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The Railway Man and His Children. Mrs. Oliphant
Читать онлайн.Название The Railway Man and His Children
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isbn 4057664572790
Автор произведения Mrs. Oliphant
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
Later in the day Lady Leighton came in, penitentially, and in a softened mood. “I was very silly{v.1–11212} to frighten you,” she said; “I can’t think what made me such a fool. I forgot that you were you, and not any one else. I was right enough so far as ordinary society goes, only not right in respect to Evelyn Ferrars.”
“Evelyn Rowland, doubly removed from your traps and snares of society,” said Evelyn with a smile.
“Well—be it so;—but I hope you are not really going to give up that delightful plan about the Chester Street house, because I was silly and spoke unadvisedly with my lips. If punishment were to come upon a woman for every time she did that——”
“No great punishment,” said Evelyn. “You will come and see me in my own house, and that will be better than seeing me at Chester Street—or not seeing me—you who have never a moment to yourself.”
“That is true. I never have a moment to myself,” said Lady Leighton. “I am going off now to St. Roque’s to see about getting Mr. Pincem, the great surgeon, to look very specially after a favourite patient of mine: and then I must come back to Grosvenor Place to a drawing-room meeting: and then—but I can sandwich you in between the two, Evelyn, if you want to go over any of those houses again.”
“I don’t want to go over any of them again, thanks. I was quite satisfied with Chester Street if I had wanted any. Perhaps, however, I ought to let the people know.”
“Oh, never mind the people,” said Lady Leighton, “if you actually mean to give it up and throw me{v.1–11313} over; for it is me you ought to think of. And why? because I told you that Ned Saumarez, though he is paralysed, was as great a flirt as ever——”
“Don’t let us have it all over again,” said Evelyn, “I take no interest in it. By the way I have just had a strange visitor—his daughter, Madeline. She tells me that your daughter is her dearest friend.”
“His daughter? Oh, Rosamond! yes, she and Maddy run about everywhere together, and plot all manner of things.”
“Are you not afraid of their plottings, two wild girls together.”
“I afraid! oh dear, not I; they will probably both marry before they have time to do any mischief. That puts all nonsense out of their head. I know! they are going to walk the hospitals, and heaven knows what; relieve the poor and also see life. I never contradict them—what is the use? Somebody will turn up in their first or second season with enough of money and sufficiently presentable. And they will be married off, and become like other people, and we shall hear of their vagaries no more.”
“They will then have every moment occupied, and more things to do than hours to do them in, Madeline, like you.”
“Precisely like me,” said the woman of the world; “and an excellent good thing, too, Evelyn, if you would allow yourself to see it. Do you think it would be so good for me if I had more time to think? My dear, you know many things a great deal better than I do,{v.1–11414} but you don’t know the world. There are as many worries in a day in London as there are in a year out of it. That is, I mean there are in society, both in London and the country, annoyances such as you people in your tranquillity never can understand. I am not without my troubles, though I don’t wear them on my sleeve. I do what is far better. I am so busy, I have not time to think of them. There are troubles about money, troubles about the boys, troubles about—well, Leighton is not always a model husband, my dear, like yours. And it will be well for the girls if they do as I do, and don’t leave themselves too much time to think.”
“They seem,” said Evelyn, glad to turn the seriousness of this speech aside and not to seem curious (though she was) about her friend’s troubles, “to exercise the privilege of thinking very freely at their present stage. But this poor girl has no mother, and no doubt she has been left a great deal to herself.”
“I know you don’t mean that for a hit at me,” said her friend; “though you may perhaps think a woman with so much to do must neglect her children. Madeline is every bit as bad as Rosamond, my dear. They mean no harm either of them. They want, poor darlings, to work for their living and to see life. It is a pity their brothers don’t share their youthful fancies. The boys prefer to do nothing, and the kind of life they see is not very desirable. But by the blessing of Providence nothing very dreadfully bad comes of it either way. The girls find that they have to marry and settle down, like their mothers before them; and the{v.1–11515} boys—well, the boys! oh, they come out of it somehow at the end.”
And to the great amazement of Evelyn, this woman of the world, this busy idler and frivolous fine lady suddenly fell into a low outburst of crying, as involuntary as it was unexpected, saying, amid her tears: “Oh, please God, please God, they will all come through at the end!”
Mrs. Rowland was a woman who had known a great deal of trouble, but when she was thus the witness of her friend’s unsuspected pain, she said to herself that she was an ignorant woman and knew nothing. She had not believed there was anything serious at all, not to say anguish and martyrdom, in Madeline Leighton’s life. She held her friend in her arms for a moment, and they kissed each other; but Evelyn did not ask any question. Perhaps Lady Leighton thought she had told her everything, perhaps she had that instinctive sense that everybody must know, which belongs to the class who are accustomed to have their movements chronicled, and all they do known. For she offered no explanation, but only said, as she raised her head from Evelyn’s shoulder and dried her eyes, with a little tremulous laugh in which the tears still lingered, “I am as sure of that as I am that I live. If we didn’t think so, half of us would die.”
Not two minutes after this she returned to the charge again about the house in Chester Street. “Will you really not think of it again, Evelyn? It would be such a pleasure to have you near: and, my dear, I should never say a word about any Platonic diversion{v.1–11616} that amused you. On the contrary, I’d flirt with Mr. Rowland and keep him off the scent.—Oh, let me laugh: I must laugh after I have cried. Well, if you have decided, I don’t mind saying that you are quite as well out of Ned Saumarez’s way. Sending the girl to see you was a very serious step. And he is a man that will stick at nothing. Perhaps it is all the better that you are going away.”
“That is the strongest argument you could use,” said Evelyn, “to keep me here.”
“Perhaps that was what I intended,” said Lady Leighton; “but, dear, how late it is, I must go——” She had reached the door when she suddenly turned back. “What time did you fix for our visit to you, Evelyn? I must work it into our list. Without organisation one could never go anywhere at all. It must be between the end of October and the middle of December. Would the 10th November to the 20th suit you? or is that too long. One must be perfectly frank about these matters, or one never could go on at all.”
“It must be when you please, and for as long as you please, dear Madeline,” said Mrs. Rowland. She added, “I fear, you know, it will be rather dull I don’t know whether there is any society, and James——”
“I will put it down 10th to 15th,” said Lady Leighton, seriously noting this consideration. And then she gave her friend a hasty embrace, and hurried away.
How strange it all was! Evelyn felt as if she had peeped through some crevice behind the lively bustling stage, and suddenly seen what was going on behind{v.1–11717} the scenes. There had