Kitabı oku: «The Third Miss St Quentin», sayfa 8
Colonel St Quentin was pleased and touched.
“You must have practised diligently, my dear,” he said. “You find it less tedious now, do you not?”
Ella hesitated.
“I shall never care much for playing,” she said. “But I am glad you think I have improved. May I sing to you a little?”
“Certainly – you are sure you have no cold? You must never sing if you have the least cold,” said her father anxiously.
But Ella’s clear notes set all such fears at defiance. She chose two or three of the songs which she knew to have been her mother’s favourites, and she felt that she sang them beautifully. Her father said little, but she knew that she had pleased him.
A few minutes’ silence followed; then Colonel St Quentin said he felt tired and would go to his own room.
“I hope to be quite well to-morrow, or nearly so at least,” he said as he kissed Ella. “I really begin to hope I may escape easily this time,” for the poor man was from time to time a martyr to gout. “I am only sorry to have to leave you so early, but it gives me a better chance for to-morrow. Good-night, my dear.”
“Good-night, papa,” said Ella dutifully. “It isn’t very early. I generally go to bed at ten, and it is half-past nine,” this with the tiniest of tiny sighs. “What will they be doing to-night, papa? Do you think they will be dancing, just the party in the house, to try the floor, perhaps?”
“I can’t say, I’m sure. No, no, I should scarcely think so,” replied Colonel St Quentin, half consolingly, half irritably. Ella’s small shaft had gone home.
And Ella went up to her own room, and as she settled herself comfortably in the old nursery easy chair before the now brightly blazing fire, a “Mudie book,” which Madelene had thoughtfully provided for her in her hand, she did not look altogether an object of pity.
“Yes,” she said to herself, “I really do think if it came over again, papa would make them take me. I’ll try again to-morrow to make him understand better.”
But to-morrow, alas! brought disappointment. To begin with, the weather was atrocious. It continued bitterly cold, with the aggravation of just falling short of frost, and by nine o’clock the rain set in again, the cruel, pitiless winter rain, blurring the sky and the land with its grim veil.
Ella, who had planned a brisk walk early in the morning, gazed out of the dining-room window in despair.
“What can I do all day long?” she thought, and then as her eyes fell on the table where breakfast was waiting, she moved from it impatiently. “They might have let me have my meals in one of the smaller rooms,” she thought. “It looks too ghastly – that table and only poor me. I wish I had pretended to have a cold and stayed in bed.”
Just then her father’s servant came in with a message – a message not calculated to raise her spirits. Colonel St Quentin was not so well, very much less well this morning indeed. He was very sorry, the man went on, not to be able to get up. He would send for Miss Ella later in the day, but just now he was going to try to sleep a little.
“It’s too bad,” thought Ella, “just as we seemed to be getting to know each other better! And very likely Madelene and Ermine will make out that I’ve made him ill, somehow. Oh dear, I wish I hadn’t quarrelled with old Burton and then I could have asked auntie to have me on a visit?”
She had been so diligent the day before, that this morning there was even less than usual for her to do, and after the hour-and-a-half’s piano practising there was literally no obligation on her of any kind.
The library books were in perfect order, the flowers in the drawing-room had been all attended to, and if not, thought Ella bitterly, what was the use of dressing up the room for nobody to see!
The morning seemed interminable. Tired of the big, empty rooms Ella at last went off up stairs to give herself another dose of stocking-darning, as a preparation for the governessing which again began to fill her imagination as the only possible escape from this unendurable state of things.
The fire was not lighted. Hester had felt so certain that her remonstrance of the day before would be effectual, that she had not thought it needful to take further precautions. Hence it came about that Ella was seated like the day before, muffled up in a shawl, which did not prevent her looking blue and pinched, her eyes slightly reddened by tears of sympathy with her own woes, when, in answer to her rather startled “come in,” (Ella’s conscience made her cowardly of Hester) a tap at the door was followed by an unexpected apparition.
