Chapter Seventeen.Ella Overhears.The letter was soon written. But then came the question of how to post it. Ella would not send it openly with the rest of the letters as usual, for she was afraid of Madelene’s catching sight of it.“I will take it to the post-office in the village myself,” she decided. “They won’t miss me. They are far too busy and absorbed about Ermine. And Sir Philip will very likely be coming over to luncheon. How I wish I could say I was ill and keep out of the way! It is too hard to feel myself a complete stranger and alien in my own home—and it will cut me off from dear godmother too. I can never see much ofhernow.”A few minutes saw her wrapped up and making her way down the drive. It reminded her of that other morning only a very few weeks ago when she had found little Hetty in distress at the lodge and had stopped to help her, and when, all unconscious of her smutty face, she had met Philip at the gate. She had not even known his name then, and now—if only he had not been Philip Cheynes, but a stranger as she had imagined him! He had once wished she were really “Miss Wyndham.”“I wonder why,” thought Ella. “Perhaps if Ihadbeen a stranger everything would have been different. There would have been no Madelene to interfere and stop it all. And I was so sure Ermine did not care for him—I wonder how it has all come about.”But she felt as if she dared not let her thoughts dwell on it. She hurried on, safely posted her letter, and turned to go home again without misadventure. It was not till she was within the lodge gates, walking more slowly now that she had accomplished her purpose, that it suddenly struck her what a risk she had run of meeting Sir Philip, and she started as she realised this, and for half a moment stood still to reflect if she could not reach the house by some other way. But no—there was no choice of road till much nearer home—and then, as if evoked by her fears, the sound of a horse approaching at a steady trot broke on her ears. It was some way off, even a slight noise travelled far in the clear frosty air, but Ella had a long way to walk still before she could reach the concealment of the shrubberies, and where she was now standing her figure stood out clear and distinct against the sky.“If it is he, he has seen me already,” she thought with a sort of shiver, and she started off almost at a run, from time to time stopping for a moment both to take breath and to listen if the horse and his rider were indeed coming her way. Yes—she heard them stopping at the lodge gate—then on again, faster, a good deal faster, surely!“He has recognised me,” thought Ella, running now at full speed, till her heart beat almost to suffocation and her breath came in panting sobs. She was near the shrubbery now—and once there she could easily elude him—another effort, though she was all but breathless now, and—no, it was too late!“Ella!” cried the voice she knew so well, “what in the world is the matter? Whatare, you running away in that mad fashion for?”She had to stop—it was almost a relief to her that she was physically incapable of speaking—her face was scarlet, she panted so that Sir Philip was really startled. She tried to laugh, but the convulsive effort quite as nearly resembled a sob.“Ella,” Philip repeated, “can’t you tell me—can’t, you speak?”“It—it is nothing,” she replied at last. “I have only been running.”“But why were you running so? It is wrong, it may really hurt you. You will probably catch cold if you overheat yourself so,” he went on seeming vexed and uneasy. “We might have walked up together comfortably from the lodge, as we did the day I brought you back your shoe. Do you remember?” Did she remember? Ella gave an instant’s glance at him, but without speaking.“Isanything the matter?” Philip went on.“Your father is not ill?”“Oh, no,” she said. “I have scarcely seen him and Madelene this morning. They are expecting you, I know. I think—Is it not a pity to keep them waiting?”Sir Philip had got off his horse by this time. He gave an impatient exclamation.“Say plainly you don’t want to speak to me, and I will understand you, Ella,” he said. “There is no such tremendous hurry for my seeing your father and Madelene. I was in such spirits,” he went on reproachfully. “I don’t think I ever felt so happy in my life as I did this morning when I was riding over, and when I caught sight of you I thought it such a piece of luck—” his voice dropped a little, and his dark eyes looked quite pathetic—“and now you have spoilt it all. I don’t understand you this morning, Ella.”“There is nothing to understand or not to understand,” said the girl, trying, though not very successfully to speak lightly. “I didn’t particularly want to speak to you, and I didn’t suppose you wanted particularly to speak to me. I—I heard a little this morning, though they don’t take me into their confidence. But I know they are waiting for you, and anxious to see you and talk it over.”Philip looked at her curiously. She did not seem, as to him it would have appeared natural that she should do, either excited or much interested. Ermine however was not her own sister, he said to himself. Perhaps that made a difference, for that she was either self-absorbed or cold-hearted he could not for an instant believe.“There is really no such tremendous hurry,” he repeated. “Uncle Marcus will be all the better for a little time in which to digest the news. They might as well have told you all about it. Madelene’s conscientiousness and caution run riot sometimes. I should like you to understand it all, and I am quite—”“Oh no, no, please no!” she cried, putting her hands hastily to her ears. “I don’t want you to—I would much rather wait for Madelene to tell me. Please—please let me go now. I hope it will be all right, and you know I do care for Ermine, and I do want her to be happy.”“Of course you do. Whoever doubted it?” he replied, half smiling at her strange manner. “But, Ella—”His words were wasted. Before she had heard them Ella was off. She darted away, for she had recovered her breath by now, and was hidden among the neighbouring thick-growing shrubs, whose shelter she had all but reached before Sir Philip had first accosted her. He stood for a moment looking after her, his brows knit, his bright face clouded with perplexity. But it would scarcely do for him to run after her, as if they were a couple of children playing at “I spy.” Besides which he had his horse to think of. So he slowly mounted again and rode on to the house.“Something has rubbed her the wrong way this morning,” he said. “Madelene’s mistaken want of confidence probably. Maddie means well, but she doesn’t understand Ella. And there is some excuse for it. She does seem such a child, and yet she is not really childish.” He drew a long breath. “Perhaps granny is right about waiting, but I don’t know. Onecan’tmake rules in such matters, and one may run great risks. I will not let any misunderstanding come between us—that I will not do. Before I leave to-day, I will tell her all there is to tell about Ermine, and show her she is inmyconfidence at least.”And with no very serious misgiving the young man rang at the hall door and was told that the master of the house was expecting him and would see him in his own room.It was one of the days of Ella’s “lessons.” Her German teacher was due at two o’clock. As a rule a very little haste at luncheon left her free by the time appointed, which could not have been easily altered as Fräulein Braune’s “time” to her, poor woman, was “money.” But when Ella came into the dining-room at half-past one no one was there. A sudden idea struck her: it would be the greatest possible relief to escape making one at the family party. She helped herself hastily to a slice of cold meat, and having eaten it quickly, took a piece of cake in her hand and rang the bell. Barnes, who was extra attentive and condescending to-day, as he scented some news in the air, appeared in person.“Tell Miss St Quentin and my father,” said Ella coolly, “that I could not wait to have luncheon with them as I should be too late for Fräulein Braune.”“Certainly, Miss Hella,” Barnes replied patronisingly. “It will be of no consequence, I feel sure. My master and Miss St QuentinandSir Philip are still hengaged in the study. Orders not to be disturbed. It will do if I explain your absence, miss, when the Colonel comes in to luncheon?”Ella did not trouble herself to reply. She detested Barnes, and he, on his side, did not love her. Their intercourse haddébutébadly; Ella had never forgotten or forgiven the half-suspicious condescension with which he had received her on her first unexpected appearance at Coombesthorpe, and had she better understood the facts of her position there, she would have been still more irate. For carefully as the St Quentins believed themselves to have kept private all the details of their family history such things always leak out. There was not a servant of any intelligence in the establishment who was not thoroughly aware that the place and the money belonged to the two elder sisters, that “the Colonel, poor gentleman,” had lost his own fortune in risky investments, and that the young daughter of his penniless second wife was to all intents and purposes a pauper. “But for the goodness of our own young ladies,” Barnes,plus royaliste que le roi, was wont to say, “Miss Hella, for all her high and mightiness, would have to earn her daily bread—and a deal of good it would do her.”Fräulein Braune was punctual: the hour of her lesson passed heavily to-day; it was very difficult for Ella to give her usual attention. The German was a good, tender-hearted creature, who had known too much suffering in life herself not to recognise the symptoms of it in another, though she smiled inwardly as she thought that trivial indeed and probably imaginary must be the troubles of one so placed as her fortunate pupil—“young, lovely, rich, surrounded by friends, what can she really have to grieve about?”“My dear, you are tired to-day,” she said kindly. “You have a headache I see. There is only a quarter of an hour more. Let us spend it in conversation. Would the open air do you good?”Ella gladly acceded.“I will walk to the furthest gates with you, Fräulein,” she said, “and we will talk as we go. I have a headache, but it is not a real one; it is because I am unhappy.”The gentle woman gave her a glance of sympathy, but she tempered her sympathy with common-sense.“Beware, my child,” she said, as they walked down the drive, “ofimaginingcauses of unhappiness. One is so apt to do so when one is young,” and she sighed.“Ah, but I have some real troubles,” Ella replied, “troubles that no one could deny. I have no mother, you know, Fräulein, and only half-sisters who till lately were complete strangers to me.”“Certainly the want of a mother is a great want,” her companion agreed. “But an elder sister may go far towards making up for it.”“Ye-es, sometimes,” acquiesced Ella. But the tone was enough.“Poor little girl,” thought Fräulein Braune when she left her, “she does seem lonely. And she is so lovable! Miss St Quentin must be of a cold nature.” Ella retraced her steps: it was cold, but she walked slowly. She felt sure Sir Philip would not be staying long; as he had come over so early, and she wandered about the grounds, choosing the side of the house from which she would not be visible to any one leaving it, in hopes of not re-entering it till he had gone.But it grew too chilly at last. She determined to make her way in by the conservatory whence she could run up stairs to her own room without much risk of meeting any one. The conservatory felt pleasantly warm: she lingered in it for a moment or two, not observing at first that the door leading from it into the drawing-room was open, nor indeed attaching any consequence to the fact when she did observe it: the drawing-room was never used by the family in the earlier part of the day. Suddenly she heard voices. They were those of Madelene and her cousin.“I can’t find it, Philip,” said the former. “Aunty must forgive my carelessness. I will send it back to-morrow before her Mudie box goes.”“May not Ella know where it is?” Sir Philip suggested.“Possibly. I think I saw her reading it. But she is at her German lesson and it is a pity to interrupt her.”“Goodness, Madelene, you talk as if she were about twelve years old,” said Philip irritably. “When are you going to allow the poor girl to consider herself grown-up? At her age, you—”“It is no good going back upon what I was,” Miss St Quentin interrupted. “I was quite different, and circumstances were quite different. I do my best with Ella, though I fear I don’t succeed in making her happy. It has been a sore subject.”“When—when Ermine goes, you must make more of a companion of her,” Sir Philip suggested. “And then—some day—if Ella goes in the same way—”“It would simplify matters of course; that is to say if it was for her happiness,” said Madelene, half reluctantly, it seemed to Ella.“I should rather think it would. WhythenOmar might take up his quarters here for good. He would be a perfect right-hand to Uncle Marcus. I can understand your feeling that with Ella here it might not be a pleasant or natural position for him. Uncle Marcus scarcely counts as a third person—he is so much in his own room.”“Philip, don’t talk about it,” said Madelene decidedly. “You almost seem to want to tempt me into wishing Ella away. Very certainly with both her and my father in a sense on my hands I have no right to undertake other ties. And ifbothErmine and I married, it would complicate matters financially, you know.”“Yes, I do know,” said Philip, “and I repeat what I said. It would be a very good thing if Ella—”“Oh, do be quiet, Philip,” said Madelene in a tone almost of entreaty. “She is much too young, and—by the time there is any prospect of her being provided for, it will be too late for me.”Sir Philip gave a sort of grunt, which did not express assent, but he said no more.“It is cold in here,” said Madelene. “Come back to the library.”“I must be going,” he replied. “You have letters to write I know, and if Ella is to be shut-up at her lessons all the afternoon, the prospect is not lively.” Then Ella heard them leave the room.With a rush there came over her the realisation of what she had been doing—“Listening!” Her face grew scarlet with shame but not for long.“I could not have helped it,” she thought with a kind of defiance. “Their very first words were about me: I should never have known the truth had I interrupted them. And at all costs it was best to know it. Now I need have no hesitation. I will not stay another night here—they shall never be troubled by me again.”Her face glowed as she recalled some of the expressions she had overheard. Then again she felt perplexed at certain allusions she could not explain. What did Madelene mean by speaking of “financial” complications?“We are all three sisters; it isn’t as if one of us were a son,” she thought. “Even if most is to go to Madelene as the eldest, papa is certainly rich enough to provide well for Ermine and me too. Not that I want their money—I shall let them see that. I don’t in the least mind earning my own living, and I am sure I am able to do so. I should thank papa, I suppose, for having made me work hard since I have been here. It is as if he had foreseen it.” Then her thoughts took another turn. Who was “Omar”? Some one that Madelene was to marry, or would have married already, it appeared, but for her, Ella’s, unlucky advent.“Everything of course, everything unfortunate is put upon my shoulders,” she reflected bitterly. “Still Madelenemeansto be good and unselfish, I do believe. She shall not be sacrificed to me. And when she is married to this Mr Omar, whoever he is, and Ermine to Sir Philip, Idon’tthink they will have much to reproach me with, ‘sore subject’ though I am.”She sat still for a moment or two till she felt a little more collected. Then she crept quietly up stairs to her own room, locked the door by way of precaution and set to work.All her belongings were together and in neat order. “It will be quite easy for any one to pack everything up,” she thought. Then she dressed herself in her warmest clothes, put a few things into a bag not too heavy for her to carry, and when all was ready, sat down to write a few words, which, as is the fashion of heroines in such circumstances, she fastened conspicuously to her toilet pincushion. The note was addressed to Miss St Quentin and contained these words:—“I overheard what you and Sir Philip were talking about in the drawing-room; I know it was dishonourable to listen, but I could not help it, after the first. It is not my fault that I have been such a sore trouble to you hitherto, but it would be if I stayed here, knowing better now. I will write to you when my plans are settled, but it isn’t any use sending after me, as I am not going anywhere you know. I hope you will be very happy—and I hope Ermine will be very happy too. Please tell papa I see now how wise it was to make me go on with my lessons.“Your affectionate sister,—“Ella Marcia St Quentin.”Then Ella made her way quietly down stairs, and out by a side-door. She met no one, and keeping as long as possible in the shade of the shrubberies, she gained the lodge, then the outer gates, a quarter of a mile further off, finding herself finally on the high road to Coombe. She knew her way quite well, though it was now growing dusk. She knew too what she meant to do, so she walked on without hesitating.“I have nearly three pounds in my purse,” she reflected. “That will do. But I must get on as fast as I can. I don’t suppose Madelene will miss me till about five o’clock; it must be almost that now, and if they sent along the road they might overtake me.”She hastened her steps; there was a short cut to Coombe through the lanes, which she knew, and by walking very fast, she reached her destination without risk of being overtaken.
