My Mother's Rival, Charlotte Mary Brame [best non fiction books to read txt] 📗

lady your enemy, be quick and learn all she can teach you--the sooner you know it all the sooner she will go."

Ah, that was something like a reason for studying; I would learn lessons all day and all night to insure her going. It must be a matter of years, but if by constant application I could shorten the time, even by one year, that was much. Then Emma gave me much sensible advice; above all, never to speak to mamma about Miss Reinhart.

"You see, Miss Laura, if your dear mamma took curious fancies against this lady, how dreadful it would be. It would make her much worse, and we do not know what might happen. Whatever occurs, bear it all patiently or come to me."

"My life is spoiled," I cried; "but I will do what you say."

And I made to myself a vow, which I kept through all temptation, never once to complain to my mother about Miss Reinhart. I did keep it, and Heaven knows how much it cost me. My father was rather surprised the next day when I went to his study and asked him if I could begin my lessons at once. He laughed.

"What an energetic scholar," he cried. "Why do you wish to begin so soon, Laura?"

"Because I have so very much to learn," I replied.

"You shall begin this day, Laura," he said; "but Miss Reinhart must see mamma first, and arrange the best hours for study. There are two or three little arrangements I should like changing--for instance, now that mamma is never present, I cannot see why you and Miss Reinhart should not take breakfast with me. I am very lonely, and should be delighted if we could manage that. But I must speak to mamma. Then I should like you to go on dining with me, as you have done since mamma's illness. It makes me quite ill to enter that great, desolate dining room. Do you remember how mamma's sweet face used to shine there, Laura?"

Did I? Did I ever enter the room without?

"Make your mind easy, Laura; you shall begin your lessons to-day, and we will see what mamma wishes to be done."

That day an arrangement was made: Miss Reinhart and I were to breakfast and dine with papa; the morning, until two was to be devoted to my studies, and the rest of the day, if mamma desired her presence, Miss Reinhart was to spend with her. We were to walk together, and I was, as usual, to go out with mamma when her chair was wheeled into the grounds.

"Heaven send that it may last!" said Emma, when she heard of it.

I wonder if any angel repeated the prayer?


CHAPTER VII.


To me it seemed that I was as old at fifteen as many a girl of eighteen; I had lived so much with grown-up people; I had received all my impressions from them. I was very quick and appreciative. I read character well, and seemed to have a weird, uncanny insight into the thoughts and ideas of people--into their motives and plans. I had too much of this faculty, for I was often made uncomfortable because shadows came between me and others, and because I seemed to feel and understand things that I could never put into words.

Here is one little instance of what I mean: I stood one afternoon at the window of my mother's room. The sun was shining brightly on the bloom of countless flowers and the feathery spray of the fountains; the whole place looked so bright and beautiful that it was a perfect picture. I saw Miss Reinhart on the terrace; she was leaning over the stone balustrade admiring the magnificent view. There was a restless, disconsolate expression mixed with her admiration, and I knew quite well the thoughts passing through her mind were, first, a vivid regret that the place was not hers, then a wonder as to the possibility of its ever belonging to her. I could read it in the lingering, loving glance she threw round, followed by the impatient frown and restless movement. The idea possessed me so strongly that I could not help going to my mother and clasping my arms round her neck, as though I would save her from all harm; but I did not tell her why. I had learned my lesson; from first to last never a word passed my lips that could have grieved her even in the least, never.

The first thing that struck me in the manner of Miss Reinhart was the way in which she spoke to my father. Now, I am quite sure, no matter what came afterward, that at that time my father was one of the most loyal and honest of men. I am sure that he loved my mother with greatest affection: that her illness made her all the more dear to him, and that he looked upon it as a trial equally great for both of them; he loved her the more for it, and he devoted himself to her to make up to her as much as he could for the privations that she had to undergo. As for pitying himself, such an idea never occurred to him; of that I am certain. All his love, pity, his compassion and sympathy, were for her, without any thought of himself; but she almost spoke to him as though he were to be pitied, as though he were very much injured and put upon, as though my mother's illness were a wrong done to him.

