LETITIA was in her room, by the open window, wrapped in a warm dressing-gown. It was rather cold, though the day was bright, to sit by an open window; but she was watching for her brother’s departure, and very eager, thinking he would never go. She had been an unseen witness, behind the curtain, of his meeting with her boy, and had partially overheard the conversation that had passed; that is to say, she had heard all Ralph’s part of it, but not Duke’s little voice in reply. Letitia was more impatient than words can say of this encounter, and trembled with nervous anxiety and helpless eagerness. But she said to herself that Frogmore at least would not come till the afternoon, and all the other gentlemen were out, and the coast clear. No one arriving at a country house to pay a visit ever came before the afternoon—five o’clock, that was the earliest moment possible for an arrival. She said this to herself with a presentiment which she could not overcome, but for which she reproached herself, declaring that it was nonsense audibly in the turmoil of her excitement. Why should Frogmore arrive at an hour when nobody arrived, merely to distract her, Letitia? Things are very perverse sometimes, but not so perverse as that. She said to herself that she was a fool for dwelling upon such a thought, and that her nervousness about Ralph was absurd. She dared not show herself at the window lest he should see her and insist upon an interview; and from where she sat she could see only by a hurried glance now and then, so that she remained unaware of the full horror of what was happening until she heard a third voice, not familiar, but which after a moment she recognized, and which was to her as the clap of doom, Frogmore! She pulled the curtain aside, forgetting her precautions in the excess of her excitement; but no one of the group saw her, they were too much occupied with themselves. Lord Frogmore had not appeared much in his brother’s domestic circle. Since her marriage Letitia had seen him only during the three or four days’ visit which John and she paid once a year to the head of the house. He went abroad every winter, taking care of himself, as if his life were of so much importance! and had visits to pay in the visiting season which no doubt he liked better than going to see his brother: at all events they had met very little, and Letitia was not so very familiar with his voice that she should recognize it at once. But even before she recognized she divined. Of course it was Frogmore: who should it be but the one person in the world whom she was the least desirous to see? She was so overwhelmed by the thought that the meeting which she so much wished to avoid had taken place, that the heart which seemed to beat in her throat and the fluttering of all her nerves prevented her from hearing what they said, until the sound of steps made her again pull back the curtain, and she watched the group moving leisurely towards the dining-room. Ralph was doing the honors, he was inviting Lord Frogmore in to luncheon, and little Duke, whom she would have liked to whip, had abandoned his nurse and was walking solemnly between the big bushman and the little old gentleman. Oh! how she would have liked to whip Duke! It was the one possible outlet for her feelings which Letitia could think of in the immense irritation that possessed her, in view of this insufferable combination, Ralph doing the honors of John Parke’s house to Lord Frogmore. If she had only been wise enough to pursue it—to listen to her own presentiment, to have been on the spot herself and prepared for whatever might happen. Sometimes it is highly advantageous to adopt the female expedient of a headache; to find yourself unable to come downstairs on some particular morning when there may happen to be any embarrassing business. But sometimes this expedient is not so successful. Letitia repented bitterly the employment of it. She had been determined not to see her brother—to show him in the most decided way that her house was a place to which he was not to come. But how could she ever have anticipated that Lord Frogmore would appear at such an unlikely hour, and that it should be Ralph—Ralph of all people in the world that would receive him, and do the honors of the house to him! After a pause of rage and perplexity, Letitia rang the bell, and when her maid appeared sent her somewhat imperiously for Mary Hill. “Go and tell Miss Hill I want to see her. Tell her—I mean ask her,” said Letitia, with a civility born of necessity, “to come directly, please.” Mrs. Parke paused again to think which would be most impressive; whether to begin to dress with the air of being quite unable for the exertion, or to fling herself down upon the sofa in the lassitude of the dressing-gown, unable to move. She decided for the first of these processes. It would touch Mary more to see her preparing to do her duty at any price, than merely to witness the collapse which perhaps she would not have such complete faith in as was desirable. Accordingly Letitia rose. She pulled out the first dress that came to hand in her wardrobe. Not to diminish the effect, she waited until Mary might be supposed to be approaching. She then hurried out of her dressing-gown, and began to put on her usual clothes, and was found by Mary, on her hurried entry, half fallen upon the sofa, panting and breathless, fastening, with hands that trembled and seemed hardly capable of performing their functions, her under-garments. Mary made an outcry of surprise when she entered the room, and the maid who followed made a dart at her mistress with a scream—“Madame, you’re not fit to dress or go downstairs.”
“What can I do?” said Letitia, with little pants between each two words, “when I am so much wanted—when I must—I must.”
“Oh! what is the matter, Letitia? Can’t I do it for you?” said Mary, in her impulsive way.
