brave; there was a great, sweet peace in her heart.
She thought she would read for a little time, and grow still calmer.
There was her Browning on the writing table--he had strengthened her
often since she had begun to know him; and there were a couple of books
Alan had lent her: "At the Roots of the Mountains," and something of
Pierre Loti's. She fingered them a moment.
But first she would go and speak to Nellie, who would be calmer too by
now,--poor pretty Nellie, with her childish defiance and longings for
"other things." She went down the passage, softly, by Peter's room and
Bunty's. The light was shining beneath Nellie's door; the poor little
prisoner was not asleep, then.
She stopped and inserted the key with a flush of shame: how ignominious
it must feel to be locked in!
"Dear Nell----" she began, and then stopped aghast.
The room was empty.
*CHAPTER XVII.*
*A DINNER PARTY.*
"Oh, would I were dead now,
Or up in my bed now,
To cover my head now
And have a good cry!"
Trafalgar House, if you please. Time, about eight o'clock. Dramatis
personae some fifteen brilliantly-dressed ladies, and as many gentlemen
in regulation evening attire.
A great long table, magnificently set, and ablaze with tiny electric
lamps cunningly hidden among foliage and splendid flowers. At one end
Mrs. Fitzroy-Browne in rich black satin, a truly astonishing cap, and
twice as many glittering rings as she had fingers.
Mrs. Fitzroy-Browne, with a large fixed smile that only her fork or
spoon ever disturbed--Mrs. Fitzroy-Browne, with one anxious eye on the
waiting servants, one half frightened on her son and daughters, and only
the large smile for the guests.
At the head Mr. Fitzroy-Browne, a small, neat man, with little eyes and
a half-apologetic, half-assertive manner, as if he were begging your
pardon for the great wealth that made you mere nobodies, and at the same
time hugging himself mightily.
[Illustration: "AWAY DOWN NEAR ONE END SAT NELLIE."]
At intervals down the sides the Misses Fitzroy-Browne, in _decollete_
dresses of latest style.
Sandwiched with them and other females with large bare arms and rough,
fashionally-coiffeured hair, net-covered, men of various sorts and
conditions,--self-made men like their host, who came to approve the show
money could make; a few of better position, who enjoyed the wines and
good dinner and despised the vulgarity of the givers; a good-looking
adventurer or two of higher society, remittance men, who, having almost
outrun the constable, as a last resource came heiress-hunting.
In the middle of one side Mr. Adolphus Fitzroy-Browne, with a large
expanse of white shirt front, a pink-edged tie, great diamond studs, and
a red silk sash tied at one side instead of a waistcoat.
And away down near one end, a stout American Hebrew, dinner intent, on
one side, a young man of the puppy order on the other, sat
Nellie,--Nellie, looking like a little lonely field flower sprung up in
a bed of gaudy dahlias,--Nellie, in a white, simple dress of home make,
high-necked, long-sleeved, with the dying pink roses at her breast, and
a silver "wish" bangle that cost half-a-crown for her only jewellery.
Poor little Nell! Never perhaps in all her fifteen years had she been
so immeasurably miserable and uncomfortable.
In the drawing-room the women had stared her up and down in scorn, and
rustled about in voluminous silken and velvet skirts; the thought of her
own plain, high-necked dress made her cheeks burn. The Misses Browne had
been too busy with entertaining to do more than give her a nod and a
word or two as they introduced several of the men to her.
"Daughter of Captain John Woolcot," she overheard one of them whisper
once,--"poor, but of very good family, related to a title; great friend
of dear Isabel's; pretty little thing, yes; quite a charity to show her
some life."
Nellie had blushed hotly, and shrunk back into a corner. Oh, if only
there had been a door near and she could have slipped out and flown
through the night back to dear, despised Misrule. If only the floor
would open and mercifully swallow her out of sight! If only there was a
window near, through which she could make her exit from Trafalgar House
for ever! But alas! the drawing-room was upstairs here, and there were
no convenient tanks and thickly-wooded creepers such as had made her
descent from her own bedroom almost easy. There was a little patch of
green on her skirt, and a pin held together a ripped flounce, but,
certainly, no one in that gay assemblage suspected her of leaving her
own home by any more unusual mode of exit than the front door. It was
even worse when a move was made towards the dining-room, and she was
assigned to a youth in a chokingly high collar, a youth who said ya-as
and haw, and left out his r's and g's because he had been told it was
"as done in London."
