Chapter Fifteen.
Sir Philip Burns his Fingers.
“Of course she must go; it would seem like dictating to my lady to make any difficulty about it,” Colonel St Quentin replied, when the subject of the Cheynesacre invitation was mentioned to him by Madelene. “What conceivable reason is there why she should not go?”
“I am very glad indeed for her to go,” said Madelene gently. “I only—was not sure, papa, how you might feel about it, because you know you would not let her go to the Manor dance at first, not till—”
“Not till my aunt made a point of it and then I gave in, for which I suppose you think me very inconsistent—well, well, I am not going to defend myself, my dear. I dare say I am inconsistent and weak and foolish and in my dotage—what you like,” he replied irritably. “But one thing, Madelene, is certain, I am not going to quarrel with my aunt. She seems to have taken a fancy to Ella and she may be a good friend yet to the poor child. And Heaven only knows how soon she may need a friend.”
Colonel St Quentin sighed or groaned—his daughter knew the peculiar sound and it was inexpressibly trying to her.
“Papa,” she said, “you don’t know how you pain me when you take that tone about Ella. Of course I am delighted for her to go—but really sometimes I don’t know how to please you.”
“Well—well—never mind. I didn’t want to vex you. But I have something more important to consult you about. I have a letter from Mrs Marchant—did you know they had asked Ermine to stay there and that she had refused?”
“No,” said Madelene in surprise. “I know something was said about it at the Manor when we met them there—both Mr and Mrs Marchant and a brother of his were there, and they were speaking of gaieties they are going to have. But it was not definite. And why should Ermine have refused, without even telling me?”
Madelene’s voice sounded aggrieved.
“Nor me,” said her father. “But it is very sensible of Mrs Marchant to have written to me. She says she is sure Ermine would enjoy it, and that she only gave some vague reason of being wanted at home, or something of that kind. There is no reason why she should not go, is there?”
“None whatever, and every reason why she should,” said Madelene eagerly. “Papa, will you speak to her yourself, and say you wish it? She has only refused out of some exaggerated idea that we can’t get on without her here, and it is such a pity for Ermine to get in the way of shutting herself up. She enjoys society and shines in it; she is quite different from me.”
Colonel St Quentin glanced up at his daughter as she spoke. Her face was a little flushed with the interest of what she was saying, but still she looked ill and less serene than her wont.
“I don’t see why you should speak so of yourself, Maddie,” he said kindly. “When I get round again—when the weather’s a little better, perhaps, couldn’t we ask a few people? It might cheer us up—and little Ella would enjoy it.”
Miss St Quentin listened in surprise, not wholly unmingled with a less innocent sensation. For Madelene was not perfect.
“He would do for Ella already what he has never dreamt of doing for me,” she thought with a passing flash of bitterness. But she quickly overcame it. “If you felt able for it, certainly, papa. We might think of some nice people. That would be when Ermine comes back. Let me see—when do the Marchants want her?”
She took up the letter which her father held out to her, and some discussion as to the journey and other details followed. And then Madelene, with a brighter face than she had had for some time, went off to summon Ermine to an interview with her father.
At luncheon that day Ella was struck with the increased cheerfulness of the family party, and for some little time her powers of discernment were baffled as to the cause.
“Can papa have decided I am not to go, and can they be looking so pleased on that account?” she said to herself. “Can they—Madelene at least, for after all it is she that is looking the cheeriest, can she be so horrid?”
But as no allusion was made to the Cheynesacre invitation—which in point of fact had for the moment been forgotten by the elders of the party in the greater excitement of Ermine’s projected visit—she could not or would not not approach the subject, till her elder sister and she happened to be by themselves. Then said Ella in a voice which though sounding timid and even meek was in reality soft with restrained indignation.
“Have you asked papa, Madelene? Is—is Ermine to go, then?”
“Of course,” Miss St Quentin replied. “He decided at once and he has told her so. In her heart I am sure she is pleased though she is pretending to grumble a little. But I am so pleased—and I am sure Philip will be too to see her there, though he won’t be there the first part of the time.”
