The summer was gone; autumn itself was almost giving place to winter.
Ella St Quentin looked out of the window one morning as she finished
dressing, and shivered as she saw the grass all silvered over, faintly
gleaming in the cold thin sunshine.
"How freezing it seems!" she said to herself. "I hate winter,
especially in the country. I wish--if it weren't for that old wretch I
really think I would write to auntie and ask her to invite me for a week
or two's visit. It can't be so cold, and certainly not so dull, at Bath
as here. I do think I deserve a little fun--if it were even the chance
of some shopping--after these last three or four months. To think how
I've practised and bored at French and German--not that I dislike my
lessons after all," and she smiled a little at the consciousness that
_had_ she done so it would indeed have been a case of "twenty not making
him drink."
"These teachers are really very good ones, and I don't dislike reading
English with Ermine, either. If she were a teacher and not my sister, I
could really get very good friends with her. But all the same--_what_ a
different life it is from what I expected. If auntie could see me in
this horrid rough frock that makes me look as if I had no waist at all,"
and Ella impatiently tugged at the jacket of the very substantial sailor
serge which Madelene had ordered for the cold weather, "and in this poky
room."
For Ella was still "in the nursery." She was not to inhabit her
permanent room till the winter was over, for the chimney had been found
to smoke, and there was a leakage from the roof which had left the wall
damp. And Ella had caught a slight cold, thanks to her thin boots,
which had alarmed her father quite unreasonably. So the decree had gone
forth that in her present cosy quarters she was to remain till the
milder weather returned, which gave her the delight of another
grievance.
As she stood gazing out at the wintry landscape which to less prejudiced
eyes would have been full of its own beauty, the prayers bell rang.
Ella started--her unpunctuality had been a frequent cause of annoyance
for several weeks after her arrival at Coombesthorpe, but, perverse as
she was, the girl was neither so stupid nor so small-minded as to
persist in opposition when she distinctly saw that she was in the wrong.
So this short-coming had to a great extent been mastered.
She tugged at her belt, gave a parting pat to her hair, saying to
herself as she caught sight of her reflection in the glass, "It
certainly takes much less time to dress as I do now than in the old
days," and flew along the passages and down stairs just in time to avoid
a collision with Mr Barnes, as, heading his underlings, he politely
followed the long file of women-servants into the library, where Colonel
St Quentin always read prayers.
Ella took her place by the window; outside, a cheery red-breasted robin
was hopping about on the gravel, and the sunshine, which was gathering
strength, fell in a bright ray just where the little fellow stood. It
is to be feared that much more of her attention was given to the bird
than to her father's voice.
"What a little duck he is," she exclaimed, as soon as prayers were over.
"See, Madelene--" and as her elder sister came forward with ready
response, Ella's face lighted up with pleasure. The whole world seemed
brighter to her; so impressionable and variable was she.
"Yes," said Miss St Quentin, "he is a dear. We can hardly help fancying
it is always the same robin. For ever since Ermine and I were quite
little there is one to be seen every winter on this terrace. It is here
we have the birds' Christmas tree, Ella--one of those over there. It is
so pretty to see them. There are so many nice things in the country in
winter--I really do not know sometimes which I like the best--summer or
winter."
Ella felt a little pang of self-reproach--she remembered how five
minutes before she had been grumbling up in her own room.
"Madelene must be much nicer and better than I am in some ways," she
thought to herself; "perhaps I would have been like her if they had kept
me with them, or had me back some years ago," and the reflection
hardened her again, just as the softer thought was about to blossom.
At that moment Colonel St Quentin's voice was heard from the adjoining
dining-room.
"Breakfast is ready and the letters have come," he said.
"Nothing for me?" said Ermine; "what are yours, Maddie?"
"One from Flora at Cannes," said Miss St Quentin, "two or three answers
to the advertisement for a laundry-maid, and--oh, here's something more
interesting. The Belvoirs are giving a dance--on the 20th. Here's the
card," and she tossed it over to Ermine, "and there's a note from Mrs
Belvoir, too, `to make sure of us,' she says."
"Colonel and the Misses St Quentin," murmured Ermine, "that means--I
suppose--" and she looked up hesitatingly at Madelene.