The letter was soon written. But then came the question of how to post it. Ella would not send it openly with the rest of the letters as usual, for she was afraid of Madelene’s catching sight of it.
“I will take it to the post-office in the village myself,” she decided. “They won’t miss me. They are far too busy and absorbed about Ermine. And Sir Philip will very likely be coming over to luncheon. How I wish I could say I was ill and keep out of the way! It is too hard to feel myself a complete stranger and alien in my own home—and it will cut me off from dear godmother too. I can never see much ofhernow.”
A few minutes saw her wrapped up and making her way down the drive. It reminded her of that other morning only a very few weeks ago when she had found little Hetty in distress at the lodge and had stopped to help her, and when, all unconscious of her smutty face, she had met Philip at the gate. She had not even known his name then, and now—if only he had not been Philip Cheynes, but a stranger as she had imagined him! He had once wished she were really “Miss Wyndham.”
“I wonder why,” thought Ella. “Perhaps if Ihadbeen a stranger everything would have been different. There would have been no Madelene to interfere and stop it all. And I was so sure Ermine did not care for him—I wonder how it has all come about.”
But she felt as if she dared not let her thoughts dwell on it. She hurried on, safely posted her letter, and turned to go home again without misadventure. It was not till she was within the lodge gates, walking more slowly now that she had accomplished her purpose, that it suddenly struck her what a risk she had run of meeting Sir Philip, and she started as she realised this, and for half a moment stood still to reflect if she could not reach the house by some other way. But no—there was no choice of road till much nearer home—and then, as if evoked by her fears, the sound of a horse approaching at a steady trot broke on her ears. It was some way off, even a slight noise travelled far in the clear frosty air, but Ella had a long way to walk still before she could reach the concealment of the shrubberies, and where she was now standing her figure stood out clear and distinct against the sky.
“If it is he, he has seen me already,” she thought with a sort of shiver, and she started off almost at a run, from time to time stopping for a moment both to take breath and to listen if the horse and his rider were indeed coming her way. Yes—she heard them stopping at the lodge gate—then on again, faster, a good deal faster, surely!
“He has recognised me,” thought Ella, running now at full speed, till her heart beat almost to suffocation and her breath came in panting sobs. She was near the shrubbery now—and once there she could easily elude him—another effort, though she was all but breathless now, and—no, it was too late!
“Ella!” cried the voice she knew so well, “what in the world is the matter? Whatare, you running away in that mad fashion for?”
She had to stop—it was almost a relief to her that she was physically incapable of speaking—her face was scarlet, she panted so that Sir Philip was really startled. She tried to laugh, but the convulsive effort quite as nearly resembled a sob.
“Ella,” Philip repeated, “can’t you tell me—can’t, you speak?”
“It—it is nothing,” she replied at last. “I have only been running.”
“But why were you running so? It is wrong, it may really hurt you. You will probably catch cold if you overheat yourself so,” he went on seeming vexed and uneasy. “We might have walked up together comfortably from the lodge, as we did the day I brought you back your shoe. Do you remember?” Did she remember? Ella gave an instant’s glance at him, but without speaking.
“Isanything the matter?” Philip went on.
“Your father is not ill?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I have scarcely seen him and Madelene this morning. They are expecting you, I know. I think—Is it not a pity to keep them waiting?”
Sir Philip had got off his horse by this time. He gave an impatient exclamation.
“Say plainly you don’t want to speak to me, and I will understand you, Ella,” he said. “There is no such tremendous hurry for my seeing your father and Madelene. I was in such spirits,” he went on reproachfully. “I don’t think I ever felt so happy in my life as I did this morning when I was riding over, and when I caught sight of you I thought it such a piece of luck—” his voice dropped a little, and his dark eyes looked quite pathetic—“and now you have spoilt it all. I don’t understand you this morning, Ella.”
“There is nothing to understand or not to understand,” said the girl, trying, though not very successfully to speak lightly. “I didn’t particularly want to speak to you, and I didn’t suppose you wanted particularly to speak to me. I—I heard a little this morning, though they don’t take me into their confidence. But I know they are waiting for you, and anxious to see you and talk it over.”
Philip looked at her curiously. She did not seem, as to him it would have appeared natural that she should do, either excited or much interested. Ermine however was not her own sister, he said to himself. Perhaps that made a difference, for that she was either self-absorbed or cold-hearted he could not for an instant believe.
“There is really no such tremendous hurry,” he repeated. “Uncle Marcus will be all the better for a little time in which to digest the news. They might as well have told you all about it. Madelene’s conscientiousness and caution run riot sometimes. I should like you to understand it all, and I am quite—”
“Oh no, no, please no!” she cried, putting her hands hastily to her ears. “I don’t want you to—I would much rather wait for Madelene to tell me. Please—please let me go now. I hope it will be all right, and you know I do care for Ermine, and I do want her to be happy.”
“Of course you do. Whoever doubted it?” he replied, half smiling at her strange manner. “But, Ella—”
His words were wasted. Before she had heard them Ella was off. She darted away, for she had recovered her breath by now, and was hidden among the neighbouring thick-growing shrubs, whose shelter she had all but reached before Sir Philip had first accosted her. He stood for a moment looking after her, his brows knit, his bright face clouded with perplexity. But it would scarcely do for him to run after her, as if they were a couple of children playing at “I spy.” Besides which he had his horse to think of. So he slowly mounted again and rode on to the house.
“Something has rubbed her the wrong way this morning,” he said. “Madelene’s mistaken want of confidence probably. Maddie means well, but she doesn’t understand Ella. And there is some excuse for it. She does seem such a child, and yet she is not really childish.” He drew a long breath. “Perhaps granny is right about waiting, but I don’t know. Onecan’tmake rules in such matters, and one may run great risks. I will not let any misunderstanding come between us—that I will not do. Before I leave to-day, I will tell her all there is to tell about Ermine, and show her she is inmyconfidence at least.”
And with no very serious misgiving the young man rang at the hall door and was told that the master of the house was expecting him and would see him in his own room.
It was one of the days of Ella’s “lessons.” Her German teacher was due at two o’clock. As a rule a very little haste at luncheon left her free by the time appointed, which could not have been easily altered as Fräulein Braune’s “time” to her, poor woman, was “money.” But when Ella came into the dining-room at half-past one no one was there. A sudden idea struck her: it would be the greatest possible relief to escape making one at the family party. She helped herself hastily to a slice of cold meat, and having eaten it quickly, took a piece of cake in her hand and rang the bell. Barnes, who was extra attentive and condescending to-day, as he scented some news in the air, appeared in person.
“Tell Miss St Quentin and my father,” said Ella coolly, “that I could not wait to have luncheon with them as I should be too late for Fräulein Braune.”
“Certainly, Miss Hella,” Barnes replied patronisingly. “It will be of no consequence, I feel sure. My master and Miss St QuentinandSir Philip are still hengaged in the study. Orders not to be disturbed. It will do if I explain your absence, miss, when the Colonel comes in to luncheon?”
Ella did not trouble herself to reply. She detested Barnes, and he, on his side, did not love her. Their intercourse haddébutébadly; Ella had never forgotten or forgiven the half-suspicious condescension with which he had received her on her first unexpected appearance at Coombesthorpe, and had she better understood the facts of her position there, she would have been still more irate. For carefully as the St Quentins believed themselves to have kept private all the details of their family history such things always leak out. There was not a servant of any intelligence in the establishment who was not thoroughly aware that the place and the money belonged to the two elder sisters, that “the Colonel, poor gentleman,” had lost his own fortune in risky investments, and that the young daughter of his penniless second wife was to all intents and purposes a pauper. “But for the goodness of our own young ladies,” Barnes,plus royaliste que le roi, was wont to say, “Miss Hella, for all her high and mightiness, would have to earn her daily bread—and a deal of good it would do her.”
Fräulein Braune was punctual: the hour of her lesson passed heavily to-day; it was very difficult for Ella to give her usual attention. The German was a good, tender-hearted creature, who had known too much suffering in life herself not to recognise the symptoms of it in another, though she smiled inwardly as she thought that trivial indeed and probably imaginary must be the troubles of one so placed as her fortunate pupil—“young, lovely, rich, surrounded by friends, what can she really have to grieve about?”
“My dear, you are tired to-day,” she said kindly. “You have a headache I see. There is only a quarter of an hour more. Let us spend it in conversation. Would the open air do you good?”
Ella gladly acceded.
“I will walk to the furthest gates with you, Fräulein,” she said, “and we will talk as we go. I have a headache, but it is not a real one; it is because I am unhappy.”
The gentle woman gave her a glance of sympathy, but she tempered her sympathy with common-sense.
“Beware, my child,” she said, as they walked down the drive, “ofimaginingcauses of unhappiness. One is so apt to do so when one is young,” and she sighed.
“Ah, but I have some real troubles,” Ella replied, “troubles that no one could deny. I have no mother, you know, Fräulein, and only half-sisters who till lately were complete strangers to me.”
“Certainly the want of a mother is a great want,” her companion agreed. “But an elder sister may go far towards making up for it.”
“Ye-es, sometimes,” acquiesced Ella. But the tone was enough.
“Poor little girl,” thought Fräulein Braune when she left her, “she does seem lonely. And she is so lovable! Miss St Quentin must be of a cold nature.” Ella retraced her steps: it was cold, but she walked slowly. She felt sure Sir Philip would not be staying long; as he had come over so early, and she wandered about the grounds, choosing the side of the house from which she would not be visible to any one leaving it, in hopes of not re-entering it till he had gone.
But it grew too chilly at last. She determined to make her way in by the conservatory whence she could run up stairs to her own room without much risk of meeting any one. The conservatory felt pleasantly warm: she lingered in it for a moment or two, not observing at first that the door leading from it into the drawing-room was open, nor indeed attaching any consequence to the fact when she did observe it: the drawing-room was never used by the family in the earlier part of the day. Suddenly she heard voices. They were those of Madelene and her cousin.
“I can’t find it, Philip,” said the former. “Aunty must forgive my carelessness. I will send it back to-morrow before her Mudie box goes.”
“May not Ella know where it is?” Sir Philip suggested.
“Possibly. I think I saw her reading it. But she is at her German lesson and it is a pity to interrupt her.”
“Goodness, Madelene, you talk as if she were about twelve years old,” said Philip irritably. “When are you going to allow the poor girl to consider herself grown-up? At her age, you—”
“It is no good going back upon what I was,” Miss St Quentin interrupted. “I was quite different, and circumstances were quite different. I do my best with Ella, though I fear I don’t succeed in making her happy. It has been a sore subject.”
“When—when Ermine goes, you must make more of a companion of her,” Sir Philip suggested. “And then—some day—if Ella goes in the same way—”
“It would simplify matters of course; that is to say if it was for her happiness,” said Madelene, half reluctantly, it seemed to Ella.
“I should rather think it would. WhythenOmar might take up his quarters here for good. He would be a perfect right-hand to Uncle Marcus. I can understand your feeling that with Ella here it might not be a pleasant or natural position for him. Uncle Marcus scarcely counts as a third person—he is so much in his own room.”
“Philip, don’t talk about it,” said Madelene decidedly. “You almost seem to want to tempt me into wishing Ella away. Very certainly with both her and my father in a sense on my hands I have no right to undertake other ties. And ifbothErmine and I married, it would complicate matters financially, you know.”
“Yes, I do know,” said Philip, “and I repeat what I said. It would be a very good thing if Ella—”
“Oh, do be quiet, Philip,” said Madelene in a tone almost of entreaty. “She is much too young, and—by the time there is any prospect of her being provided for, it will be too late for me.”
Sir Philip gave a sort of grunt, which did not express assent, but he said no more.
“It is cold in here,” said Madelene. “Come back to the library.”
“I must be going,” he replied. “You have letters to write I know, and if Ella is to be shut-up at her lessons all the afternoon, the prospect is not lively.” Then Ella heard them leave the room.
With a rush there came over her the realisation of what she had been doing—“Listening!” Her face grew scarlet with shame but not for long.
“I could not have helped it,” she thought with a kind of defiance. “Their very first words were about me: I should never have known the truth had I interrupted them. And at all costs it was best to know it. Now I need have no hesitation. I will not stay another night here—they shall never be troubled by me again.”
Her face glowed as she recalled some of the expressions she had overheard. Then again she felt perplexed at certain allusions she could not explain. What did Madelene mean by speaking of “financial” complications?