She was in a hot state of nervous distress even when no one was speaking
to her; it was increased tenfold when she found this man evidently
expected her to talk and be talked to all the time.
He asked her whose dancing she liked best, Sylvia Grey's or Marion
Hood's.
"--I don't know either of them," she answered, wondering distressfully
if she ought to use her silver knife and fork or an ordinary fork only
for the pate-de-something that the footman had just given her.
"Haw," said the youth, "at the theatre,--don't-cher-know,--haw--haw,
very good."
Nellie's cheeks burned. He looked at her with impertinent admiration.
"Like to see a garl blush myself, don't-cher-know," he drawled, "shows
they're young. Lord! what wouldn't the old ones give to do it--our
friend Miss Isabel, for instance?"
Nell's pink deepened to scarlet under the cool audacity of his stare.
This was the first experience of the kind she had had in her life; all
the men she had hitherto met on equal terms had been gentlemen
unmistakably.
But she did not speak; her long eyelashes lay almost tremblingly on her
cheek, and she took a mouthful or two of the pate; she had decided to
use the fork, and then crimsoned afresh to see most of the others
employing knife as well. The pastry broke up into little flaky pieces;
in vain her one implement chased them round her plate, she could only
get a crumb to stay on the prongs each time.
"Haw--what lovely long lashes you've got, Miss--haw--Woolcot, wasn't it?
I suppose that's why you keep persistin' in lookin' down, isn't it now?"
said the voice at her elbow.
She looked up in desperation, her cheeks aflame again.
"Haw, that's better," he said; "now I can see your eyes. I couldn't
when you kept them so cruelly hidden, don't cher see."
Then the Hebrew neighbour claimed her attention.
"Grand finisht dot vash at Randwick, Sat'day," he said. The servants
were bringing him fresh supplies, so he could spare time for a minute to
speak to the pretty little girl beside him.
"Yes," assented Nellie in a hurry. She had not caught what he said, but
thought it would be easier to assent than tell him so.
"And vich horse vos it you vos backing?" he pursued.
Then she had to explain she had not heard what he said; and afterwards,
that she had never been to the races in her life.
The Hebrew had no other conversation at command just then, so he
returned to his fresh plateful, and left her to her other neighbours,
who smiled openly, but made no movement to help her when a servant
brought champagne, and she was perplexed to know whether she ought to
offer one of the many glasses beside her or remain passive. She had
never thought it possible for a meal to last the interminably long time
this one did.
The others seemed to be enjoying themselves exceedingly. There was loud
talking and laughing on both sides, wine was flowing freely, and there
was an exhaustless supply of good things to eat.
Nellie wondered miserably if Meg had found her out, as she dipped her
finger tips into the Venetian glass finger bowl. There was a tiny
William Alan Richardson rosebud floating there; Meg had had a cluster
stuck in her waistband when she had been entreating her to give up this
dinner. Dear, dear Meg! and to think she had vexed and worried and
grieved her like this, just for the sake of these horrible people and
their thrice horrible dinner-party!
Her eyes ached with tears, there was a lump in her throat, a tightness
at her heart; the young man at her elbow was talking, but she neither
heard his words nor turned her head. Then he laughed out, and the
Hebrew gentleman touched her arm. All the ladies had risen and were on
their way to the door; she only was sitting still, her gloves yet off,
her young, unhappy face downcast. A wave of colour rushed into her
cheeks, and as she jumped up hurriedly, every one was looking at her,
half amusedly, half admiringly. Isabel at the door waited for her, a
little vexed.
"What _were_ you dreaming of?" she said. "Why, you haven't even got
your gloves on."
"Dear Miss Isabel," Nellie said, entreaty almost tearful in her voice,
"do let me go home now. Indeed I must,--oh do, do, do!"
But "What nonsense, child!" Isabel answered, and bore her along with the
others into the brilliantly lighted drawing-room.
Here it was not quite so bad. Nell saw a chair half hidden behind a
window-curtain, and felt she had indeed come into a haven of peace when
she gained it. No one disturbed her for a time; some of the girls
yawned openly, and kept their speech for the arrival of the gentlemen;
one or two frankly closed their eyes to show the small appreciation they
had for their own sex; the others discussed the men, their moustaches,
money, eyes, figures, in a way that made the one violet in the room want
to shrivel up or turn rosy for the shame of her girlhood.