"Oh," said Madelene, "it means what you choose, in the country. It
isn't like London, where one has to calculate the inches of standing and
breathing space for each guest."
"It means of course," said her father, "such of the Misses St Quentin as
are--`_out_.'" He pronounced the last word with a good deal of
emphasis, then turned to his coffee and his own letters as if the
question were settled.
Ella had not lost a word. A flush of colour had come to her cheeks and
a brightness to her eyes on first hearing her sister's announcement.
"They _can't_ mean not to take me," she said to herself. "Just at
Christmas too--why, girls who aren't a bit out go to Christmas dances."
And Madelene, for her part, was wishing more devoutly than she had ever
wished concerning a thing of the kind in her life, that she had not been
so impulsive as to mention the invitation in her younger sister's
hearing.
"I only long for her to go," she said to Ermine when they were alone.
"I'd give anything if papa would let her. And I don't see that it could
do any harm--a Christmas dance is different, and really she has been
good about her lessons, especially about her practising. Three wouldn't
be too many, to such old friends."
"Not to go to the ball," Ermine replied. "But I fancy they will want us
to stay for a day or two. You see Mrs Belvoir says she will come over
to make further arrangements. And three would be too many to go to
stay. But Maddie, I--"
"No. I know what you're going to say, and you're not to say it,"
Madelene interrupted. "You are not to be the one to stay at home.
You're ever so much younger than I--"
"One year, eleven months and a day," said Ermine. "Twenty years--a
hundred would come nearer it," said Madelene. "I was born old and
circumstances have not rejuvenated me. No--if we can get papa to agree
to let Ella go, _I_ shall stay at home. It stands to reason. I am
getting to an age when I should not be expected to go on dancing."
"Ah, well--we needn't quarrel about it yet," said Ermine lightly. "I am
only afraid the occasion will not arise, and that papa will be
inexorable. There was something far from propitious in the accent he
put on that `out' this morning."
She was right; inexorable he proved. Yet the sisters went about it
diplomatically enough. They said very little at first, and were careful
not to fret the thing into a sore from the start, as is so often done,
and for a day or two they congratulated themselves that their gently
suggested arguments had carried weight. But when the following week
Mrs Belvoir wrote to say she was driving over to settle about the day
they would come, and how many nights they would stay, and to discuss the
whole programme--then the bolt fell.
"Ella go? No, most certainly not," said Colonel St Quentin. "I never
thought of such a thing. I hope you haven't been putting anything of
the kind into her head?"
"We have not mentioned it to her since the morning when the first note
came," said Madelene. "That morning unluckily I spoke of it before
her."
"Why should you say `unluckily'? It is absurd to treat her in that
way," said her father. "There should be and there must be no question
raised, in the faintest way even, of anything of the kind for her. She
is not yet eighteen--why, Ermine never went out at all till she was
nineteen--"
"That was unusual however papa," Miss St Quentin ventured to say.
"Well, what can be more unusual than Ella's case? _It_ calls for
unusual treatment certainly. She has been most injudiciously brought
up, I see it more and more clearly. A life of dependence--dependence on
her own exertions not improbably--"
"Oh, papa," murmured Madelene reproachfully--"for which she is about as
fit as--as that kitten of yours," contemptuously indicating Ermine's
Persian cat, who had long left all kittenishness behind it, and was
sleeping on the hearth-rug in calm placidity.
"Tartuffe is _scarcely_ a kitten now, papa," Ermine could not resist
interrupting.
"Ermine!" said Madelene in a tone of remonstrance.
"And," pursued Colonel St Quentin unmoved, "just as the silly child is
settling down a little, you would go and spoil it all by stuffing her
head with waltzing and admiration. No, no--I am surprised at you,
Madelene, I really am. And if there were no other objection, there's
her health. You are afraid of her catching cold again if she changes
her bedroom, and yet you would propose taking her off to a strange
house, unaired beds possibly, and exposing her to the alternate heat and
chills of a ball-room, and--"
Colonel St Quentin was working himself up to thorough unreasonableness.
"We won't say any more about it, papa," said Madelene, decidedly. "We
have said _nothing_ to Ella, so you really needn't be vexed about it."
