FAY.
Mrs. Fausset’s three parties, the last of which was a very smart ball,
kept her away from home until the summer sun was rising above Grosvenor
Square, and the cocks were crowing in the mews behind Upper Parchment
Street. Having been so late in the morning, Mrs. Fausset ignored
breakfast, and only made her appearance in time for lunch, when her
husband came in from his ride. He had escorted her to the first of her
parties, and had left her on the way to the second, to go and finish
his evening in the House, which he found much more interesting than
society.
They met at luncheon, and talked of their previous night’s experiences,
and of indifferent matters. Not a word about the expected presence
which was so soon to disturb their domestic calm. Mr. Fausset affected
cheerfulness, yet was evidently out of spirits. He looked round
the picturesque old oak dining-room wistfully; he strolled into the
inner room, with its dwarf bookcases, pictures, and bronzes, its cosy
corner behind a sixfold Indian screen, a century-old screen, bought
at Christie’s out of a famous collection. He surveyed this temple of
domestic peace, and wondered within himself whether it would be quite
as peaceful when a new presence was among them.
“Surely a girl of fourteen can make no difference,” he argued, “even if
she has a peculiar temper. If she is inclined to be troublesome, she
shall be made to keep herself to herself. Maud shall not be rendered
unhappy by her.”
He went out soon after lunch, and came home again at afternoon tea-time
in a hansom, with a girl in a black frock. A four-wheeler followed,
with a large trunk and two smaller boxes. The splendid creatures in
knee-breeches and powder who opened the door had been ordered to deny
their mistress to everybody, so Mrs. Fausset was taking tea alone in
her morning-room.
The morning-room occupied the whole front of the second floor, a
beautiful room with three windows, the centre a large bow jutting out
over empty space. This bow-window had been added when Mr. Fausset
married, on a suggestion from his _fiancée_. It spoiled the external
appearance of the house, but it made the room delightful. For furniture
and decoration there was everything pretty, novel, eccentric, and
expensive that Maud Fausset had ever been able to think of. She had
only stopped her caprices and her purchases when the room would not
hold another thing of beauty. There was a confusion of form and colour,
but the general effect was charming; and Mrs. Fausset, in a loose white
muslin gown, suited the room, just as the room suited Mrs. Fausset.
She was sitting in the bow-window, in a semicircle of flowers and
amidst the noises of the West End world, waiting for her husband and
the new-comer, nervous and apprehensive. The scarlet Japanese tea-table
stood untouched, the water bubbling in the quaint little bronze
tea-kettle, swinging between a pair of rampant dragons.
She started as the door opened, but kept her seat. She did not want to
spoil the new-comer by an undue appearance of interest.
John Fausset came into the room, leading a pale girl dressed in black.
She was tall for her age, and very thin, and her small face had a
pinched look, which made the great black eyes look larger. She was
a peculiar-looking girl, with an olive tint in her complexion which
hinted at a lineage not altogether English. She was badly dressed in
the best materials, and had a look of never having been much cared for
since she was born.
“This is Fay,” said Mr. Fausset, trying to be cheerful.
His wife held out her hand, which the girl took coldly, but not shyly.
She had an air of being perfectly self-possessed.
“Her name is Fay, is it? What a pretty name! By the bye, you did not
tell me her surname.”
“Did I not? Her name is Fausset. She is a distant relation of my
family.”
“I did not understand that last night,” said Mrs. Fausset, with a
puzzled air. “You only talked of a friend.”
“Was that so? I should have said a family connection. Yes, Fay and I
are namesakes, and kindred.”
He patted the girl’s shoulder caressingly, and made her sit down by the
little red table in front of the tea-cups, and cakes, and buns. The
buns reminded him of his daughter.
“Where is Mildred?”
“She is at her music-lesson; but she will be here in a minute or two,
no doubt,” answered his wife.
