“But why should they be kept clean? We are obliged to fade and lose our beauty. It is unnatural to be spick and span, always clean and young, and new. Come down, you gaudy thing!” she cried. Then with her hand still grasping it, a compunction seized her. “After all, why shouldn’t she leave something behind her—something to remember her by? She had as much right here as we have, after all. She ought to leave some trace of her existence here.”
“She has left her children—trace enough of her existence!” cried Mab.
Cicely was struck by this argument. She hesitated a minute, with her hand on the screen, then hastily detached it, and threw it down. Then two offensive cushions met her eye, which she put in the same heap. “The little boys might like to have them when they grow up,” she added, half apologetically, to herself.
And with these changes something of the old familiar look began to come into the faded room. Mab had brought out her drawing things, but the blinds were fluttering over the open windows, shutting out even the garden; and there was nothing to draw. And it was afternoon, which is not a time to begin work. She fixed her eyes upon a large chiffonier, with glass doors, which held the place of honour in the room. It was mahogany, like everything else in the house.
“I wonder what sort of a man Mr. Chester is?” she said; “or what he meant by buying all that hideous furniture—a man who lives in Italy, and is an antiquary, and knows about pictures. If it was not for the glass doors, how like a hearse that chiffonier would be. I mean a catafalque. What is a catafalque, Cicely? A thing that is put up in churches when people are dead? I hope Mr. Chester when he dies will have just such a tomb.”
“It is not so bad as the big bookcase in the study,” said Cicely; “certainly things are better now-a-days. If I had plenty of money, how I should like to furnish this room all over again, with bright young things, not too huge; little sofas that would move anywhere when you touched them, and soft chairs. They should be covered in amber——”
“No—blue!” cried Mab.
“Soft amber—amber with a bloom of white in it——”
“In this sunny room,” cried Mab. “What are you thinking of? No; it must be a cool colour—a sort of moonlighty blue—pale, pale; or tender fairy green.”
“What is fairy green? Amber is my colour—it would be lovely; of course I don’t mean to say it wouldn’t fade. But then if one were rich the pleasure would be to let it fade, and then have all the fun over again, and choose another,” said Cicely, with a sigh over this impossible delight.