The lengthened prelude to this modest request might have indicated to a more subtle soul than Pamela’s that something weightier lay behind it; but her grey eyes met Miss Mullen’s restless brown ones with nothing in them except kindly surprise that it was such a little thing that she had been asked to do.
“Of course I will,” she answered; “mamma and I will have to come in about clearing away the rest of that awful bazaar rubbish, and I shall be only too glad to come and see her, and I hope she will come and lunch at Bruff some day while you are away.”
This was not quite what Charlotte was aiming at, but still it was something.
“You’re a true friend, Miss Dysart,” she said gushingly, “I knew you would be; it’ll only be for a few days, at all events, that I’ll bother you with me poor relation! I’m sure she’ll be able to amuse herself in the evenings and mornings quite well, though indeed, poor child, I’m afraid she’ll be lonely enough!”
Mrs. Gascogne, putting on her gloves at the top of the stairs, thought to herself that Charlotte Mullen might be able to impose upon Pamela, but other people were not so easily imposed on. She leaned over the staircase railing, and said, “Are you aware, Pamela, that your trap is waiting at the gate?” Pamela got up, and Max, deprived of the comfortable shelter of her skirts, crawled forth from under the bench and sneaked out of the church door. “I wouldn’t have that dog’s conscience for a good deal,” went on Mrs. Gascogne as she came downstairs. “In fact, I am beginning to think that the only people who get everything they want are the people who have no consciences at all.”
“There’s a pretty sentiment for a clergyman’s wife!” exclaimed Charlotte. “Wait till I see the Archdeacon and ask him what sort of theology that is! Now wasn’t that the very image of Mrs. Gascogne?” she continued as Pamela and she drove away; “the best and the most religious woman in the parish, but no one’s able to say a sharper thing when she likes, and you never know what heterodoxy she’ll let fly at you next!”
The rain was over, and the birds were singing loudly in the thick shrubs at Tally Ho as Pamela turned the roan pony in at the gate; the sun was already drawing a steamy warmth from the be-puddled road, and the blue of the afternoon sky was glowing freshly and purely behind a widening proscenium of clouds.
“Now you might just as well come in and have a cup of tea; it’s going to be a lovely evening after all, and I happen to know there’s a grand sponge-cake in the house.” Thus spoke Charlotte, with hospitable warmth, and Pamela permitted herself to be persuaded. “It was Francie made it herself; she’ll be as proud as Punch at having you to—” Charlotte stopped short with her hand on the drawing-room door, and then opened it abruptly.
There was no one to be seen, but on the table were two half-empty cups of tea, and the new sponge-cake, reduced by one-third, graced the centre of the board. Miss Mullen glared round the room. A stifled giggle broke from the corner behind the piano, and Francie’s head appeared over the top, instantly followed by that of Mr. Hawkins.
“We thought ’twas visitors when we heard the wheels,” said Miss Fitzpatrick, still laughing, but looking very much ashamed of herself, “and we went to hide when they passed the window for fear we’d be seen.” She paused, not knowing what to say, and looked entreatingly at Pamela. “I never thought it’d be you—”