“Fetch me my shawl,” said Mrs. MacNeill, irritably. For a moment, the conversation had turned from herself, and she was annoyed. Eugenia started, and lifted the India shawl from the foot of the bed and placed it tenderly about her mother’s massive shoulders. Her mother’s expression was mean and vexed, and preoccupied. When Eugenia sat down again, she surveyed the girl with sidelong and vicious glances.
“How pale you are! And yet, you have just come from an airing. When I was your age, I bloomed. The rain made my cheeks like twin roses, dewy and fresh. That iron Dr. Bloomsbury prescribed for you is like just so much water. And you have no figure at all. When I was your age, I was called a goddess, a Venus, and I was much admired in the shops, and in my carriage, and in every drawing-room. I had a sonnet composed to me, in which I was called a queen—”
Eugenia was silent.
“No figure,” repeated Mrs. MacNeill with malevolent emphasis. “One would believe you were miserably frail, if one did not know your appetite.
“I sometimes believe,” continued Mrs. MacNeill, with a glance of active dislike at her silent daughter, “that you miserable little creatures suffer from over-eating, and derive no nourishment, in consequence, at the table. Pray, would you consider informing me of what your breakfast consisted?”
There was a slight tightness about Eugenia’s smile as she replied: “I had only a cup of tea and a muffin, Mamma.”
Mrs. MacNeill eyed her with sullen suspicion. “Mrs. Barkley informs me that a rasher of bacon and two chicken legs are missing.” The sullen suspicion became very wary and piercing.
“I did not eat them,” said Eugenia, with cold tranquility.
“Have you considered who did?”
Eugenia was silent. The strange excitement was like a growing fever in her. On another occasion she might have shook her head, protesting her ignorance, and might have ended with murmured commiserations over the pilfering of servants. But today this hypocrisy was beyond her. She gazed at her mother intently, and now her fine lips, somewhat pale, curled a little.
Mrs. MacNeill was dismayed, and, as a result, infuriated.
“What empty eyes you have, child! So expressionless. And how little consideration you have for me. You are well aware, are you not? that I am of a frail constitution and confined almost constantly to my bed, yet the matter of stealing from the scullery and the pantry leaves you undisturbed. I thought, at your age, that you might take an interest in the affairs of the household.”
“Mrs. Barkley is quite capable, Mamma. Does she believe the servants are stealing?”
“I do not believe the servants are pilfering, Eugenia,” she said, in a voice that was like a vicious leer.
“Who, then,” asked Eugenia, in a very composed voice, “can possibly be guilty?”
There were strange and unfathomable things happening in Eugenia’s neutral heart that morning. When she asked her mother that embarrassing and unpardonable question, she looked at her serenely.
Mrs. MacNeill was thrown into virulent alarm. She eyed her daughter with a truly intimidating look. But Eugenia remained undisturbed.
“‘Who can possibly be guilty?’” she repeated, with excessive viciousness. Her round blue eyes sparkled malevolently. “Do you know who I believe is guilty, miss? I believe it is you! You pretend to a feeble appetite in order to receive sentimental sympathy. You wish to harrow the heart of your poor prostrated mother with pretenses of a frail constitution. Perhaps you wish her to believe you have consumption?”
“I am in excellent health, Mamma.” The thin corners of Eugenia’s lips twitched for a moment. “Moreover, I am certain you do not believe I pilfer during the night. I sleep very soundly. Unless, perhaps, I walk in my sleep.”
“Oh, no doubt you are a somnambulist!” cried Mrs. MacNeill, with hysterical emphasis. “My daughter trails through the house at midnight, gorging herself, all in the deepest slumber! That is a pleasant thought for a mother! I might be overcome if I did not know this is complete nonsense, and a childish effort to deceive me. Have I denied you anything, you ungrateful child? Is it necessary to steal, and deny the stealing?”
“It would not be necessary to steal, Mamma,” said Eugenia, quietly. “If I became hungry at night, I would not feel ashamed. I would not even think to mention it. I would merely help myself, and neither comment on it myself nor expect my servants to comment upon it.”
