The interview with her father turned out satisfactorily for Madelene.
Each was suffering from inward consciousness of having acted to some
extent unreasonably, and each felt a kind of unexpressed relief at not
being brought to task. Colonel St Quentin's manner and tone were
plainly deprecatory of blame.
"You must not think me weak and foolish for having given in to your
aunt, when I had stood out so--well, I suppose I must say--obstinately
with you and Ermine," he said with a slight smile.
"Ermine and I were only too delighted for Ella to have the pleasure of
it," Madelene replied.
"I knew that--I was assured of that," said her father, and then the
subject was allowed to drop.
Ella was looking very demure in her grey linsey-woolsey, waiting beside
the tea-table in the library, when the two others joined her. A smile
which she could not altogether repress, crossed Ermine's face as the
contrast between her little sister's present "get-up" and that in which
she had last seen her, crossed her mind.
"Oh, well, I'm not sorry to be home again," she said aloud. "What do
you think, Ella? Would you like to have yesterday night over again?"
Ella looked up with a half doubtful questioning in her sweet eyes. Was
Ermine chaffing her, or was this veiled sarcasm, or what? But before
she had time to form any judgment on the matter, to her surprise
Madelene interposed.
"Ella," she said--she was standing near the fireplace, and her tall
figure in its dark winter garb looked very imposing, though her face,
had Ella seen it clearly, was gentle and almost touching in its
expression--"Ella, my dear," she said, "I want to say to you now, at
once, that I am very sorry I so misjudged you last night, blaming you
when you did not deserve it--when indeed you _could_ not have deserved
it; for a moment's reflection might have shown me you could not have
come to the Manor unknown to or unapproved of by papa. But I was so
astonished that for once, I suppose I lost my head. Will you forget
about it, and believe that I am very happy you had the pleasure?"
"Of course," said Ella. "I often am hasty myself--I never dislike any
one for being a little cross," she went on, smiling. "I'm very glad you
liked me to be there. Papa was very kind about it," she added, unable
to repress a little hit at her sister, "he agreed to my going _at once_
when my godmother proposed it."
Madelene's face grew cold again.
"Why could you not stop at the right place, you foolish child?" thought
Ermine. But she kept her thoughts to herself--a glance at Madelene had
told her that it was best so.
Outwardly, however, things seemed most prosperously smooth.
"Your frock looked lovely, Ella," said Ermine. "Melanie will be quite
jealous of Jones."
"And it is really not spoilt at all," said Ella, eagerly. "But oh,
Madelene, that reminds me--I had such a misfortune."
Miss St Quentin looked up anxiously. To her nature any appeal for
sympathy always brought healing on its wings.
"What?" she said, expecting to hear of some trifling accident. Her face
expressed real concern when she heard the particulars of the lost shoe.
"We must certainly try to get it back," she said. "It is pretty sure to
have been picked up. Only if any dishonest servant has got hold of it,
the buckle would be a temptation; an ignorant person would so easily
mistake the paste for diamonds--I will write to Mrs Belvoir to-morrow,
Ella--it is too late to-night--and send over a man expressly."
"Thank you," said Ella. "But," she went on, "will she understand? Did
she know I was your sister, as I didn't come with you?"
"Of course," said Madelene haughtily. "You don't suppose Ermine and I
would have given any cause for gossip. We took care to speak quite
naturally the next morning about Aunt Anna having brought you over for a
little--it was all Louis Belvoir, who Mistook your name at the first."
"Oh yes, I see," said Ella. She seemed on the point of saying more, but
her courage failed her.
"I wonder if they know who the man was that I danced that last waltz
with," she said to herself.
Ermine seemed to play into her hands.
"How did you like young Belvoir, by the by, Ella?" she inquired. "He
dances well, doesn't he? What other men did you dance with?"
But Ella was not going to be trotted out, especially not before
Madelene, whose eyes, she fancied, and perhaps not without reason, were
fixed on her scrutinisingly.
