"No, you have not. Tell Cecil I will see about it. Rosamond will take it best from an old woman like me."
Mrs. Poynsett was quite conscious that Cecil had more high breeding and refinement than Rosamond, who was essentially the Irish Colonel's daughter, and that the cold temperament of the one irritated the warm nature of the other. More than one flash had revealed Rosamond's contempt for Cecil's assumptions and intolerance for her precision-besides, she was five years older, and had not an ideal in Dunstone.
After revolving what form of remonstrance would be least offensive during half the night and day, Mrs. Poynsett was not prepared for the appearance, about noon, of her son Julius, when, coming to what she termed the confidential side of her couch, he asked hesitatingly, and colouring, "Mother, I want you to tell me, was there anything amiss in Rose's dress last night?"
"You did not perceive-"
"I'm not used to the style of thing. Is it not the way with what you call full dress?"
"To a certain degree-" she began.
He caught her up. "And here has Cecil been putting my poor Rose into a perfect agony! It is only woman's censorious nonsense, isn't it, mother? Mere folly to think otherwise! I knew you would set my mind at rest; and if you would tell Cecil that you will not have Rosamond insulted, it would be as well."
"Stay, Julius," as he was walking off complacently, "I grieve, but I must confess that I was going to speak to Rosamond myself."
He looked very blank.
"Mind, I am certain that it is only an innocent following of what she has been brought up to;" and as he signed a sort of hurt acquiescence, as if trying to swallow the offence, she added, "When do you go out again?"
"Not till Monday, when we dine at Colonel Ross's. He is an old friend of Lord Rathforlane."
"Then I am inclined to let it cool. Sometimes advice that has been resented does its work."
"You don't think the interference justifiable?"
"Not from that quarter."
"And can it be needful to attend to it?"
"My dear Julius, it is not a style of dress I could ever have worn, nor have let my daughters have worn, if I had had any."
"Conclusive, that!" said Julius, getting up, more really angered with his mother than he had been since his childhood.
However, he conquered himself by the time he had reached the door, and came back to say, "I beg your pardon, mother, I know you would not say so without need."
"Thank you, my boy!" and he saw tears in her eyes, the first time he was conscious of having brought them. As he bent down to kiss her, she rallied, and cheerfully said, "I have no doubt it will all come right-Rosamond is too nice not to feel it at once."
No such thing; Rosamond was still furious. If he disapproved, she would submit to him; but he had seen nothing wrong, had he?
"My dear Rose, I told you I was no judge: you forget what my eyes are; and my mother-"
"You have been to your mother?"
"My dear, what could I do?"
"And you think I am going to insult my own mother and sisters to please any woman's finical prudish notions'? Pray what did Mrs. Poynsett say?"
The excuse of custom, pleaded by Mrs. Poynsett, only made Rosamond fiercer. She wished she had never come where she was to hear that her own mother was no judge of propriety, and her husband could not trust her, but must needs run about asking everybody if she were fit to be seen. Such a tempest Julius had never seen outside a back street in the garrison town. There seemed to be nothing she would not say, and his attempts at soothing only added to her violence. Indeed, there was only one thing which would have satisfied her, and that was, that she had been perfectly right, and the whole world barbarously wrong; and she was wild with passion at perceiving that he had a confidence in his own mother which he could not feel in hers.
Nor would he insist that Raymond should force Cecil to apologize. "My dear," he said, "don't you know there are things easier to ask than to obtain?"
To which Rosamond replied, in another gust, that she would never again sit down to table with Cecil until she had apologized for the insult, not to herself, she did not care about that, but to the mother who had seen her dresses tried on: Julius must tell Raymond so, or take her away to any cottage at once. She would not stay where people blamed mamma and poisoned his mind against her! She believed he cared for them more than for her!
Julius had sympathized far longer with her offended feeling than another could have done; but he was driven to assert himself. "Nonsense, Rose, you know better," he said, in a voice of displeasure; but she pouted forth, "I don't know it. You believe every one against me, and you won't take my part against that nasty little spiteful prig!"
"Cecil has behaved very ill to you," said Julius, granting her rather over much; "but she is a foolish conceited child, who does not deserve that Raymond should be worried about her. I foresee plenty of grievances from her; but, Rosie, we must and will not let her come between us and Raymond. You don't know what a brother he has been to me-I hardly think I could have got through my first year at school but for him; and I don't think my sweet Rose could wish to do me such an ill turn as to stir up a feud with such a brother because his wife is provoking."
The luncheon-bell began to sound, and she sobbed out, "There then, go down, leave me alone! Go to them, since you are so fond of them all!"
"I don't think you could come down as you are," said Julius, gravely; "I will bring you something."
"It would choke me-choke me!" she sobbed out.
Julius knew enough of the De Lancy temperament to be aware that words carried them a long way, and he thought solitude would be so beneficial, that he summoned resolution to leave her; but he had not the face to appear alone, nor offer fictions to excuse her absence, so he took refuge in his dressing-room, until he had seen Cecil and Anne ride away from the hall door together.
For the two sisters-in-law had held a little indignation meeting, and Rosamond's misdemeanour had so far drawn them together, that Cecil had offered to take Anne to see the working party, and let her assist thereat.
The coast being clear, Julius went down, encountering nothing worse than the old butler, who came in while he was cutting cold beef, and to whom he said, "Lady Rosamond is rather knocked up; I am going to take her something up-stairs."
Jenkins received this as the result of a dance, but much wanted to fetch a tray, which Julius refused, and set off with an ale-glass in one hand, and in the other the plates with the beef and appliances, Jenkins watching in jealous expectation of a catastrophe, having no opinion of Mr. Julius's powers as a waiter. He was disappointed. The downfall was deferred till the goal was reached, and was then most salutary, for Rosamond sprang to pick up the knife and fork, laughed at his awkwardness, refused to partake without him, produced implements from her travelling-bag, and was as merry as she had been miserable.
Not a word on the feud was uttered; and the pair walked down to the village, where she was exemplary, going into all those more distasteful parts of her duties there, which she sometimes shirked.
And on her return, finding her long-expected letter from Miss M'Kinnon awaiting her, she forgot all offences in her ardour to indoctrinate everybody with the hopes it gave of affording Mrs. Poynsett a change of room, if not even greater variety. Unfortunately, this eagerness was not met with a corresponding fervour. There was in the household the acquiescence with long- established invalidism, that sometimes settles down and makes a newcomer's innovations unwelcome. Raymond had spoken to the old doctor, who had been timid and discouraging; Susan resented the implication that the utmost had not been done for her dear mistress; and Mrs. Poynsett herself, though warmly grateful for Rosamond's affection, was not only nervously unwilling to try experiments, but had an instinctive perception that there was one daughter-in-law to whom her increased locomotion would scarcely be welcome, and by no means wished to make this distaste evident to Raymond. Cecil would not have been so strong against the risk and imprudence, if her wishes had been the other way. Moreover, she had been warned off from interference with the Rector's wife in the village, and she did not relish Rosamond's making suggestions as to her province, as she considered the house-above all, when she viewed that lady as in a state of disgrace. It was nothing less than effrontery; and Cecil became stiffer and colder than ever. She demanded of her mother-in- law whether there had been any promise of amendment.