POLLYOOLY IS INTRODUCED TO THE COUNTY
He had never done it before, but to-day, to the surprise of his butler,
the duke accompanied his supposed daughter up the stairs to Lady Marion
Ricksborough's suite of rooms. His face was flushed; and he stumbled
twice. His mind was full of the strange behaviour of the serpentine
dachshund and the other dogs.
When they had risen above the range of hearing of the butler and
footmen in the hall, he said somewhat breathlessly:
"I was never so flabbergasted in my life. Fancy dogs taking to you
like that! When I saw Hildegarde, who is one of the most particular
dogs I ever came across, dancing round you like that, you could have
knocked me down with a feather."
"Yes: it is funny," said Pollyooly; and she smiled.
"But what a blessing it is!" the duke went on quickly. "It will be all
over the place that the dogs recognised you; and after that it's no
good whatever any one's saying that you're not Marion. It settles
it--absolutely."
"I suppose it does," said Pollyooly calmly.
She had no intention in the world of telling him that the dogs had the
best of reasons for recognising her, in that they actually had known
her before. It did not trouble her at all to leave him in error. It
suited his purpose so well that no one should know that she had ever
been at the court before.
The suite of rooms when Pollyooly had last occupied it, had consisted
of her bedroom and school-room, and the bedroom and the sitting-room of
the governess. To these the duke had added a nursery bedroom for the
Lump and a bedroom for his nurse.
In the schoolroom they found Miss Belthorp awaiting them; and the duke
presented her to Pollyooly. Then with the air of an operating
Camorrist he showed Pollyooly which was her bedroom by the crafty
device of pretending to make sure that her sheets had been aired.
Pollyooly at once demanded that the Lump should also sleep in it. It
seemed a very natural desire on the part of a little girl; and, much to
the disgust of Emily Gibbs, who wished to have him to herself as much
as possible, the duke ordered a cot to be brought into it.
Then with the same Machiavellian air, he said to Miss Belthorp:
"Lady Marion has taken a strong fancy to this little boy I'm adopting.
I hope it will last."
"It's sure to, your Grace. He's such a dear little boy," said Miss
Belthorp with conviction, for she, too, had fallen a victim to the
silent charm of the Lump.
Having done his best to secure the first success of his plan, the duke
left them. Pollyooly made haste to have their trunk unpacked; and
then, having put on a linen frock, while Emily Gibbs put one on the
Lump, she took him out into the gardens. Miss Belthorp accompanied
them; and it seemed to Pollyooly that she was uncommonly like Miss
Marlow, Lady Marion's earlier governess, whom she had found at the
court during her last stay there. She realised very soon that it was
really unnecessary to listen to her conversation; the chance of her
saying anything of any real interest being so very small.
From the windows of the smoking-room the duke saw the two children
crossing the terrace, accompanied by a large proportion of the dogs of
the establishment. In his glowing self-satisfaction with the success
of the first part of his plan, he found that they greatly improved the
appearance of the gardens.
The Lump approved greatly of the gardens; but he was a little doubtful
about the dogs, and kept a firm hold of Pollyooly's skirts. It was
nearly ten minutes before, encouraged by the very friendly way in which
Pollyooly treated them, he really unbent. He showed a truly marvellous
instinct for discovering which dog would let him pull his tail, and
which would not.
Pollyooly thought it wise to relax a little from her usual exact
mothering of him. She had him sit by her at tea of course; but she let
Emily Gibbs give him his bath, and contented herself with watching the
operation. She was pleased that the Lump did not accept the change
without objection. He pointed to her and said quite severely:
"Pollyooly."
"It's all right, Roger dear," she said in a soothing tone. Then
turning to Emily Gibbs, she added: "I wonder what he means?"
"I don't know, your ladyship. But he is the dearest little boy I ever
see!" said Emily Gibbs with enthusiasm. "I never knew as how there was
such a little boy!" and she kissed him.
Pollyooly frowned slightly. These transports seemed to her misplaced.
They were an invasion of her proprietary rights in him. But she did
not frown long: after all, the fonder Emily Gibbs was of him the more
carefully she would watch over him.
At supper in the servants' hall Emily Gibbs underwent a severe
cross-examination. The coming of the Lump to the court had indeed set
tongues wagging; and Rawlings, since he had failed to find the duke
quite satisfactory, was doing nothing to check it. The chief housemaid
and the second cook (the _chef_ was a Frenchman with a strong Italian
accent which marked also his cooking) seemed to have made up their
minds that Emily Gibbs must necessarily have been made the repository
of the secret of the Lump's origin; and they spared no effort to
extract that secret from her. Emily Gibbs had the most uncomfortable
supper of her life: her fellow-servants, naturally, resented bitterly
the fact that she had met the Lump for the first time that very day at
Waterloo station. They wanted pegs on which to hang romance; and she
did not provide them.
