Chapter Twenty Five.
Christmas came and brought with it Edward Morgan’s gift to his fiancée, a rope of pearls, so beautiful and costly that Prudence, on taking the shining thing from its bed of velvet, and holding it in her hands, was moved with a sense of remorse at the inadequacy of the return she was making this man, who showered gifts upon her in token of his love. She did not want his presents; they were an embarrassment and a distress.
The thought of wearing the pearls, as in the letter which accompanied them he requested her to do, on Christmas night, was distasteful to her on account of the continuous flow of witticism she would be forced to meet from William, who already had revealed a new inventiveness on presenting the registered package to her, and had manifested open curiosity as to its contents, which she had failed to gratify. And she dreaded the cold criticism of Bobby’s appraising eye. Bobby would possibly refrain from verbal comment, but his face would express the more.
She locked the pearls away and decided that she would show them to no one; she would ignore the request that came with them. In any case they were too valuable to wear at a quiet dinner at home, at which the only guests would be Matilda and her husband, who, still in uncertainty as to his living, waited on in Wortheton in hopeful expectation. To wear the pearls in Ernest’s presence, and suffer William’s sly pleasantries unmoved, was more than she felt equal to. Ernest, through the medium of his wife, had expressed amazement at her engagement, which he attributed to worldly considerations.
“She is incapable of appreciating the seriousness of marriage,” he had told Matilda. “Her mind is light and inclines to frivolity, and material advantages.”
That his own inclination had been towards a comfortable income, was a point he was apt to overlook.
Prudence found some difficulty in writing a sufficiently appreciative acknowledgment of her lover’s gift. She hated the necessity for expressing a pleasure which she did not feel.
“Your present is much too beautiful,” she wrote. “I don’t know how to thank you. I am overpowered. You give such wonderful things...”
She added nothing about locking the pearls away, but left it to his imagination to picture her, as he had said he would do, shining in all her girlish beauty with his pearls about her throat. She determined to take them with her to Morningside when she went in April. If he wished to see her wearing pearls, she would gratify him then.
The visit to Morningside hung over her like a nightmare. She was not allowed to forget it; Mr Morgan continually referred to it in his letters. He was having the whole place re-decorated for her; and he wrote consulting her preference in the matter of wall-papers, and her taste in tapestries. The furnishing of the house was Victorian; and he feared she might consider it a little heavy and inartistic. He wanted her to express her wishes in regard to furniture and other matters. But Prudence, taking alarm at the thought of this responsibility, flung the onus of everything on to him, and insisted that the furniture which had sufficed hitherto would assuredly serve for her needs. She did not want anything changed. This proved disappointing to him. He would have liked her to show a greater interest in the home which was to be hers. Her indifference chilled his enthusiasm in the plans he was making for her pleasure; and the arrangements were left more and more in the entirely capable hands of the decorator. “We can alter things later,” he told himself. “And Prudence can buy any new stuff she wants.”
The agreeable prospect of shopping with her compensated for the earlier disappointment. It would be so much pleasanter to choose things together.
When she first beheld Morningside Prudence thought it the ugliest house she had ever been in; but later, when better acquainted with its solid splendour, she decided that it had possibilities, and was really a nice house made to look ugly. There was a dingy serviceable effect about everything.
She arrived on a fine evening in April, soft and balmy, following a day of intermittent showers and blazing sunshine. Mr Morgan accompanied her. He had spent the week-end at Wortheton, and made the journey back with her, as had been arranged. His manner during the journey was kindly and attentive. He displayed great consideration for her comfort, and, because she enjoyed fresh air, lowered one window a couple of inches and buttoned his coat from fear of the draught. The absence of lover-like attentions, which he had sufficient perception to see disturbed her, reassured Prudence, and placed their relations on an easier footing.
When she arrived at his home and was conducted to the drawing-room to be received by his mother, she was conscious of a new feeling in regard to him; he inspired her with a sense of support. She turned to him instinctively as to some one reliable and familiar; and was grateful to him when he slipped his hand within her arm and kept it there while they advanced together down the long room to where old Mrs Morgan, stout and severe of feature, sat in a big chair, quietly observant of her, scrutinising her in the close disconcerting way peculiar to short-sighted people.
“This is the daughter I promised you, mother,” Edward Morgan said.
Mrs Morgan rose slowly and confronted them. She took the girl’s outstretched hand.
“What a child!” she said, and bent forward and kissed Prudence on the cheek.
She was, nor did she hide it altogether successfully, a little disappointed. Edward had prepared her for a young daughter-in-law, but she had not expected to see any one quite so youthful in appearance. Comparing them as they stood side by side, the disparity in age struck her unpleasantly.
