The pretty lady came to call the very next week. Mrs Trevor and Betty were busy sewing in the upstairs workroom when the maid brought up the card, and the first sight of it brought no enlightenment.
“Mrs Gervase Vanburgh! Goodness! What a fine name! Who can she be? Do you know who it is, mother?”
“Not in the least, dear. One of the neighbours, perhaps. We will go down and see.”
Betty smoothed her hair before the looking-glass, and then as carefully fluffed it out, shook her skirt free from the little ends of thread which would stick to the rough blue cloth, and followed her mother to the drawing-room, for now that she was over seventeen it was Mrs Trevor’s wish that she should learn to help in social duties. Half-way downstairs inspiration dawned. “I believe it’s the pretty lady! Jill said she was coming!” she whispered breathlessly. The pleasant expectation brought a flush into her cheeks, and an added animation into her eyes, so that it was in her most attractive guise that she entered the drawing-room in her mother’s train.
Yes! It was the pretty lady and no one else, prettier than ever in her very smartest clothes, sitting in orthodox fashion, on a stiff upright chair, card-case in hand, and discussing the weather and the advantages and disadvantages of the neighbourhood with the sedateness of an old married woman; yet ever and anon as she glanced at Betty there was a something in her face,—a smile, a tremble, a momentary uplifting of the eyebrow,—which bespoke an unspoken sympathy. “We understand each other, you and I!” it seemed to say. “This is only a pretence. The real business will begin when we are alone, but—don’t I do it well?” Betty twinkled back, and was content to wait her turn, knowing that it would surely come.
Yes, Mrs Vanburgh said, she and her husband had only lately returned to their town house. They had a little place in the country, and spent a great deal of time with an old uncle who was an invalid, and very fond of young society. No! She did not care for town life, but for her husband’s sake she made the best of it for a few months in the year. The days seemed very long when one was obliged to turn on the lights before four o’clock. Oh yes, she was fond of reading—sometimes! But one seemed to need some more active occupation. She did a good deal of wood-carving. Did Miss Trevor go in for wood-carving? Would she care to take it up? It would be so very nice to have a companion, and all the tools were lying in readiness just across the road.
“Thank you so much. I’d love it!” cried Betty, all pink with excitement and pleasure. “I take a few classes still—music and French—but my afternoons are mostly free. I could come any time.”
“To-day?” queried the pretty lady, raising her pretty eyebrows eagerly. “Now? Come back with me and have tea, and I’ll show you my carvings, and you can decide what you will try first.”
It was all very irregular and unconventional, because, of course, the proper thing would have been for Mrs Vanburgh to have waited quietly until Mrs Trevor had returned her call, and even for a judicious period after that, before sending a formal invitation. Nevertheless Mrs Trevor had not the heart to interfere. She remembered her own youth, and the rapture which it had then afforded her to be able to do things at once; she saw the radiance in Betty’s face, and realised that her visitor was only a girl herself, so that when Betty turned towards her a flushed, appealing face, she smiled indulgently, and said, “Certainly, dear! It is very kind of Mrs Vanburgh to ask you. Run upstairs and put on your hat.”
Betty lost no time in taking advantage of this permission, and in ten minutes’ time the extraordinary thing came to pass, that she and the pretty lady were walking along the Square, chatting together as if they had been friends of years’ standing.