CHAPTER XXV

POOR MOTHER

I think that nothing in the world shows truer affection than that curious resentment against any change in the appearance of those we love.

Regina, all unconscious of the gossip that with her for its central figure was floating about the Park, went slowly down the road in the direction of Ye Dene. Truth to tell, she was a little shy of facing her family in her new guise. It was then after six o'clock; in fact, it was fast approaching the hour of seven. Now it happened that Julia had been off on an expedition to town with one of the Marksby girls, and had only arrived home about ten minutes previously, and being tired had gone into the pleasant sitting-room which she and Maudie had hitherto shared between them. When Mrs. Whittaker came up the covered way Julia saw her from where she was sitting, for both the sitting-room door and the front door were wide open.

"Hullo, mother, are you back?" she called out.

Regina with a certain accession of color and a certain acceleration of heart beating, replied with a pleasant word and walked into Julia's sitting-room.

"Oh, you've not been back long?" she said.

Julia did not reply. It was not perhaps a remark that called for any special attention in the way of answer, but if it had it would have been all the same.

"Why, _mother_--" and she stared at Regina as if she were indeed fitted for the padded room which had been mentioned a few minutes previously.

"I have got a new toque," said Regina.

"Oh, the toque is all right--a little big--"

"I don't think so. It was chosen for me by a Frenchwoman whose taste is indisputable."

"I have not always found French taste indisputable," said Julia, remembering with a certain shame some of the purchases that she and Maudie had made in days gone by. "Your toque's all right, but what have you been doing to your hair?"

"I have had my hair shampooed and brushed, and I intend to wear it in another mode."

"It looks horrid!" said Julia.

"I don't think so," answered Regina, her color still heightened and a great accession of dignity in her manner. "You do not always wear your hair the same, why should I? I have got to that time of life when what suited me at thirty does not still suit me at fifty, and my hair showed signs of wearing off the forehead, and I do not like a bald forehead either in a man or a woman."

"Oh, I daresay you are right. Of course, you are at liberty to make whatever sort of a guy you like of yourself, only don't ask me to admire it, that's all."

The tone was rude, and Regina felt stabbed to the heart.

"I do not always admire your taste in dress, Julia," she said very quietly. "I sometimes think that if a mother had all her life had a frightful wart on her nose, her children would resent its removal because they had grown accustomed to it. I have chosen, my dear, to do my hair in a new fashion, and I am not to be turned from my purpose by even your wishes. I have come to the conclusion that I have paid too little attention in the past to the details which most women think of paramount importance. I am going to change all that and I have begun with my hair and my toque."

She did not wait for Julia to reply, but turned and went quietly and quickly out of the room, leaving Julia speechless and astonished.

"Now, what has happened to her?" said Julia. "Why should she, all at once, take to altering herself like that? Surely mother isn't going to be frivolous in her old age. I wonder what daddy will say. She's going to 'alter all that.' Well, of course--she's at liberty to please herself. I suppose I ought not to have jumped on her like that--poor mother!"

She got up and ran up the broad and shallow stairs, knocked at her mother's door, and, without waiting for an answer, entered the room.

"I say, mother," she said.

Regina was standing before the glass, evidently in the act of taking the pins out of her hat. She turned round.

"You want me?" she asked. Her tone was quite pleasant and sweet, but there was an indefinable sense of woundedness about it which touched Julia to the very quick.

"Oh, I say, mother, I was beastly rude to you just now. But I didn't mean to be."

"I am sure you didn't."

"You see, when one has a mother that one thinks an awful lot of, and who always wears her hair the same, one feels sort of blank when she makes herself look different. But I was rude, and I'm awfully sorry; I didn't mean it for that."

She came to the side of the dressing-table and stood looking at her mother with honest, troubled eyes. Regina caught her by the hand and drew her to her ample bosom.

"I felt myself growing such a frump," she said. "I don't know when, I think it was about the time of Maudie's wedding, that I felt, all at once, that I was getting into a fossil like all other women workers. I never saw it all those years till about that time, and I hated myself for being frumpy and ridiculous."

"You never were that to us," said Julia, with quick reproach. "I hope you never thought we thought so, for we never did."

"Well, well, well, I will wear my hair this way for a little while, and if you and dear father do not like it I will put it back into the old way again. It is bad for the hair to dress it always in the same fashion."

"Well, now I come to think of it, it looks awfully nice, and you've lovely hair and a glorious complexion."

