Chapter VI: The New Step-Mother

“Perhaps she tries to do her best,” said Aunt Jane, after a long silence, during our drive home, for neither Mrs. Mordaunt nor I had ventured to put into words any favourable impression of the bride.

“She shows, at all events, respect for her teacher, and takes pains to act, and look, and speak as she has been taught by the schoolmistress, or person to whom her education has been entrusted. She is obliged to think of her words and looks, because they cannot come naturally to her, as they would to a person brought up differently; and though she cannot yet be natural, she may become so in time. For now, when she has to pronounce a word with an _h_ in it she must remember that it is to be well sounded.”

“Well, you do always find some excuse for everybody, or some good in them. Now, I thought it was only pretensious silliness,” said Mrs. Mordaunt.

“We must remember that she is not speaking with her father or her mother, consequently she knows that we shall consider it vulgar if she spoke as they do, who put all their _h_’s wrong, and their speech is characteristic of quite the low order from which they spring.”

“But the speech of our poor cottagers is not vulgar,” said I.

“No, because that is genuine, and their minds are refined by suffering and humility,” said Aunt Jane. “She showed an interest in the tutor and the governess which looked kind, and almost more than one could have expected in a fine-dressed, and probably purse-proud woman, of her youth and inexperience.”

“Well, I know I should not like to be her daughter-in-law,” said I.

“Nor dear Norah, I fear; but we shall see. I do not profess to know Mrs. Chandos’s character, or even disposition, at all, in that one interview. The improvements, or rather disfigurement of the place, had prejudiced me more against her than her own appearance did, for I always observe more of person’s characters by their rooms than by their faces. The bare and tasteless rooms of rich people, rooms unmarked with the stamp of the inhabiter’s mind, however much they may have been laden with upholstery, have a much more depressing effect on me than even the interior of the poorest cottage. The latter calls forth hope. Blessed are, in fact, and will be, the poor. A life of necessary active labour must be better for the mind than the stagnating rest or leisure in which those rich people vegetate whose minds are too small and uncultivated to use their riches well.”

“So that you rather regret, upon the whole, that Mr. Chandos has given your favourite Norah a new mother?”

“Yes, for her I do; for that kind of half-bred woman, united with her loved father, must clash with her fine sensibilities. But for the rest of the family I can’t say, for extreme poverty is a dreadful thing.”

“Yes, it must be,” said I, with a slight shudder.

“And yet you do not know what it is.”

“No; but I fully know how delightful riches are, so I conclude that not to be able to have all one wants, nor be able even to relieve others, must be very, very dreadful.”

“Well, don’t look so grave, and remember that if, or whenever, the worst trial comes, it is never so bad as we apprehended. And now, tell me, is Mrs. Chandos handsome or not?”

“Well, I can scarcely say, for her elaborate dress and odd manner riveted my attention more than her face, but she certainly has a good, fair complexion, fine colour, and not bad eyes; but was she not much disfigured by the way her hair was dressed?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Aunt Jane. “She has a first-rate hairdresser for her hair, who does it in the extreme of the fashion, and that extreme is generally particularly unbecoming, for even pretty people cannot stand it. But people in general would think Mrs. Chandos handsome, I should think. She is so fresh and healthy-looking. She has a large smile, though it was put on to order when we were present, yet it had that kind of wide-spreading ripple over her countenance that will light up her eyes, if her mind and disposition should improve; and she has the advantage of good health, which is a great blessing, and sometimes a great help to a good development of character. Of course, the strong are never so interesting as those who habitually suffer, and yet make the best of their ailments.”