Too late the poor little stranger realized that even such truisms and
commonplaces of conversation as the relations of climbing millionaires
and smart women for their mutual weal had no place in the wretchedly
limited conversational _répertoire_ of the well-brought-up young girl.
It was a very flat and flagging conversation that replaced her lucid
word-paintings, for which she, too late, felt that the Dower House
schoolroom was not the place, and with a very unfeigned relief she
received the message sent up by Mr. Tancred, a message of inquiry as to
her readiness to depart.
_Readiness to depart!_ There could be little doubt as to that! The state
of mind expressed in that hackneyed line, “Ready to go, but not afraid
to stay,” had certainly no reference to her; she was horribly afraid to
stay.
Miss Barnacre shook hands with her with brusque manliness, and uttered a
condescending and rather dry query, which did not seem eager for an
affirmative answer, as to her making a long stay in the neighbourhood.
Miss Aylmer politely accompanied her downstairs. The party they had left
in the hall was diminished by two. Flora Tennington and her attendant
swain were gone. Perhaps, after all, it would have been the lesser of
two evils, though at the time for decision it seemed much the greater,
to have abode below; at least, there would have been no danger of
corrupting _Flora’s_ mind, and, judging by the undiminished kindliness
with which the hostess bade her good night, and the heartiness with
which she invited her to repeat her visit, Lady Tennington must have
judiciously suppressed all that was damaging--and, when you came to
think of it, how little there was that, according to these people’s
standard, was not damaging--in Miss Ransome’s past. Flora was always a
“good old sort.”
While Bonnybell was accepting with dove-like coos of gratitude the
hospitable offer made her, Mr. Tancred was having a word apart with the
daughter of the house. Their taste for each other’s society had been
long so patent in its perfect and harmless openness, that their
acquaintance had grown tired of giving them to each other _en secondes
noces_. He was now testing her friendship, and trying delicately and
tactfully, but still with a bias which was quite apparent to her, to
extract some favourable judgment upon his new _protégée_ from this tried
comrade. As a rule, their opinions coincided with curious nicety; and in
the girl’s family circle it had become a proverbial phrase that what
Edward Tancred said Catherine would always swear to. The nearest thing
to a compliment that she produced was the ejaculation, “She is
_amazing_!” If the adjective was used in a flattering sense, it was too
big for the occasion, and if it was not?
“_Amazing?_” he repeated, conveying a question with the repetition of
the word, adding, as no explanation seemed forthcoming, “Amazingly
pretty, do you mean?”
“She is that too, of course,” replied his friend, without excessive
haste to make the admission, yet, in accordance with her character,
making it conscientiously all the same. “But that was not the sense in
which I meant to apply it.”
He knew that it would be wiser not to press her further; that after such
an exordium no good for Bonnybell could come out of this Galilee, yet he
heard himself say--
“How, then?”
“I am not good at defining, and besides, I think that before long you
will find out for yourself,” she answered, her smooth, fair face, which,
as all her acquaintance said, ought to be better looking than it was,
assuming an expression than which her ally thought he had never seen any
that became it less. Was it the case, as Toby always told her, that
Catherine had a slight cast in her left eye?
The night into which Mr. Tancred and his amazing young person stepped
out of the Dower House seemed at first even darker than it was, by
contrast. Moon there was none; but when eyes grew used to the windless
gloom, stars in plenty showed through the light fog that had gathered.
Had it not been for the ominous last words that had passed between Miss
Aylmer and himself, Edward would have begun at once, and naturally, to
question his companion as to how she had fared in the Dower House
schoolroom. But a species of dread as to what he might hear made him
avoid the subject. Instead--partly for something to say, and partly
because the nightly heavens had always a fascination for himself--he
directed her attention to some of the constellations, making a trifling
comment upon their beauty. She assented in tones of heartfelt
admiration, without, as he somehow was aware, lifting her head to glance
at them, her attention being indeed chiefly occupied in guiding her
steps through the darkness, having again refused his aiding hand or arm.
This was more from habit and prudence than from any very active alarm,
but though he might be, and apparently was, an anomally, it was as well
not to tempt Providence. Although in point of fact her misgivings about
the success of her late visit were even graver and better founded than
his, she, unlike him, did not shirk the subject, but opened the campaign
gallantly, in her usual spirit of strict veracity.
“What a charming girl Miss Aylmer is!” The remark was dictated by the
fact that Bonnybell’s quick eye had detected the intimate-looking aside
that had passed between her escort and the daughter of the house, and
drawn from it conclusions of a dimension which would have startled both.
“I am glad that you think so.”
“How could any one think anything else?”
“She is one of the best.”
He said this, because it was a tribute due to loyalty, and because he
knew that it was his real opinion, but at the moment he did not feel it.
“And that sweet Meg! And then Toby! I lost my heart to them all.”
“Toby! Oh, he was there?”
