Still as George Norris got off the table he was decidedly glad that at the last moment he had been able to curb a natural inclination. Never had he felt so sorry for any one as he felt at that moment for Miss Cass. Nor had he ever been so much attracted by any one. A young man of practical rather than ardent temperament, he hoped he was not going to make a fool of himself or to lose his head.
XXVIII
By the powers that obtained in the drawing room the point was much debated whether Miss Cass could or could not be allowed to accompany the children on Tuesday afternoon to the Assembly Rooms. There was much to be said both “for” and “against.” Had it been left to Miss Parbury to decide the question “the againsts” would have had it easily. She disliked Miss Cass with a concentration that was almost terrible. Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson had come to dislike her also with an almost equal intensity, but in her case natural feelings were tempered by political considerations.
In the first place Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson had taken six tickets for the performance of “The Lady of Laxton” and these included one for Miss Cass. It was now proposed that Colonel Trenchard-Simpson should occupy a stall in her stead, but it seemed that he had important business on Tuesday afternoon; besides, as he said, “he was blowed if he fancied sitting up amongst half the old Tabbies in the county.”
This strengthened the hand of the “fors” considerably, but in the end that which really gained the day for Miss Cass may have been her boasted acquaintance with the Lancelots and above all, her singular intimacy with the star artiste, Lady Elfreda Catkin. General Norris also may indirectly have brought a certain amount of pressure to bear, because right up till Tuesday at breakfast when it was announced that the “fors” definitely had it, he was uncertain whether his leg, which for several days past had been “throbbing,” would allow him to attend the performance of the “Lady of Laxton.”
Strange as it may seem, as soon as the decision went finally in favor of Miss Cass “the throbbing” grew much less and General Norris felt he would be able to undertake the journey into Clavering.
As far as it went, all this was very well, but when the gracious decision was communicated to Miss Cass, that perverse lady felt she would have much preferred to stay at home. Happily she did not say so to Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson, but as she considered the problem over an irritating and inadequate early luncheon in the schoolroom, with Miss Joan one side of her and Master Peter the other, she came within an ace of flatly refusing to go.
Her charges were not entirely responsible for Miss Cass’s frame of mind. It is true that ten days of intimacy with their ways had caused their governess to dislike them more cordially than she had ever thought it possible to dislike any human beings, but there were other reasons. The choicest scene in the comedy was at hand, but she was by no means sure that she had not lost her taste for it now.
A régime of underfeeding and solitude may have shaken her nerve a little. Her appetite for adventure may have lost something of its edge. Still, such an opportunity to see yourself as others see you was an all-potent lure, and even if she was going to be revolted by the spectacle, as most likely would prove to be the case, it would at least help to relieve a tedium that was becoming intolerable. Besides she was not one to funk the last fence even at the end of a most punishing day.
As the day was fine and there was only a limited amount of accommodation in the family chariot, Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson decreed that the children should walk with their governess to the Assembly Rooms. The distance was rather more than a mile, and in the course of the journey Elfreda was able to indulge in a little constructive thinking.