Chapter Four
The Home Circle

Lady Haredale was naturally gifted with peculiarly even, cheerful spirits. She had a great capacity for enjoyment, though she had troubles enough to break down a better woman. She had married at seventeen a man much older than herself, already in embarrassed circumstances. Her step-children both disliked her, and had given her very good cause to dislike them.

She had four nearly portionless girls of her own to marry, and she herself had endless personal anxieties and worries, springing alike from want of money and from want of principle. Truly she had often not the wherewithal to pay for her own and her daughters’ dress. She did not mind being in debt because it was wrong, but she found it very disagreeable. She belonged to a circle of ladies who played cards, and for very high stakes. That led to complications. She was a beauty and had many admirers, with whom she liked to maintain sentimental relations, and she was just really sentimental enough not always to stop at the safe point. Very uncomfortable trains of circumstances had arisen from the indulgence of this taste; and, if she had had no regrets or difficulties of her own, Lord Haredale’s character and pursuits would have given her plenty. Nor had she outer interests or resources in herself. She never realised, she seemed scarcely to have heard of all the various forms of philanthropy which are furthered by so many ladies of position. She did not care for politics, literature, or art. She was probably conscious of being much more charming than most of the women who occupied themselves with these interests; but on the whole it was rather that she did not know anything about them, than that she set herself against them. As for religion, she was really hardly conscious of its claims upon her beyond an occasional attendance at church, and due consideration for the social rank of a bishop. In such unconsciousness rather than opposition Lady Haredale was behind and unlike her age; but the state of mind may still be found, where dense perceptions and exclusive habits co-exist.

Yet she was always ready for a fresh amusement; she enjoyed gossip of a piquant and scandalous nature; she greatly enjoyed admiration, and treading on social white ice. When none of these excitements were at hand, she liked realistic novels, and comfortable chairs, and good things to eat and drink. She also liked her little girls, though she took very little trouble about them; and, though it cannot be denied that Satan did find some mischief for her idle heart and brain, if not for her idle hands to do, he did not often manage to lower her spirits or ruffle her temper. She not only did what she liked – what is less common, she liked what she did.

But her young daughters did not inherit this cheery serenity. They had no intelligent teaching, no growing enthusiasms to occupy their minds, and they were inconceivably ignorant and bornées. They were entirely unprincipled, using the word in a negative sense, and they had not their mother’s steady health. They had knocked about, abroad and at home, with careless servants, and foreign teachers. They had been to children’s balls, and had been produced in picturesque costumes at grown-up entertainments; till, lacking their mother’s spirit, they were apt to look on cynically, while she devised fresh schemes of amusement.

“Lady Haredale is so fresh!” Una had once remarked, to the intense amusement of her partner, at one of those “children’s parties,” which are given that grown-up people may admire the children, and amuse themselves.

These three children, in the afternoon in Easter week on which Amethyst was expected, had grouped themselves into the bow-window of the drawing-room, looking with their long hair, black legs, and fashionable frocks, like a contemporary picture in Punch.

“Dismal place this!” said Una, yawning and looking out at the garden.

“Oh,” said Kattern, as the next girl, Katherine, was usually called, “my lady will have all the old set here soon.”

They often called their mother “my lady,” after the manner of their half-brother and sister.

“Yes,” said Victoria, the youngest, in a slow, high-toned drawl. “It’s quite six weeks since we’ve seen Tony. He’ll be coming soon, and Frank Chichester, I dare say. Frank’ll give you a chance, Una.”

“Frank Chichester! I don’t value boys; they have no conversation. You and Kattern may pull caps for him.”

“Tory’s too rude,” said Kattern. “He never forgave her for saying, when he asked her to dance, that she must watch him to see how he moved.”

“I thought that was chic,” said Tory; “some men like it, and coax you.”

“He’s too young for it,” said the experienced Una; “not my style at all.”

“Ah, we know your style – dear Tony.”

“Be quiet,” interposed Una, angrily, and with scarlet cheeks; “what’s my style to such little chits as you?”

“Little chits indeed!” said Tory. “You might be glad to be a little chit. You’re getting to the awkward age, and you won’t have a little girl’s privileges much longer. You’d better look out. And besides, we shall none of us wear as well as my lady.”

“There’ll be Amethyst,” said Kattern. “If she’s so awfully pretty, we shall be out of the running.”

“She’s sure to be bread-and-butterish and goody; that won’t pay,” said Tory. “Now be quiet, I want to finish my book before she comes.”

“What’s it about?” asked Kattern.

