“Oh, don’t. I don’t like to hear.”
“But I want to tell you. Look here, Miss Pembury. We are not great friends, you and I. You don’t like me very much, and perhaps I don’t appreciate you properly. My husband doesn’t think I do, I know.”
Rather shocked by this mingled cynicism and honesty, Rhoda was yet interested, fascinated. Lady Sarah could always command any one’s interest and attention when she chose to take the trouble. And as she talked, looking the while as pretty as a picture by Greuze in spite of her recent tears, Rhoda could not help her own heart going out to the wayward creature, who talked so simply, and who seemed so frank.
“But, at any rate, as we’re both women, we ought to be able to understand each other, if we try. I want you to understand me. Not from any wish to make out a case for myself, but because I want some one to know, and to remember afterwards, just what Sir Robert is doing in driving Jack Rotherfield away. He will have to go, of course. Probably Sir Robert will make a pretence of forgiving me for my share in the picture affair, and I shall be allowed to remain here, as an act of distinguished clemency. But I don’t want to remain. If Jack, who is my friend, is sent away, and I am kept here as a sort of prisoner on parole, I might as well die at once. Of what use will my life be to me? If I am not trusted to have my own friends, if I am to find my amusement in Sir Robert’s stuffed birds, why should I take the trouble to live at all?”
“But Sir Robert isn’t so unreasonable. He wants you to be happy, and as he sees that you can’t be happy long at home, he is ready to take you abroad.”
“But I don’t want to go—with him. Oh, don’t look shocked. I’ve only dared to be so candid with you because I’m really quite innocent of anything worse than being bored to death by my own husband. You need not tell me he is good and generous, and all that. I’ve no doubt he is. But I can’t work myself up into enthusiasm about such negative qualities. I want something more piquant, more exciting, in a man than that. If only I’d been allowed to go on in my own way, all would have been right. I wasn’t a very good wife, perhaps, nor an absolutely perfect mother. But I never did anything wrong, or shocking, nothing worse than amuse myself in my own way with my own friends. Now you, with the best intentions, I’m sure, have made that impossible, what can you expect of me? Do you think I shall settle down at once to spectacles and knitting? Do you imagine that Sir Robert will at once find me an ideal companion, say, for a wet day? Oh, no, you know better than that. Well, what do you expect then?”
Rhoda answered with diffidence. Lady Sarah could put her own case well, of course, and it was evident that she quite believed all that she was saying. Rhoda began to doubt, herself, whether the upheaval in the domestic life at the Mill-house would not result in a change for the worse all round, and not for the better.
“Couldn’t you meet Sir Robert ever such a little way?” she suggested timidly.
“How? Just tell me how.”
“Would it really be such an infliction to take a journey with him to a country you have never visited? You would stay at the best hotels, enjoy yourself in your own way, only with your husband looking on, instead of right out of it. I’m sure you could trust him not to interfere with your amusements; all he would ask would be to be your companion, your protector.”