“Godmother,” the girl exclaimed, scarcely able to believe her eyes, and starting to her feet as she spoke.
“Yes, godmother herself,” said Lady Cheynes, coming forward. “But, my dear child, what are you thinking of – what is everybody thinking of to allow it? – you sitting up here in the cold on a bitter day like this? Do you want to get ill? Why it’s enough to give you a sore throat or bronchitis or a frightful cold in your head to say the least.”
“I don’t feel so very cold, thank you, godmother,” said Ella meekly. “I don’t catch cold easily, and I want to make myself hardy. I – I had some little things to do up in my own room.”
Lady Cheynes glanced at the stockings Ella had not had time to put out of sight.
“Darning stockings! – hum – can’t one of the maids do that for you? You don’t mean to say Madelene expects you to do this sort of thing. And – surely – if you do want to sit up in your own room you can give orders to have a fire lighted, can’t you?”
Lady Cheynes frowned. Ella had never seen her look so stern.
“Oh – I’m sure – Hester would have lighted it if I had wanted it. And I might have stayed down stairs only – it’s very dull,” she burst out nervously. “Papa isn’t any better to-day – he can’t leave his room, and down stairs it all seems so big and lonely.”
Ella’s voice quivered before she got to the end of the sentence; she was so very sorry for herself. Her godmother eyed her keenly.
“When do Madelene and Ermine come home?” she asked. “This afternoon, I suppose.”
“Oh, no,” said Ella. “The ball – the dance at the Belvoirs’ is only this evening. They are staying, I think, till to-morrow.”
“Humph,” said Lady Cheynes. “You don’t care for dancing, I suppose?”
This was too much. Ella’s face was a study. “Me” she exclaimed, “not care for dancing. Who ever said so?”
The old lady laughed a little.
“I don’t know – nobody perhaps. I was judging by circumstantial evidence. A girl of your age, who did care for it, would have managed by hook or by crook to get leave to go.”
Ella gasped.
“Do you really think so?” she exclaimed. “Why, godmother, the question was never raised in the least; the possibility of such a thing was never alluded to. If I had thought there was the faintest chance of it I should have nearly gone out of my mind.”
“Did you never tell your sisters how much you would have liked to go?” asked Lady Cheynes.
“No,” said Ella. “They may have guessed it, but we hardly alluded to it at all. But oh, godmother, please don’t say now there might have been any chance of my going. It is – it is more than I can bear to think of it.”
She clasped her hands together and looked up in the old lady’s face, her lovely brown eyes brimming over with tears.
Lady Cheynes said nothing. She walked to the window and stood there looking out.
“How well I remember the view from this room,” she said dreamily, speaking as much to herself as to Ella. “This was our nursery, too. I recollect one day my doll’s falling out, between the bars, and when she was picked up and brought to me her face was all disfigured and cracked. Wax dolls cost a small fortune in those days. I remember thinking I never never could be happy again! Dear me – it is only a question of proportion after all – a child’s bitter sorrow is as bad to it, as what seem more real sorrows are to older people. It seems a pity to – to add,” but here she stopped, rather abruptly.
Ella had left off crying in the interest of listening to her godmother. She was disappointed that Lady Cheynes said no more.
“Yes?” she said insinuatingly; “what were you saying, godmother? ‘A pity to add to’?”
“Never mind, child. I was thinking aloud. Now, take off that shawl and run down to the warm library, like a sensible girl. If you must finish darning your stockings, take one or two of them with you. There is no one but Barnes to be shocked. I am going to see your father if he is not asleep, and then I shall ask you to give me a scrap of luncheon. I only came home last night, and I heard Marcus was ill and drove over at once.”
Ella obeyed. The two went down stairs together. Then in reply to Lady Cheynes’ message came one from her nephew, saying that he was awake, and begged her to go to see him.
