CHAPTER XXIX
“MRS. HESKETH comes to-morrow,” her mother announced to Cara, as she folded up a letter. “I’m so glad, aren’t you?”
“Comme ca!” she rejoined with a shrug. “Moi je n’aime pas les antiquities!”
“Oh, Cara! and she has always been so kind, and generous to you.”
“And why not? I am her goddaughter, the child of her greatest friend. She has no one belonging to her, and heaps of money. If she is so rich and so fond of you, Mum, why does she let you board in a Swiss farm-house, with barely enough money to pay forpension, and work hard to make up the rest? She ought to have us to live with her!”
“She would gladly—she has often invited us, but I’ve refused. I cannot live on anyone, I must be independent.”
“Then you and I differ, Mum. I am ready to live on anyone who will give me a good time!”
“Dear child, you are only joking, but for goodness’ sake don’t say such things before Mrs. Hesketh. She might think you were serious.”
Mrs. Hesketh was visibly changed and aged; herhair was grey, her step languid, her eyes, however, still held their old fire.
The evening after her arrival, she and Letty sat in the window of her sitting-room at the Paradis, which overlooked the lake.
“I came at once, you see, my dear. If I had not roused myself, I’d never have done it. As soon as I’d read your letter I rang for Tomlin, told her to pack and wire for places, and behold, me!”
“You look completely done up and frightfully tired.”
“I’m always done up and tired now; the fact is, Letty, I’m an old woman.”
“Oh, don’t! You arenot,” protested Letty with unusual warmth.
“Yes, I am; my heart and brain may feel young, but my body is aged. Age is a strange thing; it creeps after us for years, and we go marching on, imagining our youth or middle life will last. All at once, as in a night, age springs out and seizes you—you look at yourself in the glass, and it’s there,—or you hear it. And I can assure you it is a shock! Some years ago I was waiting to be served in a hairdresser’s, and I overheard a man say to another:
“‘You go—take the old lady first.’
“Until then I’d always thought myself merely middle-aged; but I looked in the glass as the man dressed my hair, and I said to myself, ‘He is right. Youarean old lady.’ Once people used to stand up and give me their seats, because I was lovely; now, when they do this, it is merely because I am venerable,”and she sighed profoundly. “And you, Letty, have the gift of perpetual youth!”
“No, indeed; but I must say when I’m with you I feel almost a girl, and when with Cara, I’m an elderly woman.”
“You are close on thirty-five and yet you look seven-and-twenty—even in broad daylight. Your calm, healthful, uneventful life, has preserved your beauty. Such an existence would have drivenmemad. One day my body would have been fished out of the lake.”
“No, they are never found; the lake is pitiless.”
“Oh, well, before we begin to discuss your plans and Cara—by the way, a handsome young woman!—let me tell you all my news. The Dentons are pretty much as usual, and send you kind messages. You know that Frances is going to be married? I motored over to Sharsley to lunch, and inspect the presents,—including yours, and afterwards we walked up to the Court. My dear, it’s like a dead place! Positively, I expected to see a hearse at the door. The shutters closed, the avenue grass-grown, not a soul to be met or seen. I believe some of the best pictures and furniture have been carted away, and sold. Old Scrope heirlooms,—and the Scropes are frantic. Hugo’s racing comes expensive. He and Tom Slater have a string of useless animals, who, by all accounts, eat up thousands and thousands.”
“And where does he live?”
“He has the same rooms in Newmarket, and thehouse in town. Connie Rashleigh is often there, though she still holds on to her own flat, as, of course, she never knows when, and by whom, she may be deposed! Cara inherits your colouring and teeth, but she has her aunt’s figure, and her aunt’s laugh—yes, and her father’s jaw.”
As Letty was about to protest:
“Yes, my dear, and her aunt’s air of buoyant confidence. There is nothing undecided about Cara, and I can grasp the fact, that she has her mother under her thumb! Alas, poor Letty, you have merely changed your yoke!”
“Oh, dear Cousin Maude, you surely cannot judgealready!”
Mrs. Hesketh gave a quick nod; she had been in the company of mother and daughter for several hours, and had made copious notes.
“Do you think Cara is going to be a comfort to you? and a compensation for all you have relinquished for her sake?”
“Yes, of course I do,” replied Letty; but her colour had risen, and her eyes no longer rested on her companion, but on the moonlit lake, and a cargo-barge that went drowsily by.
“Ah, that is good news!” said Mrs. Hesketh, but her sardonic tone belied her speech. “And so you are about to shift your sky at last—but why?”
In faltering and apologetic terms, Letty related her interview with Frau Hurter, and the woman’s ultimatum.
“So Cara has been flirting, has she, and foolishly encouraging the good-looking Fritz?”
“Not exactly that; but, you see, they grew up together, and she is so gay, and unconventional, and pretty.”
“Ah, well, of course, you must go—but where?”
“I am sure I don’t know. What do you advise?”
“I advise England.”
“On two hundred pounds a year—impossible! And now Cara is grown up she must be well dressed.”
“So I see,” agreed Mrs. Hesketh, with significance. “That embroidered linen never cost a sou less than one hundred and fifty francs. Now, my advice is the same as ever, come and live at Oldcourt. I want your company badly; I’ve made a will, and left you every penny, so you reallyoughtto do something for me! As for Cara, she shall go to a good finishing school in Brighton for the next twelve months. I will, of course, pay all her expenses. Seventeen is much too young for a girl to come out into the world. You know that, Letty, from your own experience—don’t you?”
“Yes, but Cara is different; she has decided views—no one could talk or coerce her into anything she did not wish to do.”
“Ah!”
“And she would laugh in your face, if you suggested sending her to school.”
“Would she, indeed?”
“You see, she has been at school at Mitzau, and Lucerne, ever since she was eight.”
“And what has she learnt, besides the art of holding herself well, putting on her clothes, and offering her crude opinions?”
“She speaks French and German, she plays and sings moderately, dances beautifully, and has won several tennis, and swimming prizes.”
“And considers her education complete. I see. Well, we must take a little time, and talk things over; when I know more of Cara, I may be better able to help you to make up your mind. It is to give you this assistance, I’ve come all the way to Lucerne.” Then, speaking in another key, “Well, we shall meet to-morrow, and if you will fetch me, I’ll toil up to the farm, see how the land lies for myself, and have a look at Fritz. Now, as I am feeling extra old and tired, I must send you back to Les Plans,—for I am going to my dear bed.”