Chapter Four.Perfect health, radiant spirits, supreme self-confidence, a sweetly smiling determination to have her own way, and go her own course, though the skies fell, and all creation conspired to prevent her—these were the characteristics of Miss Cornelia Briskett most apparent on a superficial acquaintance. On the morning after her arrival, when Mary the housemaid carried the cup of early morning tea to her bedside, she found the young lady leaning back against the pillows, enveloped in a garment which suggested a garden party, rather than a night-gown, wide awake, and ready for conversation. Really a most affable young lady, who instead of vouchsafing a cool good-morning, launched out into quite a confidential talk, inquiring after the different members of Mary’s family, their names, ages, and occupations, and showing a most sympathetic interest in the girl’s own future.“I guess you are going to be married pretty soon! You’ve got a marrying face!” she said shrewdly, whereupon Mary, blushing, acknowledged that shehada friend, and that hedidspeak of early next spring.“Told you so!” cried Cornelia, dimpling. “Well, Mury, see here, you nip round and wait upon me the best you know, and I’ll give you an elegant present! I wear muslins most all the time in summer, and I can’t endoor to have them mussed. You keep carrying them away and ironing them out nice and smooth, without bothering me to tell you. See! I need lots of attention; there’s no getting away from that, but I’ll make it worth your while. You just put your mind to it, and I guess you’ll make a tip-top maid!”Mary was at least prepared to perish in the attempt. She related the conversation downstairs, with the natural result that each of the other three maids registered a vow to be second to none in her attentions to the young visitor.The breakfast-gong rang at eight o’clock, but it was a good ten minutes later before Cornelia came sauntering downstairs, singing an unknown ditty at the pitch of a sweet, if somewhat nasal voice. She was dressed in white of the most elaborate simplicity, and her shaded hair looked even more crisply conspicuous than on the night before. The last line of the song did not come to an end until she was half-way across the dining-room floor, and so far from being dismayed by her aunt’s stare of disapproval, she only laughed, waved her hands, and threw an extra flourish into the rallentando. Then she swooped down upon the stiff figure, hugged it affectionately, and planted three kisses on the cold, grey face; one on the lips, one on the brow, a third—deliberately—on the tip of the nose.“Cornelia, please! Recollect yourself, my dear! Have a little respect. You must never do that again!” cried Miss Briskett, irritably, but the girl showed not the faintest sign of being awed.“It’s the nose of my father, and I’ve justgotto kiss it! It’s not a mite of use promising that I won’t. I’ve got to kiss it regularly every morning, and every night, until he comes over to be kissed himself!” she announced calmly, seating herself at the opposite side of the square dining-table, and peering curiously at the various dishes. “Poppar says you never have anything for breakfast in England but bacon and eggs, but I don’t see any here. What’s under this cover?—Fish?”“If you wait a few minutes your bacon will be brought in. It had grown cold with waiting so long, so I sent it away to be kept hot. The breakfast hour is eight; not a quarter past.”“It’s not a mite of use telling me the hours. I’m always late! I don’t suppose I’ve ever been down in time in my life, unless by a mistake,” returned Cornelia, cheerfully. “I like to stay in bed and let the day get sorter warmed up and comfortable, before I begin. What makes you want to get up so early, anyway? I should have thought nine would have been heaps early enough, when you have nothing to do.”It was not a promising beginning to the day. In her own household Miss Briskett was accustomed to an authority as complete as that of the general of an army. She was just, and she was generous; her servants were treated with kindness and consideration, but if they wished to retain their places, they had to learn the lesson of dumb, unquestioning obedience. She might be right, she might be wrong, she might remember, she might forget—no matter! it was not their business to enlighten her. “Theirs but to do, and die!” She would not brook a question as to her own authority. It was, therefore, a distinct blow to the good lady to find her decrees ignored by her young guest with a smiling good-nature, more baffling than the most determined opposition.She remained stolidly silent throughout the meal, but Cornelia apparently regarded he attitude as a tactful abdication in her own favour, and kept up an incessant flow of conversation from start to finish. When the bell was rung for prayers, she seated herself in a low chair, directly facing the servants’ seats, and smiled a dazzling greeting to each in turn. They sat down in their usual positions, heads bent, hands folded on the middle of their clean white aprons; feet tucked carefully out of sight; there was no outward sign of irreverence or inattention in their demeanour, but Miss Briskettfelt, that every single woman of them was absorbed—utterly, consumedly absorbed—in casting sly glances at that distracting white vision in the easy chair; at the dully glowing hair, the floating folds of white, the tiny, extended feet. She might have read a page of the dictionary, and they would not have noticed; even Heap, who was old enough to know better, was edging sideways in her chair, to get a better view!When the four stiffly-starched dresses had rustled out of the room, Cornelia yawned, and stretched herself like a sleepy, luxurious kitten, then snoodled down once more in her comfortable chair. Her eyes were fixed upon her aunt’s face, while that good lady bustled about the room, folding the newspaper into an accurate square, and putting it away in a brass-bound cage; collecting scattered envelopes and putting them in the waste-paper basket, moving the flower-vases on the chimney-piece, so that they should stand at mathematically the same distance from the central clock. At every movement she waited to hear the expected, “Can I help you, Aunt Sophia?” which right feeling would surely prompt in any well-principled damsel, and though her reply would of a certainty have been in the negative, she felt aggrieved that the opportunity was not vouchsafed.She was determined not to look in the girl’s direction, nor to meet those watching eyes, but presently, in spite of herself, she felt a magnetic compulsion to turn her head to answer the bright, expectant glance.“Well?” queried Cornelia, smiling.“Well what, my dear?”“How are you going to amuse me this forenoon?”Miss Briskett sat down suddenly in the nearest chair, and suffered a mental collapse. Positively this view of the situation had never once dawned upon her unimaginative brain! Mrs Ramsden had dimly wrestled with the problem, solving it at last with an easy, “She can talk to Elma!” but the aunt and hostess had been too much occupied with consideration for her own comfort to think of anyone else. It had crossed her mind that the girl might tire her, bore her, worry her, or humiliate her before the neighbours; in an occasional giddy flight of fancy she had even supposed it possible that Cornelia might amuse her, and make life more agreeable, but never for the fraction of a second had she realised that she herself was fated either to bore, or to amuse Cornelia in return!The discovery was a shock. Being a just woman, Miss Briskett was forced to the conclusion that she had been selfish and self-engrossed; but such self-revelations do not as a rule soften our hearts towards the fellow-creature who has been the means of our enlightenment. Miss Briskett was annoyed with herself, but she was much more annoyed with Cornelia, and considered that she had good reason to be so.“I have no time to think of frivolities in the morning, my dear. I am too busy with household duties. I am now going to the kitchen to interview my cook, then to the store-room to give out what is needed for the day, and when that is accomplished I shall go to the shops to give my orders. If you wish, I shall be pleased to have your company!”“Right oh!” cried Cornelia, nodding. “It will be a lesson in your silly old pounds and pence. What do you keep in your store-room, Aunt Soph? Nice things? Fruits? Candy? Cake? I wouldn’t mind giving out the stores for a spell, now and again. Well! ... I’ll just mouch round, and be ready for you when you set out for your walk.”Miss Briskett left the room, in blissful ignorance of what “mouch” might mean, and much too dignified to inquire, but by the time that ten o’clock had struck, she had learnt to connect the expression with all that was irritating and presumptuous. In the midst of her discussion with the cook, for instance, the sound of music burst upon her ears; the echo of that disused piano which had almost forgotten to be anything but a stand for ornaments and lamps. Bang went the bass, crash went the treble, the tune a well-known dance, played with a dash and a spirt, a rollicking marking of time irresistible to any human creature under forty, who did not suffer from corns on their toes. In the recesses of the scullery a subdued scuffling was heard. Tweeny was stepping it to and fro, saucepans in hand; from the dining-room overhead, where Mason was clearing away the breakfast dishes, came a succession of mysterious bumping sounds. Heap stood stolid as a rock, but her eyes—her small, pale, querulous eyes—danced a deliberate waltz round the table and back...“I must request Cornelia not to play the piano in the morning!” said Miss Briskett to herself.From the store-room upstairs a sound of talking and laughing was heard from within the visitor’s bedroom, where sat that young lady in state, issuing orders to Mary, who was blissfully employed in unpacking the contents of one of the big dress boxes, and hanging up skirts in the mahogany wardrobe.“I must beg Cornelia not to interfere with the servants’ work in the morning!” said Miss Briskett once more. At half-past ten silence reigned, and she went downstairs, equipped in her black silk mantle and her third best bonnet, to announce her readiness to start on the usual morning round.Cornelia was not in the morning-room; she was not in the drawing-room, though abundant signs of her recent presence were visible in the littered ornaments on the open piano.“I must beg Cornelia to put things back in their proper places!” said Miss Briskett a third time as she crossed the hall to the dining-room. This room also was empty, but even as she grasped the fact, Miss Briskett started with dismay to behold a bareheaded figure leaning over the garden gate, elbows propped on the topmost bar, and chin supported on clasped hands. This time she did not pause to determine what commands she should issue in the future, but stepped hastily down the path to take immediate and peremptory measures.“My dear! in the front garden—without a hat—leaning over the gate! What can you be thinking of? The neighbours might see you!”Cornelia turned in lazy amusement. “Well, if it’s going to be a shock to them, they might as well begin early, and get it over.” She ran a surprised eye over her aunt’s severe attire. “My, Aunt Soph, you look too good to live! I’m ’most frightened of you in that bonnet. If you’d given a hoot from the window I’d have hustled up, and not kept you waiting. Just hang on two shakes while I get my hat. I won’t stay to prink!”“I am not accustomed—” began Miss Briskett, automatically, but she spoke to thin air. Cornelia had flown up the path in a cloud of swirling skirts; cries of “Mury! Mury!” sounded from within, and the mistress of the house slowly retraced her steps and seated herself to await the next appearance of the whirlwind with what patience she could command.It was long in coming. The clock ticked a slow quarter of an hour, and was approaching twenty minutes, when footsteps sounded once more, and Cornelia appeared in the doorway. She had not changed her dress, she had not donned her jacket; her long, white gloves dangled from her hand; to judge from appearances she had spent a solid twenty minutes in putting on a tip-tilted hat which had been trimmed with bows of dainty flowered ribbon, on the principle of the more the merrier. Miss Briskett disapproved of the hat. It dipped over the forehead, giving an obviously artificial air of demureness to the features; it tilted up at the back, revealing the objectionable hair in all its wanton profusion. It looked—odd, and if there was one thing more than another to which Norton objected, it was a garment which differentiated itself from its fellows.Aunt and niece walked down the path together in the direction of the South Lodge, the latter putting innumerable questions, to which the former replied in shocked surprise. “What were those gardens across the road?”—They were private property of householders in the Park.—“Did they have fine jinks over there in summer time?”—The householders in the park never, under any circumstances, indulged in “jinks.” They disapproved thoroughly, and on principle, of anything connected with jinks!—“Think of that now—the poor, deluded creatures! What did they use the gardens for, anyway?”—The gardens were used for an occasional promenade; and were also valuable as forming a screen between the Park and the houses on the Western Road.—“What was wrong with the houses on the Western Road?”—There was nothing wrong with the houses in question. The residents in the Park objected to see, or to be seen by,anyhouses, however desirable. They wished to ensure for themselves an unbroken and uninterrupted privacy.