Summer, not spring now. But the same garden and the same people in it--
three of them, that is to say, little chance though there might be at
the first glance, of our recognising them.
They were sitting together on the lawn--the two sisters Madelene and
Ermine and their cousin Philip. They were less changed than he
perhaps--Madelene especially, for she had always been tall, and at
fourteen had looked older than her years, whereas now at five-and-twenty
one could scarcely have believed her to be as much. She had fulfilled
the promise of her girlhood for she was an undoubtedly beautiful woman,
though to those who knew her but superficially, she might have seemed
wanting in animation, for she was quiet almost to coldness, thoughtful
and self-controlled, weighing well her words before she spoke and slow
in making up her mind to any decision.
Ermine, brown-haired and brown-eyed, brilliantly handsome, was more
popular than her elder sister. But rivalry or the shadow of it between
the two was unknown. Never were two sisters more completely at one,
more trusted and trusting friends.
"They are all in all to each other and to their father," was the
universal description of them. "Almost too much so indeed," some would
add. "It must be because they are so perfectly happy as they are that
neither of them is married."
For why the Misses St Quentin did _not_ marry was every year becoming
more and more of a puzzle to their friends and the world at large.
Sir Philip Cheynes got up from the comfortable garden chair on which he
had been lounging and leant against the elm under whose wide-spreading
branches the little party had established themselves. A table was
prepared for tea, Ermine had a book on her knee which she imagined
herself to be or to have been reading, Madelene was knitting.
"It will spoil it all," said Philip at length after a silence which had
lasted some moments, "spoil it all completely."
"What?" asked Madelene, looking up, though her fingers still went on
busily weaving the soft snowy fleece on her lap.
"Everything, of course. Our nice settled ways--this satisfactory sort
of life together, knowing each other so well that we never have
misunderstandings or upsets or--or bothers. Your father and my
grandmother are a model aunt and nephew to begin with, and as for us
three--why the world never before saw such a perfection of cousinship!
And into the midst of this delightful state of things, this pleasant
little society where each of us can pursue his or her special avocation
and--and perform his or her special duties--for we're not selfish
people, my dears--I'm not going to allow that--into the midst of it you
fling helter-skelter, a spoilt, ill-tempered, restless unmanageable
school-girl--eager for amusement and impatient of control--incapable of
understanding us or the things we care for. I never could have imagined
anything more undesirable--I--"
"Upon my word, Philip, I had no idea you could be so eloquent,"
interrupted Ermine. "But it is eloquence thrown away, unless you want
to prove that you yourself, if not we, are the very thing you have been
denying, without having been accused of it."
"Selfishness--eh?" said Philip.
"Of course, or something very like it."
Philip was silent. To judge by his next remark Ermine's reproof had not
touched him much.
"I don't know that, for some time to come at least," he said, "it will
matter much to me. I shall probably be very little here till Christmas
and then only for a few weeks."
His cousins looked up in some surprise.
"Indeed," they said. "Where are you going? Abroad again?"--"You will
miss all the hunting and shooting," Ermine added.
"I know that," said Philip. "I'm not going for pleasure. I am thinking
of taking up my quarters at Grimswell for a while. The house there is
vacant now, you know, and my grandmother thinks it a duty for me to live
on the spot and look after things a little."
Madelene's eyes lighted up.
"I am so glad," she said. "I quite agree with Aunt Anna."
"I thought you would," said Philip, "and so would never mind who. I
can't say I exactly see it myself--things are very fairly managed
there--but still. I'm the sort of fellow to make a martyr of myself to
duty, you know."
Ermine glanced at him as he stood there lazily leaning against the
tree--handsome, sunny and sweet-tempered, with a half mischievous, half
deprecating smile on his lips, and a kindly light in his long-shaped
dark eyes.
"You look like it," she said with good-natured contempt.
"But to return to our--" began Philip.
"Stop," cried Ermine, "you are not to say `muttons,' and I _feel_ you
are going to. It is so silly."
"Really," Philip remonstrated. "Maddie," and he turned to Miss St
Quentin appealingly, "don't you think she is too bad? Bullying me not
only for my taken-for-granted selfishness but for expressions offensive
to her ladyship's fastidious taste which she fancies I _might_ be going
to use."
