AN EVENTFUL EVENING.
"Why did you do it, Auntie Janie?" asked Lady Kitty.
"Do what, darling?" answered Lady Jane in the tone that was reserved
especially for her pet.
[Illustration: "Better leave her to me, Auntie Janie."]
"Why, ask that poor little thing here. You know you don't like her a
bit, and she's as home-sick as ever I saw anyone. Why don't you pack
her off home again?"
"I asked her because--because--they were kind to Anthony, and it was
only civil to do it, and because it ought to be a pleasure to the
girl herself."
"Now you know you didn't, Auntie Janie, and you needn't tell me.
It's not like you to do a shady thing first, and then tell a story
about it."
"Kitty!"
"Yes, I know it's shocking of me. But I've always found you
straight. Where you disliked you disliked, and made no pretence
about it. But now you're playing a part for some reason or other,
and I don't like you in a part."
"I think you're a rude, spoilt child, Kitty."
"I know I'm spoilt by you, and you're forcing me to be rude. It
isn't like you, as I said before, and so I thought I'd ask you why
you did it. You've become tortuous, Auntie Janie, ever since the day
Anthony left for Washington. I don't recognise you as a tortuous
person, and, frankly, it makes me uncomfortable."
"What fault have you to find, Kitty, with me as hostess?"
Lady Jane put down the pen she had been holding in her hand all this
time, and came over from her writing-table as though she foresaw
that the discussion would take time.
She looked down at Lady Kitty, who was basking in front of the fire,
and her cold eyes grew maternal.
"You're fond of me, Kitty, I believe."
"It would be odd if I wasn't. I'm selfish to the heart's core, but
I'm really not bad enough not to be fond of you."
"I don't think you're selfish, Kitty. It is only a pose of yours.
But I am glad you are fond of me. Few people are. My life has been
a mistake, Kitty. I was not formed for happiness. If I had to do it
over again, perhaps I would make an effort to live otherwise. But
this is not what I meant to say. You think that child unhappy?"
"Anyone can see it with half an eye."
"She went off cheerfully enough with Mrs. Molyneux to see the
flowers."
"Yes, it was a relief to her. Mrs. Molyneux is an old dear, and she
won't feel out of it with her. She has been feeling horribly out of
it with you and me."
"Perhaps, Kitty, I _mean_ her to feel out of it. Perhaps I mean her
to be unhappy."
"Oh! say you didn't, Auntie Janie," said Lady Kitty, suddenly
lifting up a flushed face. "Say you didn't. If you really meant
that, I think I should have to throw you over, and take up the
cudgels for the girl. Only my loyalty to you has kept me from doing
it before. She's a nice little thing, and I am sure she is as jolly
as a kitten when she gets fair play."
Lady Jane winced.
"We are both talking nonsense, Kitty. But if what I said were true,
how would you defend your--your new friend against me?"
"Upon my word I don't know. I couldn't dress her up in my frocks and
jewels; for she's as proud as she's poor. And I couldn't tell her to
stand up against going to places where she's perfectly unhappy. And
I couldn't say what would be the kindest thing--'Run away, little
baa-lamb, to your woods and mountains; the world is no place for
you.'"
"Yet you expect me to say it."
"No, I suppose I really don't. Let me see. Her visit is half-way
through. Let _me_ take her round now to places she'll enjoy. She'd
simply love to see the Tower and Hampton Court, and to look at the
shops in Regent Street, and have tea at Winter's."
"I hardly know you in this amiable mood, Kitty."
"I hardly know myself. Still, there it is. Perhaps I'm rather sick
of the world, and have a longing for Arcadian pleasures."
"I can't very well go out and leave my guest alone. Yet we are
pretty full for the next couple of weeks. I have been thinking
myself very good-natured for taking a brace of young women about."
"I daresay," said Lady Kitty. "Yes, we are rather full. I don't mind
shirking some of the engagements."
"And I, others?"
"Better leave her to me, Auntie Janie. She's afraid of you."
"Do you begin to-night?"
Lady Kitty's face fell.
"I'm afraid I can't stay at home to-night without perjuring myself."
"Mildred Sefton is going. Let her take you, and I shall stay at
home--if, indeed, you think Miss Graydon would not enjoy the 'at
home.'"
