As he spoke, the door opened and the original of the portrait on the
wall entered, followed by her daughter Isabel. Ida rose from the bumpy
sofa and saw a thin, harassed-looking woman, more faded even than the
portrait, and a tall and rather a good-looking girl whose face and
figure resembled, in a vague, indefinite way, those of both her father
and mother; but though she was not bad-looking, there was a touch of
vulgarity in her widely opened eyes, with a curious stare for the
newcomer, and in her rather coarse mouth, which appalled and repelled
poor Ida; and she stood looking from one to the other, trying to keep
her surprise and wonder and disapproval from revealing themselves
through her eyes. She did not know that these two ladies, being the
wife and daughter of a professional man, considered themselves very
much the superior of their friends and neighbours, who were mostly
retired trades-people or "something in the city;" and that Mrs. Heron
was extremely proud of her husband's connection with the Herons of
Herondale, and was firmly convinced that she and her family possessed
all the taste and refinement which belong to "the aristocracy."
A simpler and a homelier woman would have put her arm round the girl's
neck and drawn her towards her with a few loving words of greeting and
welcome; but Mrs. Heron only extended a hand, held at the latest
fashionable angle, and murmured in a languid and lackadaisical voice: "So you have come at last, my dear Miss Heron! Your train must have
been very late, John; we have been expecting you for the last hour, and
I am afraid the dinner is quite spoilt. But anyway, I am glad to see
you."
"Thank you," said poor Ida.
It was Isabel's turn, and she now came forward with a smile that
extended her mouth from ear to ear, and in a gushing manner said, in
staccato sentences: "Yes, we are so glad to see you! How tired you must be! One always
feels so dirty and tumbled after a long journey. You'll be glad of a
wash, Miss Heron. But there! I mustn't call you that; it sounds so cold
and formal! I must call you Ida, mustn't I? 'Ida!' It sounds such an
_odd_ name; but I suppose I shall get used to it in time."
"I hope so," said poor Ida, trying to smile and speak cheerfully and
amiably, as Miss Isabel's rather large hand enclosed round hers; but
she looked from one to the other with an appalling sensation of
strangeness and aloofness, and a lump rose in her throat which rendered
the smile and any further speech on her part impossible; and as she
looked from the simpering, lackadaisical mother to the vulgar daughter
with meaningless smile, she asked herself whether she was really awake,
whether this room was indeed to be her future home, and these strange
people her daily companions, or whether she was only asleep and
dreaming, and would wake to find the honest face of Jessie bending over
her, and to see the familiar objects of her own room at Heron Hall.