The Third Miss St Quentin Page 7

library--that the child hascome to stay."

  "Oh Lord, yes," Philip exclaimed, "not a doubt of it."

  "I only wish she _were_ a child," pursued Ermine. "It might be more ofa bother in some ways, but in others--seventeen's an awful sort of age--most girls then are really children and full of fancying themselvesgrown-up, and standing on their dignity, and all the rest of it, and yetnot really grown-up enough to be proper companions to--"

  "Two full-fledged old maids like you and Maddie," put in Philip.

  "Exactly," said Ermine.

  "Well, good-bye again," he said, lifting his hat as he turned away inthe direction of the stables.

  Miss St Quentin made her way slowly to the house. She looked outwardlycalm, indeed to look anything else had scarcely ever in her lifeoccurred to Madelene, but inwardly she was greatly perturbed. To beginwith, she was as I have said, a sufferer from intense shyness; shynessof that kind most painful and difficult to contend with, better perhapsdefined as moral timidity, which shrinks with almost morbid horror fromgiving or witnessing pain or discomfort, which, but for the constrainingand restraining force of a strong sense of duty, would any day gladlyendure personal suffering or neglect, or allow wrong-doing to gounrebuked, rather than attempt the slightest remonstrance. Madelenecould enter a roomful of strangers without a touch of nervousness, butthe thought of reproving a servant would keep her awake for nights! andthat something in the action of her young half-sister was about to callfor rebuke or disapproval she felt instinctively certain. Then therewere other reasons for her feeling far from able to meet Ella with thehearty welcome she would have wished; housekeeper's considerations wereon her mind!

  "I did so want to have the rooms arranged the way Ermine and I wereplanning," she said to herself. "It would have been so much better tohave begun regularly at once. Now I really don't know what to do. Papawould certainly be displeased if I gave her one of the long corridorones, and yet the two or three empty rooms in the south wing are sosmall and would seem shabby. But I am afraid there is nothing else todo. I must explain to her that the rooms intended for her can'tpossibly be ready for some time. And about the maids too--we hadplanned it so well. Now, there will really be no one able to look afterher, for I can't trust Melanie; she is so injudicious with thatchattering tongue of hers."

  Meantime, the cause of all these discussions was waiting alone in thelibrary. She had seated herself when first shown in, in amatter-of-course, unrestrained manner, as if quite at her ease. Butthis had been for the benefit of Barnes and his subordinates. No soonerwas she left alone, than the girl got up and strolled nervously towardsthe window, where she stood looking out. Now that the deed was done,her courage began to flag.

  "I wonder," she said to herself, clasping her little hands together, "I_wonder_ what they'll say. They surely can't blame me, when I tell themhow unendurable it was, and that even Aunt Phillis, in her heart, thoughshe wouldn't own it, wished I were gone, for I know she did. She'llhave got my telegram by now. How delighted old Burton will be--that'sthe only bit of it I hate to think of! Still, staying there to spitehim would have been quarrelling with my nose--is that it?--no,quarrelling with my face--oh bother, I can't get it right, I do sowonder what they'll all say here."

  There was nothing to help her in what she saw outside--not a human beingwas in sight--only the lovely, perfectly kept grounds, looking perhapsat their very best in the soft mellowness of the summer afternoon.

  "How delightful it is here!" she thought next; "what a beautiful room,and what splendid books," and her girlish heart swelled withsatisfaction to think that here was her home, the spot on earth whereshe had an undoubted, an unquestionable right to be! "How poky auntie'shouse would seem in comparison--and Mr Burton's `mansion' even worse,for any way there was nothing vulgar or _parvenu_ about our littlehouse. Still--it does seem rather a shame that I should have been outof it all, all these years, I, that have just as good a right, as poorold Harvey used to tell me, to everything here as Madelene and Ermine.I do hope I shall be able to like them--of course I must not let myselfbe `put upon,' but still--I consider they have kept the best of thingsto themselves hitherto and--oh I wish she'd be quick and come. I don'twant to seem nervous and yet I _am_, horribly so."

