Robert began to laugh: 'What is that you are acting?' he said.

'Acting?' cried George, opening his eyes; '"that skull had a tongue in it and could sing once." "Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the earth----?"'

'Do be quiet,' said Henley, impatiently. 'Is not some one calling?'

Some one was calling: lights were appearing and disappearing; the drawing-room window was wide open, and their aunt stood on the terrace making signs, and looking out for them.

'Look, there goes a falling star,' said George.

'Ah! who is that under the tree?' cried Dolly again, with a little shriek. 'I knew I had seen some one move;' and as she spoke, a figure emerging from the gloom came nearer and nearer to them, almost running with two extended arms; a figure in long flowing garments, silver in the moonlight, a woman advancing quicker and quicker.

'Children, children!' said a voice. 'It is I,--George--your mother!

Don't you know me--darlings? I have come. I was looking for you. Yes, it is I, your mother, children.'

Dolly's heart stood still, and then began to throb, as the lady flung her arms round Robert, who happened to be standing nearest.

'Is this George? I should have known him anywhere,' she cried.

Was this their mother? this beautiful, sweet, unseen woman, this pathetic voice?

Dolly had seized George's hand in her agitation, and was crunching it in hers. Robert had managed to extricate himself from the poor lady's agitated clutch.

'Here is George. I am Robert Henley,' he said. 'But, my dear aunt, why--why did you not write? I should have met you. I----'

It was all a strange confusion of moonlight, and bewilderment, and of tears, presently, for Mrs. Palmer began to cry and then to laugh, and finally went off into hysterics in her son's arms.

CHAPTER XXII.

MRS. PALMER.

Le Baron--'Je vais m'entermer pour m'abandonner a ma douleur.

Dites-lui s'il me demande, que je suis enferme et que je m'abandonne a ma douleur ...'

--A. De Musset.

When they were a little calmed down, when they had left the moon and the stars outside in the garden, and were all standing in a group in the drawing-room round the chair in which Mrs. Palmer had been placed, Dolly saw her mother's face at last. She vaguely remembered her out of the long ago, a very young and beautiful face smiling at her: this face was rounder and fuller than the picture, but more familiar than her remembrance. Mrs. Palmer was a stout and graceful woman, with a sort of undulating motion peculiar to her, and with looks and ways some of which Dolly recognised, though she had forgotten them before. There was a strong likeness to Dolly herself, and even a little bit of George's look when he was pleased, though poor George's thick complexion and snub nose were far, far removed from any likeness to that fair and delicate countenance. Dolly gazed admiringly at the soft white hand, with the great Louis-Quinze ring upon the forefinger. Though Mrs. Palmer had come off a journey in semi-hysterics, she was beautifully dressed in a black silk dress, all over rippling waved flounces, that flowed to her feet.

She was leaning back in the chair, with half-closed eyes, but with a tender, contented smile.

'I knew you would take me in,' she said to Lady Sarah. 'I felt I was coming home--to my dear sister's home. See,' she said, 'what dear Stan gave me for my wedding-gift. I chose it at Lambert's myself. We spared no expense. I have never taken off his dear ring;' and she put out her soft hand and took hold of Lady Sarah's mitten.' Oh, Sarah, to think--to think----'

Lady Sarah shrunk back as usual though she answered not unkindly: 'Not now, Philippa,' she said, hastily. 'Of course this house is your home, and always open to you; at least, when we know you are coming. Why did you not write? There is no bed ready. I have had the maids called up. If Admiral Palmer had let me know----'

'He did not know,' said Mrs. Palmer, getting agitated. 'I will tell you all. Oh, Dolly, my darling, beware how you marry; promise me----'

'He did not know?' interrupted Lady Sarah.

Dolly's mother got more and more excited.

'I had some one to take care of me,' she said. 'My old friend Colonel Witherington was on board, and I told him everything as we were coming along. I telegraphed to you, did I not? But my poor head fails me. Oh, Sarah, exile is a cruel thing; and now, how do I know that I have not come home too soon?' she said, bursting into tears. 'If you knew all----'

'You shall tell us all about it in the morning, when you are rested,'

said Lady Sarah, with a glance at Robert.

'Yes, in the morning, yes,' said Mrs. Palmer, looking relieved, and getting up from her chair, and wiping her eyes. 'How good you are to me!

Am I to have my old room where I used to stay as a girl? Oh, Sarah, to think of my longings being realised at last, and my darling children--dear Stan's children--there actually before me.' And the poor thing, with a natural emotion, once more caught first one, then the other, to her, and sat holding her son's hand in both hers. When he tried to take it away she burst into fresh tears, and, as a last resource, Marker was summoned.

Poor Mrs. Palmer! her surprise had been something of a failure; George was not expansive, nor used to having his hand held: the boy and girl were shy, stiff, taken aback, Aunt Sarah was kind, but cross and bewildered: Mrs. Palmer herself exhausted after twelve hours' railway journey, and vaguely disappointed.

'It was just like her,' said Lady Sarah, wearily, to Marker, as they were going upstairs some two hours later, after seeing Mrs. Palmer safe into her room, and bolting the doors, and putting out the lights of this eventful evening. 'What can have brought her in this way?'

Marker looked at her mistress with her smiling round face. 'The wonder to me was whatever kept her away so long from those sweet children, to say nothing of you, my lady.'

'She has chosen to make other ties,' said Lady Sarah; 'her whole duty is to her husband. Good-night, Marker: I do not want you to-night.'

'Of course you know best, my lady,' says Marker doubtfully. 'Good-night, my lady.'

And then all was quite silent in the old house. The mice peeped out of their little holes and sniffed at the cheese-trap; a vast company of black beetles emerged from secret places and corners; the clocks began to tick like mad. Dolly lay awake a long time, and then dreamt of her new mamma, and of the moonlight that evening, and of a floating sea.