—“My gracious!”Mrs Phipps, the dragon of the South Lodge, came out to the doorstep, and bobbed respectfully as Miss Briskett passed by, but curiosity was rampant upon her features. Cornelia smiled radiantly upon her; she smiled upon everyone she met, and threw bright, curious glances to right and to left.“My! isn’t itgreen? My! isn’t it still? Whereiseveryone, anyway? Have they got a funeral in every house? Seems kind of unsociable, muffling themselves up behind these hedgerows! Over with us, if we’ve got a good thing, we’re not so eager to hide it away. You can walk along the sidewalk and see everything that’s going on. In the towns the families camp out on the doorsteps. It’s real lively and sociable. ... Are these your stores? They look as if they’d been made in the year one.”They were, in truth, a quaint little row—butcher, grocer, greengrocer, and linen-draper, all nestled into a little angle between two long, outstanding buildings, which seemed threatening at every moment to fall down and crush them to atoms. The windows were small, and the space inside decidedly limited, and this morning there was an unusual rush of customers. It seemed as if every housewife in the neighbourhood had sallied forth to make her purchases at the exact hour when Miss Briskett was known to do her daily shopping. At the grocer’s counter Cornelia was introduced to Mrs Beaumont, of The Croft.“My niece, Miss Cornelia Briskett. Mrs Beaumont,” murmured Miss Briskett.“Mrs Beaumont!” repeated Cornelia, loudly, with a gracious, sidelong observance, at which unusual manner of receiving an introduction both ladies stared in surprise.Presently Mrs Beaumont recovered herself sufficiently to put an all-important question.“How do you like England?”“I think it’s lovely,” said Cornelia.In the fishmonger’s shop Mrs Rhodes and Mrs Muir came up in their turn, and opened wide eyes of surprise as the strange girl again repeated their names in her high monotone. Evidently this was an American custom. Strange people, the Americans! The ladies simpered, and put the inevitable query: “How do you like England?”“I think it’s sweet,” said Cornelia.The draper’s shop was a revelation of old-world methods. One anaemic-looking assistant endeavoured to attend to three counters and half a dozen customers, with an unruffled calm which they vainly strove to emulate. Miss Briskett produced a pattern of grey ribbon which she wished to match. Four different boxes were lifted down from the wall, and their contents ransacked in vain, while the patient waiters received small sops in the shape of cases and trays, shoved along to their corner of the counter. When persuasion failed to convince Miss Briskett that an elephant grey exactly matched her silvery fragment—“I’ll see if we have it in stock!” cried the damsel, hopefully, and promptly disappeared into space. The minutes passed by; Cornelia frowned and fidgeted, was introduced to a fourth dame, and declared that England was “’cute.” Weary waiters for flannel and small-wares looked at their watches, and fidgeted restlessly, but no one rebelled, nor showed any inclination to walk out of the shop in disgust. At length the assistant reappeared, flushed and panting, to regret that they were “sold out,” and “What is your next pleasure, madam?”Madam’s next pleasure was a skein of wool, which investigation again failed to produce. “But we have a very nice line in kid gloves; can I show you something in that line this morning?” Miss Briskett refused to be tempted, and produced a coin from her purse in payment of a small account. Cornelia was interested to be introduced to “hef-a-crown,” and tried to calculate what would be left after the subtraction of a mysterious “seven-three.” She had abundant time to calculate, for, to the suspicious mind, it might really appear as if the assistant had emigrated to foreign climes with the half-crown as capital in hand. The little shop was dull and stuffy; an odour of flannel filled the air; the faces of the patient waiters were colourless and depressed. Cornelia flounced on her seat, and curled her beautiful lips.“My stars and stripes!” she cried aloud. “I’ll take root if I sit here much longer. Seems as that change won’t be ready till the last trump!”She sprang from her chair as she spoke, too much absorbed in her own impatience to note the petrifaction of horror on the faces of the waiters at the counter, and in the doorway came face to face with a plump, dignified little lady, accompanied by a girl in navy blue.“How do you do, my dear? I am Mrs Ramsden,” said the stoat lady, holding out her hand with a very pleasant friendliness. “As the niece of my dear friend and neighbour, allow me to give you a hearty welcome to our shores. This is my daughter, Elma, with whom I hope you will be great friends. I will leave you to talk together while I make my purchases. Young people always get on better alone!”She smiled, a kind, motherly smile, nodding her head the while, until the upright feather quivered on its stem, then disappeared through the dingy portals, leaving the two girls on the narrow pavement staring at each other with bright, curious eyes.“How—how do you like England?” queried Elma, shyly, and Cornelia answered with a happy laugh—“I’ve been asked that question hef a dozen times already, and I only set foot on these shores day before yesterday. I think it seems a real good place for a nerve rest, but if you want to hustle!—” She shrugged expressively, and Elma smiled with quick understanding.“Ah, you have been shopping at Willcox’s! But Willcox’s is not England—Norton is not England; it’s just a sleepy little backwater, shut away from the great current of life. Don’t judge England by what you see here. You’d like therealEngland—you couldn’t help liking that!”“I likeyou!” said Cornelia, bluntly. She held out her hand with a gesture of frank camaraderie, and Elma clasped it, thrilling with pleasure. A happy conviction assured her that she had found a friend after her own heart.
Perfect health, radiant spirits, supreme self-confidence, a sweetly smiling determination to have her own way, and go her own course, though the skies fell, and all creation conspired to prevent her—these were the characteristics of Miss Cornelia Briskett most apparent on a superficial acquaintance. On the morning after her arrival, when Mary the housemaid carried the cup of early morning tea to her bedside, she found the young lady leaning back against the pillows, enveloped in a garment which suggested a garden party, rather than a night-gown, wide awake, and ready for conversation. Really a most affable young lady, who instead of vouchsafing a cool good-morning, launched out into quite a confidential talk, inquiring after the different members of Mary’s family, their names, ages, and occupations, and showing a most sympathetic interest in the girl’s own future.
“I guess you are going to be married pretty soon! You’ve got a marrying face!” she said shrewdly, whereupon Mary, blushing, acknowledged that shehada friend, and that hedidspeak of early next spring.
“Told you so!” cried Cornelia, dimpling. “Well, Mury, see here, you nip round and wait upon me the best you know, and I’ll give you an elegant present! I wear muslins most all the time in summer, and I can’t endoor to have them mussed. You keep carrying them away and ironing them out nice and smooth, without bothering me to tell you. See! I need lots of attention; there’s no getting away from that, but I’ll make it worth your while. You just put your mind to it, and I guess you’ll make a tip-top maid!”
Mary was at least prepared to perish in the attempt. She related the conversation downstairs, with the natural result that each of the other three maids registered a vow to be second to none in her attentions to the young visitor.
The breakfast-gong rang at eight o’clock, but it was a good ten minutes later before Cornelia came sauntering downstairs, singing an unknown ditty at the pitch of a sweet, if somewhat nasal voice. She was dressed in white of the most elaborate simplicity, and her shaded hair looked even more crisply conspicuous than on the night before. The last line of the song did not come to an end until she was half-way across the dining-room floor, and so far from being dismayed by her aunt’s stare of disapproval, she only laughed, waved her hands, and threw an extra flourish into the rallentando. Then she swooped down upon the stiff figure, hugged it affectionately, and planted three kisses on the cold, grey face; one on the lips, one on the brow, a third—deliberately—on the tip of the nose.
“Cornelia, please! Recollect yourself, my dear! Have a little respect. You must never do that again!” cried Miss Briskett, irritably, but the girl showed not the faintest sign of being awed.
“It’s the nose of my father, and I’ve justgotto kiss it! It’s not a mite of use promising that I won’t. I’ve got to kiss it regularly every morning, and every night, until he comes over to be kissed himself!” she announced calmly, seating herself at the opposite side of the square dining-table, and peering curiously at the various dishes. “Poppar says you never have anything for breakfast in England but bacon and eggs, but I don’t see any here. What’s under this cover?—Fish?”
“If you wait a few minutes your bacon will be brought in. It had grown cold with waiting so long, so I sent it away to be kept hot. The breakfast hour is eight; not a quarter past.”
“It’s not a mite of use telling me the hours. I’m always late! I don’t suppose I’ve ever been down in time in my life, unless by a mistake,” returned Cornelia, cheerfully. “I like to stay in bed and let the day get sorter warmed up and comfortable, before I begin. What makes you want to get up so early, anyway? I should have thought nine would have been heaps early enough, when you have nothing to do.”
It was not a promising beginning to the day. In her own household Miss Briskett was accustomed to an authority as complete as that of the general of an army. She was just, and she was generous; her servants were treated with kindness and consideration, but if they wished to retain their places, they had to learn the lesson of dumb, unquestioning obedience. She might be right, she might be wrong, she might remember, she might forget—no matter! it was not their business to enlighten her. “Theirs but to do, and die!” She would not brook a question as to her own authority. It was, therefore, a distinct blow to the good lady to find her decrees ignored by her young guest with a smiling good-nature, more baffling than the most determined opposition.
She remained stolidly silent throughout the meal, but Cornelia apparently regarded he attitude as a tactful abdication in her own favour, and kept up an incessant flow of conversation from start to finish. When the bell was rung for prayers, she seated herself in a low chair, directly facing the servants’ seats, and smiled a dazzling greeting to each in turn. They sat down in their usual positions, heads bent, hands folded on the middle of their clean white aprons; feet tucked carefully out of sight; there was no outward sign of irreverence or inattention in their demeanour, but Miss Briskettfelt, that every single woman of them was absorbed—utterly, consumedly absorbed—in casting sly glances at that distracting white vision in the easy chair; at the dully glowing hair, the floating folds of white, the tiny, extended feet. She might have read a page of the dictionary, and they would not have noticed; even Heap, who was old enough to know better, was edging sideways in her chair, to get a better view!
When the four stiffly-starched dresses had rustled out of the room, Cornelia yawned, and stretched herself like a sleepy, luxurious kitten, then snoodled down once more in her comfortable chair. Her eyes were fixed upon her aunt’s face, while that good lady bustled about the room, folding the newspaper into an accurate square, and putting it away in a brass-bound cage; collecting scattered envelopes and putting them in the waste-paper basket, moving the flower-vases on the chimney-piece, so that they should stand at mathematically the same distance from the central clock. At every movement she waited to hear the expected, “Can I help you, Aunt Sophia?” which right feeling would surely prompt in any well-principled damsel, and though her reply would of a certainty have been in the negative, she felt aggrieved that the opportunity was not vouchsafed.
She was determined not to look in the girl’s direction, nor to meet those watching eyes, but presently, in spite of herself, she felt a magnetic compulsion to turn her head to answer the bright, expectant glance.
“Well?” queried Cornelia, smiling.
“Well what, my dear?”
“How are you going to amuse me this forenoon?”
Miss Briskett sat down suddenly in the nearest chair, and suffered a mental collapse. Positively this view of the situation had never once dawned upon her unimaginative brain! Mrs Ramsden had dimly wrestled with the problem, solving it at last with an easy, “She can talk to Elma!” but the aunt and hostess had been too much occupied with consideration for her own comfort to think of anyone else. It had crossed her mind that the girl might tire her, bore her, worry her, or humiliate her before the neighbours; in an occasional giddy flight of fancy she had even supposed it possible that Cornelia might amuse her, and make life more agreeable, but never for the fraction of a second had she realised that she herself was fated either to bore, or to amuse Cornelia in return!
The discovery was a shock. Being a just woman, Miss Briskett was forced to the conclusion that she had been selfish and self-engrossed; but such self-revelations do not as a rule soften our hearts towards the fellow-creature who has been the means of our enlightenment. Miss Briskett was annoyed with herself, but she was much more annoyed with Cornelia, and considered that she had good reason to be so.
