第39章 LADY MOTTISFONT(3)

Lady Mottisfont did not hunt any more than the Anglo-Italian Countess did;indeed,she had become so absorbed in household matters and in Dorothy's wellbeing that she had no mind to waste a minute on mere enjoyments.As she had said,to talk coolly of what might have been the best destination in days past for a child to whom they had become so attached seemed quite barbarous,and she could not understand how her husband should consider the point so abstractedly;for,as will probably have been guessed,Lady Mottisfont long before this time,if she had not done so at the very beginning,divined Sir Ashley's true relation to Dorothy.But the baronet's wife was so discreetly meek and mild that she never told him of her surmise,and took what Heaven had sent her without cavil,her generosity in this respect having been bountifully rewarded by the new life she found in her love for the little girl.

Her husband recurred to the same uncomfortable subject when,a few days later,they were speaking of travelling abroad.He said that it was almost a pity,if they thought of going,that they had not fallen in with the Countess's wish.That lady had told him that she had met Dorothy walking with her nurse,and that she had never seen a child she liked so well.

'What--she covets her still?How impertinent of the woman!'said Lady Mottisfont.

'She seems to do so ...You see,dearest Philippa,the advantage to Dorothy would have been that the Countess would have adopted her legally,and have made her as her own daughter;while we have not done that--we are only bringing up and educating a poor child in charity.'

'But I'll adopt her fully--make her mine legally!'cried his wife in an anxious voice.'How is it to be done?'

'H'm.'He did not inform her,but fell into thought;and,for reasons of her own,his lady was restless and uneasy.

The very next day Lady Mottisfont drove to Fernell Hall to pay the neglected call upon her neighbour.The Countess was at home,and received her graciously.But poor Lady Mottisfont's heart died within her as soon as she set eyes on her new acquaintance.Such wonderful beauty,of the fully-developed kind,had never confronted her before inside the lines of a human face.She seemed to shine with every light and grace that woman can possess.Her finished Continental manners,her expanded mind,her ready wit,composed a study that made the other poor lady sick;for she,and latterly Sir Ashley himself,were rather rural in manners,and she felt abashed by new sounds and ideas from without.She hardly knew three words in any language but her own,while this divine creature,though truly English,had,apparently,whatever she wanted in the Italian and French tongues to suit every impression;which was considered a great improvement to speech in those days,and,indeed,is by many considered as such in these.

'How very strange it was about the little girl!'the Contessa said to Lady Mottisfont,in her gay tones.'I mean,that the child the lawyer recommended should,just before then,have been adopted by you,who are now my neighbour.How is she getting on?I must come and see her.'

'Do you still want her?'asks Lady Mottisfont suspiciously.

'Oh,I should like to have her!'

'But you can't!She's mine!'said the other greedily.

A drooping mariner appeared in the Countess from that moment.

Lady Mottisfont,too,was in a wretched mood all the way home that day.The Countess was so charming in every way that she had charmed her gentle ladyship;how should it be possible that she had failed to charm Sir Ashley?Moreover,she had awakened a strange thought in Philippa's mind.As soon as she reached home she rushed to the nursery,and there,seizing Dorothy,frantically kissed her;then,holding her at arm's length,she gazed with a piercing inquisitiveness into the girl's lineaments.She sighed deeply,abandoned the wondering Dorothy,and hastened away.

She had seen there not only her husband's traits,which she had often beheld before,but others,of the shade,shape,and expression which characterized those of her new neighbour.

Then this poor lady perceived the whole perturbing sequence of things,and asked herself how she could have been such a walking piece of simplicity as not to have thought of this before.But she did not stay long upbraiding herself for her shortsightedness,so overwhelmed was she with misery at the spectacle of herself as an intruder between these.To be sure she could not have foreseen such a conjuncture;but that did not lessen her grief.The woman who had been both her husband's bliss and his backsliding had reappeared free when he was no longer so,and she evidently was dying to claim her own in the person of Dorothy,who had meanwhile grown to be,to Lady Mottisfont,almost the only source of each day's happiness,supplying her with something to watch over,inspiring her with the sense of maternity,and so largely reflecting her husband's nature as almost to deceive her into the pleasant belief that she reflected her own also.

If there was a single direction in which this devoted and virtuous lady erred,it was in the direction of over-submissiveness.When all is said and done,and the truth told,men seldom show much self-sacrifice in their conduct as lords and masters to helpless women bound to them for life,and perhaps (though I say it with all uncertainty)if she had blazed up in his face like a furze-faggot,directly he came home,she might have helped herself a little.But God knows whether this is a true supposition;at any rate she did no such thing;and waited and prayed that she might never do despite to him who,she was bound to admit,had always been tender and courteous towards her;and hoped that little Dorothy might never be taken away.