They all ignored Mamma Browne, who had a spacious velvet sofa all to
herself; she would have liked to knit or do something with her fingers,
but the girls had told her it wasn't "good form," so she only twisted
them in and out of each other, and wondered if the people would go at
eleven or twelve, and whether they had noticed that only three servants
waited instead of the five they always had for the parties.
Then she noticed the little lonely figure in white by the great window.
There was a droop about the little sweet mouth and a misty look in the
sweet eyes that quite touched her kind old heart. She got up and
waddled slowly across the floor. "Come and sit on the sofy with me,
dearie," she said; and all Nellie's heart went out to her.
The sofa was in a deep window at the end of the room, quite away from
the loud-voiced, finely-dressed girls who so overpowered her.
"Oh, do let me stay with you all the time, please!" she said, as she
nestled down close to the motherly, capacious-looking old lady. "Oh, it
is much nicer here--may I?"
"Why, of course," said Mrs. Browne; "why, I'll be glad to 'ave you; you
ain't been enjoyin' yourself, I'm thinkin'?"
"Oh," said Nellie, who was a polite little soul, even in distress, "oh,
it has been very nice, I'm sure, only I don't go to dinner parties yet,
and so I am a little shy, I suppose."
"Well, I ain't enjoyed it," said Mrs. Browne, with a sigh; "they worrit
my life out, these parties, and unsettle the servints, and make all the
house rumpled up, and then no one says thank you or likes you a bit
better for it all."
She felt she might ease her poor old heart a little to this young girl,
whose dress was not fine enough to make her haughty, and whose face was
sweetly sympathetic.
"Oh, I'm sure every one has enjoyed it very much, and thinks it is very
kind of you to give such a nice party," Nellie said, touched by the
tired quaver in the speaker's voice.
"Me!" the old lady replied, with a touch of bitterness. "I'm only their
mother, I don't give it, bless your soul!--all the good mothers is
nowadays, is to mind the servints and take blame when things go wrong.
Me! All I 'ave to do is to order dinner and stay up till every one's
gone."
She rocked herself to and fro unhappily; her state of bondage was
beginning to tell upon her.
"Ha' you got a mother?" she asked, turning sharply on her young guest.
And Nellie's reply was very low and sad: "She died nine years ago."
The poor child was in the mood to-night to long inexpressibly for the
soft arms and breast of a mother. There was silence for a few minutes.
"Ah!" said Mrs. Browne, and her voice also was very low, and a little
unsteady with tears, "she was fortunit, mothers had oughter die when
their childers is little and loves them. When childers is growed up
mothers is only in the way."
Nellie stretched out her young hand and stroked the poor old fat one
that was tremblingly smoothing imaginary creases out of the sofa seat.
"Why, I would give all the world if my mother were alive," she said,
with eager hurrying lips, "and Meg and Pip would,--all of us, dear Mrs.
Browne. I think it is just when we are grown up we love mothers best,
and want them most."
"Not me," was the slow, sad answer, accompanied by a furtively wiped
tear. "Not mothers as ain't been learned grammar proper when they was
young. Them's the kind of mothers as had oughter die afore their boys
and girls are growed up."
Then the gentlemen came in, and there was a louder buzz of talk, a new
settlement of chairs, and presently some excessively noisy music.
"I'm just goin' to get something for my 'ed, it aches so bad," Mrs.
Browne whispered to Nellie after a time; "they won't notice if I slip
out when Miss 'Udson goes to the pianee."
Nellie lifted eager eyes. "Let me come with you,--oh, please!" she said
impulsively, and the next minute the two were stealing out of the
nearest door together.
In the dimly-lighted bedroom the old lady gave way altogether, and
sobbed for a long time in a heartbroken way, much to Nellie's distress.
"Oh, I wish I was dead, I do--I wish I was dead!" she said, with a
little rocking movement to ease the sorrow of her poor old heart. She
mopped at her eyes occasionally with her lace-trimmed handkerchief; in
olden days she would have put her apron over her head and shed her tears
behind its screen; but even that solace was denied her now.
Nell found eau-de-Cologne on the dressing-table, and insisted on bathing
her head with it, and then fanning slowly with a palm leaf till the poor
thing's agitation calmed and the burning head was a little cooler.
"I think I've let things worrit me too much to-day," was her faltering
excuse when, half an hour later, she awoke to the fact that Nellie was
still fanning her; "but no one knows what my poor 'ed 'as been lately.