All at once an unfamiliar and sinking sensation of complete exhaustion and disgust came over the girl. Impelled by it, she rose abruptly to her feet.
Mrs. MacNeill’s disordered emotions kept her silent a moment. Then, after a sly peep out of the corner of her eyes at her daughter, she sank back upon her pillows and touched her eyes with her handkerchief. She spoke in a faint voice:
“You are quite right, Eugenia. If you wish a small midnight repast, it is certainly not the affair of a servant, even of Mrs. Barkley.” She was suddenly relieved. “I shall tell Mrs. Barkley, very firmly, that I have discovered who has been dining in solitude at night, and that my daughter is quite at liberty to indulge herself if she wishes, without having to endure the impertinence of underlings.”
Eugenia’s lips parted, and her eye flashed. Then she closed her lips tightly and said nothing.
Mrs. MacNeill was delighted. Colour came brightly into her massive face. “I shall also inform Mrs. Barkley that she is to see to it that the larder is always well supplied with cold meats and tarts, and a bottle of good stout. Or would you prefer milk, my dear? On second thought, it shall be the stout. My physician informs me that stout is quite the blood-maker, and very sustaining.”
She took Eugenia’s hand. The girl’s fingers were cold and stiff. Mrs. MacNeill rubbed them abstractedly in the warm thick cushions of her palms. She felt she quite loved this child.
Eugenia removed her hand gently from her mother’s grip, and brought her the magazine, The Lady of Fashion, which she had purchased for her that morning, and also the new lavender smelling-salts. She laid these upon the round hillock which was her mother’s knees.
“Hoops, I see, are to be even larger this year,” she commented.
The bed groaned ominously when Mrs. MacNeil pulled herself upright on her pillows with every indication of avid interest. Her heavy fair rolls of hair fell over her ponderous cambric shoulders. Her full cheeks flushed. Her small mouth, pink and sulkily full, became as moist and eager as a child’s. Now one saw that her claims to earlier and magnificent beauty were justified. Even now, weighted down by her gross flesh as she was, she had a certain lush splendour. The two women bent over the book, ruffled the pages, and Mrs. MacNeill commented with cries of admiration, scorn, disdain or ridicule, depending on whether the majestic creations pictured in the magazine excited her envy that she could not wear them, or her joy that she could.
“The pink velvet, my love! Is that not superb? The lace draperies, caught up with those exquisite blue bows! How very French! But those shoulders! They quite make me blush—”
“They would be excellent on you, Mamma. I do not think them extreme. Was it not Mrs. Berkeley-Niscome who said that you had the most magnificent shoulders in London?”
Mrs. MacNeill preened. She glanced sideways at the rounded marble mass of one shoulder. “Oh, Alicia is known for her extravagant flattery. Let us see. With that gown I could wear my white ermine, of course. And my pearls. But just look at those hoops! I declare they become more immense every year.”
“You could modify them, Mamma.”
“Indeed! And ruin the entire effect? You never did have an eye for fashion, Eugenia. You look quite the drab shopgirl; not an inch of style. If hoops continue to expand indefinitely, I shall expand with them.”
Doubtless, thought Eugenia, cruelly.
“Look at these jackets. How tiny compared with the hoops. Black velvet, it appears, is very chic for the jackets. With brilliant buttons.” She burst into gay ridiculing laughter. “And those ridiculous little bonnets, with the plumes and ribbons! What will
Worth think of next? Really, they are monkey-bonnets. We shall have to have a street organ with them, I daresay.”
Eugenia smiled.
“Tippets are smaller than ever,” Mrs. MacNeill continued, frowning. “Hardly more than a rope around the neck. And look at those mantles. There is a military flavour about them. That is the Queen’s influence, of course. She adores the military, though how she expects to wear them, with that figure—”
She was annoyed that fashions seemed designed for the smaller figure this year. As she stood nearly five foot seven inches on her bare feet, she felt that she had been personally scorned. She eyed Eugenia with disfavour. What a shrivelled little creature it was, hardly larger than a respectable doll! Worth must have a tiny mistress this year, to be so intrigued by demureness and meagreness.
