Very soon I was gay again and _insouciante_, and the last they saw of me
was smiling out of the brougham window as I drove off in the dusk. They
both stood upon the steps and waved to me.
Tea was over at Tryland when I arrived--such a long, damp drive! And I
explained to Lady Katherine how sorry I was to have had to come so late,
and that I could not think of troubling her to have up fresh for me; but
she insisted, and after a while a whole new lot came, made in a hurry with
the water not boiling, and I had to gulp down a nasty cup--Ceylon tea,
too! I hate Ceylon tea! Mr. Montgomerie warmed himself before the fire,
quite shielding it from us, who shivered on a row of high-backed chairs
beyond the radius of the hearth-rug.
He has a way of puffing out his cheeks and making a noise like "Burrrr,"
which sounds very bluff and hearty until you find he has said a mean thing
about some one directly after. And while red hair looks very well on me, I
do think a man with it is the ugliest thing in creation. His face is red,
and his nose and cheeks almost purple, and fiery whiskers, fierce enough
to frighten a cat in a dark lane.
He was a rich Scotch manufacturer, and poor Lady Katherine had to marry
him, I suppose; though, as she is Scotch herself, I dare say she does not
notice that he is rather coarse.
There are two sons and six daughters--one married, four grown-up, and one
at school in Brussels--and all with red hair! But straight and coarse, and
with freckles and white eyelashes. So, really, it is very kind of Lady
Katherine to have asked me here.
They are all as good as gold on top, and one does poker-work, and another
binds books, and a third embroiders altar-cloths, and the fourth knits
ties--all for charities, and they ask every one to subscribe to them
directly they come to the house. The tie and the altar-cloth ones were
sitting working hard in the drawing-room--Kirstie and Jean are their
names; Jessie and Maggie, the poker-worker and the bookbinder, have a
sitting-room to themselves--their work-shop they call it. They were there
still, I suppose, for I did not see them until dinner. We used to meet
once a year at Mrs. Carruthers's Christmas parties ever since ages and
ages, and I remember I hated their tartan sashes, and they generally had
colds in their heads, and one year they gave every one mumps, so they
were not asked the next. The altar-cloth one, Jean, is my age, the other
three are older.
It was really very difficult to find something to say, and I can quite
understand common people fidgeting when they feel worried like this. I
have never fidgeted since eight years ago, the last time Mrs. Carruthers
boxed my ears for it. Just before going up to dress for dinner Mr.
Montgomerie asked blank out if it was true that Mr. Carruthers had
arrived. Lady Katherine had been skirting round this subject for a quarter
of an hour.
I only said yes, but that was not enough, and, once started, he asked a
string of questions, with "Burrrr" several times in between. Was Mr.
Carruthers going to shoot the pheasants in November? Had he decided to
keep on the chef? Had he given up diplomacy? I said I really did not know
any of these things, I had seen so little of him.
Lady Katherine nodded her head, while she measured a comforter she was
knitting, to see if it was long enough.
"I am sure it must have been most awkward for you, his arriving at all; it
was not very good taste on his part, I am afraid, but I suppose he wished
to see his inheritance as soon as possible," she said.
I nearly laughed, thinking what she would say if she knew which part of
his inheritance he had really come to see. I do wonder if she has ever
heard that Mrs. Carruthers left me to him, more or less, in her will!
"I hope you had your old governess with you, at least," she continued, as
we went up the stairs, "so that you could feel less uncomfortable--really
a most shocking situation for a girl alone in the house with an unmarried
man!"
I told her Mr. Barton was there, too, but I had not the courage to say
anything about Lord Robert; only that Mr. Carruthers had a friend of his
down who was a great judge of pictures, to see them.
"Oh, a valuer, I suppose. I hope he is not going to sell the Correggios,"
she exclaimed.
"No, I don't think so," I said, leaving the part about the valuer
unanswered.
Mr. Carruthers's being unmarried seemed to worry her most; she went on
about it again before we got to my bedroom door.
"I happened to hear a rumor at Miss Sheriton's" (the wool-shop in
Headington, our town) "this morning," she said, "and so I wrote at once to
you. I felt how terrible it would be for one of my own dear girls to be
left alone with a bachelor like that. I almost wonder you did not stay up
in your own rooms."