“No one ever remembers anything that happened to some one else,” I said; “and they can’t see that your shoulder is black and blue under your gown.”
“I feel as if I had been publicly flogged, and I had on my white muslin too,” she moaned, though I don’t know what she meant, that it had made a more conspicuous object, or was bad for the dress, or what.
“I know one thing,” she gulped. “Aunt Gerty or no Aunt Gerty, I shall cut Mr. Bowser next time I see him—cut him dead.”
“Why not? He murdered you.”
I think this was Ariadne’s first sorrow, and lasted quite a week. She would only go out after dark, to hide her shame from every eye. Mother encouraged her, and said she knew how she must feel. To Aunt Gerty she said several times, “Never again!” which is the most awful thing to say to any one. It meant that Aunt Gerty wasn’t to be trusted with girls, and especially George’s girls. Mother gave it her well.
“You should have prevented Ariadne from letting herself down like that! I shall never hear the end of it from George.”
“George indeed! Why wasn’t George looking after his own precious kids then? I don’t think he’s got any need to talk! My Lord Scilly will be having a word with him some of these days, or I shall be very much surprised!”
“You hold your wicked, lying tongue!” was all Mother said to her. Mother, somehow, hasn’t the heart to be hard on Aunt Gerty.
I could have told Aunt Gerty that Lord Scilly was keeping quite calm. He can manage Lady Scilly well enough. I have heard him say so. “Paquerette knows the side her bread is buttered as well as any woman living! She is a right good sort, is Paquerette, only she likes to kick her heels a bit! She and I understand each other!”
He talks like this, as if they were like Darby and Joan, but Lady Scilly doesn’t agree with him, or says she doesn’t. “Scilly and I,” she once said to Ariadne, “are an astigmatic couple.” She meant, she explained, that they are like two eyes whose sight is different. I fancy his is the long-sighted eye.