“We are all three sisters; it isn’t as if one of us were a son,” she thought. “Even if most is to go to Madelene as the eldest, papa is certainly rich enough to provide well for Ermine and me too. Not that I want their money—I shall let them see that. I don’t in the least mind earning my own living, and I am sure I am able to do so. I should thank papa, I suppose, for having made me work hard since I have been here. It is as if he had foreseen it.” Then her thoughts took another turn. Who was “Omar”? Some one that Madelene was to marry, or would have married already, it appeared, but for her, Ella’s, unlucky advent.
“Everything of course, everything unfortunate is put upon my shoulders,” she reflected bitterly. “Still Madelenemeansto be good and unselfish, I do believe. She shall not be sacrificed to me. And when she is married to this Mr Omar, whoever he is, and Ermine to Sir Philip, Idon’tthink they will have much to reproach me with, ‘sore subject’ though I am.”
She sat still for a moment or two till she felt a little more collected. Then she crept quietly up stairs to her own room, locked the door by way of precaution and set to work.
All her belongings were together and in neat order. “It will be quite easy for any one to pack everything up,” she thought. Then she dressed herself in her warmest clothes, put a few things into a bag not too heavy for her to carry, and when all was ready, sat down to write a few words, which, as is the fashion of heroines in such circumstances, she fastened conspicuously to her toilet pincushion. The note was addressed to Miss St Quentin and contained these words:—
“I overheard what you and Sir Philip were talking about in the drawing-room; I know it was dishonourable to listen, but I could not help it, after the first. It is not my fault that I have been such a sore trouble to you hitherto, but it would be if I stayed here, knowing better now. I will write to you when my plans are settled, but it isn’t any use sending after me, as I am not going anywhere you know. I hope you will be very happy—and I hope Ermine will be very happy too. Please tell papa I see now how wise it was to make me go on with my lessons.
“Your affectionate sister,—
“Ella Marcia St Quentin.”
Then Ella made her way quietly down stairs, and out by a side-door. She met no one, and keeping as long as possible in the shade of the shrubberies, she gained the lodge, then the outer gates, a quarter of a mile further off, finding herself finally on the high road to Coombe. She knew her way quite well, though it was now growing dusk. She knew too what she meant to do, so she walked on without hesitating.
“I have nearly three pounds in my purse,” she reflected. “That will do. But I must get on as fast as I can. I don’t suppose Madelene will miss me till about five o’clock; it must be almost that now, and if they sent along the road they might overtake me.”
She hastened her steps; there was a short cut to Coombe through the lanes, which she knew, and by walking very fast, she reached her destination without risk of being overtaken.
Chapter Eighteen.A Decided Step.Fräulein Braune was sitting in her modest lodging over the Coombe post-office when the door opened and the maid-servant announced a visitor. The good lady started up in surprise, but before she had time to greet the new-comer, the latter cautiously shut the door, and then hastened towards her exclaiming as she threw off her hat and veil.“It is I, Fräulein, Ella St Quentin. I have come to ask you a great favour. Will you let me stay with you for to-night? I have left my home and I don’t want them to know where I am just yet. Next week—as soon as I am settled—I shall write to them, but not yet. I must first—”“You have run away from home,” interrupted the governess. “Oh, my dear Miss Ella, that is a sad step to take! Think how frightened they will all be.”“No,” said Ella, “I have taken care of that. And I had the best reasons. There has been no quarrel, but I have found out that I am a great burden and trouble to them all. It will be an immense relief to them. I cannot explain all without telling you what I have no right to tell, but you must believe what I say. It is not as if I had been brought up at home. I have only been with them about eight months: they will soon forget I have been there at all and everything will get straight now I have left.”Ella spoke so fast and decidedly that for a moment or two Fräulein Braune felt confused and bewildered. But though timid and gentle she was a woman of considerable common-sense. She saw that for the moment at least, there was no use in arguing with the girl.“And what do you propose to do then, my dear?” she said. “Where will you go to-morrow when you leave this—if—if it is arranged for you to stay here to-night?”Ella looked at her for a moment or two without speaking.“Fräulein,” she said, “you must be candid with me. I came to you because I thought I could trust you. But if I am mistaken, if you intend to do anything towards making me go home again, or telling my people where I am, then I tell you plainly I will go away from this house at once leaving no trace of myself, and neither you nor any one will be able to find me again, I warn you.”The governess considered a moment. Ella looked resolute and probably meant what she said.“What do you want me to promise you, my dear?” Fräulein Braune said quietly.“That you will not—you must give me your word of honour that you will not—tell any of my people anything about me till or unless I give you leave.”“Very well,” Fräulein Braune replied. “I give you my promise. There is little fear but that they will be able to find her at once if they think it best to set to work vigorously,” she reflected. “And anything is better than that she should be seen running about by herself, or that she should take some foolish step through her inexperience—I give you my promise,” she repeated.Ella looked relieved.“Then,” she said. “I will tell you my plan,” and she proceeded to do so.When she had finished, she looked up at the German lady inquiringly.“It is not a bad plan?” she asked. “There is nothing wild and silly about it.”“No,” Fräulein Braune replied, “I don’t know that there is if, that is to say, your leaving your home is absolutely unavoidable. But, my dear Miss Ella, one thing I must insist upon. I will go to London with you to-morrow. I cannot let you travel alone.”“I’m not the least afraid of travelling alone,” began Ella hastily, “and I have the exact address. And—it will cost a good deal, Fräulein, even if we go second-class and—I haven’t much money.”“You shall repay me some day,” said the good governess, “but that I go with you is decided. It must be—on every account.”Ella sighed.“It is very kind of you,” she said, “but I wish you wouldn’t.”There was determination however, as well as kindness in Fräulein Braune’s grey eyes. Ella had to give in.She shared her friend’s evening meal, though not daring to eat as much as she was inclined to do, when she saw how very modest it was. She would not allow the governess to give up her bed to her, as she wished, but insisted on spending the night with the aid of a pillow or two, on the little hair-covered sofa in the sitting-room. It was not very comfortable, she owned to herself, when Fräulein Braune had left her,verymuch less so than the cosy bed in the despised “nursery” at Coombesthorpe. And she was hungry too, really hungry, for she had had no luncheon to speak of, no afternoon tea at all, a very long walk in the cold and only enough supper to whet her hearty girlish appetite!“I must get used to it,” she said to herself. “I can’t expect more than the bare necessaries of life now.” But she was so tired that in spite of all, she fell asleep and slept soundly.It was morning already when she awoke—some moments of bewilderment as to what had happened and where she was were followed by a gradual recollection of the painful events of the preceding day. Then Fräulein Braune in a curiously befrilled headgear which Ella supposed must be a German nightcap, peeped in, to see if her guest was awake. Ella started up nervously.“It is time to be getting ready, I suppose?” she said. “I was forgetting.”“Yes,” said the governess. “If you have really kept to your determination of—”“Of course I have,” said Ella sharply. “I shall be dressed in ten minutes; there will be time to catch the early train, will there not?”“Oh, yes, if we are quick,” Fräulein Braune replied. Not that she would have been sorry if they had missed it, poor woman! But she was in secret hopes that Ella’s friends would have already communicated with the railway officials, and that her escapade would come to a premature ending at the station.Nothing of the kind happened however, and the German was obliged to own to herself when fairly off on their journey, seated opposite Ella in a second-class compartment that it really did not look as if the poor girl’s family cared much about her. Still the more she thought it all over the more satisfied she became that she had acted not only kindly, but wisely in accompanying her pupil.“She would never have got on without me,” the governess reflected, “though she is too childish to understand that. It will be easy to confide in Mrs Ward so far as is necessary to ensure her taking care of Ella in the meantime, without Ella’s in the least suspecting anything of the kind.”And indeed though the girl’s heart and mind were very troubled and sore, she was feeling no special practical anxiety about her prospects. She had no misgiving as to the feasibility of the plan she had made, and was in no way surprised when things turned out pretty much in accordance with her own ideas.Mrs Ward was the matron or superintendent of a small “Home” for governesses. Ella had once in past years, when little more than a child, called at this institution with her aunt to inquire for a young girl temporarily there, in whom Mrs Robertson took an interest. Ella had been struck by Mrs Ward’s kindly, capable manner and sensible advice, and the whole incident had been recalled to her memory recently by Fräulein Braune speaking of this very institution as her usual head-quarters when in London. And to go there and apply for a situation as governess in France or Germany had been the girl’s idea.The winter afternoon was fast closing in, it was dusk, almost dark when the cab containing Ella and her escort drew up at 29 Percival Terrace. As had been agreed between the two during their railway journey, Fräulein Braune got out first, leaving Ella alone to await the result of her interview with Mrs Ward. It had been raining, a cold sleety regular London winter rain. Ella shivered as she gazed out at the sloppy pavement, glistening in the light of an adjacent gas lamp.“I had no idea London could look so dreary,” she thought. Then her fancy pictured the spacious comfortable library at Coombesthorpe as it must be looking at that moment—the fire burning brightly, throwing warm reflections on the crimson carpet and the dull rich bindings of the books, while Madelene made tea at the pretty table with its sparkling silver “equipage,” and Colonel St Quentin lay back in his chair talking to her as she did so.“And,” went on Ella to herself, “very likely Sir Philip is there too, unless he has gone off to Ermine again. They are none of them troubling themselves about me—that’s plain. But it’s better so. I could not stand it—no I could not go back again.”Just then the door of the house opened and Fräulein Braune came out. She smiled at Ella.“It is all right,” she said. “Mrs Ward insists on my staying the night, though I had intended going back at once.”“Oh no, no, that would never have done, dear Fräulein,” said Ella, as she sprang out.Then the governess paid the cabman and they went in.“What did Mrs Ward say?” asked Ella, when they were in the hall.“She will tell you herself,” Fräulein Braune replied. “I—I thought it right to tell her your name, Ella.”“Of course. I have no intention of concealing it,” Ella replied haughtily. “But you made her promise not to write home or anything of that kind, Fräulein? You know I shall do so myself as soon as ever I am settled.”“Yes,” said the German lady calmly, as she opened the door of the room where Mrs Ward was waiting for them.Ella at once stated her wishes. Mrs Ward listened quietly, though now and then a quiet smile lighted up her face.“You don’t think it would be difficult to get a situation such as I should be fit for?” said the young lady in conclusion.Mrs Ward hesitated.“No,” she said, “I think I might put you in the way of something of the kind. But it would be only a modest beginning, particularly as you want to leave England. You would have no salary at your age, or if any, very little. Your best chance would be a situationau pair, as it is called. I have one or two on my books.”“What does that mean?” asked Ella, whose countenance had fallen a little.“You would have to teach English and in return for that you would have board and lodging and certain facilities for acquiring French or German, or both. I have an application at this moment from a school in Germany of this kind.” And she turned to a large ledger on the table.Ella’s face for the first time expressed perplexity and misgiving. “No salary,” she said to herself. “Well, after all I have clothes enough to last a good while and the great thing is to get something settled.” She turned abruptly to Mrs Ward.“I will accept that situation,” she said. “I am eager to be settled. Can I go at once?”Fräulein Braune gave an exclamation.“My dear Miss Ella!” she said.“Things of this kind are not settled quite so quickly, my dear young lady,” said Mrs Ward with a smile. “However I will write about it at once, and you can stay here till I get an answer. But—you in the meantime must get your parents’ leave. You are not of age and I could not take the responsibility of sending you away anywhere unauthorised by them.”Ella looked very blank.“I mean to tell them when I am settled,” she said. “I—I did not want to do so before.”“You must think it over,” said Mrs Ward. “In the meantime I will write the letter. Now, Fräulein Braune, you know the house. Tea will be ready in a few minutes. Will you take Miss St Quentin up stairs to Number 5: it is the only unoccupied room, and when you hear the bell ring please come down to the dining-room for tea.”Ella followed Fräulein Braune up stairs in silence; she looked grave and perplexed and the kind woman’s heart was touched. But she thought it best and wisest to leave the girl to her own reflections. It was not till the next morning, when her friend was about to leave, that anything was said.“I have been thinking it all over,” Ella began.“I see it is no use trying to keep my plans a secret, and after all it will not make much difference, as I always meant to write home eventually. But I don’t want to write myself, just yet. If it is not asking too much, Fräulein, will you be so kind as to see my father or my sister as soon as you go back to Coombe and tell them where I am, what I intend, so that they can write to Mrs Ward and satisfy her? I don’t think there will be any difficulty; certainly not with my sister, and my father will probably be so angry, that he won’t care what I do. You can see for yourself that they are not anxious about me, or they would have done something.”Fräulein Braune could scarcely gainsay this. She was too experienced not to know that nothing would have been easier than to trace Ella by this time had her friends cared to do so.“Will you see them for me, dear Fräulein?” Ella repeated.Fräulein Braune was only too delighted to do so, and to free herself from the responsibility which was very heavy upon her. But to Ella she felt it was wiser not to express her satisfaction too strongly; any approach to “crowing over” the girl might still be fatal in its results.“Certainly I will see them. I shall go out to Coombesthorpe to-morrow morning. I would go this evening but I fear it will be too late.”“Oh I wouldn’t think of going to-night,” said Ella, with a little smile. “They are not uneasy. It is for my own sake I ask you to go soon. I am so anxious to have it all settled about this place in Germany.” Mrs Ward was well pleased to learn from Fräulein Braune what had been arranged between her and Ella.“They will never let her go to Germany,” said the matron. “It would be almost a scandal—people in such a position as theirs.”Fräulein Braune shook her head.