Hurrying away from the contemplation of this portrait, Bettina turned to its companion. Here she encountered a face and form which were truly all womanly, if by womanliness is meant abject submission and self-effacement. The poor little lady looked patiently hopeless, and her deprecating air seemed the last in the world calculated to hold its own against such a lord. That she had not done so—of her own full surrender of herself, in mind and soul and body—the picture seemed a plain representation.
“Poor woman! She looks as if she had suffered,” said Bettina.
“Oh yes, my lady,” Parlett answered, as if divided between the inclination to talk and the duty to be silent.
“She was unhappy, then?” said Bettina. “You need not hesitate to answer. His lordship has told me what a trusted servant of the family you are, and I shall treat you as such. You need not fear to speak to me quite freely.”
“Yes, my lady, she had a great deal of sadness in her life,” went on the housekeeper, thus encouraged. “She had six daughters before she had a son, and this was naturally a disappointment to his lordship. One after the other these children died, which grieved her ladyship sorely, for she was a very devoted mother. His lordship had never noticed them much, being angry at not having an heir, and this made my lady all the fonder of them. She had little constitution herself, and the children were sickly. At last, however, an heir was born, but her ladyship died at his birth. It seemed a pity, my lady, did it not? For his lordship was greatly pleased with the heir, and, of course, my lady would have been much happier after that.”
Bettina did not answer. The evident reasonableness of the father’s position, in the eyes of this good and gentle woman, made it impossible for her to speak without dissent to such an atrocity as Lord Hurdly’s attitude seemed to her. So she moved away, and the woman took the hint and said no more.
A little distance off, at the end of the long room, she had caught sight of an object that made her heart beat suddenly. She did no more than glance at it, and then returned to the contemplation of the picture before which she was standing. But she had recognized Horace Spotswood in the tall stripling of perhaps fifteen who stood in riding-clothes at the side of a pawing gray horse.
By the time she had made her way to it, in its regular succession, she had quite recovered her calmness and had made up her mind as to her course.
“And who is this handsome boy?” she said, with perfect self-possession, as they stood before the large canvas.