THE FAIRY GODMOTHER.
Elizabeth went upstairs at a run, and found Patty and Eleanor trying
to make Mrs. Duff-Scott understand who Paul Brion was, what his father
was, and his profession, and his character; how he had never been
inside their doors until that afternoon, and how he had at last by mere
accident come to be admitted and entertained. And Mrs. Duff-Scott,
serene but imperious, was delivering some of her point-blank opinions
upon the subject.
"Don't encourage him, my dears--don't encourage him to come again," she
was saying as Elizabeth entered the room. "He and his father are two
very different people, whatever they may think."
"We cannot help being grateful to him," said Patty sturdily. "He has
done so much for us."
"Dear child, that's nonsense. Girls _can't_ be grateful to young
men--don't you see? It is out of the question. And now you have got
_me_ to do things for you."
"But he helped us when we had no one else."
"Yes, that's all right, of course. No doubt it was a pleasure to him--a
privilege--for _him_ to be grateful for rather than you. But--well,
Elizabeth knows what I mean"--turning an expressive glance towards the
discreet elder sister. Patty's eyes went in the same direction, and
Elizabeth answered both of them at once.
"You must not ask us to give up Paul Brion," she said, promptly.
"I don't," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. "I only ask you to keep him in his
place. He is not the kind of person to indulge with tea and music, you
know--that is what I mean."
"You speak as if you knew something against him," murmured Patty, with
heightened colour.
"I know this much, my dear," replied the elder woman, gravely; "he is
_a friend of Mrs. Aarons's_."
"And is not Mrs. Aarons--"
"She is very well, in her way. But she likes to have men dangling about
her. She means no harm, I am sure," added Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, in
the matter of scandal, prided herself on being a non-conductor, "but
still it is not nice, you know. And I don't think that her men friends
are the kind of friends for you. You don't mind my speaking frankly,
my love? I am an old woman, you know, and I have had a great deal of
experience."
She was assured that they did not mind it, but were, on the contrary,
indebted to her for her good advice. And the subject of Paul Brion was
dropped. Patty was effectually silenced by that unexpected reference
to Mrs. Aarons, and by the rush of recollections, embracing him and
her together, which suddenly gave form and colour to the horrible
idea of him as a victim to a married woman's fascinations. She turned
away abruptly, with a painful blush that not only crimsoned her from
throat to temples, but seemed to make her tingle to her toes; and,
like the headlong and pitiless young zealot that she was, determined
to thrust him out for ever from the sacred precincts of her regard.
Mrs. Duff-Scott was satisfied too. She was always sure of her own power
to speak plainly without giving offence, and she found it absolutely
necessary to protect these ingenuous maidens from their own ignorance.
Needless to say that, since she had adopted them into her social
circle, she had laid plans for their ultimate settlement therein. In
her impulsive benevolence she had even gone the length of marking
down the three husbands whom she considered respectively appropriate
to the requirements of the case, and promised herself a great deal of
interest and pleasure in the vicarious pursuit of them through the
ensuing season. Wherefore she was much relieved to have come across
this obscure writer for the press, and to have had the good chance, at
the outset of her campaign, to counteract his possibly antagonistic
influence. She knew her girls quite well enough to make sure that her
hint would take its full effect.
She leaned back in her chair comfortably, and drew off her gloves,
while they put fresh tea in the teapot, and cut her thin shavings of
bread and butter; and she sat with them until six o'clock, gossiping
pleasantly. After giving them a history of the morning's ceremonies,
as witnessed by the Government's invited guests inside the Exhibition
building, she launched into hospitable schemes for their enjoyment of
the gay time that had set in. "Now that I am come back," she said, "I
shall take care that you shall go out and see everything there is to be
seen. You have never had such a chance to learn something of the world,
and I can't allow you to neglect it."
"Dear Mrs. Duff-Scott," said Elizabeth, "we have already been indulging
ourselves too much, I am afraid. We have done no reading--at least none
worth doing--for days. We are getting all behind-hand. The whole of
yesterday and all this morning--"
"What did you do this morning?" Mrs. Duff-Scott interrupted quickly.
They gave her a sketch of their adventures, merely suppressing
the incident of the elder sister's encounter with the mysterious
person whom the younger ones had begun to style "Elizabeth's young
man"--though why they suppressed that none of them could have explained.
