A shadow of disappointment flitted across Celia's face, but there was no
trace of it in her voice.
"To mamma?" she said. "Oh, then, I will write to Louise."
"Of course," said Winifred, majestically. "It would never do for _me_
not to write first to mamma. Indeed, I don't see that there is any
hurry for your writing at all."
She got out her paper and pens as she spoke. Then with the queer
mixture of candid self-deprecation which existed in her, side by side
with unusual self-assertion, she startled Celia by an unexpected speech.
"About what you were saying of Lennox just now, Celia," she began, her
fingers toying idly with the pen she had already dipped into the ink,
"do you know, at the bottom of my heart, I don't think I believe that he
_does_ care for me?"
Celia gasped.
"Winifred," she exclaimed, "that is going too far. Whatever he is
_not_, he is certainly not a mean hypocrite. You can't think that for--
for any selfish or interested motives, he would _pretend_ to care for
you? He couldn't."
"No, no, I don't think him the least of a hypocrite," said Winifred,
eagerly. "You don't understand, Celia. He _thinks_ he does, quite
honestly. He's always been put in the position--not told he _must_ care
for me, for, of course, with a man of any spirit or principle that would
only drive him the other way. And Lennox has plenty of principle and
spirit too, of a kind. But he has been tacitly told he _does_, and so
he has come to believe it."
Celia looked extremely perplexed. This was a new light indeed upon the
subject, but a light which seemed, at first at any rate, only to
increase the already existing perplexity.
"If--if you think _that_," she said at last, "I don't wonder at what you
always say about him. I mean about it all. Not that I don't sympathise
with you--I do, as you know. I _couldn't_ imagine being in love with
Lennox;" and she smiled to herself, as it were, at the very thought.
"But I always thought it must make a great difference if a girl knows a
man is very devoted to _her_, you know."
"Oh," said Winifred, in her very off-hand way, "as far as that goes, I
_think_ I could stand Lennox better if I knew he did not care much for
me," which paradoxical speech gave her younger sister considerable food
for reflection. And before Celia spoke again, Winifred dismissed the
subject in her high-handed fashion, quite ignoring the fact that it was
she herself, and she alone, who had started the conversation.
"You really must not chatter or let me chatter any more, Celia," she
said. "I must get my letter written."
And for the best part of an hour there was no sound to be heard but the
scratching of their pens--of Winifred's pen alone after a while, for
Celia's correspondence was confined to her sister Louise, while Miss
Maryon, once she had got her hand in, so to say, went on writing long
after her rather short and not very graphic letter to her mother was
finished. For she was a young woman of great energy and almost perfect
physical condition. It was quite true, as she had declared to Mrs
Balderson, that she was not "the very least tired."
She looked up suddenly, when she had closed and addressed her fourth
envelope.
"It must be getting rather late," she said.
"Shall I ring for our letters to be taken down, do you think, Celia?
They are not in time for to-night's mail, but still, if posted now, they
will get to Barleyfield for the afternoon delivery to-morrow."
But to her question there came no reply, and looking up, the silence was
quickly explained to her. Celia was fast asleep! Her pretty head
supported by her arm, which had found a resting-place on the end of a
sofa standing by, she was far away in some happy dreamland probably, to
judge by the half-smile upon her face, and the calm, childlike softness
of her breathing.
"Poor little Celia," said Winifred to herself. "How sweet she looks!"
and with deft and gentle hand she moved the couch, so that the fair head
itself could lean on the cushion. "Let me see," she went on, glancing
at the clock on the mantel-piece, "a quarter--no, five minutes to seven.
I will run down with the letters so as not to wake her by ringing, and
then I will let her sleep till a quarter past. She will be all the
brighter for it afterwards."
Bright, and better than bright--each charming in her own way--looked the
two girls an hour later when they entered the drawing-room again, where
their hostess and her husband, a thin, elderly man, with pleasant,
luminous blue eyes, and grey hair rapidly turning to white, were having
a consultation after the orthodox conjugal fashion as to "who takes
whom" down to dinner.
