The Young Step-Mother Part 37

Albinia might well be very happy! It was her moment of triumph, and whatever might be her fears for the future, and uneasiness at Sophy's discontent, nothing could take away the pleasure of finding herself deliberately preferred to the study.

Sophy did not fail to make another protest, and when told that 'it was not solely on her account,' the shame of having fancied herself so important, rendered her ill-humour still more painful and deplorable. It was vain to consult her about the arrangements, she would not care about anything, except that by some remarkable effect of her perverse condition, she had been seized with a penchant for maize colour and blue for the bridesmaids, and was deeply offended when Albinia represented that they would look like a procession of macaws, and her aunt declared that Sophy herself would be the most sacrificed by such colours. She made herself so grim that Maria broke up the consultation by saying good-humouredly, 'Yes, we will settle it when Lucy comes home.'

'Yes,' muttered Sophy, 'Lucy is ready for any sort of nonsense.'

Mr. and Mrs. Kendal went to Woodside to meet Lucy, hoping that solitude would be beneficial. Albinia grieved at the manifestations of these, her sullen fits, if only because they made Lucy feel herself superior. In truth, Lucy was superior in temper, amiability, and all the qualities that smooth the course of life, and it was very pleasant to greet her pretty bright face, so full of animation.

'Dear grandmamma going to live with us? Oh, how nice! I can always take care of her when you are busy, mamma.'

That accommodating spirit was absolute refreshment, and long before Albinia reached home the task of keeping the household contented seemed many degrees easier.

A grand wedding was 'expected,' so all the Bayford flys were bespoken three deep, a cake was ordered from Gunter, and so many invitations sent out, that Albinia speculated how all were to come alive out of the little dining-room.

And Mr. Kendal the presiding gentleman!

He had hardly seemed aware of his impending fate till the last evening, when, as the family were separating at night, he sighed disconsolately, and said, 'I am as bad as you are, Sophy.'

It awoke her first comfortable smile.

Experience had, however, shown him that such occasions might be survived, and he was less to be pitied than his daughter, who felt as if she and her great brown face would be the mark of all beholders. Poor Sophy! all scenes were to her like daguerreotypes in a bad light, she saw nothing but herself distorted!

And yet she was glad that the period of antic.i.p.ation had consumed itself and its own horrors, and found herself not insensible to the excitement of the occasion. Lucy was joyous beyond description, looking very pretty, and solicitously decorating her sister, while both bestowed the utmost rapture on their step-mother's appearance.

Having learnt at last what Bayford esteemed a compliment, she had commissioned her London aunts to send her what she called 'an unexceptionable garment,' and so well did they fulfil their orders, that not only did her little son scream, 'Mamma, pretty, pretty!' and Gilbert stand transfixed with admiration, but it called forth Mr. Kendal's first personal remark, 'Albinia, you look remarkably well;' and Mrs. Meadows reckoned among the honours done to her Maria, that Mrs. Kendal wore a beautiful silk dress, and a lace bonnet, sent down on purpose from London!

Maria Meadows made a very nice bride, leaning on her brother-in-law, and not more agitated than became her well. The haggard restless look had long been gone, repose had taken away the lean sharpness of countenance, the really pretty features had fair play, and she was astonis.h.i.+ngly like her niece Lucy, and did not look much older. Her bridegroom was so beaming and benignant, that it might fairly be hoped that even if force of habit should bring back fretfulness, he had a stock of happiness sufficient for both. The chairs were jammed so tight round the table, that it was by a desperate struggle that people took their seats, and Mr. Dusautoy's conversation was a series of apologies for being unable to keep his elbows out of his neighbours' way while carving, and poor Sophy, whose back was not two feet from the fire, was soon obliged to retreat. She had gained the door before any one perceived her, and then her brother and sister both followed; Albinia was obliged to leave her to their care, being in the innermost recesses, where moving was impossible.

There was not much the matter, she only wanted rest, and Gilbert undertook to see her safely home.

'I shall be heartily glad to get away,' he said. 'There is no breathing in there, and they'll begin talking the most intolerable nonsense presently. Besides, I want to be at home to take baby down to the gate to halloo at the four white horses from the King's Head. Come along, Sophy.'

