“You don’t know, my dear. Some people have a great deal of prejudice. Your aunt Caroline, as is quite natural, takes a different view. I wonder if I can make you understand what I mean without using words which I don’t want to use?”
“Yes,” said Frances; “you may trust me, mamma; I think I understand.”
Lady Markham rose and came to where her child sat, and kissed her tenderly. “My dear, I think you will be a great comfort to me,” she said. “Constance was always hot-headed. She would not make friends, when I wished her to make friends. The Clarendons are very rich; they have no children, Frances. Naturally, I wish you to stand well with them. Besides, I would not allow her to suppose for a moment that I would keep you from her—that is what I call conscience, and Markham pride.”
Frances did not know what to reply. She did not understand what the wealth of the Clarendons had to do with it; everything else she could understand. She was very willing, nay, eager to see her father’s sister, yet very determined that no one should say a word to her to the detriment of her mother. So far as that went, in her own mind all was clear.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Mrs Clarendon lived in one of the great houses in Portland Place which fashion has abandoned. It was very silent, wrapped in that stillness and decorum which is one of the chief signs of an entirely well-regulated house, also of a place in which life is languid and youth does not exist. Frances followed her mother with a beating heart through the long wide hall and large staircase, over soft carpets, on which their feet made no sound. She thought they were stealing in like ghosts to some silent place in which mystery of one kind or other must attend them; but the room they were ushered into was only a very large, very still drawing-room, in painfully good order, inhabited by nothing but a fire, which made a little sound and flicker that preserved it from utter death. The blinds were drawn half over the windows; the long curtains hung down in dark folds. There were none of the quaintnesses, the modern æstheticisms, the crowds of small picturesque articles of furniture impeding progress, in which Lady Markham delighted. The furniture was all solid, durable—what upholsterers call very handsome—huge mirrors over the mantelpieces, a few large portraits in chalk on the walls, solemn ornaments on the table; a large and brilliantly painted china flower-pot enclosing a large plant of the palm kind, dark-green and solemn, like everything else, holding the place of honour. It was very warm and comfortable, full of low easy-chairs and sofas, but at the same time very severe and forbidding, like a place into which the common occupations of life were never brought.
“She never sits here,” said Lady Markham in a low tone. “She has a morning-room that is cosy enough. She comes up here after dinner, when Mr Clarendon takes a nap before he looks over his briefs; and he comes up at ten o’clock for ten minutes and takes a cup of tea. Then she goes to bed. That is about all the intercourse they have, and all the time the drawing-room is occupied, except when people come to call. That is why it has such a depressing look.”
“Is she not happy, then?” said Frances wistfully, which was a silly question, as she now saw as soon as she had uttered it.
“Happy! Oh, probably just as happy as other people. That is not a question that is ever asked in Society, my dear. Why shouldn’t she be happy? She has everything she has ever wished for—plenty of money—for they are very rich—her husband quite distinguished in his sphere, and in the way of advancement. What could she want more? She is a lucky woman, as women go.”
“Still she must be dull, with no one to speak to,” said Frances, looking round her with a glance of dismay. What she thought was, that it would probably be her duty to come here to make a little society for her aunt, and her heart sank at the sight of this decent, nay, handsome gloom, with a sensation which Mariuccia’s kitchen at home, which only looked on the court, or the dimly lighted rooms of the villagers, had never given her. The silence was terrible, and struck a chill to her heart. Then all at once the door opened, and Mrs Clarendon came in, taking the young visitor entirely by surprise; for the soft carpets and thick curtains so entirely shut out all sound, that she seemed to glide in like a ghost to the ghosts already there. Frances, unaccustomed to English comfort, was startled by the absence of sound, and missed the indication of the footstep on the polished floor, which had so often warned her to lay aside her innocent youthful visions at the sound of her father’s approach. Mrs Clarendon coming in so softly seemed to arrest them in the midst of their talk about her, bringing a flush to Frances’ face. She was a tall woman, fair and pale, with cold grey eyes, and an air which was like that of her rooms—the air of being unused, of being put against the wall like the handsome furniture. She came up stiffly to Lady Markham, who went to meet her with effusion, holding out both hands.