‘A cousin,’ she said, smiling, and shaking hands with him. ‘Boys are my delight. This is quite a new experience.’
Herbert looked up surprised, not much liking to become an experience. He had had less intercourse with ladies than many boys of humbler pretensions, for his mother had always scouted the idea of sending her children to a Sunday-school, and she was neither like his mother’s friends nor his preconceived notions. ‘There! for want of an introduction, I must introduce myself. Your cousin Bertha, or Birdie, whichever you like best.’
Frank was by no means prepared to say even Bertha, and was in agonies lest Herbert should presume on the liberty given him; but if the boy had been in the palace of Truth, he would have said, ‘You old girl, you are awfully old to call yourself Birdie!’ For Birdie had been a pet name of Rose Rollstone; and Bertha Morton, though slim and curly-headed, had a worn look about her eyes, and a countenance such as to show her five-and-thirty years, and to the eyes of fourteen was almost antediluvian; indeed, older observers might detect a worn, haggard, strained look. He was somewhat disgusted, too, at the thin rolls of bread-and-butter on the low table, whence she proceeded to hand teacups, as he thought of the substantial meals at home. When they had been conducted to their rooms, and his uncle followed to his, he broke out with his perpetual, ‘I say, uncle, is this all the grub great swells have? I’m awfully peckish!’
‘That’s early tea, my boy,’ was the answer, with a smile. ‘There’s dinner to come, and I hope you will behave yourself well, and not use such expressions.’
‘Dinner! that’s not such a bad hearing, but I suppose one must eat it like a judge?’
‘Certainly; I am afraid I am not a very good model, but don’t you do anything you don’t see me do. And, Herbert, don’t take wine every time the servants offer it.’
At which Herbert made a face.
‘Have you got any evening shoes? No! If I had only known that the lady was here! It can’t be helped to-day, only wash your face and hands well; there’s some hot water.’
‘Why, they ain’t dirty,’ said the boy, surveying them as one to whom the remains of a journey were mere trifles, then, with a sigh, ‘It’s no end of a place, but you swells have a lot of bores, and no mistake!’
Upstairs Herbert roamed about studying with great curiosity the appliances of the first bedchamber he had ever beheld beyond the degree of his mother’s ‘first floor,’ but downstairs, he was in the mood of the savage, too proud to show wonder or admiration or the sense of awe with which he was inspired by being waited on by the very marrow of Mr. Rollstone, always such grand company at home. This daunted him far more than the presence of the lady, and though his was a spirit not easily daunted, he almost blushed when that personage peremptorily resisted his endeavour to present the wrong glass for champagne, which fortunately he disliked too much at the first taste to make another attempt. Lord Northmoor, for the first time at the foot of his own table, was on thorns all the time, lest he should see his nephew commit some indiscretion, and left most of the conversation to Miss Morton and Mr. Hailes, the solicitor, a fine-looking old gentleman, who was almost fatherly to her, very civil to him, but who cast somewhat critical eyes on the cub who might have to be licked into a shape befitting the heir.