Itwould be absurd to suppose that Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay had not heard the entire story of Stella’s escape and all that led up to it, the foolish venture and the unexpected and too serious punishment. They had known all about it from the first moment. They had seen her running down to the beach with her attendants after her, and had heard all about the boat with the new figure-head which Mr. Tredgold had got a bargain and had called after his favourite child. And they had said to each other as soon as they had heard of it, “Mark my words! we shall soon hear of an accident to that boat.” They had related this fact in all the drawing-rooms in the neighbourhood with great, but modest, pride when the accident did take place. But they had shown the greatest interest in Stella, and made no disagreeable remarks as to the depravity of her expedition. Nobody had been surprised at this self-denial at first, for no one had supposed that there was any blame attaching to the young party, two out of the three of whom had suffered so much for their imprudence; for Stella’s cold and the shock to her nerves had at first been raised by a complimentary doctor almost to the same flattering seriousness as Captain Scott’s pneumonia. Now the event altogether had begun to sink a little into the mild perspective of distance, as a thing which was over and done with, though it would always be an exciting reminiscence to talk of—the night when poor Stella Tredgold had been carried out to sea by the sudden squall, “just in her white afternoon frock, poor thing, without a wrap or anything.”
This had been the condition of affairs before Mrs. Seton’s visit. I cannot tell how it was breathed into the air that theadventure was by no means such a simple matter, that Stella was somehow dreadfully in fault, that it would be something against her all her life which she would have the greatest difficulty in “living down.” Impossible to say who sowed this cruel seed. Mrs. Seton declared afterwards that she had spoken to no one, except indeed the landlady of the hotel where Captain Scott was lying, and his nurse; but that was entirely about Algy, poor boy. But whoever was the culprit, or by what methods soever the idea was communicated, certain it is that the views of the little community were completely changed after that moment. It began to be whispered about in the little assemblies, over the tea-tables, and over the billiard-tables (which was worse), that Stella Tredgold’s escapade was a very queer thing after all. It was nonsense to say that she had never heard of the existence of theStellatill that day, when it was well known that old Tredgold bragged about everything he bought, and the lot o’ money, or the little money he had given for it; for it was equally sweet to him to get a great bargain or to give the highest price that had ever been paid. That he should have held his tongue about this one thing, was it likely? And she was such a daring little thing, fond of scandalising her neighbours; and she was a little fast, there could be no doubt; at all events, she had been so ever since she had made the acquaintance of that Mrs. Seton—that Seton woman, some people said. Before her advent it only had been high spirits and innocent nonsense, but since then Stella had been infected with a love of sensation and had learned to like the attendance of men—any men, it did not matter whom. If the insinuation was of Mrs. Seton’s making, she was not herself spared in it.
Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay were by no means the last to be infected by this wave of opinion. They lived close to each other in two little houses built upon the hill side, with gardens in long narrow strips which descended in natural terraces to the level of the high road. They were houses which looked very weedy and damp in the winter time, being surrounded by verandahs, very useful to soften the summer glowbut not much wanted in October when the wind blew heaps of withered leaves (if you ventured to call those rays of gold and crimson withered) under the shelter of their green trellises. There are few things more beautiful than these same autumn leaves; but a garden is sadly “untidy,” as these ladies lamented, when covered with them, flying in showers from somebody else’s trees, and accumulating in heaps in the corners of the verandahs. “The boy,” who was the drudge of Mrs. Shanks’ establishment, and “the girl” who filled the same place in Miss Mildmay’s, swept and swept for ever, but did not succeed in “keeping them down;” and indeed, when these two ladies stepped outside in the sunny mornings, as often as not a leaf or two lighted, an undesired ornament upon the frills of Mrs. Shanks’ cap or in the scanty coils of Miss Mildmay’s hair. There was only a low railing between the two gardens in order not to break the beauty of the bank with its terraces as seen from below, and over this the neighbours had many talks as they superintended on either side the work of the boy and the girl, or the flowering of the dahlias which made a little show on Mrs. Shanks’ side, or the chrysanthemums on the other. These winterly flowers were what the gardens were reduced to in October, though there were a few roses still to be found near the houses, and the gay summer annuals were still clinging on to life in rags and desperation along the borders, and a few sturdy red geraniums standing up boldly here and there.
“Have you heard what they are saying about Stella Tredgold?” said the one lady to the other one of these mornings. Mrs. Shanks had a hood tied over her cap, and Miss Mildmay a Shetland shawl covering her grey hair.
“Have I heard of anything else?” said the other, shaking her head.
“And I just ask you, Ruth Mildmay,” said Mrs. Shanks, “do you think that little thing is capable of making up any plan to run off with a couple of officers? Good gracious, why should she do such a thing? She can have them as much as she likes at home. That silly old man will never stop her, butfeed them with the best of everything at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, if they like—and then be astonished if people talk. And as for Katherine—but I have no patience with Katherine,” the old lady said.
“If it’s only a question what Stella Tredgold is capable of,” answered Miss Mildmay, “she is capable of making the hair stand up straight on our heads—and there is nothing she would like better than to do it.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Shanks, “she would find that hard with me; for I am nearly bald on the top of my head.”
“And don’t you try something for it?” said the other blandly. Miss Mildmay was herself anxiously in search of “something” that might still restore to her, though changed in colour, the abundance of the locks of her youth.
“I try a cap for it,” said the other, “which covers everything up nicely. What the eye does not see the heart does not grieve—not like you, Ruth Mildmay, that have so much hair. Did you feel it standing up on end when you heard of Stella’s escapade?”
“I formed my opinion of Stella’s escapade long ago,” said Miss Mildmay. “I thought it mad—simply mad, like so many things she does; but I hoped nobody would take any notice, and I did not mean to be the first to say anything.”
“Well, it just shows how innocent I am,” said Mrs. Shanks, “an old married woman that ought to know better! Why, I never thought any harm of it at all! I thought they had just pushed off a bit, three young fools!”
“But why did they push off a bit—that is the question? They might have looked at the boat; but why should she go out, a girl with two men?”
“Well, two was better than one, surely, Ruth Mildmay! If it had been one, why, you might have said—but there’s safety in numbers—besides, one man in a little yacht with a big sail. I hate those things myself,” said Mrs. Shanks. “I would not put my foot in one of them to save my life. They are like guns which no one believes are ever loaded till they go off and kill you before you know.
“I have no objection to yachting, for my part. My. Uncle Sir Ralph was a great yachtsman. I have often been out with him. The worst of these girls is that they’ve nobody to give them a little understanding of things—nobody that knows. Old Tredgold can buy anything for them, but he can’t tell them how to behave. And even Katherine, you know——”
“Oh, Katherine—I have no patience with Katherine. She lets that little thing do whatever she pleases.”
“As if any one could control Stella, a spoilt child if ever there was one! May I ask you, Jane Shanks, what you intend to do?”