Ella scarcely attended to the latter part of this speech, so almost boiling over with indignation did she feel.
“Oh indeed,” she said icily. “Then of course you will explain it all to my godmother. I should like to have thanked her for thinking of me, but for the future I hope she will not go through the mockery of inviting me.”
Madelene stared at her.
“What do you mean, Ella? What has Aunt Anna got to do with it? And, by the by,” as the first hazy perception of some element of cross-purposes began to penetrate to her brain, “how did you know about Ermine’s going at all? She couldn’t have told you about it when she hadn’t told me?” and there was an accent of pain in the last words.
Ella stared in turn.
“You told me yourself—this morning at breakfast when Lady Cheynes’ invitation came,” said she.
Madelene stood still and began to laugh.
“My dear child,” she exclaimed, “I am so sorry. I had forgotten all about to-morrow. Yes, certainly you are to go—you and I. Papa is quite, pleased, and of course if he is, I am. What I was talking about was quite another matter,” and she went on to tell Ella all about the invitation Ermine had received and her pleasure that it was to be accepted. Never had Madelene been so confiding and companionable to her before; she seemed a different creature.
“She is very unselfish,” thought Ella, and she felt ashamed of her own suspicions, as she heartily joined in Madelene’s pleasure.
“You see,” Miss St Quentin went on, “we have lived rather a shut-up life—for even travelling is often shut-up, though it sounds absurd to say so, and Ermine is still young—I don’t want her to begin fancying she is not. I should like her to go about more.”
“You would like her to marry, wouldn’t you?” said Ella, calmly, though softly. But the calmness rather took Madelene’s breath away.
“Yes,” she said honestly, though the colour deepened a little in her fair face. “I should. But,” she went on rather confusedly, for to her there seemed something slightly coarse in the bald connection of the two ideas, “it isn’t exactly that—girls often marry just as happily who stay at home.”
Ah, thought Ella, I understand. “Is it far from here where Ermine is going?” she asked.
“Not very; still it is a new part of the country to her, which will make it all the nicer. Philip will be there part of the time, too. They are old friends of his. Mr Marchant’s half-brother (his mother married twice; her second husband is Lord Farrance) Guildford West, was at school and college with him. He was at the Manor. I dare say you danced with him. A small thin man, much smaller than Philip and not nearly so good-looking.”
“I don’t remember,” said Ella indifferently. “Then you are quite sure you wish me to go to-morrow to Cheynesacre?” she added.
“Of course,” Madelene repeated bewildered by the change in Ella’s tone, which had lost all its sympathetic softness again. “I am delighted that papa seems relaxing a little about you, and by degrees I hope it will be rather livelier for you here. If—” and here Madelene, cold, stately Madelene for the second time that afternoon blushed a little—“if Ermine were married, it would make everything seem brighter, I think.”
“Yes,” said Ella, “to you I suppose it would do so, if she married somebody you thoroughly liked. And—if she were to live near you, too.”
She spoke with a kind of clear cold precision which would have caught Madelene’s attention had she been less pre-occupied. But she was full of pleasureable excitement about Ermine’s plans, and it was almost with an effort that she listened to Ella.
“Yes, of course,” she replied half absently, “that would make it much nicer.”
And Ella drew her own conclusions.
It was with curiously mingled feelings that she looked forward to the visit to her godmother’s the next day.
“Very likely,” she thought, “Sir Philip will not be there. As Ermine isn’t going Madelene and his grandmother won’t mind whether he is or not. No,” she went on, “no, it isn’t my godmother’s doing. I won’t think it. It is only Madelene—I don’t even feel sure that Ermine herself wants it. She, I must say, always seems pleased to put me forward. I’ll never forget Madelene’s face when she saw whom I was dancing with that evening at the Manor.” Madelene however did not seem as devoid of interest in her young sister, as Ella in her present mood would have liked to imagine. One of the prettiest of the frocks she had brought with her from her aunt’s, was looked out and revived by Mélanie’s skilful hands, under Miss St Quentin’s own supervision, and Ermine herself assisted at Ella’s toilet.
