“Come along for to-day; we are to go down to dinner!” said Verna. “How could you see the house when all the shutters are closed, and everything shut up?”
“Let them open it, then!” said Matilda. “It has been shut up long enough—a whole week. What would anyone think of that in India?” But finally she allowed herself to be persuaded to go back to her room, as Tommy wanted his tea. When she reached that sanctuary, she plucked the cap from her head, and tossed it to the other end of the room. “That shall never go on again!” she cried. “Now I am my own mistress, I don’t see why I should make myself hideous for anybody. You need not look shocked, Verna; you need not say a word. There are some things I won’t do. I mean to be a good sister to you, and give you everything you want, but I won’t have you sit upon me, and tell me what I am to do. You may be the cleverest, but I’m Tommy’s mother, and I have the power to do what I like—and I will, too!” she cried, letting down her bright locks, which had been simply fastened behind to admit of the covering of the cap. “Quick, Elvin, bring me all my pads and hairpins, and do up my hair decently. I won’t go down to dinner a fright; you can put it on if you like, since you are so fond of it,” she said, with a mocking laugh, as her sister picked up the unfortunate cap. Verna was not so happy as her sister; she had never been thus defied by Matilda before. Her brilliant hopes of sovereignty were overcast. If this rebellion was to continue, all her plans would be put out of joint. It was with a very rueful countenance that she picked up the discarded headgear, and looked on at the wonderful edifice of fair hair that was being built up over Matilda’s low but white forehead. “I have not felt so comfortable since we left Calcutta,” said that young woman, with a sigh of relief as she looked at herself in the glass. “Crape is not unbecoming when it is fresh; and, thank heaven, one can always have it fresh now.”
“You speak as if you were glad you were a widow; you never think of poor Charlie!” cried Verna, in her discomfiture—glad to have some means of inflicting a sting.
“Oh, you cruel, unkind thing! as if I did not miss him every hour,” said Matilda, with the ready tribute of tears which sprang up at a moment’s notice. “He never would have allowed you to bully me as you do; he never asked me to do anything I didn’t like; never called me a fool, as you do.”
“He must have thought it many a time,” said Verna spitefully.
“He did not; he was very fond of me—and I was fond of him, very fond of him!” cried Matilda; “but do you think he would have liked me to be tyrannized over, to make myself look hideous?—never. He would have liked to see me at the head of the table—”
Verna had not very fine or fastidious taste; but she had sense enough to perceive when anything was offensively out of harmony with the courtesies of life. She cried:
“For heaven’s sake, Matty—for Charlie’s sake, not to-night!”
“We shall see about that,” said Matilda, complacently nodding her head; “it is for Charlie’s sake, poor fellow; he married me without any money, or great connections, or anything. And I want them to see I am not such a dowdy, nor so plain, nor so insignificant as they think. For Charlie’s sake, and to do him credit, poor fellow, I am determined to be mistress in my own house.”
Verna was struck dumb; she was cast from her height of hope, and the fall stunned her. It was of no use now to call her sister a fool, though she was proving herself so in the most violent manner. Folly is not always obedient and submissive; there are times when it takes the upper hand, and then there is nothing so impossible as to move it one way or another. Poor Verna, in her little pride of cleverness, was actually cowed by the unexpected force of the heartless idiocy which she despised. It was stronger than she in that grand primitive power of unreason, which is strong enough to confuse the best intellect, and break the stoutest heart in the world.