“And your mother actually allowed you to come away with such a wardrobe! Preposterous, I call it! People who cannot provide for themselves respectably have no business to accept invitations, in my opinion!”
Now it happened that this morning Lady Sarah had risen with a bad headache, one of the consequences of which had been to make her even more fault-finding towards Mildred than usual. The old discussion about her hair had been resumed after breakfast; she had been reproved for leaving the door open; for shutting the door, for speaking too loudly; for mumbling so indistinctly that it was impossible to hear; for one imaginary offence after another, until finally she had run away in despair and taken refuge with the children in the garden. It was not only the present annoyance, therefore, it was the accumulated irritation of the morning, with which the girl had to fight at this moment, and the conflict was too hard for her strength.
As she herself would have described it, she went hot and cold all over, something went “fizz” in her brain, and the next moment she leapt down from the table and confronted Lady Sarah with flaming cheeks and eyes ablaze with anger.
“And—who—asked—your—opinion? What business is it of yours what I wear? I didn’t come here on your invitation—I was asked by Mrs Faucit, and so long as she is satisfied you have no right to say a word. How dare you find fault with my mother before my face? How dare you question what she thinks right to do? you—you unkind, interfering,—disagreeable old woman!”
There was an awful silence. Lady Sarah appeared transfixed with astonishment; her jaw fell, her eyes protruded from their sockets. The twins instinctively clasped hands, and Mrs Faucit, arrested, in the act of re-entering the room, by the sound of the last few words, stood motionless in the doorway, her face eloquent of pained surprise.
Mildred glanced from one to the other. She was trembling from head to foot, her heart beat with suffocating throbs. For one moment she succeeded in maintaining her attitude of defiance; but when she met the grave scrutiny of Mrs Faucit’s eyes, she burst into a storm of tears and rushed from the room. Reaction had set in, and her own irritation was as nothing to the shock which followed as she realised that—fresh from Mrs Faucit’s praise and her own congratulations,—she had given way to an outburst of temper which must have horrified all who heard it.
She crouched down on a corner of her bedroom sofa and sobbed as if her heart would break. The old intolerable pangs of homesickness woke up again and dragged at her heart; the longing for her own place, her own people, above all, for the precious mother who always sympathised and understood.
Perhaps Mrs Faucit would be so disgusted that she would send her straight back to school. Well! at this moment the thought of the quiet house and of Mardie’s loving kindness was by no means unwelcome. At school, at least, everyone was kind—the very servants went out of their way to give her pleasure—there was no terrible Lady Sarah to stare at her through gold-rimmed eye-glasses, and criticise and find fault from morning till night.
It was in reality less than ten minutes, but it seemed like hours to Mildred before the door opened to admit Bertha and Lois, and a fresh outburst of sobbing was the only notice which she took of their entrance.
Bertha slipped an arm round her waist. Lois sniffed in sympathy from afar.