“I have nothing to tell about that time. I was a foreigner in a strange city, with an elderly woman who was paid to take care of me, and whose chief occupation was to take care of herself: a solicitor’s widow, whose health required that she should winter in the South, and who contrived to make my father pay handsomely for her benefit.”
“And you were not happy at Milan?”
“Happy! no. I got on with my musical education—that was all I cared for.”
“Had you no friends—no introductions to nice people?”
“No. My chaperon made my father believe that she knew all the best families in Milan, but her circle resolved itself into a few third-rate musical people who gave shabby little evening-parties. You bore me to death, Mildred, when you force me to talk of that time, and of that woman, whom I hated.”
“Forgive me, aunt, I will ask no more questions,” said Mildred, with a sigh.
She had been trying to get nearer to her kinswoman, to familiarise herself with that dim past when this fading life was fresh and full of hope. It seemed to her as if there was a dead wall between her and Miss Fausset—a barrier of reserve which should not exist between those who were so near in blood. She had made up her mind to stay with her aunt to the end, to do all that duty and affection could suggest, and it troubled her that they should still be strangers. After this severe repulse she could make no further attempt. There was evidently no softening influence in the memory of the past. Miss Fausset’s character, as revealed by that which she concealed rather than by that which she told, was not beautiful. Mildred could but think that she had been a proud, cold-hearted young woman, valuing herself too highly to inspire love or sympathy in others; electing to be alone and unloved.
After this, time went by in a dull monotony. The same people came to see Miss Fausset day after day, and she absorbed the same flatteries, accepted the same adulation, always with an air of deepest humility. She organised her charities, she listened to every detail about the circumstances, and even the mental condition and spiritual views of her poor. Mildred discovered before long that there was a leaven of hardness in her benevolence. She could not tolerate sin, she weighed every life in the same balance, she expected exceptional purity amidst foulest surroundings. She was liberal of her worldly goods; but her mind was as narrow as if she had lived in a remote village a hundred years ago. Mildred found herself continually pleading for wrong-doers.
The only event or excitement which the bright June days brought with them was the arrival of Pamela Ransome, who was escorted to Brighton by Lady Lochinvar herself, and who had been engaged for the space of three weeks to Malcolm Stuart, with everybody’s consent and approval.
“I wrote to Uncle George the very day I was engaged, aunt, as well as to you; and he answered my letter in the sweetest way, and he is going to give me a grand piano,” said Pamela, all in a breath.