“Something has rubbed her the wrong way this morning,” he said. “Madelene’s mistaken want of confidence probably. Maddie means well, but she doesn’t understand Ella. And there is some excuse for it. She does seem such a child, and yet she is not really childish.” He drew a long breath. “Perhaps granny is right about waiting, but I don’t know. One can’t make rules in such matters, and one may run great risks. I will not let any misunderstanding come between us—that I will not do. Before I leave to-day, I will tell her all there is to tell about Ermine, and show her she is in my confidence at least.”
And with no very serious misgiving the young man rang at the hall door and was told that the master of the house was expecting him and would see him in his own room.
It was one of the days of Ella’s “lessons.” Her German teacher was due at two o’clock. As a rule a very little haste at luncheon left her free by the time appointed, which could not have been easily altered as Fräulein Braune’s “time” to her, poor woman, was “money.” But when Ella came into the dining-room at half-past one no one was there. A sudden idea struck her: it would be the greatest possible relief to escape making one at the family party. She helped herself hastily to a slice of cold meat, and having eaten it quickly, took a piece of cake in her hand and rang the bell. Barnes, who was extra attentive and condescending to-day, as he scented some news in the air, appeared in person.
“Tell Miss St Quentin and my father,” said Ella coolly, “that I could not wait to have luncheon with them as I should be too late for Fräulein Braune.”
“Certainly, Miss Hella,” Barnes replied patronisingly. “It will be of no consequence, I feel sure. My master and Miss St Quentin and Sir Philip are still hengaged in the study. Orders not to be disturbed. It will do if I explain your absence, miss, when the Colonel comes in to luncheon?”
Ella did not trouble herself to reply. She detested Barnes, and he, on his side, did not love her. Their intercourse had débuté badly; Ella had never forgotten or forgiven the half-suspicious condescension with which he had received her on her first unexpected appearance at Coombesthorpe, and had she better understood the facts of her position there, she would have been still more irate. For carefully as the St Quentins believed themselves to have kept private all the details of their family history such things always leak out. There was not a servant of any intelligence in the establishment who was not thoroughly aware that the place and the money belonged to the two elder sisters, that “the Colonel, poor gentleman,” had lost his own fortune in risky investments, and that the young daughter of his penniless second wife was to all intents and purposes a pauper. “But for the goodness of our own young ladies,” Barnes, plus royaliste que le roi, was wont to say, “Miss Hella, for all her high and mightiness, would have to earn her daily bread—and a deal of good it would do her.”
Fräulein Braune was punctual: the hour of her lesson passed heavily to-day; it was very difficult for Ella to give her usual attention. The German was a good, tender-hearted creature, who had known too much suffering in life herself not to recognise the symptoms of it in another, though she smiled inwardly as she thought that trivial indeed and probably imaginary must be the troubles of one so placed as her fortunate pupil—“young, lovely, rich, surrounded by friends, what can she really have to grieve about?”
“My dear, you are tired to-day,” she said kindly. “You have a headache I see. There is only a quarter of an hour more. Let us spend it in conversation. Would the open air do you good?”
Ella gladly acceded.
“I will walk to the furthest gates with you, Fräulein,” she said, “and we will talk as we go. I have a headache, but it is not a real one; it is because I am unhappy.”