Ella sat alone in the library. She felt considerably less desolate and depressed, and it certainly was more comfortable than up stairs in the cold. She was very glad to have her godmother’s company at luncheon, anything was better than sitting alone through the meal with Barnes and his subordinates fidgeting about. And she was by no means sorry that the old lady should have come upon her as she had done, for however fond she was of her grand-nieces Ella felt certain Lady Cheynes did not approve of the present state of things.
“If she had been at home, I do believe I should have gone,” thought Ella.
Suddenly the door opened and her godmother reappeared. Her eyes looked very bright, there was a slight flush upon her soft old cheeks and a smile, a peculiar smile, flickered about her mouth.
“Godmother,” exclaimed Ella, as she had done up stairs in her own room. “What is it?” she went on, feeling a sort of vague excitement. “You look as if you had something to tell me. You are smiling, so it can’t be anything wrong. What have you been talking about to papa?”
Lady Cheynes drew a chair close to Ella’s, and sat down.
“Supposing I were a fairy godmother, Ella, just for fun, you know, what would you ask me to do to cheer you up a little this dreary day?”
Ella opened her eyes wide, very wide – and I almost think she opened her mouth too.
“Godmother?” she said, while a rosy colour crept over her face, “oh, godmother, what do you mean?”
Chapter Nine
Too Good to be True
“Godmother,” Ella repeated, “what do you mean?”
Lady Cheynes smiled.
“Supposing I were to tell you you were to go to the dance at the Belvoirs’ to-night after all?” she said.
Ella’s face fell a little.
“Godmother,” she replied, “I’m afraid you’re teasing me; I couldn’t go now.”
“Not if I took you? I was asked of course – they are very old friends, and I did not answer definitely, not being sure when I was returning home. Indeed till this morning I thought it was over, that it was last night.”
“But,” Ella went on, the corners of her mouth drooping like a little child’s, “I haven’t any frock, godmother. That makes it quite impossible.”
“I don’t know. Hester tells me there is a very pretty little white tulle frock almost ready for you. Madelene has been having it made by Mélanie – in case of anything unexpected, I suppose,” said Lady Cheynes quietly.
Ella looked as if she could scarcely believe her ears.
“Madelene has been getting a frock ready for me,” she said. “Perhaps, perhaps, godmother it was for a surprise. Wouldn’t she be vexed at my knowing it? Do you – would you dare to let me wear it? Oh, godmother,” and her eyes sparkled, “how lovely it would be!”
“Will be,” said her godmother, smiling more and more. “Listen, Ella, I’ve got your father’s leave to take you. You are to drive home with me immediately after luncheon. Hester is putting up the frock and my maid will set to work and finish it. Now think, have you everything else you need – gloves – shoes?”
“I have gloves – tan-coloured ones, but they’re quite new and nice and long. They are the last pair of those poor auntie gave me. I have never needed to wear such long ones here! And shoes – I have no white ones, godmother.”
“You must have white ones,” said Lady Cheynes. “Ah well – perhaps we can get some at Weevilscoombe. I can send a man in to the shoemaker’s there. Or if not – ” and the old lady hesitated. “Never mind – we’ll manage somehow. Now, my dear, run up stairs and show Hester all that you want packed up. You must be quick, for we shall leave immediately after luncheon.”
Scarcely knowing if she were standing on her head or her heels, off flew Ella. Up stairs in her room she found Hester, who now that the young lady was in such luck thought it well to sober her down a little by looking rather grim.
“Oh, Hester,” cried Ella, flying at the old servant, seizing her by the shoulders and whirling her round, “did you ever know anything so lovely? Have you packed up the frock? Do tell me about it – how did you know about it? Was it to be a surprise and oh! Hester, what will my sisters say when they see me there? I’m so awfully afraid they’ll be vexed, even though they won’t show it to her ladyship.”
Hester stopped short in the packing she was already in the midst of.