“I have no time to think of frivolities in the morning, my dear. I am too busy with household duties. I am now going to the kitchen to interview my cook, then to the store-room to give out what is needed for the day, and when that is accomplished I shall go to the shops to give my orders. If you wish, I shall be pleased to have your company!”
“Right oh!” cried Cornelia, nodding. “It will be a lesson in your silly old pounds and pence. What do you keep in your store-room, Aunt Soph? Nice things? Fruits? Candy? Cake? I wouldn’t mind giving out the stores for a spell, now and again. Well! ... I’ll just mouch round, and be ready for you when you set out for your walk.”
Miss Briskett left the room, in blissful ignorance of what “mouch” might mean, and much too dignified to inquire, but by the time that ten o’clock had struck, she had learnt to connect the expression with all that was irritating and presumptuous. In the midst of her discussion with the cook, for instance, the sound of music burst upon her ears; the echo of that disused piano which had almost forgotten to be anything but a stand for ornaments and lamps. Bang went the bass, crash went the treble, the tune a well-known dance, played with a dash and a spirt, a rollicking marking of time irresistible to any human creature under forty, who did not suffer from corns on their toes. In the recesses of the scullery a subdued scuffling was heard. Tweeny was stepping it to and fro, saucepans in hand; from the dining-room overhead, where Mason was clearing away the breakfast dishes, came a succession of mysterious bumping sounds. Heap stood stolid as a rock, but her eyes—her small, pale, querulous eyes—danced a deliberate waltz round the table and back...
“I must request Cornelia not to play the piano in the morning!” said Miss Briskett to herself.
From the store-room upstairs a sound of talking and laughing was heard from within the visitor’s bedroom, where sat that young lady in state, issuing orders to Mary, who was blissfully employed in unpacking the contents of one of the big dress boxes, and hanging up skirts in the mahogany wardrobe.
“I must beg Cornelia not to interfere with the servants’ work in the morning!” said Miss Briskett once more. At half-past ten silence reigned, and she went downstairs, equipped in her black silk mantle and her third best bonnet, to announce her readiness to start on the usual morning round.
Cornelia was not in the morning-room; she was not in the drawing-room, though abundant signs of her recent presence were visible in the littered ornaments on the open piano.
“I must beg Cornelia to put things back in their proper places!” said Miss Briskett a third time as she crossed the hall to the dining-room. This room also was empty, but even as she grasped the fact, Miss Briskett started with dismay to behold a bareheaded figure leaning over the garden gate, elbows propped on the topmost bar, and chin supported on clasped hands. This time she did not pause to determine what commands she should issue in the future, but stepped hastily down the path to take immediate and peremptory measures.
“My dear! in the front garden—without a hat—leaning over the gate! What can you be thinking of? The neighbours might see you!”
Cornelia turned in lazy amusement. “Well, if it’s going to be a shock to them, they might as well begin early, and get it over.” She ran a surprised eye over her aunt’s severe attire. “My, Aunt Soph, you look too good to live! I’m ’most frightened of you in that bonnet. If you’d given a hoot from the window I’d have hustled up, and not kept you waiting. Just hang on two shakes while I get my hat. I won’t stay to prink!”
“I am not accustomed—” began Miss Briskett, automatically, but she spoke to thin air. Cornelia had flown up the path in a cloud of swirling skirts; cries of “Mury! Mury!” sounded from within, and the mistress of the house slowly retraced her steps and seated herself to await the next appearance of the whirlwind with what patience she could command.
It was long in coming. The clock ticked a slow quarter of an hour, and was approaching twenty minutes, when footsteps sounded once more, and Cornelia appeared in the doorway. She had not changed her dress, she had not donned her jacket; her long, white gloves dangled from her hand; to judge from appearances she had spent a solid twenty minutes in putting on a tip-tilted hat which had been trimmed with bows of dainty flowered ribbon, on the principle of the more the merrier. Miss Briskett disapproved of the hat. It dipped over the forehead, giving an obviously artificial air of demureness to the features; it tilted up at the back, revealing the objectionable hair in all its wanton profusion. It looked—odd, and if there was one thing more than another to which Norton objected, it was a garment which differentiated itself from its fellows.
Aunt and niece walked down the path together in the direction of the South Lodge, the latter putting innumerable questions, to which the former replied in shocked surprise. “What were those gardens across the road?”—They were private property of householders in the Park.—“Did they have fine jinks over there in summer time?”—The householders in the park never, under any circumstances, indulged in “jinks.” They disapproved thoroughly, and on principle, of anything connected with jinks!—“Think of that now—the poor, deluded creatures! What did they use the gardens for, anyway?”—The gardens were used for an occasional promenade; and were also valuable as forming a screen between the Park and the houses on the Western Road.—“What was wrong with the houses on the Western Road?”—There was nothing wrong with the houses in question. The residents in the Park objected to see, or to be seen by,anyhouses, however desirable. They wished to ensure for themselves an unbroken and uninterrupted privacy.—“My gracious!”
Mrs Phipps, the dragon of the South Lodge, came out to the doorstep, and bobbed respectfully as Miss Briskett passed by, but curiosity was rampant upon her features. Cornelia smiled radiantly upon her; she smiled upon everyone she met, and threw bright, curious glances to right and to left.
“My! isn’t itgreen? My! isn’t it still? Whereiseveryone, anyway? Have they got a funeral in every house? Seems kind of unsociable, muffling themselves up behind these hedgerows! Over with us, if we’ve got a good thing, we’re not so eager to hide it away. You can walk along the sidewalk and see everything that’s going on. In the towns the families camp out on the doorsteps. It’s real lively and sociable. ... Are these your stores? They look as if they’d been made in the year one.”
They were, in truth, a quaint little row—butcher, grocer, greengrocer, and linen-draper, all nestled into a little angle between two long, outstanding buildings, which seemed threatening at every moment to fall down and crush them to atoms. The windows were small, and the space inside decidedly limited, and this morning there was an unusual rush of customers. It seemed as if every housewife in the neighbourhood had sallied forth to make her purchases at the exact hour when Miss Briskett was known to do her daily shopping. At the grocer’s counter Cornelia was introduced to Mrs Beaumont, of The Croft.
“My niece, Miss Cornelia Briskett. Mrs Beaumont,” murmured Miss Briskett.
“Mrs Beaumont!” repeated Cornelia, loudly, with a gracious, sidelong observance, at which unusual manner of receiving an introduction both ladies stared in surprise.
Presently Mrs Beaumont recovered herself sufficiently to put an all-important question.
“How do you like England?”
“I think it’s lovely,” said Cornelia.
In the fishmonger’s shop Mrs Rhodes and Mrs Muir came up in their turn, and opened wide eyes of surprise as the strange girl again repeated their names in her high monotone. Evidently this was an American custom. Strange people, the Americans! The ladies simpered, and put the inevitable query: “How do you like England?”
“I think it’s sweet,” said Cornelia.
The draper’s shop was a revelation of old-world methods. One anaemic-looking assistant endeavoured to attend to three counters and half a dozen customers, with an unruffled calm which they vainly strove to emulate. Miss Briskett produced a pattern of grey ribbon which she wished to match. Four different boxes were lifted down from the wall, and their contents ransacked in vain, while the patient waiters received small sops in the shape of cases and trays, shoved along to their corner of the counter. When persuasion failed to convince Miss Briskett that an elephant grey exactly matched her silvery fragment—“I’ll see if we have it in stock!” cried the damsel, hopefully, and promptly disappeared into space. The minutes passed by; Cornelia frowned and fidgeted, was introduced to a fourth dame, and declared that England was “’cute.” Weary waiters for flannel and small-wares looked at their watches, and fidgeted restlessly, but no one rebelled, nor showed any inclination to walk out of the shop in disgust. At length the assistant reappeared, flushed and panting, to regret that they were “sold out,” and “What is your next pleasure, madam?”
Madam’s next pleasure was a skein of wool, which investigation again failed to produce. “But we have a very nice line in kid gloves; can I show you something in that line this morning?” Miss Briskett refused to be tempted, and produced a coin from her purse in payment of a small account. Cornelia was interested to be introduced to “hef-a-crown,” and tried to calculate what would be left after the subtraction of a mysterious “seven-three.” She had abundant time to calculate, for, to the suspicious mind, it might really appear as if the assistant had emigrated to foreign climes with the half-crown as capital in hand. The little shop was dull and stuffy; an odour of flannel filled the air; the faces of the patient waiters were colourless and depressed. Cornelia flounced on her seat, and curled her beautiful lips.
“My stars and stripes!” she cried aloud. “I’ll take root if I sit here much longer. Seems as that change won’t be ready till the last trump!”
She sprang from her chair as she spoke, too much absorbed in her own impatience to note the petrifaction of horror on the faces of the waiters at the counter, and in the doorway came face to face with a plump, dignified little lady, accompanied by a girl in navy blue.
“How do you do, my dear? I am Mrs Ramsden,” said the stoat lady, holding out her hand with a very pleasant friendliness. “As the niece of my dear friend and neighbour, allow me to give you a hearty welcome to our shores. This is my daughter, Elma, with whom I hope you will be great friends. I will leave you to talk together while I make my purchases. Young people always get on better alone!”
She smiled, a kind, motherly smile, nodding her head the while, until the upright feather quivered on its stem, then disappeared through the dingy portals, leaving the two girls on the narrow pavement staring at each other with bright, curious eyes.
“How—how do you like England?” queried Elma, shyly, and Cornelia answered with a happy laugh—
“I’ve been asked that question hef a dozen times already, and I only set foot on these shores day before yesterday. I think it seems a real good place for a nerve rest, but if you want to hustle!—” She shrugged expressively, and Elma smiled with quick understanding.
“Ah, you have been shopping at Willcox’s! But Willcox’s is not England—Norton is not England; it’s just a sleepy little backwater, shut away from the great current of life. Don’t judge England by what you see here. You’d like therealEngland—you couldn’t help liking that!”
“I likeyou!” said Cornelia, bluntly. She held out her hand with a gesture of frank camaraderie, and Elma clasped it, thrilling with pleasure. A happy conviction assured her that she had found a friend after her own heart.
