‘And yet I condemn Mab to be nobody,’ said Lady William. ‘Yes, that is what I am doing. Her old friends are very good to her. She has her little triumph to-night. But it will not always be her first ball. And it is I who keep her in obscurity. I think I am learning my lesson more quickly than you do yours.’
XXVII
There is nothing that happens more frequently in human experience than that, after long doubting what to do, and hesitation over a new step, the whole matter is suddenly taken out of our hands, and the question solved for us in a moment, and in the most summary way. Lady William had found many reasons for resisting the advice, whether given in love or enmity, of her friends. Her husband’s family had not been hostile to her, but it had been bitterly indifferent, taking no notice, making no inquiry into her condition or that of her child, and she had but small inducement to endeavour to draw closer that very loose and artificial tie which united her to the great people. It seemed to herself a sort of accidental tie, meaning so little to any body except to herself—and to herself whose whole life it had shaped, it was no pleasure to recur to the few years of marriage in which she had been taken so entirely out of her sphere without attaining anything else that was of pleasure or advantage to her. Sometimes she had been tempted to ask herself whether that was more than a terrible dream, a sort of fever through which she had passed, and at the end of which she had found herself back again in her native place, among the quiet scenes of her childhood, but with a different name, a changed personality, and Mab—the greatest sign of all that things were not as they had been. The Rector and his wife, however, did not take into consideration the great indifference of the family to Lady William and her child. They knew but little about the details. Mrs. Plowden for one could scarcely have got into her head that to be Lady William, to have lived in France, as well as in the great world, and to have grown familiar with many things that appeared very grand and delightful to a country lady who had never moved out of her parish, was perhaps to be rather humiliated than elevated both in one’s own opinion and in that of the world. Such an idea could have found no place in her intelligence. And she had not the slightest doubt that Lord and Lady Portcullis, if it were properly represented to them, would do their duty by their niece if not by their sister-in-law. She thought it was Emily’s pride which alone stood in the way. And though her husband knew the world better, yet he, too, was of opinion that it was chiefly Emily’s pride. Mrs. Swinford’s thoughts on the subject were of a very different complexion, even before she had thrown that horrible uncertainty into Lady William’s mind, that feeling that even her position, so modest as it was, might be assailed and turned into shame. If she had held back hitherto it was not from pride nor from fear of inquiry, but from a doubt whether it would be of the least advantage to her child to make any overtures or petition. Petition, that was the right word—and a petition which was more or less likely to be rejected, as she felt sure.
She was seated in her little drawing-room full of these doubts and questions one morning very soon after the FitzStephens’ ball. It seemed impossible now that things could go on as they were. The mere fact of all that had been said on the subject shook the foundations of life. And Mab’s age made a change in everything. So long as she was a child, the obscurity of her position was of no consequence. All that was needed for her was her mother’s care, and to be with her mother wherever she might happen to be; but with every day the position changed. Lord William Pakenham’s child was one thing, and Emily Plowden’s another. Was it her duty to let Mab grow up in the humbler region, perhaps fix her own fate in that, and settle for ever as a poor man’s wife in the village, while another world might be open to her? Had she any right to bind her child to her own limited fortunes, to keep her all her life a mere pensioner on the bounty of those who ought to recognise and care for her in a very different way? But if she made any attempt to alter the position, might she not make it worse instead of better? Might she not subject herself only, and Mab, who was of more consequence, to a repulse which would be much worse than neglect, to perhaps a question even of the humble rights which had been already recognised, the right of the widow and child to a subsistence, however doled out? The thought of having to fight for those rights, to open up the secrets of her life, and prove that she had a right to her name, was an idea intolerable to Lady William. She said to herself with a sick heart that she would rather die—she would rather die! Oh, that would be an easy way out of it; but that she should die and leave Mab behind her to fight it out, to prove her own lawful birth, her mother’s honour, that was impossible. If she were to die she must climb out of her grave, she felt, to prevent that, to take the brunt upon herself, to save from such a horrible struggle the child, the little girl who did not know what dishonour was—Mab, of all creatures in the world, to have any stain upon her of any kind! Then Lady William tried to brace herself up to think that she must no longer hesitate, that for Mab’s happiness she must venture everything, and prove at last, beyond any question, that whatever her fate might be there could never be in it any doubt or possibility of shame.
She was seated thinking of all this, her needlework going mechanically through her hands, her head bent, and every faculty occupied with this debate within herself, when she heard the little click of the gate which announced a visitor, and then the rap of Patty’s knuckles upon the door. ‘If you please, my lydy, it is Mr. Swinford and a strange gentleman. Am I to say as your lydyship’s at home?’
‘Did I ever tell you to say I was not at home, Patty?’
‘I don’t know, my lydy. You wouldn’t speak to me not for two days, ‘cause I let Mr. Leo come in.’
‘You are a little nuisance,’ said Lady William, which was enough to make Patty’s heart dance as she rushed along the narrow passage to answer—what was not yet, however, a knock at the door.
For the two gentlemen had met Mab in the garden. Mab was very busy in the garden in the end of April. She had a hundred things to do. She had a large apron with pockets heavy with all kinds of necessities covering her dress, and a very homely hat upon her head—one of those broad articles plaited of brown rushes, which are called reed hats, and may be bought for sixpence anywhere. It was not unbecoming, though it was entirely without decoration. Mab’s hair was slightly untidy from much stooping over the flowerbeds, and her cheeks were flushed by the same cause. She had fortunately large gardening gloves on, which kept her hands from the soil and pricks which were too familiar to them. Mab met the two young men as they came in. She was hurrying past with a box full of roots in one arm. But she was not in the least embarrassed by the encounter. She put the trowel which she carried in the other hand, among the roots, and stopped to speak. ‘I am very busy,’ she said. ‘It is beautiful this morning, isn’t it? but we shall have rain before night. So it is just the very opportunity to put in my carnations. They are a little late, but I was waiting for some good kinds.’
Of course, while she spoke to Leo her eyes had wandered to the other man with him, who was of quite a different kind—younger than Leo, still in the twenties, Mab thought, and not handsome; but surely she had seen him somewhere before. He was fair, like herself, with blunt features, and eyes that were blue, but not bright. In every way his appearance was quite different to that of Leo Swinford—no foreign air about him—clothes that looked much less thought of and cared for, more carelessly worn, but somehow giving, Mab could not tell how, a more perfect effect. She gave him a friendly glance, though she did not know him. But, indeed, she did not feel at all as if she did not know him. She was confident that the face was quite familiar to her, and that she must have seen him before.