“Now, Miss Ella,” she said, “that just shows how little you know your sisters. Vexed indeed – they’ll be just as pleased as pleased, Miss St Quentin especially. If only you knew – No, miss, you can’t see the frock – it’s all pinned up neatly, and you must let Jones undo it herself,” and Hester laid a protecting hand on the white puffy-looking packet she was reserving for the top of the trunk.
“You cross old thing,” said Ella. “However I’ll forgive you. I’m too happy to mind. All the same if my sisters did want me to go, why didn’t they ask papa – he gave in the moment godmother tackled him?”
Hester grunted, but said nothing.
“That reminds me,” Ella went on, “I must run in to see papa for a moment, to thank him. You’ve got all my things in now, Hester. I haven’t time to change this frock, though I should have liked to,” glancing at her thick grey homespun with contempt; “and besides, my Sunday frock – fancy me having come back to Sunday frocks like a good little girl! – is rather the uglier of the two. It is so clumsily made; I’d have liked to take my dark green cashmere that I brought from auntie’s.”
“And catch your death of cold. You forget, Miss Ella, it’s a deal colder here than at Bath, and in a town too it’s always warmer.”
“Oh, well, I don’t care. I shall come back first thing to-morrow morning; so it won’t matter. Oh, Hester, I am so happy – here, catch, these are my gloves. Yes, I’m sure I’ve all now.”
And with another series of pirouettes Ella took herself off.
She flew to her father’s room this time.
“May I come in? Oh, papa, I don’t know how to thank you,” she cried. And as her father looked up, she seemed to him a transfigured creature from the meek, subdued Ella of the night before. There she stood, radiant and glowing with a delight which one could have fancied illumined even the dull folds of her grey frock as with sunshine.
A smile broke over Colonel St Quentin’s pale worn face.
“My poor little girl,” he ejaculated involuntarily, “do you really care so much about it?”
“Of course I do. Oh! you don’t know how happy I am. But oh, papa, you don’t think Madelene will mind, do you?”
Colonel St Quentin’s face changed.
“Madelene mind!” he repeated. “My dear Ella, how extraordinarily you misapprehend your sister.” Just, in other words, what Hester had said. For a moment Ella’s face looked grave. If it were the case after all that Madelene was not to blame? But no – how could it be so? For papa, had been so easy to persuade – was now so plainly enjoying her delight. The girl’s expression darkened. Madelene, she felt almost inclined to believe, was worse than she had yet imagined. She must be cleverer and more cunning, thought Ella, not only to keep her in the position she did, but to make it seem that she wished it otherwise. But these reflections of course were not to be expressed. And come what would, Ella decided triumphantly, her sister could not deprive her of this one evening’s enjoyment.
“I’m glad you don’t think Madelene will be vexed,” she said quietly.
Colonel St Quentin gave a slight smile. “You must promise me, Ella,” he went on, “to be very nice – biddable and considerate you know, to your – to Lady Cheynes. It is really very good, very good indeed of her to take you. Don’t tease her to stay late, or anything of that kind. I suppose it’s all right about your dress – she says so. Now, good-bye, my dear. Enjoy yourself and don’t fancy that any one will grudge your doing so.”
“Good-bye, papa,” said Ella, stooping to kiss him.
They set off immediately after luncheon. Arrived at Cheynesacre, a great consultation took place. Jones was fortunately good-natured as well as skilful – she surveyed the snowy mass which old Hester had packed up so carefully with grave consideration.
“Yes, my lady,” she said, “boolyooners of toole, quite simple, I see. The bodice is complete, luckily. Well – if Harriet can work with me – Harriet is a handy girl, I don’t see but that it may be ready by eight o’clock – or even a little sooner.”
“Sooner, decidedly,” said Lady Cheynes, “we must start at half-past eight. It’s a long drive and of course an early dance. You must have some white flowers Ella – not a bouquet, but a spray or two on the bodice. And was there not something else you needed?”
