‘A moment, but no more. I feel sure that after that first cry, and one groan, there was no more.’
She put down her veil and wept silently as they went back to the house. Mrs. Mountford all the time was sitting with Rose in her bedroom watching Worth as she packed all the favourite knicknacks, which make a lady’s chamber pretty and homelike. She liked to carry these trifles about, and she was interested and anxious about their careful packing. Thus it was only the daughter whom he had wronged who thought of the dead father on the last day which the family spent at Mount.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A NEW BEGINNING.
For people who are well off, not to say rich, and who have no prevailing anxieties to embitter their life, and who take an interest in what is going on around them, London is a pleasant place enough, even in December. And still more is Park Lane a pleasant place. To see the red wintry sunshine lighting up the misty expanse of the Park, the brisk pedestrians going to and fro under the bare trees, the carriages following each other along the broad road, the coveys of pretty children and neat nursemaids, and all the flood of prosperous life that flows along, leisurely in the morning, crowding in the afternoons, is very pleasant to the uninitiated. All the notable people that are to be found in London at that period, appearing now and then, and a great many people who get lost to sight in the throngs of the season, but are more worth seeing than even those throngs, were pointed out to the ladies by the two cicerones who took in hand to enlighten their ignorance. The house they had was one of those small houses with large, ample, bow windows to the drawing-rooms, which give a sort of rustic, irregular simplicity to this street of the rich. Those people who are happy and well off and live in Park Lane must be happier and more well off than people anywhere else. They must be amused besides, which is no small addition to happiness. Even Anne felt that to sit at that window all day long would be a pleasant way of occupying a day. The misty distance, penetrated by the red rays of sunshine, was a kind of poem, relieved by the active novelty of the animated foreground, the busy passengers, the flood and high tide of life. How different from the prospect over the park at Mount, where Charley Ashley on the road, coming up from the Rectory, was something to look at, and an occasional friend with him the height of excitement. The red rays made the mist brighter and brighter; the crowd increased; the carriages went faster; and then the sun waned and got low and went out in a bank of cloud, and the lamps were all lighted in the misty twilight, but still the crowd went on. The ladies sat at the window and were amused, as by a scene in a play; and then to think that ‘all the pictures,’ by which Anne meant the National Gallery, were within reach—and many another wonder, of which they had been able to snatch a hasty glance once a year, or not so often as once a year, but which was now daily at their hand: and even, last, but yet important, the shops behind all, in which everything that was interesting was to be found. Rose and her mother used to like, when they had nothing better and more important to buy, to go to the Japanese shop, and turn over the quaint articles there. Everything was new to them, as if they had come from the South Seas. But the newest of all was this power of doing something whenever they pleased, finding something to look at, something to hear, something to buy. The power of shopping is in itself an endless delight to country ladies. Nothing to do but to walk into a beautiful big place, with obsequious people ready to bring you whatever you might want, graceful young women putting on every variety of mantle to please you, bland men unfolding the prettiest stuffs, the most charming dresses. The amusement thus afforded was unending. Even Anne liked it, though she was so highflown. Very different from the misty walk through their own park to ask after some sick child, or buy postage stamps at the village post-office. This was about all that could be done at Mount. But London was endless in its variety. And then there was sightseeing such as never could be managed when people came up to town only for a month in the season. Mr. Mountford indeed had been impatient at the mere idea that his family wanted to see St. Paul’s and the Tower, like rustics come to town for a holiday. Now they were free to do all this with nobody to interfere.
And it was Cosmo who was their guide, philosopher, and friend in this new career. He had chosen their house for them, with which they were all so entirely pleased, and it was astonishing how often he found leisure to go with them here and there, explaining to them that his work was capable of being done chiefly in the morning, and that those afternoon hours were not good for much. ‘Besides, you know the time of a briefless barrister is never of much importance,’ he said, with a laugh. Rose was very curious on this point. She questioned him a great deal more closely than Anne would have done. ‘Are you really a briefless barrister, Mr. Douglas? What is a briefless barrister? Does that mean that you have no work at all to do?’ she said.
‘Not very much. Sometimes I am junior with some great man who gets all the fees and all the reputation. Sometimes an honest, trustful individual, with a wrong to be redressed, comes to ask my advice. This happens now and then, just to keep me from giving in altogether. It is enough to swear by, that is about all,’ he said.
‘Then it is not enough to live on,’ said Rose, pushing her inquiries to the verge of rudeness. But Cosmo was not offended. He was indulgent to her curiosity of every kind.
‘No, not near enough to live on. I get other little things to do, you know—sometimes I write a little for the newspapers—sometimes I have a report to write or an inquiry to conduct. And sometimes a kind lady, a friend to the poor, will ask me out to dinner,’ he said, with a laugh. They were sitting at dinner while this conversation was going on.
‘But then, how could you——?’ Rose began, then stopped short, and looked at her sister. ‘I will ask you that afterwards,’ she said.
‘Now or afterwards, your interest does me honour, and I shall do my best to satisfy you,’ said Cosmo, with a bow of mock submission. He was more light-hearted, Anne thought, than she had ever seen him before; and she was a little surprised by the amount of leisure he seemed to have. She had formed no idea of the easy life of the class of so-called poor men to which Cosmo belonged. According to her ideas they were all toiling, lying in wait for Fortune, working early and late, and letting no opportunity slip. She could have understood the patience, the weariness, the obstinate struggle of such lives; but she could not understand how, being poor, they could get on so comfortably, and with so little strain, with leisure for everything that came in the way, and so many little luxuries. Anne was surprised by the fact that Cosmo could bestow his afternoons upon their little expeditions, and go to the club when he left them, and be present at all the theatres when anything of importance was going on, and altogether show so little trace of the pressure which she supposed his work could not fail to make upon him. He seemed indeed to have fewer claims upon his time than she herself had. Sometimes she was unable to go out with the others, having letters from Mr. Loseby to answer, or affairs of the estate to look after; but Cosmo’s engagements were less pressing. How was it? she asked herself. Surely it was not in this way that men got to be Judges, Lord Chancellors—all those great posts which had been in Anne’s mind since first she knew that her lover belonged to the profession of the law. That he must be aspiring to these heights seemed to her inevitable—and especially now, when she had lost all her money, and there was no possible means of union for them, save in his success. But could success be won so easily? Was it by such simple means that men got to the top of the tree, or even reached as far as offices which were not the highest?