Chapter Five.By the time that Cornelia had been a week in residence at The Nook, she had become the one absorbing topic of Norton conversation, and her aunt’s attitude towards her was an odd mingling of shame and pride. On principle the spinster disapproved of almost everything that the girl did or said, and suffered every day a succession of electric shocks—but, as we all know, such shocks are guaranteed to exercise a bracing influence on the constitution, and Miss Briskett was conscious of feeling brighter and more alert than for many years past. She no longer reigned as monarch over all she surveyed. A Czar of Russia, suddenly confronted by a Duma of Radical principles and audacious energy, could not feel more proudly aggrieved and antagonistic, but it is conceivable that a Czar might cherish a secret affection for the leader of an opposition who showed himself honest, clever, and affectionate. In conclave with her own heart, Miss Briskett acknowledged that she cherished a distinct partiality for her niece, but in view of the said niece’s tendency to conceit, the partiality was rigorously concealed.As for Norton society, it welcomed Cornelia with open arms; that is to say, all the old ladies of Miss Briskett’s acquaintance called upon her, inquired if she liked England, and sent their maids round the following day with neat little notes inviting aunt and niece to take tea on a certain afternoon at half-past four o’clock. These tea-drinkings soon became a daily occurrence, and Cornelia’s attitude towards them was one of consecutive anticipation, amusement, and ennui. You dressed up in your best clothes; you sat in rows round a stuffy room; you drank stewed tea, and ate buttered cakes. You met every day the same—everlastingly the same ladies, dressed in the same garments, and listened every day to the same futile talk. From the older ladies, criticisms of last Sunday’s sermon, and details of household grievances; from the younger, “Haveyou seen Miss Horby’s new hat?Didyou hear the latest about the Briggs? ... I’m going to have blue, with lace insertions...”Cornelia bore it meekly for a week on end, and then she struck. Two notes were discovered lying upon the breakfast-table containing invitations to two more tea-parties. “So kind of them! You will like to go, won’t you, my dear?” said Miss Briskett, pouring out coffee.“No, I shan’t, then!” answered Cornelia, ladling out bacon. Her curling lips were pressed together, her flexible eyebrows wrinkled towards the nose. If Edward B Briskett had been present he would have recognised signals of breakers ahead! “I guess I’m about full up of tea-parties. I’m not going to any more, this side Jordan!”“Not going, my dear?” Miss Briskett choked with mingled amazement and dismay. “Why not, if you please? You have no other engagements. My friends pay you the honour of an invitation. It is my wish that you accept. You surely cannot mean what you are saying!”She stared across the table in her most dignified and awe-inspiring fashion, but Cornelia refused to meet her eyes, devoting her entire attention to the consumption of her breakfast.“You bet I do!”“Cornelia, how often must I beg you not to use that exceedingly objectionable expression? I ask you a simple question; please answer it without exaggeration. Why do you object to accompany me to these two parties?”“Because it’s a waste of time. It’s against my principles to have the same tooth drawn six times over. I know all I want to about tea-parties in England, and I’m ready to pass on to something fresh. I’d go clean crazed if I’d to sit through that performance again.”“I am sorry you have been so bored. I hoped you had enjoyed yourself,” said Miss Briskett, stiffly, but with an underlying disappointment in her tone, which Cornelia was quick to recognise. The imps of temper and obstinacy which had peeped out of her golden eyes suddenly disappeared from view, and she nodded a cheery reassurement.“I wasn’t a mite bored at the start. I loved going round with you and seeing your friends, but Ihaveseen them, and they’ve seen me, and we said all we want to, so that trick is played out. You can’t go on drinking tea with the same old ladies all the days of your life? Why can’t they hit on something fresh?”Miss Briskett did not reply. She was indeed too much upset for words. Tea-drinking was the only form of dissipation in which she and her friends indulged, or had indulged for many years past. In more energetic days an occasional dinner had varied the monotony, but as time crept on there seemed a dozen reasons for dropping the more elaborate form of entertainment. A dinner-party upset the servants; it necessitated the resurrection of the best dinner-service from the china cupboard, and the best silver from the safe; it entailed late hours, a sense of responsibility, the exertion of entertaining. How much simpler to buy a sixpenny jar of cream and a few shillings worth of cake welcome your friends at half-past four, and be free at half-past five to lie down on the sofa, and have a nap before dressing for dinner!Miss Briskett had counted on a protracted orgy of tea-parties in her niece’s honour, and had already planned a return bout on her own accord, to set the ball rolling a second time. Her wildest flight of fancy had not soared beyond tea, and here was Cornelia showing signs of rebellion at the end of a fortnight! It said much for the impression which that young lady had made that there was a note of actual entreaty in the voice in which her aunt addressed her.“I think you must reconsider your decision, Cornelia. I strongly wish you to accept these invitations, and my friends will be much disappointed if you refuse. When you understand the position, I feel sure you will put your own wishes on one side, and consent to do what is right and fitting.”But Miss Cornelia tossed her head, and the impish light flashed back into her golden eyes.“I ken’t break my word,” she said bluntly. In moments of friction her American accent was even more strongly marked than usual, which fact was not calculated to soften her aunt’s irritation, “Poppar had me taught to say a thing and stick to it, no matter how I suffered. I’vesaidI won’t go, and Iwon’t—not if all the old ladies in Christendom were to come and howl at the door! You ken tell ’em I’ve come out in spots, and you reckon I’m going down with small-pox.”“That would not be true.”“Oh, shucks!” shrugged Cornelia. “Troth is a fine institootion, but, like most old things, it gives out at times, and then there’s nothing for it but to fall back upon good, new-fashioned imagination.”Miss Briskett rose majestically from her seat and left the room.Cornelia lifted the remnant of bread which lay beside her plate, raised it high above her head, and deliberately pitched it to the end of the room. It hit against the wall, and fell over the carpet in a shower of crumbs. She chuckled malevolently, gave the table a vicious shove on one side, and rose in her turn.On one of the tables by the window stood a neat little pile of books; she lifted the topmost, and thrusting it under her arm, marched deliberately down the garden path to the front gate, and thence across the road towards the gate leading into the plantation. It was a hot, sunny day, and half-way up the green knoll stood an oak tree, whose spreading branches made delightful dapplings of shade. Here also a gentle breeze rustled the leaves to and fro, while in the stuffy paths below the air itself seemed exhausted and bereft of life. Cornelia lifted her white skirts, with a display of slim brown ankles which would have scandalised the Norton worthies, stepped neatly and cleanly over the wire arches, and made a bee-line across the grass for the forbidden spot. She was in the mood when it seemed an absolute necessity to defy somebody, and even a printed notice was better than nothing. She seated herself aggressively in the most conspicuous position, on the side of the tree facing the houses, spread wide her skirts on either side, folded her arms, and awaited developments.“I hope they’llalllook out and see me sitting on their old grass! I hope they’ll come over, and stand inrowson the path, telling me that nice young girls never sat on the grass in England. ... Then I’ll tell ’em whatIthink. ... I’m just in the mood to do it. Seems as if I hadn’t drawn a free breath for weeks. ‘Cornelia,don’t! Cornelia,do!’ ‘In this country we always—’ ‘In this country we never—’ My stars and stripes; why did I leave my happy home?”Round the corner of the path there came into view the figure of Morris, keeper of the South Lodge, sweeping the gravel path, his head bent over his task. Cornelia’s naughty eyes sent out a flash of delight. She cleared her throat in a deliberate “hem,” cleared it again, and coughed in conclusion. Morris leant on his broom, surveyed the landscape o’er, and visibly reeled at the sight of such barefaced trespassing. The broom was hoisted against a tree, while he himself mounted the sloping path, shading his eyes from the sun. At the first glance he had recognised the “’Merican young lady,” whose doings and clothings—particularly clothings—had formed the unvarying theme of his wife’s conversation for the last fortnight. He had committed himself so far as to say that he rather fancied the looks of her, but in the depths of his heart the feeling lingered that for a born lady she was a trifle “free.” Morris was a survival of the old feudal type who “knew his place,” and enjoyed being trampled under foot by his “betters.” If an employer addressed him in terms of kindly consideration, his gratitude was tinged with contempt. These were not the manners of the good old gentry in whose service he had been trained!Opposite the oak tree he came to a stand, and assumed his official manner.“Beg pardon, miss; visitors his not permitted on the graws.”“For the land’s sake, why not?”“It’s against the rules, miss.”“Suppose it is! What will happen if I break ’em?”Morris looked discomfited, pushed his hat from his forehead, and murmured vaguely that he ’sposed she’d be punished.“Who by? Who does the grass belong to, anyhow?”“To yer Rant, miss, and the hother ladies and gentlemen that owns the park.”“Well, and what couldtheydo?”Morris, still vague and uncomfortable, murmured concerning prosecution.“What’s prosecution?” queried Cornelia. “Sounds exciting, anyway. Much more exciting than sitting on the gravel paths. Guess I’ll stay where I am, and find out. You get on with your work, and keep calm, and when the fun begins you can waltz in, and play your part. It’s no useoneofficer trying to arrest me, though! You’ll need aposse, for I’ll fight to the death! You might give them the tip!”Morris walked down hill in stunned surprise, leaving Cornelia to chuckle to herself in restored good humour. Her impulses towards rebellion and repentance were alike swift and speedy, but between the two lay a span of licence, when she revelled in revolt, and felt the tingling of riotous success. Such a moment was the present as she watched Morris’s dumb retreat, and cast her dancing eyes around, in search of the next victim.For the moment no living creature was in sight, but the scene was sufficiently entrancing to justify the statement that there is no country in the world so charming as England on a fine June day.It was hot, but not too hot to be exhausting; little fleecy white clouds flecked the blue dome overhead; the air was sweet with the odour of flowering trees now in the height of their beauty. The gardener who had planted them had possessed a nice eye for colour, and much skill in gaining the desired effects. The golden rain of laburnum, and deep rich red of hawthorn, were thrown up against the dark lustre of copper-beech, or the misty green of a graceful fir tree; white and purple lilac were divided by a light pink thorn, and on the tall chestnuts the red and white blossoms shone like candles on a giant Christmas tree. It was the one, all-wonderful week, when everything seems in bloom at the same time; the week which presages the end of spring, more beautiful than summer, as promise is ever more perfect than fulfilment. Even the stiff crescent of houses looked picturesque, viewed through the softening screen of green. Cornelia scanned the row of upper windows with smiling curiosity. No one was visible; no one everwasvisible at a window at Norton Park; but discreetly hidden by the lace curtains, half a dozen be-capped heads might even now be nodding in her direction.—“My dear,whatis that white figure under the oak tree? I thought at first it must be a sheep, but it is evidently a female of some description. It looks exceedingly like—but it could not be, it could notpossiblybe, Miss Briskett’s niece!...”Miss Briskett’s niece chuckled, and turned her head to look up the sloping path. Her choice of position had been largely decided by the fact that Elma Ramsden was due to return by this route from a weekly music lesson somewhere about the present time. In the course of the past week the two girls had drunk tea in the same houses every afternoon, and exchanged sympathetic glances across a phalanx of elderly ladies, but the chances fortête-à-têteconversations had been disappointingly few, and this morning Cornelia had a craving for a companion young enough to encourage her in her rebellion, or at least to understand the pent-up vitality which had brought it to a head.She watched eagerly for the advent of the tall, blue-robed figure. Elma always wore dark blue cambric on ordinary occasions. “So useful!” said her mother, “and such a saving in the washing bill.” Mother and daughter ran up the plain breadths in the sewing machine, and the only fitting in the body was compassed by a draw-string at the waist. It did not seem a matter of moment to Mrs Ramsden whether the said string was an inch higher or lower, and Elma was economical in belts. Cornelia’s expression was eloquent as she viewed the outline of the English girl’s figure as she slowly approached down the narrow path. So far Elma had not noticed her presence. She was too much buried in her own dreams. Poor pretty thing! That was all that was left to her—to take it out in dreams. She had not yet begun to be awake!
By the time that Cornelia had been a week in residence at The Nook, she had become the one absorbing topic of Norton conversation, and her aunt’s attitude towards her was an odd mingling of shame and pride. On principle the spinster disapproved of almost everything that the girl did or said, and suffered every day a succession of electric shocks—but, as we all know, such shocks are guaranteed to exercise a bracing influence on the constitution, and Miss Briskett was conscious of feeling brighter and more alert than for many years past. She no longer reigned as monarch over all she surveyed. A Czar of Russia, suddenly confronted by a Duma of Radical principles and audacious energy, could not feel more proudly aggrieved and antagonistic, but it is conceivable that a Czar might cherish a secret affection for the leader of an opposition who showed himself honest, clever, and affectionate. In conclave with her own heart, Miss Briskett acknowledged that she cherished a distinct partiality for her niece, but in view of the said niece’s tendency to conceit, the partiality was rigorously concealed.
