“Oh, leave it all to me,” replied her mother. “I will manage him into it. Never tell a man anything, my dove, if thou wouldst have him do it. Men are such obstinate, perverse creatures, that as often as not they will just go the other way out of sheer wilfulness. Thou must always contrive to manage them into it.”
Margaret, who had inherited her father’s honesty with her mother’s amiability, was rather puzzled by this counsel.
“But how do you manage them?” said she.
“There is an art in that, my dear. It takes brains. Different men require very different kinds of management. Now thy father is one who will generally consent to a thing when it is done, though he would not if it were suggested to him at first. He rather likes his own way; still, he is very good when he is well managed,”—for instance after instance came floating back to the wife’s mind, in which he had against his own judgment given way to her. “So that is the way to manage him. Now our Lord King Henry requires entirely different handling.”
That was true enough. While Earl Hubert always had a will of his own, and knew what it was (though he did not always get it), King Henry had no will, and never knew what it was until somebody else told him.
“I am afraid, Lady, I don’t understand the management of men,” said Margaret, with a little laugh and blush.
“Thou wilt learn in time, my dear. Thou art rather too fond of saying all thou meanest. That is not wise—for a woman. Of course a man ought to tell his wife every thing. But there is no need for a wife always to be chattering to her husband: she must have her little secrets, and he ought to respect them. Now, as to Sir Richard, I can see as well as possible the kind of management he will require; thou must quietly suggest ideas to him, gently and diffidently, as if thou wert desirous of his opinion: but whenever he takes them up, mind and always let him think he is getting his own way. He has a strong will, against which a foolish woman would just run full tilt, and spoil every thing. A wise one will quietly get her own way, and let him fancy he has got his. That is thy work, Magot.”
Margaret shook her bright head with a laugh. Such work as that was not at all in her line.
It took only a day for the girls to discover that the Belasez who had come back to them in October was not the Belasez who had gone away from them at Whitsuntide. She seemed almost a different being. Quite as amiable, as patient, as refined, as before, there was something about her which they instantly perceived, but to which they found it hard to give a name. It was not exactly any one thing. It was not sadness, for at times she seemed more bright and lively than they remembered her of old: it was not ill-temper, for her patience was proof against any amount of teasing. But her moods were far more variable than they used to be. A short time after she had been playing with little Marie, all smiles and sunshine, they would see tears rush to her eyes, which she seemed anxious to conceal. And at times there was an expression of distress and perplexity in her face, evidently not caused by any intricacy in the pattern she was working.
Indirect questions produced none but evasive answers. Each of the girls had her own idea as to the solution of the enigma. Margaret, very naturally, pronounced Belasez in love. Eva, one of whose sisters had been recently ill, thought she was anxious about her brother. Marie suggested that too much damson tart might be a satisfactory explanation,—that having been the state of things with herself a few days before. Hawise, who governed her life by a pair of moral compasses, was of opinion that Belasez thought it proper to look sorrowful in her circumstances, and therefore did so except in an emergency. Doucebelle alone was silent: but her private thought was that no one of the four had come near the truth.