Not Like Other Girls

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

“You make my life so unbearable that, but for the children, I would never care to set foot in my home again,” he had said to her, in one of his violent moods; and, though he repented of this speech afterwards, she could not be brought to believe that he had not meant it, and her heart had been hard against him even in their parting.

But before many months were over she would have given all she possessed—to her very life—to have recalled him to her side. She was childless, and her health was broken; but no such recall was possible. Vague rumors reached her of some miserable disaster: people talked of a missing Englishman. One of the little party had already succumbed to fever and hardship; by and by another followed; and the last news that reached them was that Herbert Cheyne lay at the point of death in the kraal of a friendly tribe. Since then the silence had been of the grave: not one of the party had survived to bring the news of his last moments: there had been illness and disaster from the first.

When Mrs. Cheyne recovered from the nervous disorder that 121 had attacked her on the receipt of this news, she put on widow’s mourning, and wore it for two years; then she sent for Miss Mewlstone, and set herself to go through with the burden of her life. If she found it heavy, she never complained: she was silent on her own as on other people’s troubles. Only at the sight of a child of two or three years of age she would turn pale, and draw down her veil, and if it ran up to her, as would sometimes happen, she would put it away from her angrily, pushing it away almost with violence, and no child was ever suffered to cross her threshold.

The drawing-room at the White House was a spacious apartment, with four long windows opening on the lawn. Mrs. Cheyne was sitting in her low chair, reading, with Miss Mewlstone at the farther end of the room, with her knitting-basket beside her; two or three grayhounds were grouped near her. They all rushed forward with furious barks as Mr. Drummond was announced, and then leaped joyously round him. Mrs. Cheyne put down her book, and greeted him with a frosty smile.

She had laid aside her widow’s weeds, but still dressed in black, the sombreness of her apparel harmonizing perfectly with her pale, creamy complexion. Her dress was always rich in material, and most carefully adjusted. In her younger days it had been an art with her,—almost a passion,—and it had grown into a matter of custom.

“You are very good to come again so soon, Mr. Drummond,” she said, as she gave him her hand. The words were civil, but a slight inflection on the word “soon” made Mr. Drummond feel a little uncomfortable. Did she think he called too often? He wished he had brought Mattie; only last time she had been so satirical, and had quizzed the poor little thing unmercifully; not that Mattie had found out that she was being quizzed.

“I hardly thought I should find you at home, it is so fine an afternoon; but I made the attempt, you see,” he continued, a little awkwardly.

“Your parochial conscience was uneasy, I suppose, because I was missing at church?” she returned, somewhat slyly. “You would make a capital overseer, Mr. Drummond,”—with a short laugh. “A headache is a good excuse, is it not? I had a headache, had I not, Miss Mewlstone?”

“Yes, my dear, just so,” returned Miss Mewlstone. She always called her patroness “my dear.”

“Miss Mewlstone gave me the heads of the sermon, so it was not quite labor lost, as regards one of your flock. I am afraid you think me a black sheep because I stay away so often,—a very black sheep, eh, Mr. Drummond?”