CHAPTER XXVI
The small family party had dispersed, and as the days went by without social events, Joseline began seriously and methodically to accustom herself to the routine, and resolute to become at ease in her new life. She was painfully conscious of her ignorance of the ways of people in society. She felt that she shocked Lady Mulgrave ten times a day; and Lady Mulgrave, for all her sweet smiles, had, as she mentally expressed it, “a pick on her.” Yet she was making some progress, and from conversations listened to, she acquired a familiarity with the jargon of her surroundings, and was learning to manipulate just those turns of phrase, best calculated to sustain amiable relations.
Joseline was a great reader, and devoured books. With her, this was not a cultivated taste, but a natural appetite. From books, magazines, and reviews, she was learning with avidity, humbly conscious of her own inferiority, and that her father hoped for her to acquire a polish, and to shine.
When Lady Mulgrave and Tito had departed to Paris she and her father were thrown into one another’s constant society. Innumerable small signs of her affection afforded him a happiness such as he had not known for years. He was becoming reconciled to shocks and to strange expressions, and all the best that was in Lord Mulgrave was brought to the surface. Together the pair walked and drove, explored the estate, and visited the cottagers. The girl’s manner to their inmates was charming, and many of the elder people remembered and recalled her mother.
“I cannot imagine where you have acquired it, but you have a wonderful way with these folk,” exclaimed Lord Mulgrave. “How do you know what is just the right thing to say?”
“It’s like this, you see: although I am so awkward and flurried in fine society, and make such awful mistakes—you remember how I shook hands with the head gamekeeper at Lord Dover’s, and walked out of the room before the Duchess—I am really at home with the poor. I can enter into their feelings, for I have lived with them all my life. They are the same all the world over, only they talk differently.”
“Then in that case you shall be my Lady Bountiful and take on the cottage hospital, the school, and the almshouses. Her ladyship does not care for the people; she never visits them; she says they are uninteresting, grasping, and thankless.”
“Well, some are! They can’t help it. I knew a funny old woman at home; and once, when a lady gave her a nice stout serge, she just whimpered and said, ‘And what about the elegant little grey dress ye had in the spring—where is that?’”
Lord Mulgrave laughed and she resumed: “But, after all, we should not be looking for thanks; some of them have so little, and we have so much.”
“You talk like your mother, my dear. She was always on the side of the poor.”
“Oh, father”—and she blushed vividly—“you make me so happy when you tell me that I am like her in other ways besides looks. Of course I can talk to the people, because I was one of them for so many years. Yet, somehow, these English are different—they are all ladies.”
“Good gracious, Joseline! What do you mean?”
“I’ll explain if I can. Now there is Mrs. Gillson, a widow-woman; I asked her to come up yesterday, and I would find her some warm clothes, but she said, ‘I cannot come to-morrow, for a lady I’ve worked for regular every Wednesday this three years will expect me. I do her washing, and the lady always puts the clothes in soak of a Tuesday, and gives me a hand herself, so I really could not disoblige her!’”
Lord Mulgrave laughed again.
“Now, you see, in Ireland there’s none of that. You are a lady born, or you are not. Irish ladies don’t do washing.”
“As yet; but it will come.”
“That’s true. Some of the quality are very short of money; the Mulligans, of Carlane, have sold all their old silver and pictures, and the young ladies do lace-work for the shops. I liked the lace-work myself, but I hadn’t the time for it. I might do it now, I’m idle.”
“Yes, and you seem to be getting on pretty well, and more at your ease.”
“I’m not so flustered and awkward with you, or with the poor, or Tito; it’s only with Lady Mulgrave and the servants I feel that small, ye might put me in your pocket!”
“You will outgrow that by-and-by.”
“I’m awfully afraid of my maid; she is very nosey with me, and that’s the truth.”
“Then send her away, and get another. You must try and be more self-assured. Do you know that next week you will have to stand alone, for I’m going to the north of England on election business, and will be away a week.”
“Oh, father, couldn’t you take me too? I just love elections!”
“No, my dear—impossible.”
“Oh, I wish you would. I’d adore the election and the speechifying, and the fun. We had one down in Glenveigh; they nearly tore one another to flittergigs.”
“That must have been exciting. I’m afraid I could not promise you anything of that description. It will be rather a good thing to leave you to stand alone and rely on yourself. After I return, I intend to take you over to France to see the Hernoncourts. I have promised that you shall pay them a long visit.”
“I wonder if they will like me?”
“I daresay they will, for you have inherited the Hernoncourts’ face, and disposition.”
“What is their disposition?”
“Gay, vivacious, impulsive, sensitive to kindness or ridicule. There is not much of the Mulgrave in you.”
“Oh, what a pity. Is Dudley more of a Mulgrave?”
“Yes. Do you and he hit it off?”
“Oh, pretty well; he is slow.”
“But sure.”
“Perhaps too sure!”
“What do you mean?”
“He takes much for granted—sometimes I fancy he takes me for granted”—she added with a mischievous smile. “Now, father, let me race Rap to the little white gate, giving me a start. You must hold him.”
“What a child she was!” thought the earl, as he held the struggling dog—a child in some ways; but in others, her sayings were beyond his comprehension.