“I don’t know I’m sure,” she replied. “It does not seem as if they cared for her. I do not know much of the private relations of the family—Ella is not an indiscreet girl and has not told me more than was necessary. But I do not think they can care for her, and perhaps they will let her go as a sort of punishment.”“Ah, well, we shall see,” said Mrs Ward. Her position had brought her in contact with many curious phases of family life.The day dragged on slowly for Ella. She had nothing to do and for a great part of the time no one to speak to, for of the dozen or so governesses, young or old, at present domiciled in the “Home,” a proportion was engaged as daily teachers and the rest were busy running about to see or be seen with a view to finding situations. It was not till the afternoon that Ella, on re-entering the neat chilly-looking drawing-room found a temporary companion. This was a girl of two or three-and-twenty, whose pleasant, sensible face had already struck Ella agreeably. She was knitting busily, but looked up with a smile when the young stranger appeared.“You must be rather dull, here,” she said. “It is all very well when one is busy, but I could not stand it for long if I were not so. It is weeks since I have had a quiet, lazy afternoon.”“Then have you been here long?” Ella inquired. “Some months. I was fortunate in getting a daily engagement which has enabled me to save a little. So now I am going to Switzerland. I have never had a chance of speaking French, but I could not have gone without any money, you see.”“Won’t you get a salary then?” said Ella.The girl shook her head.“Not the first year, and I’m not sure that I shall want to stay a second. A friend of mine has a girls’ school, and if I can speak French well she may be able to find work for me with her.”“But should you like that as well as being abroad?” said Ella, opening her eyes. “I think Switzerland is so charming. I’ve been there a good deal.”“Ah, yes—travelling or visiting there is charming no doubt. But to be a governess is very different. One has to put up with a good deal in such cases, but of course when it is a question of acquiring the language, one doesn’t mind anything, does one?”“I can’t say,” replied Ella rather loftily. “I can speak French quite well. I don’t care about going abroad on that account.”She rather resented the “rowing in the same boat” tone of her new acquaintance.“Oh, I thought some one said you were going to Germany—to Wahlbrunn, I know about the place—au pair, as they say.”“Perhaps I am,” said Ella dryly. Her companion glanced at her half curiously. She could not quite “make her out.”“I wonder you go abroad if you don’t care about the language,” she said. “You’ll have to rough it you may be sure, and I don’t fancy you’ll like that.”“I dare say not, but that part of it can’t be helped,” said Ella smiling a little. “But it won’t be worse for me than for others.”“I don’t know that,” the girl replied. “You look as if you had had a nice home and all that kind of thing. I’ve never had a home; I was an orphan as a baby—that makes a difference.”“My mother died when I was three years old—thatmakes a difference,” said Ella. Her companion nodded her head as if to say she “understood,” and a picture of a harsh and unloving stepmother turning this pretty young creature out of her home crossed her mind’s eye. But she was too delicate-minded to ask any questions, and the conversation drifted off to less personal subjects. The girl was leaving England the next day; Ella never saw her again, but her words had left their impression. It was with a little shiver that lying awake in the middle of the night she recalled them. “Roughing it,” what might that not mean? Rough words and looks and tones, as well as more practical physical discomfort—nobody to care about her, whether she were happy or miserable—nobody to love her—“and I have so longed to be loved,” thought Ella. “But except poor aunty, and—yes, I believe my godmother does love me, ordid, she will probably give me up in disgust now—except those two I hardly think any onehasever really loved me. Oh, Madelene, if you had only been alittleloving, I would have turned to you now and—perhaps if I had been able to confide in you I would not have been so easily taken in byhim, by his manner, which meant nothing when I thought it meant everything. For Madelene was wise—she did warn me; if only she had cared for me a little. But it is too late now. Such as it was, itwasmy home, but I have thrown it away. What would that poor girl think if she could see it? Fancy her never having had any home—”Ella’s pillow was wet with tears the next morning when she woke. She dreaded and yet hoped for a letter—but there was none. Mrs Ward noticed her anxious face.“There has hardly been time for an answer from Fräulein Braune,” she said kindly, though in her heart not sorry that the girl was beginning to realise the full bearing of her rash step. “You would be the better for a little air, I think. Would you not like to go out?”Ella glanced down the long breakfast-table.“Is there any one who could go with me, do you think?” she asked timidly. Mrs Ward looked up rather sharply.“Are you afraid of going out alone?” she said. “You must get used to it, my dear. You will never get on if you are so dependent.”“I am notafraid,” replied Ella, growing very red as she spoke. “But it is just that I have never had to go out alone.”“Ah, well—perhaps I can get some one to go with you for once. But you know we are all very busy people here.”She spoke to one of the elder ladies, who undertook to accompany Ella. For Mrs Ward felt it right to take special care of the girl in her peculiar position. Yet she knew that it was well for her to have the practical side of the future she had chosen brought home to her. “If her people really care for her,” thought Mrs Ward, “they can easily get her to go home again. She is tiring of it already.”But she scarcely understood the character she had to deal with.Ella went out with Miss Lister, and though the walk was only to a music shop where her companion had to choose a large selection of “pieces” for her pupils, and though the day was so cold and gloomy as to suggest impending fog, the mere fact of being out of doors and walking quickly raised her impressionable spirits again. She was in a decidedly less conciliatory mood than before going out, and it was with a heightened colour and resolutely compressed lips that she received the parlour-maid’s announcement that a lady had come to see her, and was waiting in the drawing-room.“Madelene, no doubt,” thought Ella with a rush of curiously mingled feeling, among which considerably to her own surprise she was conscious that there vibrated a thrill of something very like delight.“Do I care for her, after all?” she thought. But before she had time to answer the question, other sensations followed. Madelene had come to urge her return, Madelene who knew, or at least suspected the root of her bitterest suffering; Madelene who had planned and schemed for Ermine regardless of the poor little half-sister! Ella hardened her heart.“No,” she thought, “I will not go home. No. She may beg and pray me to do so, I will not. Not at least for a long, long time, till I have got accustomed to it all—to Ermine and Philip—or at least till I have learnt to hide what I feel. And when they see how firm I am they will have to give in and let me go to that German place. I don’t care what it is or how rough it is if only I can get away.”She looked and felt cool and determined enough, as, after a moment’s pause outside the drawing-room door, she turned the handle and entered. Only the two bright red spots on her cheeks betrayed any inward disturbance.“Madelene,” she began at once, before her eyes had taken in any details of the figure that rose from the sofa at the sound of the door opening. But in an instant she stopped, the words on her lips died away as a keen dart of disappointment sped through her.“No, no, my darling, not Madelene. Only your poor old auntie,” and in a moment she was enfolded in Mrs Burton’s embrace. “Oh, Ella, my dear, I have been so miserable about you ever since Sir—ever since your sister sent to me! Oh, my child, you see how it has ended. Why did you leave me as you did? All might have been happy and peaceful. Mr Burton’s heart is really such a kind one—it is only manner, my dear. You will get to see it is only manner, I can assure you—”But Ella calmly disengaged herself from Mrs Burton, with an unreasonable feeling of irritation and impatience.“I thought it was Madelene,” she said. “I thought—”“You were nervous about meeting her, my darling. Of course it was only natural. She has never understood you—that is clear. But it is all going to be happy now; you will see—all’s well that ends well, you know Ellie.”“Have they sent you for me? Do they want me to go home?” she exclaimed. “For I—I had reason for what I did—I am not a child. I cannot consent to go back—I—”“No, no, of course not. How could you wish to go back, where I can see and feel you have been so misunderstood and unhappy? Oh, no, dear, you may make your mind quite easy on that score. You don’t think your poor auntie would have come on such an errand—to persuade you to go back to prison again, for prison indeed it must have been. Oh, no, even Madelene saw that—there was no question of your returning there.”No question of her returning there! She had cut the bonds then only too effectually—a sharp, yet chill pain seemed for an instant to take the girl’s breath away.“They don’t want me back again, then?” she said. And then without giving her aunt time to speak, she answered her question herself. “No, of course not—how could they? I heard it with my own ears; they wanted to be rid of me.”But the last few words were too low for her aunt to catch.“How could they indeed, knowing how unhappy they had made you, my darling?” said Mrs Burton. “No, no,Iwould never have come on such an errand!”Ella looked up.“Then did they not send you? How did you know? I don’t understand,” she said in a dull, bewildered way. “I am tired, I think, aunty, and the not expecting to see you, you know. Please tell me all about it; I will sit here quietly and listen.”“My darling,” Mrs Burton repeated, possessing herself of Ella’s hand as she spoke. It lay passive in her grasp for a minute or two, but before long the girl managed to draw it away.“Tell me, aunt, please,” she repeated. “I have got out of those petting sort of ways, I suppose,” she said to herself. “I wish aunt Phillis wasn’t quite so caressing.”
Fräulein Braune was sitting in her modest lodging over the Coombe post-office when the door opened and the maid-servant announced a visitor. The good lady started up in surprise, but before she had time to greet the new-comer, the latter cautiously shut the door, and then hastened towards her exclaiming as she threw off her hat and veil.
“It is I, Fräulein, Ella St Quentin. I have come to ask you a great favour. Will you let me stay with you for to-night? I have left my home and I don’t want them to know where I am just yet. Next week—as soon as I am settled—I shall write to them, but not yet. I must first—”
“You have run away from home,” interrupted the governess. “Oh, my dear Miss Ella, that is a sad step to take! Think how frightened they will all be.”
“No,” said Ella, “I have taken care of that. And I had the best reasons. There has been no quarrel, but I have found out that I am a great burden and trouble to them all. It will be an immense relief to them. I cannot explain all without telling you what I have no right to tell, but you must believe what I say. It is not as if I had been brought up at home. I have only been with them about eight months: they will soon forget I have been there at all and everything will get straight now I have left.”
Ella spoke so fast and decidedly that for a moment or two Fräulein Braune felt confused and bewildered. But though timid and gentle she was a woman of considerable common-sense. She saw that for the moment at least, there was no use in arguing with the girl.
“And what do you propose to do then, my dear?” she said. “Where will you go to-morrow when you leave this—if—if it is arranged for you to stay here to-night?”
Ella looked at her for a moment or two without speaking.
“Fräulein,” she said, “you must be candid with me. I came to you because I thought I could trust you. But if I am mistaken, if you intend to do anything towards making me go home again, or telling my people where I am, then I tell you plainly I will go away from this house at once leaving no trace of myself, and neither you nor any one will be able to find me again, I warn you.”
The governess considered a moment. Ella looked resolute and probably meant what she said.
“What do you want me to promise you, my dear?” Fräulein Braune said quietly.
“That you will not—you must give me your word of honour that you will not—tell any of my people anything about me till or unless I give you leave.”
“Very well,” Fräulein Braune replied. “I give you my promise. There is little fear but that they will be able to find her at once if they think it best to set to work vigorously,” she reflected. “And anything is better than that she should be seen running about by herself, or that she should take some foolish step through her inexperience—I give you my promise,” she repeated.
Ella looked relieved.
“Then,” she said. “I will tell you my plan,” and she proceeded to do so.
When she had finished, she looked up at the German lady inquiringly.
“It is not a bad plan?” she asked. “There is nothing wild and silly about it.”
“No,” Fräulein Braune replied, “I don’t know that there is if, that is to say, your leaving your home is absolutely unavoidable. But, my dear Miss Ella, one thing I must insist upon. I will go to London with you to-morrow. I cannot let you travel alone.”
“I’m not the least afraid of travelling alone,” began Ella hastily, “and I have the exact address. And—it will cost a good deal, Fräulein, even if we go second-class and—I haven’t much money.”
“You shall repay me some day,” said the good governess, “but that I go with you is decided. It must be—on every account.”
Ella sighed.
“It is very kind of you,” she said, “but I wish you wouldn’t.”
There was determination however, as well as kindness in Fräulein Braune’s grey eyes. Ella had to give in.
She shared her friend’s evening meal, though not daring to eat as much as she was inclined to do, when she saw how very modest it was. She would not allow the governess to give up her bed to her, as she wished, but insisted on spending the night with the aid of a pillow or two, on the little hair-covered sofa in the sitting-room. It was not very comfortable, she owned to herself, when Fräulein Braune had left her,verymuch less so than the cosy bed in the despised “nursery” at Coombesthorpe. And she was hungry too, really hungry, for she had had no luncheon to speak of, no afternoon tea at all, a very long walk in the cold and only enough supper to whet her hearty girlish appetite!
“I must get used to it,” she said to herself. “I can’t expect more than the bare necessaries of life now.” But she was so tired that in spite of all, she fell asleep and slept soundly.
It was morning already when she awoke—some moments of bewilderment as to what had happened and where she was were followed by a gradual recollection of the painful events of the preceding day. Then Fräulein Braune in a curiously befrilled headgear which Ella supposed must be a German nightcap, peeped in, to see if her guest was awake. Ella started up nervously.
“It is time to be getting ready, I suppose?” she said. “I was forgetting.”
“Yes,” said the governess. “If you have really kept to your determination of—”
“Of course I have,” said Ella sharply. “I shall be dressed in ten minutes; there will be time to catch the early train, will there not?”
“Oh, yes, if we are quick,” Fräulein Braune replied. Not that she would have been sorry if they had missed it, poor woman! But she was in secret hopes that Ella’s friends would have already communicated with the railway officials, and that her escapade would come to a premature ending at the station.
Nothing of the kind happened however, and the German was obliged to own to herself when fairly off on their journey, seated opposite Ella in a second-class compartment that it really did not look as if the poor girl’s family cared much about her. Still the more she thought it all over the more satisfied she became that she had acted not only kindly, but wisely in accompanying her pupil.