"My dear Philip, you certainly have a great deal of energy--and--breath
to spare this hot afternoon," said Ermine, leaning back as if exhausted
on her seat, "I know you can talk--you've never given us any reason to
doubt it, but I don't think I ever heard you rattle on quite as
indefatigably as to-day. One can't get a word in."
"I want you both to be quiet and let me talk a little," said Madelene
breaking her way in. She scented the approach of one of the battles of
words in which, in spite of the "perfect understanding" which Philip
boasted of between his cousins and himself, he and Ermine sometimes
indulged and which were not always absolutely harmless in their results.
"As Philip was saying when you interrupted him, Ermie, let us go back
to our--subject. I mean this little sister of ours. I wish you would
not speak of her return, or think of it as you do, Philip."
"That's meant for me too, I wish you to observe, Phil," said Ermine.
"It's a case of evil communications, and Maddie is trembling for my good
manners to the third Miss St Quentin when she makes her appearance among
us."
"On the contrary, Ermine," said Madelene gravely, "if you are influenced
by Philip's way of speaking it is that the ground with you is ready for
the seed." Philip began to whistle softly--Ermine grew rather rosier
than she was before.
"If so--well--what then? Go on, Maddie," she said.
She got up from her seat and half threw herself on the grass beside
Madelene. But Madelene did not speak. "Of course," Ermine went on, "I
know it's all quite right, and not only right but inevitable. And
you're as good and wise as you can be, Maddie. It was only that this
morning I felt rather cross about it, and Philip and I couldn't help
showing each other what we felt. But go on, Maddie--say what you were
going to say."
"It is only the old thing," said Madelene. "I think, and I shall always
think what I did at the time, though I was only a child then, that it
was a mistake to send Ella away to be brought up out of her own home and
separated from her nearest relations. Of course it was not anticipated
that the separation would be so long and complete a one as it has turned
out--at least I _suppose_ not."
"I don't know why it need have been so," said Ermine, "only every time
there has been anything said of her coming to us her aunt has put
difficulties in the way."
"There seemed sense in what she said," Madelene replied; "it was not
much use Ella's coming here, just to get unsettled and her lessons
interrupted, for a short visit. And then, of course, papa's long
illness was another reason."
"And Mrs Robertson's own wishes--the strongest reason of all," added
Ermine. "She may be a kind and good enough woman, but I shall always
say she is very selfish. Keeping the child entirely to herself all
these years, and now when she suddenly takes it into her head to marry
again in this extraordinary way--she must be as old as the hills--poor
Ella goes to the wall!"
"That's probably the gentleman's doing," said Philip.
"Well then she shouldn't marry a man who would do so," said Ermine.
"I quite agree with you," he replied drily, "but we all know there's no
fool like an old fool."
"It is hard upon Ella, with whomever the fault lies--that is what I've
been trying to get to all this time," said Madelene. "If she had always
looked upon this as her home, and felt that we were really her sisters,
she would have grown up to understand certain things gradually, which,
now when the time comes that she must know them, will fall upon her as a
shock."
"You mean about our money and this place?" asked Ermine.
"Of course--and about papa's being, though I _hate_ saying it, in
reality a poor man."
"Do you think there is any need for her to know anything about it for
some time to come?" asked Philip gently, completely casting aside the
bantering tone in which he had hitherto spoken.
Madelene looked up eagerly.
"Oh, do you think so, Philip?" she said. "I am so glad. It is what I
have been thinking, but I know papa respects your opinion and it will
strengthen what I have said to him."
"Decidedly," said Philip. "It seems to me it would be almost--brutal--I
am not applying the word to any person, but to the situation, as it
were--to meet the poor child, already sore probably at having been
turned out of the only home she can really remember, with the
announcement that the new one she is coming to is only hers on
sufferance, and that her future is, to say the least, an uncertain one."
"It would not be so for another day if we had more in our power," said
Madelene hotly.
"No, I know that--know it and understand it. But--a child of--how much?
fifteen, sixteen?"
"Seventeen, seventeen and a quarter."
"Well, even of seventeen and a quarter would have the haziest notions
about law and legal obligations. No, gain her love and confidence
first, by all means."
