When his daughters were leaving the room that evening after dinner,
Colonel St Quentin detained Madelene by an almost imperceptible gesture.
On her side Madelene glanced at Ermine, and by the slightest possible
turn of her eyelids recommended Ella to her care. None of this was lost
upon the young lady.
"Going to talk me over again," she said to herself as she followed
Ermine, "well, they'll have plenty of opportunities of doing so before
they've done with me, I'm afraid."
"Sit down for a minute or two, can't you, my dear?" said her father, as
Madelene stood beside him; "it fidgets me to see you standing. Surely
Ermine can look after that child for a few minutes."
"Oh, yes," Miss St Quentin replied, drawing a chair close to her
father's as she spoke.
"It's about her I want to speak of course," Colonel St Quentin went on.
"I have been thinking a great deal about her even in the hour or two
since she came. What are we to do with her, Madelene?" Madelene could
not help smiling a little at her father's overwhelmed tone. He who had
faced unmoved all the dangers and vicissitudes of a soldier's life, who
had not so many years ago borne with comparative equanimity the complete
loss of all the fortune he could really call his _own_, now seemed quite
unnerved by what was surely but a most natural, not to say agreeable
event, the return of his youngest child to her home.
"Oh, papa, don't worry about her," she said. "Things will settle
themselves, you'll see. It is only the awkwardness of her sudden
arrival that makes you feel uneasy about her. She _must_ be a nice
child--she couldn't be your daughter and poor Ellen's--" since the death
of her young stepmother, Miss St Quentin had half-unconsciously adopted
the habit of speaking of her by her Christian name--"without having a
true and good nature _au fond_."
"If she only were a child," said her father, "but it strikes me pretty
forcibly," he went on, smiling a little, though rather grimly, in spite
of himself, "that she is, and considers herself very decidedly a young
woman. She's very pretty too, and knows how to set herself off, that
little black frock with those fal-de-rals, rosettes--what do you call
'em?"
"Bows," corrected Madelene.
"Bows then--was very coquettishly managed."
"It was too old for her," said Miss St Quentin decidedly. "And--not
altogether good style for so young a girl as she really is. I fancy
Mrs Robertson has left her a good deal to herself, of late especially.
I think it was time she came to us, papa," she added. "Indeed I only
wish--" but she stopped.
"That she had never left us--but don't say it, Madelene. It's no use,
and--I don't know that she would have been alive but for Phillis's
care."
"Perhaps not," said Madelene. "Still, she is not like her mother--she
has not that transparent look." She did not say more, reserving to
herself her private opinion that Ella was and always had been, her
slight make notwithstanding, a most sturdy little person, for which
indeed there was every precedent, as young Mrs St Quentin had been the
only delicate member of her own family. "It may perhaps soften papa to
think her not strong," she said to herself.
"Like her mother," repeated Colonel St Quentin, "no, indeed. Ellen was
the simplest, most gentle creature. I don't suppose she ever gave two
thoughts to herself in any way--appearance or anything else. Yet--oh
Madelene, I do wish I had not married again!" he burst out with a sigh.
"Papa?" said Madelene, and her tone sounded almost as if she were a
little shocked. "I can't quite understand how you can say so, or feel
so, dear papa," she went on, more softly. "When you say yourself, how
perfectly sweet and gentle Ellen was--and not only sweet, sturdily true,
and high-principled, even for our sakes, Ermie's and mine, you should be
glad we had such an influence as hers for the six or seven years she
lived. I often think we don't know how much we owe her."
"Yes," said her father, "that is true, and I thank you for reminding me
of it. If her own child had had the same advantage all might have been
well. It has all gone wrong; the having to part with her for so long--
and then my losses. Of course but for that I would probably have had
her home sooner, but I could not bear you girls to have all the expenses
of her education, and the running about with her to mild climates if the
winter happened to be severe, as well as your poor old father on your
hands!"
"Papa--I did not know you had thought of it that way," said Madelene,
rather sadly. "It makes me feel as if we really have something to make
up for to poor little Ella."
"No--don't begin fancying that," he said quietly. "There were other
reasons, too--my health for a time; and then Phillis was able and
willing. I wish I hadn't said it. For of all things I dread your
spoiling Ella. And don't sacrifice yourselves to her for my sake in any
way, I entreat you, my dear child."
