The Ravenhills kept house economically in South Kensington. True it is
that the economies of life are among its heaviest expenditures, but
necessity had not forced them into that dismal position. They lived
prettily, and cared little for what they could not have. The house was
charming, though the furniture might not have fetched much at a sale,
the transforming genius, taste, not being marketable. Fresh chintzes
and flowers, with old white Dresden, and Mrs Ravenhill's watercolours
on the walls, kept brightness even in the land of fog. The very morning
after their return Millie came into the drawing-room and dropped a
handful of flowers on a tray where glasses waited. She flitted about,
setting a glass here and a glass there, until the room began to recover
the homelike aspect which had been wanting. Millie from time to time
contemplated it, her head on one side. Darting out of the room, she
returned with certain Norwegian treasures, for which room had to be
found. A queerly-painted old wooden bowl with horse-head handles was
whisked from table to table, until it rested on a high stool. A small
model of a spinning-wheel went to live under a minute palm. Spoons
joined a silver family. All was arranged when Mrs Ravenhill came in
from more prosaic domestic duties, and smiled at Millie's haste.
Looking at the bowl, she admired the arrangement, but begrudged the
stool.
"So few things as there were in the room vacant for emergencies!"
"It was made for it; and it looks happier already. I have always felt
for the poor thing waiting for stray uses; with only once a week a cup
or a book bestowed upon it."
"Well--!" Mrs Ravenhill resigned the point. "And soon we shall want a
reminder or two, for once again under the shadow of the butcher and
baker, I doubt fjords and mountains being real."
Millie allowed this to pass. "They will be turning homewards by this
time," she remarked.
"Who? Oh, the Martyns. And they have the crossing before them. There
we have the advantage."
"I liked the _Ceylon_," said Millie.
"Do you mean you would go through it again?"
The girl was bending over a flower-glass: she closed her eyes, a throb
of warm blood filled her veins.
"Oh, yes," she said fervently.
"You must go without me, then. I thought going and coming both
horrible. And I don't consider that we were very lucky in our
companions."
A disclaimer sprang to Millie's lips, though she forced it back.
"Don't you?"
"Mr Wareham improved, but he was absent-minded and oblivious. However,
they will all seem nicer looked at from a distance, and we are not
likely to meet any of them often again." Mrs Ravenhill's cheerful
prophecy pierced her child's heart. Millie's humble little desire
reached no further than to the joy of seeing him now and then, but its
roots ran deep, and to have them wrenched at so cruelly was sharp pain.
It would have been worse had not her faith in Wareham flown to arms at
this attack upon his word, for he had said he would call and see them,
and nothing would have induced her to doubt him. Why should she? Mrs
Ravenhill's enmity--too strong a word--was due to an unacknowledged fear
which now and then invaded her motherly heart. She imagined that in
flinging a small dart at Wareham she was taking a wise precaution,
unconscious that every attack sent Millie running to his side, eager for
defence. He had been in her thoughts as she made the room look its
prettiest that morning; she imagined this and that catching his eye, and
provoking a smile of association. At the idea she smiled herself.
"We managed very well with our holiday, I think," said Mrs Ravenhill
cheerfully, "for by coming back early we shall have a beautifully
peaceful time. We will enjoy ourselves, Millie, and do a number of nice
things for which one has no leisure in summer and no weather in winter."
Millie agreed.
"I suppose really there is no one left in London?"
No one, her mother earnestly hoped.
The bell at this moment seemed to tinkle a satire on their hopes, and
Millie's heart gave such a throb that she sent a guilty glance at Mrs
Ravenhill, feeling as if she had betrayed herself. Mrs Ravenhill
lifted her eyebrows by way of asking who it could be; they heard a quick
step, not the step of a servant, the door was opened impetuously, and
the next moment a girl was kissing Millie, and uttering disconnected
interjections.
"Fanny!" cried Mrs Ravenhill, "I thought you were in Scotland."
"And I thought you were in Norway, and came just to find out your
address. The luck of it! When did you come? Where do you come from?
Do you stay?"
"Yesterday, from Norway, and to stay. Put you? You in London in
August!"
"For my sins, I said as I came along, but with you here it has already
lost its penitential aspect, and I don't think half so meanly of myself.
That's the worst of goodness. A reaction comes."
She dragged Millie down beside her on a settee, both hands clasping her
arm; she looked a child, not quite what is called pretty, but sparkling
with fun and life, her eyes grey Irish, with a fringe of dark lashes.
These eyes eagerly devoured the other girl's face. It was an old habit,
and Millie used to present herself smilingly for inspection.
