Sisters

CHAPTER XXII.

Now, what to do for Rose.

Rose had written warm congratulations to her sister, without mentioning any desire for a personal interview. Ever since her marriage, she had refrained from giving invitations to her family, leaving the initiative in social matters to them—a mark of consideration and good taste on her part which they had quite approved of; and intercourse had been limited to afternoon calls, more or less affectionate and informal, but stopping short at meals in common under the roof of either party. Now, however, Deb craved for a fuller sympathy with the sweetest-tempered and kindest-hearted of her sisters, and now it seemed so perfectly easy to go to her house in pursuit of it. She despatched an impulsive note:

"DEAREST,—I want a quiet talk with you about all that has happened. May I come to lunch tomorrow, so as to make a long afternoon of it? If not convenient, fix a day to lunch with me; but I am not so tied as you are, and besides, I should like to have Peter's advice on one or two little matters of business, if it would not bother him—of course, after he comes from town. Don't keep him at home on purpose."

To which Rose replied by telegram:

"Shall expect you early tomorrow for a long day. Peter delighted to place himself at your disposal."

So Deb set off next morning, full of benevolent intentions, to gather poor humdrum Rose and her (in his way) truly worthy husband into the sphere of her golden prosperity. Also, incidentally, to warm herself in the light of faithful and familiar eyes. Since her final dismissal of Claud Dalzell—although she was satisfied with that act, and ready to repeat it again, if necessary—she had been conscious of a personal loneliness, not sensibly mitigated by her crowd-attracting wealth. "Someone of my own" was the want of her warm heart.

And Rose, with no petty grudge for past short-comings, answered that need with open arms. Never was hostess more cordial to honoured guest. Peter also was at home. He had been to town and back again, and now stood upon his spotless doorstep, and anon upon his handsome drawing-room hearthrug, determined that his house should lack nothing befitting the great occasion. It was all in gala dress—newly-arranged flowers, festive lunch-table, the best foot foremost; and yet, whereas there was no hiding the self-seeker in the ingratiating Bennet Goldsworthy, there was no finding him in this proud host and husband, whose desire was only to do his dear wife credit.

Neither of them said, in word or manner, "Why didn't you come like this before?" Deb knew that her welcome would have been the same, and had hard work not to show too frankly her sense of their magnanimity. As it was, she nearly kissed Peter in the hall—such a nice, warm, comfortable, hospitable entrance to as comfortable a home (in its undeniably middle-class style) as she had ever been inside of—the more striking in its effect by contrast with Mary's. Peter's cuffs were like the driven snow; he was charmingly fresh and clean, well barbered and well tailored; grown quite handsome, too, now that he had filled out and matured. As for Rose—"I hear," Frances wrote from Paris, "that poor Rose has become a perfect tub." Mrs Peter was almost as broad as she was long. But what health in the sunny face! What opulent well-being in the full curves of her figure, gowned in a fashion to satisfy even Deb's exigent taste.

They did not tell her it was good of her to come to see them, but they told her in all the languages of courtesy that they were mighty glad she had come. She was taken into the drawing-room—full of soft chairs and sofas that anybody might sit on, and with a fire of clear coals in a grate that glittered with constant polishing. But everything in Peter's establishment seemed to shine with pure cleanliness; he took after his mother, who, modest in other things, was fond of offering a sovereign to anybody who would find a cobweb in her house.

Deb was peeled of her furs by Peter, with the greatest deference and politeness, but with none of the obsequiousness that had sickened her elsewhere; he laid down her sable cloak with the reverence of one who knew its value, and he asked Rose in a whisper if her sister would like a glass of wine before lunch. The smiling matron shook her head, and whispered something else, which sent him out of the room. Then, while he skipped about in the background, attending to the wines and beers, she convoyed the guest to the very luxurious bedroom where head-nurse Keziah dandled the youngest of the Breen children. The rest had had their dinners and gone out a-walking, so as not to be made too much of by a silly mother, if it could be helped. Warm was the greeting between Keziah and her late mistress, and many the questions about Redford and the old folks; but there was no hint that Mrs Moon hankered after the big store-rooms and linen-closets, the dignities and privileges of her former home. Her heart was with Rose's babies now.

"There, what do you think of THIS?" she demanded, as she proudly displayed her charge, and, being invited thereto, condescendingly laid it in Deb's outstretched arms.

It was a pretty, healthy creature, fat, dainty and about two months old, still in the whitest and finest of long clothes. "Little duck!" Deb crooned, and rubbed her cheek almost with passion on its rose-leaf skin. Robert's nose, indeed, was dislocated on the spot.

