Then the “Bur-r-r-rs” began!! I wonder he does not have a noise that
ends with d--n simply, it would save him time!
“Couldn’t help seeing your letter was from Branches. Hope Carruthers
gives you some news?”
As he addressed me deliberately I was obliged to answer:
“I have no information. It is only a business letter,” and I ate toast
again.
He “bur-r-r-r-d” more than ever, and opened some of his own
correspondence.
“What am I to do, Katherine?” he said, presently; “that confounded
fellow Campion has thrown me over for next week, and he is my best gun:
at short notice like this, it’s impossible to replace him with the same
class of shot.”
“Yes, dear,” said Lady Katherine, in that kind of voice that has not
heard the question--she was deep in her own letters.
“Katherine!” roared Mr. Montgomerie. “Will you listen when I
speak--Bur-r-r-r!” and he thumped his fist on the table.
Poor Lady Katherine almost jumped, and the china rattled.
“Forgive me, Anderson,” she said, humbly, “you were saying?”
“Campion has thrown me over,” glared Mr. Montgomerie.
“Then I have perhaps the very thing for you,” Lady Katherine said, in
a relieved way, returning to her letters. “Sophia Merrenden writes
this morning, and among other things tells me of her nephew, Lord
Robert Vavasour--you know, Torquilstone’s half-brother. She says he is
the most charming young man, and a wonderful shot--she even suggests”
(looking back a page), “that he might be useful to us, if we are short
of a gun.”
“Damned kind of her,” growled Mr. Montgomerie.
I hope they did not notice, but I had suddenly such a thrill of
pleasure that I am sure my cheeks got red. I felt frightfully excited
to hear what was going to happen.
“Merrenden, as you know, is the best judge of shooting in England,”
Lady Katherine went on, in an injured voice. “Sophia is hardly likely
to recommend his nephew so highly if he were not pretty good.”
“But you don’t know the puppy, Katherine.”
My heart fell.
“That is not the least consequence--we are almost related. Merrenden is
my first cousin, you forget that, I suppose!”
Fortunately I could detect that Lady Katherine was becoming obstinate
and offended. I drank some more coffee. Oh! how lovely if Lord Robert
comes!
Mr. Montgomerie “Bur-r-r-ed” a lot first, but Lady Katherine got him
round, and before breakfast was over, it was decided she should write
to Lord Robert, and ask him to come to the shoot. As we were all
standing looking out of the window at the dripping rain, I heard her
say in a low voice,
“Really, Anderson, we must think of the girls sometimes. Torquilstone
is a confirmed bachelor and a cripple--Lord Robert will certainly one
day be Duke.”
“Well, catch him if you can,” said Mr. Montgomerie. He is coarse
sometimes!
I am not going to let myself think much about Lord Robert--Mr.
Carruthers has been a lesson to me--but if he does come--I wonder if
Lady Katherine will think it funny of me not saying I knew him when she
first spoke of him. It is too late now, so it can’t be helped.
The Mackintosh party arrived this afternoon. Marriage must have quite
different effects on some people. Numbers of the married women we saw
in London were lovely, prettier, I always heard, than they had been
before--but Mary Mackintosh is perfectly awful. She can’t be more than
twenty-seven, but she looks forty, at least; and stout, and sticking
out all in the wrong places, and flat where the stick-outs ought to
be. And the four children! The two eldest look much the same age, the
next a little smaller, and there is a baby, and they all squall, and
although they seem to have heaps of nurses, poor Mr. Mackintosh has to
be a kind of under one. He fetches and carries for them, and gives his
handkerchief when they slobber--but perhaps it is he feels proud that
a person of his size had these four enormous babies almost all at once
like that.
The whole thing is simply dreadful.
Tea was a pandemonium! The four aunts gushing over the infants, and
feeding them with cake, and gurgling with “Tootsie-wootsie-popsy-wopsy”
kind of noises. They will get to do “Bur-r-r-rs” I am sure, when they
grow older. I wonder if the infants will come down every afternoon when
the shoot happens. The guests will enjoy it!
I said to Jean as we came upstairs that I thought it seemed terrible to
get married--did not she? But she was shocked, and said no, marriage
and motherhood were sacred duties, and she envied her sister!
This kind of thing is not my idea of bliss. Two really well-behaved
children would be delicious, I think; but four squalling imps all about
the same age is _bourgeois_, and not the affair of a lady.
I suppose Lord Robert’s answer cannot get here till about Saturday. I
wonder how he arranged it! It is clever of him. Lady Katherine said
this Mr. Campion who was coming is in the same regiment, the 3rd Life
Guards. Perhaps when--but there is no use my thinking about it--only
somehow I am feeling so much better to-night--gay, and as if I did not
mind being very poor--that I was obliged to tease Malcolm a little
after dinner. I _would_ play Patience, and never lifted my eyes from
the cards!
He kept trying to say things to me to get me to go to the piano,
but I pretended I did not notice. A palm stands at the corner of a
high Chippendale writing bureau, and Jessie happened to have put the
Patience table behind that rather, so the rest of them could not see
everything that was happening. Malcolm at last sat very near beside me,
and wanted to help with the aces--but I can’t bear people being close
to me, so I upset the board, and he had to pick up all the cards on the
floor. Kirstie, for a wonder, played the piano then--a cake walk--and
there was something in it that made me feel I wanted to move--to
dance--to undulate--I don’t know what, and my shoulders swayed a little
in time to the music. Malcolm breathed quite as if he had a cold, and
said right in my ear, in a fat voice,
“You know you are a devil--and I----”
I stopped him at once--looked up for the first time, absolutely shocked
and surprised.
“Really, Mr. Montgomerie, I do not know what you mean,” I said.
He began to fidget.
“Er--I mean--I mean--I awfully wish to kiss you.”
“But I do not a bit wish to kiss you!” I said, and I opened my eyes
wide at him.
He looked like a spiteful bantam, and fortunately at that moment Jessie
returned to the Patience, and he could not say any more.
Lady Katherine and Mrs. Mackintosh came into my room on the way up to
bed. She--Lady Katherine--wanted to show Mary how beautifully they had
had it done up, it used to be hers before she married. They looked all
round at the dead-daffodil-coloured cretonne and things, and at last I
could see their eyes often straying to my night-gown and dressing-gown,
laid out on a chair beside the fire.
“Oh, Lady Katherine, I am afraid you are wondering at my having pink
silk,” I said, apologetically, “as I am in mourning, but I have not had
time to get a white dressing-gown yet.”
“It is not that, dear,” said Lady Katherine, in a grave duty voice.
“I--I--do not think such a night-gown is suitable for a girl.”
“Oh! but I am very strong,” I said. “I never catch cold.”
Mary Mackintosh held it up, with a face of stern disapproval. Of course
it has short sleeves ruffled with Valenciennes, and is fine linen
cambric nicely embroidered. Mrs. Carruthers was always very particular
about them, and chose them herself at Doucet’s. She said one never
could know when places might catch on fire.
“Evangeline, dear, you are very young, so you probably cannot
understand,” Mary said, “but I consider this garment not in any way fit
for a girl--or for any good woman for that matter. Mother, I hope my
sisters have not seen it!!”