“To do?” cried Mrs. Shanks, her face, which was a little red by nature, paling suddenly. She stopped short in the very act of cutting a dahlia, a large very double purple one, into which the usual colour of her cheeks seemed to have gone.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake take care of those earwigs,” cried Miss Mildmay. “I hate dahlias for that—they are always full of earwigs. When I was a little child I thought I had got one in my ear. You know the nursery-maids always say they go into your ear. And the miserable night I had! I have never forgotten it. There is one on the rails, I declare.”
“Are we talking of earwigs—or of anything more important?” Mrs. Shanks cried.
“There are not many things more important, I can tell you, if you think one has got into your ear. They say it creeps into your brain and eats it up—and all sorts of horrible things. I was talking of going to the Cliff to see what those girls were about, and what Stella has to say for herself.”
“To the Cliff!” Mrs. Shanks said.
“Well,” said her neighbour sharply, “did you mean to give them up without even asking what they had to say for themselves?”
“I—give them up?—I never thought of such a thing. You go so fast, Ruth Mildmay. It was only yesterday I heard of this talk, which never should have gone from me. At the worst it’s a thing that might be gossiped about; but to give them up——”
“You wouldn’t, I suppose,” said Miss Mildmay sternly, “countenance depravity—if it was proved to be true.”
“If what was proved to be true? What is it they say against her?” Mrs. Shanks cried.
But this was not so easy to tell, for nobody had said anything except the fact which everybody knew.
“You know what is said as well as I do,” said Miss Mildmay. “Are you going? Or do you intend to drop them? That is what I want to know.”
“Has any one dropped them, yet?” her friend asked. There was a tremble in her hand which held the dahlias. She was probably scattering earwigs on every side, paying no attention. And her colour had not yet come back. It was very rarely that a question of this importance came up between the two neighbours. “Has Lady Jane said anything?” she asked in tones of awe.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” cried Miss Mildmay boldly; for, maiden lady as she was, and poor, she was one of those who did not give in to Lady Jane. “For my part, I want to hear more about it before I decide what to do.”
“And so should I too,” said Mrs. Shanks, though still with bated breath. “Oh, Ruth Mildmay, I do not think I could ever have the heart! Such a little thing, and no mother, and such a father as Mr. Tredgold! I think it is going to rain this afternoon. I should not mind for once having the midge if you will share it, and going to call, and see what we can see.”
“I will share the midge if you like. I have other places where I must call. I can wait for you outside if you like, or I might even go in with you, for five minutes,” Miss Mildmay said severely, as if the shortness of that term justified the impulse. And they drove out accordingly, in the slumbrous afternoon, when most people were composing themselves comfortably by the side of their newly-lighted fires, comforting themselves that, as it had come on to rain, nobody would call, and that they were quite free either to read a book or to nod over it till tea-time. It rained softly, persistently, quietly,as the midge drove along amid a mingled shower of water-drops and falling leaves. The leaves were like bits of gold, the water-drops sparkled on the glass of the windows. All was soft, weeping, and downfall, the trees standing fast through the mild rain, scattering, with a sort of forlorn pleasure in it, their old glories off them. The midge stumbled along, jolting over the stones, and the old ladies seated opposite—for it held only one on each side—nodded their heads at each other, partly because they could not help it, partly to emphasise their talk. “That little thing! to have gone wrong at her age! But girls now were not like what they used to be—they were very different—not the least like what we used to be in our time.”
“Here is the midge trundling along the drive and the old cats coming to inquire. They are sure to have heard everything that ever was said in the world,” cried Stella, “and they are coming to stare at me and find out if I look as if I felt it. They shall not see me at all, however I look. I am not going to answer to them for what I do.”
“Certainly not,” said Katherine. “If that is what they have come for, you had better leave them to me.”
“I don’t know, either,” said Stella, “it rains, and nobody else will come. They might be fun. I shall say everything I can think of to shock them, Kate.”
“They deserve it, the old inquisitors,” cried Kate, who was more indignant than her sister; “but I think I would not, Stella. Don’t do anything unworthy of yourself, dear, whatever other people may say.”
“Oh! unworthy of myself!—I don’t know what’s worthy of myself—nothing but nonsense, I believe. I should just like, however, for fun, to see what the old cats have to say.”
The old cats came in, taking some time to alight from the midge and shake out their skirts in the hall. They were a little frightened, if truth must be told. They were not sure of their force against the sharp little claws sheathed in velvet of the little white cat-princess, on whom they were going to make an inquisition, whether there was any stain upon her coat of snow.
“We need not let them see we’ve come for that, or have heard anything,” Mrs. Shanks whispered in Miss Mildmay’s ear.
“Oh, I shall let them see!” said the fiercer visitor; but nevertheless she trembled too.
They were taken into the young ladies’ room, which was on the ground floor, and opened with a large window upon the lawn and its encircling trees. It was perhaps too much on a level with that lawn for a house which is lived in in autumn and winter as well as summer, and the large window occupied almost one entire side of the room. Sometimes it was almost too bright, but to-day, with the soft persistent rain pouring down, and showers of leaves coming across the rain from time to time, as if flying frightened before every puff of air, the effect of the vast window and of the white and gold furniture was more dismal than bright. There was a wood fire, not very bright either, but hissing faintly as it smouldered, which did not add much to the comfort of the room. Katherine was working at something as usual—probably something of no importance—but it was natural to her to be occupied, while it was natural for Stella to do nothing. The visitors instinctively remarked the fact with the usual approval and disapproval.
“Katherine, how do you do, my dear? We thought we were sure to find you at home such a day. Isn’t it a wet day? raining cats and dogs; but the midge is so good for that, one is so sheltered from the weather. Ruth Mildmay thought it was just the day to find you; Jane Shanks was certain you would be at home. Ah, Stella, you are here too!” they said both together.
“Did you think I shouldn’t be here too?” said Stella. “I am always here too. I wonder why you should be surprised.”
“Oh, indeed, Stella! We know that is not the case by any means. If you were always with Katherine, it would be very, very much the better for you. You would get into no scrapes if you kept close to Katherine,” Mrs. Shanks said.
“Do I get into scrapes?” cried Stella, tossing her young head. “Oh, I knew there would be some fun when I saw themidge coming along the drive! Tell me what scrapes I have got into. I hope it is a very bad one to-day to make your hair stand on end.”
“My dear, you know a great deal better than we can tell you what things people are saying,” said Miss Mildmay. “I did not mean to blurt it out the first thing as Jane Shanks has done. It is scarcely civil, I feel—perhaps you would yourself have been moved to give us some explanation which would have satisfied our minds—and to Katherine it is scarcely polite.”
“Oh, please do not mind being polite to me!” cried Katherine, who was in a white heat of resentment and indignation, her hands trembling as she threw down her work. And Stella, that little thing, was completely at her ease! “If there is anything to be said I take my full share with Stella, whatever it may be.” And then there was a little pause, for tea was brought in with a footman’s instinct for the most dramatic moment. Tea singularly changed the face of affairs. Gossip may be exchanged over the teacups; but to come fully prepared for mortal combat, and in the midst of it to be served by your antagonist with a cup of tea, is terribly embarrassing. Katherine, being excited and innocent, would have left it there with its fragrance rising fruitlessly in the midst of the fury melting the assailants’ hearts; but Stella, guilty and clever, saw her advantage. Before she said anything more she sprang up from her chair and took the place which was generally Katherine’s before the little shining table. Mr. Tredgold’s tea was naturally the very best that could be got for money, and had a fragrance which was delightful; and there were muffins in a beautiful little covered silver dish, though October is early in the season for muffins. “I’ll give you some tea first,” cried the girl, “and then you can come down upon me as much as you please.”
