Chapter Twenty-Five
Once more I sat down, but this time in the midst of what seemed to me a rather unpleasant silence, as if the room had grown colder: a silence which was broken only by the distant whistlings of a thrush. At one and the same moment both Mr Pellew and Mr Crimble returned to tea-cups which I should have supposed must have, by this time, been empty, and Lady Pollacke's widowed sister folded up her lorgnette.
"My dear Miss M.," said Mrs Monnerie dryly, with an almost wicked ray of amusement in her deep-set eyes, "wherever the top of Beechwood Hill may be, and whatever supplies of food may be caught on its crest, there is no doubt that you have been provided with the means of defending yourself. But tell me now, what do you think, perhaps, Mr Pellew's little 'instruments' are? Or, better still—mine? Am I a mollusc with a hard shell, or a scorpion with a sting?"
Lady Pollacke rose to her feet and stood looking down on me like a hen, though not exactly a motherly one. But this was a serious question over which I must not be flustered, so I took my time. I folded my hands, and fixed a long, long look on Mrs Monnerie. Even after all these years, I confess it moves me to recall it.
"Of course, really and truly," I said at last, as deferentially as I could, "I haven't known you long enough to say. But I should think, Mrs Monnerie, you always knew the truth."
I was glad I had not been too impetuous. My reply evidently pleased her. She chuckled all over.
"Ah," she said reposefully, "the truth. And that is why, I suppose, like Sleeping Beauty, I am so thickly hedged in with the thorns and briers of affection. Well, well, there's one little truth we'll share alone, you and I." She raised herself in her chair and stooped her great face close to my ear: "We must know more of one another, my dear," she whispered. "I have taken a great fancy to you. We must meet again." She hoisted herself up. Sir Walter Pollacke had hastened in and stood smiling, with arm hooked, and genial, beaming countenance in front of her. Mr Crimble had already vanished. Mr Pellew was talking earnestly with Lady Pollacke. Conversation broke out, like a storm-shower, on every side. For a while I was extraordinarily alone.
Into this derelict moment a fair-cheeked, breathless lady descended, and surreptitiously thrusting a crimson padded birthday book and a miniature pencil into my lap, entreated my autograph—"Just your signature, you know—for my small daughter. How she would have loved to be here!"