“Poor little mite, to have to begin lessons so soon; the chubby
little fingers stuck down upon the cold hard keys. The piano is so
uninviting at seven years old; such a world of labour for such a small
effect. If she could turn a barrel-organ, with a monkey on the top,
I’m sure she would like music ever so much better; and after a year
or two of grinding it would dawn upon her that there was something
wanting in that kind of music, and then she would attack the piano
of her own accord, and its difficulties would not seem so hopelessly
uninteresting. Are you fond of lessons, Fay?”
“I hate them,” answered the girl, with vindictive emphasis.
“And I suppose you hate books too?” said Mrs. Fausset, rather
scornfully.
“No, I love books.”
She looked about the spacious room, curiously, with admiring eyes.
People who came from very pretty rooms of their own were lost in
admiration at Mrs. Fausset’s morning-room, with its heterogeneous
styles of art—here Louis Seize, there Japanese; Italian on one side,
Indian on the other. What a dazzling effect, then, it must needs have
upon this girl, who had spent the last five years of her life amidst
the barren surroundings of a suburban school!
“What a pretty room!” she exclaimed at last.
“Don’t you think my wife was made to live in pretty rooms?” asked
Fausset, touching Maud’s delicate hand as it moved among the tea-things.
“She is very pretty herself,” said Fay, bluntly.
“Yes, and all things about her should be pretty. This thing, for
instance,” as Mildred came bounding into the room, and clambered on her
father’s knee. “This is my daughter, Fay, and your playfellow, if you
know how to play.”
“I’m afraid I don’t, for they always snubbed us for anything like
play,” answered the stranger, “but Mildred shall teach me, if she will.”
She had learnt the child’s name from Mr. Fausset during the drive from
Streatham Common to Upper Parchment Street.
Mildred stretched out her little hand to the girl in black with
somewhat of a patronising air. She had lived all her little life among
bright colours and beautiful objects, in a kind of butterfly world; and
she concluded that this pale girl in sombre raiment must needs be poor
and unhappy. She looked her prettiest, smiling down at the stranger
from her father’s shoulder, where she hung fondly. She looked like a
cherub in a picture by Rubens, red-lipped, with eyes of azure, and
flaxen hair just touched with gold, and a complexion of dazzling lily
and carnation-colour suffused with light.
“I mean to give you my very best doll,” she said.
“You darling, how I shall adore you!” cried the strange girl
impulsively, rising from her seat at the tea-table, and clasping
Mildred in her arms.
“That is as it should be,” said Fausset, patting Fay’s shoulder
affectionately. “Let there be a bond of love between you two.”
“And will you play with me, and learn your lessons with me, and sleep
in my room?” asked Mildred coaxingly.
“No, darling. Fay will have a room of her own,” said Mrs. Fausset,
replying to the last inquiry. “It is much nicer for girls to have rooms
to themselves.”
“No, it isn’t,” answered Mildred, with a touch of petulance that was
pretty in so lovely a child. “I want Fay to sleep with me. I want her
to tell me stories every night.”
“You have mother to tell you stories, Mildred,” said Mrs. Fausset,
already inclined to be jealous.
“Not very often. Mother goes to parties almost every night.”
“Not at The Hook, love.”
“O, but at The Hook there’s always company. Why can’t I have Fay to
tell me stories every night?” urged the child persistently.
“I don’t see why they should not be together, Maud,” said Mr. Fausset,
always prone to indulge Mildred’s lightest whim.
“It is better that Fay should have a room of her own, for a great many
reasons,” replied his wife, with a look of displeasure.
“Very well, Maud, so be it,” he answered, evidently desiring to
conciliate her. “And which room is Fay to have?”
“I have given her Bell’s room.”
Mr. Fausset’s countenance fell.
“Bell’s room—a servant’s room!”—he repeated blankly.
“It is very inconvenient for Bell, of course,” said Mrs. Fausset. “She
will have to put up with an extra bed in the housemaid’s room; and as
she has always been used to a room of her own, she made herself rather
disagreeable about the change.”