As for Norton society, it welcomed Cornelia with open arms; that is to say, all the old ladies of Miss Briskett’s acquaintance called upon her, inquired if she liked England, and sent their maids round the following day with neat little notes inviting aunt and niece to take tea on a certain afternoon at half-past four o’clock. These tea-drinkings soon became a daily occurrence, and Cornelia’s attitude towards them was one of consecutive anticipation, amusement, and ennui. You dressed up in your best clothes; you sat in rows round a stuffy room; you drank stewed tea, and ate buttered cakes. You met every day the same—everlastingly the same ladies, dressed in the same garments, and listened every day to the same futile talk. From the older ladies, criticisms of last Sunday’s sermon, and details of household grievances; from the younger, “Haveyou seen Miss Horby’s new hat?Didyou hear the latest about the Briggs? ... I’m going to have blue, with lace insertions...”
Cornelia bore it meekly for a week on end, and then she struck. Two notes were discovered lying upon the breakfast-table containing invitations to two more tea-parties. “So kind of them! You will like to go, won’t you, my dear?” said Miss Briskett, pouring out coffee.
“No, I shan’t, then!” answered Cornelia, ladling out bacon. Her curling lips were pressed together, her flexible eyebrows wrinkled towards the nose. If Edward B Briskett had been present he would have recognised signals of breakers ahead! “I guess I’m about full up of tea-parties. I’m not going to any more, this side Jordan!”
“Not going, my dear?” Miss Briskett choked with mingled amazement and dismay. “Why not, if you please? You have no other engagements. My friends pay you the honour of an invitation. It is my wish that you accept. You surely cannot mean what you are saying!”
She stared across the table in her most dignified and awe-inspiring fashion, but Cornelia refused to meet her eyes, devoting her entire attention to the consumption of her breakfast.
“You bet I do!”
“Cornelia, how often must I beg you not to use that exceedingly objectionable expression? I ask you a simple question; please answer it without exaggeration. Why do you object to accompany me to these two parties?”
“Because it’s a waste of time. It’s against my principles to have the same tooth drawn six times over. I know all I want to about tea-parties in England, and I’m ready to pass on to something fresh. I’d go clean crazed if I’d to sit through that performance again.”
“I am sorry you have been so bored. I hoped you had enjoyed yourself,” said Miss Briskett, stiffly, but with an underlying disappointment in her tone, which Cornelia was quick to recognise. The imps of temper and obstinacy which had peeped out of her golden eyes suddenly disappeared from view, and she nodded a cheery reassurement.
“I wasn’t a mite bored at the start. I loved going round with you and seeing your friends, but Ihaveseen them, and they’ve seen me, and we said all we want to, so that trick is played out. You can’t go on drinking tea with the same old ladies all the days of your life? Why can’t they hit on something fresh?”
Miss Briskett did not reply. She was indeed too much upset for words. Tea-drinking was the only form of dissipation in which she and her friends indulged, or had indulged for many years past. In more energetic days an occasional dinner had varied the monotony, but as time crept on there seemed a dozen reasons for dropping the more elaborate form of entertainment. A dinner-party upset the servants; it necessitated the resurrection of the best dinner-service from the china cupboard, and the best silver from the safe; it entailed late hours, a sense of responsibility, the exertion of entertaining. How much simpler to buy a sixpenny jar of cream and a few shillings worth of cake welcome your friends at half-past four, and be free at half-past five to lie down on the sofa, and have a nap before dressing for dinner!
Miss Briskett had counted on a protracted orgy of tea-parties in her niece’s honour, and had already planned a return bout on her own accord, to set the ball rolling a second time. Her wildest flight of fancy had not soared beyond tea, and here was Cornelia showing signs of rebellion at the end of a fortnight! It said much for the impression which that young lady had made that there was a note of actual entreaty in the voice in which her aunt addressed her.
“I think you must reconsider your decision, Cornelia. I strongly wish you to accept these invitations, and my friends will be much disappointed if you refuse. When you understand the position, I feel sure you will put your own wishes on one side, and consent to do what is right and fitting.”
But Miss Cornelia tossed her head, and the impish light flashed back into her golden eyes.
“I ken’t break my word,” she said bluntly. In moments of friction her American accent was even more strongly marked than usual, which fact was not calculated to soften her aunt’s irritation, “Poppar had me taught to say a thing and stick to it, no matter how I suffered. I’vesaidI won’t go, and Iwon’t—not if all the old ladies in Christendom were to come and howl at the door! You ken tell ’em I’ve come out in spots, and you reckon I’m going down with small-pox.”
“That would not be true.”
“Oh, shucks!” shrugged Cornelia. “Troth is a fine institootion, but, like most old things, it gives out at times, and then there’s nothing for it but to fall back upon good, new-fashioned imagination.”
Miss Briskett rose majestically from her seat and left the room.
Cornelia lifted the remnant of bread which lay beside her plate, raised it high above her head, and deliberately pitched it to the end of the room. It hit against the wall, and fell over the carpet in a shower of crumbs. She chuckled malevolently, gave the table a vicious shove on one side, and rose in her turn.
On one of the tables by the window stood a neat little pile of books; she lifted the topmost, and thrusting it under her arm, marched deliberately down the garden path to the front gate, and thence across the road towards the gate leading into the plantation. It was a hot, sunny day, and half-way up the green knoll stood an oak tree, whose spreading branches made delightful dapplings of shade. Here also a gentle breeze rustled the leaves to and fro, while in the stuffy paths below the air itself seemed exhausted and bereft of life. Cornelia lifted her white skirts, with a display of slim brown ankles which would have scandalised the Norton worthies, stepped neatly and cleanly over the wire arches, and made a bee-line across the grass for the forbidden spot. She was in the mood when it seemed an absolute necessity to defy somebody, and even a printed notice was better than nothing. She seated herself aggressively in the most conspicuous position, on the side of the tree facing the houses, spread wide her skirts on either side, folded her arms, and awaited developments.
“I hope they’llalllook out and see me sitting on their old grass! I hope they’ll come over, and stand inrowson the path, telling me that nice young girls never sat on the grass in England. ... Then I’ll tell ’em whatIthink. ... I’m just in the mood to do it. Seems as if I hadn’t drawn a free breath for weeks. ‘Cornelia,don’t! Cornelia,do!’ ‘In this country we always—’ ‘In this country we never—’ My stars and stripes; why did I leave my happy home?”
Round the corner of the path there came into view the figure of Morris, keeper of the South Lodge, sweeping the gravel path, his head bent over his task. Cornelia’s naughty eyes sent out a flash of delight. She cleared her throat in a deliberate “hem,” cleared it again, and coughed in conclusion. Morris leant on his broom, surveyed the landscape o’er, and visibly reeled at the sight of such barefaced trespassing. The broom was hoisted against a tree, while he himself mounted the sloping path, shading his eyes from the sun. At the first glance he had recognised the “’Merican young lady,” whose doings and clothings—particularly clothings—had formed the unvarying theme of his wife’s conversation for the last fortnight. He had committed himself so far as to say that he rather fancied the looks of her, but in the depths of his heart the feeling lingered that for a born lady she was a trifle “free.” Morris was a survival of the old feudal type who “knew his place,” and enjoyed being trampled under foot by his “betters.” If an employer addressed him in terms of kindly consideration, his gratitude was tinged with contempt. These were not the manners of the good old gentry in whose service he had been trained!
Opposite the oak tree he came to a stand, and assumed his official manner.
“Beg pardon, miss; visitors his not permitted on the graws.”
“For the land’s sake, why not?”
“It’s against the rules, miss.”
“Suppose it is! What will happen if I break ’em?”
Morris looked discomfited, pushed his hat from his forehead, and murmured vaguely that he ’sposed she’d be punished.
“Who by? Who does the grass belong to, anyhow?”
“To yer Rant, miss, and the hother ladies and gentlemen that owns the park.”
“Well, and what couldtheydo?”
Morris, still vague and uncomfortable, murmured concerning prosecution.
“What’s prosecution?” queried Cornelia. “Sounds exciting, anyway. Much more exciting than sitting on the gravel paths. Guess I’ll stay where I am, and find out. You get on with your work, and keep calm, and when the fun begins you can waltz in, and play your part. It’s no useoneofficer trying to arrest me, though! You’ll need aposse, for I’ll fight to the death! You might give them the tip!”
Morris walked down hill in stunned surprise, leaving Cornelia to chuckle to herself in restored good humour. Her impulses towards rebellion and repentance were alike swift and speedy, but between the two lay a span of licence, when she revelled in revolt, and felt the tingling of riotous success. Such a moment was the present as she watched Morris’s dumb retreat, and cast her dancing eyes around, in search of the next victim.
For the moment no living creature was in sight, but the scene was sufficiently entrancing to justify the statement that there is no country in the world so charming as England on a fine June day.
It was hot, but not too hot to be exhausting; little fleecy white clouds flecked the blue dome overhead; the air was sweet with the odour of flowering trees now in the height of their beauty. The gardener who had planted them had possessed a nice eye for colour, and much skill in gaining the desired effects. The golden rain of laburnum, and deep rich red of hawthorn, were thrown up against the dark lustre of copper-beech, or the misty green of a graceful fir tree; white and purple lilac were divided by a light pink thorn, and on the tall chestnuts the red and white blossoms shone like candles on a giant Christmas tree. It was the one, all-wonderful week, when everything seems in bloom at the same time; the week which presages the end of spring, more beautiful than summer, as promise is ever more perfect than fulfilment. Even the stiff crescent of houses looked picturesque, viewed through the softening screen of green. Cornelia scanned the row of upper windows with smiling curiosity. No one was visible; no one everwasvisible at a window at Norton Park; but discreetly hidden by the lace curtains, half a dozen be-capped heads might even now be nodding in her direction.—“My dear,whatis that white figure under the oak tree? I thought at first it must be a sheep, but it is evidently a female of some description. It looks exceedingly like—but it could not be, it could notpossiblybe, Miss Briskett’s niece!...”
Miss Briskett’s niece chuckled, and turned her head to look up the sloping path. Her choice of position had been largely decided by the fact that Elma Ramsden was due to return by this route from a weekly music lesson somewhere about the present time. In the course of the past week the two girls had drunk tea in the same houses every afternoon, and exchanged sympathetic glances across a phalanx of elderly ladies, but the chances fortête-à-têteconversations had been disappointingly few, and this morning Cornelia had a craving for a companion young enough to encourage her in her rebellion, or at least to understand the pent-up vitality which had brought it to a head.
She watched eagerly for the advent of the tall, blue-robed figure. Elma always wore dark blue cambric on ordinary occasions. “So useful!” said her mother, “and such a saving in the washing bill.” Mother and daughter ran up the plain breadths in the sewing machine, and the only fitting in the body was compassed by a draw-string at the waist. It did not seem a matter of moment to Mrs Ramsden whether the said string was an inch higher or lower, and Elma was economical in belts. Cornelia’s expression was eloquent as she viewed the outline of the English girl’s figure as she slowly approached down the narrow path. So far Elma had not noticed her presence. She was too much buried in her own dreams. Poor pretty thing! That was all that was left to her—to take it out in dreams. She had not yet begun to be awake!