“Shoes, godmother. I have no white ones.”
“Oh, to be sure. What do you think, Jones, could we get a decent pair at Weevilscoombe?”
Jones shook her wise head.
“Then – run down stairs, Ella, and ring for the head-gardener to speak to me in the conservatory. I will follow you immediately.”
Five minutes later, the old lady entered the drawing-room with a small, carefully enveloped parcel in her hand. There was a look in her face that Ella had never seen there before – a look which in a younger woman would have been accentuated by tears in her eyes. But old age weeps rarely and painfully. Lady Cheynes’ bright, dark eyes were undimmed, yet they had a very tender light in them as she unfolded the packet.
“Look, child,” she said. “Here is a pair of slippers which I little thought would ever have danced again. They belonged to my own child. You have never heard of her of course. She would have been an old woman in your eyes, had she been alive still. They were the last white slippers she ever wore; you see they are perfectly clean, only yellowed a little with age, in spite of my blue paper!”
Ella took them carefully and admiringly in her hands. They were very dainty little shoes, and on the front of each sparkled an old-fashioned buckle.
“How pretty they are!” said the girl. “Are these diamonds, godmother?” and she touched the buckles.
“No, they would be too valuable in that case to be left stitched on the slippers,” Lady Cheynes replied. “They are only old paste, but very good old paste. I gave them to Clarice to wear at the fancy dress ball she got the shoes for, and they were old even then. You see the shoes have high heels, Ella, which suits them for present fashions rather too well, in my opinion. That was because they were for a fancy dress. When Clarice was a girl, high heels were not worn. Now try them on, child – I only hope they are not too small.”
Ella slipped off her own shoe and drew on one of the white ones without the least difficulty.
“Do they fit you?” asked Lady Cheynes quickly, “Quite; perfectly,” said Ella, proceeding to try the second slipper. “The left foot is perhaps, yes, just a trifle too large,” she went on. “You see they are both easy, and my left foot is a little tiny bit smaller than my right – and then I have thicker stockings on than in the evening. But I am sure they will do, godmother, beautifully; and it is so very good of you.”
Lady Cheynes stooped to look at the little feet in their motley clothing of red stockings and white shoes.
“Humph,” she said, with a mingling of admiration and contrariety in her voice, “humph – I thought Clarice’s feet the smallest that ever were seen. You can put a bit of cotton-wool in the toes if you like, Ella.”
“Oh, no, thank you, they’re not as bad as that,” said Ella, jumping up. “I can dance in them splendidly – I feel I can,” and she gave herself a twirl or two. “Oh, dear godmother,” she went on, “I can scarcely believe that I’m going. I really can’t.” Jones and the handy Harriet worked their best. Before eight o’clock all was ready, and Ella stood arrayed for her godmother’s inspection.
“Very nice, yes, very nice,” said the old lady. “Put out your foot, Ella – yes, there won’t be another pair of shoes and shoe-buckles like those, there. Now, what have you to put on over you? No! no,” as Ella held up a gauzy mantle or shawl, “that’s not half enough. You must have something over that. My dark-brown fur-lined cloak, Jones, will be the very thing. You are not used to a long drive in winter such as we shall have to-night. And it is freezing now, I hear – the roads are getting slippery. We cannot go fast.”
“You must have plenty of hot-water bottles, my lady,” said Jones, as she returned with the cloak. “And I’ll tell Henry to be sure and have them filled again to come home with.”
“We shall not stay so late as all that,” the old lady replied. “However, it will do no harm to speak to Henry. What are you making such grimaces about, Ella?”
“The cloak, godmother. It is so awfully heavy – I am afraid it will crush me dreadfully, and see, it quite trails on the floor. Don’t you think, in the warm carriage – if I doubled my shawl?”
“No, nonsense,” said Lady Cheynes, decidedly. “That cloak is the proper thing. You can shake yourself out when you get there. Good tulle is elastic,” and she turned away inexorably.
