“Your relationship is a very beautiful one,” said Bertha thoughtfully.
“Oh, my dear, it is!” cried Lady Argent very simply. “I often wonder what I’ve done to deserve a son like Ludovic, when I see how dreadfully other people are worried by their children.”
She coloured suddenly at the allusion, and then hurried on. “It’s not because I’ve brought him up beautifully or anything of that sort, either. I never could have theories, though I bought hundreds of little books—from the very first day that I knew I was going to have a baby. But I always forgot, and then dear Fergus, who was nothing if not determined—so very Scotch, you know, dear—used to say that little books were all rubbish, and if I wanted to know how to bring up a child, Solomon had said all there was to be said upon the subject. Not that he would ever have laid a finger upon Ludovic himself, you know. The only time the poor darling was ever punished, when he was about six years old, I had to do it myself, with a bedroom slipper. And I cried so dreadfully that Ludovic said in the middle of it: ‘It’s all right, mummy, don’t cry, you’re hardly hurting me at all.’ So touching, I always thought.”
“I sometimes think that bringing up hasn’t anything at all to do with it,” said Bertha dryly. “I brought up my own child as well as I knew how, and practically brought up the other two girls as well. And look at my Hazel, Sybil. She hasn’t one thought for me. She came home when her father died and stayed a week—and her husband came for one night. She was sweet enough and affectionate enough—Hazel’s always been that—but do you suppose that I didn’t know that the whole of her thoughts were at Marleswood, with Guy and the babies, after the first day or two were over? Perhaps it’s natural—but it’s very bitter, Sybil. I don’t ask for impossibilities—I couldn’t have lived with them, and I should never wish to—but they never even suggested it.”
Lady Argent said nothing at all, and took Bertha’s hand into hers.
“It’s the fuss over her marriage that she’s never forgotten,” said Bertha bitterly, “and yet God knows she can afford to. She’s taken her own way, and is happy in it—and her father and I forgave her long ago, if she wanted forgiveness, for her self-will and disobedience.”
There was a long silence.
“Well,” said Bertha at last, “Rosamund is the only one who has come back to the old nest after all. Hazel’s gone right away from me—I know that well enough, in spite of all her loving letters—and won’t ever come back. Little Francie took her own way and followed a will-o’-the-wisp that she thought was the Star in the East, and I tell you, Sybil, that before she’d been in that place six months she was just as remote and far away from us as though she’d been in another world. Why, her very language wasn’t ours any longer—her whole scale of values had shifted.... Someone who saw her once after she had entered told me it was like talking to someone with a thick wall of impenetrable glass all round. You could see her—but you could never get near ... never be in touch again....”
“You are nearer now, perhaps,” softly said Lady Argent.
“Who knows? But the child that’s come back to me is Rosamund. And I shan’t fail her, Sybil.”