Letitia was in her room, by the open window, wrapped in a warm
dressing-gown. It was rather cold, though the day was bright, to sit by
an open window; but she was watching for her brother’s departure, and
very eager, thinking he would never go. She had been an unseen witness,
behind the curtain, of his meeting with her boy, and had partially
overheard the conversation that had passed; that is to say, she had
heard all Ralph’s part of it, but not Duke’s little voice in reply.
Letitia was more impatient than words can say of this encounter, and
trembled with nervous anxiety and helpless eagerness. But she said to
herself that Frogmore at least would not come till the afternoon, and
all the other gentlemen were out, and the coast clear. No one arriving
at a country house to pay a visit ever came before the afternoon--five
o’clock, that was the earliest moment possible for an arrival. She said
this to herself with a presentiment which she could not overcome, but
for which she reproached herself, declaring that it was nonsense audibly
in the turmoil of her excitement. Why should Frogmore arrive at an hour
when nobody arrived, merely to distract her, Letitia? Things are very
perverse sometimes, but not so perverse as that. She said to herself
that she was a fool for dwelling upon such a thought, and that her
nervousness about Ralph was absurd. She dared not show herself at the
window lest he should see her and insist upon an interview; and from
where she sat she could see only by a hurried glance now and then, so
that she remained unaware of the full horror of what was happening until
she heard a third voice, not familiar, but which after a moment she
recognized, and which was to her as the clap of doom, Frogmore! She
pulled the curtain aside, forgetting her precautions in the excess of
her excitement; but no one of the group saw her, they were too much
occupied with themselves. Lord Frogmore had not appeared much in his
brother’s domestic circle. Since her marriage Letitia had seen him only
during the three or four days’ visit which John and she paid once a
year to the head of the house. He went abroad every winter, taking care
of himself, as if his life were of so much importance! and had visits to
pay in the visiting season which no doubt he liked better than going to
see his brother: at all events they had met very little, and Letitia was
not so very familiar with his voice that she should recognize it at
once. But even before she recognized she divined. Of course it was
Frogmore: who should it be but the one person in the world whom she was
the least desirous to see? She was so overwhelmed by the thought that
the meeting which she so much wished to avoid had taken place, that the
heart which seemed to beat in her throat and the fluttering of all her
nerves prevented her from hearing what they said, until the sound of
steps made her again pull back the curtain, and she watched the group
moving leisurely towards the dining-room. Ralph was doing the honors, he
was inviting Lord Frogmore in to luncheon, and little Duke, whom she
would have liked to whip, had abandoned his nurse and was walking
solemnly between the big bushman and the little old gentleman. Oh! how
she would have liked to whip Duke! It was the one possible outlet for
her feelings which Letitia could think of in the immense irritation that
possessed her, in view of this insufferable combination, Ralph doing the
honors of John Parke’s house to Lord Frogmore. If she had only been wise
enough to pursue it--to listen to her own presentiment, to have been on
the spot herself and prepared for whatever might happen. Sometimes it is
highly advantageous to adopt the female expedient of a headache; to find
yourself unable to come downstairs on some particular morning when there
may happen to be any embarrassing business. But sometimes this expedient
is not so successful. Letitia repented bitterly the employment of it.
She had been determined not to see her brother--to show him in the most
decided way that her house was a place to which he was not to come. But
how could she ever have anticipated that Lord Frogmore would appear at
such an unlikely hour, and that it should be Ralph--Ralph of all people
in the world that would receive him, and do the honors of the house to
him! After a pause of rage and perplexity, Letitia rang the bell, and
when her maid appeared sent her somewhat imperiously for Mary Hill. “Go
and tell Miss Hill I want to see her. Tell her--I mean ask her,” said
Letitia, with a civility born of necessity, “to come directly, please.”
Mrs. Parke paused again to think which would be most impressive; whether
to begin to dress with the air of being quite unable for the exertion,
or to fling herself down upon the sofa in the lassitude of the
dressing-gown, unable to move. She decided for the first of these
processes. It would touch Mary more to see her preparing to do her duty
at any price, than merely to witness the collapse which perhaps she
would not have such complete faith in as was desirable. Accordingly
Letitia rose. She pulled out the first dress that came to hand in her
wardrobe. Not to diminish the effect, she waited until Mary might be
supposed to be approaching. She then hurried out of her dressing-gown,
and began to put on her usual clothes, and was found by Mary, on her
hurried entry, half fallen upon the sofa, panting and breathless,
fastening, with hands that trembled and seemed hardly capable of
performing their functions, her under-garments. Mary made an outcry of
surprise when she entered the room, and the maid who followed made a
dart at her mistress with a scream--“Madame, you’re not fit to dress or
go downstairs.”
“What can I do?” said Letitia, with little pants between each two words,
“when I am so much wanted--when I must--I must.”
“Oh! what is the matter, Letitia? Can’t I do it for you?” said Mary, in
her impulsive way.
“You may go away, Felicie. Miss Hill will help me if I want any help.”