'Mind you don't make her walk too fast,' said the careful Lucy, 'and take care how you take off your muslin, Sophy, you had better go to the nursery for help.'

Gilbert did not seem inclined to hurry his sister as they came near Madame Belmarche's. He lingered, and presently said, 'Should you be too tired to come in here for a moment? it was an intolerable shame that none of them were asked.'

'Mamma did beg for Genevieve, but there was so little room, and the Drurys did not like it. Mrs. Drury said it would only be giving her a taste for things above her station.'

'Then Mrs. Drury should never come out of the scullery. I am sure she looks as if her station was to black the kettles!' cried Gilbert, with some domestic confusion in his indignation. 'Didn't she look like a housekeeper with her mistress's things on by mistake?'

'She did not look like mamma, certainly,' said Sophy. 'Mamma looked no more aware that she had on those pretty things than if she had been in her old grey--'

'Mamma--yes--Mrs. Drury might try seventy years to look like mamma, or Genevieve either! Put Genevieve into satin or into brown holland, you couldn't help her looking ten times more the lady than Mrs. Drury ever will! But come in, I have got a bit of the cake for them here, and they will like to see you all figged out, as they have missed all the rest of the show. Aunt Maria might have cared for her old mistress!'

Sophy wished to be amiable, and refrained from objecting.

It was a holiday in honour of cette chere eleve of five-and-twenty years since, and the present pupils were from their several homes watching for the first apparition of the four greys from the King's Head, with the eight white satin rosettes at their eight ears.

Madame Belmarche and her daughter were discovered in the parlour, cooking with a stew pan over the fire a concoction which Sophy guessed to be a conserve of the rose-leaves yearly begged of the pupils, which were chiefly useful as serving to be boiled up at any leisure moment, to make a cosmetic for Mademoiselle's complexion. She had diligently used it these forty-five years, but the effect was not encouraging, as brown, wrinkled, with her frizzled front awry, with not stainless white ap.r.o.n, and a long pewter spoon, she turned round to confront the visitors in their wedding finery.

But what Frenchwoman ever was disconcerted? Away went the spoon, forward she sprang, both hands outstretched, and her little black eyes twinkling with pleasure. 'Ah! but this is goodness itself,' said she, in the English wherein she flattered herself no French idiom appeared. 'You are come to let us partic.i.p.ate in your rejoicing. Let me but summon Genevieve, the poor child is at every free moment trying to perfectionnate her music in the school-room.'

Madame Belmarche had arisen to receive the guests with her dignified courtesy and heartfelt felicitations, which were not over when Genevieve tripped in, all freshness and grace, with her neat little collar, and the dainty black ap.r.o.n that so prettily marked her slender waist. One moment, and she had arranged a resting-place for Sophy, and as she understood Gilbert's errand, quickly produced from a corner-cupboard a plate, on which he handed it to the two other ladies, who meanwhile paid their compliments in the most perfect style.

The history of the morning was discussed, and Madame Belmarche described her sister's wedding, and the curiosity which she had shared with the bride for the first sight of 'le futur,' when the two sisters had been brought from their convent for the marriage.

'But how could she get to like him?' cried Sophy.

'My sister was too well brought up a young girl to acknowledge a preference,' replied Madame Belmarche. 'Ah! my dear, you are English; you do not understand these things.'

'No,' said Sophy, 'I can't understand how people can marry without loving. How miserable they must be!'

'On the contrary, my dear, especially if one continued to live with one's mother. It is far better to earn the friends.h.i.+p and esteem of a husband than to see his love grow cold.'

'And was your sister happy?' asked Sophy, abruptly.

'Ah, my dear, never were husband and wife more attached. My brother-in-law joined the army of the Prince de Conde, and never was seen after the day of Valmy; and my sister pined away and died of grief.

My daughter and granddaughter go to the Catholic burying-ground at Hadminster on her fete day, to dress her grave with immortelles.'