And it was so nice after the damp drive, after the jolting of the midge, in the dull and dreary afternoon! It was more than female virtue was equal to, to refuse that deceiving cup. Miss Mildmay said faintly: “None for me, please. I amgoing on to the——” But before she had ended this assertion she found herself, she knew not how, with a cup in her hand.
“Oh, Stella, my love,” cried Mrs. Shanks, “what tea yours is! And oh, how much sweeter you look, and how much better it is, instead of putting yourself in the way of a set of silly young officers, to sit there smiling at your old friends and pouring out the tea!”
Miss Mildmay gave a little gasp, and made a motion to put down the cup again, but she was not equal to the effort.
“Oh, it is the officers you object to!” cried Stella. “If it was curates perhaps you would like them better. I love the officers! they are so nice and big and silly. To be sure, curates are silly also, but they are not so easy and nice about it.”
Miss Mildmay’s gasp this time was almost like a choke. “Believe me,” she said, “it would be much better to keep clear of young men. You girls now are almost as bad as the American girls, that go about with them everywhere—worse, indeed, for it is permitted there, and it is not permitted here.”
“That makes it all the nicer,” cried Stella; “it’s delightful because it’s wrong. I wonder why the American girls do it when all the fun is gone out of it!”
“Depend upon it,” said Miss Mildmay, “it’s better to have nothing at all to do with young men.”
“But then what is to become of the world?” said the culprit gravely.
“Stella!” cried Katherine.
“It is quite true. The world would come to an end—there would be no more——”
“Stella, Stella!”
“I think you are quite right in what you said, Jane Shanks,” said Miss Mildmay. “It is a case that can’t be passed over. It is——”
“I never said anything of the sort,” cried Mrs. Shanks, alarmed. “I said we must know what Stella had to say for herself——”
“And so you shall,” said Stella, with a toss of her saucy head. “I have as much as ever you like to say for myself. There is nothing I won’t say. Some more muffin, Mrs. Shanks—one little other piece. It is so good, and the first of the season. But this is not enough toasted. Look after the tea, Katherine, while I toast this piece for Miss Mildmay. It is much nicer when it is toasted for you at a nice clear fire.”
“Not any more for me,” cried Miss Mildmay decisively, putting down her cup and pushing away her chair.
“You cannot refuse it when I have toasted it expressly for you. It is just as I know you like it, golden brown and hot! Why, here is another carriage! Take it, take it, dear Miss Mildmay, before some one else comes in. Who can be coming, Kate—this wet day?”
They all looked out eagerly, speechless, at the pair of smoking horses and dark green landau which passed close to the great window in the rain. Miss Mildmay took the muffin mechanically, scarcely knowing what she did, and a great consternation fell upon them all. The midge outside, frightened, drew away clumsily from the door, and the ladies, both assailed and assailants, gazed into each other’s eyes with a shock almost too much for speech.
“Oh, heavens,” breathed Mrs. Shanks, “do you see who it is, you unfortunate children? It is Lady Jane herself—and how are you going to stand up, you little Stella, before Lady Jane?”
“Let her come,” said Stella defiant, yet with a hot flush on her cheeks.
And, indeed, so it happened. Lady Jane did not pause to shake out her skirts, which were always short enough for all circumstances. Almost before the footman, who preceded her with awe, could open the door decorously, she pushed him aside with her own hand to quicken his movements, Lady Jane herself marched squarely into the expectant room.
Lady Janewalked into the room squarely, with her short skirts and her close jacket. She looked as if she were quite ready to walk back the four miles of muddy road between her house and the Cliff. And so indeed she was, though she had no intention of doing so to-day. She came in, pushing aside the footman, as I have said, who was very much frightened of Lady Jane. When she saw the dark figures of Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay sitting against the large light of the window, she uttered a suppressed sound of discontent. It might be translated by an “Oh,” or it might be translated, as we so often do as the symbol of a sound, by a “Humph.” At all events, it was a sound which expressed annoyance. “You here!” it seemed to say; but Lady Jane afterwards shook hands with them very civilly, it need not be said. For the two old cats were very respectable members of society, and not to be badly treated even by Lady Jane.
“That was your funny little carriage, I suppose,” she said, when she had seated herself, “stopping the way.”
“Was it stopping the way?” cried Mrs. Shanks, “the midge? I am astonished at Mr. Perkins. We always give him the most careful instructions; but if he had found one of the servants to gossip with, he is a man who forgets everything one may say.”
“I can’t undertake what his motives were, but he was in the way, blocking up the doors,” said Lady Jane; “all the more astonishing to my men and my horses, as they were brought out, much against their will, on the full understanding that nobody else would be out on such a day.”
“It is a long way to Steephill,” said Miss Mildmay, “sothat we could not possibly have known Lady Jane’s intentions, could we, Jane Shanks? or else we might have taken care not to get into her way.”
“Oh, the public roads are free to every one,” said Lady Jane, dismissing the subject. “What rainy weather we have had, to be sure! Of course you are all interested in that bazaar; if it goes on like this you will have no one, not a soul to buy; and all the expense of the decorations and so forth on our hands.”
“Oh, the officers will come over from Newport,” said Miss Mildmay; “anything is better than nothing. Whatever has a show of amusement will attract the officers, and that will make the young ladies happy, so that it will not be thrown away.”
“What a Christian you are!” said Lady Jane. “You mean it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. I have several cousins in the garrison, but I don’t think I should care so much for their amusement as all that.”
“Was there ever a place,” said Mrs. Shanks, with a certain tone of humble admiration, which grated dreadfully upon her companion, “in which you had not a number of cousins, Lady Jane? They say the Scotch are the great people for having relatives everywhere, and my poor husband was a Scotchman; but I’m sure he had not half so many as you.”
Lady Jane answered curtly with a nod of her head and went on. “The rain is spoiling everything,” she said. “The men, of course, go out in spite of it when they can, but they have no pleasure in their work, and to have a shooting party on one’s hands in bad weather is a hard task. They look at you as if it were your fault, as if you could order good weather as easily as you can order luncheon for them at the cover side.”
“Dear me, that is not at all fair, is it, Ruth Mildmay? In my poor husband’s lifetime, when we used to take a shooting regularly, I always said to his friends, ‘Now, don’t look reproachfully at me if it’s bad weather. We can’t guaranteethe weather. You ought to get so many brace if you have good luck. We’ll answer for that.’”
“You were a bold woman,” said Lady Jane; “so many brace without knowing if they could fire a gun or not! That’s a rash promise. Sir John is not so bold as that, I can tell you. He says, ‘There’s a bird or two about if you can hit ’em.’ Katherine, you may as well let me see those things of yours for my stall. It will amuse me a little this wet day.”
“They are all upstairs, Lady Jane.”
