The marks of the forenoon alluded to were still plainly visible on Miss Ransome’s face when, punctual to the moment, she placed herself next morning at the breakfast-table. Her eyes were still reduced to half their size, and the reds still absent from her cheek. She had regarded her own countenance in the glass before coming down to breakfast, with an artist’s regret at the prohibition laid on her by prudence to throw in the little repairs and improvements which might have been easily effected in the mirror before her. “I begin to be afraid,” she said to herself, thoughtfully, “that I shall ‘go off’ sooner than I expected. I depend very much upon colour, but it would be madness to touch up. I must try and keep pale, without whitening, for at least a week. I wonder when my spirits may begin to improve after such a blow?”
She chuckled a little, but not very heartily. “It has shaken me a good deal, all the same. Poor devil, I wonder how he is feeling this morning! I would give a good deal—a safe offer, as I do not possess a sixpence—that I had let him alone. But how is one to tell? He looked so stodgy.”
With a sigh of real regret for the accomplished mischief, she went downstairs with the springless step that her really shaken nerves and the maintenance of her supposed condition of spirits dictated. A fresh blow awaited her.
“I am afraid that you are not yet at the end of your difficulties,” Camilla said, and the rigidity of her tone revealed that some unpleasant new development of the situation had shown itself.
Miss Ransome gave a gasp. She had come down thinking that a little chastened demonstrativeness towards her benefactress might not, under the circumstances, come amiss, but Camilla’s tone froze the little rill of gush at its source.
“He has not come back?” The words would scarcely form themselves for the terror behind them.
The question was ignored, and Camilla, faithful to her principle of never blinking, veiling, or delaying the conveyance of bad news to its lawful owner, explained her announcement of yet unaccomplished calamity.
“Mrs. Aylmer has written to announce that she and her eldest daughter propose to be here at eleven o’clock this morning, for the purpose of begging you to reconsider your decision.”
The carefully matter-of-fact key in which this fact was delivered did not disguise from Bonnybell the profound annoyance underlying it. Her own stupefaction at it was so great as to restore her wholly to Nature.
“And is Miss Barnacre coming too?” was all that her white lips could stammer. A reassuring snort from Camilla—the war-horse snort which the name of the too progressive governess always evoked—reassured Bonnybell on this head, and she was presently able to add, “He has made them do it.”