"She wouldn't without a proper frock. You'll be good to her, Auntie
Janie?"
"I shall try to, my dear."
"And to-morrow she and I will take up our _rôle_ of town mouse and
country mouse."
"Poor Kitty!"
"I shall like it. She likes me already, and I have an odd fancy to
make her like me better."
"You amazing Kitty! But are you going to carry out those
extraordinary expeditions from east to west unchaperoned?"
"I shouldn't mind at all. We aren't so particular nowadays, you
know. However, I daresay Captain Leslie would go with us with joy.
He admires the little Pam."
"And he is Anthony's friend."
"Yes, of course, one doesn't mind bothering him any more than one
would Anthony."
When Lady Kitty announced at dinner that she was going to take
Pamela a round of sight-seeing, Pamela's weary face brightened.
"You would like it better than meeting a lot of dull people who are
desperately uninteresting to you."
"I should love it," said Pam, with two sudden dimples dancing into
her cheeks.
"We haven't been doing our duty by you," went on Lady Kitty. "It
would be an everlasting disgrace to us if you went home without
seeing the sights."
"But won't it be a great bother for you?"
"On the contrary. I have long desired to see the Tower."
"You don't mean to say you never have?" said Pamela, staring.
"Well, you know, the people in a place never see the sights of it,
unless they are obliged to by an amiable visitor."
"You will have such gay times with Kitty, to-morrow," said Lady
Jane, with the faintest suggestion of enmity underlying the smooth
words, "that you will not mind, I hope, having only my society for
to-night?"
"Is Lady Kitty going out?" asked Pamela, and a cloud fell on her
face.
"She must," said Lady Jane shortly. "We shall have some music," she
went on, "and afterwards you must get to bed early to prepare for
a tiring day to-morrow. So we shall not find the evening too long
without Kitty."
Yet after dinner, when Lady Kitty, radiant, in her smartest gown,
floated into the drawing-room and found Pamela alone, it was not the
face of one who anticipated a pleasant evening that she beheld.
"How exquisite you look!" cried Pamela, forgetting her bad quarter
of an hour to come. "I never thought anyone could look so beautiful."
Lady Kitty kissed her emphatically.
"There," she said, "I'm not the kissing sort, but you are a dear
little thing to admire another girl so rapturously. Not but what you
can afford to."
Pamela still gazed at her with eyes of wonder, and said nothing.
"We are going to have such a lovely day to-morrow, and don't forget
it," whispered Lady Kitty; for there was the _frou-frou_ of Lady
Jane's skirt in the distance. Then quite suddenly she kissed Pamela
again.
"Thank you," she said, "for what your eyes are saying. I don't mind
telling you, as a great secret, that I want very particularly to
look well to-night."
She laughed as she floated away towards Lady Jane, who was just
coming in, and, taking up her warm cloak, wrapped herself in it.
"Good-night, you people, and be happy," she called back to them.
Lady Jane gazed rather uneasily after her as she went.
"Kitty seems excited," she said. "I hope she hasn't been overdoing
it lately."
"I think she looks very well and happy," said Pamela.
"Ah!" replied Lady Jane, as if it were hardly Pamela's business to
have an opinion, and vouchsafed no further remark.
After she had turned over an evening paper, and tea had been
brought, she went to the piano and began to play. She was a good
musician, and Pamela, who had never heard good music, listened
entranced. Then Lady Jane sang song after song, as if she had no
listener; and as Pamela watched her, warmed with the emotion of the
music, she felt that she could understand Lady Kitty's affection for
the proud and cold woman.
At last Lady Jane stopped abruptly and came over to the fire. Pamela
sat with bent head in the firelight till suddenly she lifted her
eyes like wet violets. A sharp pang of memory shot through Lady
Jane's heart. She turned away, and when she looked at Pamela her
eyes were cold and cruel.
"You don't get much music at--at--I'm afraid I've forgotten the
name?"
"Carrickmoyle," said Pamela.
"Ah! Carrickmoyle."
"No, we never hear any--except the squeaky old harmonium on Sundays.
We have no piano."
"Nor newspapers, nor books, nor society, nor pictures?"
