CHAPTER VIII
Unsatisfactory

On the evening of the party at Strawyers, Mrs. Poynsett lay on her sofa, thinking, with a trying recurrence, of that unfortunate and excellent German Dauphine, who was pronounced by the Duchess of Orleans to have died of her own stupidity.

After a fortnight had brought no improvement, but rather the reverse, to poor Anne’s wan looks and feeble languid deportment, Mrs. Poynsett had insisted on her seeing the doctor; and had been assured by him that there was nothing amiss, and that if Mrs Miles Charnock could only be roused and occupied she would be perfectly well, but that her pining and depression might so lower her tone as to have a serious effect on her health.

There was no hope of her husband’s return for at least a year, likely eighteen months.  What was to be done with her?  What could be a more unpropitious fate than for a Colonial girl, used to an active life of exertion and usefulness, and trained to all domestic arts, to be set down in a great English household where there was really nothing for her to do, and usefulness or superintendence would have been interfering; besides, as Miles had thoughts of settling at the Cape, English experience would serve her little.

She had not cultivation enough for any pursuit to interest her.  She was not musical, could not draw; and when Mrs. Poynsett had, by way of experiment, asked her to read aloud an hour a day, and selected the Lives of the Lindsays, as an unexceptionable and improving book, full of Scottish history, and even with African interest, she dutifully did her task as an attention to her invalid mother-in-law, but in a droning husky tone, finding it apparently as severe a penance as it was to her auditor.

The doctor’s chief prescription was horse exercise; but what would a constitutional canter be to one accustomed to free rides through the Bush?  And she would generally be alone; for even if Charlie, her nearest approach to an ally, had not been going away from home in a few weeks, it could not be expected that he could often ride with her.

It was plain that every one of the whole family was giving continual shocks to Mr. Pilgrim’s disciple, even when they felt most innocent; and though the mother was sometimes disposed to be angry, sometimes to laugh at the little shudder and compression of the lips she began to know, she perceived what an addition this must be to the unhappiness of the poor lonely stranger.

“She must be set to some good work,” thought Mrs. Poynsett; “Julius might let her go to his old women.  She might get on with them better than with the old women here.  And there’s Cecil’s working affair, it would be just the thing to give her an object.  I think I can get through this evening.  I’ve made Susan bring my desk, with all Miles’s letters from his first voyage.  Shall I suppress the ball?”

Therewith Cecil made her entrance, in glossy white satin and deep lace, beautiful to behold, set off with rainbow glistening opals.  She made a quiet complacent show of herself, as one not vain of fine clothes, but used to an affectionate family appreciation of her best attire; and it was the most friendly childlike bit of intimacy that had yet been attained between her and Mrs. Poynsett.

And when she sat down to wait for the others, Mrs. Poynsett ventured on telling her the prescription and her own perplexity, hoping for a voluntary offer to employ Anne at Willansborough; but Cecil only pitied her for having ‘no resources’; and when Mrs. Poynsett ventured to suggest finding a niche for her in the work-room, the answer was—“Our days are all disposed of.”

“You have two, I think?”

“True; but it would never do for me to give up one of my times.  If I seemed to slacken, every one else would.”

“What will you do when the Session begins?”

“I shall make some arrangement.  I do not think Anne could ever take my place; she would have no authority.”

Anne herself here entered, took her knitting, and sat down, apparently unaware of the little pluming gesture by which Cecil unconsciously demanded attention to her bridal satin.  One white-gloved gentleman after another dropped in, but none presumed on a remark; Jenkins announced the carriages; but Rosamond had not appeared, and after an excursion up-stairs, Julius returned, declaring that the first carriage must not wait for her, they would come afterwards in the van, for there was something amiss in the dress, she had not had it on since the wedding.

“And she came in so late,” said Cecil.

“That was my fault,” he said.  “We came through the village to leave a message at the doctor’s;” and he then insisted that the other pair should set off, taking Frank and Charlie, and prevent dinner from being kept waiting; at which the boys made faces, and declared that it was a dodge of his to join Jenny’s party in the schoolroom, instead of the solemn dinner; but they were obliged to submit; and it was not till twenty minutes later, that in glided something white, with blue cashmere and swan’s-down over it, moving, as usual, with languid grace.

