delightful,” she answered. “I don’t like the horses much. You use bearing reins. The river is quite perfect, and so different from ours. And yet sometimes I long for a stretch of rocky country, for more freedom. But the music and the life are so interesting. Yes, I love London.”
“Horses, river, life,” repeated Mrs. Carden.
A horse to her was a vehicle of locomotion, like an engine; it conveyed her to the station or to a party. Some deluded beings owned horses; she preferred hers hired, with no responsibility as to legs or grooms.
“You love boating and freedom,” remarked Mrs. Carden. “They are both often dangerous.”
“In this country, yes – where freedom frequently ends in trespassing,” answered Launa.
“Or worse – the loss of one’s reputation,” Lavinia said with decision.
Then she turned to George and told him anecdotes. She conversed rapidly and loudly; when she was a girl her family had told her she was arch.
When they rose to go she said: “George, my dear son will be at home in a few days. May I bring him to dine? Launa, he is your cousin.”
“Do bring him,” said Mr. Archer; “Launa will be glad to see him, I know.”
What a name – Launa! reflected Lavinia after their departure. What a fatality there is in our annexing the Colonies! Still, there is money behind the girl, and she is young.
By which reflection we may infer that Mrs. Carden thought of her son in connection with the money and Launa.
The Archers went home in a hansom.
“You call her a woman, daddy; now I call her a fossil,” said Launa. “She is not the sort of woman friend I need. I want a living woman – not one who has existed on husks until she withers everyone who goes near her.”
“She is a type,” he answered vacantly.
“She is an imitation. Show me some one who is brave – who has or knows life.”
“Would you like Mrs. Phillips to come and see you? She is Sir John Blomfield’s daughter, a widow and young. She wants to know you.”
“I am doubtful, not whether she will like me,” with sublime conceit, “but whether I shall like her.”
“You must try her,” he laughed.
His daughter amused him with her odd ideas.
However, when Mrs. Phillips did come, Launa approved of her.
All this time Launa was learning. She was filled with a desire to know and see more; people and life were so interesting. It was like a new play. She noticed how differently her father, herself, and the others were affected by it, and the noise was soothing, even at times deadening.
Launa found Mrs. Phillips entertaining. She explained some of the parts in this vast human drama. She found Miss Archer absurdly young in many of her notions, and absurdly old in others.
“I want to see everything,” said Launa, “and to live myself. It is terrible to feel oneself growing old. It will soon be over, and I haven’t done what I meant to do.”
Mrs. Phillips laughed.
“Go on. What did you mean to do?”
“I should like,” said Launa, “to be happy.”
“So should we all. Tell me more.”
“I want to play a little first, and then – to make the world a little brighter for someone.”
“If I were you, I would simply play myself and leave the others alone. Playing is real and not difficult. Once you begin to mix other people in your life, with your or their happiness depending on you, you will probably be very miserable.”
The admiration of one woman for another is sincere when it is felt when with her, and not merely expressed to a man.
Mrs. Phillips admired Launa for her youth, for her length of limb, and for her slight, graceful body and her warm brown skin. Launa’s mind was attractive. She made friends quickly; she seemed very adaptable; everyone interested her. Some men adored her as they had done at Musquodobit. To others, with a taste for sensuality, she was an indefinite slight girl, while to the few she was wholly desirable – madly desirable. Of course to the crowd she was just a girl.
Music exercised all its old fascination for her. She practised with diligence, and she listened greedily. It transported her to “Solitude,” to the wild sea there, to the rivers and lakes, the life which she loved and missed, which life and Paul she strove every day to forget. And in music she was with him. It was a dream life – she lived in it. Paul was dead to her, but for all that he existed sometimes. She was stared at in her canoe on the river, her paddling was so strong and vigorous, her body so lithe, her arms so round and firm as she took long, almost masculine, strokes, and nowhere did she miss Paul so much as she did there.
CHAPTER VI
The Cardens both went to dinner.
Captain Carden was a nondescript. He might have been attractive if he had ever appeared interested. He was tall, fair, with grey eyes, and very ugly hands, which were forced into notice because of his constant endeavour to hide them. Launa regarded mother and son with curiosity, for they were English and new, and reminded her of the characters in Trollope’s novels. Neither Charlie Carden nor his mother appeared to have found much to interest them in this world. They were ignorant as well as superior, and gloried in knowing nothing, unlike Mrs. Phillips’s friends, who were anxious to know everything, and to impress outsiders with their knowledge.
The Archers talked first about the opera. Mrs. Carden’s ideas of it were limited to “Pinafore” as new and “Martha” as old. German opera and Wagner were nothing to her, nor did she care about books.
Captain Carden talked about horses to Launa, who gathered that he fancied his own opinion as well as his own horses and prowess.
Mrs. Carden thought George should ask her to take the head of the table; she considered Launa too young. She was disappointed when she found the table was round.
Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Herbert were the other guests. Mr. Herbert was an ugly, short man, with a square face, and a stubbly black moustache. He was a journalist – besides which he was clever. Shortly he was going to Canada to write articles for some papers on the country and its resources.
“You are going to write to me, too,” said Mrs. Phillips.
“Yes,” he replied, with a glance, full of – what?
Launa saw it; here was a man and a woman who clearly were of moment to each other. Launa was so absolutely ignorant of men; she knew only one man, and she tried to forget him. She had believed in them all as a class, and in their chivalrous respect for women – indefinite women – and in their everlasting love for one particular woman at last, but her belief was tottering.
That all men were brave she believed, too, it was part, an essential part, of her idea of a man, as all women are lovely and good. Of course she knew women existed with protruding teeth, who have no attraction, but men do not love them. Mrs. Carden she classed among them.
Captain Carden talked to her with assiduity.
