The Admiral's Daughter

by Margaret Stuart Lane

Here the door opened and a page boy entered. He spoke to his mistress, who drew him out of earshot of the others.

'Master Beckenham again, my lady. Master Beckenham's compliments, and may he have the pleasure of waiting on your ladyship and inquiring after the health of Mistress Penrock?'

'Did I not tell you what to say should this happen?

'I said it, my lady, and Master——'

'Go and say it again.'

The page boy made a deep obeisance and withdrew.

Lady Fairfax, smiling at her own thoughts, rejoined her niece and the sempstress. Meanwhile Madame Romaine, whose delight at finding a receptive audience was great, was telling a story about some one called Simone, a protégée of hers whose services in her own house Lady Fairfax had just requested. Simone, it appeared, had been found many years ago on a doorstep in the city—in Crutched Friars—by the Frenchwoman on her way home from a client's house. The sempstress had been minded to pass by—there are always plenty of crying children in the gutters—but she had heard the child babbling in her own tongue. And the kind-hearted woman, whose country was her dear love, picked up the little one, and solely for the sake of la belle France, carried her home.

The child, emaciated, almost starved to death, had fallen into a fever and a severe illness from which she had barely escaped with her life, and not altogether, Madame Romaine sometimes feared, with her reason. She had babbled of strange things sometimes, but the memory of her childhood seemed to have fallen off, with all the hair from her head, during her illness. 'She is one of my most valued needlewomen,' declared the sempstress, 'which is why, I suppose, my lady demands her presence here, just as if she were but a chair to sit upon, and no good whatever to me!'

'You have others,' placidly said Lady Fairfax, busy with her powdering box at her dressing-table. 'And I have a certain liking for the little Simone. But of course, if you prefer it—I wish not to drive you hardly—send Alice Hepworthy—but spare us her history. Seven days and nights you have. 'Tis not wise to waste an hour talking of people who do not matter in the least. Marion, my dear,' Lady Fairfax swung round, 'take warning by Romaine, and if ever you find yourself chattering, think of her. She cares not what her subject may be, so long as her tongue may wag. You are an insufferable bore, my good Romaine, with your Simones and your gutters. Begone, you rogue, and let me see your progress soon.'

With a smile and a curtsey the Frenchwoman departed. She counted it one of her greatest privileges to be rated by Lady Fairfax.