Chapter Six.Twenty yards farther Elma came to a halt, eyes and lips opened wide in gaping astonishment at the sight of the trespasser.“Cornelia! You are sitting on the grass.”“That’s so! Why shouldn’t I, if I’ve a mind?”“It’s forbidden!”“Oh, shucks!” cried Cornelia, impatiently. “Who by?”Elma waved her hand vaguely towards the crescent of houses.“Everybody—all of them! It’s a rule. They all agreed.”“Suppose they did! I guess it would take more than ten old ladies to prevent me doing what I want. What’s the good of grass, anyway, if you can’t enjoy it? It’s lovely up here. I’m as cool as an otter. You look pretty warm after your walk. Step over, and come right here by me.” She patted the ground beside her, and smiled in her most irresistible fashion. “We’ll have the loveliest talk—”Elma hesitated, fascinated but dismayed.“I daren’t. It’s breaking the rules. What would they say?”“That’s what we’ve got to find out. They can’t kill us, anyway, and we’ll have had a good time first. You’ve got to pay your bills in this wicked world. Now, then—hustle!”“I can’t!” faltered Elma, and lifted one foot over the wire arch, “I daren’t!” and stepped completely over, lifting her skirt behind her. The deed was done! A tingle of excitement ran through her veins, she reared her head and laughed aloud, looking with bright, unashamed eyes at the curtained windows. The moment of revolt had come; a moment long desired in the depths of a meek, long-suffering heart, and prepared for by many a seething inward struggle. Cornelia had applied the match, and the tow blazed. Elma laughed again, and seated herself beneath the tree. Cornelia had tossed her hat on the ground and clasped her hands round her knees in comfortable, inelegant position. Elma did the same, and the American girl, watching her, was at a loss to account for the reckless radiance of her smile. The sunshine flickered down between the branches on the sweet pink and white face, the pansy blue eyes, and long slender throat; it shone alike on the ill-fitting gown, the clumsy shoes, the carelessly arranged hair. Cornelia’s golden eyes travelled up and down, down and up, in earnest, scrutinising fashion. She met Elma’s glance with a shake of the head, forbearing, yet reproachful.“Say! You don’t know how to prink, do you?”“Prink?” Elma was doubtful even as to the meaning of the word. She arched her brows in inquiry, whereat Cornelia laughed aloud.“You are real, genuine English! You make me think of roses, and cream, and honey, and mountain dew, and everything that’s sweet and wholesome, and takes no thought of the morrow. If you lived over with us, we’d fix you up so your own mother wouldn’t know you, and there’d be paragraphs about you in the papers every single day, saying what you did, and what you were wearing, and how you looked when you wore it.”“‘Miss Elma Ramsden sat on the grass, attired in a blue rag, with freckles on her nose.’”“My, no!” Cornelia chuckled. “They spread it pretty thick when they once begin. You’d have every adjective in the dictionary emptied over you. ‘The irresistible Elma,’ ‘Radiant Miss Ramsden,’ ‘The beauteous English Rose.’ Half the time it’s only bluff, but with you it would be a true bill. Youarebeautiful. Do you know it?”The pink flush deepened in Elma’s delicate face.“Am I?” she asked wistfully. “Really? Oh, I hope you are right. I should be so happy if it were true, but—but, I’m afraid it can’t be. No one notices me; no one seems to think I am—nice! I’m only just Elma Ramsden—not radiant, nor irresistible, nor anything of the kind. Plain Elma Ramsden, as much a matter of course as the trees in the park. Since you came here, in one fortnight, you’ve had more attention than I’ve had in the whole course of my life.”“Attention?” echoed Cornelia, shrilly, and rolled her eyes to the firmament. “Attention? You ken sit there and look me in the face, and talk about the ‘attention’ that’s been paid me the last two weeks! You’re crazed! Where does the attention come in, I want to know? I haven’t spoken to a single man since the day I arrived. You don’t call a dozen old ladies clucking roundattention, do you? Whereareall the young men, anyhow? I have been used to a heap of men’s society, and I’m kind of lost without it. I call attention having half a dozen nice boys to play about, and do whatever I want. Don’t you ever have any nice young men to take you round?”Elma’s dissent was tinged with shocked surprise, for she had been educated in the theory that it was unmaidenly to think about the opposite sex. True, experience had proved that this was an impossibility, for thoughts took wing and flew where they would, and dreams grew of themselves—dreams of someone big, and strong, and tender; someone who wouldunderstand, and fill the void in one’s heart which ached sometimes, and called for more, more; refusing to be satisfied with food and raiment. Sometimes the dream took a definite shape, insisted on the possession of grey eyes and wide square shoulders, associating itself with the personality of a certain young squire of racing, bridge-playing tendencies, at whom all Park dwellers glanced askance, refusing to him the honour of their hospitality!There remained, however, certain functions at which this outlaw must annually be encountered; functions when one was thrillingly conscious of being signalled out for unusual attention. One remembered, for example, being escorted to eat ices, under the shade of an arbour of crimson ramblers; of talking with tongues about the weather, and the flowers, and the music; while grey eyes looked into blue, and said unutterable things. Oh, the beauty of the sky seen through those rosy branches! Oh, the glory of the sun! There had never been such a summer day before. ... Elma trembled at the remembrance, and then blushed at her own audacity. It was terrible to have to acknowledge such things to one’s inmost heart, but to put them into words—! She pursed her lips, and looked demurely scandalised by her companion’s plain speaking.“Do you know, Cornelia,”—she had been commanded to use the Christian name, but it still came with a certain amount of hesitation—“if I were you I would not talk like that before your aunt. We—we don’t do it over here! It is not considered—nice—for a girl to talk about young men.”Cornelia smiled slowly. Her beautiful lips curved upwards at the corner, giving an air of impish mischief to her face. She nodded her head three times over, and hitched a shoulder under the muslin gown.“We–ell?” she drawled in her most pronounced accent, “if I’ve got to think of ’em, I might as well talk of ’em, and I’mboundto think of ’em!” She relaxed the grasp of her knees, and lay back against the trunk of a tree, chuckling softly in retrospective triumph. “I’ve had such heaps of fun! I just love to carry on, and have half-a-dozen boys quarrelling over me, and hustling to get the first chance. I’ve had as many as ten bouquets before a ball, and I wore an eleventh, which I’d gotten for myself, and they were all clean crazed to find out who’d sent it. Poppar says I’ll be an old maid yet, but it won’t be for want of asking. There’s one young man who’s just daft about me—he’s young, and he’s lovely, and he’s got ten million and a hef dollars, and I’vetriedto love him.” She sighed despairing. “I’ve tried hard, but Iken’t!”Elm a struggled between disapproval, curiosity, and a shocking mingling of something else, which was not, could not possibly be,envyof such adventures! The lingering doubt served to add severity to her indictment.“It’s very wicked to flirt!”Once again Cornelia flashed her impish smile.“It’s vurry nice! I don’t see a mite of use in being young if you ken’t have some fun. You grow old fast enough, and then there’s nothing else to it but to sit round and preach. Your mother and Aunt Soph have justgotto preach, but I wouldn’t start yet awhile if I were you. You’d be just the prettiest thing that was ever seen if you knew how to fix yourself up, but youdon’t, and you seem to me to mope along the whole blessed time, without a bit of fun to perk you up. Say! don’t you feel a bit tired of it sometimes? Don’t you ever have a kind of feeling that you want todosomething for a change?”“Sometimes! Do I ever!” Elma echoed the words with startling emphasis. “Always, always! It is here,”—she pressed her hands on her breast—“stifled up here all the time—a horrible, rebellious longing to get out; to be free, to do—I don’t know what—really I don’t—but somethingdifferent! I’ve lived in Norton all my life, and hardly ever been away. Mother hates travelling in winter, and in the summer she hates to leave the garden, and I’m so strong that I don’t need change. I never went to school like other girls. Mother disapproves of school influences, so I had governesses instead. It’s awful to have a resident teacher in the house, and be an only pupil; you feel governessed out of your life. And now I have no friends to visit, or to visit me, only the Norton girls, for whom I don’t care. It seems ungrateful when I have so much to be thankful for, but I feelpent! Sometimes I get such a wicked feeling that I just long to snap and snarl at everybody. I’m ashamed all the time, and canseehow horrid I am, but—”She broke off, sighing deeply, and Cornelia crouched forward, clasping her knees as before, and bending her chin to meet them, her eyes ashine with eagerness and curiosity.“Yes, I know; I’ve been there myself. I was there this morning after just two weeks. I don’t begin to have your endoorance, my dear, but you take a straight tip from me. When you feel the symptoms coming on, don’t you go trying to be sweet and forbearing, and bottling up all the froth; it’s not a mite of use, for it’s bound to rise to the top, and keeping don’t improve it. Just let yourself go, and be right-down ugly tosomebody—anyone will do, the first that comes handy—and you’ll feel a heap better!” She sighed, and turned a roguish glance towards the shrouded windows of The Nook. “I was ugly to Aunt Soph before I came out!”Already Elma had mastered the subtleties of Americanese sufficiently to understand that the terms “lovely” and “ugly” had no bearing on outward appearance, but were descriptive of character only. Her eyes widened, partly in horrified surprise at listening to a doctrine so diametrically opposed to everything which she had previously heard, and partly in pure, unadulterated curiosity to know the cause of the rebellion.“To Miss Briskett? Oh, how had you the courage? I should never havedared. What was it about?”“Teas!” replied Cornelia, shortly. “I’ve attended tea-parties regularly for the last ten days, and met the same people every single time, and now I’ve struck. I’ve had about enough teas to last the rest of my natural life, but Aunt Soph seemed to think I was bound to go wherever I was asked. Two more old ladies sent invitations to-day.”“I know—at lunch-time. We got ours, too. You can’t refuse, Cornelia, if you haven’t another engagement.”“Can’t I just? You bet I can. Besides, what’s to hinder having an engagement if I want to? Say! let’s fix one up right here. I’d be delighted to have you come a drive with me to show me the country, Thursday afternoon at a quarter after four. We could hire something, I suppose, to drive in, and find a place to have tea on the way. We’d have a high old talk, and you’d enjoy it a heap more than the tea-party.”“Oh, I know that, but I don’t know if I ought,—Mrs Nevins’ invitation came first.”“Shucks!” cried Cornelia, “you’ve got too much conscience—that’s what’s the matter with you. You’ll never have much of a time in this world if you don’t take the pick of a choice. What’s two hours, anyway? You go right home, and write nice and pretty to say you’re real sorry you’ve got another engagement. Your mother can trot along with Aunt Soph. They’ll enjoy themselves a heap better sitting round without us, talking over the perversities of the young. They were all tame angels when they were girls, and never did anything they ought not to have done. My!” She twisted her saucy nose, and rolled her eyes heavenwards. “I’m thankful I struck a livelier time! As for you, Elma Ramsden, you’re going to be equal to any one of them, if nothing happens to shake you up. I guess it’s my mission to do the shaking, so we’ll start fair from now on. You’re engaged to me Thursday afternoon. D’you understand? I guess we’d better go home and break the news before the answers are written.”She rose to her feet, and Elma followed her example, shaking her skirts and fastening on the shady mushroom hat. No further protestations rose to her lips, so it might be taken for granted that silence gave consent, but half-way down the path she spoke again, in tentative, hesitating fashion.