Kitty regarded her daughter from under lowered lids. Quiet, secretive, brooding almost. Was she, like her mother, wondering whether the life of a parson’s wife was the best she could choose? London did strange things to you; it had done them to Kitty, so why not to Carolan? It was not a town so much as a personality; it intrigued while it repelled. It had fascinated her from the first, and oh, the squalor of those rooms she had shared with Darrell! Lousy lodging-houses and the people in their rags, and the smell of the river and the back streets, and the empty feeling inside, which was hunger, and the lightness in the head which was part of it too. She had been something of a prophetess.
“Darrell,” she had said, ‘we never know what is waiting for us round the corner!” And how right she had been! She, whom they thought just a frivolous woman. For, one day he had come in full of excitement, and told her he had met a friend; she did not know who that friend was, but now she had come to believe that he was Marcus, for from that time Marcus had come to the house frequently enough. A good business proposition had been made to him, Darrell had said, and he was going to take it. It would mean saving hard at first; it would mean living simply, but there was money in it, and after a while they would come out of business and be rich, free from want for the rest of their days.
She patted the niching at her neck. Life was strange, promising a good deal, withholding much. How she had longed for reunion with Darrell I How she had dreamed of it! And now here it was, but he was not the same man with whom, years ago, she had coquetted in a coach; he was not the lover whom she had met in the wood. Ah, no! There were years and years of experience between that man and the Darrell of today. He was moody, easily depressed, and indeed the depression came upon him suddenly, out of the blue, for no reason at all. Kitty wanted gaiety all the time; admiration she wanted, fine clothes to wear, men about her telling her she was beautiful, all that she had been years ago. Since the coming of Carolan life had certainly become more intriguing; there were the outings with Darrell which previously he had not felt inclined to give her; and there was the company. Marcus calling in nigh on every day. And what a man was Marcus. And how his eyes glistened as they rested on Carolan! Who knew, he might abduct her one day. He was that kind of person, she was sure. The love of adventure sparkled in those merry eyes of his, and his long tapering fingers itched to touch Carolan; Kitty knew the signs. There was little of such matters she did not know. Exciting indeed! And Marcus… often dressed so poorly that he looked the typical loafer of Grape Street and its environs; but once when he had come to the shop unexpectedly for a conference with Darrell, she had caught a glimpse of Marcus in the role of an exquisite gentleman of the Town. What fun! What excitement when one was an attractive woman with a daughter who was almost as attractive! What enchanting rivalry! And Jonathan Crew, that strange, quiet man who looked at her so oddly that she felt he saw behind her smile and knew that she was wondering whether he wished to be her lover; Jonathan Crew, who whispered such compliments in her ear and spoke them so strangely that afterwards she wondered whether he meant to compliment her at all; who watched Carolan with a glitter in his queer eyes sometimes, so that she wondered whether after all it was not Carolan in whom he was primarily interested. But then, he had always contrived not to come when Darrell was about, which rather showed he had his eyes on Darrell’s wife.
“These stays will give me the palpitations, Carolan; I sweat they will!” Carolan laughed.
“Oh, Mamma, Mamma, they are indeed too tight! Why, you will faint in the arms of Mr. Jonathan, or perhaps Marcus, if you persist in wearing them thus.”
“Unlace them… just a little. And, my dear, do you think that would disconcert either of them greatly?”
“Marcus would not be disconcerted, I am sure of that,” said Carolan, unlacing the stays with deft fingers.
“Of Mr. Crew I am not so sure.”
“You think it would annoy him then ?”
“Indeed I do not know. There! How is that? Breathe in, Mamma. Now!”
Kitty smiled at her reflection in the mirror.
“Ah! That’s better. You think Mr. Crew does not like me then?”
“Mamma, I cannot say. He may like us all a good deal, or he might like us not at all. It is not easy to tell.”
“Come, come! Does a man visit a family whom he hates?”
“I should think not. Mamma.”
“Well then?”
“By the frequency of his visits I should say that he likes us very much.”
Kitty put her head on one side and laughed gaily.
“Have you noticed, Carolan, that he endeavours .to call mostly when your father is out?”
Carolan smiled at the big, fleshy face reflected in the mirror. What a vain old darling she was! And her eyes were the colour of speedwells with the velvety quality of pansies; and her face was like a flower, big, overblown, rich in beauty before the petals began to fall.
“I had noticed that,” said Carolan.
Kitty fluttered her long, golden lashes.
“To you, I suppose, I am an old woman!”
Carolan bent her head and kissed her mother’s forehead.
“No,” she said.
“A very fascinating one ageless. Like … like … well, like no one but yourself!”
When Carolan stooped over, Kitty could see the letter she had tucked into the bodice of her dress. From the parson! It had come that day. And though, thought Kitty, I am supposed to be a foolish and frivolous woman, there are some matters which it is easy for me to understand. Carolan was not very pleased with that letter. What if there was an estrangement? Might that not be the best way for things to work out?
“Ah!” said Kitty.
“As if a man would look at an old woman when there is a young and lovely one about the house.”
Carolan laughed.
“Come, Mother, you must not talk thus, for I know you too well, and we both know that for many years men will continue to cast glances in your direction, whoever else may be about.”
“Flatterer!” said Kitty gaily, for truly is was a fact that Mr. Crew made a habit of calling when Darrell was out.
“Now Marcus!” said Kitty, trying to make her daughter believe that Jonathan Crew had not been the one in her thoughts.
“What do you think of Marcus?”
Carolan was silent, surveying their faces side by side in the dusky mirror. What did she think of Marcus? She did not know.
There is a certain mystery about that fellow,” went on Kitty.
“La! There are times when I could think him a veritable simpleton … and at others, there he is the man of the world!”
“I too,” said Carolan, ‘sometimes feel that he is not all that he would have us believe.”
There! Do you not find life interesting here, my dear?”
“Very interesting. Mamma.”
“More interesting than Haredon, I would say.”
Why did the girl shudder? What had happened at Haredon? Charles? He was a little beast, that boy. Could it be … Something had made her run away; and that parson had not been there to help her. A pox on that parson! Why in God’s name did a high-spirited girl like Carolan want to pledge herself to a parson? Why did she want to wait on his letters? Why, when one arrived, did it fill her with melancholy? How Kitty wished that she could put a spoke in this arrangement of Carolan’s with her parson! Everard Orland! She remembered him well; a tall, lanky, pale-faced boy … fastidious! A nincompoop! And betrothed to Carolan!
And what a lover Marcus would make! Kitty sighed for the passing of the years. If she were but Carolan’s age… The letter was showing above Carolan’s bodice. I wish I knew what the nincompoop has said to her, thought Kitty.
“Marcus is indeed an amusing man,” she said aloud.
Carolan went to the dressing-table and stood there, smiling at her mother.
“And you seem to find me most amusing, Carolan.”