Mrs. Palmer slept placidly between her linen sheets. Sarah Francis lay awake half the night crying her eyes and her aching heart away in bitter tears. Philippa was come. She knew of old what her advent meant. She loved Philippa, but with reserve and pain; and now she would claim her Dolly, she would win her away, and steal her treasure from her again--what chance had she, sad and sorry and silent, with no means of uttering her love? She was a foolish, jealous woman; she knew it, and with all her true heart she prayed for strength and for love to overcome jealousy and loneliness. Once in her life her difficult nature had caused misery so great between her and her husband that the breach had never been repaired, and it was Philippa who had brought it all about.

Now Sarah knew that to love more is the only secret for overcoming that cruellest madness of jealousy, and to love more was her prayer. The dawn came at last, stealing tranquilly through the drawn curtains: with what peace and tranquillity the faint light flowed, healing and quieting her pain.

Dolly's new mamma's account of herself next morning was a little incoherent. Her health was very indifferent; she suffered agonies, and was living upon morphia when the doctor had ordered her home without delay. She had been obliged to come off at a few hours' notice; she didn't write. The Admiral was fortunately absent on a cruise, or he never would have let her go. He knew what a helpless creature she was.

She had borrowed the pa.s.sage-money from a friend. Would Lady Sarah please advance her a little now, as she was literally penniless, and she wished to make George and Dolly some presents, and to engage a French maid at once? She supposed she should hear by the next post and receive some remittances. She was not sure, for Hawtry was so dreadfully close about money. She did not know _what_ he would say to her running away.

No doubt he would use dreadful language, pious as he was; _that_ she was used to; Colonel Witherington could testify to it.... And then she sighed. 'I have made my own fate; I must bear my punishment,' she said.

'I shall try some German baths before his return, to brace my nerves for the--the future.'

There was something soft, harmonious, gently affecting about Dolly's mamma. When Mrs. Palmer spoke she looked at you with two brown eyes shining out of a faded but charming face: she put out an earnest white hand; there was a charming, natural affectation about her. She delighted in a situation. She was one of those fortunate people whose parts in life coincide with their dispositions. She had been twice married. As a happy wife people had thought her scarcely aware of the prize she had drawn. As an injured woman she was simply perfect. She did not feel the Admiral's indifference deeply enough to lose her self-possession, as he did. Admiral though he was, and extempore preacher, he could not always hold his own before this susceptible woman. Her gentle impressiveness completely charmed and won the children over.

The conversation of selfish people is often far more amusing than that of the unselfish, who see things too _diffusedly_, and who have not, as a rule, the gift of vivid description. Mrs. Palmer was deeply, deeply interested in her own various feelings. She used to whisper long stories to George and Dolly about her complicated sorrows, her peculiar difficulties. Poor thing! they were real enough, if she had but known them; but the troubles that really troubled her were imaginary for the most part. She had secured two valiant champions before breakfast next morning, at which meal Robert appeared. He had slept upon the crisis, and now seemed more than equal to it; affectionate to his aunt, with whom he was charmed, readily answering her many questions, skilfully avoiding the subject of her difficulties with the Admiral, of which he had heard before at Henley Court. He was pleased by his aunt's manner and affectionate dependence, and he treated her from the first with a certain manly superiority. And yet--so she told Dolly--even Robert scarcely understood her peculiar difficulties.

'How can he, dear fellow? He is prejudiced by Lady Henley--odious woman!

I can trace her influence. She was a Palmer, you know, and she is worthy of the name. I dread my visit to Yorkshire. This is my real home.'

Mrs. Palmer's mother, Lady Henley, had been an Alderville, and the Aldervilles are all young, beautiful, helpless, stout, and elegantly dressed. Mrs. Palmer took after them, she said. But helpless as Philippa was, her feebleness always leant in the direction in which she wished to go, and, in some mysterious fashion, she seemed to get on as well as other stronger people. Some young officer, in a complimentary copy of verses, had once likened her to a lily. If so, it was a water-lily that she resembled most, with its beautiful pale head drifting on the water, while underneath was a long, limp, straggling stalk firmly rooted. Only those who had tried to influence her knew of its existence.

Dolly and George hung upon her words. George felt inclined to go off to Ceylon on purpose to shoot the Admiral with one of his own Colt's revolvers. Dolly thrilled with interest and excitement and sympathy. Her mother was like a sweet angel, the girl said to her brother. It was a wonderful new life that had begun for them. The trouble which had so oppressed Dolly of late seemed almost forgotten for a time. Lady Sarah, coming and going about the house, would look with a strange half-glad, half-sad glance at the three heads so near together in the recess of the window: Philippa leaning back, flushed and pathetic; George by her side, making the most hideous faces, as he was used to do when excited; Dolly kneeling on the floor, with her two elbows in her mother's lap, and her long chin upturned in breathless sympathy.

Admiral--jealousy--meanness-cruel--mere necessaries: little words like this used to reach Lady Sarah, creaking uneasily and desolately, unnoticed, round and round the drawing-room.

'Is it not a pity, Philippa, to put such ideas into their heads?' says Lady Sarah, from the other end of the room.

Then three pair of eyes would be turned upon her with a sort of reproachful wonder, and the trio would wait until she was out of hearing to begin again.

Mrs. Palmer was certainly an adaptable woman in some ways: one husband or another, one life or another. So long as she had her emotions, her maid, her cups of tea, her comfortable sofa, and some one to listen to her, she was perfectly happy. She carried about in herself such an unfailing source of interest and solicitude, that no other was really necessary to her; although, to hear her speak, you would imagine her fate to be one long regret.