"Well?"
"Well,--oh, you needn't tell me you've enjoyed yourself, for of course
you have," she said musingly.
"In spite of horrid crossings," put in Mrs Ravenhill.
"Were they horrid?"
Millie observed that her mother found them so.
"Yes, you've enjoyed yourself, you needn't tell me, and yet--"
"Yet what?"
It was Mrs Ravenhill who put the question. "There's something. You're
not quite the same."
"To be always the same one must be carved in stone," remarked Millie.
"I'm sunburnt, which proves I am not a statue. But you? It is our turn
to ask questions. How came you in London?"
Lady Fanny sighed and folded her hands.
"Because the world is stuffed with sawdust. Imagine Milborough having
the baseness to throw me over when he had promised me a cruise in his
yacht! I was so cross that I felt I must do something disagreeable in
order to keep up my position of martyr, so I proposed to come and spend
a week with my old governess, Miss Burton. If I talk like a
lesson-book, forgive me. I ask questions because I am sick of answering
them."
"You will come here at once," said Mrs Ravenhill, with decision.
"May I? Delightful. I had meant to go into Shropshire to-morrow, but I
will send Ward by herself, and joyfully stay. By the way, where do you
think that Milborough is gone? To Norway. I intended to telegraph to
Bergen and tell you so. And of course that added to my injury, for I
had counted upon meeting you round some corner in the most unexpected
manner."
Her spirits rose, she flashed fun upon them, and told stories to her own
discredit with mirthful mimicry. Then she fluttered round the room,
noticing what was new, and discovering all manner of similes for the
stool which at last had found a use.
"It has a little the air of Milborough taking the head dowager in to
supper. But I'll never pity Milborough again. He has behaved too ill!"
Millie asked why he had failed.
"He was snubbed by a certain young lady, and revolted against women.
This is an attempt to break away, and have only men on board; and how
dull they'll be! I picture the poor bored creatures stretched about on
the deck, sleeping and eating, their wits in leading-strings. What can
they talk about, with not even a newspaper to suggest topics? I shall
be revenged."
She must hear everything at once, and everything meant especially whom
they had met. Mr Grey she knew, but her interest in Anne Dalrymple was
shown impetuously by a burst of ejaculations and questions. She had
heard so much, admired, blamed, wondered in a breath! Anne's last
engagement and its abrupt ending had brought a chatter of tongues upon
her. Lady Fanny's admiration for the way she moved forbade her to
condemn what certainly required excuses; she laughed at her own
illogical reasons, but clung to them.
"To see her dance is a dream," she declared. "I could forgive anything
for the delight of watching her. And you looked at her for a
fortnight!"
When she had Millie up-stairs alone she returned to the subject.
"Tell me more about Miss Dalrymple. They say men find her
irresistible."
"I dare say," said Millie, with a little reserve. But the next moment a
smile stole into her face. "Who do you think we left with her?"
"Who?"
Lady Fanny sat on the edge of the bed, her sparkling face eager with
animation.
"Mr Forbes."
"No!"
"True, I assure you. He was going further north with them."
"Then it will all come on again. It must. She could not have allowed
him to join them if he was to be dismissed again."
"So I fancied."
"So you know, I should think. The very idea would be preposterous.
They will come home re-engaged. Such an odd position!" Millie's heart
joyfully echoed the conviction. She did not venture to talk about it to
her mother, who might guess too much, but to her friend, with whom no
fencing was necessary, she might play round the subject at her pleasure.
Wareham's name had not as yet been mentioned, but Lady Fanny had a
curious interest in Miss Dalrymple, and her persuasion that now she
would be captured and led to marriage, Millie felt to be so reasonable
that she was not troubled with misgivings as to the pleasure with which
her heart responded. To most of us persuasion is another word for
doubt, but Fanny was young enough to be convinced of her persuasions.
She wished to hear more, all that Millie could tell her, and drew her
conclusions with swift security. If ever she had been disposed to
blame, she forgave her sister-woman amply.
"Of course she liked him throughout, she did not know her own heart!"
she cried with enthusiasm. "Poor thing, how I can feel for her!"
If there was a certain incongruity in the epithet as applied to Anne,
Millie did not quarrel with it.
"And I like him, I like him too! He has shown himself above the common
herd. Men are so petty in their unforgivingness, so vain of pretending
to be marble! He is the more of a hero, for not setting up to be other
than flesh and blood. He will win her, you will see! unless--"
"Unless what?"
"I was going to say unless there should be any one she likes better, but
there can't be, or she would not have allowed him to remain with them.
