She was rather young, and rather pretty; and there really was not so much to be said against the match, except by Mr. Carteret's servants, who naturally did not like it. They liked it still less when the new mistress of the establishment, emulating the proverbial new broom, swept them all away, and replaced them by domestics of her own selection.
The novel state of things was not a happy condition for Mr. Carteret. He was a gentle-natured man, indifferent, rather cold, and indolent, except where his particular tastes were concerned; he pursued his own avocations with activity and energy enough, but his easy-going selfishness rendered him a facile victim to a woman who managed him by the simple and effectual expedient of letting him have his own way undisturbed, in one direction,--that one the most important to him,--and never consulting his opinion or his wishes in any other respect whatever.
Mr. Carteret might spend time and money on "specimens," on books, and on visits to naturalists and museums; he might fill his own rooms with stuffed monkeys and birds, and indulge in the newest form of cases for impaled insects, and even display very ghastly osteological trophies if he pleased; his wife in nowise molested him. But here his power was arrested--here his freedom stopped. Mrs. Carteret ruled in everything else; and he knew it, and he suffered it "for the sake of a quiet life." He had a conviction that if he tried opposition, his life would not be quiet; therefore he never did try opposition.
The new Mrs. Carteret did not actually ill-treat the children of the former Mrs. Carteret; she only neglected them--neglected them so steadily and systematically that never was she betrayed into accidentally taking them, their interests or their pleasure, into consideration in anything she chose to do or to leave undone.
The servants understood quickly and thoroughly that if they meant to retain their places they must keep the children from annoying Mrs. Carteret, from incommoding her by their presence, or intruding their wants upon her. They understood as distinctly, that if this fact were impressed by any misplaced zeal upon the attention of Mr. Carteret, the imprudence would be as readily repaid by dismissal; and as they liked and valued their places,--for Mrs. Carteret, provided her own comfort was secured in every particular, was a liberal and careless mistress,--the imprudent zeal never was manifested.
Thus the two young children grew up, somehow, anyhow, well-fed and well-clothed, by the care of servants; but in every particular, apart from their mere animal wants, utterly neglected. People talked about it, of course; and just at first the neglect of her husband's children threatened to be a little detrimental to the popularity which Mrs. Carteret ardently desired to attain. But she gave pleasant garden-parties, at which neither husband nor children "showed:" she dressed very well; she was very kind to the young ladies of the neighbourhood who were still on their preferment; her well-trained household were discreetly silent; and she had no children of her own.
This last was readily accepted as a very valid excuse; no one thought of the total absence of wifely sympathy and womanly tenderness which the argument conveyed. Mrs. Carteret could not be expected to care about children--no one really did who had not children of their own "to arouse the instinct," as a foolish female, who fancied the phrase sounded philosophical, remarked. So the neighbourhood consented to forget Mr. Carteret's children, and that contemplative gentleman consented to remember them very imperfectly, and things were very comfortable at Chayleigh for some years.
But Haldane and Margaret Carteret grew older with those years; the little children, who had been easily stowed away in a nursery and a playroom,--judiciously distant from drawing-room, boudoir, and study,--were no longer of an age to be so disposed of. The boy must either be sent to school or have a tutor,--he and his sister had passed beyond the rule of the nursery governess,--the girl's education must be attended to.
The latter case was especially disagreeable to Mrs. Carteret. It forced upon her attention the fact that she was no longer in the first bloom of her youth. A rather young and rather pretty stepmother is capable of being made interesting, if the situation be judiciously treated; but Mrs. Carteret had never treated it judiciously, and now it could not avail.
She had nearly exhausted her rôle of young matronhood at thirty-seven, and Margaret was then twelve years old. True, there would be a revival of its material pleasures, its gaieties and dissipations, when Margaret should be "brought out:" but Mrs. Carteret found feeble consolation in the anticipation of the pleasures and importance of chaperonage. They can only be reflected at the best; and Mrs. Carteret cared little to shine with a borrowed light.