Very soon I was gay again, and _insouciante_, and the last they saw of
me was smiling out of the brougham window as I drove off in the dusk.
They both stood upon the steps and waved to me.
Tea was over at Tryland when I arrived, such a long, damp drive! And
I explained to Lady Katherine how sorry I was to have had to come so
late, and that I could not think of troubling her to have up fresh for
me--but she insisted, and after a while a whole new lot came, made in
a hurry with the water not boiling, and I had to gulp down a nasty
cup--Ceylon tea, too--I hate Ceylon tea! Mr. Montgomerie warmed himself
before the fire, quite shielding it from us, who shivered on a row of
high-backed chairs beyond the radius of the hearth rug.
He has a way of puffing out his cheeks and making a noise like
“Bur-r-r-r”--which sounds very bluff and hearty, until you find he has
said a mean thing about some one directly after. And while red hair
looks very well on me, I do think a man with it is the ugliest thing in
creation. His face is red, and his nose and cheeks almost purple, and
fiery whiskers, fierce enough to frighten a cat in a dark lane.
He was a rich Scotch manufacturer, and poor Lady Katherine had to marry
him, I suppose, though, as she is Scotch herself, I daresay she does
not notice that he is rather coarse.
There are two sons and six daughters, one married, four grown-up, and
one at school in Brussels, and all with red hair!--but straight and
coarse, and with freckles and white eyelashes. So really it is very
kind of Lady Katherine to have asked me here.
They are all as good as gold on top, and one does poker work, and
another binds books and a third embroiders altar-cloths, and the fourth
knits ties--all for charities, and they ask everyone to subscribe to
them directly they come to the house. The tie and the altar-cloth one
were sitting working hard in the drawing-room--Kirstie and Jean are
their names--Jessie and Maggie, the poker worker and the bookbinder
have a sitting-room to themselves, their workshop they call it. They
were there still, I suppose, for I did not see them until dinner. We
used to meet once a year at Mrs. Carruthers’ Christmas parties ever
since ages and ages, and I remember I hated their tartan sashes, and
they generally had colds in their heads, and one year they gave every
one mumps, so they were not asked the next. The altar-cloth one, Jean,
is my age, the other three are older.
It was really very difficult to find something to say, and I can
quite understand common people fidgeting when they feel worried like
this. I have never fidgeted since eight years ago, the last time
Mrs. Carruthers boxed my ears for it. Just before going up to dress
for dinner Mr. Montgomerie asked blank out if it was true that Mr.
Carruthers had arrived. Lady Katherine had been skirting round this
subject for a quarter of an hour.
I only said yes, but that was not enough, and once started, he asked a
string of questions, with “Bur-r-r-r” several times in between. Was Mr.
Carruthers going to shoot the pheasants in November? Had he decided to
keep on the _chef_? Had he given up diplomacy? I said I really did not
know any of these things, I had seen so little of him.
Lady Katherine nodded her head, while she measured a comforter she was
knitting to see if it was long enough.
“I am sure it must have been most awkward for you, his arriving at all;
it was not very good taste on his part, I am afraid, but I suppose he
wished to see his inheritance as soon as possible,” she said.
I nearly laughed, thinking what she would say if she knew which part of
his inheritance he had really come to see. I do wonder if she has ever
heard that Mrs. Carruthers left me to him, more or less, in her will!
“I hope you had your old governess with you, at least,” she
continued, as we went up the stairs, “so that you could feel less
uncomfortable--really a most shocking situation for a girl alone in the
house with an unmarried man.”
I told her Mr. Barton was there too, but I had not the courage to say
anything about Lord Robert; only that Mr. Carruthers had a friend of
his down, who was a great judge of pictures, to see them.
“Oh! a valuer, I suppose. I hope he is not going to sell the
Correggios!” she exclaimed.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said, leaving the part about the valuer
unanswered.
Mr. Carruthers, being unmarried, seemed to worry her most; she went on
about it again before we got to my bedroom door.
“I happened to hear a rumour at Miss Sheriton’s (the wool shop in
Headington, our town), this morning,” she said, “and so I wrote at once
to you. I felt how terrible it would be for one of my own dear girls
to be left alone with a bachelor like that--I almost wonder you did not
stay up in your own rooms.”