“I do not count for much,” said Lady Markland. “I cannot expect you to think much of me, if your own sister, and your brother, and even your mother, as you fear, are against you: but I will not be against you, Chatty. So far as I can I will stand by you, if that will do you any good.”
“Oh yes, it will do me good,” cried Chatty, clasping her hands; “it does me good already to talk to you. You know I am not clever, I don’t go deep down into things,” she added after a moment. “Minnie always said I was on the surface: but I never thought until today, I never thought—I have just been going on, supposing it was all right, that Dick could set it all right. And now it has burst upon me. Perhaps after all mamma will be on my side, and perhaps you will make Theo—” here she paused instinctively, and looked at her sister-in-law, feeling in the haste and rush of her own awakened spirit a sudden insight of which she had not been capable before.
Lady Markland shook her head. She was a little sad, a little overcast, not so assured in her gentle dignity, slightly nervous and restless, which was unlike her. “You must not calculate on that,” she said. “Theo—has his own way of looking at things. It is right he should. We would not wish him to be influenced by—by anyone.”
“But you are not—anyone.”
“No, indeed. I am no one, in that point of view. I am his wife, and ought to take my views from him, not he his from me; and besides,” she said, with a little laugh, “I am, after all, not like an old acqu—not like one he has known all his life, but comparatively new, and a stranger to his ways of thinking—to any of his ways of thinking—and only learning how he will look at this and that; you don’t realise how that operates even when people are married. Theo has very distinct views—which is what he ought to have. The pity is that—I have lived so much alone—I have too. It is a great deal better to be blank,” she said, laughing again. Her laugh was slightly nervous too, and it seemed to be intended for Theo, whose conversation with his mother had now paused, and who was occasionally glancing, not without suspicion, at his wife and sister in the corner. Did she laugh to make him think that there was nothing serious in their talk? She called to him to join them, making room upon the sofa. “Chatty is tired,” she said, “and out of spirits. I want to try and amuse her a little, Theo, before Mrs. Warrender takes her away.”
“Amusement is the last thing we were thinking of,” he said, coming forward with a sort of surly opposition, as if it came natural to him to go against what she said. “My opinion is that she should go down to the country at once, and not show at all in town this season. I don’t think it would be pleasant for any of us. There has been talk enough.”
“There has been no talk that Chatty need care for,” said Lady Markland quietly; “don’t think so, pray don’t think so. Who could say anything of her? People are bad enough in London, but not so bad as that.”
“Nevertheless, mother,” said Theo, “I think you and I understand each other. Chatty and you have been enjoying yourselves abroad. You never cared for town. It would be much better in every sense that you should go home quietly now.”
“We intended nothing else,” said Mrs. Warrender, with a slight irritation, “though I confess I see no reason. But we need not discuss that over again. In the end of the week—”
“But this is only Monday. You cannot have anything to keep you here for days. I think you should go tomorrow. A day’s rest is surely enough.”
“We have some people to see, Theo.”
“If I were you I would see nobody. You will be sure to meet with something unpleasant. Take Chatty home, that is far the best thing you can do. Frances would say the same if she had not that unfortunate desire to please everybody, to say what is agreeable, which makes women so untrustworthy. But my advice is, take Chatty home. In the circumstances it is the only thing to do.”
Chatty rose from where she had been seated by Lady Markland’s side. “Am I to be hidden away?” she said, her pale face flushing nervously. “Have I done anything wrong?”
“How silly to ask such questions. You know well enough what I mean. You have been talked about. My mother has more experience; she can tell you. A girl who has been talked about is always at a disadvantage. She had much better keep quite quiet until the story has all died away.”
“Mother,” cried Chatty, holding out her hands, “take me away then tonight, this moment, from this horrible place, where the people have so little heart and so little sense.”
XLVII
“What was Chatty saying to you? I rely upon your good sense, Frances, not to encourage her in this sentimental folly.”
“Is it sentimental folly? I think it is very true feeling, Theo.”
“Perhaps these are interchangeable terms,” he said, with the angry smile she knew so well; “but without discussing that matter I am determined that this business shall go no farther. A sister of mine waiting for a married man till he shall be divorced! the very thought makes my blood boil.”
“Surely that is an unnecessarily strong statement. The circumstances must be taken into consideration.”
“I will take no circumstances into consideration. It is a thing which must not be. The Cavendishes see it in precisely the same light, and my mother—even my mother begins to hear reason.”
Lady Markland made no reply. They were walking home, as their house was close at hand, a
