There was a slightly aggrieved tone in her voice. Eugenia instantly took alarm that she might have hurt the old lady’s feelings.
“Oh, thank you, Mrs Grier!” she exclaimed. “I am quite satisfied with this room, and I am sure it will be very comfortable. To-morrow I should like you to show me all over the house. Of course I don’t yet know how we shall settle about any of the rooms permanently. It depends on Captain Chancellor. He intends to refurnish several. But now I think I will go to bed, if you will send Rachel. I am so tired!”
“You do look tired, ma’am. It quite gave me a turn to see you so white when you came first, ma’am,” said Mrs Grier, more cheerfully than she had yet spoken.
And at supper in her own room, when she went downstairs, she confided to Mr Blinkhorn certain agreeable presentiments with regard to their new mistress.
“A nice-spoken young lady. None of your dressed-up fine ladies like the last Mrs Chancellor and her daughter, who must have French beds to sleep in, and could never so much as remember one’s name. Oh, no, this Mrs Chancellor is a different kind altogether. But, mark my words, Mr Blinkhorn, she isn’t long for this world. The Captain may talk of luck turning—ah, indeed!—was it for nothing I dreamt I saw our new lady with black hair instead of brown? Was it for nothing the looking-glass dipped out of my hands when I was dusting her room again this afternoon?”
“But it didn’t break,” objected Mr Blinkhorn.
“Break, what has that to do with it?” exclaimed Mrs Grier, indignantly. “But I know of old it’s no use wasting words on some subjects on you, Mr Blinkhorn. Those that won’t see won’t see, but some day you may remember my words.”
But, notwithstanding Mrs Grier’s forebodings, notwithstanding her own wounded and troubled spirit, Eugenia Chancellor soon fell asleep, and slept soundly. She fell asleep with Sydney’s letter under her pillow, and its loving words in her heart; and the next morning, when the sun shone again, and her husband spoke kindly and seemed to have forgotten yesterday’s cloud, she began again to think that after all life might be bright for her, and their home a happy one.
“Comme on pense à vingt ans.”