“I want you to be quite at your ease with your aunt Clarendon,” said Lady Markham at luncheon, when the servants had left the room. “She will naturally want to know all about your father and your way of living. We have not talked very much on that subject, my dear, because, for one thing, we have not had much time; and because---- But she will want to know all the little details. And, my darling, I want just to tell you, to warn you. Poor Caroline is not very fond of me. Perhaps it is natural. She may say things to you about your mother----”
“Oh no, mamma,” said Frances, looking up in her mother’s face.
“You don’t know, my dear. Some people have a great deal of prejudice. Your aunt Caroline, as is quite natural, takes a different view. I wonder if I can make you understand what I mean without using words which I don’t want to use?”
“Yes,” said Frances; “you may trust me, mamma; I think I understand.”
Lady Markham rose and came to where her child sat, and kissed her tenderly. “My dear, I think you will be a great comfort to me,” she said. “Constance was always hot-headed. She would not make friends, when I wished her to make friends. The Clarendons are very rich; they have no children, Frances. Naturally, I wish you to stand well with them. Besides, I would not allow her to suppose for a moment that I would keep you from her--that is what I call conscience, and Markham pride.”
Frances did not know what to reply. She did not understand what the wealth of the Clarendons had to do with it; everything else she could understand. She was very willing, nay, eager to see her father’s sister, yet very determined that no one should say a word to her to the detriment of her mother. So far as that went, in her own mind all was clear.
Mrs Clarendon lived in one of the great houses in Portland Place which fashion has abandoned. It was very silent, wrapped in that stillness and decorum which is one of the chief signs of an entirely well-regulated house, also of a place in which life is languid and youth does not exist. Frances followed her mother with a beating heart through the long wide hall and large staircase, over soft carpets, on which their feet made no sound. She thought they were stealing in like ghosts to some silent place in which mystery of one kind or other must attend them; but the room they were ushered into was only a very large, very still drawing-room, in painfully good order, inhabited by nothing but a fire, which made a little sound and flicker that preserved it from utter death. The blinds were drawn half over the windows; the long curtains hung down in dark folds. There were none of the quaintnesses, the modern æstheticisms, the crowds of small picturesque articles of furniture impeding progress, in which Lady Markham delighted. The furniture was all solid, durable--what upholsterers call very handsome--huge mirrors over the mantelpieces, a few large portraits in chalk on the walls, solemn ornaments on the table; a large and brilliantly painted china flower-pot enclosing a large plant of the palm kind, dark-green and solemn, like everything else, holding the place of honour. It was very warm and comfortable, full of low easy-chairs and sofas, but at the same time very severe and forbidding, like a place into which the common occupations of life were never brought.