“For all is bright, and beauteous, and clear,
And the meanest thing most precious and dear,
When the magic of love is present—
Love that lends a sweetness and grace
To the humblest spot and the plainest face,
That turns Wilderness Row to Paradise Place,
And Garlick Hill to Mount Pleasant.”—Hood.
Iris had no longer any completely idle days, for she soon found that her godmother expected her in some measure to fill Miss Munnion’s place; she must be ready at Mrs Fotheringham’s beck and call, to read to her, drive with her, and walk with her in the garden. They were none of them difficult duties, and could not in any sense be called hard work. A day at Paradise Court was in this respect still a very different matter from a day in Albert Street; yet sometimes Iris felt a heavy weariness hanging upon her, which was a new way of being tired—quite a different sort of fatigue to anything she had known before, but quite as uncomfortable. Most of all she hated the drives. To sit opposite her godmother in perfect silence in a close stuffy carriage, and be driven along the dusty roads for exactly an hour at exactly the same pace. Not a word spoken, unless Mrs Fotheringham wished the blinds pulled up or down, or a message given to the coachman. Iris longed feverishly sometimes to jump out and run up a hill, or to climb over the gates into the fields they passed on the way. There were such lots of lovely things to gather just now. Dog roses and yellow honeysuckle in the hedges, poppies and tall white daisies in the fields, and waving feathery grasses. But at all these she could only look and long out of the carriage window. She often thought at these times of poor Miss Munnion, and wondered how her sister Diana was, and whether she had been very glad to see her, and most of all she wondered how Miss Munnion could have been so anxious to keep the situation; she must be so very tired of sitting opposite Mrs Fotheringham and looking out of the carriage window.
These reflections were of course kept to herself, and indeed conversation of any kind was forbidden during the drives, but Iris was so used to talking that it was impossible to her to keep silence at other times. By degrees she lost her awe of her godmother, and chattered away to her about that which interested herself—her brothers and sisters, their sayings and doings, and their life at home. Sometimes she found Mrs Fotheringham’s keen dark eyes fixed inquisitively upon her, as though they were studying some curious animal, and sometimes her funniest stories about Dottie or Susie were cut short by a sharp, “That will do, child. Run away.”
But this did not discourage her, and she became so used to her godmother’s manner that it ceased to alarm her, and once she even contradicted her as bluntly as though she had been Max or Clement. Even this had no bad effect, however, for shortly afterwards Mrs Fotheringham remarked:
“It’s a positive relief not to have Miss Munnion here agreeing with everything I say. It’s as fidgeting as a dog that’s always wagging its tail.”
But though she got on better than she could have expected with her godmother, and though Paradise Court was as beautiful and pleasant as ever, Iris’s thoughts were now constantly at Albert Street. Albert Street, which was no doubt still ugly and disagreeable, hot, and glaring, and stuffy, and where even the summer sky looked quite different. Nevertheless there were some very delightful things there, seen from a distance. When anything amused Iris, Max’s freckled face immediately came before her, with its sympathetic grin of enjoyment; when she was sad she felt Susie’s and Dottie’s soft little clinging fingers in her own; when she was dull she heard Clement’s squeaky voice just ready to burst into a giggle at one of Max’s stupid jokes. “It’s a long time since I laughed till I ached,” she said to herself. The peaceful repose of Paradise Court, the silence, which was only broken by a shriek from the parrot, and the murmurous coo of the pigeons outside, was indeed almost too complete. It would be nice to hear the hasty tramp of feet up and down stairs again, or someone shouting “Iris!” from the top of the house. Even the sound of Clement’s one song, “The Ten Little Niggers,” which he performed perpetually and always out of tune, would be pleasant to the ear. It had often made her cross in Albert Street, but now the thought of it was more attractive than the sweetest notes of the nightingales which sung every evening in the garden at Paradise Court.
One afternoon Iris was walking with her godmother in the little walled garden where she had found her on the first evening of her arrival. The tulips were over now, and Mrs Fotheringham’s attention was turned to a certain border which Moore had been planting out under her direction; he had suffered a good deal during the process, for, being a slow thinker, he took some time to understand his mistress’s meaning, which now and then escaped him entirely. Often, however, he was afraid to ask her to repeat an order, because it made her so angry, and in consequence his mistakes were many and frequent, which made her more angry still. This very day she had discovered that he had actually sown the sweet peas in the wrong place.
“The man’s a perfect fool!” she exclaimed in great wrath; “after all the minute directions I gave him about this border. He gets stupider and stupider every day. One would think he had a thousand things to employ his mind, if he’s got a mind, instead of these few simple facts.”
“Perhaps,” said Iris, “he’s been thinking about his baby. It’s been awfully ill. Bronchitis it’s had.”
“His baby!” said Mrs Fotheringham, glaring round at her; “what do you know about his baby?”