“Yes, Mr. Toby was there.”
“Did you get much out of him?”--in a tone tinged with incredulity.
“It was not so much what he said”--since the young gentleman in question
had never opened his mouth except to admit jam, this was strictly
true--“as his looks; such a nice, frank, straightforward English boy.”
Men are jealous and grudging about other men’s praises, and it is more
than likely that this encomium would never be repeated to its object;
but, on the other hand, it might, and the attempt cost nothing.
“And you found plenty to talk about to them all?” returned he, going
circuitously round his own alarm, and thinking that he might as well
know the worst. He could not see her face, but he heard a slight
hesitating catch in her breath.
“The governess--Miss Barnacre, is she?--monopolized the conversation a
good deal; she talked very brilliantly, but I was not quite up in the
subjects she mentioned. I think”--very tentatively--“that I was a little
afraid of her.”
“A _little_?” repeated he, with much emphasis and less of doubtful
suggestion than was generally the case in his utterances.
“Oh, you are afraid of her too, then!” cried Bonnybell, with an accent
of joyful relief, but added, reverting cautiously to her rule of
uttering no opinion about her new acquaintances that might not
handsomely be repeated to its objects, “Of course, I saw what a treasure
she must be to Mrs. Aylmer.”
“Did you?”
Tact told her that her praise of the detestable Barnacre had
reached--perhaps a little exceeded--the limits of his power of
swallowing, and she desisted gladly.
“And the girls, Catherine and Meg, had not they a chance of getting a
word in?”
“Not very much”--rather slowly, as her thoughts reverted not quite
comfortably to the sudden door shut upon her budding friendship with the
younger Miss Aylmer. “I saw most, perhaps, of Meg. What a darling she
is!”
“She is a good child, but she is a great baby for her age,” replied he,
in a tone which she heard to be touched with surprise. “I should not
have thought”--reviewing in his mind certain choice flowers of his
present companion’s speech--“that you and she would have much in
common.”
“A great baby for her age!” repeated Miss Ransome, in a key of relieved
enlightenment. “Ah, that accounts for it, then.”
“Accounts for what?”
“For the surprise she showed--the ignorance of such very ordinary
things--things that everybody knows.”
His heart quailed. “What sort of things?”
But Miss Ransome was all at once on her guard. It might be one’s
misfortune to be shown up; but to show one’s self up was a sin against
common sense not to be committed by any one even moderately wide-awake.
“I cannot recollect any particular instance,” she answered with apparent
carelessness; “it was only a general impression, and I dare say quite a
wrong one; but, anyhow”--returning to safe ground--“they are all
darlings, and you are very lucky to have them so near. I do not say
anything about _their_ luck!” she added in a witching lower key.
All the same, she was relieved that, when the small family was reseated
round the supper-table, spread with enticing cold foods, in Sunday
leniency to the admirably treated and very much underworked servants,
Camilla put her through no catechism as to her afternoon’s experiences.
The note of alarm in Edward’s voice had made Miss Ransome resolve to be
wholly reticent as to the slight _contretemps_ about stupid Meg; and
beyond a message sent by Mrs. Aylmer to his wife and faithfully
delivered by Edward, to the effect that a day’s shopping in London would
prevent her fulfilling a promise to visit Mrs. Tancred on the morrow
afternoon, the Dower House remained for some good while unmentioned.
To Bonnybell it would have been an unmixed blessing that this silence
should last through the evening. To pick Camilla’s brains upon any
subject would require the courage and dexterity of a lion-tamer, and by
a series of delicate feelers, veiled suggestions, and innocent-looking
suppositions on the dusky homeward walk, Bonnybell had wiled out of
Edward all the information about the Aylmer family that it was really of
any consequence to her to know, viz. that through the bequest of a
distant kinsman the suave Toby was independent, and at the death of a
decrepit great-uncle would be more independent still of his father. She
had also learnt that he was called a woman-hater; but, so far from being
daunted by this information she, put her own encouraging gloss upon it.
“A woman-hater! Pooh! that only means that he is bored with respectable
women; and though I _am_ respectable, and mean to remain so, I am not
sure that I look it.”
In this soothed and hopeful mood Miss Bonnybell sat down to supper. Not
for long, however, did she remain quietly seated. Since from the Sunday
supper servants were banished, and that on Edward devolved the whole
onus of handing _chaudfroids_ and pouring claret, an instant desire to
help him sent her circling round the table too. He had rather that she
did not. It gave him the same sense of superannuation as if she had
offered to help him into his greatcoat, but after one gentle protest he
desisted, fearing to hurt her feelings. Camilla’s sarcastic-sounding
observation that, decrepit as Edward looked, he was capable of waiting
upon two people, had its sting taken out by the lenient smile that
accompanied it, and that seemed almost to approve of the eager
rejoinder--
“Oh, but I _love_ waiting upon people!” There was no denying that this
praiseworthy ejaculation was uttered chiefly because its author hoped
that it might advance her in the good graces of her benefactress, but it
was also accidentally and incidentally true. Bonnybell was one of those
born obliging and _serviable_; and her terrible education had at least
had the merit of developing these qualities in her. She added humbly,
“But if it fidgets you--either of you--to see me capering round, please
say so, and I will try to sit still and be waited on.”
