‘I think none the worse of her for having a little temper; I have one myself,’ said Mrs. Hayward with candour. ‘People like that are far safer than the sweet yielding ones who show nothing. And another thing—we shall have to account for her. I don’t know if you have thought of that.’
‘Account for her?’
‘Yes, to be sure. People will be calling—and they will wonder how it was they never heard of your daughter before. One of the hardest things in life is, that whenever you are in any society you must explain. That was one advantage of being in none.’
‘I never liked it, Elizabeth. I always thought you were too particular—as the event has proved, my dear, as the event has proved!’
Mrs. Hayward withdrew a little from him and his congratulations. Now that her position was beyond question, she was unwilling in her impatient soul that any reference should be made to the doubt which had shadowed her life before. That was all over. She would have had it forgotten for ever, and in her heart resented his recollection of it. She resumed the previous subject without taking any notice of this.
‘Fortunately, we don’t know the people here so well that we need go into it from the beginning and tell everything. I have been thinking it over, and this is what I shall say—I shall say, Your daughter has been brought up by some old relations in Scotland, but that we both felt it was time she should come home. If they say, “O! we did not know Colonel Hayward had any family,” I shall answer, “Did I never tell you?” as if it had been quite an accidental oversight. Now don’t go and contradict me, Henry, and say more than there is any occasion for. Let us both be in one tale.’
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘to think that you should have settled all that while I was thinking about nothing; but why should we be in a tale at all? Why shouldn’t I just say simply——’
‘It is such a simple story, isn’t it?’ she cried, ‘that you should have had a child—an only child, as you said in Bellendean——’
There was a tone of exasperation in this which made Colonel Hayward look up. He said, ‘But it was quite true, Elizabeth. Providence has not thought meet to give us——’
‘As if I did not know that!’ cried the woman whom Providence—that synonym of all that goes against the wishes of humanity—had not permitted to be a mother. ‘But,’ she added quickly, taking up the thread again, ‘you will see, if you think of it, that we can’t go into all that story. There would be so much to explain. And besides, it’s nobody’s business.’