“No, I know,” she admitted with a sigh. “I don’t know what I want; perhaps both of them for different days; wet Sundays to spend with the young man who reads, and the other days, when it is sunny, to gallop about with the dangerous one.”
“I believe there is more in it than that,” said Teresa, “and meantime I am going to study Strickland. I have an idea she can tell me the things I want to know. I had better find her, by the way, and give her Mother’s message. I don’t think she takes much interest in bells.” She left Evangeline to speculate on life as digested for her by the newspaper, and went herself in search of the woman who, she felt, held some clue to the pursuit of her desire.
At the end of a week she recalled her sister’s inspired description of their mother’s behaviour. Susie had, it seemed, by some unobservable process, evolved a spiritual omelet out of the most unpromising material among the people who called on her. Most of them belonged to what Strickland, who had begun to unbend towards Teresa, assured her were “some of our leading families.”
“The Manleys are very well known,” she said. “Old Mr. Manley did a great deal of good, and was very well thought of all over the town. My grandfather used to work for him, and he always said he never wished to have a better master. I don’t know so much about the young ones. My sister lived with Mrs. James Manley, and I can’t say she enjoyed it. Everything was very near, and she left because she got run down with the work. But Mrs. Eric Manley, that called to-day, is well enough spoken of, though I don’t think much of her myself.”
“Yes,—Mrs. Carpenter,” she said, another day, when she was turning down Teresa’s bed. “I’m glad you mentioned her. She’s another of the sort I was telling you about. They’re well enough in public I suppose, but those who have to do with them when they get back know who are the real ladies and gentlemen. Now you’ll hear a great deal, I daresay, about Mrs. Carpenter, and how she goes about here and there and all she does, but I wouldn’t be the matron of some of those homes she goes to—no, I wouldn’t for all the money you could give me; and I wouldn’t be one of the inmates, either, with all the advice she gives, and she who doesn’t know what it is to have one child left on her hands for a day, let alone six or eight. I don’t say she doesn’t go about here and there, and so she should, for she’s the time and the money, but I don’t think it’s right for servants to be kept up till all hours washing dishes for those who study the poor, and up again next morning to light the fires in time for ladies to warm themselves while they telephone for the best of everything.”
“Yes,” said Teresa, looking into the fire.
“You’ll say I’m a socialist, perhaps, Miss,” Strickland added, as she was going to leave the room, “but it isn’t that. I know we can’t all do alike, and I don’t mind the General, if you’ll excuse me, now I’ve got used to his language. He’s very thoughtful in some ways, and it seems a man’s place to mess things about. But when I took in the tea, and heard Mrs. Carpenter going on at such a rate, and Mrs. Manley, too, I felt like speaking out when you mentioned her.”
“How you do gossip with the servants, dear Dicky,” said Susie, who had heard the last word on her way to her bedroom, and called to Teresa to help her to fasten her dress. “I never think it is a wise plan.”
Teresa said nothing. Although she always received her mother’s remarks with respectful affection, due to the fact that Susie never appeared cross and everything she said was incontrovertible, yet very little that was not a definitely expressed wish penetrated her thoughts. “If Mother wants anything done, of course we do it,” was the understanding between her and Evangeline, but they respected her power as a conjuror, rather than her wisdom as a prophet. Susie’s power over men had been great in her youth, and she had had much influence in the lives of women, but no one had ever counted her as friend or enemy. She had been an article of faith to some, of admiration, of liking, of amusement or indefinite irritation to others, but only her children in their nursery days had ever looked to her as a help in time of trouble. Her conjuring ability had been invaluable in the nursery and schoolroom. Her presence would always turn a crime into a bubble, and the indignant nurse or governess was compelled to see her rod break out into the delicate blossom of divine forgiveness under her outraged eyes. The impression of this gentleness remained with the girls when they grew up; but that was all. They might search the corners of the wonder-box where their recollections of her were stored, and find nothing that they could put together and call a mother.
Teresa had been surprised that day by Susie’s immediate success with the women who had called. It is true that they had come prepared to like the Fultons, but they were in no way committed; and such all-embracing eagerness to love as Evangeline showed to strangers was against their traditions. It is one of the customs of Millport before paying a call to consider first the reasons for the newcomers’ arrival. A well paid appointment gives them a good start, whereas an indefinite purpose would be thought suspicious. Second to be considered is their pedigree. If they can be traced to some source called “good connections” another point is scored in their favour. A good income comes third, and, provided the rest is satisfactory, adds greatly to their favourable chances, but this item is not so essential as it used to be. People who are not at all nice are often rich at the present time, and even furs have to be more carefully chosen than in the past, for fear they may be the outcome of too recent enterprise. But the thing that tells in the long run is “views.” The Provinces have collective “views” in a way that would be impossible in London. You must either think with the city or carry the city with you. To live in opposition to it you must be either a hermit or a fanatic; cease to love your neighbour or lose your reason. The apostle of a different creed from that of the city can carry the people with him some distance towards any end—the best or the worst—provided he uses the old ritual cunningly; but wolves and doves alike must be dressed in sheep’s clothing, or out they go.