“Why, what a goose I am! They are only children. Time enough to worry my head about love affairs in half-a-dozen years to come. The lad would be a Stoic if he didn’t admire her. I don’t see how he could help it!”
“Rosalind is lovelier than ever, Lady Darcy, if that is possible!” she said aloud, and her companion’s face brightened with pleasure.
“Oh, do you think so?” she cried eagerly. “I am so glad to hear it, for this growing stage is so trying. I was afraid she might outgrow her strength and lose her complexion, but so far I don’t think it has suffered. I am very careful of her diet, and my maid understands all the new skin treatments. So much depends on a girl’s complexion. I notice your youngest daughter has a very good colour. May I ask what you use?”
“Soap and water, fresh air, good plain food—those are the only cosmetics we use in this house,” said Mrs. Asplin, laughing outright at the idea of Mellicent’s healthy bloom being the result of “skin treatment.” “I am afraid I have too much to do looking after the necessities of life for my girls, Lady Darcy, to worry myself about their complexions.”
“Oh, yes. Well, I’m sure they both look charming; but Rosalind will go much into society, and of course——” She checked herself before the sentence was finished, but Mrs. Asplin was quick enough to understand the imputation that the complexions of a Vicar’s daughters were but of small account, but that it was a very different matter when the Honourable Rosalind Darcy was concerned. She understood, but she was neither hurt nor annoyed by the inferences, only a little sad and very, very pitiful. She knew the story of the speaker’s life, and the reason why she looked forward to Rosalind’s entrance into society with such ambition. Lady Darcy had been the daughter of poor but well-born parents, and had married the widower, Lord Darcy, not because she loved him or had any motherly feeling for his two orphan boys, but simply and solely for a title and establishment, and a purse full of money. Given these, she had fondly imagined that she was going to be perfectly happy. No more screwing and scraping to keep up appearances; no more living in dulness and obscurity; she would be Lady Darcy, the beautiful young wife of a famous man. So, with no thought in her heart but for her own worldly advancement, Beatrice Fairfax stood before God’s altar and vowed to love, honour, and obey a man for whom she had no scrap of affection, and whom she would have laughed to scorn if he had been poor and friendless. She married him, but the life which followed was not by any means all that she had expected. Lord Darcy had heavy money losses, which obliged him to curtail expenses almost immediately after his wedding; her own health broke down, and it was a knife in her heart to know that her boy was only the third son, and that the two big, handsome lads at Eton would inherit the lion’s share of their father’s property. Hector, the lifeguardsman, and Oscar, the dragoon, were for ever running into debt and making fresh demands on her husband’s purse. She and her children had to suffer for their extravagances, while Robert, her only son, was growing up a shy, awkward lad, who hated society, and asked nothing better than to be left in the country alone with his frogs and his beetles. Ambition after ambition had failed her, until now all her hopes were centred in Rosalind, the beautiful daughter, in whom she saw a reproduction of herself in the days of her girlhood. She had had a dull and obscure youth; Rosalind should be the belle of society. Her own marriage had been a disappointment; Rosalind should make a brilliant alliance. She had failed to gain the prize for which she had worked; she would live again in Rosalind’s triumphs, and in them find fullest satisfaction.
So Lady Darcy gloated over every detail of her daughter’s beauty, and thought day and night of her hair, her complexion, her figure, striving still to satisfy her poor, tired soul with promises of future success, and never dreaming for a moment that the prize which seemed to elude her grasp had been gained long ago by the Vicar’s wife, with her old-fashioned dress and work-worn hands. But Mrs. Asplin knew, and thanked God in her heart for, the sweetness and peace of her dear, shabby home; for the husband who loved her, and the children whom they were training to be good servants for Him in the world. Yes, and for that other child too, who had been taken away at the very dawn of his manhood, and who, they believed, was doing still better work in the unseen world.
Until Lady Darcy discovered that the only true happiness rose from something deeper than worldly success, there was nothing in store for her but fresh disappointments and heart-hunger, while as for Rosalind, the unfortunate child of such a mother—— Mrs. Asplin looked at the girl as she sat leaning back in her chair, craning her throat, and showing off all her little airs and graces for the benefit of the two admiring schoolboys, gratified vanity and self love showing on every line of her face.
“It seems almost cruel to say so,” she sighed to herself, “but it would be the best thing that could happen to the child if she were to lose some of her beauty before she grew up. Such a face as that is a terrible temptation to vanity.” But Mrs. Asplin did not guess how soon these unspoken words would come back to her memory, or what bitter cause she would have to regret their fulfilment.
(To be continued.)
