he following two or three weeks passed rapidly and pleasantly; but for two serious drawbacks that hindered my thorough enjoyment, I should have owned myself perfectly happy, but Mrs. Markham and Rolf were perpetual thorns in my side.
A consciousness of being disliked by any human being, however uncongenial to us, is always a disagreeable discovery. The cause of the repellent action of one mind on another may be an interesting psychological study, but in practice it brings us to a sadder and lower level. I knew Mrs. Markham honestly disliked me; but the cause of such marked disfavour utterly baffled me.
Most people found her fascinating; she was intellectual and refined, and had many good qualities, but she was not essentially womanly. Troubles and the loss of her children had hardened her; embittered by disappointment, for her married life, short as it was, had been singularly unhappy, she had come back to her father’s house a cold, resentful woman, who masked unhappiness under an air of languid indifference, and whose strong will and concealed love of power governed the whole household. “Adelaide manages us all,” Miss Cheriton would say, laughing, and I used to wonder if she ever rebelled against her sister’s dictates. I knew the squire was like wax in the hands of his eldest daughter; he was one of those indolent, peace-loving men who are always governed by their womankind; his wife had ruled him, and now his widowed daughter held the reins. I think Gay was like her father; she went on her own way and shut her eyes to anything disagreeable. It would never have done for me to quarrel openly with Mrs. Markham; common sense and respect for my mistress’s sister kept me silent under great provocation. I controlled my words, and in some measure I controlled voice and outward manner, but my inward antagonism must have revealed itself now and then by an unguarded tone.
My chief difficulty was to prevent her spoiling Joyce. After the first, she had become very fond of the child, and was always sending for her to the drawing-room, and loading her with toys and sweetmeats. Mr. Morton’s orders had been very stringent about sweetmeats, and again and again I was obliged to confiscate poor Joyce’s goodies as she called them. I had extracted from her a promise that she should eat nothing out of the nursery, and nothing could induce the child to disobey me.
“Nurse says I mustn’t, Aunt Adda,” was her constant remark, and Mrs. Markham chose to consider herself aggrieved at this childish obstinacy. She spoke to me once about it with marked displeasure.
“I have had children of my own, and I suppose I know what is good for them,” she said, with a touch of scorn in her voice; “you have no right to enforce such ridiculous rules on Joyce.”
“I have Mrs. Morton’s orders,” I replied, curtly; “Dr. Myrtle told me to be very careful of Joyce’s diet; I cannot allow her to eat things I know will hurt her,” and I continued to confiscate the goodies.
But though I was firm in all that concerned the children’s health, there were many occasions on which I was obliged to submit to Mrs. Markham’s interference; very often my plans for the day were frustrated for no legitimate cause. I was disposed to think sometimes that she acted in this way just to vex me and make me lose my temper. If we were starting for the beach, Judson would bring us a message that her mistress would prefer my taking the children into the orchard, and sometimes on a hot afternoon, when we were comfortably ensconced on the bench under the apple trees, Judson would inform us that Mrs. Markham thought we had better go down to the sea. Sometimes I yielded to these demands, if I thought the children would not suffer by them, but at other times I would tell Judson that the sun was too hot or the children too tired, and that we had better remain as we were. If this was the case, Mrs. Markham would sometimes come out herself and argue the matter, but I always stood my ground boldly; though I was perfectly aware that the afternoon’s post would convey a letter to Prince’s Gate, complaining of my impertinence in disputing her orders.
My mistress’s letters were my chief comfort, and they generally came on the morning after one of these disputes. She would write to me so affectionately, and tell me how she missed me as well as the children, and though she never alluded openly to what had occurred, there was always a little sentence of half-veiled meaning that set my mind at rest.