Perfect health, radiant spirits, supreme self-confidence, a sweetly
smiling determination to have her own way, and go her own course, though
the skies fell, and all creation conspired to prevent her--these were
the characteristics of Miss Cornelia Briskett most apparent on a
superficial acquaintance. On the morning after her arrival, when Mary
the housemaid carried the cup of early morning tea to her bedside, she
found the young lady leaning back against the pillows, enveloped in a
garment which suggested a garden party, rather than a night-gown, wide
awake, and ready for conversation. Really a most affable young lady,
who instead of vouchsafing a cool good-morning, launched out into quite
a confidential talk, inquiring after the different members of Mary's
family, their names, ages, and occupations, and showing a most
sympathetic interest in the girl's own future.
"I guess you are going to be married pretty soon! You've got a marrying
face!" she said shrewdly, whereupon Mary, blushing, acknowledged that
she _had_ a friend, and that he _did_ speak of early next spring.
"Told you so!" cried Cornelia, dimpling. "Well, Mury, see here, you nip
round and wait upon me the best you know, and I'll give you an elegant
present! I wear muslins most all the time in summer, and I can't endoor
to have them mussed. You keep carrying them away and ironing them out
nice and smooth, without bothering me to tell you. See! I need lots of
attention; there's no getting away from that, but I'll make it worth
your while. You just put your mind to it, and I guess you'll make a
tip-top maid!"
Mary was at least prepared to perish in the attempt. She related the
conversation downstairs, with the natural result that each of the other
three maids registered a vow to be second to none in her attentions to
the young visitor.
The breakfast-gong rang at eight o'clock, but it was a good ten minutes
later before Cornelia came sauntering downstairs, singing an unknown
ditty at the pitch of a sweet, if somewhat nasal voice. She was dressed
in white of the most elaborate simplicity, and her shaded hair looked
even more crisply conspicuous than on the night before. The last line
of the song did not come to an end until she was half-way across the
dining-room floor, and so far from being dismayed by her aunt's stare of
disapproval, she only laughed, waved her hands, and threw an extra
flourish into the rallentando. Then she swooped down upon the stiff
figure, hugged it affectionately, and planted three kisses on the cold,
grey face; one on the lips, one on the brow, a third--deliberately--on
the tip of the nose.
"Cornelia, please! Recollect yourself, my dear! Have a little respect.
You must never do that again!" cried Miss Briskett, irritably, but the
girl showed not the faintest sign of being awed.
"It's the nose of my father, and I've just _got_ to kiss it! It's not a
mite of use promising that I won't. I've got to kiss it regularly every
morning, and every night, until he comes over to be kissed himself!" she
announced calmly, seating herself at the opposite side of the square
dining-table, and peering curiously at the various dishes. "Poppar says
you never have anything for breakfast in England but bacon and eggs, but
I don't see any here. What's under this cover?--Fish?"
"If you wait a few minutes your bacon will be brought in. It had grown
cold with waiting so long, so I sent it away to be kept hot. The
breakfast hour is eight; not a quarter past."
"It's not a mite of use telling me the hours. I'm always late! I don't
suppose I've ever been down in time in my life, unless by a mistake,"
returned Cornelia, cheerfully. "I like to stay in bed and let the day
get sorter warmed up and comfortable, before I begin. What makes you
want to get up so early, anyway? I should have thought nine would have
been heaps early enough, when you have nothing to do."
It was not a promising beginning to the day. In her own household Miss
Briskett was accustomed to an authority as complete as that of the
general of an army. She was just, and she was generous; her servants
were treated with kindness and consideration, but if they wished to
retain their places, they had to learn the lesson of dumb, unquestioning
obedience. She might be right, she might be wrong, she might remember,
she might forget--no matter! it was not their business to enlighten her.
"Theirs but to do, and die!" She would not brook a question as to her
own authority. It was, therefore, a distinct blow to the good lady to
find her decrees ignored by her young guest with a smiling good-nature,
more baffling than the most determined opposition.