“Well, I’ll go upstairs. Oh, don’t let me take you away from your visitors. Stella, you can come with me and show them; not that I suppose you know anything about them.”
“Not the least in the world,” said Stella very clearly. Her face, so delicately tinted usually, and at present paler than ordinary, was crimson, and her attitude one of battle. She could propitiate and play with the old cats, but she dare not either cajole or defy Lady Jane.
“Then Katherine can come, and I can enjoy the pleasure of conversation with you after. Shall I find you still here,” said Lady Jane, holding out her hand graciously to the other ladies, “when I come downstairs again?”
“Oh, we must be going——”
Mrs. Shanks was interrupted by Miss Mildmay’s precise tones. “Probably you will findmehere, Lady Jane; and I am sure it will be a mutual pleasure to continue the conversation which——”
“Then I needn’t say good-bye,” said the great lady calmly, taking Katherine by the arm and pushing the girl before her. Stella stood with her shoulders against the mantel-piece, very red, watching them as they disappeared. She gave the others an angry look of appeal as the door closed upon the more important visitor.
“Oh, I wish you’d take me away with you in the midge!” she cried.
“Ah, Stella,” cried Mrs. Shanks, shaking her head, “the times I have heard you making your fun of the midge! But in a time of trouble one finds out who are one’s real friends.”
Miss Mildmay was softened too, but she was not yet disposed to give in. She had not been able to eat that special muffin which Stella had re-toasted for her. Lady Jane, in declining tea curtly with a wave of her hands, had made the tea-drinkers uncomfortable, and especially had arrested the eating of muffins, which it is difficult to consume with dignity unless you have the sympathy of your audience. It was cold now, quite cold and unappetizing. It lay in its little plate with the air of a thing rejected. And Miss Mildmay felt it was not consistent with her position to ask even for half a cup of hot tea.
“It has to be seen,” she said stiffly, “what friends will respond to the appeal; everybody is not at the disposal of the erring person when and how she pleases. I must draw a line——”
“What do you say I have done, then?” cried Stella, flushing with lively wrath. “Do you think I went out in that boat on purpose to be drowned or catch my death? Do you think I wanted to be ill and sea-sick and make an exhibition of myself before two men? Do you think I wanted them to see meill? Goodness!” cried Stella, overcome at once by the recollection and the image, “could you like a man—especially if he was by way of admiring you, and talking nonsense to you and all that—to see youillat sea? If you can believe that you can believe anything, and there is no more for me to say.”
The force of this argument was such that Miss Mildmay was quite startled out of her usual composure and reserve. She stared at Stella for a moment with wide-opened eyes.
“I did not think of that,” she said in a tone of sudden conviction. “There is truth in what you say—certainly there is truth in what you say.”
“Truth in it!” cried the girl. “If you had only seen me—but I am very thankful you didn’t see me—leaning over the side of that dreadful boat, not minding what waves went over me! When you were a girl and had men after you, oh, Miss Mildmay, I ask you, would you have chosen to have them to see youthen?”
Miss Mildmay put the plate with the cold muffin off her knees. She set down her empty cup. She felt the solemnity of the appeal.
“No,” she said, “if you put it to me like that, Stella, I am obliged to allow I should not. And I may add,” she went on, looking round the room as if to a contradictory audience, “I don’t know any woman who would; and that is my opinion, whatever anybody may say.” She paused a moment with a little triumphant air of having conducted to a climax a potent argument, looking round upon the baffled opponents. And then she came down from that height and added in soft tones of affectionate reproach: “But why did you go out with them at all, Stella? When I was a girl, as you say, and had—I never, never should have exposed myself to such risks, by going out in a boat with——”
“Oh, Miss Mildmay,” cried Stella, “girls were better in your time. You have always told us so. They were not perhaps so fond of—fun; they were in better order; they had more—more—” said the girl, fishing for a word, which Mrs. Shanks supplied her with by a movement of her lips behind Miss Mildmay’s back—“disciplined minds,” Stella said with an outburst of sudden utterance which was perilously near a laugh.
“And you had a mother, Ruth Mildmay?” said the plotter behind, in tender notes.
“Yes; I had a mother—an excellent mother, who would not have permitted any of the follies I see around me. Jane Shanks, you have conquered me with that word. Stella, my dear, count on us both to stand by you, should that insolent woman upstairs take anything upon her. Who is Lady Jane, I should like to know? The daughter of a new-made man—coals, or beer, or something! A creation of this reign! Stella, this will teach you, perhaps, who are your true friends.”
And Miss Mildmay extended her arms and took the girl to her bosom. Stella had got down on her knees for some reason of her own, which girls who are fond of throwing themselves about may understand, and therefore was within reachof this unexpected embrace, and I am afraid laughed rather than sobbed on Miss Mildmay’s lap; but the slight heaving of her shoulders in that position had the same effect, and sealed the bargain. The two ladies lingered a little after this, hoping that Lady Jane might come down. At least Miss Mildmay hoped so. Mrs. Shanks would have stolen humbly out to get into the midge at a little distance along the drive, not to disturb the big landau with the brown horses which stood large before the door. But Miss Mildmay would have none of that; she ordered the landau off with great majesty, and waved her hand indignantly for Perkins to “come round,” as if the midge had been a chariot, a manœuvre which Stella promoted eagerly, standing in the doorway to see her visitors off with the most affectionate interest, while the other carriage paced sullenly up and down.
In the meantime Lady Jane had nearly completed her interview with Katherine in the midst of the large assortment of trumpery set out in readiness for the bazaar. “Oh, yes, I suppose they’ll do well enough,” she said, turning over the many coloured articles into which the Sliplin ladies had worked so many hours of their lives with careless hands. “Mark them cheap; the people here like to have bargains, and I’m sure they’re not worth much. Of course, it was not the bazaar things I was thinking of. Tell me, Katherine, what is all this about Stella? I find the country ringing with it. What has she done to have her name mixed up with Charlie Somers and Algy Scott—two of the fastest men one knows? What has the child been doing? And how did she come to know these men?”
“She has been doing nothing, Lady Jane. It is the most wicked invention. I can tell you exactly how it happened. A little yacht was lying in the harbour, and they went up to papa’s observatory, as he calls it, to look at it through his telescope, and papa himself was there, and he said——”
“But this is going very far back, surely? I asked you what Stella was doing with these men.”
“And I am telling you,” cried Katherine, red with indignation.“Papa said it was his yacht, which he had just bought, and they began to argue and bet about who it was from whom he had bought it, and he would not tell them; and then Stella said——”
“My dear Katherine, this elaborate explanation begins to make me fear——”
“Stella cried: ‘Come down and look at it, while Kate orders tea.’ You know how careless she is, and how she orders me about. They ran down by our private gate. It was to settle their bet, and I had tea laid out for them—it was quite warm then—under the trees. Well,” said Katherine, pausing to take breath, “the first thing I saw was a white sail moving round under the cliff while I sat waiting for them to come back. And then papa came down screaming that it was theStella, his yacht, and that a gale was blowing up. And then we spent the most dreadful evening, and darkness came on and we lost sight of the sail, and I thought I should have died and that it would kill papa.”