“You look lovely,—doesn’t she now, Maddie?” she exclaimed, when Madelene glanced in to say that the carriage was round. “Now don’t look forbidding—let me spoil the child a bit for once. That shade of pink does suit her—almost better than white. It’s the shade Philip likes so—now, Ella, don’t forget to ask him from me if it isn’t his favourite colour.”
“Do you often wear it?” said Ella, meaningly.
“Bless the child, what does Philip care what I wear?” exclaimed Ermine.
But Madelene’s displeasure was not to be mistaken this time.
“Ermine,” she said coldly, “you really must not run on so heedlessly. Of course Philip cares. Even if he were really our brother, as you like to say he seems—he would care. And he will care about Ella too because she is our sister. But you shouldn’t talk such nonsense—I mean send silly messages like that. It would make Ella feel and look quite foolish.”
And she turned back for an instant as she and Ella were going down stairs, to reprimand Ermine still more sharply.
“Do you want to teach the child to flirt?” she asked. “You have agreed with me that there was quite enough tendency of the kind about her already. You will be getting into trouble, Ermine, if you don’t take care—making her fancy Philip is in love with her, and preparing great unhappiness for her, poor child, perhaps.”
But Ermine only laughed.
“Nonsense, Maddie,” she said. “Why must you always be so gloomy about everything? You really needn’t be so cross to me when I’ve given in so sweetly about going to the Marchants—all to please you, you know.”
And Madelene could not resist her kiss, nor resent the whispered warning at the last moment—not to spoil Ella’s evening by looking severe.
Ella was scarcely in a humour to have been much depressed or impressed by her sister’s looks. Her spirits rose with every yard that separated them from Coombesthorpe, and when they arrived at Cheynesacre and were received in the drawing-room by her godmother the girl flew into her arms as if she had been a caged bird escaping at last from its gloomy prison into sunshine and brightness.
“Oh, dear godmother, dear, dear godmother,” she whispered, “I am so pleased to be with you again.” It was impossible not to be touched; she was so genuinely sweet, and she looked so pretty. There were tears in the old lady’s eyes, as she kissed her god-daughter.
“My dear little Ella,” she said. “Then you have forgiven me?”
“Forgiven you?” Ella repeated; “what for, dear godmother?”
“For the trick I played you, or helped to play you and Philip here the other evening? Philip has forgiven me—it really was very funny.”
Sir Philip came forward from the other side of the screen where he had been talking to Madelene. “Ella has done better than I, granny,” he said, as he shook hands with her. “She has not only forgiven but forgotten, it appears.”
Ella started a little when he spoke of her by name. It was still difficult to disassociate him from the attractive “stranger” of the Manor ball.
“I think it was rather too bad of them all,” she said, “but I couldn’t have been vexed with godmother when it was all her doing—all the deliciousness of going to the dance at all.”
She had no time to say more, barely to catch sight of the grave expression with which Madelene was listening to her, when she was interrupted by the arrival of other guests.
There was a party of fourteen, all strangers to Ella, though several among them recognised her as the lovely “Miss Wyndham” who had so puzzled everybody at the Manor. Ella’s squire was a man who declared he had not yet recovered from the disappointment of her not having given him a dance on the occasion in question. He was evidently an adept at flirting and seemed very disappointed when a few words from his charming companion proved that that was “not her style.” Not so, Sir Philip, whose dark eyes spoke satisfaction when he overheard the ladylike little snub, for he had arranged with his grandmother that Ella should be his neighbour on the left.
“She will be so much of a stranger; it is really the first time she has dined here properly,” he said, and Lady Cheynes made no difficulty.
That dinner was a very pleasant experience to Ella. Philip’s manner was perfect. He made her feel quite at home, even while taking care that no one present could have suspected such care was required.
“It is the first time I have really felt as if I had not been brought up a stranger to them all,” thought she to herself, and the only thing that in the least marred her complete satisfaction was the catching sight now and then of Madelene’s eyes fixed upon her with an anxious, almost, Ella could have imagined, pitying expression.