She remained stolidly silent throughout the meal, but Cornelia
apparently regarded he attitude as a tactful abdication in her own
favour, and kept up an incessant flow of conversation from start to
finish. When the bell was rung for prayers, she seated herself in a low
chair, directly facing the servants' seats, and smiled a dazzling
greeting to each in turn. They sat down in their usual positions, heads
bent, hands folded on the middle of their clean white aprons; feet
tucked carefully out of sight; there was no outward sign of irreverence
or inattention in their demeanour, but Miss Briskett _felt_, that every
single woman of them was absorbed--utterly, consumedly absorbed--in
casting sly glances at that distracting white vision in the easy chair;
at the dully glowing hair, the floating folds of white, the tiny,
extended feet. She might have read a page of the dictionary, and they
would not have noticed; even Heap, who was old enough to know better,
was edging sideways in her chair, to get a better view!
When the four stiffly-starched dresses had rustled out of the room,
Cornelia yawned, and stretched herself like a sleepy, luxurious kitten,
then snoodled down once more in her comfortable chair. Her eyes were
fixed upon her aunt's face, while that good lady bustled about the room,
folding the newspaper into an accurate square, and putting it away in a
brass-bound cage; collecting scattered envelopes and putting them in the
waste-paper basket, moving the flower-vases on the chimney-piece, so
that they should stand at mathematically the same distance from the
central clock. At every movement she waited to hear the expected, "Can
I help you, Aunt Sophia?" which right feeling would surely prompt in any
well-principled damsel, and though her reply would of a certainty have
been in the negative, she felt aggrieved that the opportunity was not
vouchsafed.
She was determined not to look in the girl's direction, nor to meet
those watching eyes, but presently, in spite of herself, she felt a
magnetic compulsion to turn her head to answer the bright, expectant
glance.
"Well?" queried Cornelia, smiling.
"Well what, my dear?"
"How are you going to amuse me this forenoon?"
Miss Briskett sat down suddenly in the nearest chair, and suffered a
mental collapse. Positively this view of the situation had never once
dawned upon her unimaginative brain! Mrs Ramsden had dimly wrestled
with the problem, solving it at last with an easy, "She can talk to
Elma!" but the aunt and hostess had been too much occupied with
consideration for her own comfort to think of anyone else. It had
crossed her mind that the girl might tire her, bore her, worry her, or
humiliate her before the neighbours; in an occasional giddy flight of
fancy she had even supposed it possible that Cornelia might amuse her,
and make life more agreeable, but never for the fraction of a second had
she realised that she herself was fated either to bore, or to amuse
Cornelia in return!
The discovery was a shock. Being a just woman, Miss Briskett was forced
to the conclusion that she had been selfish and self-engrossed; but such
self-revelations do not as a rule soften our hearts towards the fellow-
creature who has been the means of our enlightenment. Miss Briskett was
annoyed with herself, but she was much more annoyed with Cornelia, and
considered that she had good reason to be so.
"I have no time to think of frivolities in the morning, my dear. I am
too busy with household duties. I am now going to the kitchen to
interview my cook, then to the store-room to give out what is needed for
the day, and when that is accomplished I shall go to the shops to give
my orders. If you wish, I shall be pleased to have your company!"
"Right oh!" cried Cornelia, nodding. "It will be a lesson in your silly
old pounds and pence. What do you keep in your store-room, Aunt Soph?
Nice things? Fruits? Candy? Cake? I wouldn't mind giving out the
stores for a spell, now and again. Well! ... I'll just mouch round,
and be ready for you when you set out for your walk."
Miss Briskett left the room, in blissful ignorance of what "mouch" might
mean, and much too dignified to inquire, but by the time that ten
o'clock had struck, she had learnt to connect the expression with all
that was irritating and presumptuous. In the midst of her discussion
with the cook, for instance, the sound of music burst upon her ears; the
echo of that disused piano which had almost forgotten to be anything but
a stand for ornaments and lamps. Bang went the bass, crash went the
treble, the tune a well-known dance, played with a dash and a spirt, a
rollicking marking of time irresistible to any human creature under
forty, who did not suffer from corns on their toes. In the recesses of
the scullery a subdued scuffling was heard. Tweeny was stepping it to
and fro, saucepans in hand; from the dining-room overhead, where Mason
was clearing away the breakfast dishes, came a succession of mysterious
bumping sounds. Heap stood stolid as a rock, but her eyes--her small,
pale, querulous eyes--danced a deliberate waltz round the table and
back...
"I must request Cornelia not to play the piano in the morning!" said
Miss Briskett to herself.
From the store-room upstairs a sound of talking and laughing was heard
from within the visitor's bedroom, where sat that young lady in state,
issuing orders to Mary, who was blissfully employed in unpacking the
contents of one of the big dress boxes, and hanging up skirts in the
mahogany wardrobe.