Marthy the parlour-maid was sick last night, poor thing, and I sat with
her till near two; and James the other footman begged me to let 'im go
off--they said 'is little girl was bad with scarlet-fever. I 'ad to let
'im, of course, and you could see 'ow vexed Pa was when we was
short-'anded at table. It worrited me awful."
There was a rustle of silken skirts along the corridor, and a patter of
high-heeled shoes. Isabel had suddenly missed her young guest, whose
eyes she had so wanted to dazzle; it struck her with infinite vexation
that it was more than probable she was with her mother, despising her
hugely for her ungrammatical language and many banalities.
"Well, really!" she said, sweeping into the bedroom, and looking vexedly
at the two on the sofa.
Mrs. Browne struggled instantly to her feet.
"I'm just comin', my dear,--comin' this minute," she said, in a voice
whose nervousness struck Nellie as strangely pathetic. "I thought the
folk wouldn't be missin' me just for a bit."
"Oh, I never expect _you_ to do things like other hostesses," her
daughter answered rudely. Then she turned to Nellie.
"I don't know what you want to run away like this for; I shall begin to
think you're not enjoying yourself. Come, we're going into the ballroom
to have a dance or two: can you do the cotillon?"
She swept her away to the lights and music again, to fresh vexation of
spirit that self-forgetfulness for a time had made less keen.
In the midst of a waltz with her odious dinner companion Nell caught
sight of her so-called hostess, who had followed her daughter back to
the room.
She was sitting, poor fat old creature, on a stiff chair near the wall,
blinking patiently at the dancers, the large set smile on her face
again, and a headache pucker on her forehead.
To Nellie the one bright spot in that dreadful evening was the thought
of her touching, surprised gratitude at the trifling service she had
done her.
"I just wish you was my little girl!" was her wistful speech at parting,
when twelve o'clock put an end to the revels,--"oh, 'ow I wish you was
my little girl!"
*CHAPTER XVIII.*
*"HOW GOOD YOU OUGHT TO BE!"*
"Greater than anger
Is love, and subdueth."
The silence of midnight hung over all the house--there was darkness in
all the rooms save one. Outside, the rain was falling, but without
noise; sometimes the wind blew it against the window-panes in little
gusts like the light spray of waves, but for the most part it fell in
straight, silent sheets upon the soaking garden and paddocks. Now and
again the same fitful wind stirred a Japanese sun-blind at the end of
the side verandah. It had a broken pulley, and was hauled up slant-wise;
when the wind stirred, it moaned and creaked like a live creature.
Meg was sitting on the drawing-room hearthrug, her head in her hands,
her fair hair rumpled back from her forehead, her eyes, intensely
thoughtful, fixed on the ashes in the grate. Early in the evening a
fire had been lighted; for, although it was only May, it had been a
chilly day. The fire had gone out, however, and Meg had not noticed
this, though she had been staring hard at it most of the time.
Only one gas-jet was alight, and it was turned low--the room had almost
an eerie look in the faint light. A great vase of pampas grass and
bulrushes loomed tall and ghostly from the corner near the piano; and a
wet, dull moon--when the drifting clouds permitted--looked in at a
little side window where the blind was not drawn.
Every one in the house was asleep but Meg.
She was sitting up for Nellie.
Pip had gone out before she had found the bird was flown from the cage
in which he had locked her. There was a smoking concert at one of the
Colleges, and he had left word that he should not be back that night at
all--the last boat left so ridiculously early that one of the men had
offered him a bed.
So Meg kept her lonely watch with cold feet and low spirits.
She was wondering if it was not very selfish of her to think of being
married. Alan had given her a year, under protest,--at the end of that
time he would assuredly claim her. No one was less conceited than our
sweet, pale Margaret, but she could not help seeing that things would be
much worse at Misrule when her place knew her no more. There was little,
eager Poppet with her excitable nature and wonderful capacity for
feeling everything,--who would listen patiently to all her funny little
plans and thoughts, or take an interest in her keen childish troubles
and joys? Poor, reclaimed Bunty, whose sullen reserve and brooding fits
of depression she was just beginning to understand and sympathise
with--if the old days of "John" and carping blame began again, his
character would be ruined.
And Pip, who had just left his glad boyhood paths and was stepping so
carelessly into the strange, sorrowful ones of manhood, where there were
precipices and pitfalls at every turn,--how she longed to be at his
elbow again, giving him the right kind of help! He had spurned her away
just now, she knew; but soon, she felt certain, she could slip back to
him as if nothing had happened, and keep him from worse things, perhaps.