“Oh, Mary, don’t you know what is the matter? Shut the door after that
prying woman. They all want to have their noses in everything. It’s
Ralph,” said Mrs. Parke, throwing herself back on the sofa as in
despair. “He has not gone away after all, and Frogmore has come. Oh,
Mary! when I begged and implored you upon my knees to get him away, and
not to let him meet Frogmore.”
Letitia threw herself back on her sofa while in the act of tying a pair
of necessary strings. Her hands were trembling very perceptibly. She
dropped the strings and flung her arms over her head in an outburst of
tragical distress. Mary, on her part, had retired in tears from her
interview with Ralph, and had shut herself into the little back room,
which was all, in the present crowded state of the house, that she
could call her own, with much real agitation and distress. But when she
saw Letitia press those conspicuously trembling fingers on her face, the
sight of her friend’s trouble was more than she could bear.
“Oh, Letitia,” she said, “I am so sorry for you--what can I do? If there
is anything I can do, tell me. I did speak to him. I begged him to go
away, and he said he would. Oh, if there is anything more I can do I
will do it. But don’t kill yourself, don’t take on so dreadfully. Don’t,
oh don’t think so much of it, Letitia; Ralph----”
“Don’t mention his name,” cried Mrs. Parke, “never shall I think of him
as a brother. Do you think I’ve no pride and no feeling for my family.
How would you like if your black sheep--if the one that was no
credit--turned up just when you wanted to put your best foot foremost.
Oh, Mary Hill! I don’t blame you, but he never would have come but for
you.”
“You are quite mistaken, there,” said Mary, with a dignity in which
there was some touch of irritation, too. “And I am glad to say there is
no black sheep in my----” Her voice sank as she added this--and a
compunction seized her and broke the sentence short--for to be sure the
black sheep in the family is the misfortune and not the fault of the
rest, and Mary felt it was ungenerous to remind Letitia of her own
better fortune. She went on, with a little eagerness to conceal this
error. “If I can do anything, Letitia--but I don’t know what I can do.”
“No, nor I,” said Letitia, but then she said with a softened voice, “you
might go down and see what they’re doing. I can’t be ready in a moment,
it takes some time to get into one’s dress when one is all of a tremble
as I am. You might go down and stand between Frogmore and Ralph. Oh, I
know you could do it. And there is Duke, the little wretch, listening to
all Ralph’s stories. Send him up to me straight off.”
“I--go down! But I don’t know Lord Frogmore--and Ralph.”
“I hope you know Ralph at least. Mary Hill! You told me this moment you
would do anything--but the moment I name the one thing, the only thing I
ask of you----”
Mary wrung her hands but turned away and went downstairs. She had never
been used to resist when anything was asked of her. It had been her
part in the world always to do what was insisted upon, what it was
necessary to do. She went downstairs, almost counting the steps in her
reluctance, hoping that Letitia might relent and call her back, yet
knowing very well that nothing would make Letitia relent. After her
conversation this morning with Ralph to go back as it seemed voluntarily
into the room where he was, to go as he would think on purpose to have a
last word with him was intolerable to her. Her natural modesty and
reticence was intensified by the primness, old maidenly scruples which
had come upon her with the advancing years and made her pride more
sensitive and her fear of compromising herself more great. And before
Lord Frogmore, who would think--what might he not think? Poor Mary went
slowly across the hall. Oh, if Letitia only knew what it was to put such
a commission upon her--but Letitia had such different ways of
thinking--Letitia might perhaps have found it no trial at all.
When Mary went into the dining-room where Ralph was making an excellent
meal, and telling stories of the bush which delighted his little
audience, her color was heightened, her dove’s eyes were clear and
humid, almost with tears in them. She had seldom in her life looked so
well, though of this she was quite unconscious. Her great reluctance
gave her an air of dignity as well as that of duty painfully fulfilled.
She went in very slowly, holding her head higher than usual, though it
was a sense of humiliation and not pride that so moved her. Lord
Frogmore had been persuaded to join the bushman in his luncheon, having
evidently been assured that this was the luncheon of the house, Letitia
not being well enough to be out of her room. Ralph was seated at his
meal with his mouth full, talking as he munched, and praising the
excellent cold beef as he talked. Cold beef for Lord Frogmore! Saunders
indeed had endeavored to interfere, to explain that the family lunch was
an hour later, that this was only for Mr. Ravelstone because of his
train, and that to set cold beef before the distinguished guest was the
last thing in the world that would have been contemplated. But Lord
Frogmore had paid no attention, and sat quite pleased, mincing his cold
beef into small morsels, and laughing at Ralph’s stories. Little Duke
had clambered up upon his high chair and sat between the two men,
turning his small head from one to another as they talked with great
attention, with the precocious civility of a host paying solemn
attention to his guests. Duke did not laugh at the Australian’s jokes
because he did not understand them, but he gazed at Lord Frogmore who
did, and looked from one to another with a curious consciousness of the
inferiority of those mysteriously excited persons who gesticulated and
declaimed and laughed and applauded to his own small gravity and
dignity, something like that which we can imagine rising in the
consciousness of an intelligent animal at sight of human eccentricities.
