‘I don’t think,’ said Lady St. Clair, with emphasis, ‘that anything of the kind should be asked from us. We have been made to receive a girl on false pretences, who should never have been admitted among us. I always had a feeling about that girl. She was so gauche. One could see she had been accustomed to no society. And my girls had quite the same feeling. It was instinctive; one has a sort of creepy sensation just as when one rubs against some one in a crowd—some one who is not of one’s own class.’
‘I was always fond of ’er,’ said Lady Thompson, in the middle of her muffin. ‘I never ’ad no creepy feeling. If you ask my opinion, she’s a pretty dear.’
‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Sitwell, clasping her hands with enthusiasm, ‘everything, everything that has come out has been favourable to Joyce!’
‘Not to thrust herself into society on false pretences,’ said the eldest Miss St. Clair. ‘I really know nothing of her. I have been from home most of the summer; but to push her way among gentlepeople—a little schoolmistress! Why, Dolly and Daisy were very nearly making a friend of her!—a girl with these antecedents!’
‘It was dreadful cheek,’ said Dolly aforesaid.
Miss Marsham, who had been pulling the lace round her thin wrists into tatters, here put forward a timid plea. ‘Oh, I am sure there was no thrusting herself forward! If there was anything, she was too shy—dear Joyce! She always said it was the schools she was interested in—from the first. Mrs. Sitwell, you remember, in Wombwell’s field.’
‘Oh,’ cried Mrs. Sitwell, ‘I never have said anything but praise of her. I think it is noble to work like that,—to exert yourself for your people. Her poor old parents were so poor, living in a wretched cottage upon oatmeal and I don’t know what messes, as the Scotch do. And she occupied herself to get them a little comfort in their old days. It was noble of her; everything is to Joyce’s credit—everything! Wild horses would not have drawn it out of me but for that.’
‘I never ’ad no creepy feeling,’ said Lady Thompson, pulling at the velvet strings of her bonnet (which had been carefully pinned, poor woman, by a careful maid). ‘She’s always been as nice as nice to me.’
‘What seems very strange,’ said another of the company, ‘is that the Bellendeans, really nice people, who must have known all about it, should have countenanced such an imposition; and your little cousin, Lady St. Clair.’
‘Oh, Greta’s a mere child,—and you know the silly ways some girls have. They think it’s fine to take up people, and have a protégée out of their own class—bringing the rich and poor together, don’t you know—that’s what they say.’