Her breath went from her with this rapid narrative, uttered at full speed to keep Lady Jane from interrupting. What with indignation and what with alarm, the quickening of her heart was such that Katherine could say no more. She stopped short and stood panting, with her hand upon her heart.
“And at what hour,” said Lady Jane icily, “did they come back?”
“Oh, I can’t tell what hour it was. It seemed years and years to me. I got her back in a faint and wet to the skin, half dead with sickness and misery and cold. Oh, my poor, poor little girl! And now here are wicked and cruel people saying it is her fault. Her fault to risk her life and make herself ill and drive us out of our senses, papa and me!”
“Oh, Stella would not care very much for her papa and you, so long as she got her fun. So it was as bad as that, was it—a whole night at sea along with these two men? I could not have imagined any girl would have been such a fool.”
“I will not hear my sister spoken of so. It was the men who were fools, or worse, taking her out when a gale was rising.What did she know about the signs of a gale? She thought of nothing but two minutes in the bay, just to see how the boat sailed. It was these men.”
“What is the use of saying anything about the men? I dare say they enjoyed it thoroughly. It doesn’t do them any harm. Why should they mind? It is the girl who ought to look out, for it is she who suffers. Good Heavens, to think that any girl should be such a reckless little fool!”
“Stella has done nothing to be spoken of in that way.”
“Oh, don’t speak to me!” said Lady Jane. “Haven’t I taken you both up and done all I could to give you your chance, you two? And this is my reward. Stella has done nothing? Why, Stella has just compromised herself in the most dreadful way. You know what sort of a man Charlie Somers is? No, you don’t, of course. How should you, not living in a set where you were likely to hear? That’s the worst, you know, of going out a little in onemondeand belonging to another all the time.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Lady Jane,” cried Katherine, on the edge of tears.
“No; there’s no need you should know what I mean. A girl, in another position, that got to know Charlie Somers would have known more or less what he was. You, of course, have the disadvantages of both—acquaintance and then ignorance. Who introduced Charlie Somers to your sister? The blame lies on her first of all.”
“It was—they were all—at the hotel, and Stella thought it would be kind to ask Mrs. Seton to a picnic we were giving——”
“Lottie Seton!” cried Lady Jane, sitting down in the weakness of her consternation. “Why, this is the most extraordinary thing of all!”
“I see nothing extraordinary in the whole business,” said Katherine, in a lofty tone.
“Oh, my dear Katherine, for goodness’ sake don’t let me have any more of your innocent little-girlishness. Of courseyou see nothing! You have no eyes, no sense, no—— Lottie Seton!—she to give over two of her own men to a pretty, silly, reckless little thing like Stella, just the kind for them! Well, that is the last thing I should have expected. Why, Lottie Seton is nothing without her tail. If they abandon her she is lost. She is asked to places because she is always sure to be able to bring a few men. What they can see in her nobody knows, but there it is—that’s her faculty. And she actually gave over two of her very choicest——”
“You must excuse me, Lady Jane,” said Katherine, “if I don’t want to hear any more of Mrs. Seton and her men. They are exceedingly rude, stupid, disagreeable men. You may think it a fine thing for us to be elevated to the sphere in which we can meet men like Sir Charles Somers. I don’t think so. I think he is detestable. I think he believes women to exist only for the purpose of amusing him and making him laugh, like an idiot, as he is!”
Lady Jane sat in her easy-chair and looked sardonically at the passion of the girl, whose face was crimson, whose voice was breaking. She was, with that horrible weakness which a high-spirited girl so resents in herself, so near an outbreak of crying that she could scarcely keep the tears within her eyes. The elder lady looked at her for some time in silence. The sight troubled her a little, and amused her a little also. It occurred to her to say, “You are surely in love with him yourself,” which was her instinct, but for once forbore, out of a sort of awed sense that here was a creature who was outside of her common rules.
“He is not an idiot, however,” she said at last. “I don’t say he is intellectual. He does think, perhaps, that women exist, &c. So do most of them, my dear. You will soon find that out if you have anything to do with men. Still, for a good little girl, I have always thought you were nice, Katherine. It is for your sake more than hers that I feel inclined to do that silly little Stella a good turn. How could she be such a little fool? Has she lived on this cliff half her life and doesn’t know when a gale’s coming on? The more shame to her, then! And I don’t doubt that instead of being ashamedshe is quite proud of her adventure. And I hear, to make things worse, that Algy Scott went and caught a bad cold over it. That will make his mother and all her set furious with the girl, and say everything about her. He’s not going to die—that’s a good thing. If he had, she need never have shown her impertinent little nose anywhere again. Lady Scott’s an inveterate woman. It will be bad enough as it is. How are we to get things set right again?”
“It is a pity you should take any trouble,” said Katherine; “things are quite right, thank you. We have quite enough in what you call our ownmonde.”
“Well, and what do you find to object to in the word? It is a very good word; the French understand that sort of thing better than we do. So you have quite enough to make you happy in your ownmonde? I don’t think so—and I know the world in general better than you do. And, what is more, I am very doubtful indeed whether Stella thinks so.”
“Oh, no,” cried a little voice, and Stella, running in, threw herself down at Lady Jane’s feet, in the caressing attitude which she had so lately held in spite of herself at Miss Mildmay’s. “Stella doesn’t think so at all. Stella will be miserable if you don’t take her up and put things right for her, dear Lady Jane. I have been a dreadful little fool. I know it, I know it; but I didn’t mean it. I meant nothing but a little—fun. And now there is nobody who can put everything right again but you, and only you.”
Lady Jane Thurstonwas a fine lady in due place and time; but on other occasions she was a robust countrywoman, ready to walk as sturdily as any man, or to undertake whatever athletic exercise was necessary. When she had gone downstairs again, and been served with a cup of warm tea (now those old cats were gone), she sent her carriage off that the horses might be put under shelter, not to speak of the men, and walked herself in the rain to the hotel, where the two young men were still staying, Captain Scott being as yet unable to be moved. It was one of those hotels which are so pretty in summer, all ivy and clematis, and balconies full of flowers. But on a wet day in October it looked squalid and damp, with its open doorway traversed by many muddy footsteps, and the wreaths of the withered creepers hanging limp about the windows. Lady Jane knew everybody about, and took in them all the interest which a member of the highest class—quite free from any doubt about her position—is able to take with so much more ease and naturalness than any other. The difference between the Tredgolds, for instance, and Mrs. Black of the hotel in comparison with herself was but slightly marked in her mind. She was impartially kind to both. The difference between them was but one of degree; she herself was of so different a species that the gradations did not count. In consequence of this she was more natural with the Blacks at the hotel than Katherine Tredgold, though in her way a Lady Bountiful, and universal friend, could ever have been. She was extremely interested to hear of Mrs. Black’s baby, which had come most inopportunely, with a sick gentleman in the house, at least a fortnight before it was expected, and went upstairs to see themother and administer a word or two of rebuke to the precipitate infant before she proceeded on her own proper errand. “Silly little thing, to rush into this rain sooner than it could help,” she said, “but mind you don’t do the same, my dear woman. Never trouble your head about the sick gentleman. Don’t stir till you have got up your strength.” And then she marched along the passages to the room in which Algy and Charlie sat, glum and tired to death, looking out at the dull sky and the raindrops on the window. They had invented a sort of sport with those same raindrops, watching them as they ran down and backing one against the other. There had just been a close race, and Algy’s man had won to his great delight, when Lady Jane’s sharp knock came to the door; so that she went in to the sound of laughter pealing forth from the sick gentleman in such a manner as to reassure any anxious visitor as to the state of his lungs, at least.