She refrained from adding, as she might have done, that the scare about
Ella's health had entirely originated with himself, and she was wise in
so doing. What human being, man, woman or child, was ever rendered more
amenable to reason by being "put in the wrong?"
"I mind it principally, of course," she said to Ermine, "because it
_will_ seem to her that it is our doing--negatively at least. She will
think that if we had begged papa to let her go he would have given in.
And I haven't, in the faintest degree, let her think that we disagree
with him about it. It would alienate her still more from him, and,
besides, it would be disloyal to papa."
"And, besides," added Ermine, "I hardly like to say so, but I doubt if
Ella would believe our protestations. There is an element of
suspiciousness in her character, which I don't at all like in so young a
person, and quite lately she has seemed to me to be wrapping herself up
in it more and more."
"Yes, she has been very cold and stand-off to us lately," Madelene
agreed, "ever since that unlucky morning when I blurted out about the
Belvoirs' dance."
"She would have had to hear about it sooner or later," said Ermine. "I
don't see that it would have made much difference."
"We might have managed it more diplomatically. We might have told her
we were going away for a day or two, and mentioned that there was to be
a dance, incidentally," said Miss St Quentin.
Ermine looked up at her, half amused, half distressed.
"My dear Maddie," she said. "I do think you've got Ella on the brain.
You mustn't give yourself such a lot of trouble about her--beating about
the bush and worrying lest she should be put out. It will become a kind
of slavery. I almost feel inclined to speak to papa about it from
_your_ point of view."
"No, no, you must not, Ermie," her sister replied. "Papa is already
irritated on the subject. It will come right in time, I dare say. I
wish Aunt Anna were at home. She might have had some influence with
papa about this dance. I do think he is making a mistake--I must tell
Melanie," she went on, "that she need not do any more about the frock we
were planning for Ella."
"It's half made," said Ermine.
"Well, she must turn it into a dinner-dress. But there is no need for
Ella to know about it at present. It would only tantalise her, poor
little thing. When will Aunt Anna be back, Ermine? You heard from her
last."
"A few days before Christmas--that was all she said," Ermine replied,
"Philip will be coming about the same time. I wonder what papa wants us
to do at Christmas, Maddie. Shall we go to Cheynesacre, do you think,
or will they come to us?"
"I don't know. If papa remains in his present mood, I should say
neither," Miss St Quentin replied with some asperity. "He would
probably dislike the idea of Ella's going there with us, and a party
here would be as bad. And if he proposed such a thing as our going
without her--well--I should certainly refuse. One must make a stand
somewhere. How can he expect the child to get to love us?"
"Madelene is making quite a personal grievance of it," thought Ermine.
"I am much more concerned for her than for Ella,"--"It is very tiresome
that this should have happened just now," she said aloud. "For one
thing, I did so want Philip to see everything harmonious when he came
back."
"So did I," Madelene replied. "That is just another vexation."
The subject of the Manor dance was never named in Ella's presence, but
she was quick enough to see that it was in contemplation for her
sisters.
"Will they really go so far as to leave me all alone?" she said to
herself. "It will be a scandal if they do. If I am to be distinctly
treated in this way, ignored as if I were about seven years old--they
should at least be consistent and get a governess to keep me company
when they go off and leave me alone. As if either of _them_ was ever
treated so at my age! What can Madelene want to go to a dance for--I am
sure I wouldn't if I were as old as she--and really, sometimes lately
since she has had this cross fit, she has looked thirty."
It was almost true. Poor Madelene's real distress of mind at the
failure of all her hopes with regard to her half-sister, had preyed upon
her. She was one of those much-to-be-pitied people who have but little
spontaneous power of expressing their deeper feelings; indeed the more
she felt the less she showed it, though her very silence and apparent
indifference told their own tale to those who knew her well. Ermine had
good reason for feeling at the present juncture much more concern for
Madelene than for Ella.
A week or two passed, uncomfortably enough. The weather, as in England
is often the case, seemed to aggravate the dreary uneasiness of the
mental atmosphere at Coombesthorpe. It rained--a steady, pitiless
winter rain--almost incessantly for a week. There was no possibility of
walking or driving, and more than once Ella found herself seriously
picturing in her own mind the life she might now, had she exercised some
diplomacy, have been leading with Mr and Mrs Burton, with actual
regret.