She was rewarded by a look that was almost benign.
“Is it so difficult to you to sit still?”
Edward smiled slightly too, a sudden senseless warmth, for which he at
once chid himself, about his heart at these signs that his womenkind
were beginning to “get on.”
“I used to wait hand and foot upon----”
She broke off, looking down; and Camilla’s conscience--always too
painfully active for her own or her surroundings’ comfort--gave her a
smart stab.
The poor child was--thanks to her, Camilla’s, severity--afraid to
mention her own mother. She made her amends at once; but even the
suavity of Camilla was gruff, and her “It is a fault on the right side,
but to night I think I had rather you would keep quiet!” though received
with the pretty gratitude of one led by rosy chains into the way she
had been seeking provoked in the young stranger’s mind the inward
comment, “What a surly old camel it is! I always heard that they were
odious-tempered animals.” But her meek face gave no slightest indication
of this reflection; and she sat down docilely, nor made any further
protest against the host’s ministrations, beyond an occasional glance of
deprecating gratitude when he offered her anything particularly
appetizing, followed by a furtive peep at Mrs. Tancred, to ensure her
not having noticed and thought too affectionate this proof of
thankfulness.
The evening was halfway towards bedtime, and Bonnybell, lulled in a
false security, was capering down the long morning-room with biscuit
held aloft, in tantalizing education of Jock, pleased and pleasing, when
the topic she had been dreading broke upon her ear.
“I hear that you paid the Dower House a visit this afternoon?”
The slender whiteness of the raised arm dropped to its owner’s side, and
with a surprised and dishonest grab Jock mastered a practically
“unearned increment.”
“Yes,” rather falteringly, “Mr. Tancred thought that a little exercise
would do me good.”
“Are you fond of walking?”
“Oh yes, very, _very_ fond.”
“You will have to wear stronger shoes than the ridiculous things you
went to church in, if you mean to indulge in that pleasure here.”
“Oh, of course”--with an eager snatch at the subject of shoe-leather, in
the hope of thereby averting further inquiries as to her visit. “Perhaps
you will very kindly give me the address of a good boot-maker.”
The elder woman looked at her with a something of incredulity at such an
excess of acquiescence, and Bonnybell made an inward note that though
she must always agree with Camilla, it was a mistake to do it too
suddenly. That defeated its own end, as the mechanical unanimity of the
laugh of supers on the stage destroys all impression of mirth.
“I hope that my friends made a pleasant impression upon you?” Camilla
would not be put off by any boots, thick or thin, from her intended aim;
and her strong eyes demanded truth even more than did her lips. It was
the one commodity of which poor Miss Ransome’s warehouse was almost
always empty, but she was able to scrape up quite a respectable amount
of it for her answer.
“I thought them all delightful--perfectly delightful! There was only
one”--with a diffident hesitation--“that I was not quite sure I liked.”
“And who is that unfortunate person?”
“I--I have no doubt that I am wrong, but I did not much fancy Miss
Barnacre.”
“And do you always expect to fall in love with all humanity at first
sight?”
There was no great severity in this mode of acceptance of her feeler,
and Bonnybell rejoicingly told herself that for once she was on the
right tack.
“I did not quite like the way she spoke of you.”
Camilla’s always rigid features grew rigider; and Bonnybell’s happy
conviction of the right tack slid from under her.
“I have no opinion of tales told out of school,” answered Mrs. Tancred,
coldly.
“Oh, but you must let me explain,” cried Bonnybell, in a key of
anguished exegesis. “I have expressed myself so badly, as I always do.
If you do not let me tell you what she really said, you will think it is
much worse than it was.”
As Camilla maintained a disapproving silence, the young girl, too late
conscious of a new blunder, threw a shipwrecked glance at Edward, and
verifying that he looked thoroughly uncomfortable, made the
lightning-quick shrewd reflection, “He wants to stick up for me, but he
thinks it will make it worse for me if he does.”
“I have no doubt that she meant well, and, of course, she is a most
valuable person; but I thought it impertinent in--in--a girl of her age
to say that she meant to ‘tackle’ you about--about--your religious
opinions.”
The austerity of Camilla’s face thawed a little, and something that
might do duty for a smile turned upwards the corners of her thin-lined
mouth.
“Did Miss Barnacre happen to mention the day and hour at which her
investigations are to take place, so that I may not be found
unprepared?”
Bonnybell breathed again; and so--or she thought so--did Edward.