A Woman's Burden: A Novel. Hume Fergus

trimmed her sails accordingly. At the present moment she was in the little drawing-room for afternoon tea. She patted a rebellious little curl into shape as in some sort of excuse for not replying to Mrs. Darrow's latest complaint against Uncle Barton. The widow continued to protest against the way in which she was being treated; and Hilda continued, so far as was possible, to avoid contention, to admire her own pretty face in the glass, until tea was brought in. Then, and then only, did Mrs. Darrow, ever fond of her comforts and blest with the best of good appetites, brisk up. But true to her indolent disposition, she asked Hilda to make the tea.

      "You do it so well, dear," she said coaxingly; "I taught you, didn't I?"

      "Yes, Julia, of course you taught me, that is why I can make it to your satisfaction," said Hilda, sitting down to the bamboo table.

      She called Mrs. Darrow Julia at the widow's express request, for – in Mrs. Darrow's opinion – such familiarity tended to diminish the difference in their ages. How she arrived at this conclusion was known only to Mrs. Darrow, who never condescended to explain her reasons for either speech or action. It was so, because it was so, and there was an end of it. And invariably the adoption of so uncompromising an attitude was successful. By its means she managed to emerge triumphant from her fiercest altercations. By alternately shifting her ground and refusing to give any reasons, she always reduced her opponent to a moral pulp. In effect, her tactics were undeniable.

      Hilda's attractions were of that order which suited her present occupation. She looked well at a tea-table. She wore white, touched here and there with the palest of blue, and her hands moved ever so deftly among the egg-shell china cups and saucers, with their sprawling dragons of green and red. She was essentially the Dresden china type herself. A dainty figure, a transparent complexion, dark blue eyes, and hair the colour of ripe corn: such were the outward and visible attributes of Hilda Marsh. She looked like an angel, and was frequently taken for one – more especially by men. Her beauty was that of a peach, and, like a peach, she possessed a very hard kernel. Not even Mr. Barton had a more obdurate heart. However, she succeeded in hiding this from all save her own family, and they, being anxious for Hilda to make a good match, were so kind as to remain silent on the subject. Moreover, Hilda – her angelic qualities being reserved wholly for the public, and not at all discernible by the domestic hearth – was, in the eyes of her family, a personage to be got rid of. That seemed clear, since she was a great grief at home. Hers was a case in which the face is most certainly not a correct index to the mind.

      "Ah!" sighed Mrs. Darrow, soothed somewhat now with a strong cup of tea and a particularly indigestible muffin, "if I wasn't the best-tempered woman in the world how I should complain of my hard lot!"

      "What is the matter now, Julia?"

      "Matter! oh, nothing worse than usual. Only that Uncle Barton has engaged a governess for Dicky, and I have had no choice in the matter. Oh, it's nothing." Mrs. Darrow stirred her tea violently. "Of course, I'm a mere cipher in my own house."

      "Mr. Barton pays for the governess," suggested Hilda.

      "And why shouldn't he? It's his duty to educate Dicky, and give the poor boy a chance in the world. My life is over, Hilda, and I live only for my boy."

      This was one of Mrs. Darrow's stock pieces of sentiment, and she produced it with surprisingly dramatic effect on every occasion. It sounded well, and cost nothing, for she never troubled about Dicky, save when he was necessary to a tableau on public days, and her reputation of being a devoted mother was to be enhanced thereby. Although her husband had been dead five years, she still mourned him in black silk, amply trimmed with crape, and was careful to use nothing but the most aggressively black-edged paper. Even her handkerchiefs mourned in a deep border, and her cap of delicate white cambric called loudly on the world to witness what a model widow she was. In addition to these mute evidences of eternal sorrow, Mrs. Darrow gave tongue to her woes vigorously. She really did not know, she said, how she bore it. Indeed, if it were not for her dear child she would wish to die. No woman had ever suffered what she had suffered – and much more to the same effect, all of which was very genteel and laudable, and meant to be correctly indicative of her noble state of mind.

      "Uncle Barton is coming to tell me about the new governess, Hilda; I expect him every minute."

      Hilda rose quickly.

      "In that case, dear, I had better go. Mr. Barton has no love for me."

      "He has no love for anyone. I never knew so selfish and stingy a creature. Don't go. I want you to stay and talk to me. Perhaps Gerald may come too."

      "Mr. Arkel's coming is nothing to me," replied Hilda, tossing her pretty head.

      "Really! I thought you liked him!"

      "So I do; but then you see I like many people – Major Dundas for instance."

      "John!" Mrs. Darrow became reflective. "Oh, yes; John is very nice, but not nearly so good looking as Gerald. Besides, Gerald is Uncle Barton's heir!"

      "That may or may not be; we don't know. But this I do know," said Hilda pettishly, "that should either of Uncle Barton's nephews become engaged to me, that one will not be the heir."

      "I don't see why not?"

      "Mr. Barton doesn't like me, that's why. Perhaps he'll even go the length of marrying the new governess to Major Dundas or Mr. Arkel to spite me." Then, after a pause, "What kind of woman is she?"

      Mrs. Darrow threw out her hands with a wail.

      "My dear, how should I know? I am quite in the dark. I have been told absolutely nothing about the woman. But if she is not a thoroughly satisfactory person, I'll have her out of this very soon, I can tell you. I'm not going to be imposed upon in my own house by any spy."

      "What is her name?"

      "Miriam Crane. It sounds Jewish. I hate Jews."

      "Is she pretty?"

      "He doesn't say. But knowing how Uncle Barton hates our sex, I quite expect he has chosen some raw-boned, prim, board-school monster, just to spite me. I am sure she's horrid. Her name sounds horrid."

      "Then she shan't teach me!"

      The interruption came from behind the window curtain, and Hilda laughed gaily.

      "Hiding in there, Dicky? Come and have a piece of cake."

      "You horrid child," cried his mother, as the pale-faced Dicky emerged from his retreat. "What a turn you gave me! Why can't you sit on a chair like a Christian instead of poking in window corners? What have you been doing?"

      "Reading 'Robinson Crusoe.'"

      "You should be at your lessons; really, I never knew so idle a child. You're breaking my heart with your horrid ways, you know you are! I'm sure I'm the most afflicted woman in the world. If I didn't bear up I don't know what would become of you!"

      Dicky, well used to his mother's wailing, took no notice whatever, but under the wing of Hilda devoted himself to the demolition of cake to a most alarming extent. He was a delicate, nervous child, wan and peevish; far too tall and old-fashioned for his age. Under judicious management as to diet, work, play, and exercise, he would have developed into a charming little fellow; but Mrs. Darrow, with her ill-disciplined mind, was the worst possible parent to be charged with the up-bringing of such a child. She overwhelmed him with caresses one moment, declaring that he was her all, boxed his ears the next, and lamented that she was burdened with him; so that Dicky came as near hating his mother as a child of ten well could, and Mrs. Darrow, instinctively feeling this, bewailed his lack of affection and sought to scold him into loving her. If ever Uncle Barton did a wise thing in his life, it was when he engaged a governess for the neglected boy, though of course everything depended upon the personality of the governess. So far Mrs. Darrow was in the dark, and out of sheer contradiction to Uncle Barton was prepared to make herself highly unpleasant to the new-comer, and nobody could be more disagreeable than Mrs. Dacre Darrow, as the parish of Lesser Thorpe knew to its cost. She was a past-mistress in the arts of scandal-mongering, nagging, and back-biting. The strength for a right-down hatred was not in her.

      "If my new governess isn't pretty, like Hilda, I don't want her," said Dicky, when his mother had wailed herself into a state of momentary passiveness. "I don't