"At my left, you say, my dear? Young Mrs Fancourt at my left?--oh yes,
Lennox Maryon takes her. Why, I thought--" Mr Balderson was saying,
when the opening of the door made him stop abruptly, looking after the
manner of men decidedly guilty, as an admonitory "sh" from his wife
warned him that the new-comers were his young guests.
"That's right," said Mrs Balderson, heartily. "Good girls. I like to
have my home party about me on these little occasions. What can that
lazy Eric be doing? He is not generally so late."
The delinquent entered as she spoke--before, indeed, the door had closed
behind the two sisters. He came quietly into the room with some little
laughing rejoinder to his mother, and walked over to where Mr Balderson
was standing, without seeming to notice either Winifred or Celia in any
special way. Yet Celia was perfectly aware that even as he passed them
he took in every detail of their appearance and attire.
"I hope he thinks we are nicely dressed," she thought, though she would
not have liked Winifred to read her unspoken reflection. "I suspect he
is rather critical, though in a nice way. Well, Winifred looks very
pretty, I am sure, but I wish she were not quite so fond of black."
Yes, Winifred looked very well indeed, for, though her black dress was
almost severely simple, it was of rich material and fitted well. This
was in accordance with Miss Maryon's principles. She would have scorned
to spend much time or thought upon her clothes, still shabbiness or
dowdiness or eccentricity she did not consider a fitting accompaniment
of woman as she should be. The worst that could be said of her way of
dressing was that it was far too old, and on the whole monotonous. But
to strangers this latter defect was naturally absent, and perhaps the
very heaviness and stiffness of style she affected had practically the
opposite result of making the girl herself look all the younger.
However that may have been, she was genuinely indifferent about herself;
to-night her thoughts were more on dress than usual, nevertheless, for
she was exceedingly interested in Celia's appearance, and, considering
her theories, almost inconsistently eager that she should be admired.
"Does she not look lovely?" she could not help whispering to Mrs
Balderson, and her whole face sparkled with pleasure when there came the
hearty reply.
"_Most_ lovely; that pale pink suits her to perfection, and--" But the
rest of the kind woman's admiration remained unexpressed, for at that
moment some of her guests were announced, and she had to hasten forward
to meet them. Others followed quickly, causing a little bustle in the
room, under cover of which a young man made his way in quietly; not
sorry to do so, if the truth were told, for Mr Lennox Maryon, very much
at home in the hunting-field or at a steeplechase, was decidedly shy in
a London drawing-room. Nor was the consciousness of his cousin
Winifred's observant, albeit short-sighted, brown eyes, likely to put
him more at his ease.
He was in luck, however, on the present occasion. Both Winifred, and
Celia were for the moment somewhat apart from the Baldersons and their
other guests, feeling, perhaps, as perfect strangers to the latter, just
a little "out of it." Lennox hurried up to them with great
satisfaction, though not without a touch of the nervousness which
somehow always hovered about him when near Winifred.
"_How_ are you?" he said with somewhat unnecessary emphasis, considering
there was not the slightest need for anxiety as to the state of health
of either of the girls. "So delighted to find you here. When did you
come up? left all well at home, eh?"
"One question at a time, please, Lennox, if you have no objection," said
Winifred, coldly. "Not that any of yours strike me as very important;
we came up yesterday, and we are both perfectly well, and as you saw
everybody at home the day before, there is no reason for special anxiety
about their health that I can see."
Lennox gave a half-awkward little laugh. What he was laughing at he
could not have told, but he took it for granted that Winifred's speeches
had something clever in them, and the laugh helped to hide his shyness.
And he did not overhear Celia's reproachful tone as she whispered in her
sister's ear:
"Winifred, how can you? Poor old Lennox."
"We are enjoying ourselves very much indeed, Lennox, you will be glad to
hear," the younger girl said brightly. "I can scarcely believe we only
left them all yesterday. It is delightful to see a home face again."
The young man turned to her gratefully, his handsome, rather sunburnt
features lighting up with a very pleasant smile.
