“I know,” I said, composedly; “I caught it in the balusters—the skirt I mean; but I didn’t know about the elbow. That’s Prue’s fault, but it doesn’t matter; I’ll change it before luncheon;” and I set to work at my flowers.
It was interesting work; there was a tap where you could draw cold water in the conservatory, and a little table on which I always arranged the flowers. And I had no trouble in getting rid of the withered ones; I threw them in a heap on the floor, and the gardener carried them away. But, all the same, I made myself rather dirty; my hands were smudged with mould, and some of it had got on to my face by the time I was half through my task. And as I had particular ideas about arranging the colours, and so on, I was very deliberate in my movements. Quite half an hour must have passed, and I had not begun to think of calling Eliza back to finish putting the drawing-room in order, when there came a ring at the front-door bell.
“Who can that be?” I thought to myself, though without much interest in the matter. “Some one ringing by mistake for the surgery-bell; people are so stupid.”
For rings at the front-door were comparatively rare, and really confined to the postmen and visitors for mamma, as, besides the surgery-bell, there is a side-door for tradespeople.
I thought no more about it, till suddenly the drawing-room door opened, and I heard Benjamin the “boy”—Benjamin was not even a “buttons,” and he only answered the front-door bell in the morning, while Eliza was busy “with the rooms,” as housemaids say—in colloquy with some person or persons unseen.
“Step this way, please sir,” he was saying with his broadest accent, as I ran forward, torn frock, dirty hands, smudged face and all, to see who it could possibly be.
Oh, dear! How I wished I had not yielded to my curiosity; how I wished I had run out by the door of the conservatory into the garden; how I wished I had not interrupted Eliza at her work, which would by this time have been neatly accomplished!
For there stood before me a tall, handsome man, younger-looking than papa—very young-looking to be the father of the girl at his side—a girl quite half a head taller than I, with grave, considerate eyes, and a quiet, pale face. She was dressed very simply, but with extreme neatness; all that, I took in, in less than an instant, even while I felt my face growing scarlet, and I seemed conscious of but one intense wish—that the ground would open and swallow me and the drawing-room up! Yes—the room was worse than I—I did not care so much for my own appearance at any time, but the drawing-room— It looked so messy and horrid—so common, too—“as if we only kept one servant,” I said to myself, “and could not afford to have the fire lighted early.” And to know that it was all my own doing!
A smile flickered over the gentleman’s face; he must have seen how wretchedly awkward and ashamed I looked—my burning cheeks must have told their own tale. But the girl only looked at me gravely, though very gently. I am sure she was as sorry for me as she could be.
“I am afraid,” Captain Whyte said at last—all this time I was blocking up the doorway, remember—“that we are taking a great liberty in disturbing Mrs Percy so very early, but—”