At first I noticed that he, too, seemed somewhat surprised; that he would look half-wonderingly at her; then, at last, he fell into her mood. She generally began at the breakfast table, where she came looking as beautiful as a picture; the loveliest hue of the rose on her face, the freshness of the morning in her dark eyes and on her lips; dressed with great elegance, always with one lovely flower in her hair, and a knot of fresh, fragrant blossoms at her breast; the fairest of women, but how I disliked her. I can imagine that to any gentleman her society must have been extremely agreeable.

My father's lonely breakfasts had often been a cause of great distress to him. He was essentially so gay and cheery; he loved the sound of voices and laughter; he liked to be amused; to discuss the plans for the day; to comment upon the letters received. To breakfast alone, or sit alone, was for him a torture; he sighed always when the breakfast bell rang, and we knew that it was a torture in its way. When my mother found it out she insisted upon my joining him every morning. I was but a child, and could not interest him very much.

Now the matter was quite different. There was Miss Reinhart, fresh and beautiful as the morning, witty and graceful, ready to ply him with flatteries, making tea for him with her own white hands, talking in the very brightest and most animated style. She had brilliant powers of conversation, and no one could be more amusing. Although I hated her, I often found myself hanging on the words that fell from her lips.

No wonder that the breakfast hour was prolonged, and that, often after the urn had grown cold, my father would cry out that he wanted more tea. Miss Reinhart arranged his papers for him; she laid them ready to his hand; they discussed the politics and the principal events of the day.

Young as I was, I was struck with her animation and verve. She spoke with such vivacity; her splendid face lighted with earnest, graceful enthusiasm. She held very original and clever ideas about everything, and it often happened that the conversation was prolonged until my father would take out his watch and exclaim with wonder at the time. Then Miss Reinhart would blush, and, taking me by the hand, disappear. More than once my father followed us, and, taking my hand, would say:

"Let us have a walk on the terrace before the lessons begin, Laura--Miss Reinhart will come with us."

But it was not to me he talked.

In the early days of her arrival I heard my dear mother once, when my father was speaking of her fine manners, say:

"We ought to be proud to have so grand a lady for governess."

Poor mamma, who knows the price she paid for a lady governess?

It was when these morning visits grew so long that I first began to notice the tone in which Miss Reinhart spoke of my mother.

She would lean her beautiful head just a little forward, her eyes bright with sweetest sympathy, her voice as beautifully sweet as the cooing of the ring-dove.

"How is dear Lady Tayne this morning, Sir Roland?" she would ask.

"I am afraid there is little difference and no improvement," was his reply.

"Ah, how sad--what a sad fate--so young and so afflicted. It must be dreadful for you, Sir Roland. I sympathize so much with you. I never quite lose sight of your troubles. I do not know that there could possibly be a greater one."

At first my father would laugh, and say gently:

"Ah, yes, there could be one--it would be so much worse if my dear wife had died."

But after a time he began to shake his head gravely as she shook hers, and sigh as he answered:

"Ah, yes, it is a terrible infliction."

If any little domestic unpleasantness occurred, a thing by Sir Roland's desire always kept from my mother, she would look so kindly at him.

"Dear Sir Roland, how tiresome all this is for you. I wonder you are so patient." Could my mother help it, I cried to myself with passionate tears; was it her fault that she was stricken and helpless; ought this woman to speak to my father about it as though he were the sufferer? The tears that fell from my eyes blinded me; thus I had to go to my lessons, my heart torn with its sense of injury and resentment against the one who seemed to me my mother's enemy, I knew not why.

Again, if there was a question about any visitors, and my father seemed at a loss for a few minutes, she would say:

"How painful it is for you, Sir Roland, to be troubled in this fashion; can I do anything to help you?" Or it would be, "How sorry I am to see you teased about such trifles, Sir Roland; can I manage it for you?"

The same when he received invitations: before now it had seemed at least almost a pleasure to decline them. I could remember how he used to take both the letters of invitation and his refusals and send them to my mother, commenting on them as he read. That was always followed by a pretty little love scene, during which my mother would express her regret that he was deprived of a pleasure; and he always answered that the only pleasure he had was to be with her.

Nor do I believe that state of things would ever have changed but for Miss Reinhart. Now, when these letters came and he would read them with knitted brow, she would inquire gently, ah, and with such sweet, seductive sweetness, if anything in his letters had put him out.

"No," he would answer with a sigh. "Oh, no! There is nothing in my letters to annoy me--just the contrary. I ought to feel