"Very few novels," said Pamela, "except old ones, but plenty of
books. My father always says that newspapers are worthless reading,
that they divide one's interest into snippets. But," she made haste
to add, "he only really cares for classical literature. I suppose we
have no society and no pictures. But the country is delightful."
Lady Jane yawned as if Pamela's answer did not interest her.
"What a pity!" she went on in tones of subtle disparagement. "What
a great pity that your father cannot give his daughters the things
which make life really worth living."
Pamela flushed.
"Our lives are very happy. But that our dear mother died young, I
should say we are the happiest girls alive."
Again Lady Jane stifled a yawn.
"Anthony must have missed his music," she went on, "while he was
with you. He is devoted to music."
"He never said----" began Pamela lamely.
"Of course he wouldn't," said Lady Jane. "By the way," she went on,
"has Kitty told you how things are between her and Anthony?"
Pamela flushed, and then grew pale again. Fortunately she was not
called upon for an answer.
"No, I see she hasn't," went on Lady Jane; "and, of course, the boy
would be equally reticent. He has been in love with Kitty all his
life. She is his ideal. Anthony cannot bear your modern damsel,
romping about among the pursuits of men till she has neither voice
nor complexion left. A delicate and graceful creature like Kitty is
his ideal."
Pamela made no comment on this confidence. She never thought of not
believing it, as a more sophisticated girl might.
"Ah!" she said in her own heart, "I was the entanglement, after all,
and she was the true love."
And then she remembered oddly Sylvia's contemptuous disbelief in the
love of young men.
"I'm afraid you are tired," said Lady Jane, as the conversation
threatened to become more and more difficult. "Shall we say
'Good-night'? You must be fresh for Kitty to-morrow."
Pamela accepted her release thankfully. When she had reached her own
room, and was alone, she knelt and hid her face in the bed-clothes,
and considered Lady Jane's astounding disclosure.
It did not seem to her that it admitted of doubt. Anthony's own
conduct bore it out fully. For the moment he had had a fancy for
her. She was not yet at the point of doubting its genuineness--but
when he went away he forgot her, and his allegiance returned to its
lawful owner.
The humiliation was bitter, but it did not stir her resentment at
the moment nearly so much as Lady Jane's insolence about her father.
"And to think," cried Pamela hotly, "that I have eaten the woman's
bread and endured such a horrible time here simply because I would
not go home and let them know things had not been right! And to
think how my father loved Sir Gerald Trevithick and his people for
his sake! I shall never cease to hate the name from henceforth."
And yet her thoughts took a sudden turn, in spite of her; and, in
spite of herself, her heart cried out for Anthony, and again for
Anthony. And though she poured seas of scorn upon herself, her heart
still betrayed her.
The next morning Lady Kitty knocked at her door very early for that
fashionable damsel.
"Are you up, stay-a-bed?" she cried. "It is an enchanting day, and
we have the loveliest programme for it."
"Come in," said a voice, unlike Pamela's.
Lady Kitty came in on a scene of confusion. Pamela had her small
trunk open on the floor, and was ramming things into it wildly. She
had her hat on, and her face seemed to have become pinched with
trouble out of its usual soft beauty. Her lips were set, and her
eyes looked unutterable woe.
[Illustration: Lady Kitty came in on a scene of confusion.]
"My father is very ill," she said in a dull voice. "I am going to
catch the express at Euston. You will tell Lady Jane I could not
wait to see her."
"You poor child! When did you hear it?"
"The letter came by the first post."
"You are not going without breakfast? Those lazy creatures must have
it ready to time for once."
She rang the bell sharply, and a maid came.
"Breakfast immediately for Miss Graydon," she said. "We shall be in
the dining-room in three minutes. Tell Dibber it _must_ be on the
table."
And it was. Pamela ate a few mouthfuls and swallowed a cup of tea.
Then the cab was at the door, and her miserable eyes were looking
out on the sunshiny street.
"Good-bye, good-bye," she said.
"When you can, send me a word to say how he is," said Lady Kitty.
Pamela stepped back into the dining-room, and put her arms round
Lady Kitty's neck.
"No matter, no matter!" she cried. "I love you. You've been human to
me in this house, and I love you."
And then Pamela was gone.