“She would never have got on without me,” the governess reflected, “though she is too childish to understand that. It will be easy to confide in Mrs Ward so far as is necessary to ensure her taking care of Ella in the meantime, without Ella’s in the least suspecting anything of the kind.”
And indeed though the girl’s heart and mind were very troubled and sore, she was feeling no special practical anxiety about her prospects. She had no misgiving as to the feasibility of the plan she had made, and was in no way surprised when things turned out pretty much in accordance with her own ideas.
Mrs Ward was the matron or superintendent of a small “Home” for governesses. Ella had once in past years, when little more than a child, called at this institution with her aunt to inquire for a young girl temporarily there, in whom Mrs Robertson took an interest. Ella had been struck by Mrs Ward’s kindly, capable manner and sensible advice, and the whole incident had been recalled to her memory recently by Fräulein Braune speaking of this very institution as her usual head-quarters when in London. And to go there and apply for a situation as governess in France or Germany had been the girl’s idea.
The winter afternoon was fast closing in, it was dusk, almost dark when the cab containing Ella and her escort drew up at 29 Percival Terrace. As had been agreed between the two during their railway journey, Fräulein Braune got out first, leaving Ella alone to await the result of her interview with Mrs Ward. It had been raining, a cold sleety regular London winter rain. Ella shivered as she gazed out at the sloppy pavement, glistening in the light of an adjacent gas lamp.
“I had no idea London could look so dreary,” she thought. Then her fancy pictured the spacious comfortable library at Coombesthorpe as it must be looking at that moment—the fire burning brightly, throwing warm reflections on the crimson carpet and the dull rich bindings of the books, while Madelene made tea at the pretty table with its sparkling silver “equipage,” and Colonel St Quentin lay back in his chair talking to her as she did so.
“And,” went on Ella to herself, “very likely Sir Philip is there too, unless he has gone off to Ermine again. They are none of them troubling themselves about me—that’s plain. But it’s better so. I could not stand it—no I could not go back again.”
Just then the door of the house opened and Fräulein Braune came out. She smiled at Ella.
“It is all right,” she said. “Mrs Ward insists on my staying the night, though I had intended going back at once.”
“Oh no, no, that would never have done, dear Fräulein,” said Ella, as she sprang out.
Then the governess paid the cabman and they went in.
“What did Mrs Ward say?” asked Ella, when they were in the hall.
“She will tell you herself,” Fräulein Braune replied. “I—I thought it right to tell her your name, Ella.”
“Of course. I have no intention of concealing it,” Ella replied haughtily. “But you made her promise not to write home or anything of that kind, Fräulein? You know I shall do so myself as soon as ever I am settled.”
“Yes,” said the German lady calmly, as she opened the door of the room where Mrs Ward was waiting for them.
Ella at once stated her wishes. Mrs Ward listened quietly, though now and then a quiet smile lighted up her face.
“You don’t think it would be difficult to get a situation such as I should be fit for?” said the young lady in conclusion.
Mrs Ward hesitated.
“No,” she said, “I think I might put you in the way of something of the kind. But it would be only a modest beginning, particularly as you want to leave England. You would have no salary at your age, or if any, very little. Your best chance would be a situationau pair, as it is called. I have one or two on my books.”
“What does that mean?” asked Ella, whose countenance had fallen a little.
“You would have to teach English and in return for that you would have board and lodging and certain facilities for acquiring French or German, or both. I have an application at this moment from a school in Germany of this kind.” And she turned to a large ledger on the table.
Ella’s face for the first time expressed perplexity and misgiving. “No salary,” she said to herself. “Well, after all I have clothes enough to last a good while and the great thing is to get something settled.” She turned abruptly to Mrs Ward.
“I will accept that situation,” she said. “I am eager to be settled. Can I go at once?”
Fräulein Braune gave an exclamation.
“My dear Miss Ella!” she said.
“Things of this kind are not settled quite so quickly, my dear young lady,” said Mrs Ward with a smile. “However I will write about it at once, and you can stay here till I get an answer. But—you in the meantime must get your parents’ leave. You are not of age and I could not take the responsibility of sending you away anywhere unauthorised by them.”
Ella looked very blank.
“I mean to tell them when I am settled,” she said. “I—I did not want to do so before.”
“You must think it over,” said Mrs Ward. “In the meantime I will write the letter. Now, Fräulein Braune, you know the house. Tea will be ready in a few minutes. Will you take Miss St Quentin up stairs to Number 5: it is the only unoccupied room, and when you hear the bell ring please come down to the dining-room for tea.”
Ella followed Fräulein Braune up stairs in silence; she looked grave and perplexed and the kind woman’s heart was touched. But she thought it best and wisest to leave the girl to her own reflections. It was not till the next morning, when her friend was about to leave, that anything was said.
“I have been thinking it all over,” Ella began.
“I see it is no use trying to keep my plans a secret, and after all it will not make much difference, as I always meant to write home eventually. But I don’t want to write myself, just yet. If it is not asking too much, Fräulein, will you be so kind as to see my father or my sister as soon as you go back to Coombe and tell them where I am, what I intend, so that they can write to Mrs Ward and satisfy her? I don’t think there will be any difficulty; certainly not with my sister, and my father will probably be so angry, that he won’t care what I do. You can see for yourself that they are not anxious about me, or they would have done something.”
Fräulein Braune could scarcely gainsay this. She was too experienced not to know that nothing would have been easier than to trace Ella by this time had her friends cared to do so.
“Will you see them for me, dear Fräulein?” Ella repeated.
Fräulein Braune was only too delighted to do so, and to free herself from the responsibility which was very heavy upon her. But to Ella she felt it was wiser not to express her satisfaction too strongly; any approach to “crowing over” the girl might still be fatal in its results.
“Certainly I will see them. I shall go out to Coombesthorpe to-morrow morning. I would go this evening but I fear it will be too late.”
“Oh I wouldn’t think of going to-night,” said Ella, with a little smile. “They are not uneasy. It is for my own sake I ask you to go soon. I am so anxious to have it all settled about this place in Germany.” Mrs Ward was well pleased to learn from Fräulein Braune what had been arranged between her and Ella.
“They will never let her go to Germany,” said the matron. “It would be almost a scandal—people in such a position as theirs.”
Fräulein Braune shook her head.
“I don’t know I’m sure,” she replied. “It does not seem as if they cared for her. I do not know much of the private relations of the family—Ella is not an indiscreet girl and has not told me more than was necessary. But I do not think they can care for her, and perhaps they will let her go as a sort of punishment.”
“Ah, well, we shall see,” said Mrs Ward. Her position had brought her in contact with many curious phases of family life.
The day dragged on slowly for Ella. She had nothing to do and for a great part of the time no one to speak to, for of the dozen or so governesses, young or old, at present domiciled in the “Home,” a proportion was engaged as daily teachers and the rest were busy running about to see or be seen with a view to finding situations. It was not till the afternoon that Ella, on re-entering the neat chilly-looking drawing-room found a temporary companion. This was a girl of two or three-and-twenty, whose pleasant, sensible face had already struck Ella agreeably. She was knitting busily, but looked up with a smile when the young stranger appeared.
“You must be rather dull, here,” she said. “It is all very well when one is busy, but I could not stand it for long if I were not so. It is weeks since I have had a quiet, lazy afternoon.”
“Then have you been here long?” Ella inquired. “Some months. I was fortunate in getting a daily engagement which has enabled me to save a little. So now I am going to Switzerland. I have never had a chance of speaking French, but I could not have gone without any money, you see.”
“Won’t you get a salary then?” said Ella.
The girl shook her head.
“Not the first year, and I’m not sure that I shall want to stay a second. A friend of mine has a girls’ school, and if I can speak French well she may be able to find work for me with her.”
“But should you like that as well as being abroad?” said Ella, opening her eyes. “I think Switzerland is so charming. I’ve been there a good deal.”
“Ah, yes—travelling or visiting there is charming no doubt. But to be a governess is very different. One has to put up with a good deal in such cases, but of course when it is a question of acquiring the language, one doesn’t mind anything, does one?”
“I can’t say,” replied Ella rather loftily. “I can speak French quite well. I don’t care about going abroad on that account.”
She rather resented the “rowing in the same boat” tone of her new acquaintance.
“Oh, I thought some one said you were going to Germany—to Wahlbrunn, I know about the place—au pair, as they say.”
“Perhaps I am,” said Ella dryly. Her companion glanced at her half curiously. She could not quite “make her out.”
“I wonder you go abroad if you don’t care about the language,” she said. “You’ll have to rough it you may be sure, and I don’t fancy you’ll like that.”
“I dare say not, but that part of it can’t be helped,” said Ella smiling a little. “But it won’t be worse for me than for others.”
“I don’t know that,” the girl replied. “You look as if you had had a nice home and all that kind of thing. I’ve never had a home; I was an orphan as a baby—that makes a difference.”
“My mother died when I was three years old—thatmakes a difference,” said Ella. Her companion nodded her head as if to say she “understood,” and a picture of a harsh and unloving stepmother turning this pretty young creature out of her home crossed her mind’s eye. But she was too delicate-minded to ask any questions, and the conversation drifted off to less personal subjects. The girl was leaving England the next day; Ella never saw her again, but her words had left their impression. It was with a little shiver that lying awake in the middle of the night she recalled them. “Roughing it,” what might that not mean? Rough words and looks and tones, as well as more practical physical discomfort—nobody to care about her, whether she were happy or miserable—nobody to love her—“and I have so longed to be loved,” thought Ella. “But except poor aunty, and—yes, I believe my godmother does love me, ordid, she will probably give me up in disgust now—except those two I hardly think any onehasever really loved me. Oh, Madelene, if you had only been alittleloving, I would have turned to you now and—perhaps if I had been able to confide in you I would not have been so easily taken in byhim, by his manner, which meant nothing when I thought it meant everything. For Madelene was wise—she did warn me; if only she had cared for me a little. But it is too late now. Such as it was, itwasmy home, but I have thrown it away. What would that poor girl think if she could see it? Fancy her never having had any home—”
Ella’s pillow was wet with tears the next morning when she woke. She dreaded and yet hoped for a letter—but there was none. Mrs Ward noticed her anxious face.
“There has hardly been time for an answer from Fräulein Braune,” she said kindly, though in her heart not sorry that the girl was beginning to realise the full bearing of her rash step. “You would be the better for a little air, I think. Would you not like to go out?”
Ella glanced down the long breakfast-table.
“Is there any one who could go with me, do you think?” she asked timidly. Mrs Ward looked up rather sharply.
“Are you afraid of going out alone?” she said. “You must get used to it, my dear. You will never get on if you are so dependent.”
“I am notafraid,” replied Ella, growing very red as she spoke. “But it is just that I have never had to go out alone.”
“Ah, well—perhaps I can get some one to go with you for once. But you know we are all very busy people here.”
She spoke to one of the elder ladies, who undertook to accompany Ella. For Mrs Ward felt it right to take special care of the girl in her peculiar position. Yet she knew that it was well for her to have the practical side of the future she had chosen brought home to her. “If her people really care for her,” thought Mrs Ward, “they can easily get her to go home again. She is tiring of it already.”
But she scarcely understood the character she had to deal with.
Ella went out with Miss Lister, and though the walk was only to a music shop where her companion had to choose a large selection of “pieces” for her pupils, and though the day was so cold and gloomy as to suggest impending fog, the mere fact of being out of doors and walking quickly raised her impressionable spirits again. She was in a decidedly less conciliatory mood than before going out, and it was with a heightened colour and resolutely compressed lips that she received the parlour-maid’s announcement that a lady had come to see her, and was waiting in the drawing-room.
“Madelene, no doubt,” thought Ella with a rush of curiously mingled feeling, among which considerably to her own surprise she was conscious that there vibrated a thrill of something very like delight.
“Do I care for her, after all?” she thought. But before she had time to answer the question, other sensations followed. Madelene had come to urge her return, Madelene who knew, or at least suspected the root of her bitterest suffering; Madelene who had planned and schemed for Ermine regardless of the poor little half-sister! Ella hardened her heart.
“No,” she thought, “I will not go home. No. She may beg and pray me to do so, I will not. Not at least for a long, long time, till I have got accustomed to it all—to Ermine and Philip—or at least till I have learnt to hide what I feel. And when they see how firm I am they will have to give in and let me go to that German place. I don’t care what it is or how rough it is if only I can get away.”
She looked and felt cool and determined enough, as, after a moment’s pause outside the drawing-room door, she turned the handle and entered. Only the two bright red spots on her cheeks betrayed any inward disturbance.
“Madelene,” she began at once, before her eyes had taken in any details of the figure that rose from the sofa at the sound of the door opening. But in an instant she stopped, the words on her lips died away as a keen dart of disappointment sped through her.
“No, no, my darling, not Madelene. Only your poor old auntie,” and in a moment she was enfolded in Mrs Burton’s embrace. “Oh, Ella, my dear, I have been so miserable about you ever since Sir—ever since your sister sent to me! Oh, my child, you see how it has ended. Why did you leave me as you did? All might have been happy and peaceful. Mr Burton’s heart is really such a kind one—it is only manner, my dear. You will get to see it is only manner, I can assure you—”
But Ella calmly disengaged herself from Mrs Burton, with an unreasonable feeling of irritation and impatience.
“I thought it was Madelene,” she said. “I thought—”
“You were nervous about meeting her, my darling. Of course it was only natural. She has never understood you—that is clear. But it is all going to be happy now; you will see—all’s well that ends well, you know Ellie.”