But not if she made fresh ties for herself.
She told some of her fears, half falteringly, to Alan.
"I think you must give me longer," she said.
But he only laughed at her. Men never understand these things.
"I didn't think you were conceited, Meg," he said; "why, Nellie will
make a model eldest sister, by-and-by, of course. And I have far more
need of you than these children have. And I'm not going to take you to
New Zealand or the Islands; we shall live somewhere in Sydney, and you
will still be able to keep your eye on Bunty's collar,--that's the
greatest grievance, isn't it?"
Meg was trying to imagine beautiful, spoilt Nell as a model eldest
sister this evening as she sat on the hearthrug. Why, not one of the
young ones would have acted so wrongfully, so utterly foolishly as she
had done about these Brownes; the girl had no "balance" naturally, and
her great beauty already seemed likely to prove as much of a snare as
beauty is popularly supposed to be. She was not even decently educated;
the daily governess they had had so long had been a person of weak will,
and Nellie in especial had learned or refused to learn much as she
pleased. True, she could play and sing fairly well, and write a
ladylike hand; but her French was hopeless, her slate pencil had not
travelled beyond discount and the rule of three, and her acquaintance
with the great lights of English literature was so restricted that,
though she knew Shakespeare wrote "Romeo and Juliet," and "Paradise
Lost" was composed by one John Milton, nearly all the other names she
met conveyed nothing more to her mind than that they were "men at the
end of the history book."
Meg's lips grew severe as the night wore on. In truth she did not know
what to do in this crisis, she felt so young and powerless. If Nellie
insisted on going to Trafalgar House every night of her life, how could
she prevent it? She told herself her sister knew this, and was taking
advantage of their father's absence in an exceedingly unworthy way.
Through the rain came the half-deadened sound of wheels along the road.
Meg stood up, cramped and cold, sick at heart. How she did dread and
detest "scenes," and she knew there must be one!
The gate clicked, but no wheels came up the drive. Meg pulled herself
together and went out to the front door with a little shiver. She knew
exactly how it would all be: Nell would be flushed and beautiful and
defiant; she would brush past her and go upstairs in her pretty, white
trailing gown, her head very high. She would most probably say "Mind
your own business" or "Hold your tongue," for both these phrases were in
Miss Nellie's vocabulary of anger. And then she would lock her bedroom
door and go to sleep, rebellious as ever.
Her cold hand pulled back the heavy fastening of the door when light
footsteps fell on the verandah. She stood there in silence. But oh!
such a little woebegone, dripping wet figure was there, with no wrap on
at all, and only a bit of soaking lace on her head!
"Oh, Meg!" she said, and sprang into her sister's arms with a hysterical
sob of relief. "Oh, Meg, Meg, Meg! oh, my darling old Meg!"
What could Meg do?
Be angry when the wilful, beautiful creature was sobbing so pitifully?
Shake her aside and speak coldly when she was clinging to her with such
a passion of love and relief? She kissed the face, wet with rain and
tears.
"Come and get your wet things off, dear," she said; "you should have
driven up to the door, the drive's so long."
"I was afraid it would wake every one," was Nellie's answer, broken in
three places.
Even when Meg had taken off, with her own hands, the poor spoiled white
dress, and wet white gloves, and little muddy shoes; when she had made
up a crackling fire of wood in the bedroom open fireplace, and brought
her own cosy red dressing-gown and a white shawl for array, Nellie still
wept heartbrokenly.
She was overwrought with the excitement of her escape, the evening, and
her return. And now Meg's tenderness and utter absence of reproach
broke her down altogether.
She put her head on the arm of the easy chair, and all her body shook
with sobs.
Meg only stroked the wealth of beautiful hair she had let down to dry;
she felt it better not to speak at all.
By-and-by she slipped out of the room and stole down to the kitchen.
When she returned, Nellie was a little calmer, and even gave a wet look
of interest at the tray she carried. There was a little old saucepan on
it, a tin of _cafe-au-lait_, two cups, sugar in a saucer, the end of a
loaf of bread, and some pineapple jam.
"I couldn't find the butter," she said, half apologetically, as she set
down her load on the bed edge.
"Oh, I don't deserve it!" wept Nellie, meaning less the butter than
Meg's kindness.