“Does it annoy you, dear mamma? Why did you not tell me so before?” returned Rose gently, putting away her drawing-apparatus as she spoke. No one would have called Rose Arundel handsome, or even pretty, and yet her face had a charm about it—a charm that lurked in the depths of her dreamy grey eyes, and played about the corners of her mouth when she smiled, and sat like a glory upon her high, smooth forehead. Both she and her mother were clad in the deepest mourning, and the traces of some recent heartfelt sorrow might be discerned in either face. A stranger would have taken them for sisters, rather than for mother and daughter; for there were lines of thought on Rose’s brow which her twenty years scarcely warranted, while Mrs. Arundel, at eight-and-thirty, looked full six years younger, despite her widow’s cap.
“I have been thinking, Rose,” resumed the elder lady, after a short pause, during which she continued pacing the room most assiduously, “I have been thinking that if we were to settle near some large town, I could give lessons in music and singing: my voice is as good as ever it was—listen;” and, seating herself at a small cottage piano, she began to execute some difficult solfeggi in a rich, clear soprano, with a degree of ease and grace which proved her to be a finished singer; and, apparently carried away by the feeling the music had excited, she allowed her voice to flow, as it were unconsciously, into the words of an Italian song, which she continued for some moments, without noticing a look of pain which shot across her daughter’s pale features. At length, suddenly breaking off, she exclaimed in a voice broken with emotion, “Ah! what am I singing?” and, burying her face in her handkerchief, she burst into a flood of tears: it had been her husband’s favourite song.
Recovering herself more quickly than from the violence of her grief might have been expected, she was about to resume her walk, when, observing for the first time the expression of her daughter’s face, she sprang towards her, and placing her arm caressingly round her waist, kissed her tenderly, exclaiming in a tone of the fondest affection, “Rose, my own darling, I have distressed you by my heedlessness, but I forget everything now!” She paused; then added, in a calmer tone, “Really, love, I have been thinking seriously of what I said just now about teaching. If I could but get a sufficient number of pupils, it would be much better than allowing you to go out as governess, for we could live together then; and I know I shall never be able to part with you. Besides, you would be miserable, managing naughty children all day long—throwing away your talents on a set of stupid little wretches,—such drudgery would ennui you to death.”
“And do you think, mamma, that I could be content to live in idleness and allow you to work for my support?” replied Rose, while a faint smile played over her expressive features. “Oh, no! Lewis will try to obtain some appointment: you shall live with him and keep his house, while I go out as governess for a few years; and we must save all we can, until we are rich enough to live together again.”
“And perhaps some day we may be able to come back and take the dear old cottage, if Lewis is very lucky and should make a fortune,” returned Mrs. Arundel. “How shall we be able to bear to leave it!” she added, glancing round the room regretfully.
“How, indeed!” replied Rose, with a sigh; “but it must be done. Lewis will not feel it as we shall—he has been away so long.”
“It seems an age,” resumed Mrs. Arundel, musing. “How old was he when he left Westminster?”
“Sixteen, was he not?” replied Rose.
“And he has been at Bonn three years. Why, Rose, he must be a man by this time!”
“Mr. Frere wrote us word he was the taller of the two by half a head last year, if you recollect,” returned Rose.