“Her coming to us,” she said, “was really more good luck than good management on my part, and I do believe she was happier with us than she could have been in many other families. She knew that I understood her position—in a sense,” with a little sigh, “not unlike my own. We poor Irish always sympathise with each other, whatever our faults are. I often wish Miss O’Hara—no, I really must say Mrs Ramsay—could have stayed longer, for the sake of the two younger ones, except, of course, that had she not married it would have been too much of a sacrifice to expect of her—the staying on, I mean, at a still smaller salary.”
“Perhaps it was all for the best,” said Frances cheerfully, if tritely. “The teaching Betty and Eira was an immense interest to me; and I can never be thankful enough that I had it. Indeed, sometimes, mamma,”—she stopped, hesitating. “May I tell you something I have been thinking about?” she went on, for it seemed just then one of the occasions on which her mother and herself were drawn together in fuller sympathy than often happened.
“Of course,” replied Lady Emma. “Why need you hesitate? I am sure I am always ready to give attention to anything you want to say.”
“It is about Betty and Eira,” said Frances. “Sometimes it does seem to me that we look upon them still too much as children; that they haven’t enough interest—responsibility—I scarcely know what to call it, for they are not idle exactly.”
Lady Emma sighed.
“Oh, my dear Frances,” she said, “I don’t think there’s any use in your worrying yourself or me about that sort of thing. It is simply a bit of the whole—inevitable, as we are placed. At their age, of course, girls of our class are usually absorbed by amusement and society—too much so, I dare say, in many cases. But still there it is, and I hope I should have steered clear of letting them spend their lives in empty frivolity in other circumstances. I think my mother did so; for, of course, poor as we were, it was nothing to be compared with what my married life has made me acquainted with. Each of us had one or two seasons in London, and there was always a good deal going on at Castle Avone in the winter, and yet we were taught to be good housekeepers and to look after our poor people, and all that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” said Frances, “I know.” For in her more effusive moments her mother had sometimes entertained the three girls with reminiscences of the happy, careless Irish home-life, in which, to see her now, it was difficult to believe that poor Lady Emma Morion had ever had the heart or spirit to join. “Yes, I know,” Frances repeated, “it always sounds to me delightful. But it was not so much amusement that I was thinking about for Betty and Eira. That kind of thing is literally and practically out of our power. But I have been wondering if we couldn’t help them to have some more definite occupation or interest—they are both, though with such perfectly different temperaments, in danger of becoming very desultory, I fear—if not, what is even worse, discontented, and every one knows there is nothing so invigorating as feeling oneself of use to other people,” and with that she proceeded with great care and tact to unfold to her mother her simple little scheme in connection with the fisher-people at Scaling Harbour.
Lady Emma listened with attention, and not without interest, but with no brightening of expression or respondent gleam, such as had sprung out of Eira’s eyes when the plan was first mentioned. Not that Frances had expected this—even Betty, unselfish and tender-hearted as she was, had none of the latent enthusiasm which Frances often found so invigorating in her youngest sister, and which went far to balance her greater amount of self-will. And Betty had not welcomed the suggestion with any eagerness; so how could she expect anything of the kind from her mother, tired and in a sense worn out by the incessant small worries of her restricted home-life?
No, it was not to be wondered at that Lady Emma could not rise to any very great interest in philanthropic work.
“Poor mamma,” thought Frances, always ready to judge the deficiencies of others in the gentlest and most generous spirit, “she has reason enough to be absorbed by home things.” But she watched her mother’s face anxiously, nevertheless, hoping for at least conditional consent, and what furtherance of the scheme should be possible for her to promise.