‘We thought it was best,’ said Cara, feeling all at once that she had brought the greatest part of her troubles on herself. ‘We thought papa would like it best.’
‘Now, my dear,’ said Mrs. Meredith, giving her a kiss, and then shaking a pretty finger at her, ‘you must not begin by making a bugbear of papa. What he wishes is that you should be happy. Don’t look sad, my darling. Ah, yes, I know it is a trial coming back here! It is a trial to me even,’ said Mrs. Meredith, looking round and drying her soft eyes, ‘to come into your poor mamma’s room, and see everything as she left it; and think what a trial it must be to him, Cara?’
‘He has never been here,’ said the girl, half melted, half resisting.
‘Poor soul!’ said Mrs. Meredith. ‘Poor man! Oh, Cara! if it be hard for you, think what it is for him! You are only a child, and you have all your life before you, you dear young happy thing.’
‘I am not so very happy.’
‘For the moment, my darling; but wait a little, wait,’ said the kind woman, her eyes lighting up—’till the boys come home. There, you see what a foolish woman I am, Cara. I think everything mends when the boys come home. I ought to say when Edward comes home, to be sure, for I have Oswald with me now. But Edward always was your friend; don’t you remember? Oswald was older; but it makes a great difference somehow when they are men. A man and a boy are two different things; and it is the boy that I like the best. But I have been so calculating upon you, my dear. You must run in half-a-dozen times a day. You must send for me whenever you want me. You must walk with me when I go out. I have no daughter, Cara, and you have no mother. Come, darling, shall it be a bargain?’
The tears were in this sweet woman’s eyes, whom everybody loved. Perhaps she did not mean every word she said—who does? but there was a general truth of feeling in it all, that kept her right. Cara ran straight into her arms, and cried upon her shoulder. Perhaps because she was frightened and distrustful in other particulars of her life, she was utterly believing here. Here was the ideal for which she had looked—a friend, who yet should be something more than a friend; more tender than Cara could remember her mother to have been, yet something like what an ideal mother, a mother of the imagination, would be. Sweet looks, still beautiful, the girl thought in the enthusiasm of her age, yet something subdued and mild with experience—an authority, a knowledge, a power which no contemporary could have. Cara abandoned herself in utter and total forgetfulness of all prejudices, resistances, and doubts, to this new influence. Her mother’s friend, the boys’ mother, who had been her own playmates, and about whom she was so curious, without knowing it—her nearest neighbour, her natural succour, a daughterless woman, while she was a motherless girl. Happiness seemed to come back to her with a leap. ‘I shall not mind if I may always come to you, and ask you about everything,’ she said.
‘And of course you must do that. Did not Cherry tell you so? I thought Cherry would have been faithful to me. Ah! she did? then I am happy, dear; for if I have one weakness more than another it is that my friends should not give me up. But Cherry should have come with you,’ said Mrs. Meredith, shaking her head.
‘It was all for papa——’
‘But that is what I find fault with—papa’s only daughter, only child, thinking for a moment that her happiness was not what he wanted most.’