“You may go away, Felicie. Miss Hill will help me if I want any help.” “Oh, Mary, don’t you know what is the matter? Shut the door after that prying woman. They all want to have their noses in everything. It’s Ralph,” said Mrs. Parke, throwing herself back on the sofa as in despair. “He has not gone away after all, and Frogmore has come. Oh, Mary! when I begged and implored you upon my knees to get him away, and not to let him meet Frogmore.”
Letitia threw herself back on her sofa while in the act of tying a pair of necessary strings. Her hands were trembling very perceptibly. She dropped the strings and flung her arms over her head in an outburst of tragical distress. Mary, on her part, had retired in tears from her interview with Ralph, and had shut herself into the little back room, which was all, in the present crowded state of the house, that she could call her own, with much real agitation and distress. But when she saw Letitia press those conspicuously trembling fingers on her face, the sight of her friend’s trouble was more than she could bear.
“Oh, Letitia,” she said, “I am so sorry for you—what can I do? If there is anything I can do, tell me. I did speak to him. I begged him to go away, and he said he would. Oh, if there is anything more I can do I will do it. But don’t kill yourself, don’t take on so dreadfully. Don’t, oh don’t think so much of it, Letitia; Ralph——”
“Don’t mention his name,” cried Mrs. Parke, “never shall I think of him as a brother. Do you think I’ve no pride and no feeling for my family. How would you like if your black sheep—if the one that was no credit—turned up just when you wanted to put your best foot foremost. Oh, Mary Hill! I don’t blame you, but he never would have come but for you.”
“You are quite mistaken, there,” said Mary, with a dignity in which there was some touch of irritation, too. “And I am glad to say there is no black sheep in my——” Her voice sank as she added this—and a compunction seized her and broke the sentence short—for to be sure the black sheep in the family is the misfortune and not the fault of the rest, and Mary felt it was ungenerous to remind Letitia of her own better fortune. She went on, with a little eagerness to conceal this error. “If I can do anything, Letitia—but I don’t know what I can do.”
“No, nor I,” said Letitia, but then she said with a softened voice, “you might go down and see what they’re doing. I can’t be ready in a moment, it takes some time to get into one’s dress when one is all of a tremble as I am. You might go down and stand between Frogmore and Ralph. Oh, I know you could do it. And there is Duke, the little wretch, listening to all Ralph’s stories. Send him up to me straight off.”
“I—go down! But I don’t know Lord Frogmore—and Ralph.”
“I hope you know Ralph at least. Mary Hill! You told me this moment you would do anything—but the moment I name the one thing, the only thing I ask of you——”
Mary wrung her hands but turned away and went downstairs. She had never been used to resist when anything was asked of her. It had been her part in the world always to do what was insisted upon, what it was necessary to do. She went downstairs, almost counting the steps in her reluctance, hoping that Letitia might relent and call her back, yet knowing very well that nothing would make Letitia relent. After her conversation this morning with Ralph to go back as it seemed voluntarily into the room where he was, to go as he would think on purpose to have a last word with him was intolerable to her. Her natural modesty and reticence was intensified by the primness, old maidenly scruples which had come upon her with the advancing years and made her pride more sensitive and her fear of compromising herself more great. And before Lord Frogmore, who would think—what might he not think? Poor Mary went slowly across the hall. Oh, if Letitia only knew what it was to put such a commission upon her—but Letitia had such different ways of thinking—Letitia might perhaps have found it no trial at all.
When Mary went into the dining-room where Ralph was making an excellent meal, and telling stories of the bush which delighted his little audience, her color was heightened, her dove’s eyes were clear and humid, almost with tears in them. She had seldom in her life looked so well, though of this she was quite unconscious. Her great reluctance gave her an air of dignity as well as that of duty painfully fulfilled. She went in very slowly, holding her head higher than usual, though it was a sense of humiliation and not pride that so moved her. Lord Frogmore had been persuaded to join the bushman in his luncheon, having evidently been assured that this was the luncheon of the house, Letitia not being well enough to be out of her room. Ralph was seated at his meal with his mouth full, talking as he munched, and praising the excellent cold beef as he talked. Cold beef for Lord Frogmore! Saunders indeed had endeavored to interfere, to explain that the family lunch was an hour later, that this was only for Mr. Ravelstone because of his train, and that to set cold beef before the distinguished guest was the last thing in the world that would have been contemplated. But Lord Frogmore had paid no attention, and sat quite pleased, mincing his cold beef into small morsels, and laughing at Ralph’s stories. Little Duke had clambered up upon his high chair and sat between the two men, turning his small head from one to another as they talked with great attention, with the precocious civility of a host paying solemn attention to his guests. Duke did not laugh at the Australian’s jokes because he did not understand them, but he gazed at Lord Frogmore who did, and looked from one to another with a curious consciousness of the inferiority of those mysteriously excited persons who gesticulated and declaimed and laughed and applauded to his own small gravity and dignity, something like that which we can imagine rising in the consciousness of an intelligent animal at sight of human eccentricities. Duke thought it very funny that they should laugh so much. What was there to laugh about? Ralph sprang up from the table, making a great noise, and with his knife and fork in his hands, when Mary appeared. “Hallo!” he cried. “Here we have begun like a couple of ill-bred pigs without thinking of Miss Hill. A plate and napkin for Miss Hill, and look sharp you there! What can you think of us to begin without you? I give you my word I never gave it a thought.”