“I don’t mind about Mrs Nevins. She is rich and strong, and enjoys her life; but Miss Nesbitt is different. She’s an old maid, and poor. She belongs to a good family, so she is asked out with the rest, but she hardly ever gives a tea—not once in a year. It will be a great event to her; she’ll be beginning to make preparations even now; baking cakes, and cleaning the silver, and taking off the covers of the drawing-room chairs. It is all in your honour. She’ll be disappointed if you don’t go.”Cornelia turned upon her with a flash of reproof. “Why couldn’t you tell me that before, I want to know? Pretty mean I should have felt, backing out of a thing like that! I wouldn’t disappoint the old dear for a fortune. Is it the one with the flat hair, and the little ringlets dangling at the sides? They are too ’cute for anything, those ringlets. Yes! I guessed she was the one, for I noticed her clothes looked all used up. Don’t you worry! I’ll take tea with Miss Nesbitt as often as she wants, and behave so pretty you’ll admire to see me. That’s an olive branch to carry in to Aunt Soph—eh? I reckon she’ll be pretty dusty.”“I reckon she will.” Elma glanced with a half-fearful smile at her companion’s unruffled face. “I wouldn’t be in your shoes for a hundred pounds. Miss Briskett is formidable enough when she is pleased; but when she is angry—! Cornelia, aren’t you frightened?”Cornelia’s joyous peal of laughter floated away on the air, and caught the ears of the industrious Morris, who was sweeping the path a hundred yards away. He turned to lean on his brush and stare, while Elma glanced nervously at the curtained windows.“I never was scared in my life that I know of, and I’m not going to begin with my very own aunt. I rather like a fizzle now and then—it freshens one up. Don’t you worry about me! I’m quite able to stand up for myself.”She pushed open the gate of The Nook as she spoke and sauntered up the path; laughing, bareheaded, radiantly unashamed. Miss Briskett beheld her approach from her seat in the corner of the drawing-room, and two spots of colour shone dully on her thin cheek bones. The hands which held her knitting trembled with indignation, and her eyes welcomed the culprit with a steely flash.“Cornelia, are you aware that you are forbidden to trespass on the grass of this park?”“Yes, ma’am.”“You are also aware, I presume, that to wander alone bareheaded is not the habit of young ladies in this neighbourhood, and that it is intensely annoying to me that you should do so?”“Yes, ma’am.”“Youdoknow! You are not ashamed to acknowledge it! Then may I inquire why you have deliberately chosen to do what you know to be wrong?”Cornelia drew up a comfortable chair and seated herself by her aunt’s side, arranging her draperies with a succession of little pulls and pats. She rested one elbow on the arm of the chair, and leant her chin upon the upraised palm, a pretty, thoughtful-looking pose into which she fell naturally in leisure moments. The cat blinked at her through sleepy eyelids, then, deliberately ignoring the devotion of years, rose from its place by its mistress’s side, stretched itself with feline grace, and stalked majestically across the rug to nestle against the soft white skirts. Miss Briskett eyed its desertion over the brim of her spectacles. Poor lady! her measure of love received was so small, that she felt a distinct pang at the defection.“What explanation have you to offer, Cornelia? You knew that you would annoy me?”“Why, yes, of course. That’s all there was to it! It didn’t thrill me a mite to walk over a strip of lawn, without figging up in my best duds. I can do that any day I want at home, but I justhadto raise Cain somehow! It’s the only way I ken pull round again when I get mad. I just go right away and do the ugliest thing I can strike, and then I feel all soothed, and calmed down. You try it yourself, next time; it beats knitting stockings all into fits! I’m just as sweet as candy now, so you’ve got to forgive me, and be friends. I’m sorry I acted so mean, but you were pretty nippy yourself, weren’t you now? I guess we’ve both been used to take our own way without any fluster, and it comes pretty hard to be crossed, but now we’ve had our fling, we’ve got to kiss and make friends. That’s so; isn’t it?”She bent forward, pouting her lips to receive the token of peace, but Miss Briskett drew back in chilly dignity. For the past hour she had nourished a smouldering resentment, feeling herself the most ill-used of womenkind, and this calm inclusion of herself in the list of wrong-doers did not tend to pour oil on the troubled waters. For Cornelia to acknowledge her deliberate intention to offend, and in the same breath to offer a kiss of reconciliation, showed a reprehensible lack of proper feeling. Miss Briskett was a woman of high principles, and made a point of forgiving her enemies—slowly! As a preliminary process she demanded an abject apology, and a period of waiting, during which the culprit was expected to be devoured by remorse and anxiety. Then, bending from an impeccable height, she vouchsafed a mitigated pardon. “I forgive you, but I can never forget!” Some such absolution she would have been ready to bestow upon a tearful and dejected Cornelia, but the pink and white complaisance of the uplifted face steeled her heart afresh. She shrank back in her chair, ignoring the outstretched hand.“Excuse me, my dear, but I do not care to kiss a person who has just acknowledged that she has deliberately tried to annoy me. I was naturally displeased at your rejection of my friend’s hospitality, but it is exceedingly impertinent to compare my behaviour to your own. You seem to forget that I am your hostess, and nearly three times your age.”“Then you ought to be three times better, oughtn’t you?” retorted Cornelia, blandly. “Well, I’ll own up that I’m sorry about Miss Nesbitt, and I’ll be pleased to take tea with her as often as she likes, but I regret that a previous engagement prevents my going Thursday also. You tell the old lady from me that I’m real sorry to miss the treat, and if it will ease her mind any to know that I don’t think England’s a patch on America, she’s welcome to the information. Elma Ramsden and I have fixed up a drive to see the country, Thursday afternoon.”Miss Briskett’s knitting-needles clinked irritably together. A half concession was little better than none, and the frivolous tone of Cornelia’s remarks spoke of something far removed from the ideal repentance. Apart from the question of the tea-party, she disapproved of two young girls driving about the country unattended, but her courage shrank from the thought of another battle. She dropped her eyelids, and replied icily—“As you have already made your arrangements it is useless for me to offer any objections. You are evidently determined to take your own way in spite of anything I can say. I can only trust that no harm may come of the experiment.”
Twenty yards farther Elma came to a halt, eyes and lips opened wide in gaping astonishment at the sight of the trespasser.
“Cornelia! You are sitting on the grass.”
“That’s so! Why shouldn’t I, if I’ve a mind?”
“It’s forbidden!”
“Oh, shucks!” cried Cornelia, impatiently. “Who by?”
Elma waved her hand vaguely towards the crescent of houses.
“Everybody—all of them! It’s a rule. They all agreed.”
“Suppose they did! I guess it would take more than ten old ladies to prevent me doing what I want. What’s the good of grass, anyway, if you can’t enjoy it? It’s lovely up here. I’m as cool as an otter. You look pretty warm after your walk. Step over, and come right here by me.” She patted the ground beside her, and smiled in her most irresistible fashion. “We’ll have the loveliest talk—”
Elma hesitated, fascinated but dismayed.
“I daren’t. It’s breaking the rules. What would they say?”
“That’s what we’ve got to find out. They can’t kill us, anyway, and we’ll have had a good time first. You’ve got to pay your bills in this wicked world. Now, then—hustle!”
“I can’t!” faltered Elma, and lifted one foot over the wire arch, “I daren’t!” and stepped completely over, lifting her skirt behind her. The deed was done! A tingle of excitement ran through her veins, she reared her head and laughed aloud, looking with bright, unashamed eyes at the curtained windows. The moment of revolt had come; a moment long desired in the depths of a meek, long-suffering heart, and prepared for by many a seething inward struggle. Cornelia had applied the match, and the tow blazed. Elma laughed again, and seated herself beneath the tree. Cornelia had tossed her hat on the ground and clasped her hands round her knees in comfortable, inelegant position. Elma did the same, and the American girl, watching her, was at a loss to account for the reckless radiance of her smile. The sunshine flickered down between the branches on the sweet pink and white face, the pansy blue eyes, and long slender throat; it shone alike on the ill-fitting gown, the clumsy shoes, the carelessly arranged hair. Cornelia’s golden eyes travelled up and down, down and up, in earnest, scrutinising fashion. She met Elma’s glance with a shake of the head, forbearing, yet reproachful.
“Say! You don’t know how to prink, do you?”
“Prink?” Elma was doubtful even as to the meaning of the word. She arched her brows in inquiry, whereat Cornelia laughed aloud.
“You are real, genuine English! You make me think of roses, and cream, and honey, and mountain dew, and everything that’s sweet and wholesome, and takes no thought of the morrow. If you lived over with us, we’d fix you up so your own mother wouldn’t know you, and there’d be paragraphs about you in the papers every single day, saying what you did, and what you were wearing, and how you looked when you wore it.”
“‘Miss Elma Ramsden sat on the grass, attired in a blue rag, with freckles on her nose.’”
“My, no!” Cornelia chuckled. “They spread it pretty thick when they once begin. You’d have every adjective in the dictionary emptied over you. ‘The irresistible Elma,’ ‘Radiant Miss Ramsden,’ ‘The beauteous English Rose.’ Half the time it’s only bluff, but with you it would be a true bill. Youarebeautiful. Do you know it?”
The pink flush deepened in Elma’s delicate face.
“Am I?” she asked wistfully. “Really? Oh, I hope you are right. I should be so happy if it were true, but—but, I’m afraid it can’t be. No one notices me; no one seems to think I am—nice! I’m only just Elma Ramsden—not radiant, nor irresistible, nor anything of the kind. Plain Elma Ramsden, as much a matter of course as the trees in the park. Since you came here, in one fortnight, you’ve had more attention than I’ve had in the whole course of my life.”
“Attention?” echoed Cornelia, shrilly, and rolled her eyes to the firmament. “Attention? You ken sit there and look me in the face, and talk about the ‘attention’ that’s been paid me the last two weeks! You’re crazed! Where does the attention come in, I want to know? I haven’t spoken to a single man since the day I arrived. You don’t call a dozen old ladies clucking roundattention, do you? Whereareall the young men, anyhow? I have been used to a heap of men’s society, and I’m kind of lost without it. I call attention having half a dozen nice boys to play about, and do whatever I want. Don’t you ever have any nice young men to take you round?”
Elma’s dissent was tinged with shocked surprise, for she had been educated in the theory that it was unmaidenly to think about the opposite sex. True, experience had proved that this was an impossibility, for thoughts took wing and flew where they would, and dreams grew of themselves—dreams of someone big, and strong, and tender; someone who wouldunderstand, and fill the void in one’s heart which ached sometimes, and called for more, more; refusing to be satisfied with food and raiment. Sometimes the dream took a definite shape, insisted on the possession of grey eyes and wide square shoulders, associating itself with the personality of a certain young squire of racing, bridge-playing tendencies, at whom all Park dwellers glanced askance, refusing to him the honour of their hospitality!
There remained, however, certain functions at which this outlaw must annually be encountered; functions when one was thrillingly conscious of being signalled out for unusual attention. One remembered, for example, being escorted to eat ices, under the shade of an arbour of crimson ramblers; of talking with tongues about the weather, and the flowers, and the music; while grey eyes looked into blue, and said unutterable things. Oh, the beauty of the sky seen through those rosy branches! Oh, the glory of the sun! There had never been such a summer day before. ... Elma trembled at the remembrance, and then blushed at her own audacity. It was terrible to have to acknowledge such things to one’s inmost heart, but to put them into words—! She pursed her lips, and looked demurely scandalised by her companion’s plain speaking.
“Do you know, Cornelia,”—she had been commanded to use the Christian name, but it still came with a certain amount of hesitation—“if I were you I would not talk like that before your aunt. We—we don’t do it over here! It is not considered—nice—for a girl to talk about young men.”
Cornelia smiled slowly. Her beautiful lips curved upwards at the corner, giving an air of impish mischief to her face. She nodded her head three times over, and hitched a shoulder under the muslin gown.
