"A Beautiful Anomaly."
Arrived at his rooms, Harold did the honours; not without fears lest May should miss the luxuries of her home. But she enjoyed the change of surroundings with all the zest of a schoolgirl, and Doris, being made much of, was as good as gold. Harold himself had not spent such a delightful hour since he came to Beachbourne, but his hour of bliss was all too short; for soon a summons came from a patient, and, though it was only a greengrocer in the next street, patients were too precious to be slighted. So he departed, begging Mrs. Burnside to remain with Lulu until his return.
Left alone, the two girls settled down for a cosy chat; Doris being quite absorbed in an illustrated book Harold had produced picturing the wonders of the microscope.
"Dear old Harold!" began his sister. "Don't think me silly, Mrs. Burnside, but I'm proud of him, knowing how hard he worked for his degree. Will he ever get a good practice here, do you think?"
"I hope so; but it takes time," answered May, rather embarrassed. "Have you many brothers and sisters?"
"There are six of us altogether—a formidable number, isn't it? But, I'm glad to say, we're all doing something, and don't cost dear old dad a penny. I remind Esther of that—she's my eldest sister—when she grumbles, and wishes we were back at Mallowfield Hall."
"That was your father's place, wasn't it?"
"Yes, our ancestors lived there centuries ago. This is the house." And she produced a photograph of an imposing mansion standing in a spacious park, a residence which even Miss Waller would have acknowledged to be a magnificent property.
"What a lovely place! And you had to leave it?"
"He's not a gentleman," she said.—p. 401.
"Yes, my grandfather was dreadfully extravagant, and since father came into power the agricultural depression was the finishing stroke. It was cruelly hard to leave the dear old place, but the mortgagees foreclosed, and we all had to turn out. Dad and mother went to live in Cornwall, where she owns a tiny cottage. Harold passed as a doctor, Jack's at Johannesburg, and Ted's in Australia. Then Connie, my youngest sister, is companion to an old lady, and Esther and I share a cupboard of a flat with an old schoolfellow, Mabel Bryan, whose partner I am in a typewriting office. Esther, who's awfully clever, as well as handsome, and knows several languages, is corresponding clerk to a firm of shippers. She gets a hundred a year, and I manage to make about a pound a week; but I'm not clever, and have to do the best I can. We work awfully hard, but I really think we are happier than if we had nothing to do."
"I'm sure you are," sighed May, as her eye fell upon her own dearly purchased finery. "I must say, I think it very plucky of you to take it as you do."
Lulu opened her eyes, for she was not accustomed to pity. "I'm proud to be a working-woman, and even if I were rich like you, Mrs. Burnside, I couldn't bear to sit with my hands folded."
"Rich like me!" May echoed drearily. "I'm not rich; I owe everything I possess to my aunt."
"But she's rich, so it must be the same thing," persisted Lulu.
Just then Harold came hurrying in. "I was as quick as I could be, Mrs. Burnside," he began, manifestly pleased to find May still there. With an alarmed glance at the clock, she arose to go, and said cordially—
"I should be so pleased, Dr. Inglis, if you would bring your sister to see me on Tuesday afternoon."
"Many thanks, Mrs. Burnside, but I must return by the excursion train on Tuesday morning," returned Lulu; and May dared not urge the point. To invite the Inglises to any meal but afternoon tea was out of her power, for Miss Waller disapproved of promiscuous guests at luncheon and dinner. So, bidding a cordial farewell to Lulu, May set forth with Doris to Victoria Square, escorted by happy Harold.
"I call her a beautiful anomaly!" Lulu observed later on to her brother, when he asked what she thought of Mrs. Burnside. "At first, seeing how she was dressed, I concluded she was only a fashionable butterfly, caring for nothing but amusement. But from her talk I could see I had been unjust, and that there's nothing she would like better than being useful and independent. Poor thing! Her face is one of the saddest I ever saw."
"I believe she has a very uncomfortable time of it with Miss Waller, who is a Tartar, from all accounts."
"Then why does she stay with her?"
"What else can she do, with that child?"
An unpleasant quarter of an hour awaited May within her aunt's door, which she entered with a sinking heart. Doris was instantly bundled off to bed, after which Miss Waller—in thin, high tones, very different from her suave society accents—moralised on May's enormities in absenting herself without notice, whilst Mr. Lang vainly awaited her return. He had just gone, evidently vexed at her non-appearance.
"Mr. Lang has no jurisdiction over me!" May was irritated into retorting at last, whereupon her aunt's frown became portentous.
"Mr. Lang is my friend, and, as such, I insist that you treat him with respect! Pray, who are you, to set your will against mine? I paid for the very dress you have on, and every article you possess, and but for me you and Doris would be in the workhouse!"
May would not trust herself to reply, but went away to her own room, there to shed some very bitter tears. As she eyed her tall figure in the glass, arrayed in the beautiful garments for which she had to pay so dearly, she heartily envied the three happy girls in their flat, as described by Lulu. How fortunate they were, to be able to do as they pleased, and indebted to no living soul for anything! "Oh, to be free!—to be free!" she panted, realising her slavery as she had never realised it before.