“Please sit down,” said Mary. “I want nothing. I only came—that is Letitia sent me—to see that you had everything you want. To see that there was a proper lunch——”
“Letitia’s very kind, but she might have come herself. There’s excellent cold beef—isn’t it excellent, my Lord Frogmore? They think it’s not good enough for you, evidently, but it’s plenty good enough for me. I prefer it to all the kickshaws in the world. Sit down and try a bit, Mary, it’ll do you good.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Mary, drawing nervously away. “Duke, you are to go upstairs to your mother. Oh please don’t disturb yourself. I would rather not sit down, please. Letitia was afraid that you were not served in time—that you might be kept too late for your train.”
“Letitia’s very anxious about my train,” cried Ralph, with a big laugh, but he caught Mary’s alarmed look at Saunders, who stood very demurely behind Lord Frogmore with his ears wide open to everything. Saunders scented a mystery, and was very anxious to fathom it. He scented something much more mysterious, as was natural, than anything that existed. “But sit down, Mary, and join the festive board,” continued the bushman, “a meal’s twice a meal when there’s a lady present. Don’t you think so, Lord Frogmore?”
Lord Frogmore had risen up with old-fashioned courtesy when he saw Mary, and stood without taking any part in the invitation, awaiting what she intended to do, with his hand on the back of his chair. Lord Frogmore, as ill-fortune would have it, was seeing the house of the Parkes, which was indeed the most orderly and well-governed of houses, in the strangest light—a light that was not at all a true one, though he had no means of knowing it. The wild, bearded brother from the backwoods, the gentle, somewhat prim dependent lady puzzled him very much. Miss Hill he thought a much pleasanter type of woman than his sister-in-law, but who was she? Probably the governess; but then the governess would not be on such familiar terms with the brother. The old gentleman stood with true civility, doing nothing to increase the embarrassment of the poor lady, poor thing, who did not know what to do.
“The dog-cart, sir, is at the door,” said Saunders, solemnly, “and if I might make so bold, there is just twenty minutes to get the train.”
Ralph put down his knife and fork. “I should have liked another bit of that nice cold beef,” he said; “but since you’re all in such a hurry—— Little ’un, you can go and tell your mother I’m off. It’ll be a satisfaction to her. And, Mary, don’t forget what I said.”
“I don’t remember,” said Mary, “that you said anything particular. Ra—Mr. Ravelstone—I will tell Letitia—anything you wish me to say.”
“Then tell her,” cried Ralph, “I don’t care that!” with a snap of his big fingers. He paused, however, with a thought of Saunders and the proprieties, and burst into another laugh. “You can tell Tisch that the cold beef’s capital, and that I’ve enjoyed my luncheon—and the best of company,” he said. “Good-bye, my lord, and good-bye, little ’un. Mary, is this how we’re to part, you and me?”
Mary wrung her fingers out of his grasp. “I will give Letitia your message,” she said.
“You’ll come and see me off at least. Poor Mary, don’t be so down because there’s strangers here. Come out and see me go.”
She looked involuntarily in her distress towards the courteous old gentleman who stood quietly observant with his hand on the back of his chair. Lord Frogmore did not understand the meaning of the appeal in her eyes—whether she wished him to go away; whether she looked to him for protection. He took out his watch, however, on the chance that it was the latter, and held it up to the departing guest.
“Well, good-bye to you all!” shouted Ralph, thus driven by moral force to the door.
“I fear the gentleman will be late,” said Lord Frogmore in his precise voice.
“Oh, I hope not!” cried Mary, clasping her hands. She listened while the dash of the dog-cart from the door, as Ralph sprang into it, was audible. “He has been long absent from home,” she said. “He has got out of the ways of—English life. Mrs. Parke was rather afraid. She was so sorry not to be downstairs to receive you. She is dressing now to be ready for luncheon, and begged me——”
“It was quite unnecessary; I found him very amusing. And I was glad to make acquaintance with this little fellow.” Lord Frogmore put his hand on Duke’s head, who had not obeyed the call to his mother. “He is—your charge, perhaps?”
“Oh no,” cried Mary, with a blush. “I am only a friend staying in the house.”