MR. ELY ARRIVES
Miss Truscott was evidently not in the pleasantest frame of mind. It
was unfortunate, for she was the kind of maid one feels instinctively
ought always to be in a pleasant frame of mind. Tall, slender, with
great, big eyes, sunny hair, and the sweetest smile. The latter,
however, was conspicuous by its absence, as she sat at the
breakfast-table with an open letter in her hand.
She was at breakfast with her aunt. Mrs. Clive was a precise old lady,
who always indoors wore lace cuffs and collar, and the neatest of
caps. It was a peculiarity of hers that she was never known to be
anything but cool and self-possessed. Sometimes her niece was neither.
Then it increased the young lady's sense of aggravation to observe how
her aunt's demeanour contrasted with her own--as, for instance, it did
now.
"You don't seem to be in the least surprised or annoyed or hurt. You
quite take it for granted that I should be insulted."
Mrs. Clive considered for a moment before she answered. She sat bolt
upright, her hands in her lap, the model of decorum.
"My dear Lily, the younger generation is impetuous."
Miss Truscott sighed. To be called impetuous under the circumstances
of the case seemed almost more than she could bear.
"I write to my guardian on the whole four sides of a sheet of paper to
tell him that I must get away from this dreadful place or I shall die,
and this is the answer he sends."
She spread the letter out before her on the table and read it aloud,
with comments by the way.
"'My dear Lily' (yes, dear at any price, I know), 'I have read your
charming letter with the greatest interest.' (Did anybody ever hear
the like of that? He read my charming letter with the greatest
interest, when I wrote to tell him that I quite believed that I should
die!) 'You are indeed a mistress of the epistolary art.' (That is a
pretty compliment to pay when you write and tell a person that life is
not worth living!) 'The account which you give of the doings of your
neighbours is most entertaining.' (Now I never mentioned a single word
about anything but the state of my mind!) 'It is with the greatest
pleasure that I hear of your continuance in good health.' (When the
whole letter was written to tell him that I was nearly dead!) 'I am
glad to hear, too, that your aunt, Mrs. Clive, is still in the
enjoyment of nature's greatest blessing.' (What nature's greatest
blessing is I don't know, but I am sure I never even breathed your
name.) 'Pray convey to her my compliments.' (With pleasure, aunt!) 'I
envy you your sojourn amidst summer's scenic splendours.' (That is
what he says, and I actually told him that I was convinced that if I
stayed any longer amidst what he calls 'summer's scenic splendours' I
should just go raving mad!) 'Tied as I am to the Juggernaut of
commerce, I can, however, but look and long.' Now did you--did you
ever hear anything like that? And yet you say the younger generation
is impetuous! I should just like to have my affectionate guardian
here; I'd let him know what the Juggernaut really was!"
The young lady seemed a little excited, but the elder one was still
quite calm.
"You have forgotten the postscript, my dear."
"Forgotten the postscript! Oh, aunty, don't I wish I could!' By the
way, a friend of yours, Mr. Frederic Ely, will be with you to-morrow
morning, perhaps almost as soon as you get this.' Perhaps the wretch
is actually on the doorstep now!"
"Lily, Lily! How can you talk like that!"
"So he is a wretch! But never mind, it's all the same to me. 'He is a
gentleman for whose character I have the greatest respect. He will ask
my dear Lily a question in which both he and I are deeply interested.
I earnestly trust that my dear Lily's heart will answer Yes.' Talk
about a woman's postscript! Mr. Ash puts nothing in his letter, and
the whole library of the British Museum in his P.S.! Well, aunty, what
do you think of that?"
"I congratulate you, my dear, on the near approach of your settlement
in life."
Miss Truscott gave a little shriek, and then was dumb. She glared at
her aunt as though she could believe neither her eyes or ears. Mrs.
Clive went placidly on.
"It is indeed gratifying to learn that Mr. Ash has made his choice."
"Who has made his choice?" asked Miss Truscott between her little
teeth.
"One for whose character he has the greatest respect. Such words
coming from Mr. Ash are satisfactory in the extreme. You are indeed
fortunate in possessing a guardian who has your interests so entirely
at heart."