“Well, you seem cheerful enough,” Lady Jane said.
“Making the best of it,” said Captain Scott.
“How do, Lady Jane? I say, Algy, there’s another starting. Beg pardon, too excitin’ to stop. Ten to one on the little fellow. By George, looks as if he knew it, don’t he now! Done this time, old man——”
“Never took it,” said Algy, with a kick directed at his friend. “Shut up! It’s awfully kind of you coming to see a fellow—in such weather—Lady Jane!”
“Yes,” she said composedly, placing herself in the easiest chair. “It would be kind if I had come without a motive—but I don’t claim that virtue. How are you, by the way? Better, I hope.”
“Awfully well—as fit as a——, but they won’t let me budge in this weather. I’ve got a nurse that lords it over me, and the doctor, don’t you know?—daren’t stir, not to save my life.”
“And occupying your leisure with elevating pastimes,” said Lady Jane.
“Don’t be hard on a man when he’s down—nothing to do,” said Sir Charles. “Desert island sort of thing—Algyeducating mouse, and that sort of thing; hard lines upon me.”
“Does he know enough?” said Lady Jane with a polite air of inquiry. “I am glad to find you both,” she added, “and not too busy evidently to give me your attention. How did you manage, Algy, to catch such a bad cold?”
“Pneumonia, by Jove,” the young man cried, inspired by so inadequate a description.
“Well, pneumonia—so much the worse—and still more foolish for you who have a weak chest. How did you manage to do it? I wonder if your mother knows, and why is it I don’t find her here at your bedside?”
“I say, don’t tell her, Lady Jane; it’s bad enough being shut up here, without making more fuss, and the whole thing spread all over the place.”
“What is the whole thing?” said Lady Jane.
“Went out in a bit of a yacht,” said Sir Charles, “clear up a bet, that was why we did it. Caught in a gale—my fault, not Algy’s—says he saw it coming—I——”
“You were otherwise occupied, Charlie——”
“Shut up!” Sir Charles was the speaker this time, with a kick in the direction of his companion in trouble.
“I am glad to see you’ve got some grace left,” said Lady Jane. “Not you, Algy, you are beyond that—I know all about it, however. It was little Stella Tredgold who ran away with you—or you with her.”
Algy burst into a loud laugh. Sir Charles on his part said nothing, but pulled his long moustache.
“Which is it? And what were the rights of it? and was there any meaning in it? or merely fun, as you call it in your idiotic way?”
“By Jove!” was all the remark the chief culprit made. Algy on his sofa kicked up his feet and roared again.
“Please don’t think,” said Lady Jane, “that I am going to pick my words to please you. I never do it, and especially not to a couple of boys whom I have known since ever they were born, and before that. What do you mean by it, if it isyou, Charlie Somers? I suppose, by Algy’s laugh, that he is not the chief offender this time. You know as well as I do that you’re not a man to take little girls about. I suppose you must have sense enough to know that, whatever good opinion you may have of yourself. Stella Tredgold may be a little fool, but she’s a girl I have taken up, and I don’t mean to let her be compromised. A girl that knew anything would have known better than to mix up her name with yours. Now what is the meaning of it? You will just be so good as to inform me.”
“Why, Cousin Jane, it was all the little thing herself.”
“Shut up!” said Sir Charles again, with another kick at Algy’s foot.
“Well!” said Lady Jane, very magisterially. No judge upon the bench could look more alarming than she. It is true that her short skirts, her strong walking shoes, her very severest hat and stiff feather that would bear the rain, were not so impressive as flowing wigs and robes. She had not any of the awe-inspiring trappings of the Law; but she was law all the same, the law of society, which tolerates a great many things, and is not very nice about motives nor forbidding as to details, but yet draws the line—if capriciously—sometimes, yet very definitely, between what can and what cannot be done.
“Well,” came at length hesitatingly through the culprit’s big moustache. “Don’t know, really—have got anything to say—no meaning at all. Bet to clear up—him and me; then sudden thought—just ten minutes—try the sails. No harm in that, Lady Jane,” he said, more briskly, recovering courage, “afterwards gale came on; no responsibility,” he cried, throwing up his hands.
“Fact it was she that was the keenest. I shan’t shut up,” cried Algy; “up to anything, that little thing is. Never minded a bit till it got very bad, and then gave in, but never said a word. No fault of anybody, that is the truth. But turned out badly—for me——”
“And worse for her,” said Lady Jane—“that is, without me; all the old cats will be down upon the girl” (which wasnot true, the reader knows). “She is a pretty girl, Charlie.”
Sir Charles, though he was so experienced a person, coloured faintly and gave a nod of his head.
“Stunner, by Jove!” said Algy, “though I like the little plain one better,” he added in a parenthesis.
“And a very rich girl, Sir Charles,” Lady Jane said.
This time a faint “O—Oh” came from under the big moustache.
“Averyrich girl. The father is an old curmudgeon, but he is made of money, and he adores his little girl. I believe he would buy a title for her high and think it cheap.”
“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Sir Charles, with a colour more pronounced upon his cheek.
“Yours is not anything very great in that way,” said the remorseless person on the bench, “but still it’s what he would call a title, you know; and I haven’t the least doubt he would come down very handsomely. Old Tredgold knows very well what he is about.”
“Unexpected,” said Sir Charles, “sort of serious jaw like this. Put it off, if you don’t mind, till another time.”
“No time like the present,” said Lady Jane. “Your father was a great friend of mine, Charlie Somers. He once proposed to me—very much left to himself on that occasion, you will say—but still it’s true. So I might have been your mother, don’t you see. I know your age, therefore, to a day. You are a good bit past thirty, and you have been up to nothing but mischief all your life.”
“Oh, I say now!” exclaimed Sir Charles again.
“Well, now here is a chance for you. Perhaps I began without thinking, but now I’m in great earnest. Here is really a chance for you. Stella’s not so nice as her sister, as Algy there (I did not expect it of him) has the sense to see: but she’s much more in your way. She is just your kind, a reckless little hot-headed—all for pleasure and never a thought of to-morrow. But that sort of thing is not so risky when you have a good fortune behind you, well tied down. Now,Charlie, listen to me. Here is a capital chance for you; a man at your age, if he is ever going to do anything, should stop playing the fool. These boys even will soon begin to think you an old fellow. Oh, you needn’t cry out! I know generations of them, and I understand their ways. A man should stop taking his fling before he gets to thirty-five. Why, Algy there would tell you that, if he had the spirit to speak up.”
“I’m out of it,” said Algy. “Say whatever you like, it has nothing to do with me.”
