“For Chatty? I beg your pardon, my dear. You are much wiser than I am; but in the present case I think Chatty’s mother is sufficient for all needs.”
“That was always your way, mamma, to take one up at a word without thinking. Don’t you remark Chatty, how awfully quiet she is? Eustace remarked it the very first day. He is very quick to see a thing, and he has a lot of sisters of his own. He said to me, Either Chatty has had a disappointment or she is just bored to death staying at home. I think very likely it is my marriage that has done it, for of course there could have been no disappointment,” Minnie added calmly. “Seeing both me and Theo happy, she naturally asks herself, Am I always to sit here like an old person with mamma?”
Mrs. Warrender felt the prick, but only smiled. “I don’t think she asks herself that question: but in any case I am afraid she must just be left, however dull it may be, with mamma.”
“Oh, I hope you will be reasonable,” said Minnie, “I hope you will not stand in poor Chatty’s way. It is time she saw somebody, and that people saw her. She is twenty-four. She has not much time to lose, Eustace says.”
“My dear Minnie, I don’t object to what you say about your sister—that is, I allow you have a right to speak: but Eustace is quite a different matter. We will leave him out of the question. What he may think or say about Chatty is of no consequence to me; in short, I think it is very bad taste, if you will allow me to say so—”
“Mamma!” Minnie rose up to much more than her full height, which was by no means great. “Is it possible that you would teach your own daughter to disregard what her husband says?”
The righteous indignation, the lofty tone, the moral superiority of Minnie’s attitude gave her mother a kind of painful amusement. She said nothing, but went to the writing-table at the other side of the room. Everything was very peaceful around and about, no possibility of any real disturbance in the calm well-being of the family so far as any ordinary eye could see: Theo gone with his bride into a sphere a little above that which belonged to him by nature; Minnie with her husband in all the proud consciousness of virtuous bliss; Chatty quiet and gentle among her flowers; a soft atmosphere of sunshine and prosperity, shaded by blinds at the windows, by little diversities and contrarieties in the spirit, from being excessive and dazzling, was all about. In the midst of the calm Minnie’s little theories of the new-made wife made a diverting incident in the foreground. Mrs. Warrender looked at her across the writing-table, with a smile in her eyes.
“I knew,” cried Minnie, “that you had many ways of thinking I did not go in with—but to throw any doubt upon a woman’s duty to her husband! Oh, mamma, that is what I never expected. Eustace is of course the first in all the world to me, what he says is always of consequence. He is not one to say a word that he has not weighed, and if he takes an interest in his sister-in-law, it is because he thinks it his duty to me.”
“That is all very well, my dear,” said Mrs. Warrender, with some impatience, “and no doubt it is a great matter for Chatty to have a sister so correct as yourself, and a brother-in-law to take an interest in her. But as long as I live I am the first authority about Chatty, and Eustace is not the first in the world to me. Chatty—”
“Were you calling me, mamma?”
Chatty was coming in with a tall vase of flowers held in both hands. The great campanulas, with their lavish, magnificent bells, flung up a flowery hedge between her face and the eyes of the others. It was not that she had anything to conceal, but undeniably, Chatty felt herself on a lower level of being, subdued by Minnie’s presence. There is often in young married persons a pride in their new happiness, an ostentation of superiority in their twofold existence, which is apt to produce this effect upon the spectators. Minnie and her husband stood between the two ladies, neither of whom possessed husbands, as the possessors of conscious greatness stand between those who have fallen and those who have never attained. And Chatty, who had no confidence to give, whose little story was all locked in her own bosom, had been fretted by her sister’s questions, and by Mr. Eustace Thynne’s repeated references to the fact that she “looked pale.”
“No, my dear. We were talking of you, that was all. Minnie is anxious that you should see—a little more of the world.”
“Mamma, be correct at least. I said that it would be a duty for myself if I had any opportunity, and for Frances—”
“Do you mean Lady Markland?”
“Well, she is Frances, I hope, to her husband’s sisters. I said it was Frances’ duty, now that she is going into society, to take you about and introduce you to people. A little while ago,” said Minnie with dignity, “mamma was all for gadding about; and now she finds fault when I say the simplest things, all because I said that Eustace—of course Eustace takes an interest in Chatty: next to his own sisters of course he naturally takes an interest in you.”
Chatty placed her tall vase in the corner which she had chosen for it, in silence. She expressed no thanks for the interest Eustace took in her. Neither did Mrs. Warrender say anything further. The chill of this ingratitude had upon Minnie a