He looked up anxiously.
Madelene smiled as she replied, though in her heart she sighed. Colonel
St Quentin was not a selfish man, in intention even less so than in
deed. And _the_ sacrifice, a sacrifice of some years' duration already,
which his eldest daughter had made to him, he suspected as little as she
desired that he should.
"You needn't be afraid, papa," she said. "For her own sake it would be
_wrong_ to spoil her."
"But there's spoiling and spoiling," he went on. "In her place now, she
should go on studying for some time. You know, Madelene, she _should_
be prepared for contingencies. She may have to work for her living;
there is no saying."
"Only in case of both Ermine and me dying," said Madelene calmly. "And
that, to say the least, is not _probable_. Besides--we might easily
increase our life insurance, papa?"
"No, no, nothing of the kind," said Colonel St Quentin excitedly. "I
won't have you crippling your income any more--do you hear, Madelene?
If such an awful catastrophe happened as your both dying before me--
well, _surely_ it would kill me?" he said. "Though such things don't
kill! But there would be enough for me, as much as I have deserved,
after mismanaging my own money."
"It wasn't your fault, papa. _Everybody_ says so," his daughter
replied. "I do wish you wouldn't speak of it that way."
"But besides that," Colonel St Quentin went on, "there are other and
less terrible possibilities. If you married, Madelene, you and Ermine,
and of course that may happen any day, though I know you are both of you
rather, what the French call _difficile_--your husbands might not,
naturally enough--care about being saddled with a little
half-sister-in-law, even if he consented to the pensioning off of the
old man himself."
"Papa," said Madelene again, but this time her tone was really stern,
"you pain me indescribably, really indescribably, by speaking so.
Anything reasonable--_anything_, really for Ella's good, you may depend
on our carrying out. But you cannot expect us to sympathise with you
when you become, I must say, really morbid on this subject."
Colonel St Quentin was silent for a moment or two. He sat, shading his
face with his hand, so that Madelene could not judge as to his
expression.
"There is another view of the case, too," said Madelene. "Ella is very
attractive. Why should _she_ not marry? Surely there are some few men
in the world who don't look out for heiresses."
"Perhaps," said her father. "Well yes, I suppose we may allow that is a
possibility. Still--that brings in complications too--there must be no
sailing under false colours, and it would be so natural for her to be
credited with her share of your fortunes by strangers. No, Madelene,
till she is old enough to understand the whole--and I agree with you
that till she has come really to _know_ you and Ermine, it may be best
to avoid explanations--I think the less society she sees the better.
And one outlay I will not object to for her--let her have a few
thoroughly good lessons, the best you can get; it will give her
occupation, and at the same time fit her to be independent--should the
worst come to the worst so to speak?"
"Very well," said Madelene. "I agree with you, that it will be good for
her to have occupation--"
"And make her useful--practically useful, so far as you possibly can,"
interrupted her father again.
"Very well," she said again. "But, papa dear, as far as `the worst's
coming' in any sense except that Ermie and I might die--is to be taken
into account, do dismiss it for ever. We _couldn't_ marry men who would
look at things in the way you put it. You wouldn't wish us to marry
selfish brutes, papa?"
And Colonel St Quentin was forced to smile.
Then Madelene and he joined the two others in the drawing-room.
"Can we not have a little music?" said Colonel St Quentin, a minute or
two latter. "Ella, my dear, you play I suppose--or do you sing?"
His tone was kindlier again. Madelene's spirits rose. She thought her
talk with her father had done good. She went towards the piano and
opened it, glancing smilingly at her young sister.
Ella was seated on a low chair in a corner of the room--the light of a
lamp fell on her face and bright hair. It struck Madelene that she
looked paler than on her first arrival.
"Will you play something, Ella?" she said, "or are you perhaps too
tired?"
"I am not the least tired, thank you," the girl replied, "but I hate
playing. I never practise, on that account."
"Upon my word," muttered Colonel St Quentin.
"Do you sing then?" Ermine interposed, quickly. Ella hesitated.
"Your mother--mamma," said Madelene, using purposely the old name for
her stepmother, "mamma sang beautifully."
Ella turned towards her.
"Do you mean _my_ own mother?" she asked coldly.
"Of course," Madelene replied. "I said so." Colonel St Quentin moved
impatiently.
