Part 5 (1/2)
I wish I were there.”
Alicia was not there because the doctor had strongly advised country air and the simple inaction of country life. Alicia had lost her baby only three weeks after its birth--two months ago--and had herself been very ill.
”But I think I shall write to some people and ask them to take pity on me,” she added, as they walked slowly through the woods. ”Sir John, and Mr. and Mrs. Damian, Gladys le Breton, and Lord Calverly.”
”Well!” Peter spoke in his usual tone of easy acquiescence.
Mary walked on a little ahead. What good did it do to trouble her brother uselessly by her impatient look? But how could Peter yield so placidly? Mary respected him too much to allow herself an evil thought of his wife; but Alicia was a person to be talked about. Mary did not doubt that she had been talked about already, and would be more so if she were not careful.
Lord Calverly and Sir John dangling attendance would infallibly cause comment on any woman--let alone the beautiful Mrs. Odd. Yet Peter said, ”Well!”
CHAPTER V
The evening did not pa.s.s pleasantly at the Priory. Captain Archinard's jolliness did not extend to family relations.h.i.+ps; he often found family relations.h.i.+ps a bore, and the contrasted stodginess of his own surroundings seemed greater after Mrs. Odd's departure.
He muttered and fumed about the drawing-room after dinner.
He was confoundedly pinched for money, and upon his word he would not be surprised if he should have to sell the horses. ”And what my life will be stuck down here without the hunting, I can't imagine. d.a.m.nable!”
The Captain growled out the last word under his breath in consideration of Katherine and Hilda, who had joined their father and mother after their own tea and a game of lawn-tennis. But Mrs. Archinard was not the woman to allow to pa.s.s unnoticed such a well-founded cause of grievance.
With a look of delicate disgust she laid down the volume of Turgenieff that she was reading.
”Shall I send the children away, Charles? Either they or you had best go, if you are going to talk like that.”
”Beg pardon,” said the Captain shortly. ”No, of course they don't go.”
”I am sure I have few enough enjoyments without being made to suffer because you are to lose one of yours.”
”Who asks you to suffer, Kate? But you don't wait for the asking. You're only too willing to offer yourself as a _souffre-douleur_ on all occasions.”
Then Mrs. Archinard retired behind her book in scornful resignation and, after twenty minutes of silence, the little girls were very glad to get away to bed.
Hilda was just undressed when Mrs. Archinard sent for her to come to her room. Her head ached, and Hilda must brush her hair; it was early yet.
This was a customary task, and one that Hilda prided herself upon accomplis.h.i.+ng with sovereign beneficence. Taylor's touch irritated Mrs.
Archinard; Hilda only was soothing.
In dressing-gown and slippers she ran to her mother's room.
Mrs. Archinard's long hair--as black and as fine as Hilda's--fell over the back of the large arm-chair in which she reclined.
”Such a headache!” she sighed, as Hilda took up the brush and began to pa.s.s it slowly and gently down the length of hair. ”It is really brutal of your father to forget my head as he does.”
Hilda's heart sank. The unideal att.i.tude of her father and mother toward one another was one of her great sorrows. Papa was certainly fond of his pretty wife, but he was so fretful and impatient, and mamma so continually grieved. It was all wrong. Hilda had already begun to pa.s.s judgment, unconsciously, on her father; but her almost maternal tenderness for her mother as yet knew no doubt.
”It would be very dreadful if the horses had to go, wouldn't it?” she said. Her father's bad temper might be touching if its cause were suggested.
”Of course it would; and so are most things dreadful. I am sure that life is nothing but dreadfulness in every form.” Yet Mrs. Archinard was not at all an unhappy woman. Her life was delicately epicurean. She had few wants, but those few were never thwarted. From the early cup of exquisite tea brought to her bedside, through all the day of dilettante lounging over a clever book--a day relieved from monotony by pleasant episodes--dainty dishes especially prepared, visits from acquaintances, with whom she had a reputation for languid cynicism and quite awesome literary and artistic cleverness--to this hour of hair-brus.h.i.+ng, few of her moments were not consciously appreciative of the most finely flavored mental and physical enjoyment. But the causes for enjoyment certainly seemed so slight that Mrs. Archinard's graceful pessimism usually met with universal sympathy. Hilda was very sorry for her mother. To lie all day reading dreary books; condemned to an inaction that cut her off from all the delights of outdoor life, seemed to her tragic. Mrs. Archinard did not undeceive her; indeed, perhaps, the most fascinating of Mrs. Archinard's artistic occupations was to fancy herself very tragic. Hilda went back to her room much depressed.