“You see,” said Lady Jane, with a little flourish of her hand, “the boy doesn’t contradict me; he daren’t contradict me, for it’s truth. Now, as I say, here’s a chance for you. Abundance of money, and a very pretty girl, whom you like.” She made a pause here to emphasise her words. “Whom—you—like. Oh, I know very well what I’m saying. I am going to ask her over to Steephill and you can come too if you please; and if you don’t take advantage of your opportunities, Sir Charles, why you have less sense than even I have given you credit for, and that is a great deal to say.”
“Rather public, don’t you think, for this sort of thing? Go in and win, before admiring audience. Don’t relish exhibition. Prefer own way.”
This Sir Charles said, standing at the window, gazing out, apparently insensible even of the raindrops, and turning his back upon his adviser.
“Well, take your own way. I don’t mind what way you take, so long as you take my advice, which is given in your very best interests, I can tell you. Isn’t the regiment ordered out to India, Algy?” she said, turning quickly upon the other. “And what do you mean to do?”
“Go, of course,” he said—“the very thing for me, they say. And I’m not going to shirk either; see some sport probably out there.”
“And Charlie?” said Lady Jane. There was no apparent connection between her previous argument and this question, yet the very distinct staccato manner in which she said these words called the attention.
Sir Charles, still standing by the window with his back to Lady Jane, once more muttered, “By Jove!” under his breath, or under his moustache, which came to the same thing.
“Oh, Charlie! He’ll exchange, I suppose, and get out of it; too great a swell for India, he is. And how could he live out of reach of Pall Mall?”
“Well, I hope you’ll soon be able to move, my dear boy; if the weather keeps mild and the rain goes off you had better come up to Steephill for a few days to get up your strength.”
“Thanks, awf’lly,” said Captain Scott. “I will with pleasure; and Cousin Jane, if that little prim one should be there——”
“She shan’t, not for you, my young man, you have other things to think of. As for Charlie, I shall say no more to him; he can come too if he likes, but not unless he likes. Send me a line to let me know.”
Sir Charles accompanied the visitor solemnly downstairs, but without saying anything until they reached the door, where to his surprise no carriage was waiting.
“Don’t mean to say you walked—day like this?” he cried.
“No; but the horses and the men are more used to take care of themselves; they are to meet me at the Rectory. I am going there about this ridiculous bazaar. You can walk with me, if you like,” she said.
He seized a cap from the stand and lounged out after her into the rain. “I say—don’t you know?” he said, but paused there and added no more.
“Get it out,” said Lady Jane.
After a while, as he walked along by her side, his hands deep in his pockets, the rain soaking pleasantly into his thick tweed coat, he resumed: “Unexpected serious sort of jaw that, before little beggar like Algy—laughs at everything.”
“There was no chance of speaking to you alone,” said Lady Jane almost apologetically.
“Suppose not. Don’t say see my way to it. Don’t deny, though—reason in it.”
“And inclination, eh? not much of one without the other, if I am any judge.”
“First-rate judge, by Jove!” Sir Charles said.
And he added no more. But when he took leave of Lady Jane at the Rectory he took a long walk by himself in the rain, skirting the gardens of the Cliff and getting out upon the downs beyond, where the steady downfall penetrated into him, soaking the tweed in a kind of affectionate natural way as of a material prepared for the purpose. He strolled along with his hands in his pockets and the cap over his eyes as if it had been a summer day, liking it all the better for the wetness and the big masses of the clouds and the leaden monotone of the sea. It was all so dismal that it gave him a certain pleasure; he seemed all the more free to think of his own concerns, to consider the new panorama opened before him, which perhaps, however, was not so new as Lady Jane supposed. She had forced open the door and made him look in, giving all the details; but he had been quite conscious that it had been there before, within his reach, awaiting his inspection. There were a great many inducements, no doubt, to make that fantastic prospect real if he could. He did not want to go to India, though indeed it would have been very good for him in view of his sadly reduced finances and considerably affected credit in both senses of that word. He had not much credit at headquarters, that he knew; he was not what people called a good officer. No doubt he would have been brave enough had there been fighting to do, and he was not disliked by his men; his character of a “careless beggar” being quite as much for good as for evil among those partial observers; but his credit in higher regions was not great. Credit in the other sense of the word was a little failing too, tradesmen having a wonderfulflairas to a man’s resources and the rising and falling of his account at his bankers. It would do him much good to go to India and devote himself to his profession; but then he did not want to go. Was it last of all or first of all that another motive came in, little Stella herself to wit, though she broke down so much in her attempts to imitate Lottie Seton’sways, and was not amusing at all in that point of view? Stella had perhaps behaved better on that impromptu yachting trip than she was herself aware. Certainly she was far more guilty in the beginning of it than she herself allowed. But when the night was dark and the storm high, she had—what had she done? Behaved very well and made the men admire her pluck, or behaved very badly and frightened them—I cannot tell; anyhow, she had been very natural, she had done and said only what it came into her head to say and to do, without any affectation or thought of effect; and the sight of the little girl, very silly and yet so entirely herself, scolding them, upbraiding them, though she was indeed the most to blame, yet bearing her punishment not so badly after all and not without sympathy for them, had somehow penetrated Charles Somers’ very hardened heart. She was a nice little girl—she was a very pretty little girl—she was a creature one would not tire of even if she was not amusing like Lottie Seton. If a man was to have anything more to do with her, it was to be hoped she never would be amusing like Lottie Seton. He paced along the downs he never knew how long, pondering these questions; but he was not a man very good at thinking. In the end he came to no more than a very much strengthened conviction that Stella Tredgold was a very pretty little girl.
Itshut the mouths of all the gossips, or rather it afforded a new but less exciting subject of comment, when it was known that Stella Tredgold had gone off on a visit to Steephill. I am not sure that Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay did not feel themselves deceived a little. They had pledged themselves to Stella’s championship in a moment of enthusiasm, stimulated thereto by a strong presumption of the hostility of Lady Jane. Miss Mildmay in particular had felt that she had a foeman worthy of her steel, and that it would be an enterprise worth her while to bring the girl out with flying colours from any boycotting or unfriendly action directed by the great lady of the district; and to find that Stella had been taken immediately under Lady Jane’s wing disturbed her composure greatly. There was great talk over the railing between the ladies, and even, as it became a little too cold for these outdoor conferences, in the drawing-rooms in both houses, under the shade of the verandah which made these apartments a little dark and gloomy at this season of the year. But I must not occupy the reader’s time with any account of these talks, for as a matter of fact the ladies had committed themselves and given their promise, which, though offended, they were too high-minded to take back. It conduced, however, to a general cooling of the atmosphere about them, that what everybody in Sliplin and the neighbourhood now discussed was not Stella’s escapade, but Stella’s visit to Steephill, where there was a large party assembled, and where her accomplices in that escapade were to be her fellow-guests. What did this mean was now the question demanded? Had Lady Jane any intentions in respect to Stella? Was there “anything between” her and either ofthese gentlemen? But this was a question to which no one as yet had any reply.
