She was introduced to all of them; handed over from one to another, like a bale of samples. They had been engrossed at her entrance over a big box of fancy work. One of the Jeremy Crisp girls—who was only a girl by courtesy—went into elderly raptures over a woolwork jacket, which looked a capital fit for an organ-grinder’s monkey, and was intended for a baby.
“The box comes round to us once a quarter,” Mrs. Turle explained. “It goes round to all members. Every member works something, prices it, puts it in the box, and sends it on to another member. If we see anything we like we buy it.”
Pamela was beginning to find out that her new cousins and aunts were tremendously busy women—over nothing at all; that they had a frenzy for belonging to classes and societies; that they took themselves and their efforts very seriously.
The cheerful coal fire winked on the foolish satisfied faces with their ridiculous monotony of outline and color. A crunching on the gravel made everybody glance out of the window. Mrs. Turle seemed a little frightened and annoyed. She looked deprecatingly at Cousin Maria Furlonger, from the “Warren,” who was so very exclusive, who moved in such a good set, and habitually went up to help Mrs. Sugden when she gave a charitable entertainment.
“It’s Mrs. Clutton, my dear. You didn’t want to meet her, did you?”
“Oh, never mind, Aunt Sophy. I needn’t know her if I meet her again.”
“I wish she wouldn’t drop in so unceremoniously,” poor Mrs. Turle said in a hurried whisper. “Mrs. Sugden was here the other day. She begged me to let her out of the back door because Mrs. Clutton was coming in at the front. Of course a woman in her position couldn’t possibly meet anybody like that.
“My dear,” she swept her ample skirts across the room, “this is a pleasure. Nancy and I were wondering what had happened to you. We’ve seen nothing of you for at least three days. You’re a little pale. The weather is trying, and makes one look so fagged and worn.”
It was a trick of Aunt Sophy’s to compassionate everyone and comment on the fragility of their appearance. Pamela, when she grew to know her better, was never sure whether it was a feline trick or a sympathetic one.
The new-comer was dark and lean. She was a young woman, whose face looked as if it had weathered storms. She was carelessly dressed in perfectly cut clothes, rather worn. She carried a damp, loosely-tied parcel, which she handed to Nancy.