Moth and Rust; Together with Geoffrey's Wife and The Pitfall. Mary Cholmondeley

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СКАЧАТЬ last autumn, and asked who she was."

      "Her brother is disreputable. He was mixed up with that case of drugging some horse or other. I forget about it, but I know it was disgraceful. He is quite an impossible person, but I suppose we shall have to know him now. The place will be overrun with her relations, whom I have avoided for years. Things like that always happen to me."

      This was a favourite expression of Mrs. Trefusis'. She invariably spoke as if a curse had hung over her since her birth.

      "What does it matter who one knows?" said Anne.

      Mrs. Trefusis did not answer. The knots in her face moved a little. She knew what country life and country society were better than Anne. She had all her life lived in the upper of the two sets which may be found in every country neighbourhood. She did what she considered to be her duty by the secondary set, but she belonged by birth and by inclination to the upper class. It was at first with bewildered surprise, and later on with cold anger, that she observed that her only son, bone of her bone, very son of herself and her kind dead husband, showed a natural tendency to gravitate towards the second-rate among their neighbours.

      Why did he do it? Why did he bring strange, loud-voiced, vulgar men to Easthope, the kind of men whom Mr. Trefusis would not have tolerated? She might have known that her husband would die of pneumonia just when her son needed him most. She had not expected it, but she ought to have expected it. Did not everything in her lot go crooked, while the lives of all those around her went straight? What was the matter with her son, that he was more at ease with these undesirable companions than with the sons of his father's old friends? Why would he never accompany her on her annual pilgrimage to London?

      George was one of those lethargic, vain men who say they hate London. Catch them going to London! Perhaps if efforts were made to catch them there, they might repair thither. But in London they are nobodies; consequently to London they do not go. And the same man who eschews London will generally be found to gravitate in the country to a society in which he is the chief personage. It had been so with George. Fred Black, the disreputable horse-breaker, and his companions, had sedulously paid court to him. George, who had a deep-rooted love of horse-flesh, was often at Fred's training stables. There he met Janet, and fell in love with her, as did most of Fred's associates. But unlike them, George had withdrawn. He knew he should "do" for himself with "the county" if he married Janet. And he could not face his mother. So he sulked like a fish under the bank, half suspicious that he is being angled for. So ignorant of his fellow-creatures was George that there actually had been a moment when he suspected Janet of trying to "land him," and he did not think any the worse of her.

      Then, after months of sullen indecision, he suddenly rushed upon his fate. That was a week ago.

      Anne left her chair as Mrs. Trefusis did not answer, and knelt down by the old woman.

      "Dear Mrs. Trefusis," she said, "the girl is a nice girl, innocent and good, and without a vestige of conceit."

      "She has nothing to be conceited about that I can see."

      "Oh! yes. She might be conceited about marrying George. It is an amazing match for her. And she might be conceited about her beauty. I should be if I had that face."

      "My dear, you are twenty times as good-looking, because you look what you are—a lady. She looks what she is—a——" Something in Anne's steady eyes disconcerted Mrs. Trefusis, and she did not finish the sentence. She twitched her hands restlessly, and then went on: "And she can't come into a room. She sticks in the door. And she always calls you 'Lady Varney.' She hasn't called a girl a 'gurl' yet, but I know she will. I had thought my son's wife might make up to me a little for all I've gone through—might be a comfort to me—and then I am asked to put up with a vulgarian."

      Anne went on in a level voice: "Janet is not in the least vulgar, because she is unpretentious. Middle-class she may be, and is: so was my grandmother; but vulgar she is not. And she is absolutely devoted to George. He is in love with her, but she really loves him."

      "So she ought. He is making a great sacrifice for her, and, as I constantly tell him, one he will regret to his dying day."

      "On the contrary, he is only sacrificing his own pride and yours to—himself. He is considering only himself. He is marrying only to please himself, not——" Anne hesitated—"not to please Janet."

      "Now you are talking nonsense."

      "Yes, I think I am. It felt like sense, but by the time I had put it into words, it turned into nonsense. The little things you notice in Janet's dress and manner can be mitigated, if she is willing to learn."

      "She won't be," said Mrs. Trefusis, with decision. "Because she is stupid. She will be offended directly she is spoken to. All stupid people are. Now come, Anne! Don't try and make black white. It doesn't help matters. You must admit the girl is stupid."

      Anne's gentle, limpid eyes looked deprecatingly into the elder woman's hard, miserable ones.

      "I am afraid she is," she said at last, and she coloured painfully.

      "And obstinate."

      "Are not stupid people always obstinate?"

      "No," said Mrs. Trefusis. "I am obstinate, but no one could call me stupid."

      "It does not prevent stupid people being always obstinate, because obstinate people are not always stupid."

      "You think me very obstinate, Anne?" There were tears in the stern old eyes.

      "I think, dear, you have got to give way, and as you must, I want you to do it with a good grace, before you estrange George from you, and before that unsuspecting girl has found out that you loathe the marriage."

      "If she were not as dense as a rhinoceros, she would see that now."

      "How fortunate, in that case, that she is dense. It gives you a better chance with her. Make her like you. You can, you know. She is worth liking."

      "All my life," said Mrs. Trefusis, "be they who they may, I have hated stupid people."

      "Oh! no. That is an hallucination. You don't hate George."

      Mrs. Trefusis shot a lightning glance at her companion, and then smiled grimly. "You are the only person who would dare to say such a thing to me."

      "Besides," continued Anne meditatively, "is it so certain that Janet is stupid? She appears so because she is unformed, ignorant, and because she has never reflected, or been thrown with educated people. She has not come to herself. She will never learn anything by imagination or perception, for she seems quite devoid of them. But I think she might learn by trouble or happiness, or both. She can feel. Strong feeling would be the turning-point with her, if she has sufficient ability to take advantage of it. Perhaps she has not, and happiness or trouble may leave her as they found her. But she gives me the impression that she might alter considerably if she were once thoroughly aroused."

      "I can't rouse her. I was not sent into the world to rouse pretty horse-breakers."

      If Anne was doubtful as to what Mrs. Trefusis had been sent into this imperfect world for, she did not show it.

      "I don't want you to rouse her. All I want is that you should be kind to her." Anne took Mrs. Trefusis' ringed, claw-like hand between both hers. "I do want that very much."

      "Well," СКАЧАТЬ