Duke thought it very funny that they should laugh so much. What was
there to laugh about? Ralph sprang up from the table, making a great
noise, and with his knife and fork in his hands, when Mary appeared.
“Hallo!” he cried. “Here we have begun like a couple of ill-bred pigs
without thinking of Miss Hill. A plate and napkin for Miss Hill, and
look sharp you there! What can you think of us to begin without you? I
give you my word I never gave it a thought.”
“Please sit down,” said Mary. “I want nothing. I only came--that is
Letitia sent me--to see that you had everything you want. To see that
there was a proper lunch----”
“Letitia’s very kind, but she might have come herself. There’s excellent
cold beef--isn’t it excellent, my Lord Frogmore? They think it’s not
good enough for you, evidently, but it’s plenty good enough for me. I
prefer it to all the kickshaws in the world. Sit down and try a bit,
Mary, it’ll do you good.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Mary, drawing nervously away. “Duke, you are to go
upstairs to your mother. Oh please don’t disturb yourself. I would
rather not sit down, please. Letitia was afraid that you were not served
in time--that you might be kept too late for your train.”
“Letitia’s very anxious about my train,” cried Ralph, with a big laugh,
but he caught Mary’s alarmed look at Saunders, who stood very demurely
behind Lord Frogmore with his ears wide open to everything. Saunders
scented a mystery, and was very anxious to fathom it. He scented
something much more mysterious, as was natural, than anything that
existed. “But sit down, Mary, and join the festive board,” continued the
bushman, “a meal’s twice a meal when there’s a lady present. Don’t you
think so, Lord Frogmore?”
Lord Frogmore had risen up with old-fashioned courtesy when he saw Mary,
and stood without taking any part in the invitation, awaiting what she
intended to do, with his hand on the back of his chair. Lord Frogmore,
as ill-fortune would have it, was seeing the house of the Parkes, which
was indeed the most orderly and well-governed of houses, in the
strangest light--a light that was not at all a true one, though he had
no means of knowing it. The wild, bearded brother from the backwoods,
the gentle, somewhat prim dependent lady puzzled him very much. Miss
Hill he thought a much pleasanter type of woman than his sister-in-law,
but who was she? Probably the governess; but then the governess would
not be on such familiar terms with the brother. The old gentleman stood
with true civility, doing nothing to increase the embarrassment of the
poor lady, poor thing, who did not know what to do.
“The dog-cart, sir, is at the door,” said Saunders, solemnly, “and if I
might make so bold, there is just twenty minutes to get the train.”
Ralph put down his knife and fork. “I should have liked another bit of
that nice cold beef,” he said; “but since you’re all in such a hurry----
Little ’un, you can go and tell your mother I’m off. It’ll be a
satisfaction to her. And, Mary, don’t forget what I said.”
“I don’t remember,” said Mary, “that you said anything particular.
Ra--Mr. Ravelstone--I will tell Letitia--anything you wish me to say.”
“Then tell her,” cried Ralph, “I don’t care that!” with a snap of his
big fingers. He paused, however, with a thought of Saunders and the
proprieties, and burst into another laugh. “You can tell Tisch that the
cold beef’s capital, and that I’ve enjoyed my luncheon--and the best of
company,” he said. “Good-bye, my lord, and good-bye, little ’un. Mary,
is this how we’re to part, you and me?”
Mary wrung her fingers out of his grasp. “I will give Letitia your
message,” she said.
“You’ll come and see me off at least. Poor Mary, don’t be so down
because there’s strangers here. Come out and see me go.”
She looked involuntarily in her distress towards the courteous old
gentleman who stood quietly observant with his hand on the back of his
chair. Lord Frogmore did not understand the meaning of the appeal in her
eyes--whether she wished him to go away; whether she looked to him for
protection. He took out his watch, however, on the chance that it was
the latter, and held it up to the departing guest.
“Well, good-bye to you all!” shouted Ralph, thus driven by moral force
to the door.
“I fear the gentleman will be late,” said Lord Frogmore in his precise
voice.
“Oh, I hope not!” cried Mary, clasping her hands. She listened while the
dash of the dog-cart from the door, as Ralph sprang into it, was
audible. “He has been long absent from home,” she said. “He has got out
of the ways of--English life. Mrs. Parke was rather afraid. She was so
sorry not to be downstairs to receive you. She is dressing now to be
ready for luncheon, and begged me----”
“It was quite unnecessary; I found him very amusing. And I was glad to
make acquaintance with this little fellow.” Lord Frogmore put his hand
on Duke’s head, who had not obeyed the call to his mother. “He is--your
charge, perhaps?”
“Oh no,” cried Mary, with a blush. “I am only a friend staying in the
house.”
“I beg you a thousand pardons,” said Lord Frogmore.