“My dear,” she said, “I had not realised you were so young.”
“I don’t think I realised it myself,” Prudence returned, feeling her courage oozing away before the hard scrutiny of those critical eyes, “until to-day. I’ve an unfledged feeling since leaving home. But I’m twenty.”
Twenty! And the man who proposed to make her his wife might, had circumstances so ordained it, have been her father.
“She’ll grow up, mother,” Mr Morgan observed, and pressed the girl’s arm reassuringly. “I must try to equalise matters by growing younger myself.”
But the old lady was not encouraging.
“You won’t succeed, Edward. It’s like planting a bulb the wrong way in the soil; it grows against nature downwards, curves about, and works its way to the surface, crooked. Prudence will have to grow to you; you can’t go backwards.”
He reddened and laughed a little constrainedly.
“I feel as young as I did at twenty,” he said. “Prudence will help to rejuvenate me. I refuse to be discouraged.”
He crossed to the tea-table, poured the girl out a cup of tea, and brought it to her.
“We’ve had a tiring journey,” he said. “I expect you’ll be glad to go to your room and rest. There’s a family gathering to-night—in your honour.” He smiled down into the startled upraised eyes, and added: “Just my brother and his wife. You’ll find Mrs Henry amusing. She’s very eager to meet you.”
“Rose always gushes over new acquaintances,” Mrs Morgan interposed. “She is making plans for Prudence’s entertainment, although I told her that Prudence was coming for the purpose of making our acquaintance, and might prefer to avoid festivities. I think she might have waited to consult her wishes.”
“Oh!” cried Prudence, with a ring of pleasurable excitement in her tones. “But that’s awfully kind of her.”
“You see,” Mr Morgan said, enjoying the sight of her pleasure, and feeling grateful to his sister-in-law for her forethought, “the idea is not amiss. We are out for amusement and agreeable to anything that offers. Rose’s plan is excellent.”
“Rose is glad of any excuse for gaiety,” Mrs Morgan said. “It is ridiculous for a woman of her age, with two big boys, to amuse herself in the undignified manner in which she does. There is to be a dance next week. She says it will introduce Prudence to the neighbourhood. In reality it is an excuse for indulging in a form of exercise which she has outgrown.”
“Do you enjoy dancing, Prudence?” Mr Morgan asked.
Her sparkling eyes answered him.
“Oh! yes,” she murmured eagerly, and was conscious from the expression on Mrs Morgan’s face, of giving offence. “I’ve never been to a dance—a real dance in my life,” she added.
“Too much thought is given to amusement nowadays,” Mrs Morgan observed. “When I was a girl we seldom went to evening parties. Late hours rob young people of their freshness, and these modern dances are very vulgar. Edward dislikes dancing.”
“Oh! once in a way I can put up with that sort of thing,” he interposed quickly. “If Prudence enjoys it, I expect I shall get some pleasure out of the evening.”
Prudence gave him a grateful look, and, in reward for his consideration, remarked:
“It’s fortunate that I brought my pearls. It’s such a splendid opportunity for wearing them. You didn’t prepare me for these festivities.”
“Upon my word,” he returned, laughing, “I never gave it a thought.” He became aware of his mother’s silence, her tight-lipped disapproval, and turned the subject diplomatically. “There’s a busy time ahead for you. We’ve quite a lot of things calling for your attention. And my mother is looking forward to showing you over the house, and letting you into the inner mysteries. She is quite a wonderful housewife.”
“Prudence is probably not domesticated,” Mrs Morgan said. “Girls show no interest in their homes nowadays. Things are left to servants.”
“I’ve never had much chance,” Prudence explained apologetically. “You see, I am the youngest of six daughters. But I’d like to learn.”
Mr Morgan considered her gentle submissiveness very sweet. He was surprised at his mother’s lack of response to this softly-voiced desire; for himself, he felt a strong temptation to kiss the pretty timid face of the speaker, but his natural shyness restrained him from obeying this impulse.
“Six woman are too many in one household,” Mrs Morgan vouchsafed. “Some of you ought to have married.”
“One of us has,” Prudence answered.
“And another is going to,” Mr Morgan put in, with a tentative smile at his fiancée. She laughed softly.
“It suggests the rhyme of the ten little nigger boys,” she said. “Six women in one house; one of them married, and then there were five.”
Later, when Prudence had gone upstairs to her room, Mrs Morgan voiced her opinion of her to her son in a single expressive phrase.
“I am afraid, Edward, that your choice has fallen on a rather frivolous girl.”