Mr. Fausset was silent, and seemed thoughtful. Mildred had pulled Fay
away from the table and led her to a distant window, where a pair of
Virginian love-birds were twittering in their gilded cage, half hidden
amidst the bank of feathery white spirea and yellow marguerites which
filled the recess.
“I should like to see the room,” said Fausset presently, when his wife
had put down her teacup.
“My dear John, why should you trouble yourself about such a detail?”
“I want to do my duty to the girl—if I can.”
“I think you might trust such a small matter to _me_, or even to my
housekeeper,” Maud Fausset answered with an offended air. “However,
you are quite at liberty to make a personal inspection. Bell is very
particular, and any room she occupied is sure to be nice. But you can
judge for yourself. The room is on the same floor as Mildred’s.”
This last remark implied that to occupy any apartment on that floor
must be a privilege.
“But not with the same aspect.”
“Isn’t it? No, I suppose not. The windows look the other way,” said
Mrs. Fausset innocently.
She was not an over-educated person. She adored Keats, Shelley, and
Browning, and talked about them learnedly in a way; but she hardly
knew the points of the compass.
She sauntered out of the room, a picture of languid elegance in her
flowing muslin gown. There were flowers on the landing, and a scarlet
Japanese screen to fence off the stairs that went downward, and a
blue-and-gold Algerian curtain to hide the upward flight. This second
floor was Mrs. Fausset’s particular domain. Her bedroom and bathroom
and dressing-room were all on this floor. Mr. Fausset lived there also,
but seemed to be there on sufferance.
She pulled aside the Algerian curtain, and they went up to the third
story. The two front rooms were Mildred’s bedroom and schoolroom.
The bedroom-door was open, revealing an airy room with two windows
brightened by outside flower-boxes, full of gaudy red geraniums and
snow-white marguerites, a gay-looking room, with a pale blue paper and
a blue-and-cream-colour carpet. A little brass bed, with lace curtains,
for Mildred—an iron bed, without curtains, for Mildred’s maid.
The house was like many old London houses, more spacious than it
looked outside. There were four or five small rooms at the back
occupied by servants, and it was one of those rooms—a very small room
looking into a mews—which Mr. Fausset went to inspect.
It was not a delightful room. There was an outside wall at right-angles
with the one window which shut off the glory of the westering sun.
There was a forest of chimney-pots by way of prospect. There was
not even a flower-box to redeem the dinginess of the outlook. The
furniture was neat, and the room was spotlessly clean; but as much
might be said of a cell in Portland Prison. A narrow iron bedstead,
a couple of cane chairs, a common mahogany chest of drawers in the
window, and on the chest of drawers a white toilet-cover and a small
mahogany looking-glass; a deal washstand and a zinc bath. These are not
luxurious surroundings; and Mr. Fausset’s countenance did not express
approval.
“I’m sure it is quite as nice a room as she would have at any
boarding-school,” said his wife, answering that disapproving look.
“Perhaps; but I want her to feel as if she were not at school, but at
home.”
“She can have a prettier room at The Hook, I daresay, though we are
short of bedrooms even there—if she is to go to The Hook with us.”
“Why, of course she is to go with us. She is to live with us till she
marries.”
Mrs. Fausset sighed, and looked profoundly melancholy.
“I don’t think we shall get her married very easily,” she said.
“Why not?” asked her husband quickly, looking at her anxiously as he
spoke.
“She is so remarkably plain.”
“Did she strike you so? I think her rather pretty, or at least
interesting. She has magnificent eyes.”
“So has an owl in an ivy-bush,” exclaimed Mrs. Fausset petulantly.
“Those great black eyes in that small pale face are positively
repulsive. However, I don’t want to depreciate her. She is of your kith
and kin, and you are interested in her; so we must do the best we can.
I only hope Mildred will get on with her.”
This conversation took place upon the stairs. Mr. Fausset was at the
morning-room door by this time. He opened it, and saw his daughter in
the sunlit window among the flowers, with her arm round Fay’s neck.
“They have begun very well,” he said.
“Children are so capricious,” answered his wife.