“It is so pleasant to me to feel I have still some one belonging to my mother who cares for me,” said Cicely softly.
“I have a letter from Geneviève to-day,” said Madame Casalis. “It came while you were out.”
“What does she say?” inquired Cicely. “They are well I hope?”
Her tone was quite without constraint. She was fully in possession of Madame Casalis’s feelings on the subject of her daughter’s marriage, and so much of the truth as it was right that the mother should now know, Cicely had gently and considerately told her, in answer to her earnest request to have the whole explained. For Geneviève had not, after all, been as frank to her mother as she had promised; her view of her own conduct had altered to some extent when she found herself free of Greystone associations, and her account of her engagement to Mr. Fawcett and the events which had led to it, had left Madame Casalis uneasy and dissatisfied.
“It was no use my pressing her to tell me more,” the mother said to Cicely; “we were together so short a time, and I could not bear to cloud the few last days. Besides, what was done, was done. But I have longed to speak of it to you, to ask your forgiveness for the suffering I could not but fear my child had been partly the cause of.”
And Cicely had soothed poor Caroline’s distress even while not concealing that her suspicions had been well founded—and the friendship between the two grew and strengthened daily.
Madame Casalis drew Geneviève’s letter out of its envelope again as she replied to Cicely’s inquiry.
“She does not say very much. Her letters are never very long,” she sighed a little. “They have had a great many visitors to spend Christmas. Now they are gone and Geneviève finds Barnstay dull triste. Her husband she says is always at the hunt—she wishes it were already the season to visit ‘town.’ ‘Londres,’ she means, I suppose? Did Mr. Fawcett always go so much to the hunt?” she inquired, looking up from the letter to which she had been referring as she in formed Cicely of its contents.
“He used to hunt a good deal. Not constantly,” replied Cicely. “I am sorry if Geneviève is dull,” she added regretfully.
“I wish that she had children,” said Madame Casalis.