Now Sophy knew why the strip of garden grew so many of the grey-leaved, woolly-stemmed, little yellow-and-white everlasting flowers. Good madame began to regret having saddened her on this day of joy.

'Oh! no,' said Sophy, 'I like sad things best.'

'Mais, non, my child, that is not the way to go through life,' said the old lady, affectionately. 'Look at me; how could I have lived had I not always turned to the bright side? Do not think of sorrow, it, is always near enough.'

This conversation had made an impression on Sophy, who took the first opportunity of expressing her indignation at the system of mariages de convenance.

'And, mamma, she said if people began with love, it always grew cold.

Now, has not papa loved you better and better every day?'

Albinia could not be displeased, though it made her blush, and she could not answer such a home push. 'We don't quite mean the same things,' she said evasively. 'Madame is thinking of pa.s.sion independent of esteem or confidence. But, Sophy, this is enough even for a wedding-day. Let us leave it off with our finery, and resume daily life.'

'Only tell me one thing, mamma.'

'Well?'

She paused and brought it out with an effort. It had evidently occupied her for a long time. 'Mamma, must not every one with feeling be in love once in their life?'

'Well done, reserve!' thought Albinia--'but she is only a child, after all; not a blush, only those great eyes seeming ready to devour my answer. What ought it to be? Whatever it is, she will brood on it till her time comes. I must begin, or I shall grow nervous: "Dear Sophy, these are not things good to think upon. There is quite enough to occupy a Christian woman's heart and soul without that--no need for her feelings to shrivel up for want of exercise. No, I don't believe in the pa.s.sion once in the life being a fate, and pray don't you, my Sophy, or you may make yourself very silly, or very unhappy, or both."'

Sophy drew up her head, and her brown skin glowed. Albinia feared that she had said the wrong thing, and affronted her, but it was all working in the dark.

At any rate the sullenness was dissipated, and there were no tokens of a recurrence. Sophy set herself to find ways of making amends for the past, and as soon as she had begun to do little services for grandmamma, she seemed to have forgotten her gloomy antic.i.p.ations, even while some of them were partly realized. For as it would be more than justice to human nature to say that Mrs. Meadows's residence at Willow Lawn was a perfect success, so it would be less than justice to call it a failure.

To put the darker side first. Grandmamma's interest in life was to know the proceedings of the whole household, and comment on each. Now Albinia could endure housewifely advice, some espionage on her servants, and even counsel about her child; but she could not away with the anxiety that would never leave Sophy alone, tried to force her sociability, and regretted all extra studies, unable to perceive the delicate treatment her disposition needed. And Sophy, in the intolerance of early girlhood, was wretched at hearing poor grandmamma's petty views, and narrow, ignorant prejudices. She might resolve to be filial and agreeable, but too often found herself just achieving a moody, disgusted silence, or else bursting out with some true but unbecoming reproof.

On the whole, all did well. Mrs. Meadows was happy; she enjoyed the animation of the larger party, liked their cheerful faces, grew fond of Maurice, and daily more dependent on Lucy and Mrs. Kendal. Probably she had never before had so much of her own way, and her gentle placid nature was left to rest, instead of being constantly worried. Her son-in-law was kind and gracious, though few words pa.s.sed between them, and he gave her a sense of protection. Indeed, his patience and good-humour were exemplary; he never complained even when he was driven from the dining-room by the table-cloth, to find Maurice rioting in the morning-room, and a music lesson in the drawing-room, or still worse, when he heard the Drurys everywhere; and he probably would have submitted quietly for the rest of his life, had not Albinia insisted on bringing forward the plan of building.

When Captain and Mrs. Pringle returned to Bayford to take leave, they found grandmamma so thoroughly at home, that Maria could find no words to express her grat.i.tude. Maria herself could hardly have been recognised, she had grown so like her husband in look and manner! If her sentences did not always come to their legitimate development, they no longer seemed blown away by a frosty wind, but pushed aside by fresh kindly impulses, and her pride in the Captain, and the rest in his support, had set her at peace with all the world and with herself. A comfortable, comely, happy matron was she, and even her few weeks beyond the precincts of Bayford had done something to enlarge her mind.