The magazine fell open to pages dedicated to brides. Mrs. MacNeill was consumed by envy. Never had bridal gowns been so exquisite. They were like vast white satin bells, designed for diminutive figures full of grace and daintiness. Above their gigantic flowering the little bosoms were all discretion and modesty, with the necks closely encircled by discreet rounded collars foaming with lace and simple pearls. The buttons were all very minute, and of self-material.
“How affected,” muttered Mrs. MacNeill, who had no illusions that young ladies, for all their demureness, were too innocent. She gazed enviously at the clouds of lace which composed the veils. She was furiously annoyed at the coy and blushing expressions on the tinted little faces. In her day, brides were regal, with long sloping shoulders, proud queenly heads, and elongated figures, high-waisted and imperial. That is what comes of having a Queen hardly taller than a child, she thought.
Then she had another thought. If Eugenia were to be married to that immense horrid ape in the summer, it was none too soon to be planning her trousseau. She studied the bridal outfits with more interest. That plain gleaming satin would be excellent for Eugenia.
She studied Eugenia with an abstracted but acute eye. What a pity it was that the little wretch would be completely thrown in the shade by her mother! She smiled pleasantly. The pink velvet, with a lace scarf over the shoulders, would drown out the effect of pale bridal white and pale stern little face.
Would that oaf remember where to put his feet? She thought of John Turnbull, and her expression became quite mean. She favoured her daughter with a malicious bright glance, then frowned pettishly.
“Eugenia, I presume it has never occurred to you that I do not particularly favour this marriage?”
Eugenia lifted one of her fine black brows.
“No, Mamma?” she asked, serenely.
“‘No, Mamma!’” mimicked her mother, pushing aside the magazine with petty savagery. “However, I am only your mother, an invalid, whose opinion cannot possibly be of any value. Did you ever consult me, Eugenia?”
“I did not think it necessary.” Now the girl’s face was as cold as snow, and as chilling. “I thought it was understood from the very beginning between you and Uncle James.”
At the mention of her half-brother’s name, Mrs. MacNeill’s large face became uncertain. She feared James, and respected him. He managed her affairs. He was the only creature she really trusted in all the world. Then she recovered her mean irascibility.
“I have nothing against James, heaven knows! If his son were only more like him! James, from the very first, recognized the superiority of my mother, his stepmother. He patterned his home after hers, this house, in fact. He appreciated her impeccable taste. Though I always thought dear poor Mamma’s taste somewhat depressing. I never altered the house, however; the memories were too precious. Indeed, I have nothing against James. Are you implying, Eugenia, that I have?”
Eugenia was silent. She stood at the bedside, looking down at her mother. Her mouth was pressed so tightly together that it was a thin sharp line. Whenever she was displeased, and this was more often than any one ever suspected, her mouth took on this hard severe expression, and presaged the day when its hardness would become cynicism and indifference to every one.
Mrs. MacNeill was now working herself up to a fine rage, which had its roots in dislike for her daughter, and envy.
“But James’ son! What an oaf, what a great lumbering fellow it is, with no wit, no conversation, no charm, and certainly, no intellect! He does not suffer these deficiencies from his father’s side; my own father was a gentleman whose conversation was much appreciated in the best drawing-rooms. No, it all comes from his mother, who was truly a vulgar loud creature, with cheeks like red apples and a great hoarse voice. Whatever James saw in her is quite beyond me.”
“I did not know you did not like John,” said Eugenia, in her neutral voice.
“How obtuse you are, Eugenia. You are positively stupid. Simply because I did not refuse my consent to your betrothal does not mean that I was delighted. If you had any sensibility at all, you would have realized that I felt that John was better than having an old spinster on my hands. I saw no other young gentlemen besieging you. Though in my day, my papa was thrown in a frenzy regularly at the manner in which young gentlemen called at all hours with flowers, clamouring at the doors—Why, at times the street was so crowded with carriages and chairs that it was a positive Bedlam!”
“I regret that I was not half so popular,” murmured Eugenia. Her tone was so low that the irony and disdain were not audible to her mother.
