THE FIRST NIGHT
“Ah, there you are!” cried a gay voice, as Sydney, blinking in the
lamp-light, was led by Mr. Fenton into the great hall of St. Quentin
Castle.
She felt a butterfly kiss on her forehead, and then the speaker, a tall,
beautifully-dressed lady, went on talking to Mr. Fenton.
“What abominable weather! St. Quentin hardly thought you would bring the
child, and has been abominably fidgety all day in consequence. You must
both be frozen! Come to the fire!”
A splendid fire of logs was burning at the farther end of the hall, which
was divided off by tapestry from the entrance. She led the way towards
it, talking volubly the whole time; so it was not till they were standing
by the cheerful blaze, and Lady Frederica had stopped speaking for a
moment to look at Sydney, that Mr. Fenton had the opportunity of getting
in a word. “How is Lord St. Quentin?”
“Oh, much the same, I think,” she answered carelessly. “He is up to-day—I
suppose he wanted to see Sydney. Dickson seemed to think he wasn’t quite
so well. Dickson is St. Quentin’s man, my dear,” she added, turning to
Sydney; “a most invaluable creature. I really don’t know what we should
do without him, for St. Quentin won’t have a trained nurse. So faddy, but
he doesn’t like them. But Dickson is really quite admirable with him, and
doesn’t mind his temper—_so_ fortunate—and can read to him, and do all
the things which otherwise perhaps might be expected of me. Yes, you are
like the family—their eyes, hasn’t she, Mr. Fenton? But you haven’t much
of a colour, child!”
“Miss Lisle is very tired, I fear,” suggested Mr. Fenton, looking kindly
at the girl. “I think, if I might suggest it, a little rest before
dinner.... I hear her maid arriving now, I believe.”
“Well, come with me, my dear, and see your room,” said Lady Frederica
graciously, laying her hand upon Sydney’s shoulder. “Mr. Fenton, be an
angel, and go in and talk to St. Quentin. He is in the library and as
irritable as can be. I really can’t go near him till he’s in a better
humour. Come, Sydney.”
They went together up the wide, shallow staircase, guarded at its foot by
two highly realistic-looking stuffed bears—shot by the present marquess
in the Rockies some years ago, Lady Frederica explained, in answer to the
girl’s shy admiration.
She had not time to look at the magnificent collection of sheathed
rapiers which adorned the walls of the long corridor through which
they next passed. Lady Frederica hurried her along, remarking that she
would have plenty of time for studying all “those tiresome old historic
treasures” by-and-by.
“The castle is simply full of them,” she said. “All the Lisles have been
collectors; it is one of their many irritating ways. I hope you haven’t
any hobby, my dear?”
“Hobby” was a new word in Sydney’s vocabulary, and she hardly knew how
to answer the question. But a reply was the one thing Lady Frederica
never wanted, and she went on talking in her clear, high-bred, rather
monotonous voice until they reached the first of Sydney’s rooms.
“They all open from one another,” she said, as the girl looked round with
dazzled eyes. “You like them? That’s right. St. Quentin told me to get
everything you would require. Your bedroom is the innermost, you see.
Then comes your morning-room, where you can do what you like without risk
of being interfered with. And this last is your school-room—yours, too;
till you share it with a governess. How old are you, by the way?”
“I shall be eighteen on the thirty-first of December,” Sydney answered.
“Well, perhaps I shall let you off regular lessons,” Lady Frederica
said; “but you must have masters for accomplishments. I shall tell
St. Quentin so. I don’t suppose you learnt much with that doctor—what
was his name?—Chichester? Gracious, child, how white you are! I hope
you are not going to be delicate! One invalid in the castle is quite
enough—especially one with a temper like St. Quentin’s. I’ll send your
maid to you, and you had better rest a little before dressing for dinner.
We dine at eight. Au revoir, my dear!”
And Lady Frederica flitted away, leaving Sydney in her new domain.
She took off her coat, hat, and gloves, and put them tidily away, then
knelt down by the bright fire blazing in the dainty tiled grate of her
bedroom and looked round it.
It was certainly a contrast from the little bare room she and Dolly
shared at home, where there was no space for anything that was not
strictly needful. This room was more like a drawing-room than a bedroom,
Sydney thought.
The prevailing colour was a delicate rose pink; the carpet, soft as
velvet to her feet, was rose and green; the window-curtains fell to the
floor in long, soft folds of rose-silk fringed with gold.