"Why can you not answer Ermine's question simply, Ella?" he said. "And
why do you speak to Madelene in that tone? It is, to say the least,
very questionable taste to accentuate in that way the fact that you and
your sisters had not the same mother. And--if no one has told you so
before, _I_ tell you now that your mother, my second wife, loved my two
elder daughters as if they had been her own, and her best wish for you
was that you might resemble them. Where you have got these vulgar
notions about half-sisters and so on--I see you are full of them--I
can't conceive. Is it from your Aunt Phillis?"
"No-o," Ella replied, a little startled apparently by her father's
vehemence. "I did not intend to say anything to annoy you," she added.
"But about the singing?" Ermine said again.
"Yes," said Ella, "I do sing a little. I like it better than playing.
I will try to sing if you--if papa wishes it."
Her tone was humble--almost too much so. There was a kind of obtrusive
dutifulness about it that was rather irritating. Still Madelene gave
her credit for having put some force on herself to keep down her temper.
"Shall I play a little in the first place?" Miss St Quentin said,
seating herself at the piano as she spoke.
Madelene played beautifully, though her style was very quiet. Ella rose
gently from her seat and came nearer her; she stood silent and
motionless till the last soft notes had died away.
"That is lovely, most lovely," she said, her whole face and manner
changing. "I should love the piano if I could play like that."
"You must love music, I suspect," Madelene replied. "Perhaps it is the
actual mechanical part of playing that has discouraged you."
"I have bad hands for it," said Ella, looking at her very little
fingers, as she spoke.
"You have peculiarly small ones," said her sister; "that is like mamma.
Still she managed to play very charmingly. Now what will you sing? I
dare say we have some of your songs."
Ella opened a book of songs and ran through its contents.
"Yes," she said, "there are one or two of mine here. Perhaps," she
added more timidly, "they are some that mamma sang, as Aunt Phillis
chose them. I will try this if you like," and she pointed to what had
been in fact one of Mrs St Quentin's special favourites.
It was a simple enough song, calling for no great execution, still,
though the observation may sound absurd, it was a song depending for its
beauty on the voice of the singer. And Ella's young voice suited it
perfectly. There was complete silence till she ended. Then a slight
sigh from her father made her glance at him.
"I remember that well," he said. "It is very sweet, very sweet. Thank
you, my dear."
"You have been very well taught it seems to me, Ella," said Madelene,
"and you have a charming voice. It is a pleasure to accompany you.
Still it would be well for you to accompany yourself sometimes--you must
keep up your playing too."
"She must have lessons in both," said Colonel St Quentin decidedly.
Ella pouted.
"I hate playing," she repeated.
"Don't be childish," said her father sharply. "The question is not of
your likes or dislikes. It is of what your capacities are. It seems to
me you have taste for music and it is only common-sense in your--for
everybody to cultivate their best powers."
"I like singing," Ella said. "But I don't see that I need be _forced_
to play if I don't want to go on with it. It isn't as if I were going
to be a governess."
"You would probably get to like it better after a while," said Ermine.
"No one could have had more difficulty with the mechanical part of it
than I, for though my hands are not small, my fingers are what is called
`tight.' But I am so glad now that I didn't give it up, for though I
can't play like Maddie, I can join her in duets."
"Much more than that," said Madelene. "But, Ella, I am sure you are
tired. Don't you think you had better go to bed? It is nearly ten. I
feel rather tired myself, somehow."
Ella rose, with again her air of obtrusive submissiveness. The truth
was she was desperately tired--and longing to go to bed, but she would
have thought it beneath her dignity to allow it.
"I am not at all sleepy, thank you," she said, "but of course I am quite
ready to go."
And she turned to bid her father good-night, with a little formal manner
that would have been amusing had it not, under the circumstances, been
very irritating.
"Good-night, papa. Come, Ermine, you are not to sit up any longer
either. We are all rather tired," said Madelene with a little
intentional peremptoriness which Ermine understood, though Ella glanced
at her with surprise.
"_I_ wouldn't be ordered about like that, at _her_ age," thought the
youngest sister.
Colonel St Quentin kissed his elder daughters in silence, but just as
Madelene, who was the last to leave the room, got to the door, she heard
him sigh, and despite her resolution of not talking things over any more
that night, she could not resist turning back for a moment.
"What is it, papa?" she said gently.
