“Oh, no, no indeed,” said Freda blushing. “I knew at once, when you said you were a servant, that it was only a way of speaking. You were an officer on board his ship, of course?”
“Yes,” said he.
“But I had hoped,” said Freda wilfully, “that he had expected me, and had tea made ready for me and him together.”
“Ah!” said the man shortly. “Sit down,” he went on, pointing brusquely to a chair without looking at her, “I’ll send Mrs. Bean to you; she must find a room for you somewhere, I suppose.”
“For to-night, yes, if you please. Mrs. Bean—that is your wife?”
He nodded and went out, shutting the door.
Freda heard him calling loudly “Nell, Nell!” in a harsh, authoritative voice, as he went down the passage.
She thought she should be glad to be alone, to have an opportunity to think. But she could not. The series of exciting adventures through which she had passed since she left the quiet convent life had benumbed her, so that this awful discovery of her father’s sudden death, though it agitated her did not impress her with any sense of reality. When she tried to picture him lying dead upstairs, she failed altogether; she must see him by-and-by, kiss his cold face; and then she thought that she would be better able to pray that she might meet him in heaven.
It seemed to her that she had been left alone for hours when a bright young woman’s voice, speaking rather querulously, reached her ears. Freda guessed, before she saw Mrs. Bean, that her father’s fellow-officer or servant (she was uncertain what to call him) had married beneath him. However, when the door opened, it revealed, if not a lady of the highest refinement, a very pleasant-looking, plump little woman, with fair hair and bright eyes, who wore a large apron but no cap, and who looked altogether like an important member of the household, accustomed to have her own way unquestioned.
“Dear me, and is that the little lady?” she asked, in a kind, motherly voice, encircling the girl with a rounded arm of matronly protection. “Bless her poor little heart, she looks half-perished. Crispin,” she went on, in a distant tone, which seemed to betray that she and her husband had been indulging in a little discussion, “go and put the kettle on while I take the young lady upstairs. Come along, my dear. I’ll get you some hot water and some dry clothes, and in two-twos I’ll have you as cosy as can be.”