An easy-chair drawn invitingly to the fire was covered in brocade of the
same, and the satin quilt upon the lofty bed was rose and gold.
“It is _much_ too beautiful for me!” thought Sydney, and went through the
curtained door into what Lady Frederica had called her morning-room.
A soft moss green was the prevailing colour here; Sydney’s weariness
was forgotten as she darted from the dainty writing-table with its
silver-topped ink-stands and chased blotting-case, to the small but
perfect piano standing across one corner of the room.
She felt as yet too much a visitor to open it and try its tone, as she
would have liked to do, and the next moment had forgotten the desire,
and had flung herself upon her knees beside the book-case, green and gold
to match her room, and full of story-books!
She took out two or three at random, and “dipped” luxuriously,
half-kneeling, half-sitting, crumpled anyhow upon the floor. A whole
book-case full of new books to be read! She _was_ a lucky girl. A picture
flashed back vividly into her mind of the “children’s book-case” at home,
where every book had been read and re-read times out of number, and was
like an old friend. Oh, if she could only transport all these lovely
things into the shabby school-room at home! How Mildred would love the
rose-and-gold bedroom—dear Millie, who cared for pretty things so much,
and hardly ever had any!
And oh, what raptures Dolly would have gone into over that exquisite
little piano!—Dolly, who had been known to cry, yes, really cry, when
trying ineffectually to wile some music out of the ancient yellow keys
of theirs at home. And how Madge and Fred and Prissie would have loved
some—just half-a-dozen—just _one_, of this profusion of new books before
her!
It is poor fun to enjoy things all alone! A great tear splotched down
upon the blue-and-gold cover of the book that Sydney was holding, and
left a mark upon it. She dried it hastily, and got up from the floor,
just as Ward came into the room.
“Would you wish to dress, ma’am? It is half-past seven.”
“Yes, please,” the girl answered, wondering if she ever would have
courage to address this dignified person familiarly as “Ward.”
It did not seem very possible at present.
Sydney did not own a real evening dress, but Ward managed the plain
white nuns-veiling frock which she and Dolly had had just alike for the
Christmas parties last year so as to make it look very nice.
It proved to be a little short. “I think perhaps I had better let a tuck
down before to-morrow night,” Sydney suggested meekly, noticing how much
slender black ankle showed beneath it.
There was a moment’s pause before Ward answered her with studied calm, “I
do not think that will be necessary, ma’am.”
She was dressed in good time, and stood looking rather forlornly at her
maid, who was on her knees, unpacking, with a quite expressionless face,
the clothes mother had put in so carefully.
“Lady Frederica sits in the gold drawing-room this week, ma’am,” Ward
said, guessing the reason of the girl’s perplexity; “the second door to
the right of the inner hall. Shall I come with you to the stairs, ma’am?”
she added, rising.
Sydney thanked her warmly. “I am a little afraid of losing myself here,”
she said shyly, at which Ward smiled condescendingly, and said that “Miss
Lisle would soon be quite accustomed to the Castle.”
She took the girl to the head of the wide stairs, reiterated her
instructions, and let Sydney to go down the stairs and through the sombre
splendour of the hall, alone.
Although lit by many antique hanging lamps, its immensity made it
rather dark, and the suits of armour standing in the corners had a very
ghost-like appearance. Sydney crossed the black polished floor as fast as
its slipperiness would allow, and was about to open the second door on
the right, according to her maid’s instructions, when a voice spoke, not
loud, but imperatively, “Are you Sydney?”
She turned, and saw that a long couch on wheels was drawn up near the
great log fire, and that the man upon it had moved his head and was
looking at her.
She crossed the hall again and came to him, putting her hand diffidently
into his. “So you are Sydney?” Lord St. Quentin said.
What Sydney saw, as she returned his steady gaze, was a tall man, lying
very nearly flat, his head only just raised by a small pillow. His hair
was dark brown like her own and his eyes grey; but there the likeness
ceased. The face was thin, the mouth cynical, and the sharp line drawn
down the middle of his forehead made it strangely different from the
girl’s smooth one.
What he saw was a slight girl dressed in white, looking taller than she
really was by reason of her slenderness, with a cloud of soft brown hair
framing her face and hanging in a long tail down her back; and earnest,
pitying, dark grey eyes fixed upon him. They looked at each other in
silence for a full minute; then St. Quentin released her hand and pointed
to a low chair by his side.
