P. S.: The D. says the new Peer has at least £60,000 a year.
A second reading of this letter filled Elfreda with fury. Somehow it
was so typical of her mother; of the mother who was a curious mixture
of kindness, naïveté and cupidity; of the mother who cared for them
all so much in small things and so little in great ones. Behind these
careless phrases of Lady Carabbas her youngest daughter read her
intentions only too clearly.
As Elfreda sat back in her corner and turned things over in her mind a
kind of cold rage began to dominate her. Had she been left any choice
in the matter she would not be going to Clavering St. Mary’s at all.
No one she knew would be there. But she had not been consulted. Her
autocratic father had promised one of his friends “in the city” that
she should go down there and take part in some private theatricals in
aid of a war charity. For nearly a year now she had been living in
London with a married sister and working for the V. A. D. at one of
the hospitals, but from time to time she had taken part in various
entertainments with considerable success.
The play in which at decidedly short notice she had been called upon to
enact no less a rôle than that of the heroine was called “The Lady of
Laxton.” It was the work of an enthusiastic amateur whose chief claim
to distinction, literary or otherwise, was of the kind that attends the
possession of a baronetcy. She was to be a governess masquerading as
a girl of position. Not only was the part very long and difficult to
learn, but in the opinion of Elfreda it was pointless, silly and vulgar.
To make matters worse she had yet to meet the author of the piece,
but he was known to several of her sisters with whom he was by no
means _persona gratissima_. However, with a fulsome letter, he had
proudly sent her a copy of the piece to which he evidently attached
considerable value; and at that moment it was in the traveling bag by
her side. Resentfully she took it out and began to study it again. In
her present frame of mind, made much worse by her mother’s letter, the
task seemed even less congenial than it had done at first. “I simply
_can’t_ act such rubbish” was the thought that dominated her.
It was surely too bad to force her into such a position. She dug her
teeth into an uncompromising upper lip. Charity excused everything
nowadays, but the more she examined the situation she was in, the less
she liked it. Beneath the armor of stern self-discipline with which she
faced the world were strong feelings, and these flamed suddenly forth
into violent antipathy. Surely it was too bad to be let in for a thing
of this kind! And she would be among strangers, with as far as she
knew, not one solitary friend to help her out.
Her eyes with little darts of anger in them strayed to the girl
opposite. Miss Cass was sucking her pencil again in the process of
thought, her gaze was fixed on vacancy and she was frowning fiercely.
Evidently a very difficult subject she was studying. But, judging by
the color in her cheeks, she was the better for her meal.
Elfreda was rather inclined to envy this girl. She could call her
soul her own at any rate, even if her bread and butter depended on the
overtaxing of her brain.
Accidentally their eyes met. The faint, slightly aloof smile of the one
was answered by the other’s honest blush of gratitude.
“Are you studying trigonometry?” Elfreda had never studied trigonometry
herself, nor did she know exactly what trigonometry was, but if there
was anything in a name it must be a subject of superhuman difficulty;
and taking as a guide the air of concentration and the rumpled brows
of Miss Green Ulster her present difficulty could hardly be less than
superhuman.
Miss Cass haltingly explained that she was trying to win a prize in the
_Saturday Sentinel_.
“How amusing! But one has to be very clever to do that, hasn’t one?”
Miss Cass was afraid that it was so. She had been trying week by week
for nearly a year, but she had only achieved an honorable mention so
far. The topic served to break the ice, however, and they began to
talk freely. This may have been due to the fact that both were glowing
with a generous wine, for it was the habit of neither to indulge in
promiscuous conversation with total strangers. But just now, in quite
an odd way, their minds began to march together, in fact one almost
seemed to be the other’s counterpart.
Miss Green Ulster confided that her name was Cass, that she came from
Laxton, that her father, three years dead, had been a solicitor, that
her mother had been dead six months, that she was left unprovided for,
and that by the recommendation of Canon Carnaby, the vicar of the
parish, who had been very good to her mother and herself, she was going
as governess to the two young children of Lieutenant Colonel Everard
Trenchard-Simpson, D. S. O., The Laurels, Clavering St. Mary’s.
Elfreda was secretly amused by a simplicity which told so much and
concealed so little. All the same she was oddly attracted by the way
this little suburban laid all her cards on the table. Her hopes, her
fears, her pathetic desire for self improvement, the general bleakness
of her outlook, her cruel sense of loneliness now that her mother
as well as her father was dead, her poverty, her lack of a really
first-class education, the exposure of all these things verged upon the
indecent, but somehow they called insistently for pity.
Poor Miss Cass! And yet ... Elfreda shivered at her thoughts ... lucky
Miss Cass!
“How thrilling to act ... in public ... on a real stage ... to a real
audience!” The gray eyes looked quite charming in their awe and their
sincerity.
“Do you really think so?” The slight drawl with its tag of fatigue was
equally sincere.
“Oh, I should just love it--that is, I should just love it if I were
_you_.” The candor _was_ almost indecent, but a nearly whole tumbler of
a great wine was working spells. What Miss Cass really meant was that
she would love to be the daughter of a marquis.
Elfreda deplored her taste and sighed for her innocence. “Think how
bored you’d be to learn a long and stupid part--so that you were simply
word perfect in it.”
“I should just love it.” Miss Cass grew enthusiastic at the thought.
“If I could also be the daughter of a marquis” was the major part of
that thought, which, however, she did not put into words. But those
fatal eyes of hers, in which her soul dwelt, put it into words for her.
Elfreda smiled pityingly. How little she knew!
“By the way, you come from Laxton?”
“Yes, but this morning I gave up my rooms there. So I’ve got no home
now.”
“It happens that this stupid play is called ‘The Lady of Laxton.’”
“There are very few real ladies in Laxton,” said the student of _The
Patrician_ in a burst of candor.
“So one would think if this play is at all true to life,” rose to the
lips of Elfreda, but she did not allow it to escape.
What she did say was, “The plot of this play is that a governess and a
peer’s daughter arriving at a place in the country by the same train
get mixed up. The governess goes off with the other girl’s luggage as
a guest to one house and the peer’s daughter finds herself taken for a
governess at the other.”
“But what a splendid idea!”
“Do you really think so?” The daughter of the marquis opened
incredulous eyes. “In the first place, it could never have happened.”
“Oh, I think it might have happened--but of course it would have been
found out at once.”
“As a matter of fact, the author gets over that part rather well. It
seems they arranged the matter beforehand because the peer’s daughter
wanted to teach some snobs a lesson.”
“But it’s splendid!” Miss Cass clapped her hands with enthusiasm--the
Devil _was_ in the wine. “And, of course, the son at the smart house
proposes to the governess thinking she’s the peer’s daughter and vice
versa.”
“How _were_ you able to guess that?”
Miss Cass had been able to guess that because the _Saturday Sentinel_
said she had insight. But modesty, of course, forbade her to say that
to Lady Elfreda, who was looking at her now with an intentness greater
and more curious than she had ever noticed in any human countenance.
Of what was she thinking, the daughter of the marquis? The mind of Miss
Cass could not stop to inquire. For that deep, delicious voice, that
seemed to treat each individual syllable of the English language as a
work of art, was saying: “As a matter of fact, that is what happens
in the play, but it is all so extraordinarily stupid that one simply
loathes----”
The stern critic had suddenly caught the look of pain in the eyes of
the lady opposite. Then it was she realized that to some minds the
situation itself and even the vulgarly obvious working out of it might
not be intolerable.