“She thinks I am having my head turned,” thought Ella, with a slight involuntary toss of the said head. “And she is pitying me too for imagining that Sir Philip could possibly care about me, when all his devoirs are, or should be, consecrated to Ermine.” And it was with increased determination to resist any attempt at restraint which Madelene might try, that Ella responded in her sweetest and most charming manner to her “step”-cousin’s attentions.
Her godmother was not displeased, thus much was certain. For she called the girl to her in the drawing-room after dinner, to introduce her to her old friend Lady Beltravers, who with her husband made two of the guests, and made her sit beside her while she fondled and petted her.
“I must make much of her, you see,” she said half apologetically to Lady Beltravers. “She has been away from us for so long! It is not like having a godchild of one’s own, never to see her, is it? Did Philip take good care of you at dinner, my dear child?” she went on, turning to Ella. “He would not give you up to any one else, I assure you, though by rights Mrs Monkerton should have been at his left side.”
Lady Beltravers smiled kindly at Ella.
“I wish we had any young people about us,” she said with a little sigh. “My son has no children, you know—and then he is always so busy. Won’t you bring Miss St Quentin—”
“Call me ‘Ella,’ please,” interrupted the girl. “I’m not Miss St Quentin, and besides—any friend of dear godmother’s—”
“Ella, then,” went on the old lady, completely subjuguée—“won’t you bring Ella over to see me, while she is with you? We might make up a little party—it is so near Christmas and there are a few young people in the neighbourhood just now—let me see, the day after to-morrow—”
“But I am not staying here after to-morrow,” said Ella gently, “my sister and I are going back to Coombesthorpe to-morrow morning.”
“Yes,” said Madelene, who at that moment joined the group, “we must be off early, too. There are such a lot of things to do just at Christmas time. We have to settle about Christmas day too, Aunt Anna. Papa does so hope you and Philip will come to us.”
“On one condition,” said Lady Cheynes quickly, “and that is that you will leave me Ella till then. I will bring her back to you on Christmas eve, that is next Monday, without fail. Ermine leaves—let me see, when is it?”
“The day after Christmas,” Madelene replied.
“Ah, well then, it would of course be selfish to take Ella from you when you are alone. But till then—you and Ermine will have lots of preparations to make for her visit; this child here would only be in the way.”
Madelene murmured something about “papa.” Her face was a curious study, so mingled were its expressions—of pleasure and even excitement, of almost wistful anxiety and misgiving. Ella watched her closely; the misgiving she was quick to see, not so the pleasure.
“Of course she will find some reason against it,” thought the girl.
Lady Cheynes tapped Miss St Quentin on the arm.
“Come, Maddie, my dear,” she said, “you are keeping us all waiting. Lady Beltravers too.”
Madelene coloured.
“I don’t really think it is for me to decide, Aunt Anna,” she replied. “You have quite as much—more—voice in it than I. I should be delighted for Ella to stay—and I am almost sure papa would be so too.”
“Then put it upon me,” said the old lady decidedly. “Tell your father I kept Ella—subject to his approval of course—if he doesn’t like it, he may send over to fetch her home to-morrow afternoon.”
Ella crept to her godmother’s side and threw her arms round Lady Cheynes ecstatically.
“Oh, godmother, how sweet you are! Oh, Madelene, you will make papa let me stay, won’t you?”
Madelene smiled: it was impossible to resist Ella sometimes.
“I do hope it will do no harm,” thought the elder sister to herself.
Just then Sir Philip and the other men came in; Madelene was asked to play, and Ella to sing, her sister accompanying her. It was the first time Philip had heard her.
“I had no idea you sang so beautifully,” he said to her when the little performance was over, and Miss St Quentin was engaged in accompanying another member of the party.
Ella’s eyes sparkled.
“Do you really think I sing well? I am so pleased,” she said simply. “I know you are a good judge. Ermine told me so. She and Madelene like my singing, I think. It—it is one of the few things Madelene seems to approve of in me,” she added with bitterness that was real though she tried to say it lightly as if in jest.
