“Oh, most awfully, dearest,” Effie, against her breast, leaned back to assure her with a limpid look. “And so do Granny and Owen–and I do think Sophy does too,” she added, after a moment’s earnest pondering.
“I hope so,” Anna laughed. She checked the impulse to continue: “Has she talked to you about him, that you’re so sure?” She did not know what had made the question spring to her lips, but she was glad she had closed them before pronouncing it. Nothing could have been more distasteful to her than to clear up such obscurities by turning on them the tiny flame of her daughter’s observation. And what, after all, now that Owen’s happiness was secured, did it matter if there were certain reserves in Darrow’s approval of his marriage?
A knock on the door made Anna glance at the clock. “There’s Nurse to carry you off.”
“It’s Sophy’s knock,” the little girl answered, jumping down to open the door; and Miss Viner in fact stood on the threshold.
“Come in,” Anna said with a smile, instantly remarking how pale she looked.
“May Effie go out for a turn with Nurse?” the girl asked. “I should like to speak to you a moment.”
“Of course. This ought to be your holiday, as yesterday was Effie’s. Run off, dear,” she added, stooping to kiss the little girl.
When the door had closed she turned back to Sophy Viner with a look that sought her confidence. “I’m so glad you came, my dear. We’ve got so many things to talk about, just you and I together.”
The confused intercourse of the last days had, in fact, left little time for any speech with Sophy but such as related to her marriage and the means of overcoming Madame de Chantelle’s opposition to it. Anna had exacted of Owen that no one, not even Sophy Viner, should be given a hint of her own projects till all contingent questions had been disposed of. She had felt, from the outset, a secret reluctance to intrude her securer happiness on the doubts and fears of the young pair.
From the sofa-corner to which she had dropped back she pointed to Darrow’s chair. “Come and sit by me, dear. I wanted to see you alone. There’s so much to say that I hardly know where to begin.”
She leaned forward, her hands clasped on the arms of the sofa, her eyes bent smilingly on Sophy’s. As she did so, she noticed that the girl’s unusual pallour was partly due to the slight veil of powder on her face. The discovery was distinctly disagreeable. Anna had never before noticed, on Sophy’s part, any recourse to cosmetics, and, much as she wished to think herself exempt from old-fashioned prejudices, she suddenly became aware that she did not like her daughter’s governess to have a powdered face. Then she reflected that the girl who sat opposite her was no longer Effie’s governess, but her own future daughter-in-law; and she wondered whether Miss Viner had chosen this odd way of celebrating her independence, and whether, as Mrs. Owen Leath, she would present to the world a bedizened countenance. This idea was scarcely less distasteful than the other, and for a moment Anna continued to consider her without speaking. Then, in a flash, the truth came to her: Miss Viner had powdered her face because Miss Viner had been crying.
Anna leaned forward impulsively. “My dear child, what’s the matter?” She saw the girl’s blood rush up under the white mask, and hastened on: “Please don’t be afraid to tell me. I do so want you to feel that you can trust me as Owen does. And you know you mustn’t mind if, just at first, Madame de Chantelle occasionally relapses.”
She spoke eagerly, persuasively, almost on a note of pleading. She had, in truth, so many reasons for wanting Sophy to like her: her love for Owen, her solicitude for Effie, and her own sense of the girl’s fine mettle. She had always felt a romantic and almost humble admiration for those members of her sex who, from force of will, or the constraint of circumstances, had plunged into the conflict from which fate had so persistently excluded her. There were even moments when she fancied herself vaguely to blame for her immunity, and felt that she ought somehow to have affronted the perils and hardships which refused to come to her. And now, as she sat looking at Sophy Viner, so small, so slight, so visibly defenceless and undone, she still felt, through all the superiority of her worldly advantages and her seeming maturity, the same odd sense of ignorance and inexperience. She could not have said what there was in the girl’s manner and expression to give her this feeling, but she was reminded, as she looked at Sophy Viner, of the other girls she had known in her youth, the girls who seemed possessed of a secret she had missed. Yes, Sophy Viner had their look–almost the obscurely menacing look of Kitty Mayne…Anna, with an inward smile, brushed aside the image of this forgotten rival. But she had felt, deep down, a twinge of the old pain, and she was sorry that, even for the flash of a thought, Owen’s betrothed should have reminded her of so different a woman…