"I must beg Cornelia not to interfere with the servants' work in the
morning!" said Miss Briskett once more. At half-past ten silence
reigned, and she went downstairs, equipped in her black silk mantle and
her third best bonnet, to announce her readiness to start on the usual
morning round.
Cornelia was not in the morning-room; she was not in the drawing-room,
though abundant signs of her recent presence were visible in the
littered ornaments on the open piano.
"I must beg Cornelia to put things back in their proper places!" said
Miss Briskett a third time as she crossed the hall to the dining-room.
This room also was empty, but even as she grasped the fact, Miss
Briskett started with dismay to behold a bareheaded figure leaning over
the garden gate, elbows propped on the topmost bar, and chin supported
on clasped hands. This time she did not pause to determine what
commands she should issue in the future, but stepped hastily down the
path to take immediate and peremptory measures.
"My dear! in the front garden--without a hat--leaning over the gate!
What can you be thinking of? The neighbours might see you!"
Cornelia turned in lazy amusement. "Well, if it's going to be a shock
to them, they might as well begin early, and get it over." She ran a
surprised eye over her aunt's severe attire. "My, Aunt Soph, you look
too good to live! I'm 'most frightened of you in that bonnet. If you'd
given a hoot from the window I'd have hustled up, and not kept you
waiting. Just hang on two shakes while I get my hat. I won't stay to
prink!"
"I am not accustomed--" began Miss Briskett, automatically, but she
spoke to thin air. Cornelia had flown up the path in a cloud of
swirling skirts; cries of "Mury! Mury!" sounded from within, and the
mistress of the house slowly retraced her steps and seated herself to
await the next appearance of the whirlwind with what patience she could
command.
It was long in coming. The clock ticked a slow quarter of an hour, and
was approaching twenty minutes, when footsteps sounded once more, and
Cornelia appeared in the doorway. She had not changed her dress, she
had not donned her jacket; her long, white gloves dangled from her hand;
to judge from appearances she had spent a solid twenty minutes in
putting on a tip-tilted hat which had been trimmed with bows of dainty
flowered ribbon, on the principle of the more the merrier. Miss
Briskett disapproved of the hat. It dipped over the forehead, giving an
obviously artificial air of demureness to the features; it tilted up at
the back, revealing the objectionable hair in all its wanton profusion.
It looked--_odd_, and if there was one thing more than another to which
Norton objected, it was a garment which differentiated itself from its
fellows.
Aunt and niece walked down the path together in the direction of the
South Lodge, the latter putting innumerable questions, to which the
former replied in shocked surprise. "What were those gardens across the
road?"--They were private property of householders in the Park.--"Did
they have fine jinks over there in summer time?"--The householders in
the park never, under any circumstances, indulged in "jinks." They
disapproved thoroughly, and on principle, of anything connected with
jinks!--"Think of that now--the poor, deluded creatures! What did they
use the gardens for, anyway?"--The gardens were used for an occasional
promenade; and were also valuable as forming a screen between the Park
and the houses on the Western Road.--"What was wrong with the houses on
the Western Road?"--There was nothing wrong with the houses in question.
The residents in the Park objected to see, or to be seen by, _any_
houses, however desirable. They wished to ensure for themselves an
unbroken and uninterrupted privacy.--"My gracious!"
Mrs Phipps, the dragon of the South Lodge, came out to the doorstep,
and bobbed respectfully as Miss Briskett passed by, but curiosity was
rampant upon her features. Cornelia smiled radiantly upon her; she
smiled upon everyone she met, and threw bright, curious glances to right
and to left.
"My! isn't it _green_? My! isn't it still? Where _is_ everyone,
anyway? Have they got a funeral in every house? Seems kind of
unsociable, muffling themselves up behind these hedgerows! Over with
us, if we've got a good thing, we're not so eager to hide it away. You
can walk along the sidewalk and see everything that's going on. In the
towns the families camp out on the doorsteps. It's real lively and
sociable. ... Are these your stores? They look as if they'd been made
in the year one."
They were, in truth, a quaint little row--butcher, grocer, greengrocer,
and linen-draper, all nestled into a little angle between two long,
outstanding buildings, which seemed threatening at every moment to fall
down and crush them to atoms. The windows were small, and the space
inside decidedly limited, and this morning there was an unusual rush of
customers. It seemed as if every housewife in the neighbourhood had
sallied forth to make her purchases at the exact hour when Miss Briskett
was known to do her daily shopping. At the grocer's counter Cornelia
was introduced to Mrs Beaumont, of The Croft.
