XIV
Withoutanother word Elfreda moved on round the corner and crossed the stone bridge. As soon as she came in view of The Laurels she found quite a number of people collected about its gate. It appeared that a man had just stuck a bill on one of its wooden posts, that he was now being severely admonished by the mistress of the house while an edified Miss Joan, an equally edified Master Peter, and an amused young man in khaki looked on.
To add to the piquancy of the scene the bill-sticker, conscious of the fact that he was engaged on work of national importance and that his services were at a premium, was inclined to give as good as he got. “Thought as how you wouldn’t mind seein’ it were for a charitable h’object,” said the offender, doggedly.
Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson, a tall, angular, fresh-complexioned lady with light eyelashes and mouse-colored hair, had a decided weakness for “the high horse.”
“You had no right to think anything of the kind,” she fluted on her favorite note of high expostulation. “I consider it a great liberty.”
In spite of Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson’s fierce assault the offender stood his ground.
“You might at least have taken the trouble to ask my permission. I have a great mind to have the bill removed. As my name is not thought good enough to appear as a Lady Patroness, although I have subscribed for six tickets in the front seats, perhaps my gate may not be good enough to advertise the performance.”
“It can come down if you like, mum,” said the bill-sticker doggedly.
The mistress of The Laurels turned impressively to the young man in khaki. “Would you have it down, General, if the gate were yours?”
“I should let it stay up,” said the General, who looked surprisingly youthful for the rank accorded him. He spoke briefly and succinctly as one knowing his own mind, on that particular subject at any rate; moreover as he did so he smiled rather broadly in the direction of the new governess who had just come on to the scene.
“Very well, then, it may do so,” said Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson. “But tell me, man”—she was determined to ride off the field victorious—“by whose orders did you stick it up?”
“The vicar’s, mum.”
“The vicar’s!” Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson was sensibly mollified. “Then why didn’t you say so at once?”
“Because you didn’t ax me,” said the bill-sticker with the ready defiance of true democracy.
General Norris and the new governess had barely time to exchange one furtive smile before Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson augustly interposed. “Miss Cass, remind me after luncheon that I write to the Vicar to complain of this man’s impertinence.”
Instead of regarding her employer with the smile sycophantic as any new governess who really knew her business might have been expected to do in such circumstances, Miss Cass again reserved her glance for the young man in khaki. Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson was too busy with the recalcitrant bill-sticker to observe this breach of etiquette, but Miss Joan, a spectacled young woman of seven, who had an uncomfortable habit of noticing everything, noticed it for her. Miss Joan, however, made no comment, the bill-sticker was sent on his way, and the offending poster was allowed to remain on the gate post of The Laurels.
“Grand, original production of ‘The Lady of Laxton,’” read the young man in khaki in his precise, good-humored voice. “First performance on any stage. Under the personal direction of the author, Sir Toby Philpot Bart and Montagu Jupp, Esquire, of the Mayfair Theater. The cast will consist of The Lady Elfreda Catkin and the following ladies and gentlemen——”
Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson brought a pair of eyeglasses into action in order to study thedramatic personæ. “Miss Ethel Lancelot is in it, I see. If sheis as stiff in her acting as she is in herself she might empty the Assembly Rooms quite easily. But I don’t suppose they will be more than half full in any case.”
“You have taken six tickets, though,” said General Norris cheerfully. “And if this entire list of distinguished patronesses has done the same there may not be so very much room in the building.”
“By the way,” said Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson, her voice going a whole octave higher, “who is Lady Elfreda Catkin? I don’t think she belongs to this part of the world.”
“One of the Carabbas girls I believe,” said the young man off-handedly.
“Have you met her?”
“No,” George Norris spoke with a slight air of boredom. “But theSociety Pictorialsays she’s very clever. Her portrait and all about her is in this week.”
“I must look at theSociety Pictorial,” said Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson. “Have you the time, George?”
“Quarter to one,” said George after consulting the watch on his wrist.
“Miss Cass,” fluted Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson. “Will you walk on with the children. Please wash their hands and brush their hair.”
For one very brief fraction of time it looked almost as if the new governess would have preferred to delegate this simple and elementary duty to Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson herself. That lady was too much occupied with General Norris to observe the fact, butthe young woman in spectacles who noticed everything, noticed it all right.
“Come on, Petah,” she said. “Come and let Miss Cass wash your hands and brush your hair.”
Master Peter, whose age was five, gave himself a shake and a wriggle. “Don’t warn-too,” he said.
“Petah-darling!” fluted Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson to her son and heir.
Miss Cass made no comment, but she took Miss Joan quietly but firmly in one hand and Master Peter with equal quietude and firmness in the other. Without preface or apology she proceeded to lead them in the direction of the house. It was not quite the mode of procedure of former governesses—her charges had had four within the last twelve months—but the grip of Miss Cass was so resolute that Master Peter was able to shake and wriggle with rather less effect than usual.
“Tell me, George,” said Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson, suddenly becoming confidential as the small procession of three passed from view, “what do you think of the new governess?”