“Have they sent you for me? Do they want me to go home?” she exclaimed. “For I—I had reason for what I did—I am not a child. I cannot consent to go back—I—”
“No, no, of course not. How could you wish to go back, where I can see and feel you have been so misunderstood and unhappy? Oh, no, dear, you may make your mind quite easy on that score. You don’t think your poor auntie would have come on such an errand—to persuade you to go back to prison again, for prison indeed it must have been. Oh, no, even Madelene saw that—there was no question of your returning there.”
No question of her returning there! She had cut the bonds then only too effectually—a sharp, yet chill pain seemed for an instant to take the girl’s breath away.
“They don’t want me back again, then?” she said. And then without giving her aunt time to speak, she answered her question herself. “No, of course not—how could they? I heard it with my own ears; they wanted to be rid of me.”
But the last few words were too low for her aunt to catch.
“How could they indeed, knowing how unhappy they had made you, my darling?” said Mrs Burton. “No, no,Iwould never have come on such an errand!”
Ella looked up.
“Then did they not send you? How did you know? I don’t understand,” she said in a dull, bewildered way. “I am tired, I think, aunty, and the not expecting to see you, you know. Please tell me all about it; I will sit here quietly and listen.”
“My darling,” Mrs Burton repeated, possessing herself of Ella’s hand as she spoke. It lay passive in her grasp for a minute or two, but before long the girl managed to draw it away.
“Tell me, aunt, please,” she repeated. “I have got out of those petting sort of ways, I suppose,” she said to herself. “I wish aunt Phillis wasn’t quite so caressing.”
Chapter Nineteen.“A Marriage is Arranged.”This was what Mrs Burton had to tell. On the evening her niece had left Coombesthorpe she had been startled by a telegram from Madelene, inquiring if Ella were with her, to which of course she was obliged to reply in the negative.“I was not soveryfrightened as I would have been had I not that very morning got your letter asking me to invite you for a visit. Fortunately Mr Burton was out when the telegram came,” she went on, “so I did not need to tell him about it—it is just as well—I don’t think he need hear more than that you are coming on a visit—oh, but I am running on without explaining,” seeing Ella raise her eyebrows with a look of surprise. “I must tell you that all the next day and the day after, I kept thinking you would walk in, my dear, and when you did not come and there was no letter I began to be really frightened. I was just making up my mind to tell Mr Burton all about it and start for Coombesthorpe when last night to my astonishment there came a message—”“A telegram?” Ella interrupted.“No, neither a telegram nor a letter. A message brought by a messenger from your sister Madelene,” said Mrs Burton, with a little confusion of manner which did not escape Ella’s sharp eyes, “as she could not come herself—”“And why could she not come herself? If she had really cared—” interrupted Ella with a little choke in her voice.“And your father so ill! You forget, Ella.”“Papa ill—he was much better?” Ella exclaimed with a little start.“But he had a sort of attack the evening you left. Did you not know? Oh, no of course, how could you. He had had a good deal to agitate him that day, it appears, and at first they were very much alarmed, but it was more nervousness than anything else, and he is better now, but he won’t hear of Madelene leaving him. She must have had rather a time of it, I fancy—what with the fright about you and all. But I dare say it will do her no harm to be shaken out of her apathy a little.”Ella’s face had grown very grave. Poor Madelene! Had she been frightened about her—Ella—then, and Ermine away?“Was it about my—about me that papa was upset, do you think, aunt?” she asked.“Not only that. Si—the—I understood that Madelene made the best of it to the Colonel,” said Mrs Burton, “took the blame upon herself of some misunderstanding. You will tell me all about it of course. The least Madelene could dowasto blame herself, I should say! And now, darling, that I have explained things, supposing you get ready? I have seen Mrs Ward and settled everything with her.”“But I don’t understand in the least,” said Ella, “you haven’t explained anything, aunt Phillis. What did Madelene’s messenger say to you? Had she not seen Fräulein Braune? Do you not know that I am only waiting here for their consent—a nominal form that Mrs Ward insists on—to my going to Germany as—as a sort of governess?”Mrs Burton gave a gasp. Yes—she knew it all, but she had been warned to act with the greatest caution and tact and to avoid as much as possible all irritating discussion. And just as she was flattering herself that she had done so, and managed it all so beautifully, here Ella faces round upon her, and nothing has been done or settled at all!“My dearest child,” she exclaimed, “you cannot seriously think such a step would be allowed? Of course Madelene has seen Fräulein Braune and had a long talk with her. But itcan’tbe—your father would not hear of it. And think of the scandal!”“I can’t help that,” said Ella quickly. “Of course people would talk of it—the daughter of a very rich man like my father, going out as a governess, would naturally make people talk. But I will not go back, and so as I won’t do what they wish I do not ask for any money—not even the money that when I am of age would be legally mine. I am quite willing to work for myself. I told Madelene, at least I wrote it, that I would give up my share, but I would not stay at home.”“You wrote that to Madelene about giving up your share,” repeated Mrs Burton with a curious expression in her face, an expression which Ella did not understand.“Of course I did. What is money without affection?” said Ella, rearing her little head superbly.Mrs Burton hesitated. They were treading on delicate ground, ground on which she herself had been specially warned to tread with the greatest caution, and she grew nervous.“My dearest child,” she began after a moment’s silence. “I have not said that your father insists on your returning to Coombesthorpe, even though he refuses his consent to your going to Germany. On the contrary he does not want you to go back to them. He seems to think it better not.”“And Madelene?” asked Ella sharply. “What doesshewish?”“Personally, as far as I could make out, she was most anxious for you to go back. She was suffering terribly, so—that may have been exaggerated—at not being able to come herself to you, but she gave in to your father’s decision.”“And what was that?”“That you should come back to me, darling. It was what you wished yourself when you wrote last week,” said Mrs Burton anxiously.“Yes, but things have changed since then. I don’t want any temporary plan. I want to—to be independent for good. I wantneverto return there, to Coombesthorpe,” said Ella, almost fiercely.Mrs Burton groaned. What was she to do or say? She had undertaken the mission cheerfully and hopefully, confident in Ella’s affection for herself and, judging naturally enough by the letter she had so recently received, without any misgiving but that her niece would be ready and glad to return to her care, once she was assured of a welcome.“It will be all right, you will see,” she had said to Miss St Quentin’s “messenger;” “she would have come straight to me, I know, but for her fears that Mr Burton might not be willing to receive her. And that I can satisfy her about.”But Ella’s unexpected attitude set her quite at fault. She put her hand in her pocket to draw out her handkerchief, for she really felt as if she were going to cry, and with a sudden exclamation of relief she drew it out again, with not her handkerchief but a letter. It was addressed to Ella.“I am forgetting this,” said Mrs Burton, “perhaps it may have more effect than my words.”The writing was Madelene’s. A slight flush rose to Ella’s pale face as she saw it, and without speaking she opened the envelope.“My dear Ella,” the letter began,—“I have been completely miserable about you. I would have set off at once in search of you, had it been possible to leave papa. Thanks, to” and here some word was erased, “inquiries I was able to make without raising any gossip, I satisfied myself that you were in safe hands, and Fräulein Braune has now kindly come to see me herself. Wecannotconsent to your going to Germany; all I can do at present is to beg you to go to Mrs Burton’s in the meantime. I cannot tell you how unhappy I am that you should have overheard and somehow so terribly misconstrued what I said to Philip in the drawing-room. I do not altogether understand you even now, and I know you do not understand me. I can only pray that some day it may be different. Forgive the pain I have—oh, so unintentionally—caused you. If Ermine were here I would beg her to write instead of me—she would know better what to say, and I think you trust her. I shall know no peace till I hear that you are safe with your aunt. I have been almost overwhelmed these last few days and I scarcely know what I write. Papa is better, and I have not allowed him to blame you. I have made him see it has been my fault. Let me hear you are with Mrs Burton.“Your affectionate sister,—“Madelene.”Ella kept her eyes fixed on the paper for some time after she had read it; she did not want her aunt to see the tears, which rose unbidden and which with a strong effort she repressed again. When she looked up it was with a calm, almost impassive expression.“I will go back with you, aunt Phillis,” she said. “I do not wish to make anexposéof our family affairs by attempting to defy my father. I will go back with you in the meantime.”“My darling!” Mrs Burton exclaimed. “I knew you would not be obstinate. And you will see—Mr Burton will be delighted to have you with us. You must feel you are really cominghome, my own dear child.”“Poor aunty,” said Ella half affectionately, half patronisingly. But she smiled graciously enough, and Mrs Burton was satisfied.Ella contrived to say a word or two in private to Mrs Ward before she left. She thanked her for her kindness and added,—“You must not think I have given up my plan, Mrs Ward. I had to give in in the meantime, but when I am of age, or sooner perhaps, you will probably hear of me again.”The matron smiled.“I shall always be pleased to hear of you, Miss St Quentin,” she answered. “But not as wanting to be a governess, I hope. Try to be happy and useful at home. There is no place like it—except inveryexceptional circumstances. And then there are so many women who must work and find it very difficult to do so. I am always sorry to see their ranks increased unnecessarily.”Ella seemed rather struck by this remark.“I had never thought of it that way,” she said. It was not till her aunt and she were ensconsed in a comfortable railway carriage by themselves that she ventured upon the question she had been all along burning to ask.“Aunt Phillis,” she began, “have you nothing more to tell me? Did—did Madelene’s messenger say nothing more?”“What do you mean, my dear?” said Mrs Burton with manifest uneasiness.“I am almost sure I know who the messenger was,” Ella went on, “and under the circumstances it was, I think, really kind. But you don’t want to tell me, so I won’t ask. Only—did this mysterious person not tell you any news—anything about Ermine?”Mrs Burton looked up with evident relief. This was plainly a safe tack.“About Ermine?” she said with perfect candour; “no, my dear, nothing at all—except—yes, I think—that was said—that she is coming home immediately; she must indeed be home already, I fancy.”“And that was all?”“Yes, all, I assure you. What news did you expect?”“I can’t tell you,” Ella replied. “We shall be hearing it before long no doubt.”Then she relapsed into silence, and Mrs Burton in her own mind began to put two and two together. Could Ella’s determination to leave her home have anything to do with the handsome young cousin of her sisters’—Madelene’s “messenger,” as the girl had shrewdly surmised? Could it be that he had been playing a double game, and making the poor child believe he cared for her when in reality engaged, or in some tacit way plighted, to one of her sisters? For Mrs Burton had heard some gossip more than once about Sir Philip Cheynes and the Coombesthorpe heiresses. If it were indeed so it would explain all. And yet—it was difficult to believe anything of the kind of the young man.“He seemed so frank and chivalrous,” thought Ella’s aunt, “and he spoke in such an entirely brotherly way of Madelene and Ermine. And they all seem to haveunshedto make Ella happy. The keeping from her the true state of affairs about the property was kindly done. And I am sure Sir Philip Cheynes was genuinely concerned and anxious about Ella. He really seemed terribly sorry. I do wish she had never left me; and to think that poor Marcus’s money is all gone, and that there is nothing for her! If I had known it, I would never have married again, never, kind as Mr Burton is! I do hope he and Ella will take to each other, and I think they will, his best comes out to any one in trouble.”It was very strange to Ella to find herself again—and after the lapse of comparatively speaking so short a time—under her aunt’s roof, or to speak more correctly, under Mr Burton’s. She would have shrunk from meeting the worthy gentleman a short time before, but late events had changed her greatly. She was quiet and gentle enough now, so much so indeed that her aunt and her husband agreed that they would be glad to see a spark or two of her old spirit.“How you and she used to fight,” Mrs Burton exclaimed half regretfully.“And now,” her husband added, “she is as quiet and mild as a lamb. I don’t like it, Phillis—no, my dear, I don’t like it. I take blame to myself for having let her leave you, and if there is anything I can do to make up for it, I will do so. She has such pretty, thoughtful ways too. Did you notice how she sees that my paper is always folded ready for me? Her father must be hard to please if he was not satisfied with her.”It was true. Ella was much softened; her sore heart was grateful for kindness, and she was ashamed to recall her childish petulance and impertinence to her aunt’s husband. But kind as the Burtons were to her, there were often times when she regretted that she had not been allowed to take her own way; for life was dull and dreary to her. She missed the companionship of her sisters, little as she had prized it while with them. Madelene’s gentleness and refinement, Ermine’s merry humour and bright intellect had become more to her than she had in the least realised. “If only, oh, if only they had loved me a little,” she repeated to herself.Time passed—slowly enough to Ella; at the end of a week she felt as if she had been a month with her aunt; at the end of a fortnight she could have believed a year had gone by since she left Coombesthorpe; before the first month was over the whole of the past year began to seem to her like a strangely mingled dream of pain and pleasure. She wrote to Madelene, gently and regretfully, but vaguely, and Madelene who had been longing for this letter, and building some hopes upon it, felt saddened and discouraged. She handed it to Ermine, who read it carefully.“Can you understand her?” asked Miss St Quentin.Ermine knitted her brows.“Not altogether,” she said. “But, Maddie, I don’t despair yet of things coming right somehow. I suppose,” she added with a little smile, “when one is happy one’s self, it is easier to feel hopeful about other people, even—” but here she hesitated; “even about you and Bernard.”“Oh, Ermine, do leave that subject alone,” said Madelene.