"There were several," she replied; "I didn't hear all their names
distinctly. Yes, I thought Mr Belvoir danced well, but there were one
or two others who danced quite as well."
"Oh, indeed," said Ermine. "No one in particular, then?"
"Major Frost was very amusing," said Ella.
Madelene, who had finished her tea, put down her cup and turned to the
door.
"We had better go up stairs and take our things off, Ermine," she said.
"I am afraid Ella is the reverse of ingenuous," she said when they had
left the library. "We _know_ she danced more with Philip than any one.
She is a regular woman of the world in the way she can keep back what
she does not choose to tell--it would be only natural for her to ask us
who he was, if she really did not know."
"Oh, Maddie, I don't think you are fair about her," said Ermine. "And
talking of not being ingenuous--she might accuse us of it when she comes
to know him. She will know we must have seen her dancing with him, if
she takes the trouble to think it over, and our not mentioning his being
there may strike her."
"Well, it isn't my doing. I hate mystifications," said Madelene.
"However as Aunt Anna is mixed up in it I suppose it will be all right.
But--no, Ermine, I'm afraid Ella is not the sort of wife we should wish
for Philip. And I'm afraid of letting myself wish it, lest I should
really be influenced by selfish motives, for no doubt it might make
things easier."
"You're enough to provoke a saint," said Ermine. "However I don't
suppose either you or I will have much power to `make or mar' in the
matter. If it is to be, it will be--so far we haven't meddled; _we_
didn't originate their meeting as they did."
"People always take refuge in that sort of fatalism when they want to
throw off responsibility," said Madelene. "I don't believe in fatality
about marriages any more than about anything else. But _I_ shall not
interfere, I am far too uncertain of its being a good thing for Philip."
"Maddie has had an Indian letter, and she has got a fit of extra
conscientiousness in consequence," thought Ermine. "If I were Bernard,
I don't think I'd stand it."
And yet as she looked at her sister, and saw the gentle sadness in her
eyes, and noted the increasing signs of endurance and uncomplaining
patience in the delicate features, a sort of rush of tenderness came
over her. No one better deserved to be happy than her own sweet
Madelene, she said to herself.
The evening passed peacefully. Colonel St Quentin was pleased to have
his daughters with him again, and pleased too with himself for feeling
so much more cordial and affectionate than heretofore towards his
youngest child. And Madelene was pleased too to see him so, for
jealousy formed no part of her nature, though her exaggerated
conscientiousness and self-questioning sometimes took the appearance of
suspiciousness of others. Ella's quick eyes detected her elder sister's
satisfaction at her father's kindlier tone, and she felt puzzled by it.
"She does seem as if she wanted papa and me to get on better together,
after all," she thought, and the idea softened her own manner in turn.
Besides this, she was, though she would on no account have confessed it,
both tired and sleepy; the unusual excitement, more than actual fatigue
had told upon her, and she was not sorry when Ermine, openly
acknowledging that she was quite ready to go to bed, proposed that they
should all say good-night.
"It's quite disgraceful to be so done up after such a very mild amount
of dissipation," she said laughingly. "Philip would make great fun of
us. He is coming over to-morrow, Maddie, you know."
"Yes, papa says Aunt Anna left a message from him to tell us so," said
Madelene thoughtlessly.
Ella pricked up her ears at this.
"How could--" she began, but something in the expression of her elder
sister's face made her stop short.
"Ah," she reflected, "Madelene said that by mistake. They didn't want
me to know that precious cousin of _theirs_ was coming. I shall hate
him for being their cousin and not mine--only he is dear godmother's
grandson, and I should like him for that. Godmother must have had a
letter from him while I was there, I suppose. She might have told me of
it."
And a feeling of resentment to Lady Cheynes too, mingled with her
indignation against her sisters. Her "good-night" was correspondingly
cold, but they did not seem to notice it.