"At worst, I might have gone out sometimes. In a town however it rains
one can always get out a _little_--and here,"--and she moved away with a
gesture of something approaching despair, as her glance fell on the
gravel paths sodden with rain, on the dripping trees, on the stretch of
park beyond the garden, where faint mists or clouds--it was difficult to
say which--hid the horizon, and made one feel as if shut in in a
universe of hopeless grey.
In those days Ermine, it must be owned, was barely kind, certainly not
sympathetic towards the girl. She was sorry for her in her heart, but
this very feeling caused a certain irritation, for Ermine's nature was
more prejudiced than Madelene's; she was vehement in her affections, and
where these were strongly engaged, she was apt to be one-sided. In one
direction the two younger Misses St Quentin got on well together--Ella
had shown herself from the first an apt and interested pupil, and about
this time Ermine, rather to her surprise, remarked a distinct increase
in her zeal and attention.
"This composition of yours is really very good--very good indeed, Ella,"
she said one morning when she had been looking over an essay of her
young sister's, compiled from notes of various writers on a certain
period of history. "At your age I could not have done nearly so well."
Ella's eyes flashed, and there was a peculiar expression about her
mouth--there was however a distinct mingling of satisfaction in her tone
as she replied, though coldly.
"I am glad you approve of it. I am glad that you think it above the
average of what girls of my age can do."
"Decidedly," said Ermine warmly. But as she glanced at Ella, she felt
chilled again by the hard look on the round young face. She would have
felt more than chilled had she read the thoughts at that moment passing
through the girl's brain.
"Yes," she was saying to herself, "I am clever, and they can't deny it.
I shall learn all I can, and then, if this goes on, I shall run away and
become a governess. I should manage it somehow, I am sure." Two days
later, as they were going to bed one evening, Madelene called her for a
moment into her own room.
"Ella," she said, "Ermine and I are going away from home for a few days.
We are going to the Belvoirs; you may remember our speaking of the
invitation one morning when it came. Mrs Belvoir was here the other
day, but you were out. They are nice people, and they give nice dances.
When--when you are out I shall like you to go there."
"Then they didn't invite me this time?" asked Ella drily.
"They invited `the Misses St Quentin,'" Madelene replied. "That meant
what we liked to decide ourselves of course. It does not rest with
outsiders to determine if a girl is out or not."
"Of course not," said Ella. "Then," she went on, "will you tell me what
you wish me to do while you are away? Am I to be quite alone with Mrs
Green (the housekeeper) as chaperon?"
"No," her sister replied, irritated by the scarcely veiled impertinence
of Ella's tone, though a moment before she had been longing to express
to her some of her own feeling on the matter, "no, certainly not. I am
writing to ask Miss Harter, Mrs Hewitt's sister, whom you have seen at
Waire, to come to stay with you."
"Oh, indeed," said Ella. Miss Harter was a pleasant, intelligent woman
of thirty, whom Ella had found amusing and agreeable enough once or
twice when she had met her, though it now suited her to describe her to
herself as "a fusty old maid."
Things both great and small but _very_ rarely turn out as we expect.
Two days before that on which Colonel St Quentin and his two daughters
were to leave home he fell ill. His illness was not very serious, but
sufficiently so to put his going out of the question. And as he said
that the presence of a stranger in the house would be an annoyance to
him, Miss Harter's visit was put off, Ella manifesting livelier
satisfaction at this than she had condescended for long to show about
anything.
"What an incomprehensible girl she is," said Madelene, as she and Ermine
drove away. "I think I must give up trying to make her out."
"I think her present phase is comprehensible enough," Ermine replied.
"She is violently in love with the idea of being a martyr, a suffering
saint--no, neither of those expresses it quite. I have it--a
Cinderella."
A smile broke slowly over Madelene's face.
"Yes," she said, "that does express it. And we are the two cruel
sisters--step-sisters, not half-sisters--a little poetic licence must
here be allowed--going off in triumph to the ball! What a pity we have
not got black corkscrew curls, Ermine, and an aigrette of three plumes
apiece to appear in to-morrow evening!"