“If I can’t fix things right away, she’ll accept him with effusion just as soon as ever he comes back,” said Maimie to herself; and she plotted and planned until, as she reflected ruefully, her hair must be turning grey. It was part of her scheme that Usk’s family, and not herself, should take the first step towards breaking off the understanding; and she saw her chance one day when Lady Caerleon, speaking with obvious nervousness, seized the opportunity of a rare tête-à-tête with her to say—
“Miss Logan, I wish I could enlist your help with Félicia. I quite hoped that the winter here would make her strong, but she gives herself no chance to get well.”
The implied reproach to Félicia aroused Maimie at once. “It’s just that there isn’t anything to do here,” she replied. “If we were at home you’d soon see she wasn’t sick. She would be going along from one function to another all the time.”
“Kept up by excitement? Still, that shows she can do a great deal if she likes. But I want to see her able to work and play in moderation without needing a perpetual stimulus. Of course I know her father’s death was a terrible shock, but the invalid life she leads at present is the worst possible thing for her. Always on the sofa, in that hot room, eating sweets or sucking that horrible gum——”
“We call it chewing gum, not sucking it,” interrupted Maimie, listening apprehensively for the next words. Had Lady Caerleon found out about the cigarettes smuggled in under the guise of bonbons?
“It makes no difference. And she scarcely eats anything at meals, and seems by some instinct to choose what is most unwholesome.”
“That is so,” said Maimie cordially. It was clear that Lady Caerleon had discovered nothing. “I’d just give anything to get her to think of her complexion, and she doesn’t begin to do it.”
“Her complexion!” There were scorn and disgust, deep if involuntary, in Lady Caerleon’s tones. “I am talking about her health. A more natural life and plenty of exercise—not simply creeping backwards and forwards on the terrace for a few minutes when it happens to be warm—would do more for her complexion than anything else. What I think of is the future. Miss Logan, can’t you see what I feel? My boy loves Félicia, and I hope they will have a long and happy married life together. But how can they, if she divides her time between spasms of excitement and helpless invalidism? I can’t help thinking of the poor unfortunate women one meets so often in travelling—rushing from place to place in search of some new sensation, never happy, never contented, always bored and yet eager, with tired eyes and all sorts of nervous complaints. And their children—their poor little children—grown-up men and women already, living and talking, and almost feeling like their elders, wizened and old before they have ever been young. Generally they are Americans, these poor people, but of late there have been more English among them. I speak in Usk’s interests, I can’t deny it, but I do entreat you, for Félicia’s own sake, to try and help me to save her from falling into a life of that sort.”
“I don’t see but you’ll have to leave Félicia alone,” was the reply, as Lady Caerleon, with tears in her eyes, paused suddenly. “We are not made like you English people, nor brought up like you, either. I know you are not English yourself,” Maimie added hastily, “but you have grown into English ways. We must move around, we must have interest and excitement, and if an American woman don’t find that sort of thing ready for her, she just starts right out and provides it for herself. If we have smarter brains and more active bodies than you, it’s not our fault, and you won’t do any good punishing us for it. If you leave Félicia and Lord Usk to fix things for themselves, I guess they’ll shake down all right.”
“I am afraid not. I remember all my own troubles when I first settled here, and I should like to save Félicia as much as I can. And my husband is the calmest and most reasonable of men. Nothing but deliberate wrong-doing would make him angry, and he bore with my mistakes, and listened to my complaints, and helped me to begin afresh, in the most wonderful way. But Usk is more like me. He gets worried and irritable when he is tried beyond a certain point, and his wife ought to be able to calm him, and not irritate him further. And surely, if she loves him, Félicia would delight to do anything she can to make herself a better wife for him? Think what a joy it would be to him to find her strong and well and able to go about with him when he comes back!”