"I will write a note to Mrs Belvoir to-night, Ella," said Madelene in a
low voice, as they were leaving the room, "to have it ready for
to-morrow morning, so that one of the grooms can take it over quite
early and wait for an answer."
"Thank you," said Ella, and for the moment she felt really obliged. The
lost slipper was weighing a good deal on her mind, and she began to
think that after all she would feel rather foolish if obliged to confess
to her godmother how she had lost it.
"She will certainly say I should have found it out before I got into the
carriage, but I quite thought it was among the rugs--and Jones looked
herself for me, this morning. I think it must have slipped off just as
I stepped in and rolled out before they shut the door."
And her dreams were haunted by the slipper. She thought Madelene came
down to breakfast next morning with it tied on to her head as an
ornament, and that it suddenly skipped on to the floor all of itself,
and became a wonderful white satin chariot which careered round the room
drawn by six cats, while on the box sat her partner in her last waltz at
the Manor, shouting at the top of his voice that he was going to take a
note to Mrs Belvoir first thing in the morning, and to wait for an
answer. And these words "wait for an answer," seemed to mingle
themselves fantastically with all the consciousness of her sleep. Or
perhaps it seemed so to her, for they were the first that fell on her
ears as she began to awake next morning. The door was opening and some
one just entering was speaking to another person outside.
"Yes," said the voice--it was old Hester's--"wait for an answer--be sure
to tell him."
"What are you talking about?" asked Ella. "What is it about waiting for
an answer?"
"It's the message for the groom, who's going to the Manor, Miss Ella,"
Hester replied. "Miss St Quentin gave me the note last night, and I
was telling Stevens. She's so sorry for you to be uneasy about the
shoe--`taking off the pleasure of her first little treat, poor child,'
was her words to me, Miss Ella."
"It's very kind of her," said Ella sleepily, with again the return upon
herself as to her judgment of her sister. Suddenly a new idea struck
her. "Hester," she said, "what sort of person is Sir Philip Cheynes?
Is he nice, or is he conceited and stuck-up, and--flirting, you know--
that sort of a man?"
"Bless you, no, Miss Ella, not as ever I've heard tell. What's put such
a notion in your head? If he was stuck-up, he'd not be so to his own
cousins; and he does think all the world of them, that he does. And as
for being a flirting gentleman, he'd be uncommon clever to get Miss
Maddie or Miss Ermie to join in such like nonsense, though by what I
hear sometimes, young ladies--and young ladies who think a deal of
themselves too--is not so partickler as they might be, now a days. I
don't hold with that tennis-playing, Miss Ella, and all that sort of
apeing gentlemen, as seems the fashion."
Ella laughed.
"Tennis is very dull, _I_ think. I shouldn't like to spend several
hours a day at it," she said.
"Sir Philip is evidently a prig of the first water," she decided
mentally. "But if so, he's not likely to admire _me_, so why do they
want to keep me out of his way, as I see they do? And they have got god
mother to join them in it for some reason."
Ella's inward indignation sent her down stairs to breakfast in anything
but a genial mood. And, as her moods were very apt to do, it found its
expression in her outer woman.
"You do look so grim, Ella," said Ermine. "I am so tired of that
linsey-woolsey frock of yours--couldn't you put a bit of scarlet about
yourself somewhere? Even a red tucker would be an improvement."
Madelene glanced at her younger sister as Ermine spoke.
"You might wear your sailor serge every morning now, I think, Ella," she
said. "That frock is getting shabby and it is a dingy shade. You
remember we couldn't get the grey we wanted. About Christmas time too,
one likes to see people looking bright."
Ella surveyed her garments with a half indifferent air that was rather
irritating.
"I think it does very well," she replied. "Even aunty thought two new
winter frocks enough. I don't see that it matters so long as it is
warm, and indeed to tell the truth, I like this better than my Sunday
frock; it is so clumsily made."
Madelene said no more.
"Every step forward seems followed by two backwards with her," she
reflected. "Ermine had better not build any castles in the air about
her and Philip--if she had the slightest suspicion that _we_ should like
such a thing, it would, I do believe, make Ella detest him."
