“Would you like to see Mrs. Porter?”
“Yes. I feel interested in her, chiefly because she may be Marian’s mother. I shall have to go to work very carefully, so as not to cause her too keen a disappointment in the event of Juanita’s guess being wrong.”
“I do not know that you will find her very soft-hearted where her daughter is concerned,” replied Lady Cheriton, thoughtfully. “I sometimes fear that she has hardened herself against that unhappy girl. The troubles of her own early life may have hardened her, perhaps. It is not easy to bear a long series of troubles with patience and gentleness.”
“Do you know much of her history?”
“Only that she lost her husband when she was still a young woman, and that she was left to face the world penniless with her young daughter. If my husband had not happened to hear of her circumstances, Heaven knows what would have become of her. He had been intimate with her husband when he was a young man in London, and it seemed to him a duty to do what he could for her; so he pensioned off an old gardener who used to live in that pretty cottage, and he had the cottage thoroughly renovated for Mrs. Porter. She had a little furniture of a rather superior kind warehoused in London, and with this she was able to make a snug and pretty home for herself, as you will see, if you call upon her after the service. You are sure to see her at church.”
“Was she very fond of her little girl in those days?”
“I hardly know. People have different ways of showing affection. She was very strict with poor Mercy. She educated her at home, and never allowed her to associate with any of the village children. She kept the child entirely under her own wing, so that the poor little thing had actually no companion but her mother, a middle-aged woman, saddened by trouble. I felt very sorry for the child, and I used to have her up at the house for an afternoon now and then, just to introduce some variety into her life. When she grew up into a beautiful young woman, her mother seemed to dislike these visits, and stipulated that Mercy should only come to see me when there were no visitors in the house. She did not want her head turned by any of those foolish compliments which frivolous people are so fond of paying to a girl of that age, never thinking of the mischief they may do. I told her that I thought she was over-careful, and that as Mercy must discover that she was handsome sooner or later, it was just as well she should gain some experience of life at once. Her instinctive self-respect would teach her how to take care of herself; and if she could be safe anywhere, she would be safe with me. Mrs. Porter is a rather obstinate person, and she took her own way. She kept Mercy as close as if she had been an Oriental slave; and yet, somehow, Colonel Tremaine contrived to make love to her, and tempted her away from her home. Perhaps, if that home had been a little less dismal, the girl might not have been so easily tempted.”
They had left the park by this time and were nearing the church. A scanty congregation came slowly in after Lady Cheriton and her companion had taken their seats in the chancel pew. The congregation was chiefly feminine. Middle-aged women in every-day bonnets and fur-trimmed cloaks, with their shoulders up to their ears. Girls in felt hats and smart, tight-fitting jackets. A few pious villagers of advanced years, spectacled, feeble, with wrinkled faces half hidden under poke bonnets: two representative old men with long white hair and quavering voices, whose shrill treble was distinguishable above the rustic choir.
Amidst this sparse congregation Theodore had no difficulty in discovering Mrs. Porter.
She sat in one of the front benches on the left side of the aisle, which side was reserved for the tradespeople and humbler inhabitants of Cheriton; while the benches on the right were occupied by the county people, and some small fry who ranked with those elect of the earth—with them, but not of them—a retired banker and his wife, the village doctor, the village lawyer, and two or three female annuitants of good family.