The question was really superfluous. By the aid of the sixth sense given to her sex in these little matters, Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson was already fully informed as to what George Norris thought of the new governess. Moreover she had been informed so plainly, that although the new governess had not been four and twenty hours under her roof the subjectthreatened already to become a matter of some concern.
“I think she is extremely nice.” The answer of George Norris was simple, unstudied, genuinely sincere. And it was very much the answer Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson anticipated, except that she had not looked for it to be quite so candid.
The response of Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson to what almost amounted to enthusiasm on the part of George Norris was rather formal. “She speaks nicely,” she said. “And of course that is of great importance in a governess.”
George Norris, who for all his remarkable array of decorations seemed a very simple young man, naïvely said that he supposed it must be of great importance for a governess to speak nicely, yet he may have thought privately, had he ever been tempted to give thought to the subject, that it was in the nature of a governess to do so.
In fact, although he did not put that view into words, his tone rather implied it. But Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson, who subsconciously followed his train of ideas, felt it to be her duty to convict him of error.
“Governesses don’t always, I assure you,” she said. “Our last one had quite a cockney accent.”
George Norris seemed surprised at the revelation.
“I am sure I hope Miss Cass will suit us.” The tone of Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson did not sound veryoptimistic. “One finds governesses such a difficult class. You see they are not always ladies.”
George Norris betrayed more surprise. But Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson’s confession was not without a certain method.
She was by no means well pleased that her guest should have walked into Clavering with Miss Cass. He was a young man who in the course of four years had won really remarkable military distinction, but his hostess could not disguise from herself that his knowledge of the world had hardly kept pace with his martial renown. In a word he lacked social experience.
The truth was Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson had come to regard herself as the social mentor of General Norris. In a peculiar degree she felt responsible for him. His career had been one of the many romances of the war. In August, 1914, he had been a clerk in her husband’s office in receipt of a salary of three pounds a week. He had joined up on the morning war was declared, and having some little previous experience with the local volunteer battalion, had gained a commission almost at once. In France he had proved himself a born soldier in much of the hardest fighting of the war, had been twice wounded, had won some very high distinctions, had taken a course at the Staff College and was now a professional soldier and a general officer to boot.
In launching this remarkable young man upon theworld Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson may have been a little influenced by the fact that her husband’s former clerk had been received with open arms in certain local circles wherein Colonel Trenchard-Simpson and herself were constrained to move with delicacy, even if they might be said to move in them at all. Even those most exclusive people, the Lancelots of Amory Towers, who wielded so much influence in that part of the world, had taken George Norris under their wing. He had neither money nor prospects apart from his profession and very little was known of his origin, but in the little world of Clavering St. Mary’s, Colonel (on carpet consideration) Trenchard-Simpson’s ex-clerk was cutting just now such an amazingly distinguished figure that the wife of his former employer felt that she really owed it to George Norris to do what she could for him.
He had been housed at The Laurels rather less than a week as an honored guest, but his manly and judicious bearing had impressed his hostess so favorably that she had already invited Miss Dolores Parbury, a niece of her husband’s, who lived at Birmingham, to spend a few days under that hospitable roof.
The father of Miss Parbury had been able to leave the fair Dolores some six thousand a year; and as he had been a successful retail grocer and his only daughter had inherited not merely his money but also his view of life, she had rather set her heart upon “marrying a title.” It was a nice point, of course,whether a mere Brigadier-General fulfilled this condition, but Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson, after due reflection, came to the conclusion that she was fully justified in the special circumstances in sending for her husband’s niece.
Dolores was due to arrive at The Laurels in the course of the afternoon and at luncheon her coming was much discussed. Colonel Trenchard-Simpson, a recently hyphenated auctioneer, with a bald head and a loud voice, was proud of his niece. Six thousand a year is six thousand a year even if it is the fruit of retail grocery. On the other hand Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson in her heart was not quite sure whether Dolores was not a blot on the family escutcheon; she herself was the daughter of a button manufacturer who had dabbled in local politics to the extent of a knighthood. But such glittering accounts were given of her to George Norris that, had the young man been romantically inclined, extravagant hopes must have been raised in his bosom.
The new governess during her first luncheon at The Laurels was really more interested in her immediate surroundings than in the coming of Miss Parbury. There were several reasons for this. Foremost of course were the surprising circumstances. She had not been long enough in them as yet to regret the wicked trick she had played. Everything, so far, was new and strange. She had never seen people quite like these, nor had she ever found herself in this kind ofhousehold. Everything, including the table decorations, the menu, the conversation, the style and manner of the parlor-maid, came to her at a new and curious angle. But with Miss Joan one side of her and Master Peter the other, her opportunities for observation were a little curtailed. And when Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson instructed her rather pointedly to cut up the food of the one and to see that the other consumed hers properly, somehow these opportunities were curtailed still further.
There was another drawback also. And it was of an embarrassing, if temporary, character. Joan, it seemed, had told her mother of the meeting of Miss Cass and the strange woman. Moreover, the visit of Pikey had been duly reported by the parlor-maid. “Tell me, Miss Cass,” fluted Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson midway through the meal, “who was the person who came to see you this morning?”