"I have sent over to the Manor, Ella," she said as she rose from the
breakfast-table; "the groom should be back by half-past twelve or so, as
Mrs Belvoir is sure to be at home. I am sure you are feeling anxious
about the poor little slipper."
"I am," said Ella. "Thank you, Madelene."
And indeed it was partly distress of mind about the lost property which
was making Ella indisposed this morning to take a roseate view of life.
"The weather seems really settling in for frost," said Ermine. "After
the rain it will make the roads very slippery. I hope the frost will
last till after Christmas, now it has begun. I wish I could go a good
long walk this morning, but I fear we mustn't think of it--eh, Maddie?"
"No--there are arrears of things to see to even after being away only
two days," Miss St Quentin replied. "You might get Philip to take you a
walk after luncheon, when I go to sit with papa."
"And Ella too," Ermine added. "Would you like a nice long walk, Ella?
It would be a pleasant variety to have an escort for once."
"No, thank you," said Ella, stiffly, though in her heart she thought
Ermine much kinder than her elder sister. "I don't care for walking in
the afternoon. I shall go out after I've finished my practising this
morning."
"Not alone, Ella?" said Madelene; "or at least if you do go alone, it
will not be further than the grounds, I hope?"
"No," said Ella, "I don't mean to leave the grounds."
She spoke more amiably--for this sort of authority or interference on
her sister's part did not irritate her, as it might have done some
girls. She resented nothing which gave her the sensation of being
considered a person of importance.
Twelve o'clock found her walking briskly down the drive which led to the
principal entrance. The sharp clear air stimulated her nerves
pleasantly; she felt high-spirited and almost happy. As Madelene had
said truly, Coombesthorpe had a beauty of its own in every season.
"It is lovely," thought Ella, as she looked around her, down across the
gently sloping lawns to where the first murmur of water told of the
stream pursuing its way, lonely now, without the merry companionship of
its summer friends, the birds and gnats and butterflies; not to speak of
the many quaint creatures who found their homes on its banks. "I wonder
where they all go to?" she went on. "I suppose lots of them are asleep.
I wish I knew more about country things. Ermine is so clever about
them. I could learn all sorts of things from her if I was sure she--
they--wanted to like me--"
Then her gaze passed on from the thicket concealing the brook, up again
to the hills rising beyond. There was snow on the higher peaks; to be
guessed at rather than seen, for a thin wintry haze made hills and
clouds melt into each other. Ella shivered a little.
"Fancy living up on those hills," she thought. "And they say there are
cottages there where the people stay all the winter. The road to the
Manor passes round the foot of them. I wonder how soon the groom will
be back. Oh, I do hope he will bring the shoe." She had forgotten
about it for the moment; the recollection made her hasten her steps.
She would ask the woman at the lodge if possibly the groom had already
returned; if not, she would walk a little way down the road, which for
some distance beyond these first gates remained a private one, in hopes
of meeting him, for it would be easy to ask if he was bringing back a
parcel or only a note.
There seemed no one stirring about the lodge when she got there, which
was unusual, as the couple who lived in it were the proud possessors of
two very pretty children, one or other or both of whom were generally to
be seen peeping out of the doorway when any one came by.
"They seem all asleep," thought Ella, who had long ago made great
friends with the little family. "I hope they're not ill."
She made her way to the door as she spoke, and tapped gently, at the
same time endeavouring to "lift the latch," like Red Riding Hood of old,
and let herself in. But the door resisted; it was evidently fastened
inside.
Ella tapped more loudly, and almost before she finished doing so, a
faint sound of weeping caught her ear, but no reply came to her knocks.
"Is any one in?" she called out, beginning to feel a little uneasy.
"Willie, Hetty, who is it crying? Mrs Rose, are you there?"
