Chapter XV

THE YOUNG STEP-MOTHER WISHES TO ENTER INTO HIGH SOCIETY.

Mrs. Chandos mused profoundly after the lively little lady had gone. She began to wonder why she had so contentedly given up the intention she certainly had when she married of becoming a great lady. She saw now that it was partly because she felt herself to be so different from all the persons into whose intimate society she was thrown after her marriage.

They seemed surprised at so many little things she had been taught at the finishing-school to do. Even the choice of her words, and the way of speaking she had been so strictly enjoined to adopt, were so different from their own ways, that they seemed to startle them. All this had made her less impatient to enter into general society than she had hitherto been. And then came Mr. Chandos’s illness, and she had begun to love and admire him far more than she ever expected to have done, and she found herself consulting his wishes, and wishing sincerely to make him happy.

All this had caused her worldliness to lie dormant, but it was by no means extinguished, and she kept thinking, with some regret, that she could not go to a party which even that great lady Selina “would give her eyes to go to”--the Lady Selina Bugginfield, whose fame as a lady of the highest fashion was talked of even at her finishing-school--her deportment-master having emphasized his directions for getting into a carriage by saying, “Lady Selina Bugginfield puts her hand _so_ on the door, and turns her head gracefully so.”

And now to think that she herself could be welcomed at a ball from which this great Lady Selina was excluded--she, the daughter of a man who came to Birmingham as a youth of eighteen, with only sixpence in his pocket, and whose mother had begun life as a ladysmaid! It was a tempting thought, and she began to ask herself whether, after all, Lady Spendfast’s advice ought to be rejected, and, as a duty to herself, and, indeed, to Mr. Chandos’s girls, and to her own little baby, such opportunities of entering the great world ought not to be refused.

Norah stood at the window for some moments after Lady Spendfast had gone, thinking most anxiously of the probable or improbable fate of Sir Alfred; but her mind was too well trained to remain long absorbed in her own peculiar fears, and she suddenly remembered that Lady Spendfast’s thoughtless talk about the great world might have taken some fatal hold on her young and inexperienced step-mother.

So she came and knelt down by her side, and put her arm round her slender waist, and said,

“I hope you do not think that we ought to go to those parties, dear mamma. Although of course it is natural that you should wish to see something of general society,” she added, after a short pause, as she perceived a decidedly discontented look in her fair young face. “Yet I doubt whether----”

“Oh! no, I don’t wish to go. You know, I was not brought up as you were; and I should be sure to do or say something wrong.”

“No, indeed you would not. It is solely on papa’s account that I would not wish that we should go.”

“And you don’t care about it, I know,” said Mrs. Chandos, in a melancholy tone. “You have always lived in it, and so there could be nothing new to see. But you know I never was at a ball in my life, except at Birmingham, and that was in my own set--quite different.”

“Therefore you think that you would like to see a real great ball, among great people. It is a most natural wish, and I will consult papa, if----”

“No, no--don’t do that, dear Norah. Don’t let me be foolish. You know I always look up to you; and I try so to copy you.”

While this conversation had been taking place, Mr. Chandos was sunning himself on the Pincio with Hetty, and some of the younger children, who, in the full glee of youthful enjoyment, were running about, or playing at hide-and-seek among the orange and cypress trees. Norah knew where he was, and after a little more talk with her stepmother, she put on her bonnet, and mounted the steps at the back of the hotel, which led up to the beautiful gardens on the Pincio.

She found him sitting on one of the benches which commanded that splendid view over Rome and St. Peter’s, and the blue Campagna beyond, lovely, but to some minds intensely melancholy.

A glorious sight to others, this battlefield of the world, the place which has had such influence for good and evil over civilized mankind for so many, many centuries. These see only the conquests and successes of a civilizing power; while others are impressed by the struggles and defeats--ruin, desolation, and decay.

Norah was too full of present anxieties at this moment to have any thought for the past, so she walked quickly to the sheltered seat, where she hoped to find her father. Little Hetty was talking to him eagerly, and from the child’s agitated face, and her father’s sad look, she fancied that the strange news about Sir Alfred must have reached them.

She was not mistaken. Signor Valentino had soon learnt the fact of the Baronet’s disappearance, and had told Cattarina, who informed Miss Hetty of it during the sort of little Italian lesson she gave that young lady every morning.

On seeing Norah approach, the tactful little girl immediately joined the others in their play, and led them to a different part of the garden, that the father and elder sister might be undisturbed.

Norah would not allow him to dwell long upon the painful subject of Sir Alfred’s mysterious disappearance, when nothing could be done, but proceeded to relate the conversation they had lately had with Lady Spendfast, as she wished that her father should advise what course it would be best to pursue.

“You think she has rather a hankering to see a little more of life. No wonder, poor child; and it was foolish of me----”

“No, no, that is not the way to look at it,” interrupted Norah. “You acted for the best--for all of us. She is very good, and becomes more devoted to you every day.”

“But you think it will be better that she should see the world a little, dear Norah? If so, you must of course go out with her; you certainly will not like that, particularly at the present moment of real anxiety, for it is impossible not to feel that he may have put an end to himself.”

A shudder passed over her at the idea, and she became deadly pale.

She said in a firm voice, “It can make no difference to me: I must of course feel anxious, and--but it will not be worse at the D---- fête than if I were shut up in my own room, and it may satisfy and please mamma to see that she can at any time enter into good society; but I don’t expect she will be so fascinated by it as to become worldly, or wish often to leave you alone.”

“Yet she is very pretty, Norah; the fresh fair sunny beauty and youth which is admired so much in these southern lands.”

“Yes, I know that; but----”

“But still you seem to think it advisable?”

“Yes, if you do.”

“Well, then, order the carriage this afternoon, and we will all three drive with the letters, and leave them at the different palaces.”

“And you--will you go with us to see the Vatican by torchlight, as Lady Spendfast wishes? How pleased the little resolute blundering lady will be to have carried her point!”

After luncheon they drove to various palaces and embassies, and left their letters and cards. Then Mr. Chandos suggested that the dresses his wife and Norah had might not be quite fresh enough to wear at such great parties as Lady Spendfast had described, so they went to the dressmaker she had recommended, and Mr. Chandos helped them to choose some new dresses, observing that at all events he should have the pleasure of seeing them in their ball dresses before they started.

Mrs. Chandos was deeply touched at the kind way in which he entered into the details of her dress, and at his approval of her unexpressed wish to attend the fêtes; and when the invitations arrived, and when she and Norah were dressed in the becoming attire he had chosen, the tears started to her eyes as she wished him good night.

“All right; now go and enjoy yourselves,” he said, “and you will be able to amuse me with an account of it all to-morrow.”