Stella herself was so much excited by the prospect that all thought of the previous adventure died out of her mind. Save at a garden party, she had never been privileged to enter Lady Jane’s house except on the one occasion when she and Katherine stayed all night after a ball; and then there were many girls besides themselves, and no great attention paid to them. But to be the favoured guest, almost the young lady of the house, among a large company was a very different matter. Telegrams flew to right and left—to dressmakers, milliners, glovers, and I don’t know how many more. Stevens, the maid, whom at present she shared with Katherine, but who was, of course, to accompany her to Steephill as her own separate attendant, was despatched to town after the telegrams with more detailed and close instructions. The girl shook off all thought both of her own adventure and of her companions in it. She already felt herself flying at higher game. There was a nephew of Lady Jane’s, a young earl, who, it was known, was there, a much more important personage than any trumpery baronet. This she informed her father, to his great delight, as he gave her his paternal advice with much unction the evening before she went away.
“That’s right, Stella,” he said, “always fly at the highest—and them that has most money. This Sir Charles, I wager you anything, he is after you for your fortune. I dare say he hasn’t a penny. He thinks he can come and hang up his hat and nothing more to do all his life. But he’ll find he’s a bit mistaken with me.”
“It isn’t very nice of you, papa,” said Stella, “to think I am only run after because I have money—or because you have money, for not much of it comes to me.”
“Ain’t she satisfied with her allowance?” said the old gentleman, looking over Stella’s head at her elder sister. “It’s big enough. Your poor mother would have dressed herself and me and the whole family off half of what that little thing gets through. It is a deal better the money shouldbe in my hands, my pet. And if any man comes after you, you may take your oath he shan’t have you cheap. He’ll have to put down shillin’ for shillin’, I can tell you. You find out which is the one that has the most money, and go for him. Bad’s the best among all them new earls and things, but keep your eyes open, Stella, and mark the one that’s best off.” Here he gave utterance to a huge chuckle. “Most people would think she would never find that out; looks as innocent as a daisy, don’t she, Katie? But she’s got the old stuff in her all the same.”
“I don’t know what you call the old stuff,” said Stella, indignant; “it must be very nasty stuff. What does your horrid money do for me? I have not half enough to dress on, and you go over my bills with your spectacles as if I were Simmons, the cook. If you had a chest full of diamonds and rubies, and gave us a handful now and then, that is the kind of richness I should like; but I have no jewels at all,” cried the girl, putting up her hand to her neck, which was encircled by a modest row of small pearls; “and they will all be in their diamonds and things.”
Mr. Tredgold’s countenance fell a little. “Is that true?” he said. “Katie, is that true?”
“Girls are not expected to wear diamonds,” said Katie; “at least, I don’t think so, papa.”
“Oh, what does she know? That’s all old-fashioned nowadays. Girls wear just whatever they can get to wear, and why shouldn’t girls wear diamonds? Don’t you think I should set them off better than Lady Jane, papa?” cried Stella, tossing her young head.
Mr. Tredgold was much amused by this question; he chuckled and laughed over it till he nearly lost his breath. “All the difference between parchment and white satin, ain’t there, Katie? Well, I don’t say as you mightn’t have some diamonds. They’re things that always keep their value. It’s not a paying investment, but, anyhow, you’re sure of your capital. They don’t wear out, don’t diamonds. So that’s what you’re after, Miss Stella. Just you mind what you’reabout, and don’t send me any young fool without a penny in his pocket, but a man that can afford to keep you like you’ve been kept all your life. And I’ll see about the jewels,” Mr. Tredgold said.
The consequence of this conversation was that little Stella appeared at Steephill, notwithstanding her vapoury and girlish toilettes of white chiffon and other such airy fabrics, with arivièreof diamonds sparkling round her pretty neck, which, indeed, did them much greater justice than did Lady Jane. Ridiculous for a little girl, all the ladies said—but yet impressive more or less, and suggestive of illimitable wealth on the part of the foolish old man, who, quite unaware what was suitable, bedizened his little daughter like that. And Stella was excited by her diamonds and by the circumstances, and the fact that she was the youngest there, and the most fun; for who would expect fun from portly matrons or weather-beaten middle age, like Lady Jane’s? To do her justice, she never or hardly ever thought, as she might very well have done, that she was the prettiest little person in the party. On the contrary, she was a little disposed to be envious of Lady Mary, the niece of Lady Jane and sister of the Earl, who was not pretty in the least, but who was tall, and had a figure which all the ladies’ maids, including Stevens, admired much. “Oh, if you only was as tall as Lady Mary, Miss Stella,” Stevens said. “Oh, I wish as you had that kind of figger—her waist ain’t more than eighteen inches, for all as she’s so tall.” Stella had felt nearly disposed to cry over her inferiority. She was as light as a feather in her round and blooming youth, but she was not so slim as Lady Mary. It was a consolation to be able to say to herself that at least she was more fun.
Lady Mary, it turned out, was not fun at all; neither most surely was the young Earl. He talked to Stella, whom, and her diamonds, he approached gravely, feeling that the claims of beauty were as real as those of rank or personal importance, and that the qualification of youth was as worthy of being taken into consideration as that of age, for he was a philosopherabout University Extension, and the great advantage it was to the lower classes to share the culture of those above them.
“Oh, I am sure I am not cultured at all,” cried Stella. “I am as ignorant as a goose. I can’t spell any big words, or do any of the things that people do.”
“You must not expect to take me in with professions of ignorance,” said the Earl with a smile. “I know how ladies read, and how much they do nowadays—perhaps in a different way from us, but just as important.”
“Oh, no, no,” cried Stella; “it is quite true, I can’t spell a bit,” and her eyes and her diamonds sparkled, and a certain radiance of red and white, sheen of satin, and shimmer of curls, and fun and audacity, and youth, made a sort of atmosphere round her, by which the grave youth, prematurely burdened by the troubles of his country and the lower classes, felt dazzled and uneasy, as if too warm a sun was shining full upon him.
“Where’s a book?” cried Algy Scott, who sat by in the luxury of his convalescence. “Let’s try; I don’t believe any of you fellows could spell this any more than Miss Stella—here you are—sesquipedalian. Now, Miss Tredgold, there is your chance.”
Stella put her pretty head on one side, and her hands behind her. This was a sort of thing which she understood better than University Extension. “S-e-s,” she began, and then broke off. “Oh, what is the next syllable? Break it down into little, quite little syllables—quip—I know that, q-u-i-p. There, oh, help me, help me, someone!” There was quite a crush round the little shining, charming figure, as she turned from one to another in pretended distress, holding out her pretty hands. And then there were several tries, artificially unsuccessful, and the greatest merriment in the knot which surrounded Stella, thinking it all “great fun.” The Earl, with a smile on his face which was not so superior as he thought, but a little tinged by the sense of being “out of it,” was edged outside of this laughing circle, and Lady Mary came and placed her arm within his to console him. The brotherand sister lingered for a moment looking on with a disappointed chill, though they were so superior; but it became clear to his lordship from that moment, though with a little envy in the midst of the shock and disapproval, that Stella Tredgold, unable to spell and laughing over it with all those fellows, was not the heroine for him.