“The fact is,” resumed Lady Pell, “that my companion, Miss Beilby, whom you have heard me speak of as being away just now on account of her health, instead of recovering, as I had hoped she presently would do, has unfortunately taken a turn for the worse, and goodness only knows when she will be well enough to come back to me. While at Foljambe Court I don’t much miss her, but as soon as I leave there I shall want someone to replace her for the time being. Now, that I have taken a great fancy to your niece you must by this time be well aware, and I think that if she were to come to me for a couple of months, or longer if you can spare her, the change could scarcely fail to prove beneficial to her, while, at the same time, you would be conferring on me a great personal favour. On leaving here I purpose going direct to a sunny château in France, the home of a very dear friend of mine, there to stay for some time. Is it asking too much that you should allow your niece to be my compagnon de voyage?”
As far as the reader is concerned, it will be enough to state that when, about a week later, Lady Pell left Foljambe Court and St. Oswyth’s, she took Ethel with her.
Now, it may be here remarked, Lady Pell was first cousin to Sir Gilbert Clare.
CHAPTER XXVI.
GIOVANNA AT MAYLINGS
While the events last recorded were working themselves out at St. Oswyth’s, affairs at Withington Chase had not been at a standstill.
Luigi Rispani, now known to the world under his assumed name of Lewis Clare, had taken up his quarters at the Chase in his position as Sir Gilbert’s grandson, while Giovanna, otherwise Mrs. Care, his supposed mother, was duly installed at Maylings, the house which the Baronet had had specially fitted up for her occupancy.
Plain to the verge of ugliness as far as its architectural pretensions were concerned, but roomy and homelike indoors, Maylings, which dated from the era of the Second George, was far too large a domicile for the limited requirements of Mrs. Clare; so much so, indeed, that Sir Gilbert contented himself with having about half its number of rooms furnished and made habitable. Its situation was somewhat lonely, there being no other house within a quarter of a mile of it. It stood back from the high road, fronting a huge clump of evergreens and a small carriage sweep, but from the drawing-room windows in the rear of the house one looked into a charming old-fashioned flower-garden. To Giovanna it all seemed very lonely and very dull.
One other thing, however, Sir Gilbert did which filled her with unfeigned pleasure, and that was to make her a present of a horse and brougham. And within a few days there arrived a grand piano, of which Giovanna at once determined to avail herself to the utmost. She had been gifted by nature with a full rich contralto voice, together with a large measure of that musical talent which seems inherent in the children of the Sunny South; but her life hitherto had afforded her no opportunity of cultivating either one or the other. Now, however, her opportunity had come, and the very first time Captain Verinder came to see her, she requested him to find her a competent teacher, male or female, she did not care which. Thus it presently came to pass that Signor Sampi, a grey-haired but clever musician, journeyed twice a week to Maylings, and in the cultivation of her long-neglected gifts Giovanna found a new pleasure in life.
Not for many a long year had such a sensation been known among the good folk of Mapleford and its neighbourhood as that with which Sir Gilbert Clare had provided them, and they did not fail to appreciate it to the full.
Giovanna had not been settled at Maylings more than a couple of days, before one carriage after another of the local gentry began to include it in their round of afternoon calls, and she found herself the recipient of quite a shower of visiting cards. Then presently Giovanna found herself under the necessity of returning at least a portion of the calls. She was a firm believer in first impressions, and for some of her callers she had conceived an immediate dislike which caused her silently to determine to see as little of them as possible in time to come. That, of course, is not the code of English society, which teaches us to smile our sweetest on those whom we dislike the most. But Giovanna had always been in the habit of giving way to her impulses, and she still had much to learn.