"Oh, Rosie," she presently blurted out, "I would like to have this child!"

"Would you?" replied Rose, all smiles.

"No, but, seriously and without joking, I really would, you know."

"I daresay," laughed the plump little mother, and her laugh was echoed by Keziah as she passed into the adjoining nursery—to leave the long parted sisters to themselves.

"Now, look here," the guest addressed the hostess, thoughtfully and deliberately, as soon as they were alone, "if you will give her to me, I will bring her up and educate her as perfectly as care and money can do it. She shall take the name of Pennycuick, and be my daughter, and my heiress, and the future representative of the family. And," she added, for her own inward ear, "we can live at home or somewhere, if necessary, where Breens and such will not have the chance to interfere with us."

"As if I would give my baby away," Rose sweetly jeered her—"even for a kingdom!"

"You have five more, and may have another five—or twenty-five. It looks like it."

"But none to spare. Besides, you won't want other people's children when you get your own. How about her being the heiress then?"

"I shall never have children of my own," said Deb, with tightened lips. "That is why I want to adopt one." Rose laughed the idea to scorn.

"Of course you will!" cried she. "You must. All the money in the world is nothing compared with a baby. I wouldn't give one of mine for twenty fortunes—not if I had to earn their keep at the wash-tub."

"Not even for the child's own advantage?"

"It is not to any child's advantage to grow up thinking that its mother did not care to be a mother to it," said Rose. "Nor yet—possibly—to grow up to look down on her."

"Rose!" Deb's guilty face flamed scarlet.

"Or on her father," Rose continued, with soft but firm persistence. "She must have a father too, Deb, and Peter would not give his job away any more than I would give mine. He thinks the world of them all. He is just as good a father as he is a husband," with a lift of head and lighting of eye. "Come to me, my precious!" as the baby whimpered. "Come to its own mother, then! No, no, Debbie dear, you be a mother yourself in the natural and proper way; you will find it a deal better than being rich. Marry some good, kind man straight away, before you waste any more of your young years. I am sure there must be dozens dying to have you."

"Dying to have the handling of Mr Thornycroft's money," said Deb, with a bitterness that surprised her sister.

"Oh, no," said she; "you are sufficient attraction without that."

"I shall never know it. But this," thought Deb, "is a very Breen-like turn that the conversation is taking. These people—and Rose has become one of them—have quite the tradesman's idea of marriage. Any 'good, kind man' will do. They cannot be expected to understand." She watched Rose billowing down into her nursing-chair, and pretended to herself that she was not envious. "It would have been a wildly-rash experiment to adopt this child, and I shall probably live to be thankful that my offer was refused," she inwardly argued, while her beautiful eyes melted at the spectacle of the happy mother snuggling the babe to her bared breast. "It is a charming little creature now, but it would probably grow up common, whatever its education and environment. Blood will tell. And if she took the name of Pennycuick, she could not pass it on. After all, a boy is best."

So Robert Goldsworthy remained in the position his gifts had gained for him.

After an admirable meal—in the course of which Deb made herself most charming to her brother-in-law, while Rose retired as much as possible from the conversation, in order that he might shine to the best advantage—those little matters of business that had been mentioned were discussed. They were trifles invented for the purpose of compliments to Mr Breen, and the serious energy with which he applied himself to each case, and his exhaustive treatment of it, showed his thorough enjoyment of the part alloted to him by the distinguished woman who was so accomplished in the art of giving pleasure—especially to men. Frankly, Deb always preferred a man to talk to, and she was agreeably surprised to find that Peter was very intelligent, and acquainted with several things beside shopkeeping. Rose was simply enchanted to find herself 'cut out' by him. When she was not stealing from the room to leave the coast clear, she was beaming over her needlework in the background, still as a mouse. Not by word or look would she spoil his chance of proving to Deb what he really was—how mistaken in him she and the others had been.

It was Peter who escorted the guest round the garden and stables, Mrs Peter excusing herself. In the well-stocked greenhouse Miss Pennycuick, who was fond of flowers, obtained 'wrinkles' that she declared would be most valuable to her in the management of her Redford houses—which she implied that he must see; in the interview with the carriage horse—Rose had a little brougham, not, as her sisters supposed, for paying calls on other drapers' wives, which she had small leisure for, but for shoppings and airings and taking children to dentists and pantomimes—Miss Pennycuick was instructive in her turn, feeling legs and advising about firing and bandages with the recognised authority of an expert. Old Bruce, padding at his master's heels, was greeted by name, patted and shaken hands with, as if he had never abetted rebels; and the discovery of a litter of choice puppies gave opportunity for the making of a little present, which was graciously received.

