Not a third floor back room, sure, with shabby boots and mended gloves, and faded dress of gray, but luxury and elegance, and troops of servants and friends, and equality with such people as Lady Fairfax, who, I knew, was trying to imagine how the crumpled, forlorn little woman, with the shabby boots and feather, would have looked as Lady Cleaver of Briarton Lodge. Tom had once taunted me with the possibility of my being Lady Cleaver, and with a thought of him the great bitter throb of regret for what might have been passed away, and I was glad in my heart that I was not the mistress of Briarton Lodge; so, when at last Lady Fairfax said to me, “Are you not sorry?” I looked at her steadily and answered, “Yes, very sorry that Archie is dead, but not sorry that I am not his wife. Years have shown me that we were not suited to each other. We should not have been happy together, and then——” I hesitated a moment, while a feeling of pique, or malice, or jealousy, or whatever one chooses to call a desire to give another a little sting, kept growing within me, until at last I added, “and then—Archie’s first choice was for you; he loved you best; offered himself to you first, you know. You wrote me so in the letter.”
She turned the solitaire on her finger entirely round, and her cheek flushed as she smiled faintly, and replied:
“Offered himself to me first? Yes, and was very fond of me, I think, but whether he loved me best is doubtful. Poor Archie, he did not want to die, and at the last, after he had ceased to answer our questions, he whispered to himself: ‘Poor little girl; she will be so sorry. Be kind to her.’ That was you, I think.”
There was a great lump now in my throat, and a faintness came over me which must have shown itself in my face, for Lady Darinda exclaimed:
“How pale you look, Miss Burton, and how tired. I am sure you will be better to take something,” and touching the bell she bade the servant who appeared bring some biscuits and a glass of wine. I was not hungry, but I reflected that the lunch would save the expense of supper at home, and I took thankfully the biscuits, and sandwiches and wine, which were served from solid silver and the most delicate of Sevres. To such straits of calculation had I come: I, who had just missed of being Lady Cleaver, of Briarton Lodge. I pitied myself even while I ate the sandwiches, with Lady Fairfax looking on and fathoming all my poverty, as I believed. Perhaps I did her injustice, for I think she really meant to be kind, and when I had finished my lunch, she said:
“Archie’s mother, Aunt Eleanor, is here with me now—lives with me entirely. Would you like to see her?” and before I could reply, she stepped across the hall into the drawing-room, where I heard a few low-spoken words; then another step beside that of Lady Darinda, and Archie’s mother, Mrs. Browning, was at my side, and holding my hand in hers.
Time and sorrow had changed her greatly, or else the silvery puffs of hair which shaded her face softened the cold, haughty expression I remembered so well, and made it very pleasing and kind.
“Child,” she said, “it is many years since we met, and I am sorry to hear so sad a story of you. You are all alone in the world, Darinda tells me.”
She had seated herself beside me, still holding my hand, and at the sound of her voice I broke down entirely. All the loneliness, and dreariness and poverty of my life swept over me like a billow of the sea, and forgetting the difference in our stations, I laid my head in her lap and cried bitterly. I think she must have cried, too, a very little, and that for a few moments she lost sight of the poor music teacher in crumpled feather and shabby boots, and saw in me only the girl who had loved her boy, and whom the boy was to have married, if death had not interfered. She was very kind to me, and made me tell her all the sad story of my life since father died, and questioned me of Tom, and then, turning to her niece, who had retired to the window, said:
“Darinda, you did not positively engage Mademoiselle Couchet to read to me?”