“You had a cold journey?”
“Not very cold,” said Sydney shyly.
There was a pause. St. Quentin was frowning. Sydney felt that she ought
to originate a subject in her turn.
“I hope you are better to-day, Lord St. Quentin?” she got out with an
effort.
Lord St. Quentin stopped frowning, in surprise.
“Thanks, I’m all right,” he said shortly; then added with half a smile,
“Drop the ‘Lord,’ please—we are cousins!”
“Well, Sydney, so you and St. Quentin have made acquaintance already?”
Lady Frederica exclaimed, coming down the stairs as the gong began to
sound with a roar like distant thunder. “How clever of you to find
each other out! How are you now, my dear boy? Dickson told me you were
‘rather low’: how I hate that expression in the mouth of servants! It
always means ill-tempered. Now, my maid can never say I’m ‘low,’ at
all events. I make a point of never giving way to low spirits. Ah, Mr.
Fenton,” as the old lawyer came into the circle of fire-light, “here you
are!—punctual as usual! I have just been telling St. Quentin he shouldn’t
give way to low spirits; a mistake, isn’t it? I suppose you will dine in
the library, St. Quentin? Shall we see you again to-night?”
“You might come to me in the library for five minutes after dinner, if
you will, Aunt Rica,” he answered rather moodily. “I won’t keep you.
Good-night, Sydney.”
“Good-night, Cousin St. Quentin,” the girl said. Her cousin’s thin hand
took hers for a minute, and she followed Lady Frederica in to dinner.
Sydney thought the meal unending. The long table, the enormous room,
the powdered footmen all combined to make her feel strange and very,
_very_ homesick. But the dessert had been partaken of at last, and Lady
Frederica looked at the girl. “Shall we come, my dear? You’ll join us
presently in the gold drawing-room, Mr. Fenton?”
The old lawyer held the door open, and the two passed out to the
drawing-room.
“Pull a chair up to the fire, child,” said Lady Frederica with a shiver.
“I suppose I must go to St. Quentin: he probably wants to give me some
further directions about you. I shan’t be long: my dear nephew is not by
any means good company, I can assure you!”
And her grey and silver draperies swept out of the gold drawing-room.
Sydney drew a chair to the fire as she had been told, and sat staring
into it with dreamy eyes. Nine o’clock. At this time they all would be
in the drawing-room at home, except the little ones in bed. Father would
very likely be reading aloud to mother something that had interested him;
Madge making doll’s clothes in her special corner of the room, with a
good many whispered appeals to Mildred over some tiresome garment that
would not come right, and Hugh and Hal would be playing one of their
interminable games of chess—supposing Hugh had not been called out to
see some sick person. Just _one_ chair would be empty, that little dumpy
cane one in which she usually sat, which creaked so much as to make a
never-ceasing joke about “Sydney’s prodigious weight”! Sydney’s head sank
low, and the fire grew blurred when she thought about that little chair.
Was it only last night she had been in the dear drawing-room at home with
all of them?
When, ten minutes later, the coffee and Mr. Fenton came noiselessly
together into the gold drawing-room, the old lawyer found the little
heiress leaning back in the great arm-chair by the fire asleep.
He stood looking at her for a moment, and then rang the bell.
“Send Miss Lisle’s maid to her room at once,” he ordered, and then gently
woke her.
“Do not be alarmed, my dear young lady; it is only I,” he said. “I was
compelled to rouse you, because I am certain you ought to go to bed. I
have sent your maid to your room, and I strongly advise you to go there
immediately without waiting for Lady Frederica’s return. I will explain
everything to her.”
Sydney was only too glad to go. “Thank you very much,” she said, holding
out her hand to Mr. Fenton. He watched her go slowly up the wide
staircase before returning to the drawing-room, where he was joined in a
minute by Lady Frederica.
“Went to sleep while you were talking to her, did she?” she laughed.
“Dear me, Mr. Fenton, how abominably prosy you must have been! Oh, it
was _before_ you came in from the dining-room, was it? Fancy the child
finding us so wearying, even in our absence! I must tell St. Quentin
that: it will make him shriek!”
But when she had tripped back into the library where her nephew, his
brows drawn very close together, was endeavouring to read, Lord St.
Quentin did not seem to find the information she had come to bring him so
particularly funny.
“Poor little girl!” was all he said.