“We–ell?” she drawled in her most pronounced accent, “if I’ve got to think of ’em, I might as well talk of ’em, and I’mboundto think of ’em!” She relaxed the grasp of her knees, and lay back against the trunk of a tree, chuckling softly in retrospective triumph. “I’ve had such heaps of fun! I just love to carry on, and have half-a-dozen boys quarrelling over me, and hustling to get the first chance. I’ve had as many as ten bouquets before a ball, and I wore an eleventh, which I’d gotten for myself, and they were all clean crazed to find out who’d sent it. Poppar says I’ll be an old maid yet, but it won’t be for want of asking. There’s one young man who’s just daft about me—he’s young, and he’s lovely, and he’s got ten million and a hef dollars, and I’vetriedto love him.” She sighed despairing. “I’ve tried hard, but Iken’t!”
Elm a struggled between disapproval, curiosity, and a shocking mingling of something else, which was not, could not possibly be,envyof such adventures! The lingering doubt served to add severity to her indictment.
“It’s very wicked to flirt!”
Once again Cornelia flashed her impish smile.
“It’s vurry nice! I don’t see a mite of use in being young if you ken’t have some fun. You grow old fast enough, and then there’s nothing else to it but to sit round and preach. Your mother and Aunt Soph have justgotto preach, but I wouldn’t start yet awhile if I were you. You’d be just the prettiest thing that was ever seen if you knew how to fix yourself up, but youdon’t, and you seem to me to mope along the whole blessed time, without a bit of fun to perk you up. Say! don’t you feel a bit tired of it sometimes? Don’t you ever have a kind of feeling that you want todosomething for a change?”
“Sometimes! Do I ever!” Elma echoed the words with startling emphasis. “Always, always! It is here,”—she pressed her hands on her breast—“stifled up here all the time—a horrible, rebellious longing to get out; to be free, to do—I don’t know what—really I don’t—but somethingdifferent! I’ve lived in Norton all my life, and hardly ever been away. Mother hates travelling in winter, and in the summer she hates to leave the garden, and I’m so strong that I don’t need change. I never went to school like other girls. Mother disapproves of school influences, so I had governesses instead. It’s awful to have a resident teacher in the house, and be an only pupil; you feel governessed out of your life. And now I have no friends to visit, or to visit me, only the Norton girls, for whom I don’t care. It seems ungrateful when I have so much to be thankful for, but I feelpent! Sometimes I get such a wicked feeling that I just long to snap and snarl at everybody. I’m ashamed all the time, and canseehow horrid I am, but—”
She broke off, sighing deeply, and Cornelia crouched forward, clasping her knees as before, and bending her chin to meet them, her eyes ashine with eagerness and curiosity.
“Yes, I know; I’ve been there myself. I was there this morning after just two weeks. I don’t begin to have your endoorance, my dear, but you take a straight tip from me. When you feel the symptoms coming on, don’t you go trying to be sweet and forbearing, and bottling up all the froth; it’s not a mite of use, for it’s bound to rise to the top, and keeping don’t improve it. Just let yourself go, and be right-down ugly tosomebody—anyone will do, the first that comes handy—and you’ll feel a heap better!” She sighed, and turned a roguish glance towards the shrouded windows of The Nook. “I was ugly to Aunt Soph before I came out!”
Already Elma had mastered the subtleties of Americanese sufficiently to understand that the terms “lovely” and “ugly” had no bearing on outward appearance, but were descriptive of character only. Her eyes widened, partly in horrified surprise at listening to a doctrine so diametrically opposed to everything which she had previously heard, and partly in pure, unadulterated curiosity to know the cause of the rebellion.
“To Miss Briskett? Oh, how had you the courage? I should never havedared. What was it about?”
“Teas!” replied Cornelia, shortly. “I’ve attended tea-parties regularly for the last ten days, and met the same people every single time, and now I’ve struck. I’ve had about enough teas to last the rest of my natural life, but Aunt Soph seemed to think I was bound to go wherever I was asked. Two more old ladies sent invitations to-day.”
“I know—at lunch-time. We got ours, too. You can’t refuse, Cornelia, if you haven’t another engagement.”
“Can’t I just? You bet I can. Besides, what’s to hinder having an engagement if I want to? Say! let’s fix one up right here. I’d be delighted to have you come a drive with me to show me the country, Thursday afternoon at a quarter after four. We could hire something, I suppose, to drive in, and find a place to have tea on the way. We’d have a high old talk, and you’d enjoy it a heap more than the tea-party.”
“Oh, I know that, but I don’t know if I ought,—Mrs Nevins’ invitation came first.”
“Shucks!” cried Cornelia, “you’ve got too much conscience—that’s what’s the matter with you. You’ll never have much of a time in this world if you don’t take the pick of a choice. What’s two hours, anyway? You go right home, and write nice and pretty to say you’re real sorry you’ve got another engagement. Your mother can trot along with Aunt Soph. They’ll enjoy themselves a heap better sitting round without us, talking over the perversities of the young. They were all tame angels when they were girls, and never did anything they ought not to have done. My!” She twisted her saucy nose, and rolled her eyes heavenwards. “I’m thankful I struck a livelier time! As for you, Elma Ramsden, you’re going to be equal to any one of them, if nothing happens to shake you up. I guess it’s my mission to do the shaking, so we’ll start fair from now on. You’re engaged to me Thursday afternoon. D’you understand? I guess we’d better go home and break the news before the answers are written.”
She rose to her feet, and Elma followed her example, shaking her skirts and fastening on the shady mushroom hat. No further protestations rose to her lips, so it might be taken for granted that silence gave consent, but half-way down the path she spoke again, in tentative, hesitating fashion.
“I don’t mind about Mrs Nevins. She is rich and strong, and enjoys her life; but Miss Nesbitt is different. She’s an old maid, and poor. She belongs to a good family, so she is asked out with the rest, but she hardly ever gives a tea—not once in a year. It will be a great event to her; she’ll be beginning to make preparations even now; baking cakes, and cleaning the silver, and taking off the covers of the drawing-room chairs. It is all in your honour. She’ll be disappointed if you don’t go.”
Cornelia turned upon her with a flash of reproof. “Why couldn’t you tell me that before, I want to know? Pretty mean I should have felt, backing out of a thing like that! I wouldn’t disappoint the old dear for a fortune. Is it the one with the flat hair, and the little ringlets dangling at the sides? They are too ’cute for anything, those ringlets. Yes! I guessed she was the one, for I noticed her clothes looked all used up. Don’t you worry! I’ll take tea with Miss Nesbitt as often as she wants, and behave so pretty you’ll admire to see me. That’s an olive branch to carry in to Aunt Soph—eh? I reckon she’ll be pretty dusty.”
“I reckon she will.” Elma glanced with a half-fearful smile at her companion’s unruffled face. “I wouldn’t be in your shoes for a hundred pounds. Miss Briskett is formidable enough when she is pleased; but when she is angry—! Cornelia, aren’t you frightened?”
Cornelia’s joyous peal of laughter floated away on the air, and caught the ears of the industrious Morris, who was sweeping the path a hundred yards away. He turned to lean on his brush and stare, while Elma glanced nervously at the curtained windows.
“I never was scared in my life that I know of, and I’m not going to begin with my very own aunt. I rather like a fizzle now and then—it freshens one up. Don’t you worry about me! I’m quite able to stand up for myself.”
She pushed open the gate of The Nook as she spoke and sauntered up the path; laughing, bareheaded, radiantly unashamed. Miss Briskett beheld her approach from her seat in the corner of the drawing-room, and two spots of colour shone dully on her thin cheek bones. The hands which held her knitting trembled with indignation, and her eyes welcomed the culprit with a steely flash.
“Cornelia, are you aware that you are forbidden to trespass on the grass of this park?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You are also aware, I presume, that to wander alone bareheaded is not the habit of young ladies in this neighbourhood, and that it is intensely annoying to me that you should do so?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Youdoknow! You are not ashamed to acknowledge it! Then may I inquire why you have deliberately chosen to do what you know to be wrong?”
Cornelia drew up a comfortable chair and seated herself by her aunt’s side, arranging her draperies with a succession of little pulls and pats. She rested one elbow on the arm of the chair, and leant her chin upon the upraised palm, a pretty, thoughtful-looking pose into which she fell naturally in leisure moments. The cat blinked at her through sleepy eyelids, then, deliberately ignoring the devotion of years, rose from its place by its mistress’s side, stretched itself with feline grace, and stalked majestically across the rug to nestle against the soft white skirts. Miss Briskett eyed its desertion over the brim of her spectacles. Poor lady! her measure of love received was so small, that she felt a distinct pang at the defection.
“What explanation have you to offer, Cornelia? You knew that you would annoy me?”
“Why, yes, of course. That’s all there was to it! It didn’t thrill me a mite to walk over a strip of lawn, without figging up in my best duds. I can do that any day I want at home, but I justhadto raise Cain somehow! It’s the only way I ken pull round again when I get mad. I just go right away and do the ugliest thing I can strike, and then I feel all soothed, and calmed down. You try it yourself, next time; it beats knitting stockings all into fits! I’m just as sweet as candy now, so you’ve got to forgive me, and be friends. I’m sorry I acted so mean, but you were pretty nippy yourself, weren’t you now? I guess we’ve both been used to take our own way without any fluster, and it comes pretty hard to be crossed, but now we’ve had our fling, we’ve got to kiss and make friends. That’s so; isn’t it?”
She bent forward, pouting her lips to receive the token of peace, but Miss Briskett drew back in chilly dignity. For the past hour she had nourished a smouldering resentment, feeling herself the most ill-used of womenkind, and this calm inclusion of herself in the list of wrong-doers did not tend to pour oil on the troubled waters. For Cornelia to acknowledge her deliberate intention to offend, and in the same breath to offer a kiss of reconciliation, showed a reprehensible lack of proper feeling. Miss Briskett was a woman of high principles, and made a point of forgiving her enemies—slowly! As a preliminary process she demanded an abject apology, and a period of waiting, during which the culprit was expected to be devoured by remorse and anxiety. Then, bending from an impeccable height, she vouchsafed a mitigated pardon. “I forgive you, but I can never forget!” Some such absolution she would have been ready to bestow upon a tearful and dejected Cornelia, but the pink and white complaisance of the uplifted face steeled her heart afresh. She shrank back in her chair, ignoring the outstretched hand.
“Excuse me, my dear, but I do not care to kiss a person who has just acknowledged that she has deliberately tried to annoy me. I was naturally displeased at your rejection of my friend’s hospitality, but it is exceedingly impertinent to compare my behaviour to your own. You seem to forget that I am your hostess, and nearly three times your age.”
“Then you ought to be three times better, oughtn’t you?” retorted Cornelia, blandly. “Well, I’ll own up that I’m sorry about Miss Nesbitt, and I’ll be pleased to take tea with her as often as she likes, but I regret that a previous engagement prevents my going Thursday also. You tell the old lady from me that I’m real sorry to miss the treat, and if it will ease her mind any to know that I don’t think England’s a patch on America, she’s welcome to the information. Elma Ramsden and I have fixed up a drive to see the country, Thursday afternoon.”
Miss Briskett’s knitting-needles clinked irritably together. A half concession was little better than none, and the frivolous tone of Cornelia’s remarks spoke of something far removed from the ideal repentance. Apart from the question of the tea-party, she disapproved of two young girls driving about the country unattended, but her courage shrank from the thought of another battle. She dropped her eyelids, and replied icily—
“As you have already made your arrangements it is useless for me to offer any objections. You are evidently determined to take your own way in spite of anything I can say. I can only trust that no harm may come of the experiment.”