  She tapped her parasol on the floor, then she glanced furtively in amirror to see how she was looking.

  "My hair's rather rough," she thought, "but otherwise I don't think Ilook bad. I wish I didn't seem quite so young--and, oh, I do wish Iwere a little taller!"

  She was small certainly, but as she was also slight and very wellproportioned, this did not really detract from her--_beauty_, one couldscarcely call it. Ella St Quentin was not beautiful; she was justexceedingly pretty. Her hair was brown, a shade lighter than Ermine'sperhaps, but dark in comparison with Madelene's fair coils, and her eyeswere hazel, lovely eyes, pathetic and merry by turns, as it suited theircapricious little owner to make them, and her features were allcharming. There were good points in this pretty face too, realsweetness in the curves of the mouth, frankness and honesty in theforehead and no lack of resolution in the chin--but the whole was theface of a child rather than a woman--a well-meaning, but fitful andundisciplined child, who had known little of life and its graverlessons, whom one would tremble to expose to the storms which, sooner orlater, in one form or another, all must face. Yet there was latentstrength too, if one looked more closely; it was a face to make oneanxious but hopeful also.

  She was well but simply dressed. Save for the extreme neatness ofeverything about her, she would have looked a mere school-girl; but thesweeps of her grey draperies, the poise of her head, nay, the very fitof her gloves, at once removed her from any possibility of beingrelegated to the category of girlish hobbledehoys. She had not a traceof awkwardness about her; she had passed through all the stages ofteeth-changing, hair "doing up," skirts lengthening and such crises, asone to the manner born--awkwardness and Ella were not to be thought ofin the same century.

  The door opening at last, Ella flashed round from the window--was it thedoor, or her fancy only? For now all seemed still again, no, yes--thehandle was moving a very little--truth to tell, Madelene holding theoutside knob, was making a last effort to screw up her courage so as tomeet her young sister affectionately but with all her wits about hernevertheless.

  There was no drawing back now that she had begun to turn the handle, andwith a sigh which Ella could not hear, Miss St Quentin came in. Ellagasped slightly--"how beautiful," was her first thought, to be howeverinstantly followed by a second, "but how cold, and how horriblystuck-up! No, I feel it already--I shall never like her."

  But Madelene, pale and calm, was advancing across the room.

  "Ella?" she said, as if till that moment she had had some lingeringdoubt on the matter, "Ella--it is really you! What a surprise--no, Iwould not have known you again in the least. Tell me, there is nothingwrong? Nothing the matter with your aunt, I hope?"

  She had stooped to kiss the young girl as she spoke. It would be untrueto say that the kiss was a very affectionate one, but on the other handthere was no intentional coldness about it. But Ella was not of thisopinion.

  "No, thank you," she replied, after submitting to, though not in anywise returning, the sisterly embrace. "Aunt Phillis is quite well--atthis moment she must be, I am afraid, rather upset, for she will havegot my telegram. I sent her one from Weevilscoombe station when Iarrived."

  "And why should that upset her?" asked Madelene; "she asked you totelegraph your safe arrival, I suppose? But you didn't travel alone?"

  "Yes, indeed I did," said Ella with a slight laugh. It was a nervouslaugh in reality, but to her sister it sounded hard and a littledefiant. "I not only travelled alone, but I came off without any oneknowing. In fact auntie would only know that I _had_ left her for good,when she got my telegram."

  Miss St Quentin's pale face flushed a little, then the momentary colourfaded, leaving her paler than before. She sat down, and motioned to hersister t
o do the same.

  "I am very sorry, very, very sorry to hear this," she said, nervingherself to speak. "Ella, I am afraid you have done very wrong, andfoolishly. It is not using Mrs Robertson well after all her care ofyou--replacing a mother to you and giving you a home all these years.And--it is not a good beginning of your future life with us, to havedone what we--what papa cannot approve of."

  Ella half rose from the chair on which she had only that moment seatedherself. Her eyes sparkled ominously, her face flushed too, but after adifferent fashion from Madelene's.

  "I don't know anything about your not approving, and as for papa--wellat least he can tell me