Philip looked at her with grave concern in his eyes.
“Are you in earnest, Ella?” he said; “real earnest, as the children say?”
Ella gave what in a less elegant and perfectly well-bred young person might have been called “a wriggle.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
“About your sisters you mean?” he went on. “I certainly don’t want to do so either if, as I fear, you are unfairly prejudiced against them. At least I should be sorry to hear you say anything unfair, which—which might,” but here he hesitated. “Don’t think I am setting myself up as a judge,” he went on, “but it is possible I might be able to make you see things differently. I know my cousins so well, so thoroughly, and yet I think I can see that the position of things is difficult for you all.”
“I have nothing to say against Ermine,” said Ella quickly, with a sudden access of generosity. “Ermine is very good to me—”
She glanced at Philip as she spoke: a pleased look had stolen into his eyes.
“Ah,” thought Ella.
“I am glad to hear you say that,” he said eagerly; “but Mad—”
“Oh, for that matter,” Ella went on, “I don’t mean to say that practically Madelene is not good to me too. But—it is she who is prejudiced it seems to me,” she added with rather a wintry smile; “she does not judge me fairly. I don’t understand her, nor she me—that is the truth of it, I suppose. I don’t think she has ever been young, or had young feelings. She is so frightfully cold and measured, and she thinks every one should see things precisely as she does.”
Philip smiled too, but in his smile there was little more mirth than in Ella’s.
“Madelene cold and unfeeling!” he exclaimed. “My dear child, how little you know her! I allow,” he went on hastily, noticing an expression on her face which irresistibly reminded him of the days when she used to stamp her feet at “big Phil” if he refused to gallop about with her as much as she wanted, “I allow that Madelene’s manner is often against her. Very often the very extent and depth of her feeling makes her seem colder from the effort she puts on herself to be self-controlled.”
“That’s what is always said of cold, stiff, reserved people,” Ella answered. “Just because you can’t see or feel their feelings you are told to believe in them doubly! I hate reserved people.”
Philip was a little taken aback.
“I think they are rather to be pitied,” he said quietly.
The words were not without their effect on Ella, but she would not show it.
“You—” she began, but a little quaver in her voice made her hesitate, “you won’t make me like Madelene any better for taking her part against me,” she said with a sort of incipient sob.
Philip laid his hand on her pretty white arm. “Dear Ella,” he said with genuine distress in his voice, “how can you mistake me so? If you only understood better! My only wish is that you should not make yourself unhappy when there is no need for it.”
Ella swallowed down one or two tears before replying.
“I am happy here,” she said. “I am always happy with dear godmother. I wish, Sir Philip, you would let me forget about home troubles for a little. I think you might—you are going away soon to amuse yourself; you needn’t grudge me my little bit of holiday.”
Philip grew more and more annoyed.
“I have done no good, I see,” he said in a tone of vexation. “Indeed I have done harm—for I have made you indignant with me for meddling. I wish to goodness—” but here he stopped.
“What?” said Ella, gently.
“I wish you were Miss Wyndham, or Miss Anybody except what you are,” he said petulantly. “You will now always be thinking I am ‘taking parts,’ or some nonsense of that kind.”
“No—I don’t want to think that,” she replied glancing up at him half shyly with a sort of deprecation in her lovely eyes.
“Thank you—thank you for saying that,” he replied eagerly. “Indeed you would be doing me the greatest injustice if you—” but at that moment as he was bending towards Ella, speaking though earnestly, in a lower tone than usual, a voice interrupted them. It was that of Miss St Quentin, who had risen from the piano.
“Ella,” she said in her quiet, impassive way, “I want you to take Ermine’s part in that duet that she and I have just got. I am sure you can manage it.”
Ella rose at once, though without speaking.
“Upon my word,” said Sir Philip to himself, “Madelene is strangely deficient in tact. She might trust me to do the child no harm—she knows how anxious I am to bring about a more cordial state of feeling.”
And his manner towards his cousin for the rest of the evening was decidedly a shade less cordial than it was wont to be.