“I am only eighteen. When I am forty I could have a grandchild.”
“Nonsense. Husbands should always be older than their wives. They are then ready to settle down, and are capable of advising giddy young things like yourself. You may not feel any silly romantic love for him—I sincerely hope that you will not—but you will be a faithful and devoted wife, and as obedient to him as you have been to me.”
“I don’t mind obeying him if he is as dear as you are. Maybe he is, for you looked so much sterner than all the other mothers last night, and I am sure that not one of them is so kind. Has he some babies?”
“What?” Mrs. Edis almost dropped her fork.
“I’d like a few. Fanny is such a darling. I liked him less than any of the men I danced with, but if he has a castle, and would bring me to see you every year, and would let me run about as you do, and read a lot of books, and give me a lot of babies, I shouldn’t mind him so much.”
Mrs. Edis turned cold. For the first time she recognized the abysmal depths of her daughter’s ignorance. It was a subject to which she had never, indeed, given a thought. A governess had always been at the child’s heels. Julia had been brought up as she had been brought up herself, and she belonged to the school of dames to whom the enlightenment of youth was a monstrous indelicacy. Moreover, she was old enough to look back upon the material side of marriage as an automatic submission to the race. Women had a certain destiny to fulfil, and the whole matter should be dismissed at that. Nevertheless, as she looked at that personification of delicate and trusting innocence, she felt a sudden and violent hatred of men, a keen longing that this perfect flower could go to her high destiny undefiled, and regret that she must not only travel the appointed road, but set out unprepared. She dimly recalled her own wedding and that she had hated her husband until kindly Time had made him one of the facts of existence. To warn the child was beyond her, but she made up her mind to postpone the ultimate moment as long as possible.
“You will have everything you want,” she said. “And as he cannot obtain leave of absence while away on duty, you will merely become engaged to him—no—” she remembered her planets; “you are to marry at once, but you will go to England by the Royal Mail, and have ample time to become accustomed to the change. Mrs. Higgins is going to England very shortly. She will take you, and if Mr. France is not there—his squadron goes to South America—you can stay with Maria until he arrives. That will give you time to buy some pretty clothes, and become accustomed to the idea of your—new position in life.”
“Will my clothes come from Paris?”
“No doubt. I have a hundred pounds in the bank and you are welcome to them.”
“A hundred pounds! I shall have a hundred frocks, one of every color that will go with my hair, and the rest white.”