"Good little Celia," he said approvingly. "I don't believe there's much
fear of _your_ falling in love with London."
There was a little bitterness underlying the accent he put on the
pronoun. Winifred heard it, and was ready for battle on the spot.
"Celia is absurd," she exclaimed. "She is only talking that kind of way
to please you, Lennox. Why, the very first thing she said this morning
was: `Oh, Winifred, if only we were to be here three months instead of
three weeks!' You know it was, Celia."
"And no harm in it, that I can see, if she did say so," said Lennox,
flushing a little. "I think London's very good fun, myself, once in a
way."
He could pluck up a spirit now and then with Winifred, but I scarcely
think it profited him much.
"Very good fun!" she repeated. "You do express yourself so oddly,
Lennox. I am afraid our ideas on the subject of London are not more
likely to agree than on--"
But a touch on her arm stopped her. Celia was drawing her attention to
the fact that Mr Balderson was on the point of introducing a man to
her. An elderly, or at least middle-aged, man, whose name was known to
her as that of a distinguished-in-his-own-line writer.
"Mr Sunningdale--Miss Maryon."
The middle-aged man bowed somewhat absently. He dined out most nights
of his life; he saw only a young woman in black, whom he did not
remember ever having seen before, and he had been interrupted in a
conversation, at the other side of the room, with a woman he knew well,
whose conversation always amused him. These little _contretemps_ will
happen in the best-regulated houses. He was not an ill-tempered man,
and resigned himself to fate. But Winifred's face, on the contrary,
changed from steely coldness to sunshine. You would scarcely have
recognised her for the same girl, as she replied to some little
commonplace observation of the great man's with her most winning manner.
"Good eyes," thought he to himself, "I hope I shall not need to talk to
her much;" while Winifred, in a flutter of gratification, was saying to
herself how very kind it was of Mrs Balderson to have given her to Mr
Sunningdale, of all people, to take her in to dinner.
Lennox moved away with a little sigh, which Celia heard, though it was
all but inaudible. The girl's tender heart quivered for him, for she
was far from endorsing her elder sister's startling suggestion that
Lennox did not really "care for her."
"He is just devoted to her--quite devoted," thought Celia. "How unlucky
it seems! These things generally go that way, I suppose; at least, if
what one reads in novels is true. I hope that I shall never care for
any one, and that no one will care for me, for it would be sure to be
only on one side or the other."
She had no time to say anything consoling or sympathising to her
cousin--indeed, what could she have said?--for he was already told off
to his lady, the young Mrs Fancourt, whom Mr Balderson had alluded to;
and Celia herself was soon appropriated by the husband of the pretty
little woman in question, on whose arm she made her way down-stairs.
She had scarcely looked at him; she was thinking so much of Winifred and
Lennox, that she was quite indifferent about her own fate, and Mr
Fancourt, a good-natured man, whose rather limited ideas were entirely
absorbed by admiration for his wife, soon gave her up as decidedly dull
and heavy. Celia did not care--she had plenty to think of and plenty to
amuse herself with; she was rather glad when her monosyllables resulted
in Mr Fancourt's directing his attentions to the woman on his other
side. And one or two courses had been removed before a voice on her
right hand startled her into realising that she had a neighbour in that
quarter too.
"Miss Maryon, what are you thinking about so intently?" were the words
she heard. "I have been watching you for quite five minutes--you are in
a regular brown study."
Celia started, then smiled, and, finally, as she became satisfied that
Eric--for it was he--was not really shocked at her, could not repress a
little laugh.
"I am so sorry," she said. "Why didn't you speak to me before? I
didn't even know you were there."
"So I saw--at least, I hoped it was so--that there was no special motive
in the resolute way in which you turned a cold shoulder upon me, and--"
"No," said Celia, laughing again, "my shoulders are not at all cold,
thank you. This part of the room is delightfully out of any draught."
"And," continued Eric, "fixed your eyes upon the flowers in front of
you, and let your thoughts wander to--No! that I can't guess. I wonder
where they were wandering to."