“Next week I shall write to Ella,” said Ermine, “papa will let me send a message from him I feel sure.”Ella had been fully four weeks at Mrs Burton’s when Ermine’s letter came. It was a mild day in March, one of the occasional early spring days which are not false to their name; Ella had persuaded her aunt to let her go for a walk by herself, and with many injunctions as to the direction she was to take, and the roads and paths she was not to wander from, Mrs Burton had consented. In spite of herself the fresh, yet soft air, the sensation of “promise” in the birds’ chirpings, and the few all but invisible green specks in the hedges, still more the discovery of a lingering snowdrop or two, and of something not unlike buds here and there among the primrose tufts, gave her a thrill of keen pleasure and invigoration.“I wish I could go away—quite away, ever so far,” she said to herself. “I should like to make a fresh start and show them all I am not the spoilt, self-willed child they have thought me. I wish they would write and tell me about Ermine’s engagement, it must be openly announced by now. I do wish they would tell me of it, and then I think I would take courage and write to dear godmother. I am afraid she is very angry with me, and no wonder. It must have seemed very unnatural to her that if I was in trouble at home I did not go to her, when she was so sympathising about my thinking Madelene didn’t care for me. But Cheynesacre was the last, the very last place I could have gone to.”She was crossing the wide breezy downs not far from Mrs Burton’s house on the outskirts of the town. Already the short afternoon was closing in, and the colours in the sky, softened by the wintry haze, announced the approaching sunset. Ella stood still to admire.“How lovely it would be just now at home,” she thought; the word slipping out half-unconsciously, “I do love therealcountry, and yet when I was there with them I used to fancy I longed for streets and shops. I must have changed—yes, I am sure I have changed. But I am very babyish still. I do feel this afternoon somehow as if I were going to be happy—and yet I don’t know why.”She hastened on.“Aunty will be getting frightened,” she thought. And as if in reply to the thought, suddenly just emerging on to the open ground, she caught sight of Mrs Burton’s familiar figure. She was walking quickly, more quickly than usual, for aunt Phillis was stout and short and not very much given to exertion. Ella’s conscience reproached her as she perceived that the good lady was panting for breath and considerably redder in the face than usual.“Oh, aunty,” she exclaimed, “I’m so sorry. Have I stayed too long?”For a moment or two Mrs Burton could not get her breath to reply, instead of speaking she held out a letter—it was addressed to Ella in Ermine’s writing.“I couldn’t wait till you came in. I was so eager to tell you. I felt so excited,” panted the good lady at last. “I am so pleased and I am sure it will bring things round. Madelene has written to me, that is how I know. I do think it very nice of her. And they have—your father and they have invited us to the wedding—Mr Burton and me. It is very gratifying,” and Aunt Phillis beamed with complacency.Ella had taken the letter in silence. But she had grown deadly pale. It had come then—the blow which she had been vaguely anticipating; which she had—how mistakenly she now saw—come to believe she thoroughly realised, had fallen.“I knew something was going to happen,” she said to herself; “I felt it coming, and like a fool I fancied it was going to be something happy.”Her silence startled her aunt. She glanced at her hastily.“My dear child,” she exclaimed. “You look quite white. How thoughtless of me to startle you so. Don’t be frightened, Ella dearest. It is pleasant—good news, nothing to be distressed about.”Ella turned to her with what was intended to be a smile, but failed disastrously.“I—I was only startled,” the poor child said at last, with a painful sort of gasp.Mrs Burton grew more and more alarmed. She glanced round; there was a bench a few paces off.“Let us sit down for a minute or two,” she said. “It is cold. But you must rest and recover yourself. Read your letter quietly. I won’t speak to you till you feel all right again.”She had fortunately some eau de Cologne in her pocket, by the help of which and a few minutes of perfect quiet, Ella mastered her agitation. Then she opened the letter.She had read but a few lines when a change came over her face, first a look of bewilderment which increased as she read, then a curious, half-fearful questioning appeared in her eyes, to be followed by a flush of eager, yet tremulous joy.“Aunty,” she said breathlessly, “please look at it,” and she held out the letter, “am I making some strange mistake? I feel as if I were dreaming. Aunty—let me see your letter—do they tell you too who it is? Is it true—is it not Sir Philip that Ermine is going to marry?”Mrs Burton glanced at her niece in astonishment, astonishment which soon changed to keen concern and sympathy as she understood Ella’s anxiety. She had plenty of good sense and ready wit however.“Ella shall never know I have discovered her secret,” was the thought that flashed through her mind.“Not Sir Philip,” she repeated, “why of course not—I never thought of him for either of your sisters. He has been far too much like a brother to them always.”Her tone was quite matter-of-fact. Ella gave a half shy look at her—it was reassuring.“Yes,” she said, “they have seemed like that, I know, but still—one never knows how things may turn out. Would you like to read my letter, aunt?—and may I see yours? Ermine’s is very, very kind.”“Kinder than I deserve,” she added to herself. How grievously she had misjudged her sisters, Madelene especially! How suspicious and mean now seemed her fancies that Madelene was plotting to keep her out of Sir Philip’s way in order that she might bring about a marriage between him and Ermine! She grew more and more ashamed as she read Madelene’s own letter to her aunt, for it was evident that Miss St Quentin’s personal feelings were those of the greatest satisfaction; there was not the slightest shadow of regret or disappointment that Ermine’s choice should have fallen where it had.“She could not have written as she does if she hadeverthought of Sir Philip as I suspected,” thought Ella, and she sat, lost in her own reflections till her aunt’s voice interrupted her.“Have you ever seen him, Ella—your future brother-in-law—Mr Guildford West?” asked Mrs Burton.“N-no—no,” Ella replied, “at least I don’t remember him. I think—yes, I recollect Madelene’s saying once that he was at the Manor ball, but I don’t think I knew which he was.”Then her mind reverted to what Madelene had said at different times about Ermine’s future, and she felt startled again to think how she had misinterpreted every allusion of the kind. Yet there was still something she could not altogether understand—why had Madelene spoken of her as such a care and burden, adding to the existing “complications?”“No,” thought Ella, “I can’t quite make it out. But I will never mistrust Madelene again—it is the least I can do to trust her now after having so shamefully misjudged her. Some day perhaps, if she and I are ever together again—some day she will explain things perhaps and till then I can only ask her pardon in my heart.”She was very pale and there were tears in her eyes as she roused herself to take part in her aunt’s eager speculations and comments on the interesting piece of news.“It is so nice of Madelene to say they will hope to seeusat the wedding. I hope Mr Burton will go; he is rather shy, you see, Ella, having been so long a bachelor, and that makes him seem gruff till people get to know him. But wemustget him to go—it will be charming to see you as bridesmaid. Iamso pleased about it altogether. And your father is pleased—it will do him good. Mr West must be very nice in every way,” she went on, “not very rich, I suppose, but with Ermine’s fortune that was not necessary.”Ella turned to her with a little surprise.“Will Ermine have much while papa lives?” she asked. “I have never heard much about it, but papa never speaks as if he were very rich.”Mrs Burton fidgeted a little.“Oh—Ermine will have a very handsome income,” she said evasively. “But I dare say they will explain things themselves to you, now you are really grown-up. I consider it averygood marriage for Mr West too.”And Ella’s girlish mind gave no more thought to this part of the matter. Pounds, shillings, and pence were such very unimportant considerations in her eyes.
This was what Mrs Burton had to tell. On the evening her niece had left Coombesthorpe she had been startled by a telegram from Madelene, inquiring if Ella were with her, to which of course she was obliged to reply in the negative.
“I was not soveryfrightened as I would have been had I not that very morning got your letter asking me to invite you for a visit. Fortunately Mr Burton was out when the telegram came,” she went on, “so I did not need to tell him about it—it is just as well—I don’t think he need hear more than that you are coming on a visit—oh, but I am running on without explaining,” seeing Ella raise her eyebrows with a look of surprise. “I must tell you that all the next day and the day after, I kept thinking you would walk in, my dear, and when you did not come and there was no letter I began to be really frightened. I was just making up my mind to tell Mr Burton all about it and start for Coombesthorpe when last night to my astonishment there came a message—”
“A telegram?” Ella interrupted.
“No, neither a telegram nor a letter. A message brought by a messenger from your sister Madelene,” said Mrs Burton, with a little confusion of manner which did not escape Ella’s sharp eyes, “as she could not come herself—”
“And why could she not come herself? If she had really cared—” interrupted Ella with a little choke in her voice.
“And your father so ill! You forget, Ella.”
“Papa ill—he was much better?” Ella exclaimed with a little start.
“But he had a sort of attack the evening you left. Did you not know? Oh, no of course, how could you. He had had a good deal to agitate him that day, it appears, and at first they were very much alarmed, but it was more nervousness than anything else, and he is better now, but he won’t hear of Madelene leaving him. She must have had rather a time of it, I fancy—what with the fright about you and all. But I dare say it will do her no harm to be shaken out of her apathy a little.”
Ella’s face had grown very grave. Poor Madelene! Had she been frightened about her—Ella—then, and Ermine away?
“Was it about my—about me that papa was upset, do you think, aunt?” she asked.
“Not only that. Si—the—I understood that Madelene made the best of it to the Colonel,” said Mrs Burton, “took the blame upon herself of some misunderstanding. You will tell me all about it of course. The least Madelene could dowasto blame herself, I should say! And now, darling, that I have explained things, supposing you get ready? I have seen Mrs Ward and settled everything with her.”
“But I don’t understand in the least,” said Ella, “you haven’t explained anything, aunt Phillis. What did Madelene’s messenger say to you? Had she not seen Fräulein Braune? Do you not know that I am only waiting here for their consent—a nominal form that Mrs Ward insists on—to my going to Germany as—as a sort of governess?”
Mrs Burton gave a gasp. Yes—she knew it all, but she had been warned to act with the greatest caution and tact and to avoid as much as possible all irritating discussion. And just as she was flattering herself that she had done so, and managed it all so beautifully, here Ella faces round upon her, and nothing has been done or settled at all!
“My dearest child,” she exclaimed, “you cannot seriously think such a step would be allowed? Of course Madelene has seen Fräulein Braune and had a long talk with her. But itcan’tbe—your father would not hear of it. And think of the scandal!”
“I can’t help that,” said Ella quickly. “Of course people would talk of it—the daughter of a very rich man like my father, going out as a governess, would naturally make people talk. But I will not go back, and so as I won’t do what they wish I do not ask for any money—not even the money that when I am of age would be legally mine. I am quite willing to work for myself. I told Madelene, at least I wrote it, that I would give up my share, but I would not stay at home.”
“You wrote that to Madelene about giving up your share,” repeated Mrs Burton with a curious expression in her face, an expression which Ella did not understand.
“Of course I did. What is money without affection?” said Ella, rearing her little head superbly.
Mrs Burton hesitated. They were treading on delicate ground, ground on which she herself had been specially warned to tread with the greatest caution, and she grew nervous.
“My dearest child,” she began after a moment’s silence. “I have not said that your father insists on your returning to Coombesthorpe, even though he refuses his consent to your going to Germany. On the contrary he does not want you to go back to them. He seems to think it better not.”
“And Madelene?” asked Ella sharply. “What doesshewish?”
“Personally, as far as I could make out, she was most anxious for you to go back. She was suffering terribly, so—that may have been exaggerated—at not being able to come herself to you, but she gave in to your father’s decision.”
“And what was that?”
“That you should come back to me, darling. It was what you wished yourself when you wrote last week,” said Mrs Burton anxiously.
“Yes, but things have changed since then. I don’t want any temporary plan. I want to—to be independent for good. I wantneverto return there, to Coombesthorpe,” said Ella, almost fiercely.
Mrs Burton groaned. What was she to do or say? She had undertaken the mission cheerfully and hopefully, confident in Ella’s affection for herself and, judging naturally enough by the letter she had so recently received, without any misgiving but that her niece would be ready and glad to return to her care, once she was assured of a welcome.
“It will be all right, you will see,” she had said to Miss St Quentin’s “messenger;” “she would have come straight to me, I know, but for her fears that Mr Burton might not be willing to receive her. And that I can satisfy her about.”
But Ella’s unexpected attitude set her quite at fault. She put her hand in her pocket to draw out her handkerchief, for she really felt as if she were going to cry, and with a sudden exclamation of relief she drew it out again, with not her handkerchief but a letter. It was addressed to Ella.
“I am forgetting this,” said Mrs Burton, “perhaps it may have more effect than my words.”
The writing was Madelene’s. A slight flush rose to Ella’s pale face as she saw it, and without speaking she opened the envelope.
“My dear Ella,” the letter began,—“I have been completely miserable about you. I would have set off at once in search of you, had it been possible to leave papa. Thanks, to” and here some word was erased, “inquiries I was able to make without raising any gossip, I satisfied myself that you were in safe hands, and Fräulein Braune has now kindly come to see me herself. Wecannotconsent to your going to Germany; all I can do at present is to beg you to go to Mrs Burton’s in the meantime. I cannot tell you how unhappy I am that you should have overheard and somehow so terribly misconstrued what I said to Philip in the drawing-room. I do not altogether understand you even now, and I know you do not understand me. I can only pray that some day it may be different. Forgive the pain I have—oh, so unintentionally—caused you. If Ermine were here I would beg her to write instead of me—she would know better what to say, and I think you trust her. I shall know no peace till I hear that you are safe with your aunt. I have been almost overwhelmed these last few days and I scarcely know what I write. Papa is better, and I have not allowed him to blame you. I have made him see it has been my fault. Let me hear you are with Mrs Burton.“Your affectionate sister,—“Madelene.”