Several courses were open to Elfreda. Perhaps the one most obvious was to lie royally. But she was such a calm and collected young woman that she promptly decided to amuse herself by telling the blunt and literal truth. “Oh, that old thing,” she said with a careless laugh that did credit to her histrionic powers. “She’s an old servant of my mother’s who happens to be living here just now.”
Unfortunately the offhand tone was a little overdone. It did not actually arouse suspicion, but such a casualness of manner with its underlying arrogancewas hardly to be looked for in a governess. It did not occur to Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson that Miss Cass had anything to conceal, but certainly there was something about the new governess that was decidedly odd. There were moments when she seemed almost to patronize her employers, had it been humanly possible for her to do so. Certainly her manner made pursuit of this particular topic very difficult indeed.
Making allowance for all things, Elfreda’s first luncheon at The Laurels was a new and salutary experience, yet perhaps it was the young man seated opposite who interested her most. And as it was her nature to follow her own bent as far as circumstances allowed, General Norris received the lion’s share of her conversation.
Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson remarked privately to her husband after the meal, while Miss Cass put on the gaiters of Miss Joan and Master Peter and otherwise prepared them for the afternoon’s airing, that no matter what else the new governess might be, she certainly was not shy. She talked easily and with point on any subject that came uppermost, but somehow her discourse seemed lacking in that subtle deference which surely should have been exacted by their respective conditions. Nor was she at all well up in her duties, either; she certainly seemed to pay more attention to the guest than to her employers or their offspring; in a word, although she was a young womanof undeniably good address, Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson doubted gravely whether she would suit.
Furthermore, there was one point on which that lady had already reached a decision. She must speak to the new governess on the subject of walking into Clavering with General Norris. As a matter of fact the point was raised rather sooner than Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson had anticipated. The children, duly gaitered and gloved, announced that they were going to show Miss Cass the way to Copt Wood, whereupon General Norris remembered that he had promised to walk over to see some people who lived in that direction and made an offer to accompany the party.
The offer was promptly accepted by the children, but their mother felt obliged to lead the new governess aside before the expedition started and lay down rules for their guidance. She must not take the children to Copt Wood if General Norris insisted on going there, nor must she take them in any other direction in which he proposed to go. And while on the subject she had reluctantly but rather pointedly to refer to their morning’s expedition into the town. Such a thing must not occur again.
It is not too much to say that Elfreda felt perfectly furious. She would like to have slain this complacent and overbearing dame. For the time being, however, she was defenseless. Her color mounted high as she said that it was by no wish of hers that they had walked into Clavering together. To this Mrs. Trenchard-Simpsonrejoined in a rather “Tell-that-to-the-Marines” sort of tone that whether Miss Cass had wished it or not it must not happen again.
The upshot was that when Miss Joan and Master Peter took the air they were hauled rather peremptorily and decidedly against their inclination in a direction opposite to Copt Wood, while General Norris, who seemed a shade disconsolate, was left to follow a lonely path to that part of the landscape.
While Elfreda and her charges trekked along the high road for a stolid two miles and back again the thoughts of the rebel were dark indeed. She was leading a life that hitherto she had hardly guessed at and already she had found it quite surprisingly full of thorns. There was every reason to congratulate her private stars that it was a kind of life she had never been used to; at the same time even this brief taste of servitude was curiously galling.
On the return of Miss Cass and the children to The Laurels shortly before four o’clock they found the fair Dolores in the act of arrival from Birmingham. She and several imposing boxes were being solemnly disgorged from the household chariot while Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson stood by in an attitude of mingled authority and adoration.
“Oh, the darlings!” was the greeting of Miss Parbury to Miss Joan and Master Peter.
She was a lady with a very loud voice and an assurance of manner that was little short of stupendous.It may have been for these reasons, or for reasons more subtle, that the new governess who was a young woman of quick and extremely definite intuitions decided almost as soon as she saw Miss Parbury that she was not going to like her. For one thing, although her reception of the children was stressed almost to the point of effusion, she hardly so much as looked at the green ulster even when Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson introduced its occupant; she addressed no remark then to Miss Cass nor later over the tea cups when the governess and her charges were allowed to enter the drawing room.
The manner of Miss Parbury was forthcoming, yet she was not a great talker. Her conversation appeared to consist mainly of “I mean to say”—at least impartially considered that was the gist of it. Exactly what Miss Parbury did mean to say, even when she had said all she had to say, would have taken a very wise person to determine. Still she was by no means ineffective in a metallic sort of way. Everything about her was metallic, her voice, her appearance, her dress, her mode of attack, yet when all was said she was hardly as metallic as her hostess. Birmingham, it is true, was Miss Parbury’s home town, but Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson had the further advantage of being the daughter of a button manufacturer who had received the honor of knighthood. Both ladies, however, were bright specimens of the particular style they affected; it was in the nature of a physical feat,but not for an instant did they fail to live up to it; and in the case of Miss Parbury, with a cool six thousand a year at the back of her decided good looks, this achievement was rewarded by the number of her conquests in the midland counties. In fact it was clear almost before General Norris had returned from his lonely trek in the vicinity of Copt Wood that the accomplished Miss Parbury did not look for much difficulty in adding another male scalp to her already fairly large collection.