"My niece, Miss Cornelia Briskett. Mrs Beaumont," murmured Miss
Briskett.
"Mrs Beau_mont_!" repeated Cornelia, loudly, with a gracious, sidelong
observance, at which unusual manner of receiving an introduction both
ladies stared in surprise.
Presently Mrs Beaumont recovered herself sufficiently to put an all-
important question.
"How do you like England?"
"I think it's lovely," said Cornelia.
In the fishmonger's shop Mrs Rhodes and Mrs Muir came up in their
turn, and opened wide eyes of surprise as the strange girl again
repeated their names in her high monotone. Evidently this was an
American custom. Strange people, the Americans! The ladies simpered,
and put the inevitable query: "How do you like England?"
"I think it's sweet," said Cornelia.
The draper's shop was a revelation of old-world methods. One anaemic-
looking assistant endeavoured to attend to three counters and half a
dozen customers, with an unruffled calm which they vainly strove to
emulate. Miss Briskett produced a pattern of grey ribbon which she
wished to match. Four different boxes were lifted down from the wall,
and their contents ransacked in vain, while the patient waiters received
small sops in the shape of cases and trays, shoved along to their corner
of the counter. When persuasion failed to convince Miss Briskett that
an elephant grey exactly matched her silvery fragment--"I'll see if we
have it in stock!" cried the damsel, hopefully, and promptly disappeared
into space. The minutes passed by; Cornelia frowned and fidgeted, was
introduced to a fourth dame, and declared that England was "'cute."
Weary waiters for flannel and small-wares looked at their watches, and
fidgeted restlessly, but no one rebelled, nor showed any inclination to
walk out of the shop in disgust. At length the assistant reappeared,
flushed and panting, to regret that they were "sold out," and "What is
your next pleasure, madam?"
Madam's next pleasure was a skein of wool, which investigation again
failed to produce. "But we have a very nice line in kid gloves; can I
show you something in that line this morning?" Miss Briskett refused to
be tempted, and produced a coin from her purse in payment of a small
account. Cornelia was interested to be introduced to "hef-a-crown," and
tried to calculate what would be left after the subtraction of a
mysterious "seven-three." She had abundant time to calculate, for, to
the suspicious mind, it might really appear as if the assistant had
emigrated to foreign climes with the half-crown as capital in hand. The
little shop was dull and stuffy; an odour of flannel filled the air; the
faces of the patient waiters were colourless and depressed. Cornelia
flounced on her seat, and curled her beautiful lips.
"My stars and stripes!" she cried aloud. "I'll take root if I sit here
much longer. Seems as that change won't be ready till the last trump!"
She sprang from her chair as she spoke, too much absorbed in her own
impatience to note the petrifaction of horror on the faces of the
waiters at the counter, and in the doorway came face to face with a
plump, dignified little lady, accompanied by a girl in navy blue.
"How do you do, my dear? I am Mrs Ramsden," said the stoat lady,
holding out her hand with a very pleasant friendliness. "As the niece
of my dear friend and neighbour, allow me to give you a hearty welcome
to our shores. This is my daughter, Elma, with whom I hope you will be
great friends. I will leave you to talk together while I make my
purchases. Young people always get on better alone!"
She smiled, a kind, motherly smile, nodding her head the while, until
the upright feather quivered on its stem, then disappeared through the
dingy portals, leaving the two girls on the narrow pavement staring at
each other with bright, curious eyes.
"How--how do you like England?" queried Elma, shyly, and Cornelia
answered with a happy laugh--
"I've been asked that question hef a dozen times already, and I only set
foot on these shores day before yesterday. I think it seems a real good
place for a nerve rest, but if you want to hustle!--" She shrugged
expressively, and Elma smiled with quick understanding.
"Ah, you have been shopping at Willcox's! But Willcox's is not
England--Norton is not England; it's just a sleepy little backwater,
shut away from the great current of life. Don't judge England by what
you see here. You'd like the _real_ England--you couldn't help liking
that!"
"I like _you_!" said Cornelia, bluntly. She held out her hand with a
gesture of frank camaraderie, and Elma clasped it, thrilling with
pleasure. A happy conviction assured her that she had found a friend
after her own heart.