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"Someone of my own" was the want of her warm heart.
And Rose, with no petty grudge for past short-comings, answered that
need with open arms. Never was hostess more cordial to honoured guest.
Peter also was at home. He had been to town and back again, and now
stood upon his spotless doorstep, and anon upon his handsome
drawing-room hearthrug, determined that his house should lack nothing
befitting the great occasion. It was all in gala dress--newly-arranged
flowers, festive lunch-table, the best foot foremost; and yet, whereas
there was no hiding the self-seeker in the ingratiating Bennet
Goldsworthy, there was no finding him in this proud host and husband,
whose desire was only to do his dear wife credit.
Neither of them said, in word or manner, "Why didn't you come like this
before?" Deb knew that her welcome would have been the same, and had
hard work not to show too frankly her sense of their magnanimity. As it
was, she nearly kissed Peter in the hall--such a nice, warm,
comfortable, hospitable entrance to as comfortable a home (in
its undeniably middle-class style) as she had ever been inside of--the
more striking in its effect by contrast with Mary's. Peter's cuffs were
like the driven snow; he was charmingly fresh and clean, well barbered
and well tailored; grown quite handsome, too, now that he had filled
out and matured. As for Rose--"I hear," Frances wrote from Paris,
"that poor Rose has become a perfect tub." Mrs Peter was almost as
broad as she was long. But what health in the sunny face! What opulent
well-being in the full curves of her figure, gowned in a fashion to
satisfy even Deb's exigent taste.
They did not tell her it was good of her to come to see them, but they
told her in all the languages of courtesy that they were mighty glad
she had come. She was taken into the drawing-room--full of soft chairs
and sofas that anybody might sit on, and with a fire of clear coals in
a grate that glittered with constant polishing. But everything in
Peter's establishment seemed to shine with pure cleanliness; he took
after his mother, who, modest in other things, was fond of offering a
sovereign to anybody who would find a cobweb in her house.
Deb was peeled of her furs by Peter, with the greatest deference and
politeness, but with none of the obsequiousness that had sickened her
elsewhere; he laid down her sable cloak with the reverence of one who
knew its value, and he asked Rose in a whisper if her sister would like
a glass of wine before lunch. The smiling matron shook her head, and
whispered something else, which sent him out of the room. Then, while
he skipped about in the background, attending to the wines and beers,
she convoyed the guest to the very luxurious bedroom where
head-nurse Keziah dandled the youngest of the Breen children. The rest
had had their dinners and gone out a-walking, so as not to be made too
much of by a silly mother, if it could be helped. Warm was the greeting
between Keziah and her late mistress, and many the questions about
Redford and the old folks; but there was no hint that Mrs Moon hankered
after the big store-rooms and linen-closets, the dignities and
privileges of her former home. Her heart was with Rose's babies now.
"There, what do you think of THIS?" she demanded, as she proudly
displayed her charge, and, being invited thereto, condescendingly laid
it in Deb's outstretched arms.
It was a pretty, healthy creature, fat, dainty and about two months
old, still in the whitest and finest of long clothes. "Little duck!"
Deb crooned, and rubbed her cheek almost with passion on its rose-leaf
skin. Robert's nose, indeed, was dislocated on the spot.
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Cambridge, Ada, 1844-1926 - Sisters