"What are you talking about?" asked Miss Truscott. "Do you think I
shall marry this man?"
"Lily!" exclaimed Mrs. Give. "You have such a singular way of
expressing yourself. But perhaps"--the old lady smoothed her
gown--"perhaps you are a little surprised."
Miss Truscott gave a sort of gasp.
"I am," she said. "I am a little surprised!"
"I suppose we are all when our turns come. I remember in my young days
when my dear mother told me that I was to marry Mr. Clive."
"Told you you were to marry Mr. Clive?"
"Yes, my dear. And I remember quite well how bewildered I was at
first."
"Didn't you love him, then?"
"My dear, how can you ask me such a question! We were comparative
strangers. I had only been acquainted with him about three months."
"Three months! Good gracious! Why, I thought three minutes was long
enough to fall in love!"
"Lily, I am amazed to hear you talk so flippantly! It is plain that it
is quite time that you had more settled views of life. Among the new
responsibilities on which you are now about to enter I trust that you
will learn the solemnity of woman's position in the world, and the
deference which she owes to the married state."
Miss Truscott laughed. Her laughter was of rather an hysterical kind,
as though it were near akin to tears. But Mrs. Clive was shocked. She
regarded Miss Truscott with what she intended to be considered as
severe disapprobation. Then, with her most stately air, she rose and
left the room. Pausing at the door, however, she delivered herself of
a final expression of her opinion.
"Lily, I am disappointed in you. I can only hope that Mr. Ely will not
have cause to be disappointed too."
When Miss Truscott was left alone she sat quite still, looking into
vacancy. The smile about the corners of her mouth was hardly up to its
usual character for sweetness. There was a glitter in her eyes which
gave them quite a new expression. Suddenly she leaned her face upon
her hands and shivered. It could hardly have been with cold, for the
sun was shining and the day was warm. Then she got up, and began
pacing restlessly about the room.
"Is it a dream? Is it a dream?" Her hands were clasped with a sort of
hysteric energy.
"What does it matter! He has forgotten me! What fools we women are!"
She took out a locket which was hidden in the bosom of her dress, and
gazed upon the face which it contained.
"Willy!"--how softly she breathed the name--"twelve months since you
told me that story with your eyes--twelve months ago! Where have you
been this weary time! I suppose it was an incident with you. I have
heard those sort of things are incidents with men. What a fool I was
to take it seriously! What fools we women are! I ought to have known
that it was the fashion with Mr. Summers to love and ride away."
She stood gazing at the portrait. All at once something angered
her--some recollection, perhaps, of long ago. She snapped the slender
chain to which it was attached, and flung the locket on the floor. As
if not content with this degradation of her treasure, she placed her
little foot upon it and crushed it beneath her heel.
"What fools we women are!"
For a moment she looked upon the ruins she had wrought. The pretty
little locket was crushed all out of shape. Then came penitence, and
stooping down with streaming eyes she picked the broken locket up and
pressed it to her lips; and, still upon her knees, flinging herself
face downwards on to the seat of a great arm-chair, she cried as
though her heart would break.
"I didn't mean to do it, Willy, I didn't mean to do it; but it's all
the same, it doesn't matter whom I marry now!"
She was only a girl: and it is a charming characteristic of the better
sort of girls that they will do foolish things at times.
But there was very little of the girl about her when Mr. Ely came; she
was the stateliest of young ladies then. The air of having just come
out of a bandbox was more apparent about Mr. Ely in the country even
than in town. He was one of those very few men who are never seen out
of a frock-coat. Throgmorton Street or a Devonshire lane it was the
same to him. Wherever he was his attire remained unaltered. But it
must be allowed that he was conscious that things were not
compatible--patent shoes, top-hat, frock-coat, and a Devonshire lane.
So from the Devonshire lane he religiously stayed away. He did his
ruralising in centres of fashion where his frock-coat was in place,
and not in the equivalents of the Devonshire lane. He was not affected
by the modern craze for the country side. He objected to it strongly:
a fact which he made plain as soon as he appeared on the scene.