At this the color on Regina's cheeks deepened into a veritable rose blush. Julia hurried on--"It's a beautiful hat," she said. "Where did you get it? How did you light on this Frenchwoman? Was it very expensive? It's worth it, whatever it cost."

"No," said Regina, "it was four guineas; I don't call that very expensive for a hat with good feathers."

"Oh, not a bit! And even if it was, you can afford it. I think you are quite right, now you have chucked the regeneration business, to start regenerating your own person. I admit it gave me a shock when you came in. You know, somehow one doesn't like the first idea of one's mother being tampered with."

Then Regina told Julia how she came to put herself in the hands of Madame Florence and the little Frenchwoman on the first floor--that is to say, she told her in part, not giving her reasons, her actual reasons, or the source of her information concerning them.

"But how will you do your hair to-morrow morning?"

"I do not know quite how I shall do it. I am going to Madame Florence every day for a week, so that she may do it and get it into the proper set. When she had arranged my hair she gave me a lesson on a dummy, so that I really do know how things should be, and she thinks after a week I shall be quite able to do it myself. Besides, as she says, it makes such a difference--the way your hair is accustomed to go."

"You'll never be able to wave your own hair, mother."

"Well, I don't like to think about that part of it," said Regina.

"Darling," said Julia, feeling that she had smoothed over her previous indiscretions, "why don't you have a maid? She would be so useful to both of us. Think of somebody who would be able to make smart blouses, do up frocks and touch up hats and generally make life easy and comfortable. Why don't you have a maid?"

"It seems such an expense," said Regina.

"But you can afford it--I shall talk to father."

"If I did have a maid I should pay her myself; I shouldn't think of coming on your father for an extravagance of that sort."

"Well, you have more money than you ever spend. Dearest, you have got into the habit of going without things, and we have got into the habit of regarding you as a person of no vanities, so that we resent it when you show the smallest sign of anything feminine in your nature. Now I come to look at you again," said Julia, with her head on one side, "I think I do like you better like this. It is more important looking; it seems to make your head more of a size with the rest of you. I like you in black--you know, mother, you never wear black. Do you mind if I try it on?"

"Why of course not." It was with pride that Regina stood by and saw her daughter poise the beautiful black toque upon her own abundant locks.

"Oh yes, it's a ravishing hat," Julia declared. "I think I must go and see your Madame Clementine. You won't mind?--Ah, there is daddy coming."

At that moment Alfred's solid footstep was heard upon the landing. "Hullo, young woman," he said a moment later as he entered the room, "got a new hat?"

"_It's mother's hat_," said Julia with emphasis and awaited developments.

"Your mother's? Well, my dear, you have been doing yourself very well. Why--bless my soul--what have you been doing to your head?"

"I have been having my hair brushed and cared for," said Regina, feeling that she must take her bull by the horns and grasp her nettle without delay.

"Why didn't they put it up as it was--let me look at you. I don't know"--and he passed his thumb down one cheek and his fingers down the other till they met at the lowest point of his chin, "I don't know--it isn't you, you see."

"Don't say you dislike it, Alfred," said Regina, with pathetic wistfulness.

"I don't say I dislike it, at the same time--it isn't you," he replied. "Put the hat on--let's see you in it. Yes--I don't know. It's a pity to hide a forehead like yours with all that loose hair. I know women are all wearing it so; but at the same time, I think it is a pity."

"I've got to look such a frump, Alfred," said Regina, taking the hat off again and patting her hair into place.

"No, my dear, that you never did. You have a distinctiveness all your own. As to this new-fangled arrangement--well, if it pleases you to do it that way, you must do it that way and we must get used to it. Perhaps, in a little while, we shall like it better than as it was before."

"But it does not meet with your unqualified approval, Alfred?" said Regina.

"No, I can't say that it does."

"It makes me look younger," she asserted.

"But I don't want you to look younger. We were a very good match for each other as we were, and I don't know that it _does_ make you look younger. Well, well, let it be for a day or two till one gets accustomed to the change. As it is, it doesn't seem right to have you, of all women in the world, thinking about vanities."

"Why not?" said Regina in a very small voice.

At that moment Julia betook herself out of the room, shutting the door as if she did not want to hear any more of what passed between her parents.

"Why not?" repeated Regina.

"Well, they don't seem to be in keeping with you. One never thinks of you as having nerves or the megrims, of being offended about nothing and having to be coaxed back again into a good temper. You are the kind of woman one gives a present to because one desires to give you pleasure, not because you are to be made to forget some vexation or some disappointment. You are unlike other women, Regina."

And Regina immediately decided that the hussy was a person of moods!