After tea, Rose was invited to show her house—a further proof of her sister's tact and powers of divination. Now Peter was left behind—he used the opportunity to cut flowers for Deb to take away with her—and the little matron was in her glory. From top to bottom, and every cupboard and corner, and the numerous up-to-date appliances, and the stocks of silver, linen, china, the ample furnishings of every part, the solid goodness of every bit of material—all was displayed with modest pride, the complacence of one who knows there is nothing to hide or apologise for.

"Isn't it a nice home, Debbie? Could any woman wish for a better home?" she asked again and again, unable to restrain herself.

And Deb, with a few secret reservations, said "Yes" and "No" with kindly warmth, thinking to herself: "Happy child, to be satisfied so easily! How much happier than we who want the moon!"

"I often wonder why I am so blessed," Rose said, in the midst of the house inspection, "when poor Molly, who deserved so much more, lives the life she does. Ah, Deb—what a marriage!"

She spoke of it exactly as Bennet Goldsworthy had spoken of hers—in a spirit compounded of benevolence and contempt, the former element preponderating in him, the latter in her. At the moment she was exhibiting the complete appointments of Peter's dressing-room.

"My husband may be a draper," said she, "but at least he does not shave in my room."

The survey of the house ended at the nurseries. Rose had purposely left the best till last. Her throwing open of the door revealed a picture so charming that it persuaded Deb to accept an invitation to dinner in order that she might do justice to it.

"Oh, what a delightful room!" she cried, as her eyes ran round its pictured walls, glowing in the evening firelight.

"Not large enough now," the smiling mother objected. "We are going to build new ones—a wing at the back—and turn these into bedrooms for the elder children, who will soon be old enough to have their own."

"Oh, what little loves!" Deb then exclaimed, her eyes upon the young inhabitants—five little fat, white, vigorous creatures in various stages of preparation for bed.

"There is one absent," explained Rose, in accents of keen regret. "John, the eldest; he is paying a visit to his grandparents. This is Constance, the second"—a golden-haired girl, enjoying her nightly treat of nursing the new baby. "And this is Kathleen"—a chubby creature in a flannel dressing-gown, waiting for her bath; "and Lucy"—being rubbed down by the nursery underling, Jane; "and Pennycuick"—Deb started at the name, and was uncertain whether it pleased her or not in this connection—the baby but one, in the tub under the hands of old head-nurse Keziah. "ARE they not sweet?"

They really were. Clean-blooded, clear-eyed, well-fed, well-kept, full of life and fun—the pride of the maternal heart was amply justified. Deb plunged into the group delightedly, kissed them, teased them, tickled them, did everything a proper aunt should do; and Rose was in ecstasies.

"Oh, Debbie," she pleaded, "DON'T go yet! Stay with them for a little. Stay and see baby undressed—I always do it myself—and have a bit of dinner with us; you will, won't you? Give me my nursing apron, Jane."

As she tied the sheet of flannel over her smart gown, she whispered to Jane:

"Go down and tell Mr Breen that Miss Pennycuick is going to stay to dinner."

Then she turned up her sleeves, settled herself upon a low chair, and, with bath-tub and belaced toilet basket, and warming night-clothes around her, performed the task that made this hour the happiest of her happy day. As closely as the romping children allowed, Deb watched her, and marvelled at her quick skill and lightness of hand. Who would have thought that little Rose could be so clever? The healthy baby, so deftly handled, raised no protest, but curled her toes as if she enjoyed it; and when all was done, the snowy-robed, perfumed creature was laid to its young mother's generous breast, and sucked itself to sleep in five minutes. Deb, wistfully observant, began to dimly apprehend that to wish Rose's marriage undone would be about as kind as to wish back to earth the dead whom we believe in heaven.

Meanwhile, Peter had been bustling about after such dinner arrangements as he could attend to. Mr Thornycroft himself had never taken more pains to please this guest. Deb enjoyed strawberries for the first time that season, and a glass of wine that even Claud could not have carped at. Coffee was brought to the drawing-room, from which Rose slipped away for a whispered colloquy with her husband in the hall; the result of which was that they came in together to ask Miss Pennycuick to do them the honour of standing godmother to the baby. Deb put the crown upon the gracious day by promptly consenting.

"But that," she thought, with some chagrin, as she rolled homewards—or rather, bedwards—with Peter's flowers in the carriage beside her—"that is the extent of my tether in this direction. A christening mug, and a bit of jewellery on her birthdays—I shall be allowed that; otherwise I can be of no more use to them than if I were a workhouse pauper. They are independent of me and of everybody."