"Very well," was her comment upon the little narrative, which told her
far more than it told them. "That shows you that I am right. There are
a great many things for you to learn that all the books in the Public
Library could not teach you. Take my advice, and give up literary
studies for a little while. Give them up altogether, and come and learn
what the world and your fellow-creatures are made of. Make a school of
the Exhibition while it lasts, and let me give you lessons in--a--what
shall I call it--social science?--the study of human nature?"
Nothing could be more charming than to have lessons from her, they told
her; and they had intended to go to school to the Exhibition as often
as they could. But--but their literary studies were their equipment for
the larger and fuller life that they looked forward to in the great
world beyond the seas. Perhaps she did not understand that?
"I understand this, my dears," the matron replied, with energy. "There
is no greater mistake in life than to sacrifice the substance of the
present for the shadow of the future. We most of us do it--until we
get old--and then we look back to see how foolish and wasteful we
have been, and that is not much comfort to us. What we've got, we've
got; what we are going to have nobody can tell. Lay in all the store
you can, of course--take all reasonable precautions to insure as
satisfactory a future as possible--but don't forget that the Present is
the great time, the most important stage of your existence, no matter
what your circumstances may be."
The girls listened to her thoughtfully, allowing that she might be
right, but suspending their judgment in the matter. They were all too
young to be convinced by another person's experience.
"You let Europe take care of itself for a bit," their friend proceeded,
"and come out and see what Australia in holiday time is like, and what
the fleeting hour will give you. I will fetch you to-morrow for a long
day at the Exhibition to begin with, and then I'll--I'll--" She broke
off and looked from one to another with an unwonted and surprising
embarrassment, and then went on impetuously.
"My dears, I don't know how to put it so as not to hurt or burden you,
but you won't misunderstand me if I express myself awkwardly--you
won't have any of that absurd conventional pride about not being
under obligations--it is a selfish feeling, a want of trust and true
generosity, when it is the case of a friend who--" She stammered and
hesitated, this self-possessed empress of a woman, and was obviously at
a loss for words wherein to give her meaning. Elizabeth, seeing what it
was that she wanted to say, sank on her knees before her, and took her
hands and kissed them. But over her sister's bent head Patty stood up
stiffly, with a burning colour in her face. Mrs. Duff-Scott, absently
fondling Elizabeth, addressed herself to Patty when she spoke again.
"As an ordinary rule," she said, "one should not accept things
from another who is not a relation--I know that. _Not_ because it
is improper--it ought to be the most proper thing in the world for
people to help each other--but because in so many cases it can never
happen without bitter mortifications afterwards. People are so--so
superficial? But I--Patty, dear, I am an old woman, and I have a great
deal of money, and I have no children; and I have never been able to
fill the great gap where the children should be with music and china,
or any interest of that sort. And you are alone in the world, and I
have taken a fancy to you--I have grown _fond_ of you--and I have
made a little plan for having you about me, to be a sort of adopted
daughters for whom I could feel free to do little motherly things in
return for your love and confidence in me. You will indulge me, and let
me have my way, won't you? It will be doing more for me, I am sure,
than I could do for you."
"O no--no--_no!_" said Patty, with a deep breath, but stretching her
hands with deprecating tenderness towards their guest. "You would
do everything for us, and we _could_ do nothing for you. You would
overwhelm us! And not only that; perhaps--perhaps, by-and-bye, you
would not care about us so much as you do now--we might want to do
something that you didn't like, something we felt ourselves _obliged_
to do, however much you disliked it--and if you got vexed with us, or
tired of us--oh, think what that would be! Think how you would regret
that you had--had--made us seem to belong to you. And how we should
hate ourselves."
She looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott with a world of ardent apology in her
eyes, before which the matron's fell, discouraged and displeased.
"You make me feel that I am an impulsive and romantic girl, and that
_you_ are the wise old woman of the world," she said with a proud sigh.
But at this, Patty, pierced to the heart, flung her arms round Mrs.
Duff-Scott's neck, and crushed the most beautiful bonnet in Melbourne
remorselessly out of shape against her young breast. That settled the
question, for all practical purposes. Mrs. Duff-Scott went home at six
o'clock, feeling that she had achieved her purpose, and entered into
some of the dear privileges of maternity. It was more delightful than
any "find" of old china. She did not go to sleep until she had talked
both her husband and herself into a headache with her numerous plans
for the welfare of her _protégées_, and until she had designed down to
the smallest detail the most becoming costumes she could think of for
them to wear, when she took them with her to the Cup.