Mrs. MacNeill was mollified at these humble words. She sighed, touched her eyes with her handkerchief. Then with an expansively yearning gesture, she took the girl’s hands, expressing sympathy and consolation in every line of her thickened features.
“Well, my love, do not be so heart-broken. One is not responsible for lack of gifts of the face and figure. But it is not my fault, either. Perhaps I am somewhat to blame. But here you were, fifteen years old, and not another beau on the horizon. I was so melancholy that when John spoke for you, I had to resign myself. I fondly, and foolishly, believed that young Broughton was taken by you. But that was all a mirage, an illusion—”
Eugenia did not think it necessary to mention that Tony Broughton had asked her to marry him. The fact might excite her mother, but it would also present other complications.
“I was married when I was months younger than you, Eugenia. You were born on my sixteenth birthday. Your father declared that I was a dream of beauty, when you lay in my arms, though even then you were a dark wan little bird with the sniffles.”
Eugenia, who was not sentimental, was not at all touched by this affecting picture of herself in her buxom young mother’s arms. Mrs. MacNeill saw this, and was exasperated.
“So, one must resign one’s self even to a deplorable marriage. But, candidly, I cannot see what attracts you in John. He is a fool and a popinjay. He cares for nothing but riotous and vulgar living. I assure you, my love, I would not be inconsolable if this marriage did not take place.” She nodded her head, meaningly.
Eugenia stared at her. Her gray eyes dilated. A faint pulse could be discerned at the base of her slender white throat. Not to marry John! All at once the thought was full of agony. It could not be endured. Her heart thumped under the tight gray bodice. She had never thought before of what it would be like, not to marry John. Tranquil and composed by nature, she had a certain belief in the inexorability and the immutability of coming events, which stemmed from the decisions of the present. Now the devastating thought was presented to her. She had accepted John, believing herself in love with him in a calm and amused fashion, without wonder or ecstasy. She had always known him. He had been her vehement friend and companion, awkward and passionate. She had patronized him smoothly and fondly, without excitement. Now his face rose up before her, dark, vital and turbulent, and her heart opened and shut on a spasm like a prehensile fist. She could not endure the thought of not marrying him. A wave of swift heat passed over her cool flesh. Her thoughts and emotions swirled together in a brilliant explosion like burning chaff.
“Do not talk so, Mam
ma!” she said, in a voice that shook.
Mrs. MacNeill laughed lightly. She patted her daughter’s rigid hand, which hung at the girl’s side, trembling.
“Ah, do not be afraid, my little love. I realize if John were dismissed there would never be any one else. How pale you are, child. Is your mother so impossible, however, that you could not endure remaining with her until she is called home?”
Suddenly, without warning, and quite terribly, Eugenia burst into tears. She stood beside her mother, and made no effort to cover her face with her hands. Nor did she make a single sound. The tears simply gushed from her eyes and poured over her white cheeks in an acid flood. Her face was stark with anguish.
Mrs. MacNeill was astounded. She had not seen Eugenia weep since the girl had been four years old. Confusion seized her, as she attempted to remember what words of hers had evoked this appalling manifestation of grief. Then, recalling her last words, she was overcome and ineffably touched. The easy tears rushed to her eyes. She leaned towards Eugenia and enfolded the girl in her arms, dragging her across the bed, and holding her tightly to her billows of bosom. She rocked her feverishly and violently.
“My darling, my little bird, my love, do not weep so! You are breaking your mother’s tender heart. So, it was unbearably affected at the thought of its mother leaving it, of abandoning it in the cruel cold world! What a sensitive little creature it is! Please forgive your mother, my pet, my angel! I am ill, it is true, but, please God, it will be many a day before I am called to be with your dear Papa—! It shall not be an orphan so soon as it fears—”
Eugenia lay supine in her mother’s arms. A frightful exhaustion had completely overcome her. Her face was pressed smotheringly in the folds of fat which were Mrs. MacNeill’s neck. She thought to herself, with terrible and aching intensity: Wherever you go, John, I shall go with you. Tomorrow-today—It does not matter. There is nothing in all the world but you, John, my dear, my darling.