Mrs. Clive received him. She began the conversation on what she fondly
conceived were the usual lines.
"How glad you must be to get into the country. It must be such a
change from town."
"Change! I should think it is a change! Beastly change, by George!"
Mrs. Clive was a little shocked. The adverb did not fall sweetly on
her ear. But Mr. Ely went glibly on. He had a grievance which he
wished to air.
"Why they don't have decent cabs at the station I don't know. If there
was a live man in the place he'd put some hansoms on the road. Fly,
they called the thing I came up in! Fly! I should like to know what's
the aboriginal definition of 'to crawl'! And dusty! I left my mark
upon that seat, and that seat left its mark on me. I feel like a
regular dustman--upon my word I do."
Miss Truscott made her first appearance at the luncheon-table. The
meal was not an entire success. This was partly owing to the fact that
Miss Trustcott seemed to have gone back into the glacial or
prehistoric period, and partly because Mr. Ely still had his grievance
on his mind. Mrs. Clive did her best to entertain the company, but in
spite of her meritorious efforts the conversation languished.
"And how are things in the City?" She felt that this was the sort of
question she ought to ask.
"All over the shop!"
Mrs. Clive started. She felt that the answer was not so explanatory as
it might have been. Still she bravely persevered.
"Dear me! I suppose that commercial matters are affected by the
seasons." She thought that this sort of remark would go home to the
commercial mind.
"Eh? Oh, yes; rather! I should think they were! In fine weather
traffics go up all round. Noras have gone up one, Doras one
seven-eighths, Trunks are flat: there's a rig-out there and rates are
pooled, but this side bulls are in the right hole pretty near all
along the line. Bertha's about the only one got stuck."
Mrs. Clive was speechless. She looked at Miss Truscott with imploring
eyes. But that young lady was tranquilly engaged with the contents of
her plate.
"Poor girl!"
It was a study to see Mr. Ely's face when the old lady made this
innocent remark.
"I beg your pardon! What did you say?"
"I said, poor girl! I hope she has done nothing wrong."
"Who's done nothing wrong?"
"The young lady you mentioned. Miss Bertha, I think you said. I am not
acquainted with her surname."
Mr. Ely was silent. He was not a man gifted with a keen sense of
humour, and was not at all clear in his own mind that the old lady was
not amusing herself at his expense. Mrs. Clive, conscious that
something was wrong, went painfully plodding on.
"I trust, Mr. Ely, that I have not, unintentionally, said something to
hurt your feelings. Is the young lady a friend of yours?"
"What young lady?"
Mr. Ely placed his knife and fork together, with a little clatter, on
his plate. Was she at it again? This was more than a man could stand.
"Miss Bertha--the young lady you mentioned."
"Bertha's not a lady."
"Not a lady! Dear me! One of the lower classes! I perceive! Now I
understand. Ah, I'm afraid that from them anything may be expected
nowadays."
Mr. Ely turned pink, not with suppressed mirth, but with what was very
much like rage. For some moments an unprejudiced spectator might have
debated in his own mind as to whether he was not about to be profane.
But if it were so, he conquered his impious tendency, and adopted
another line of conduct instead. He rose from his seat. "If you will
allow me, I'll go outside for a change of air"; and without waiting
for the required permission he marched through the French window out
on to the lawn. The old lady turned to her niece--
"My dear Lily, what have I said or done?"
"My dear aunt, I believe that Bertha, in the slang of the Stock
Exchange, signifies the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. I
suspect that Mr. Ely imagines that you have been amusing yourself at
his expense."
Mrs. Clive was aghast.
"Go to him, Lily. Don't leave him alone in his present state of mind.
He might return at once to town!"
Miss Truscott rose with her most tranquil air.
"We might survive his departure if he did."
But her aunt was shocked.
"Lily, it pains me to hear such language from your lips. You are now
approaching one of the most solemn moments of your life. Rise to the
occasion, child, and show that, although still a child in years, you
have within you the wherewithal with which to make a woman in good
time."
Miss Truscott looked as if she could have said something if she would,
but she refrained. She left the room without a word.