CHAPTER V
MRS. HERRICK OBJECTS TO BOHEMIA
We fear originality as a coat which is too new, and do our utmost to be like the rest of the world.—CARMEN SYLVA.
Life is work.... Life without work is unworthy of being lived.—BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH.
Twenty minutes later Malcolm knocked at the door of his mother's dressing-room. A deep, sonorous voice bade him enter. As he did so Mrs. Herrick laid down the book she was reading on the toilet-table, and turned to greet him. "My dearest boy, how glad I am to see you!" she exclaimed with a warm, motherly kiss. Then she put her hands on his shoulders and regarded him with an affectionate smile that quite lighted up her homely face. Even in her youth Mrs. Herrick had never been handsome. Indeed, her old friends maintained that she was far better-looking in her middle age, in spite of all her hard work and that burning of the candle at both ends which is so abhorrent to the well-regulated mind. Her features were strongly marked, and somewhat weather-beaten, and the lower part of the face was too heavily moulded, but the clear, thoughtful gray eyes had a pleasant light in them. Malcolm was secretly very proud of his mother. He liked to watch her moving among her guests in the dignified, gracious way that was habitual to her.
"She is the very personification of an old-fashioned English gentlewoman," he said once to Cedric; "but she is hardly modern enough in her ideas. She takes things too seriously, and that bores people."
It must be confessed that to her young acquaintances Mrs. Herrick was rather awe-inspiring. Mere pleasure-seekers—drones in the human hive and all such ne'er-do-weels—were careful to give her a wide berth. Her quiet little speeches sometimes had a sting in them. "She takes the starch out of a fellow, don't you know," observed one of these fashionable loafers, a young officer in the Hussars—"makes him think he's a worm and no man, and that sort of thing; but she doesn't understand us Johnnies." Perhaps Mrs. Herrick would willingly have recalled her crushing speech when, years after, she read the account of Charlie Gordon's death. "He would have had the Victoria Cross if he had lived," exclaimed his weeping mother to Mrs. Herrick. "They say he was the bravest and the finest officer that they had ever known. You can read the account for yourself. All those lives saved by his gallantry." But here the poor woman could say no more. How could any woman bear to think of her boy standing at bay in that dreadful defile, to gain a few precious moments until help came?
"I wish I had not been so hard on him," thought Mrs. Herrick with a remorseful recollection of the young officer's hurt look. "What right had I to climb up into the judgment seat and rebuke one of these little ones?" and for a long time after that she was more gentle in her speeches.
"You look well, Malcolm," continued his mother with a satisfied air, "in spite of the heat and thunder. Anna has been complaining of a headache all day; but it was impossible for her to rest. However, Dawson tells me she is better."
"Oh yes, I thought she looked much as usual. She is always rather pale, you know. I need not ask how you are, mother—you look as fit as ever."