No, no, it is going to be the romance of the year. Lucky Millie, to
have been let into it!"
She looked at her enviously. Millie laughed and feared she had not
sufficiently recognised the romance when face to face with it. Fanny's
questions were not at an end.
"The first meeting! That would have told one, that would have been
delightful to see. Where was it?"
Millie hesitated, but not even to her friend would she relate what had
actually happened.
"I believe he met her as she landed. She missed the steamer, and had to
follow in a boat."
"Alone?"
"No. Mr Wareham was luckily with her. _The_ Mr Wareham."
"Oh, and Hugh Forbes' friend. That explains. Of course he had
something to do with bringing them together again. I could not think
how it had been managed, and, my clear, your stories always wanted
detail. When it was your turn to tell one, do you recollect how
invariably I had to come to the rescue?" She kissed her. "But it's a
blessing to see your dear little face again. If I'd stayed on at Miss
Burton's, she'd soon have had me in the corner. And now that I'm here,
I'll forgive Milborough. At least, I'll forgive him if he falls in with
all your people, and brings home a report of how things are going with
Miss Dalrymple and Hugh Forbes. He's such a dear boy!"
"Lord Milborough?"
"Hugh Forbes. It's unselfish of me to wish him to marry her, but I do."
Millie joined in the aspiration, liking to remember what her mother said
of Fanny's quick penetration, and forgetting that here only a part had
been offered for her inspection. Such as it was it gave an interest to
Norway which their visitor might not otherwise have felt, and Millie was
ready, not only to harp on the theme, but to play as many variations as
she pleased. The weather changed to wet; in London this is scarcely a
drawback, but it may be turned into an excuse. Millie made it an
excuse. Her mother grew uneasy at such want of energy; where was the
use of imbibing draughts of Norwegian air if the after-results came to
no more? Lady Fanny pleaded for indulgence in laziness, the most
fascinating pursuit in the world, when you gave yourself up to it.
"Give yourself up to it when you are as old as I am," cried Mrs
Ravenhill, provoked, only to be told that nothing could be thoroughly
mastered which was not learnt young.
Lady Fanny, indeed, had by this time gathered more than Millie
suspected. She had been sharp enough to note a change, and once that
had struck her, would not rest until she had got to the bottom of it.
When she expressed a wish to see Mr Wareham, whose novels she liked,
Millie remarked indifferently that he had talked of calling while he was
in London, and the hint was responded to by a fervent hope that they
might not have such ill-luck as to miss him.
"I dare not tell your mother, she would despise my weakness. Support
me, dear, when I protest against being trotted out. London is
unwholesomely stuffy, the only fresh air to be met with in August is in
one's own house, and I can't live without fresh air."
She was more open in her confidences than her friend, and enlivened the
time by description of more than one admirer. According to her, she had
met with instances when their affections had shot up with a growth as
amazing as that of Jack's beanstalk. One meeting sufficed, then the
proposal followed like a flash, with not even a decent interval for
appearances' sake.
"Milborough thinks they are afraid of losing a dividend."
"And you have learnt all this at twenty!" groaned Mrs Ravenhill. But
she had to own that Lady Fanny's warm-heartedness had not suffered.
What was most to be feared was that experience would have wrecked her
faith in genuine liking, and that the jests she caught up for defence
would be turned against her own heart.
Millie believed that her penetration would extract the real from the
counterfeit.
"For another," Mrs Ravenhill agreed. But she feared horror of shams
would make her suspicious where her affections were concerned. An old
playmate would have the best chance, or possibly a man like Mr Wareham,
who, she was ready to allow, had sterling qualities.
"Perhaps they will meet," said Millie demurely. "He spoke of coming
here."
"Oh, he will have other things to think about. No, I am only using him
as a type of the man Fanny might respect and trust, poor child! It's a
terribly trying position with her fortune, and no father or mother, and
Lord Milborough not so steady as he should be."
As the first days passed, Millie felt each evening that the chances for
his coming were by so much doubled, and her spirits rose, but when five
had slipped by, they sank in waters of dejection. She fought heroically
to prevent their loss being discovered, and succeeded fairly, helped by
Lady Fanny, who loved fighting of any sort, especially on the side of
woman, and was firing her soul with blame of Wareham. She flung herself
into the breach with chatter of brilliant nonsense, for which a laugh
was sufficient answer, and Millie, who was so ashamed of the
unreasonableness of her suffering, that the idea of its being observed
was agony, comforted herself with the assurance that she had joined
gaily in the conversation, and betrayed nothing.