“You thought she looked very happy?” said the mother, with a sudden fright.
“Happy! she looked like her name—nothing is so happy as that but the innocent creatures of God; and sure I did her injustice thinking ’twas the money,” the curate said, with mingled compunction and wonder; for the story altogether sounded very strange to him, and he could not but marvel at the thought that Mr. Incledon’s love, once so evidently indifferent to her, should light such lamps of joy now in Rose’s eyes.
Mrs. Damerel changed the subject abruptly. A mist of something like care came over her face. “I have had a great deal of trouble and much to think about since I saw you,” she said; “but I must not enter upon that now that it is over. Tell me about yourself.”
He shrugged his shoulders as he told her how little there was to tell. A new parish, with other poor folk much like those he had left, and other rich folk not far dissimilar—the one knowing as little about the other as the two classes generally do. “That is about all my life is ever likely to be,” he said, with a half smile, “between the two, with no great hold on either. I miss Agatha, and Dick, and little Patty—and you to come and talk to most of all,” he said, looking at her with an affectionate wistfulness which went to her heart. Not that Mr. Nolan was “in love” with Mrs. Damerel, as vulgar persons would say, laughing; but the loss of her house and society was a great loss to the middle-aged curate, never likely to have a house of his own.
“We must make it up as much as we can by talking all day long now you are here,” she said, with kind smiles; but the curate, though he was fond of her, was quick to see that she avoided the subject of Mr. Incledon, and was ready to talk of anything rather than that; though, indeed, the first love and first proposed marriage in a family has generally an interest exceeding everything else to the young heroine’s immediate friends.
They had the merriest dinner at two o’clock, according to the habit of their humility, with roast mutton, which was the only joint Mary Jane could not spoil; simple fare, which contented the curate as well as a French chef could have done. He told them funny stories of his new people, at which the children shouted with laughter, and described the musical parties at the vicarage, and the solemn little dinners, and all the dreary entertainments of a small town. The White House had not heard so much innocent laughter, so many pleasant foolish jokes, for years—and I don’t think that Rose had ever so distinguished herself in the domestic circle. She had been generally considered too old for fun among the children—too dignified, more on mamma’s side—giving herself up to poetry and other such solemn occupations; but to-day the suppressed fountain burst forth. Even Mrs. Damerel did not escape the infection of that laughter which rang like silver bells. The deep mourning they all wore, the poor little rusty black frocks trimmed still with crape, perhaps reproached the laughter now and then; but fathers and mothers cannot expect to be mourned for a whole year, and, indeed, the rector, to these little ones at least, had not been much more than a name.
“Rose,” said Mrs. Damerel, when the meal was over, and they had returned into the drawing-room, “I think we had better arrange to go up to town one of these days to see about your things. I have been putting off, and putting off, on account of our poverty; but it is full time to think of your trousseau now.”
Rose stood still as if she had been suddenly struck by some mortal blow. She looked at her mother with eyes opening wide, lips falling apart, and a sudden deadly paleness coming over her face. From the fresh sweetness of that rose tint which had come back to her she became all at once ashy-gray, like an old woman. “My—what, mamma?” she faltered, putting her hands upon the table to support herself. “I—did not hear—what you said.”
“You’ll find me in the garden, ladies, when you want me,” said the curate, with a man’s usual cowardice, “bolting” as he himself expressed it, through the open window.
Mrs. Damerel looked up from where she had seated herself at the table, and looked her daughter in the face.