“Not know where the Somers live!” repeated Miss Skuce. “Why, my dear Mrs. Hayes, they live within three miles of where you are sitting!—at Coppingham Abbey, the show place of this part of the world. The Somers of Coppingham are not rich—as riches are understood now—and I am afraid poor dear old Mr. Somers has lost a great deal of money over mines in South America, and stocks—he was never a business man; but the family are as old as the hills. Miss Somers made a splendid match last year, she married Lord Polexfen; certainly he is rather ancient for her, but then you cannot have everything. Maudie is very handsome, but frightfully ambitious, worldly, haughty; quite, quite between ourselves—I never took to Maudie.”
I heartily but secretly applauded this sentiment.
“Of course, it was not a love-affair—respect on one side, admiration on the other—and, as I have told you, Maudie could not expect everything, and—and she thought——”
“That an old lord was better than none at all,” I supplemented briskly.
“Oh, I would not say that, by any means,” returned Miss Skuce, rather stiffly. (It was evident that no one else was to be permitted to censure this august young woman.) “The family are frequently abroad now, but are always here in December and January. And so, you tell me, you know dear Lady Hildegarde intimately?”
And she paused and surveyed Emma with her head on one side. It was abundantly demonstrated by our visitor’s face and gestures that, from being strangers in the land—mere wandering, homeless nobodies—we had been suddenly promoted to the footing of people of distinction, the intimate friends of the mistress of the show place of the county. The alteration in Miss Skuce’s manner was as amusing as it was abrupt—from an air of easy patronage to an attitude of humble and admiring deference—the transition was absolutely pantomimic.
“Dear Lady Hildegarde is the moving spirit of the whole neighborhood,” she remarked. “She is so active, her ideas are so full of originality, her energy is marvelous; no one would believe that she has a married daughter, and a son of seven-and-twenty. And she is so fond of having young people about her. I am certain that she will be immensely taken with this pretty child,” indicating me with a wave of the photograph in her hand. “She will introduce her to all the best people; she will have her stay at the Abbey, and give a ball for her, of that I feel confident.”
“Oh no, no! Absurd! Nonsense!” protested Emma, with a beaming smile. But, unless I was much mistaken, the long seven-leagued boots of Emma’s imagination had carried her far ahead of Miss Skuce’s gratifying predictions. An agreeable idea once planted in her mind, immediately struck root, grew, and flourished, like Jack’s immortal beanstalk.
“How I wish you had let me know that you were a friend of Lady Hildegarde’s,” continued Miss Skuce, effusively, “instead of remaining, if I may say so, so foolishly incog. The Bennys of the Dovecote, and the Prouts, will be overwhelmed to think that they have not called. Her ladyship will say we have all neglected you! I hope the people here are satisfactory? Mrs. Gabb has rather a tongue, but she is very clean. Are you comfortable, dear Mrs. Hayes?”