"Oh, nothing much, my dear," he replied. "I am only afraid we are going
to have trouble with that child. I don't understand her. You and
Ermine never were like that--yet she is lovable too if she would allow
herself to be so."
"Yes--I think so too, but, papa, don't think so much about her. She
will fall into her place."
"She should never have been out of it. It is that I am blaming myself
for," he replied.
Madelene hurried up stairs after her sisters. They were just at the
door of Ella's room--"the nursery"--when she overtook them. Ermine
opened it--the candles were already lighted and Stevens was arranging
some of Ella's belongings. It looked a pleasant and cosy room now, even
the slightly faded air of the furniture rather added to its comfort. No
one, save a most perversely prejudiced person could have found any
reason to complain of such quarters. But a very perversely prejudiced
person Ella was, it is to be feared, fast becoming.
She sat down in the capacious, old-fashioned armchair, covered with the
same faded chintz as that of the window-curtains, and looked about her.
"Well," she ejaculated, "I wonder what Aunt Phillis would say, if she
saw me here. Here in the old _nursery_! After eleven years' exile from
my rightful home, this is the best they can give me."
Her glance fell on the toilet-glass--it was a large, handsome one, which
Madelene had directed the housemaids to put in place of the smaller one
really belonging to the room. The candles were lighted, two on the
mantelpiece not far from where Ella was sitting, and two on the
dressing-table, and the girl's face and surroundings were clearly
reflected. She had loosened her hair and put on a little white jacket--
and as she caught sight of herself, her face in the glass, looking even
paler than in reality, her eyes sad and wistful, she wondered what her
own reflection reminded her of. Suddenly she started--
"I know," she thought, "I know what it is. I look exactly like that
picture of Cinderella in the _musee_ at Nantes that aunt and I went to
see last year. I didn't think I could ever look so pretty," and she
smiled with a little inward satisfaction. But the smile faded, and a
look of perplexity replaced it. The sight of the old room, once so
familiar, though since so entirely forgotten, was beginning to vaguely
awaken memories of her past childhood. And the association of the
pretty French picture helped to bring one special scene to her
recollection.
"Yes," she said to herself, "I do remember--Harvey was sitting on this
very chair, I do believe, with me on her knee, and there were picture
books strewed about. And she told me the story of Cinderella, that was
it, and there is a confused remembrance in my mind of thinking I was
like her, the third sister, though at that time, of course, I knew
nothing of half-sisters or stepmothers. Still, after all, I haven't a
stepmother--Madelene and Ermine had that, but they don't seem to have
suffered from it. I suppose my mother was a gentle, angelic sort of--
goose--" Here Ella, to do her justice, felt a little shocked at herself.
"I shouldn't say that exactly. But she must have given in to them in
everything--about sending me away after her death no doubt, for she
couldn't have _wished_ me to be expatriated Poor mamma. It would have
been better for me, no doubt, if I had had more of her nature, but as I
haven't--"
Then she sighed and glanced round the room again, while her mind
reverted to her sisters' spacious quarters.
"It is very queer," she thought, "that I should have remembered about
Harvey and the picture to-night. It was like a sort of vision of my
life and position--only--I fear there is no chance of the prince ever
finding his way to me. Madelene and Ermine wouldn't let him! I wonder
why they are not married themselves, for they are very good-looking.
But Madelene's manner is so forbidding, and most likely she wouldn't
allow Ermine to marry before her. Ermine is quite under her thumb. Ah,
well--it is rather melancholy to feel so lonely in my own home. I wish
I could have found poor old Harvey here again."
For Ella cherished roseate remembrances of her former nurse, whom, in
point of fact, she could only recollect as a name. Harvey had left Mrs
Robertson's service, happily for the child she had the care of, very few
months after Ella went to live with her aunt.
Miss St Quentin and Ermine, the former's protestations of fatigue
notwithstanding, had not been able to resist a few minutes' confidential
talk.
"You are not to stay, Ermie, you really mustn't," said Madelene. "I am
tired--it is not nonsense, and I want to be as bright and fresh as
possible to-morrow morning, for I foresee papa is going to be rather--
worried--about Ella. And it is so bad for him."
