“You take away my breath,” said Mrs. Rowland. “I have not the least desire to be taken up by society. If I had, I think what I saw the other day would have been enough to cure me; but I never had the smallest thought—my husband is rich, I suppose, but he does not mean to spend his money so. He means to live—at home—among his own people.”
Evelyn’s voice, which had been quite assured, faltered a little and trembled as she said these last words.
“Among his own people!” said Lady Leighton, with a little shudder. “Do you mean to say——! Now, my dear Evelyn, you must forgive me, for perhaps I am quite wrong. I have heard about Mr. Rowland. I have always heard that he was—that he had been——” Madeline Leighton was a person of great sense. She saw in Evelyn’s naturally mild eyes that look of the dove enraged, which is more alarming as a danger signal than any demonstration on the part of the eagle. She concluded hastily, “A very excellent man, the nicest man in the world.”
“You were rightly informed,” said Mrs. Rowland, somewhat stiffly. “My husband is as good a man as ever lived.”
“But to go and settle among—his own people! perhaps they are not all as good as ever lived. They must be a little different to what you have been used to. Don’t you think you should stipulate for a little freedom? Frank’s people are as good as ever lived, and they are all of course, so to speak, in our own set. But if I were condemned to live with them all the year round, I should die. Evelyn! it is, I assure you, a very serious matter. One should begin with one’s husband seriously, you know. Very good women who always pretend to like everything they are wanted to do, and smother their own inclinations, are a mistake, my dear. They always turn out a mistake. In the first place they are not true any more than you thought me to be the other day. They are cheating, even if it is with the best of motives. And in the end they are always found out. And to pretend to like things you hate is just being as great a humbug as any make-believe in society. Besides, your husband would like it far better if you provided him with a little amusement, and kept his own people off him for part of the year.”
“I don’t think Society would amuse him at all,” said Evelyn, with a laugh. “And besides, he has no people that I know of—so that you need not be frightened for me—except his own children,” she added, with involuntary gravity.
Lady Leighton gave vent to an “O!” which was rounder than the O of Giotto. Horror, amazement, compassion were in it. “He has children!” she said faintly.
“Two—and they, of course, will be my first duty.”
“Girls?”
“A girl and a boy.”
“Oh, you poor thing!” said Lady Leighton, giving her friend an embrace full of sympathy. “I am so sorry for you! I hope they are little things.”
Evelyn felt a little restored to herself when she was encountered with such solemnity. “You have turned all at once into a Tragic Muse,” she said; “you need not be so sorry for me. I am not—sorry for myself.”
“Oh, don’t be a humbug,” said Lady Leighton severely; “of all humbugs a virtuous humbug is the worst. You hate it! I can see it in your eyes.”
“My eyes must be very false if they express any such feeling. To tell the truth,” she added smiling, “I am a little frightened—one can scarcely help being that. I don’t know how they may look upon me. I shouldn’t care to be considered like the stepmother of the fairy tales.”
“Poor Evelyn!” said Lady Leighton. She was so much impressed as to lose that pliant readiness of speech which was one of her great qualities. Madeline’s resources were generally supposed by her friends to be unlimited: she had a suggestion for everything. But in this case she was silenced—for at least a whole minute. Then she resumed, as if throwing off a load.
“You should have the boy sent to Eton, and the girl to a good school. You can’t be expected to take them out of the nursery. And for their sakes, Evelyn, if for nothing else, it is most important that you should know people and take your place in society. It makes all my arguments stronger instead of weaker: you must bring Miss Rowland out—when she grows up.”
Evelyn could not but laugh at the ready advice which always sprang up like a perpetual fountain, in fine independence of circumstances. “Dear Madeline,” she said, “there is only one drawback, which is that they are grown up already. My stepdaughter is eighteen. I don’t suppose she will go to school, if I wished it ever so much—and I have no wish on the subject. It is a great responsibility; but provided they will accept me as their friend——”
“And where have they been brought up? Is she pretty? are they presentable? She must have money, and she will marry, Evelyn; there’s hope in that. But instead of departing from my advice to you on that account, I repeat it with double force. You must bring out a girl of eighteen. She must see the world. You can’t let her marry anybody that may turn up in the country. Take my word for it, Evelyn,” she added solemnly, “if it was necessary before, it is still more necessary now.”
“She may not marry at all—there are many girls who do not.”
“Don’t let us anticipate anything so dreadful,” said the woman of the world. “A stepdaughter who does not marry is too much to look forward to. No, my dear, that is what you must do. You must bring her out well and get her off. Is she pretty? for, of course, she will be rich.”
“I don’t know. I know little about the children. My husband has been in India for a long time. He does not himself know so much of them as he ought.”
A shiver went through Lady Leighton’s elegant toilette. She kissed her friend with great pity. “I will stand by you, dear,” she said, “to the very utmost of my ability. You may be sure that anything I can do to help you;—but put on your bonnet in the meantime I have a list of houses I want you to look at. You can look at them at least—that does no harm; if not for this season, it will be a guide to you for the next. And it is always more or less amusing. After that there are some calls I have to make. Come, Evelyn, I really cannot leave you to mope by yourself here.”
And Evelyn went. She was lonely, and it was a greater distraction after all than buying cabinets in Wardour Street, and looking over even the most lovely old Persian rugs. Looking at houses, especially furnished houses, to be let for the season, is an amusement which many ladies like. It is curious to see the different ideas, the different habits of the people who want to let them, and to contrast the house that is furnished to be let and the house that is furnished to be lived in, which are two different things. Lady Leighton enjoyed the afternoon very much. She pointed out to her friend just how she could arrange the rooms in every house, so that the liveliest hopes were left in the mind of each householder; and by the time they got back to Madeline’s own house to tea, she declared herself too tired to do anything but lie on the sofa, and talk over all they had seen. “It lies between Wilton Place and Chester Street,” she said. “The last is the best house, but then the other is better furnished. That boudoir in Wilton Place is a little gem: or you might make the drawing-room in Chester Street exceedingly pretty with those old things you are always buying. The carpets are very bad, I must allow, but with a few large rugs—and it is such a good situation. Either of them would do. And so cheap!—a mere nothing for millionaires like you.”
Evelyn allowed, not without interest, that the