It was a long drive – longer than Ella had realised. And it was so cold outside that the carriage windows had to be kept up the whole way, not admitting a breath of air; and they quickly became so opaque that even if the night had been brighter and clearer than it was, Ella could have seen nothing. In spite of her excitement and eager anticipation she felt herself growing drowsy, and when they at last drew up, though she had not been actually asleep she had been so near it that all about her seemed dreamy and unreal. Hardly understanding where she was, she found herself following her godmother across a great square hall, whose dark oak panelling was decorated with Christmas evergreens and holly, down a short passage into a room crowded with ladies’ shawls and wraps and attendant maidens.
“Shake yourself out, Ella,” said Lady Cheynes. “Yes, that is right,” as her god-daughter half mechanically obeyed her, under the supervision of one of the ladies’-maids. “You are not at all crushed. Keep our cloaks where they will be easily got at, we shall be leaving early,” she went on to the woman, who evidently recognised her. “Now, Ella, my dear. But for goodness’ sake, child, don’t look so solemn. No one would recognise you.”
“I – I didn’t mean to look solemn, godmother,” said the girl, glancing up in the old lady’s face with a little smile of deprecation in her lovely eyes.
At that instant a young man hastily crossing the hall, just behind them, caught sight of her. He stopped short and hesitated.
“By Jove!” he ejaculated under his breath, then drew back. He was out of the range of seeing or being seen by Lady Cheynes.
“Who can she be?” he said to himself.
The old lady moved on calmly till she reached the doorway where Mrs Belvoir was standing, and the greetings and introduction of Ella took place.
“We are later than I expected,” said Lady Cheynes. “You see it was such a sudden idea of mine.”
“A delightful idea,” Mrs Belvoir replied. “Where will you establish yourself, Lady Cheynes? There are a few seats in the ball-room – or would you prefer staying here?”
“I will stay here, thank you,” Ella’s godmother replied, seating herself beside her hostess. “But this child here,” she added in a lower voice, “I should like her to dance. Her sisters don’t know she is coming. It will be quite a surprise to them to see her.”
“They are both dancing,” said Mrs Belvoir. “Of course she must dance. Ah! there is Louis,” – as she caught sight of one of her sons and beckoned to him. “Louis,” and a word or two of whispered explanation followed, before he was brought up and introduced, nothing loth, to the lovely stranger.
He did not catch the name clearly; Mrs Belvoir’s special care to introduce the young girl correctly, as “Miss Ella St Quentin,” had a curious result.
“Miss Ellison Winton,” young Belvoir repeated to himself; “who in the world can she be? I have never seen her before, that’s certain.”
But long ere his fragment of a dance with her came to an end, he found himself hoping that he should see her again!
“She is quite bewitching,” he thought, “and she dances beautifully. I wish I were not engaged so deep.”
“May I introduce a partner or two to you, Miss – Miss Winton?” he said, and Ella did not notice the mistake, as she acquiesced, and two or three new men were led up to her.
“Major Frost, Mr Littleton, Sir Philip Cheynes,” followed each other in quick succession, and each in turn was informed privately by young Belvoir that the young lady was “a Miss Ellison Winton, a perfect stranger,” he added, “staying at some house in the neighbourhood;” and Ella herself, a little bewildered still, heard the various names but indistinctly – the “Sir Philip,” she caught but not the surname. And it never occurred to her to associate the bearer of it with her godmother’s grandson, whom she believed to be still in the north.
There was dancing in two rooms; during Ella’s next dance, a waltz with Major Frost, the elder Misses St Quentin were in the other room. The next, which she danced with Mr Littleton, was a square, and though she once caught sight of Madelene’s head through a doorway, they did not come more nearly together! which Ella, still more than half afraid of being seen by her sisters, was not sorry for.
“It must come, sooner or later,” she thought; “but I should like to be beside my godmother when they first see me.”