“Poor Julius!” smiled Rosamond with her dawdling dignity.  “Every single thing turned out a misfit!  As it is, there’s a monstrous hole in my glove, which demands the benevolent fiction of my having torn it by the way.  There, one second for the effect!—Good-bye, dear Mrs. Poynsett;—good-bye, Anne.  Come, you monument of patience and resignation!”

For one moment she had slipped back her little mantle, then drawn it on, as, taking her husband’s arm, she left the room; but that moment had set Anne’s cheeks aflame, and left Mrs. Poynsett in a startled state of uncertainty, hoping her glance had been mistaken, wondering what could have been more amiss, and feeling incapable of entering on the subject with that severe young judge, of narrow experience.

Never had her eldest son failed to come and bid her good night on his way to his own room: it was the great break in her long sleepless hours, and she used to call it a reversal of the relations of those days when he used to watch for her kiss on her way to bed.  Nor did he fail her now, but came and stood over her with his fragmentary tidings.

“An immense party—oh yes, there was he persuading them not to wait.  Mr. Bowater took Rosamond in to dinner, Cecil went with Sir Harry Vivian.  Yes, Lady Tyrrell was there, wonderfully handsome, but her expression strikes me as altered; there is the sort of pathetic look that, as Cecil said, is like the melancholy Medusa—I wonder if it is genuine.  She seems greatly disposed to cultivate Cecil—I wonder what she does it for.”

“Is Cecil attracted?  I fancied she was.”

“Yes, a good deal; and I fear the Wil’sbro’ business will throw them together.  It is unlucky on Frank’s account likewise.  I see we shall have it all over again there.”

“I have great hope in his office taking him away.  How was it with them to-night?”

“What I should call arrant coquetry, such as even Camilla never indulged in.  The girl kept out of his way—was absolutely chill and repelling half the evening—throwing herself at the officers from Backsworth, till at last Frank obtained a waltz, and after that they were perfectly inseparable.”

“If she coquets, she will soon disgust him!  Did Cecil enjoy herself?”

“Oh yes: Phil Bowater opened the ball with her, and she dances very nicely—so quietly, Mrs. Bowater remarked it.  As to Rosamond, she was in her native element—is indeed, for she would not hear of coming away when we did.”

“And Julius?”

“Standing in a doorway, with others of his kind, absently talking, and watching Rosamond out of the tail of his eye.  I say, mother,” lowering his voice, “can’t you give Rosamond a hint about her dress?  Cecil says she can’t go out with her again like that.  Ah,” as he heard a sigh, “I should not have worried you at night.”

“No, you have not.  Tell Cecil I will see about it.  Rosamond will take it best from an old woman like me.”

Mrs. Poynsett was quite conscious that Cecil had more high breeding and refinement than Rosamond, who was essentially the Irish Colonel’s daughter, and that the cold temperament of the one irritated the warm nature of the other.  More than one flash had revealed Rosamond’s contempt for Cecil’s assumptions and intolerance for her precision—besides, she was five years older, and had not an ideal in Dunstone.

After revolving what form of remonstrance would be least offensive during half the night and day, Mrs. Poynsett was not prepared for the appearance, about noon, of her son Julius, when, coming to what she termed the confidential side of her couch, he asked hesitatingly, and colouring, “Mother, I want you to tell me, was there anything amiss in Rose’s dress last night?”

“You did not perceive—”

“I’m not used to the style of thing.  Is it not the way with what you call full dress?”

“To a certain degree—” she began.

He caught her up.  “And here has Cecil been putting my poor Rose into a perfect agony!  It is only woman’s censorious nonsense, isn’t it, mother?  Mere folly to think otherwise!  I knew you would set my mind at rest; and if you would tell Cecil that you will not have Rosamond insulted, it would be as well.”

“Stay, Julius,” as he was walking off complacently, “I grieve, but I must confess that I was going to speak to Rosamond myself.”

He looked very blank.

“Mind, I am certain that it is only an innocent following of what she has been brought up to;” and as he signed a sort of hurt acquiescence, as if trying to swallow the offence, she added, “When do you go out again?”

“Not till Monday, when we dine at Colonel Ross’s.  He is an old friend of Lord Rathforlane.”

“Then I am inclined to let it cool.  Sometimes advice that has been resented does its work.”

“You don’t think the interference justifiable?”

“Not from that quarter.”

