Mother’s knock came again, more peremptory than before, and we had to tear ourselves apart. Tom got his hat and went out by the window, a sadder man than he had been when he came, poor fellow; and I opened the door and flounced past mother, with flashing eyes and my nose in the air, and, regaining the shelter of my own chamber, flung myself on my bed, and cried as if my heart would break.
CHAPTER VI.
TOM SMITH’S FAMILY DIAMONDS.
I have often felt very sorry, and very much ashamed of myself, when I have thought of the way I treated my father and mother—particularly mother—at this time. I seldom spoke to either of them; and when I did, without being exactly impertinent, I contrived to frame my remarks in as unpleasant a form as possible, so that they might get no satisfaction out of them. I showed them no tender observances, beyond the regulation kiss morning and night, into which I infused as much indifference and formality as I decently could. I sat at table during meals with my head poised proudly in the air, and studiously refrained from smiling when father made his little jokes, and from gratifying mother by the slightest appearance of interest when she chattered of her English preparations and plans. I was too proud to be pettish, and tell her that I wished, as Caddy Jellaby did about America, that England was dead, which would have expressed my sentiments clearly in a simple form; but by a disparaging silence, or an implied disbelief in the infallible accuracy of her memory, or an ostentatious display of colonial prejudices, I did what in me lay, with considerable ingenuity, to take the flavour out of all her pleasant anticipations. They knew what it meant as well as I did, and they bore it with a patient gentleness that I do not now like to think of. Only when my ill-temper betrayed me into ill-manners, mother brought me to my senses with her customary directness; but they took all my covert slights with such a delicate forbearance that they would not even let me see that they noticed them. What hurt them most, I am sure, was my refusal to be talked to and reasoned with respecting the condition of my love affairs. Mother made several efforts to open the subject, and I always stubbornly declined to respond to them. I made her see that I expected no true sympathy from parents who could treat their only child in such a cruel fashion; and that since it would be impossible to understand one another’s feelings, the fewer confidences we indulged in the better. When she gave me work to do, I did not sew with her in our little morning-room as usual, but carried my basket and materials into my bedroom, and locked myself in to do it there. When either of them asked me to play to them after dinner, I went at once to the piano, and plodded through all my pieces as they came till they told me to stop, as if they were so many five-finger exercises. I was dearly fond of music, and I played well, with a poetic appreciation of the subtleties of sweet sounds; but now I carefully eliminated every trace of feeling or sympathy from the tender passages that my répertoire was full of, and laid no more emphasis or expression upon them than if I were a machine. I petted and fondled Spring with absurd extravagance, until the poor dog’s head was quite turned—letting him paw me over as he liked, and lick my face, and grovel on the skirts of my best dresses—by way of giving my parents to understand that, if no one else cared about me, here, at least, I had one true friend.
Poor father and mother! If they had done their duty in the matter, as I feel sure was the case, they had to be satisfied with virtue for its own reward. It was all the reward they got. For, besides this difference amongst ourselves, there sprang up a coolness with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Of course these old people considered (and a perfect right they had to do so) that there was no one in the world to compare with their son; and, of course, they felt it a great indignity that my parents had not shown themselves overwhelmed with delight at getting the chance of such a husband for a little chit like me. They were both too well-bred to express this sentiment, either by speech or manner; but they entertained it cordially all the same.
The first outward change occurred on Sunday, when we all met at church again, after that long, empty, wretched week. The Smiths arrived there first on this occasion; the old people were in their places, and Tom, of course, was in the choir. When I saw him there, on entering the porch at mother’s heels (and our eyes met at once in an intense and solemn look of welcome), I took a sudden resolution to follow my parents up the aisle, and seat myself demurely in the family pew beside them. I was quite sure they did not wish me to leave the choir because Tom was there; on the contrary, it would be very repugnant to mother’s delicacy to make such a public demonstration. But it was highly gratifying to me to show them that I supposed, as a matter of course, that I was to keep as far away from him as space permitted. It made them look like tyrants, and me like an interesting martyr, to the whole Smith family, if to no one else; and of course the villagers found a topic for gossip and speculation in such a mysterious departure from our established habits. When we went out to the buggies, father shook hands with Tom cordially, and with his old friends, and then, with visible embarrassment, but ostentatious warmth, he offered the stereotyped invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
The old lady, with her little figure, and her delicate face that was like a carving in ivory, received it with the gentle dignity of a dowager empress. “Not to-day, I thank you, Mr. Chamberlayne,” she replied. “We have allowed so many of the servants to have a Sunday out to-day that we are wanted at home to keep house.”
Of course it was a polite excuse, and father knew it. Mother would have accepted it, and said no more, but he could not help blundering on, even to the extent of mentioning Tom by name as included in the invitation. Of course he got nothing by it except a distressed feeling that things were somehow all wrong. “I want to have a talk with you,” he urged, in quite a pleading tone; “I have been looking forward to to-day to talk matters all over.”
“Another time, Mr. Chamberlayne, another time,” she replied, with a touch of asperity in her polite, high-pitched tones. She made it evident to him, at last, that she did not intend to accept his hospitality, as heretofore; and he left off pressing her.
Tom, during this time, had been quietly harnessing his horses; and now he handed his mother into her seat, saw his father tucked up beside her, mounted the box, and gathered his reins together. “Good morning, Mrs. Chamberlayne; good-bye, Kitty,” he called in a quiet, clear voice as he raised his hat to us. “Mr. Chamberlayne, I will leave the gates open for you.” And away they drove, and were soon out of sight.