A sudden flash shot out of Mrs. Brown’s dark eyes. ‘I hope,’ she said, ‘you encouraged the idea that I paid visits in the servants’ hall?’
‘I didn’t say anything—good or bad,’ said Jim.
Which was not strictly true; but then nobody heard him, which came to the same thing.
‘Good friend,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘true friend! but you can tell Leo Swinford when you see him again that one of these days Mrs. Brown is coming to call on him, with important information, at the Hall, and he will never need to hunt her through the rain any more!’
XLVI
What a contrast from the little schoolhouse, though it was so much more decorated than a schoolmistress’s little sitting-room has any right to be, or from the drab drawing-room at the Rectory! The more one became acquainted with Mrs. Swinford’s boudoir, the more exquisite it appeared. Those little water-colours which were hung on the walls were worth a small fortune, and a crowd of collectors would have appeared like ravens on the scene if it had been suggested that they could be sold: and the little Italian cabinets between the windows, with their delicate inlayings of ivory—not like the untrained beauty of the East, but fanciful and varied as a dream—were almost as valuable. And then the tempered, delicious warmth, and the softened, delightful light! Yet I think (though, of course, she would not have endured them for a day) that the roughest wooden furniture, and the shabbiest surroundings would have been a sort of relief—for the moment at least—to Mrs. Swinford. She surrounded herself with all these beautiful things, and then she hated them. They never varied, they were lovely and novel for a moment, and then there they hung for years, and never changed. How tired she was of them all! To have broken the delicate frames, and torn up a picture here and there, which was only a piece of paper after all, would have given her a sensation. And yet that would not have done much good; it would have left a visible blank on the wall, which it would have been necessary to fill up, searching far and near through all the studios to find something that would fill its place—which would keep a little movement in life for a short time. But it would be ludicrous to tear up a picture for that reason, and ridicule was more unbearable even than weariness. On this particular occasion, however, the room looked brighter even to her than usual. It was again an evening of soft-falling spring rain. The skies had been one unbroken gray all the afternoon. The soft small flood fell almost unseen over the country, making the young foliage, which did not dislike the wetting, glisten, and washing the colour out of the lilacs, and covering the ground under the fruit-trees with fallen white petals, almost like snow. A day which the lonely lady thought, if ever by chance she glanced from her window, was enough to account for any suicide. And she had been reading the greater part of the day, reading, save the mark! exciting French novels, in which all the ways of breaking the seventh commandment were dwelt upon to the sickening of any appetite. Even Mrs. Swinford, who considered that the chief occupation of life, was a little sick of one after another. The delicacy of the analysis of sentiment, etc., palled upon her after hours of such reading. She would have liked, perhaps, even at her age, if some gay Lothario had entered her boudoir, and led her, or tried to lead her, into those paths which relieve the idle soul: but only to look on while one woman after another was led astray! The books were like the room, her habitual reading as it was her habitual scene; and she would have declared it impossible to exist without the one and the other. But even to her accustomed faculties it became sickening at the last. Was that life any more than the boudoir was life? It was impossible for any drudge to have been more sick of her toil and wretchedness than Mrs. Swinford was of her existence, if this were all.
But at the moment of distraction Artémise arrived, and everything for the moment became tolerable. She had thrown off her cloak and overshoes in the other room; that the shock of seeing a damp woman, who had walked through the rain, might not be given to the delicate lady within. And Artémise truly enjoyed the difference in the atmosphere, and held her feet to the fire, and breathed in the warm and balmy air with genuine pleasure. ‘How comfortable you are!’ she said.
‘Comfortable! I am miserable—always and always!’ the great lady cried.
‘My dear, many people would be very glad to have the half of your misery,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘though I confess I agree with you more or less. It would bore me to death. A fight with Mrs. Jones on the question whether or not Lizzie is getting on with her lessons as well as she ought, for the great sum of fourpence a week, is more agreeable to me.’
‘Are you going on with that dreadful work for ever, Artémise?’