“You don’t hev a choice! I undertook to bring you out, but I won’t take you back if I know it, until you ken sit behind a horse without going off into hysterics every time he tosses his mane. Your mother’d be a heap more scared to see you coming back looking like a death’s head, than to hear that you were comfortably located with a friend till you pulled round. I guess there’s nothing for you to do but to say ‘Thank you,’ as prettily as you know how, and settle down to be comfortable. Why make a fuss?”
That last exhortation was decisive! Elma blushingly subsided into the silence which gives consent, and was forthwith escorted to the room which was to be given over to her use, there to rest quietly until it should be time to dress for dinner.
“Unless she would like to go to bed at once. Do you think that would be the better plan?” Madame asked Cornelia in a whispered aside, but that young lady was quick to veto a retirement which would be so detrimental to the progress of the “cure” which she had at heart.
“Why, no, indeed! To be left alone to worry herself ill, brooding over the whole affair, is about the worst thing that could happen to her just now. It was only a play-baby spill, but it seems the worst accident that the world ever knew to her. She’s got to be roused! I’ll sit up here and see that she rests quietly for an hour, and then I’ll fix her up for the evening, so she can lie on a sofa and listen while you talk. I must get home by seven o’clock to soothe the old ladies. It would be real sweet if you’d lend something to take me back! I’m afraid I ken’t walk all the way.”
Madame laughed pleasantly.
“I wish we could keep you, too, but it would not be kind to Mrs Ramsden to leave her with only a message to-night. I must hope to have the pleasure another time. You American girls are so bright and amusing, and I love to be amused. My son wishes me to have a companion, but a well-conducted young woman who knew her place would exasperate me to distraction, and I should kill anyone who took liberties, so the situation is a little hard to fill. Do tell me who you are? Where are you staying in Norton, and how long have you been in England?”
“Just over three weeks, and I like it pretty well, thank you,” returned Cornelia, anticipating the inevitable question, “though I guess I’ve not struck the liveliest spot in the land. I’m located with my aunt, Miss Briskett, in the Park, and my poppar’s coming over to fetch me in the fall.”
Madame’s interest waned with surprising suddenness. Of an American girl, almost more than any other, is that worldly adage true that it is wise to treat her politely, since there is no knowing whom she may ultimately marry.
A girl of such striking appearance and obvious affluence might belong to anyone, or become anything in these radical, topsy-turvy days. The mother of a son with broad acres and small income could not but remember that a large proportion of present-day duchesses hail from across the water, but it was a very different matter when the young woman suddenly assumed the personality of the niece of a middle-class spinster resident at the Manor gates. To Mrs Greville, Miss Briskett stood as a type of all that was narrow, conventional, and depressing. As much as she could trouble herself to dislike any woman outside her own world, she disliked the rigid, strait-laced spinster, and was fully aware that the dislike was returned. Miss Briskett invariably declined the yearly invitations which were doled out to her in company with the other townsfolk, satisfied that in so doing she proclaimed a dignified disapproval of the frivolities of the Manor. “Thank goodness, that old cat’s not coming!” was Madame’s invariable reception of the refusals, but at the bottom of her heart she resented the fact that so insignificant a person should dare to reject her hospitality.
“Miss Briskett’s niece. Really! How ver-ry interesting!” she drawled, in a tone eloquent of the most superlative indifference. Her easy graciousness of manner became suddenly instinct with patronage, her eyelids drooped with languid disdain. She sauntered round the room, giving a touch here and there, turned over the garments which her maid had laid on the bed ready for Elma’s use, and finally sailed towards the door. “We will leave you to rest, then, as long as you think fit. Pray ring for anything you require!”