At last the second cook said:
"Well: it's as plain as a pikestaff to me that that little boy is the
son of a young lady as his grace was in love with before he ever met
the duchess. And she married somebody else; and they're both dead; and
his grace 'as adopted their little boy for old sake's sake."
The first housemaid and the second housemaid accepted this theory
warmly; and then Emily Gibbs said:
"And I expect she had red hair."
The basic facts of the affair having been thus comfortably settled, the
talk turned on the identity of the lady, and then on the colour of her
hair. Rawlings was of the opinion that the redness of the Lump's hair
was evidence that either his father or his mother had been a relation
of the duke, since there was so much red hair in the Osterley family.
His suggestion met with general approval.
"It certainly makes his adopting him more natural-like," said the
second housemaid.
Pollyooly was awake the next morning before any one else at the court;
and soon after six she rose. She dressed the Lump, gave him biscuits,
ate some herself; and accompanied by all the loose dogs in the house,
they went out into the gardens through one of the long windows of the
blue drawing-room. She led the Lump round to the stables and there
unloosed several more dogs, so that they went about the world well
attended, and spent two very pleasant hours before their exigent
appetites demanded their return to breakfast.
The duke saw them returning from his dressing-room; and once more he
was of the opinion that they improved the appearance of the gardens.
As it was Lady Marion's first day at the court after so many months,
Miss Belthorp decided that it should be a holiday--a holiday for
Pollyooly, that is; the Lump did not appear to be yet ripe to learn
even the alphabet.
After breakfast therefore they went out again; and Miss Belthorp went
with them. This was of no advantage to them, for the excursion became
a formal walk, much less attractive than their erratic wanderings when
alone. Also it was a walk along paths; there were no incursions into
the heart of the woods they went through, nor did they go in a single
meadow and roll in the grass with the dogs. Also, since the hour was
undeniably shining, she thought it well to improve it by imparting a
little instruction in botany. Pollyooly found it quite uninteresting;
she did not care at all whether a flower had four stems or fourteen.
Stamens seemed to her childish mind quite unimportant; the colour and
fragrance of the flower seemed to her the only important things.
As they came into the court Miss Belthorp chanced to say:
"I do hope that you haven't been neglecting your piano, Marion. I
always think that music is so important in the formation of character."
Pollyooly had not been neglecting her piano, because she had no piano
to neglect. The piano played no part in any of the seven standards she
had passed at Muttle Deeping school; and she did not know one note from
another. She was taken aback by the suggestion that she was expected
to show herself accomplished in music. Evidently she must consult the
duke.
She and the Lump and Miss Belthorp lunched with him, or rather they
dined and he lunched. After it, having seen the Lump safely on his way
upstairs with Miss Belthorp, Pollyooly followed the duke into the
smoking-room.
"Please, your Grace: Miss Belthorp seems to expect me to know how to
play the piano; and I don't know how to at all," she said gravely.
"The deuce you don't!" said the duke. "Here's another thing I never
thought of."
"I don't _mind_ learning the piano," said Pollyooly with a sigh.
"Yes; but if you showed that you didn't know anything about it, it
would look very suspicious indeed," said the duke; and he frowned
deeply as he cudgelled his brains for a way out of this unexpected
difficulty.
"I expect it would," said Pollyooly.
He frowned on, fidgeting; then he said with decision:
"Well, the only thing to do is to stop it altogether."
"That would be quite safe," said Pollyooly brightening.
"All right: I'll see to it," said the duke.
Pollyooly left him with her heart at ease.
He frowned over the matter for some time, for it did not seem to him to
be quite in the natural order of things that a duke should actually
refuse to allow his daughter to learn the piano. But he could find no
other way of concealing Pollyooly's damning ignorance of the art of
music.
At last therefore he sent for Miss Belthorp and said:
"I--er--have decided that--er--Poll--er--Lady Marion is not to learn
the piano."
"Not learn the piano?" said Miss Belthorp in the tone of one afflicted
with the last amazement.
"I--er--have never observed the--er--slightest aptitude in her for it,"
said the duke with perfect truthfulness.
Miss Belthorp blinked. She prided herself on the brilliancy with which
she played the piano--especially the scherzo passages.
"But--b--but she looks such an intelligent child," she said.
"Yes. That's why," said the duke happily.
Miss Belthorp blinked again; then in a somewhat helpless tone she said:
"Oh, very well, your Grace."