“She married the wrong man, and the hero wants her to run away with him, but I suppose the husband will die, so it will all come right!” said Tory, drawing up her black legs into a comfortable attitude, and burying herself in her book.

On that morning Amethyst had been taken to London by her aunt; and, by no means so miserable as she thought she ought to have been, was delivered over to her father’s care.

Matters had settled themselves fairly pleasantly for Miss Haredale. Her house was let, and an old friend had asked her to go abroad with her for the summer, so that she was not left to solitude – a greater consolation just now to Amethyst than to herself. The girl felt the parting; but eager interest in the new old house, longing for her mother and sisters, and shy pleasure in her father’s notice, overwhelmed the feeling and pushed it aside for the time. She was delighted when her father took her to lunch at Verey’s, and enjoyed the strawberry ice which he gave her. She tried to adapt her conversation to what she supposed might be Lord Haredale’s tastes, and asked him if the hunting near Cleverley was good.

“Fond of riding, eh?” he said. “I haven’t been out for years, – never was much in my line. But your aunt, she was the best horse-woman in the county. Fellows used to lay bets on what ugly places Annabel Haredale would go in for next. But she was up to the game, and when she was expected to show off would ride as if she were following a funeral – make them open all the gates for her, and then go ahead like a bird and distance everybody. – You’ll do, if you have her hand at a horse’s mouth, and her seat on the saddle.”

Amethyst found some difficulty in picturing her aunt flying over the country like a bird, and answered humbly —

“I never rode anything but Dobbin, the Rectory pony, papa; but he could take a flat ditch, if it wasn’t too wide. I should like hunting.”

“Well, we’ll see about it next winter. I’ll manage to mount you, perhaps, somehow.”

“Oh, papa, I don’t want anything that’s any trouble. I like everything that comes handy.” She smiled gaily as she spoke, and her sweet light-hearted look struck her father.

“You take after my lady,” he said aloud, and then under his moustaches, “and, by Jove! you’ll cut her out too.”

Amethyst’s gaiety subsided as they came to the little country station, and were driving through the lanes to Cleverley Hall. Her heart beat very fast – it was the intensest moment her young life had known.

“Shy, eh?” said her father good-naturedly, as they reached the Hall. “Never mind – we take things easy. Visitors in the drawing-room, do you say?” – to the servant. “Generally are, I think. My lady would have made a circle of mermen and savages if she had been shipwrecked with Robinson Crusoe.” Amethyst hardly heard; she followed her father into the long low room, full of misty afternoon sunlight. She did not heed that several figures rose hurriedly as they entered; she heard a clear sweet voice say —

“Why here she is! Here’s my big girl!” and, full in the dazzle of that confusing sunlight, she saw her mothers slender figure and smiling face.

As the welcoming arms clasped her, and the smiling lips kissed her, Amethyst felt as if she had never known what happiness meant before.

Chapter Five
Sisters

The visitors, who were introduced by Lady Haredale as, “Our neighbours at Ashfield, Mr Leigh, and Mrs Leigh,” speedily took their leave. Amethyst had hardly seen them; for the whole evening was dazzling and dreamy to her, full of emotion and excitement.

It was hours before she could sleep, though a wakeful night was a new experience to her. But when she woke the next morning rather late, she was sensible of the light of common day, and came down fresh and cheerful to find herself the first at breakfast, and nobody there to receive her apologies for having overslept herself.

Breakfast was in the “library” – a pleasant room, but with no books in it to account for its appellation; and Lady Haredale soon appeared, while the three girls straggled in by degrees.

“Now, you bad children,” said Lady Haredale gaily, as the meal concluded, “you know you have all got to make up your minds that Amethyst will go out with me, and that you are all still in the school-room.”

“Where is it?” asked Tory, with her lazy drawl.

“There isn’t much to go out for, that I see – down here,” said Una.

“Oh, you are all spoiled,” said Lady Haredale. “Amethyst never saw such a set of ignorant creatures. I shall leave her to tell you what good little girls should be like.”

There was a sweet lightsome tone in Lady Haredale’s voice, that seemed to Amethyst to indicate the most delightful relations between herself and her daughters, though the three girls did not look responsive.

“Have you any pretty frocks, my dear?” said Lady Haredale, as she rose to go away. “I mean to have some parties, and there will be people here. If his lordship won’t let us go to London, we must amuse ourselves here, mustn’t we? Though I don’t despair of London yet.”

“I don’t know – I’m afraid you wouldn’t think my best dress very pretty, mamma.”

”‘Mamma’ – how pretty the old name is on her tongue!”

Amethyst blushed.