“And can it be needful to attend to it?”

“My dear Julius, it is not a style of dress I could ever have worn, nor have let my daughters have worn, if I had had any.”

“Conclusive, that!” said Julius, getting up, more really angered with his mother than he had been since his childhood.

However, he conquered himself by the time he had reached the door, and came back to say, “I beg your pardon, mother, I know you would not say so without need.”

“Thank you, my boy!” and he saw tears in her eyes, the first time he was conscious of having brought them.  As he bent down to kiss her, she rallied, and cheerfully said, “I have no doubt it will all come right—Rosamond is too nice not to feel it at once.”

No such thing; Rosamond was still furious.  If he disapproved, she would submit to him; but he had seen nothing wrong, had he?

“My dear Rose, I told you I was no judge: you forget what my eyes are; and my mother—”

“You have been to your mother?”

“My dear, what could I do?”

“And you think I am going to insult my own mother and sisters to please any woman’s finical prudish notions’?  Pray what did Mrs. Poynsett say?”

The excuse of custom, pleaded by Mrs. Poynsett, only made Rosamond fiercer.  She wished she had never come where she was to hear that her own mother was no judge of propriety, and her husband could not trust her, but must needs run about asking everybody if she were fit to be seen.  Such a tempest Julius had never seen outside a back street in the garrison town.  There seemed to be nothing she would not say, and his attempts at soothing only added to her violence.  Indeed, there was only one thing which would have satisfied her, and that was, that she had been perfectly right, and the whole world barbarously wrong; and she was wild with passion at perceiving that he had a confidence in his own mother which he could not feel in hers.

Nor would he insist that Raymond should force Cecil to apologize.  “My dear,” he said, “don’t you know there are things easier to ask than to obtain?”

To which Rosamond replied, in another gust, that she would never again sit down to table with Cecil until she had apologized for the insult, not to herself, she did not care about that, but to the mother who had seen her dresses tried on: Julius must tell Raymond so, or take her away to any cottage at once.  She would not stay where people blamed mamma and poisoned his mind against her!  She believed he cared for them more than for her!

Julius had sympathized far longer with her offended feeling than another could have done; but he was driven to assert himself.  “Nonsense, Rose, you know better,” he said, in a voice of displeasure; but she pouted forth, “I don’t know it.  You believe every one against me, and you won’t take my part against that nasty little spiteful prig!”

“Cecil has behaved very ill to you,” said Julius, granting her rather over much; “but she is a foolish conceited child, who does not deserve that Raymond should be worried about her.  I foresee plenty of grievances from her; but, Rosie, we must and will not let her come between us and Raymond.  You don’t know what a brother he has been to me—I hardly think I could have got through my first year at school but for him; and I don’t think my sweet Rose could wish to do me such an ill turn as to stir up a feud with such a brother because his wife is provoking.”

The luncheon-bell began to sound, and she sobbed out, “There then, go down, leave me alone!  Go to them, since you are so fond of them all!”

“I don’t think you could come down as you are,” said Julius, gravely; “I will bring you something.”

“It would choke me—choke me!” she sobbed out.

Julius knew enough of the De Lancy temperament to be aware that words carried them a long way, and he thought solitude would be so beneficial, that he summoned resolution to leave her; but he had not the face to appear alone, nor offer fictions to excuse her absence, so he took refuge in his dressing-room, until he had seen Cecil and Anne ride away from the hall door together.

For the two sisters-in-law had held a little indignation meeting, and Rosamond’s misdemeanour had so far drawn them together, that Cecil had offered to take Anne to see the working party, and let her assist thereat.

The coast being clear, Julius went down, encountering nothing worse than the old butler, who came in while he was cutting cold beef, and to whom he said, “Lady Rosamond is rather knocked up; I am going to take her something up-stairs.”

Jenkins received this as the result of a dance, but much wanted to fetch a tray, which Julius refused, and set off with an ale-glass in one hand, and in the other the plates with the beef and appliances, Jenkins watching in jealous expectation of a catastrophe, having no opinion of Mr. Julius’s powers as a waiter.  He was disappointed.  The downfall was deferred till the goal was reached, and was then most salutary, for Rosamond sprang to pick up the knife and fork, laughed at his awkwardness, refused to partake without him, produced implements from her travelling-bag, and was as merry as she had been miserable.