"It will be very stupid of him if he really takes it that way," said
Ermine. "He will say, of course, that it is for _our_ sakes, whereas
the only part of it we really--or, at least, principally--mind is _his_
feeling it painfully. And after all, it's _wrong_, really wrong to make
a trouble out of it--of having our own sister to live with us, where she
should always have been."
"That's the whole trouble in the matter," said Madelene. "If she had
always been here it would have been all right and natural."
"She's very pretty," said Ermine, after a moment or two's silence, "and
she has evidently a good deal of character."
"Witness her running away from her aunt's," interrupted Madelene.
"Well, after all, I confess to some sympathy with her there," Ermine
went on. "But I am afraid she has a very fiery temper, Maddie."
"Fiery, perhaps, but I hope not sulky or ungenerous," said Madelene.
"The difficulty will be to carry out papa's wishes without rousing her
ill-will. He is so determined that we are not to spoil her, and, in
some ways, no doubt, she _is_ spoilt already, and it will make it much
more difficult to--at all put her back, as it were. I quite agree with
papa about giving her plenty of occupation; she has lots of energy and I
fancy she is clever."
"She sings so sweetly," said Ermine musingly; "indeed, she is charming
in many ways, or might be, if she would. I could love her very much if
she would be nice and sensible. But there is truth in papa's view of
it--it is an awkward position. Madelene," she exclaimed suddenly, "an
idea has just struck me. Why shouldn't Ella marry Philip?"
"That child!" Madelene replied. "My dear Ermie--"
"She won't always be a child--indeed, she is not one now. Lots of girls
marry at eighteen--we ourselves haven't married young, but that is no
rule for Ella."
"No--I didn't mean that," said Madelene. "I don't quite know what I
meant. The person that Philip should marry has always seemed a sort of
myth, and to turn her into little Ella, somehow--"
"Struck you all of a heap," said Ermine laughing. "You are not given to
inspirations like me, Maddie. I have great faith in my inspirations.
Think this one over, now. Why shouldn't it do? It would perfectly
delight papa, it would put her in a position such as neither you nor I
expect for ourselves--and we would not be jealous, would we? I should
love to think mamma's child was safe and happy--and--"
"But the wealth and the position would not make her either safe or
happy," began Madelene--
"Of course not," Ermine interrupted with some impatience. "It is Philip
himself I am thinking the most of, you might know. Where could she have
a better husband?"
"Yes," said Madelene, though doubtfully still, "I know Philip is as good
and reliable as he can be. But--he is lazy, Ermie, and _laissez aller_
in some ways. I have always hoped he would marry some one who would
have great influence on him and bring out the best of him--some woman of
real character and energy."
"Philip wouldn't marry that kind of person," said Ermine, smiling. "I
can see her in my mind's eye--a sort of Gertrude Winchester, only
better-looking, I hope."
"I was thinking of no one in particular," said Madelene in a slightly
aggrieved tone.
"Or if he did," Ermine went on, "it would be the worst possible thing
for him. He would leave everything to her and let her manage his
affairs, and he would grow lazier than ever."
"Aunt Anna manages his affairs as it is," said Madelene.
"But in quite a different way. She keeps him as well as them up to the
mark, and she is always anxious to put more and more into his hands.
And I think a young wife would rouse him and make him feel his
responsibilities better than anything. And I am sure Ella is clever,
and energetic--her energy we have already seen some proof of. Oh, I do
wish they would fall in love with each other!"
"Yes," said Madelene, "it's just as well you have remembered to put that
unimportant detail in at the end. I thought you were leaving _it_ out
altogether."
"Maddie, you're rather cross, and you're not fair on me. You know I am
only too romantic in my ideas I think it is frightful for people to
marry if they don't care for each other. And Philip I am sure would not
do such a thing, and I don't think little Ella would."
Madelene sat thinking.
"It might be very nice," she said at last. "I think perhaps you're
right about Philip's character--only--Ermie, I'm afraid Ella has really
a bad temper," and she looked up anxiously.
"Not _bad_, quick and hot perhaps, but that's different, and she is in
many ways very young still."
"Well--" said Madelene, getting up as she spoke "we must go to bed,
Ermie. And--I certainly don't want anything of the kind just yet; papa
would be horrified. We must do as he wishes, and try to make Ella
please him. I shall have to see about masters for her. I wonder if
Vienot still comes over to Weevilscoombe?--Philip certainly can scarcely
help _admiring_ Ella."