A sort of movement inside, sounding like the slow, enforcedly deliberate
way in which a little, short-legged child gets down from a chair,
followed by a pattering of small feet across the stone floor, became
audible. Then a doleful voice replied to her questions:
"I'm all aloned. I'm Hetty. I dunno who you is. Mammy's took Willie
in Master Crocker's waggin to doctor's. Willie's eyes is bad. And the
pot won't budge and the dinner's spilin."
Then ensued a louder burst of bitter wailing.
Ella rapped again impatiently.
"Let me in then, you silly child," she cried. "I'm Ella--Miss Ella from
the hall. You know my voice, surely, Hetty. I'm not a wolf," she
added, half laughing.
Thus adjured, Hetty cautiously approached.
"Miss Ella," she said in a tone of relief. "I'll try to loose the door,
Miss, but its drefful hard. Mother locked it outside and pushed the key
in under the door. I weren't to open it till daddy comed home, but
mammy didn't know Miss Ella'd be coming," she added, as if half in
vindication to herself of her departure from mammy's injunctions.
"Then do the same again," said Ella. "Push the key under the door and
I'll open it outside. Your little hands can't turn it."
Hetty gave a sort of grunt of satisfaction at the brilliant idea. The
key was pushed through, and in another moment, Ella stood on the open
threshold. Poor Hetty's face was swollen with crying and scorched by
the fire, and her first greeting to Ella was a fresh burst of tears.
"'Tis the dinner--daddy's dinner," she exclaimed, and sure enough a
rather ominous smell of burning drew Ella's attention to the fire.
Quick as thought the girl pulled off her thick jacket, tossed aside her
fur cap--for the kitchen felt very hot after the keen clear air
outside--and stood for a moment investigating the formidable-looking
pot, which was the cause of Hetty's woe.
"Give me a towel or something, Hetty. I don't want to burn myself."
Hetty stuffed a substantial cloth into her visitor's hands.
"And a apern, Miss, or you'll smutty your nice gown. Here's one of
mammy's."
Ella took the hint and tied it on, and well for the linsey-woolsey that
she did so, as it was not without various black streaks on the vicarious
apron that she succeeded in safely depositing "daddy's dinner" on the
hearth-stone.
"Goodness! how heavy pots are," she exclaimed, "and how the fire does
scorch one's face--even a little one like that. I don't think the
dinner's _much_ burnt, Hetty," she went on, carefully investigating the
contents of the stew-pot with the aid of an iron spoon, and sniffing
them gingerly at the same time.
"Stir it about, Miss, please, so as it won't stick to the sides,"
suggested Hetty; which Ella proceeded to do, thinking to herself the
while, that if all other trades failed her, that of a cook would be
little to her mind.
"Now, Hetty," she said, "I think this'll take no harm, staying where it
is. When does your father come home? It's about his time, isn't it?"
as the clock struck the half hour to one.
"He should a' been home before, Miss Ella, else mammy wouldn't a' left
me and the pot aloned. But there's a deal to do in the houses, now it's
so cold, a' seein' to the fires,"--her father was one of the
gardeners--"and maybe Mr Meakins has kept him late. But it's all right
now, Miss, and thank you," said six-year old Hetty, remembering for the
first time to bob her courtesy. "Would you like to wash your hands, and
there's a smut on your cheek? You've made it worser," as Ella
involuntarily raised her hand to the indicated spot.
"Thank you, Hetty, perhaps I'd--" Ella began, when suddenly the sound of
horse's feet approaching, reminded her of her original errand at the
lodge. "There's the groom--the groom from the Manor," she said, flying
off, forgetful alike of smutty marks and "mammy's" big apron in her
eagerness, and heedless of Hetty's assurances that she could open the
gate, anxiety as to which the little maiden supposed to be the cause of
the young lady's excitement.