Not a word on the feud was uttered; and the pair walked down to the village, where she was exemplary, going into all those more distasteful parts of her duties there, which she sometimes shirked.

And on her return, finding her long-expected letter from Miss M’Kinnon awaiting her, she forgot all offences in her ardour to indoctrinate everybody with the hopes it gave of affording Mrs. Poynsett a change of room, if not even greater variety.  Unfortunately, this eagerness was not met with a corresponding fervour.  There was in the household the acquiescence with long-established invalidism, that sometimes settles down and makes a newcomer’s innovations unwelcome.  Raymond had spoken to the old doctor, who had been timid and discouraging; Susan resented the implication that the utmost had not been done for her dear mistress; and Mrs. Poynsett herself, though warmly grateful for Rosamond’s affection, was not only nervously unwilling to try experiments, but had an instinctive perception that there was one daughter-in-law to whom her increased locomotion would scarcely be welcome, and by no means wished to make this distaste evident to Raymond.  Cecil would not have been so strong against the risk and imprudence, if her wishes had been the other way.  Moreover, she had been warned off from interference with the Rector’s wife in the village, and she did not relish Rosamond’s making suggestions as to her province, as she considered the house—above all, when she viewed that lady as in a state of disgrace.  It was nothing less than effrontery; and Cecil became stiffer and colder than ever.  She demanded of her mother-in-law whether there had been any promise of amendment.

“Oh!  Julius will see to all that,” said Mrs. Poynsett.

“It is a woman’s question,” returned Cecil.

“Not entirely.”

“Fancy a clergyman’s wife!  It Mrs. Venn had appeared in that way at Dunstone!”

“You would have left it to Mr. Venn!  My dear, the less said the sooner mended.”

Cecil was silenced, but shocked, for she was far too young and inexperienced to understand that indecorous customs complied with as a matter of course, do not necessarily denote lack of innate modesty—far less, how they could be confounded with home allegiance; and as to Anne, poor Rosamond was, in her eyes, only too like the ladies who impeded Christiana on her outset.

So her ladyship retreated into languid sleepy dignity towards both her sisters-in-law; and on Monday evening showed herself, for a moment, more decolletée, if possible, than before.  Mrs. Poynsett feared lest Julius were weak in this matter; but at night she had a visit from him.

“Mother,” he said, “it will not happen again.  Say no more.”

“I am only too thankful.”

“What do you think settled it?  No less than Lady Tyrrell’s admiration.”

“What could she have said?”

“I can’t make out.  Rose was far too indignant to be comprehensible, when she told me on the way home; but there was something about adopting the becoming, and a repetition of—of some insolent praise.”  And his mother felt his quiver of suppressed wrath.  “If Rose had been what that woman took her for, she would have been delighted,” he continued; “but—”

“It was horrible to her!” said his mother.  “And to you.  Yes, I knew it would right itself, and I am glad nothing passed about it between us.”

“So am I; she quite separates you from Cecil and Anne, and indeed all her anger is with Lady Tyrrell.  She will have it there was malice in inciting her to shock old friends and annoy you—a sort of attempt to sympathize her into opposition.”

“Which had a contrary effect upon a generous nature.”

“Exactly!  She thinks nothing too bad for that woman, and declares she is a serpent.”

“That’s dear Rosamond’s anger; but I imagine that when I occur to Camilla’s mind, it is as the obstructive old hag, who once stood in her way; and so, without any formed designs, whatever she says of me is coloured by that view.”

“Quite possible; and I am afraid the sister is just such another.  She seems quite to belong to Mrs. Duncombe’s set.  I sat next her at dinner, and tried to talk to her, but she would only listen to that young Strangeways.”

“Strangeways!  I wonder if that is Susan Lorimer’s son?”

“Probably, for his Christian name is Lorimer.”

“I knew her rather well as a girl.  She was old Lord Lorimer’s youngest daughter, and we used to walk in the Square gardens together; but I did not see much of her after I married; and after a good while, she married a man who had made a great fortune by mining.  I wonder what her son is like?”

“He must be the man, for he is said to be the millionaire of the regiment.  Just the match that Lady Tyrrell would like.”

“Ah! that’s well,” said Mrs. Poynsett.

“From your point of view,” said Julius, smiling.

“If he will only speak out before it has had time to go deep with Frank!”