“My dear Ella,” the letter began,—“I have been completely miserable about you. I would have set off at once in search of you, had it been possible to leave papa. Thanks, to” and here some word was erased, “inquiries I was able to make without raising any gossip, I satisfied myself that you were in safe hands, and Fräulein Braune has now kindly come to see me herself. Wecannotconsent to your going to Germany; all I can do at present is to beg you to go to Mrs Burton’s in the meantime. I cannot tell you how unhappy I am that you should have overheard and somehow so terribly misconstrued what I said to Philip in the drawing-room. I do not altogether understand you even now, and I know you do not understand me. I can only pray that some day it may be different. Forgive the pain I have—oh, so unintentionally—caused you. If Ermine were here I would beg her to write instead of me—she would know better what to say, and I think you trust her. I shall know no peace till I hear that you are safe with your aunt. I have been almost overwhelmed these last few days and I scarcely know what I write. Papa is better, and I have not allowed him to blame you. I have made him see it has been my fault. Let me hear you are with Mrs Burton.“Your affectionate sister,—“Madelene.”
Ella kept her eyes fixed on the paper for some time after she had read it; she did not want her aunt to see the tears, which rose unbidden and which with a strong effort she repressed again. When she looked up it was with a calm, almost impassive expression.
“I will go back with you, aunt Phillis,” she said. “I do not wish to make anexposéof our family affairs by attempting to defy my father. I will go back with you in the meantime.”
“My darling!” Mrs Burton exclaimed. “I knew you would not be obstinate. And you will see—Mr Burton will be delighted to have you with us. You must feel you are really cominghome, my own dear child.”
“Poor aunty,” said Ella half affectionately, half patronisingly. But she smiled graciously enough, and Mrs Burton was satisfied.
Ella contrived to say a word or two in private to Mrs Ward before she left. She thanked her for her kindness and added,—
“You must not think I have given up my plan, Mrs Ward. I had to give in in the meantime, but when I am of age, or sooner perhaps, you will probably hear of me again.”
The matron smiled.
“I shall always be pleased to hear of you, Miss St Quentin,” she answered. “But not as wanting to be a governess, I hope. Try to be happy and useful at home. There is no place like it—except inveryexceptional circumstances. And then there are so many women who must work and find it very difficult to do so. I am always sorry to see their ranks increased unnecessarily.”
Ella seemed rather struck by this remark.
“I had never thought of it that way,” she said. It was not till her aunt and she were ensconsed in a comfortable railway carriage by themselves that she ventured upon the question she had been all along burning to ask.
“Aunt Phillis,” she began, “have you nothing more to tell me? Did—did Madelene’s messenger say nothing more?”
“What do you mean, my dear?” said Mrs Burton with manifest uneasiness.
“I am almost sure I know who the messenger was,” Ella went on, “and under the circumstances it was, I think, really kind. But you don’t want to tell me, so I won’t ask. Only—did this mysterious person not tell you any news—anything about Ermine?”
Mrs Burton looked up with evident relief. This was plainly a safe tack.
“About Ermine?” she said with perfect candour; “no, my dear, nothing at all—except—yes, I think—that was said—that she is coming home immediately; she must indeed be home already, I fancy.”
“And that was all?”
“Yes, all, I assure you. What news did you expect?”
“I can’t tell you,” Ella replied. “We shall be hearing it before long no doubt.”
Then she relapsed into silence, and Mrs Burton in her own mind began to put two and two together. Could Ella’s determination to leave her home have anything to do with the handsome young cousin of her sisters’—Madelene’s “messenger,” as the girl had shrewdly surmised? Could it be that he had been playing a double game, and making the poor child believe he cared for her when in reality engaged, or in some tacit way plighted, to one of her sisters? For Mrs Burton had heard some gossip more than once about Sir Philip Cheynes and the Coombesthorpe heiresses. If it were indeed so it would explain all. And yet—it was difficult to believe anything of the kind of the young man.
“He seemed so frank and chivalrous,” thought Ella’s aunt, “and he spoke in such an entirely brotherly way of Madelene and Ermine. And they all seem to haveunshedto make Ella happy. The keeping from her the true state of affairs about the property was kindly done. And I am sure Sir Philip Cheynes was genuinely concerned and anxious about Ella. He really seemed terribly sorry. I do wish she had never left me; and to think that poor Marcus’s money is all gone, and that there is nothing for her! If I had known it, I would never have married again, never, kind as Mr Burton is! I do hope he and Ella will take to each other, and I think they will, his best comes out to any one in trouble.”
It was very strange to Ella to find herself again—and after the lapse of comparatively speaking so short a time—under her aunt’s roof, or to speak more correctly, under Mr Burton’s. She would have shrunk from meeting the worthy gentleman a short time before, but late events had changed her greatly. She was quiet and gentle enough now, so much so indeed that her aunt and her husband agreed that they would be glad to see a spark or two of her old spirit.
“How you and she used to fight,” Mrs Burton exclaimed half regretfully.
“And now,” her husband added, “she is as quiet and mild as a lamb. I don’t like it, Phillis—no, my dear, I don’t like it. I take blame to myself for having let her leave you, and if there is anything I can do to make up for it, I will do so. She has such pretty, thoughtful ways too. Did you notice how she sees that my paper is always folded ready for me? Her father must be hard to please if he was not satisfied with her.”
It was true. Ella was much softened; her sore heart was grateful for kindness, and she was ashamed to recall her childish petulance and impertinence to her aunt’s husband. But kind as the Burtons were to her, there were often times when she regretted that she had not been allowed to take her own way; for life was dull and dreary to her. She missed the companionship of her sisters, little as she had prized it while with them. Madelene’s gentleness and refinement, Ermine’s merry humour and bright intellect had become more to her than she had in the least realised. “If only, oh, if only they had loved me a little,” she repeated to herself.
Time passed—slowly enough to Ella; at the end of a week she felt as if she had been a month with her aunt; at the end of a fortnight she could have believed a year had gone by since she left Coombesthorpe; before the first month was over the whole of the past year began to seem to her like a strangely mingled dream of pain and pleasure. She wrote to Madelene, gently and regretfully, but vaguely, and Madelene who had been longing for this letter, and building some hopes upon it, felt saddened and discouraged. She handed it to Ermine, who read it carefully.
“Can you understand her?” asked Miss St Quentin.
Ermine knitted her brows.
“Not altogether,” she said. “But, Maddie, I don’t despair yet of things coming right somehow. I suppose,” she added with a little smile, “when one is happy one’s self, it is easier to feel hopeful about other people, even—” but here she hesitated; “even about you and Bernard.”
“Oh, Ermine, do leave that subject alone,” said Madelene.
“Next week I shall write to Ella,” said Ermine, “papa will let me send a message from him I feel sure.”
Ella had been fully four weeks at Mrs Burton’s when Ermine’s letter came. It was a mild day in March, one of the occasional early spring days which are not false to their name; Ella had persuaded her aunt to let her go for a walk by herself, and with many injunctions as to the direction she was to take, and the roads and paths she was not to wander from, Mrs Burton had consented. In spite of herself the fresh, yet soft air, the sensation of “promise” in the birds’ chirpings, and the few all but invisible green specks in the hedges, still more the discovery of a lingering snowdrop or two, and of something not unlike buds here and there among the primrose tufts, gave her a thrill of keen pleasure and invigoration.
“I wish I could go away—quite away, ever so far,” she said to herself. “I should like to make a fresh start and show them all I am not the spoilt, self-willed child they have thought me. I wish they would write and tell me about Ermine’s engagement, it must be openly announced by now. I do wish they would tell me of it, and then I think I would take courage and write to dear godmother. I am afraid she is very angry with me, and no wonder. It must have seemed very unnatural to her that if I was in trouble at home I did not go to her, when she was so sympathising about my thinking Madelene didn’t care for me. But Cheynesacre was the last, the very last place I could have gone to.”
She was crossing the wide breezy downs not far from Mrs Burton’s house on the outskirts of the town. Already the short afternoon was closing in, and the colours in the sky, softened by the wintry haze, announced the approaching sunset. Ella stood still to admire.
“How lovely it would be just now at home,” she thought; the word slipping out half-unconsciously, “I do love therealcountry, and yet when I was there with them I used to fancy I longed for streets and shops. I must have changed—yes, I am sure I have changed. But I am very babyish still. I do feel this afternoon somehow as if I were going to be happy—and yet I don’t know why.”
She hastened on.
“Aunty will be getting frightened,” she thought. And as if in reply to the thought, suddenly just emerging on to the open ground, she caught sight of Mrs Burton’s familiar figure. She was walking quickly, more quickly than usual, for aunt Phillis was stout and short and not very much given to exertion. Ella’s conscience reproached her as she perceived that the good lady was panting for breath and considerably redder in the face than usual.
“Oh, aunty,” she exclaimed, “I’m so sorry. Have I stayed too long?”
For a moment or two Mrs Burton could not get her breath to reply, instead of speaking she held out a letter—it was addressed to Ella in Ermine’s writing.
“I couldn’t wait till you came in. I was so eager to tell you. I felt so excited,” panted the good lady at last. “I am so pleased and I am sure it will bring things round. Madelene has written to me, that is how I know. I do think it very nice of her. And they have—your father and they have invited us to the wedding—Mr Burton and me. It is very gratifying,” and Aunt Phillis beamed with complacency.
Ella had taken the letter in silence. But she had grown deadly pale. It had come then—the blow which she had been vaguely anticipating; which she had—how mistakenly she now saw—come to believe she thoroughly realised, had fallen.
“I knew something was going to happen,” she said to herself; “I felt it coming, and like a fool I fancied it was going to be something happy.”
Her silence startled her aunt. She glanced at her hastily.
“My dear child,” she exclaimed. “You look quite white. How thoughtless of me to startle you so. Don’t be frightened, Ella dearest. It is pleasant—good news, nothing to be distressed about.”
Ella turned to her with what was intended to be a smile, but failed disastrously.
“I—I was only startled,” the poor child said at last, with a painful sort of gasp.
Mrs Burton grew more and more alarmed. She glanced round; there was a bench a few paces off.
“Let us sit down for a minute or two,” she said. “It is cold. But you must rest and recover yourself. Read your letter quietly. I won’t speak to you till you feel all right again.”
She had fortunately some eau de Cologne in her pocket, by the help of which and a few minutes of perfect quiet, Ella mastered her agitation. Then she opened the letter.
She had read but a few lines when a change came over her face, first a look of bewilderment which increased as she read, then a curious, half-fearful questioning appeared in her eyes, to be followed by a flush of eager, yet tremulous joy.
“Aunty,” she said breathlessly, “please look at it,” and she held out the letter, “am I making some strange mistake? I feel as if I were dreaming. Aunty—let me see your letter—do they tell you too who it is? Is it true—is it not Sir Philip that Ermine is going to marry?”
Mrs Burton glanced at her niece in astonishment, astonishment which soon changed to keen concern and sympathy as she understood Ella’s anxiety. She had plenty of good sense and ready wit however.
“Ella shall never know I have discovered her secret,” was the thought that flashed through her mind.
“Not Sir Philip,” she repeated, “why of course not—I never thought of him for either of your sisters. He has been far too much like a brother to them always.”
Her tone was quite matter-of-fact. Ella gave a half shy look at her—it was reassuring.
“Yes,” she said, “they have seemed like that, I know, but still—one never knows how things may turn out. Would you like to read my letter, aunt?—and may I see yours? Ermine’s is very, very kind.”
“Kinder than I deserve,” she added to herself. How grievously she had misjudged her sisters, Madelene especially! How suspicious and mean now seemed her fancies that Madelene was plotting to keep her out of Sir Philip’s way in order that she might bring about a marriage between him and Ermine! She grew more and more ashamed as she read Madelene’s own letter to her aunt, for it was evident that Miss St Quentin’s personal feelings were those of the greatest satisfaction; there was not the slightest shadow of regret or disappointment that Ermine’s choice should have fallen where it had.
“She could not have written as she does if she hadeverthought of Sir Philip as I suspected,” thought Ella, and she sat, lost in her own reflections till her aunt’s voice interrupted her.
“Have you ever seen him, Ella—your future brother-in-law—Mr Guildford West?” asked Mrs Burton.
“N-no—no,” Ella replied, “at least I don’t remember him. I think—yes, I recollect Madelene’s saying once that he was at the Manor ball, but I don’t think I knew which he was.”
Then her mind reverted to what Madelene had said at different times about Ermine’s future, and she felt startled again to think how she had misinterpreted every allusion of the kind. Yet there was still something she could not altogether understand—why had Madelene spoken of her as such a care and burden, adding to the existing “complications?”
“No,” thought Ella, “I can’t quite make it out. But I will never mistrust Madelene again—it is the least I can do to trust her now after having so shamefully misjudged her. Some day perhaps, if she and I are ever together again—some day she will explain things perhaps and till then I can only ask her pardon in my heart.”
She was very pale and there were tears in her eyes as she roused herself to take part in her aunt’s eager speculations and comments on the interesting piece of news.
“It is so nice of Madelene to say they will hope to seeusat the wedding. I hope Mr Burton will go; he is rather shy, you see, Ella, having been so long a bachelor, and that makes him seem gruff till people get to know him. But wemustget him to go—it will be charming to see you as bridesmaid. Iamso pleased about it altogether. And your father is pleased—it will do him good. Mr West must be very nice in every way,” she went on, “not very rich, I suppose, but with Ermine’s fortune that was not necessary.”
Ella turned to her with a little surprise.
“Will Ermine have much while papa lives?” she asked. “I have never heard much about it, but papa never speaks as if he were very rich.”
Mrs Burton fidgeted a little.
“Oh—Ermine will have a very handsome income,” she said evasively. “But I dare say they will explain things themselves to you, now you are really grown-up. I consider it averygood marriage for Mr West too.”
And Ella’s girlish mind gave no more thought to this part of the matter. Pounds, shillings, and pence were such very unimportant considerations in her eyes.