thank you for the suggestion, Mab; perhaps he may. Alas! I am afraid it is not very likely----’

‘If he were to do so, mother, you would take this dirty money and fling it back in their faces?’

‘I don’t know that I should, Mab. I doubt if it would be kind or just--and still more, whether it would be wise.’

‘Oh, you may be sure they wouldn’t mind, people like that! They would only be glad to have it back, whether you flung it at them or not, provided they had it.’

‘My dear, you are very hot-headed. In that respect you are, I fear, of my side of the house.’

‘And Emmy, who is like you, isn’t. She would eat any amount of dirt; she thinks it her duty not to resent anything. That’s not my way of thinking,’ cried Mab. ‘I resent it, and I should like to fling it in their face.’

The two ladies went on after this in silence for a little while, Mab pondering many things in her heart. Some she knew about, and some she did not know. Of her father she had very little idea, scarcely any at all. She had never seen any one belonging to him. He was dead; that was all she knew; and she had never missed him, or any one, having her mother. Vague ideas that he had not been good to her mother had floated through her mind, and yet she never was sure that it was not out of great love that Lady William spoke of him so little. She had known in the parish people who grieved like that, who could not mention the names of those who were gone. It might be for that reason. She walked on pondering, saying nothing till they had nearly reached the cottage door. Then she suddenly turned on her mother, having forgotten till this moment what was the question that had been given her to answer.

‘And you want me,’ she said, ‘to say that I would like to go to those people--to leave you?’

‘Not to leave me, Mab, except for a little time.’

‘Then I won’t, mother, short time or long time! What! to a woman that knew you were in trouble, and never went to you--whom you don’t even know! If I am allowed to have any say in it, I would not for anything in the world. And what is it for? To go to parties with them, to be taken out, to enjoy myself? Mother, mother, do you think I am like that--to enjoy myself with people who don’t know you, who leave you, who are insolent to you?’

‘No; they are not insolent--they ignore me; but, then, I have always wished to be ignored. To tell the truth, Mab, I doubt very much whether you would enjoy yourself. It is possible that you might, but I fear it is more likely that you would not. That is why I am against it.’

‘Then you are against it, mother?’

‘For that reason--that I could not bear my Mab to be treated like a nobody, to be taken out, perhaps, because they could not help it, or left alone and snubbed----’

‘Snubbed! They should not snub me twice, mother!’

‘No, you little hothead! But everybody here thinks it would be so much to your advantage to go to Court--that is something--to be introduced as you ought to be.’

‘Introduced to whom?--to the Queen? Yes, that would be nice. But then I don’t suppose the Queen would take the least notice of me, would she? I would just be another little girl among so many. No, mother, people here--Aunt Jane, or whoever it is--may say what they like. I will have nothing to say to those people who took no notice of you.’

‘Your uncle James is of the same opinion--and Mrs. Swinford.’

‘Odious old woman!’ said Mab.

‘My dear child, how do you know that she is an odious old woman? She was a very fascinating woman once. When I was like you I would have laid down my life for her.’ Lady William breathed forth a long, soft sigh involuntarily, unable to restrain herself. ‘I think I did,’ she said under her breath.

Mab did not hear these words, but she said somewhat loudly, ‘Odious old woman!’ again.