Pam and the Countess

by E. E. Cowper

"Yes. We needn't pretend, need we, Mrs. Trewby. I've seen her, and she sent me a note last evening asking me to meet her. I must speak to her."

"Sent you a note, miss!" Mrs. Trewby repeated these words in a startled manner. "Who ever brought it? If it was boy----"

In this way Mrs. Trewby let the cat quite out of the bag, and made it impossible to deny the presence of the young lady at Woodrising.

"She brought it herself," said Pamela, "if you want to know how she gave it in, you'd better ask her, I'm not here to tell things; I'm here to speak to her, it's important."

Mrs. Trewby stood in awe of the Romillys, and at that moment she was almost afraid of Pamela.

"Well, miss," she conceded, "if you'll step inside, I'll tell Mrs. Chipman. She will be in a way, but I can ask her. It's no business of mine--what I say is 'attend to your own business, it'll take all your time'--nobody can say I've put myself forward to interfere; it's not my nature; I never was one for forwardness, that I will say."

These comments on her own character were made by Mrs. Trewby as she shut the gate, locked it, and led the way across the gravel sweep to the square white porch in the square white house-front. Here again was a double-locked door she opened, and Mrs. Trewby led Pamela into the dim hall; then, with a murmured assertion that it was not her fault, she melted into some back passage.

In the briefest time, and before Pamela had time to do more than take in the fact that the hall ran through the house to a glass door at the end, and that there seemed to be several rooms, Mrs. Chipman burst upon her sight.

She was a little woman, stout, and extremely bustling and buxom. She wore the style of garment that used to be called a habit bodice--tight and firm, and bristling with bead trimming and buttons. Her neck was short, but she had a beaded collar fastened by a brooch. Nothing on earth could have been more respectable and farther from any idea of mystery than Mrs. Chipman.

"Good evening, Miss Pamela," she said in a quick bustling voice, suppressed to a low note, "I find Mrs. Trewby's communication difficult of comprehension. Do I understand that you have a message for--me?"