Ella's ears had not misled her. A horse was waiting at the gate, but
scarcely had she called out to its rider--
"You've been at the Manor; what message is there?" when a glance upwards
told her that she had made some great mistake. It was no groom who sat
there, gazing at her in speechless astonishment--it was a gentleman; so
much she perceived instantaneously; but this first flash of surprise was
as nothing compared with the shock of astonishment which succeeded it
when in another half second her eyes told her brain what at first it
refused to accept--the rider was her partner--her partner _par
excellence_ that is to say, of two nights before at Mrs Belvoir's
dance.
But if Ella was surprised, what was the effect on the new-comer of the
sudden apparition of the mysterious little personage who had made so
much impression on him? _Was_ it she--"Miss Wyndham," or was it only a
case of extraordinary resemblance? Yet if not Miss Wyndham, who then?
He knew the Roses at the lodge, as well as he knew himself--Mrs Rose
was the only daughter of one of his own tenants, and though a comely
young woman, in no way exceptionally pretty--this girl could be no
sister or cousin of hers, he felt sure. Yet again his hasty glance had
shown him that she was not in the ordinary attire of a lady; she was
half covered by a huge and not over-clean apron, her hair was pushed off
her forehead, her face was scorched-looking and a grimy streak crossed
it on one side. "Miss Wyndham," if Miss Wyndham it were, must be
playing a part in a comedy, or else--could it be that the girl he had
been so struck with was _not_ a lady; that in some clever way she had
inveigled herself in among the smart people at the Manor, and that this
was the meaning of her strange, half mysterious, half reticent manner?
A curious and by no means agreeable thrill passed through the young man
as this last idea drove its predecessors out of his mind with the
rapidity of lightning. Hetty meanwhile had run out and was fumbling at
the gate. The sight of the child brought Philip back to
matters-of-fact.
"I will open myself, Hetty," he said, for the elder girl stood as if
transfixed making no effort to help the little one. And in a moment he
had dismounted and was leading his horse through the gateway.
They both stared at each other for half a second. Ella was the first to
speak, though her cheeks glowed more and more as she did so. Happily
she had forgotten all about the sooty mark on her cheek.
"I beg your pardon for mistaking you," she said. "I thought you were
the groom from--"
"I cannot beg your pardon," interrupted Philip, "for I am absolutely in
the dark as to whether I have mistaken you or not. Are you--" but here
he hesitated, though the tone of her voice and the manner of her speech
had almost satisfied him that his recognition had been correct--"_are_
you Miss Wyndham, and if so--what in the world--"
It was by this time all Ella could do to repress her laughter.
"What in the world am I doing here?" she said, finishing his sentence
for him. "Did you not ask if you would find me scouring pots and pans
if you came to see me? Well--I have been doing something of the kind--
witness my apron, and my hands," staring ruefully at some black streaks
on her fingers.
"And your cheek, Miss Ella," interrupted Hetty, understanding the
gesture though not the words. "It's a deal smuttier nor your hands."
Ella's face grew still more scarlet.
"Oh, you horrid little girl," she exclaimed, "why didn't you tell me?"
and lifting a corner of the apron she began to rub her cheek so
indignantly that Sir Philip could scarcely keep his countenance. But
his bewilderment and curiosity overcame his amusement.
"Then," he said, for though Hetty's name for the young lady had vaguely
caught his ear, it had not as yet awakened any association, "then I am
to conclude you _are_ Miss Wyndham?"
"No," said Ella sharply, for the consciousness of the smut on her face
had quite upset her temper, "I'm not, and I never said I was; and why
you chose to call me by a name that was not mine I am sure I don't know.
I didn't know yours, and I don't now, and you wouldn't tell it me, but
for all that I didn't call you by an imaginary one."
Sir Philip looked rather taken aback.
"When I had the honour of being introduced to you," he said stiffly, "I
think I was told your name was Wyndham?"
"I am not responsible for other people's stupidity," said Ella. "I have
no objection to your knowing who I am. I--"
But at this moment little Hetty gave her a tug. "There's daddy a
coming, Miss Ella," she said. "I see him over there in the long path.
May I run to tell him what mammy said?" and hardly waiting for
permission, the child set off.