I do not much care to look back to the rest of my stay at Tryland. It is
an unpleasant memory.
That next day after I last wrote, it poured with rain, and every one came
down cross to breakfast. The whole party appeared, except Lady Verningham,
and breakfast was just as stiff and boring as dinner. I happened to be
seated when Lord Robert came in, and Malcolm was in the place beside me.
Lord Robert hardly spoke, and looked at me once or twice with his eyebrows
right up.
I did long to say it was because I had promised Lady Ver I would not play
with him that I was not talking to him now like the afternoon before. I
wonder if he ever guessed it. Oh, I wished then, and I have wished a
hundred times since, that I had never promised at all. It seemed as if it
would be wisest to avoid him, as how could I explain the change in myself?
I hated the food, and Malcolm had such an air of proprietorship it annoyed
me as much as I could see it annoyed Lady Katherine. I sniffed at him, and
was as disagreeable as could be.
The breakfasts there don't shine, and porridge is pressed upon people by
Mr. Montgomerie. "Capital stuff to begin the day--burrrr," he says.
Lord Robert could not find anything he wanted, it seemed. Every one was
peevish. Lady Katherine has a way of marshalling people on every occasion;
she reminds me of a hen with chickens, putting her wings down and clucking
and chasing till they are all in a corner. And she is rather that shape,
too, very much rounded in front. The female brood soon found themselves in
the morning-room, with the door shut, and no doubt the male things fared
the same with their host--anyway, we saw no more of them till we caught
sight of them passing the windows in scutums and mackintoshes, a depressed
company of sportsmen.
The only fortunate part was that Malcolm had found no opportunity to
remind me of my promise, whatever it was, and I felt safer.
Oh, that terrible morning! Much worse than when we were alone; nearly all
of them, about seven women beyond the family, began fancy-work.
One, a Lady Letitia Smith, was doing a crewel silk blotting-book that made
me quite bilious to look at, and she was very short-sighted, and had such
an irritating habit of asking every one to match her threads for her. They
knitted ties and stockings, and crocheted waistcoats and comforters and
hoods for the North Sea fishermen, and one even tatted. Just like
housemaids do in their spare hours to trim Heaven knows what garment of
unbleached calico.
I asked her what it was for, and she said for the children's pinafores in
her "guild" work. If one doesn't call that waste of time, I wonder what
is.
Mrs. Carruthers said it was much more useful to learn to sit still and not
fidget than to fill the world with rubbish like this.
Mary Mackintosh dominated the conversation. She and Lady Letitia Smith,
who have both small babies, revelled in nursery details, and then
whispered bits for us, the young girls not to hear. We caught scraps
though, and it sounded grewsome, whatever it was about. Oh, I do wonder
when I get married if I shall grow like them!