"It is papa," said Madelene rather disconsolately. "The best of men
are, at times I suppose, a little unreasonable. Though he has given up
the idea of a formal explanation to poor little Ella, still I am afraid
he will wish us to be more--I don't know what to call it, less treating
her just like ourselves, than Ermie and I would wish," and she looked up
appealingly, her blue eyes quite pathetic in their expression.
"And she may misunderstand it--us," added Ermine.
"But it is right, necessary to a certain extent that she should _not_ be
placed in exactly the same position that she would have as your very own
sister," said Philip firmly. "People should think of these awkward
complications before they make second marriages, but once awkward
positions do exist, it's no good pretending they don't. However, I
think you are exaggerating matters, Maddie; unnecessarily anticipating
an evil day which may, _will_, I feel sure, never come. Before this
much-to-be-pitied young lady has to learn that she is not an heiress
like her sisters, she may have learnt to love and trust those sisters as
they deserve, and love casteth out other ugly things as well as fear."
"Thank you, dear Philip," said Miss St Quentin.
"And--grand discovery!" he exclaimed. "She's not `out'. You can easily
treat her more like a child at first, till she has got to know you. She
cannot have been accustomed to much dissipation under the roof of the
worthy Mrs Robertson."
"No, none at all I fancy. But she has had her own way in everything
there was to have it in I feel sure," said Madelene. "And if we begin
by snubbing her--"
"Snubbing her, not a bit of it. It will make her feel herself of all
the more importance if you will tell her Uncle Marcus thinks it better
for her not to come out till she's eighteen--neither of you came out
till then?"
"_I_ was nineteen," said Ermine; "you know we were abroad all the year
before. I thought it very hard then, but now I'm very glad. It makes
me seem a year at least younger than I am," she added naively.
"It's only staving off, after all, I'm afraid," said Madelene. "When
she _is_ eighteen or even nineteen, and has to come out, and wonders why
papa won't let her have everything the same as us and--"
"Oh, Maddie, don't fuss so," said Ermine.
"Twenty things may happen before then to smooth the way."
"I hope so," said Miss St Quentin. But her tone was depressed.
"Scold her, Philip, do," said Ermine. "If she worries herself so about
Ella it will make me dislike the child before I see her, and that won't
mend matters."
"When does she come?" Sir Philip asked.
"Next month," Madelene replied.
"Do you think she feels it very much--the leaving her aunt, and coming
among strangers as it were?" he asked.
"I don't know. She cannot but be fond of her aunt, but she has said
distinctly that she would not wish to go on living with her and her new
husband. And of course it is time and more than time for her to come to
us if this is ever to be her home. And though Mrs Robertson is
marrying a wealthy man, she loses all she had as a widow, and certainly
we should not have liked _our sister_ to be dependent on a stranger."
"You could have given Mrs Robertson a regular allowance for her, if
that had been the only difficulty. But if this Mr what's his name?"
"Burton," said Ermine.
"If that Burton fellow is rich he would possibly have disliked any
arrangement of that kind," said Philip.
"He evidently wants to get rid of her," said Madelene, smiling a little.
"Some things in Mrs Robertson's letters make me imagine that the third
Miss St Quentin has a will of her own, and a decided way of showing it.
She speaks of `dear Ella's having a high spirit, and that Mr Burton was
not accustomed to young people.'"
"And Ella called him `old Burton' in a letter to papa," added Ermine.
"We told papa she must have left out the `Mr', but for my part, I don't
believe she did. I think that expression has made me more inclined to
like her than anything else," said Ermine, calmly.
"Ermine!" said Madelene.
But Philip turned to her with another question.
"Are you sure," he said, "that Mrs Robertson may not already have
explained things to Ella? If so, it would be better to know it."
"I am sure she can't have told her what she doesn't know herself," said
Madelene. "Papa's losses made no practical difference to her; she has
always received anything she wanted for Ella--to do her justice she has
never been the least grasping--from us, but in his name just as before.
We begged him to let it be so, and it has never come to much."
"Then do you think she has brought the child up very simply?" asked
Philip.
"No--that is to say, I fancy she has been indulged a good deal as to her
personal wishes. Mrs Robertson was comfortably off, though she had not
a large house. I think all she has ever taken from papa or us has been
literally spent on little Miss Ella herself. And they went to the South
of France two winters, you know."
Philip did not speak for a minute or two.