When the door closed behind her, the duke smiled happily and rubbed his
hands together.
Pollyooly was expecting to spend a quiet afternoon in the gardens and
home wood with the Lump and the dogs and perhaps Miss Belthorp. She
hoped that Miss Belthorp would have some more important way of spending
her time. Of Emily Gibbs she could easily dispose, since already she
was giving her orders with a quiet firmness there was no gainsaying.
Indeed, Emily Gibbs had been far too well brought up not to receive
orders from what she called "A Lady of Title," with humble gratitude,
and execute them with vigour and despatch; and already she was hard at
work making linen overalls for the Lump. But at half-past three, just
as Miss Belthorp had left them to write letters and they had started
for the home wood, the obedient Emily came hurrying along the garden to
say that the duke wished Pollyooly to put on her prettiest clothes and
come with him to pay a call.
Pollyooly frowned deeply at the thought that had not Miss Belthorp
lingered with them, they would by now have been safely hidden in some
recess of the wood. For the moment she almost wished that the Lump
were not so attractive. But very soon she was serene again. After all
it was a pleasant thing to be prettily dressed and ride in a motor car;
and there was always the exciting anticipation that the cakes at tea
would not only be delicious but quite uncommon.
She dressed therefore in a complete serenity and gave Emily Gibbs
careful and exact instructions about the care of the Lump during her
absence. Then a footman came up to say that the car was ready; and she
went down the stairs comfortably assured that she was looking her
prettiest. She saw that the duke looked pleased at the sight of her;
his face grew quite bright.
He put her into the tonneau of the car and stepped in after her. It
was not the first time they had been alone together, but for the moment
she felt somewhat oppressed. But he at once began to instruct her in
the manners and deportment in vogue at garden parties; and presently
she was talking to him with the most amiable affability.
Three-quarters of an hour's drive brought them to Ilkeston Towers,
their destination; and when Pollyooly and the duke, coming on to the
lawn, which was set with groups of brightly dressed, shrilly chattering
people, were loudly announced by a strong-lunged butler, there was a
sudden hush and a general, quickly checked movement toward them. Then
Lady Ilkeston greeted them; and the duke said to her in a somewhat loud
voice:
"It's rather dull going about alone, so I brought Marion with me."
"But how nice!" said Lady Ilkeston; and she welcomed Pollyooly warmly.
There was by no means an immediate rush to make Pollyooly's
acquaintance; but for half an hour Lady Ilkeston found herself busy
introducing to her people who were firmly resolved to make her
acquaintance, since she was, so to speak, the sub-heroine of the most
interesting local scandal.
The duke had not looked for anything of the kind; and he was on
tenterhooks; he had expected that as a child she would be left
peacefully in the background. He found her the central figure of the
gathering; and he was in the liveliest dread lest she should fail to
come through the ordeal with her secret safe.
It never for a moment occurred to Pollyooly that her secret was in any
danger. Naturally therefore she wore an air of perfect ease; and
answered the innumerable questions about her fondness for different
things, the country, dolls, flowers and so forth with serene
simplicity. He was somewhat surprised by her air (it was not
accentuated, or even obvious) of faintly haughty aloofness. He had a
feeling that it was exactly the right air for a daughter of a duke. He
wondered how it had come to her, whether the Honourable John Ruffin was
right in his red Deeping theory. He did not know his experienced
cousin had often laid before Pollyooly the advantage of giving herself
airs, and she had not been slow to see it. He grew easier in mind.
Lady Ilkeston was the person really pleased. She had not expected to
have any really interesting central figure at her afternoon; and she
was all the more grateful at getting one. Her gratitude took the
practical form of instructing Sir Miles Walpole, an amiable young man
of twenty-four, very fond of children, to take Pollyooly to the long
table under the cedars, and give her a very nice tea indeed. The ices
and the cakes, which surpassed her hopes and expectation, to no small
degree compensated Pollyooly for the loss of that untrammelled ramble
through the home wood. Also she enjoyed the society of Sir Miles
Walpole; she was at once thoroughly at home with him.
Soon after tea the duke took her away. When the car had started, he
said triumphantly:
"Well, we came through that all right. Not a soul spotted that you
weren't Marion."
"But how could they?" said Pollyooly in a tone of lively surprise.
"Oh, I was a bit afraid at first," said the duke.
"I wasn't," said Pollyooly simply.
He took off his hat, let the rushing air cool his brow, and smiled
broadly at the horizon. It seemed to him that if Pollyooly were the
central figure in yet another gathering, or two, the duchess would not
be long in hearing that he had with uncommon success replaced his lost
daughter.