The Hand of Ethelberta Read Online

Doncastle had not noticed her momentary perplexity.  Crises were becoming as common with her as blackberries; and she had foreseen this one a long time.  It was not that she was to meet Lord Mountclere, for he was only a name and a distant profile to her: it was that her father would necessarily be present at the meeting, in the most anomalous position that human nature could endure.

However, having often proved in her disjointed experience that the shortest way out of a difficulty lies straight through it, Ethelberta decided to dine at the Doncastles’, and, as she murmured that she should have great pleasure in meeting any friend of theirs, set about contriving how the encounter with her dearest relative might be made safe and unsuspected.  She bade them adieu blithely; but the thoughts engendered by the invitation stood before her as sorrowful and rayless ghosts which could not be laid.  Often at such conjunctures as these, when the futility of her great undertaking was more than usually manifest, did Ethelberta long like a tired child for the conclusion of the whole matter; when her work should be over, and the evening come; when she might draw her boat upon the shore, and in some thymy nook await eternal night with a placid mind.

28. ETHELBERTA’S—MR. CHICKEREL’S ROOM

The question of Neigh or no Neigh had reached a pitch of insistence which no longer permitted of dallying, even by a popular beauty.  His character was becoming defined to Ethelberta as something very differently composed from that of her first imagining.  She had set him down to be a man whose external in excitability owed nothing to self-repression, but stood as the natural surface of the mass within.  Neigh’s urban torpor, she said, might have been in the first instance produced by art, but, were it thus, it had gone so far as to permeate him.  This had been disproved, first surprisingly, by his reported statement; wondrously, in the second place, by his call upon her and sudden proposal; thirdly, to a degree simply astounding, by what had occurred in the city that day.  For Neigh, before the fervour had subsided which was produced in him by her look and general power while reading ‘Paradise Lost,’ found himself alone with her in a nook outside the church, and there had almost demanded her promise to be his wife.  She had replied by asking for time, and idly offering him the petals of her rose, that had shed themselves in her hand.  Neigh, in taking them, pressed her fingers more warmly than she thought she had given him warrant for, which offended her.  It was certainly a very momentary affair, and when it was over seemed to surprise himself almost as much as it had vexed her; but it had reminded her of one truth which she was in danger of forgetting.  The town gentleman was not half so far removed from Sol and Dan, and the hard-handed order in general, in his passions as in his philosophy.  He still continued to be the male of his species, and when the heart was hot with a dream Pall Mall had much the same aspect as Wessex.

Well, she had not accepted him yet; indeed, for the moment they were in a pet with one another.  Yet that might soon be cleared off, and then recurred the perpetual question, would the advantage that might accrue to her people by her marriage be worth the sacrifice?  One palliative feature must be remembered when we survey the matrimonial ponderings of the poetess and romancer.  What she contemplated was not meanly to ensnare a husband just to provide incomes for her and her family, but to find some man she might respect, who would maintain her in such a stage of comfort as should, by setting her mind free from temporal anxiety, enable her to further organize her talent, and provide incomes for them herself.  Plenty of saleable originality was left in her as yet, but it was getting crushed under the rubbish of her necessities.

She was not sure that Neigh would stand the test of her revelations.  It would be possible to lead him to marry her without revealing anything—the events of the last few days had shown her that—yet Ethelberta’s honesty shrank from the safe course of holding her tongue.  It might be pleasant to many a modern gentleman to find himself allied with a lady, none of whose ancestors had ever pandered to a court, lost an army, taken a bribe, oppressed a community, or broken a bank; but the added disclosure that, in avoiding these stains, her kindred had worked and continued to work with their hands for bread, might lead such an one to consider that the novelty was dearly purchased.

Ethelberta was, upon the whole, dissatisfied with her progress thus far.  She had planned many things and fulfilled few.  Had her father been by this time provided for and made independent of the world, as she had thought he might be, not only would her course with regard to Neigh be quite clear, but the impending awkwardness of dining with her father behind her chair could not have occurred.  True, that was a small matter beside her regret for his own sake that he was still in harness; and a mere change of occupation would be but a tribute to a fastidiousness which he did not himself share.  She had frequently tried to think of a vocation for him that would have a more dignified sound, and be less dangerously close to her own path: the post of care-taker at some provincial library, country stationer, registrar of births and deaths, and many others had been discussed and dismissed in face of the unmanageable fact that her father was serenely happy and comfortable as a butler, looking with dread at any hint of change short of perfect retirement.  Since, then, she could not offer him this retirement, what right had she to interfere with his mode of life at all?  In no other social groove on earth would he thrive as he throve in his present one, to which he had been accustomed from boyhood, and where the remuneration was actually greater than in professions ten times as stately in name.

For the rest, too, Ethelberta had indulged in hopes, the high education of the younger ones being the chief of these darling wishes.  Picotee wanted looking to badly enough.  Sol and Dan required no material help; they had quickly obtained good places of work under a Pimlico builder; for though the brothers scarcely showed as yet the light-fingered deftness of London artizans, the want was in a measure compensated by their painstaking, and employers are far from despising country hands who bring with them strength, industry, and a desire to please.  But their sister had other lines laid down for them than those of level progress; to start them some day as masters instead of men was a long-cherished wish of Ethelberta’s.

Thus she had quite enough machinery in her hands to keep decently going, even were she to marry a man who would take a kindly view of her peculiar situation, and afford her opportunities of strengthening her powers for her kindred’s good.  But what would be the result if, eighteen months hence—the date at which her occupation of the house in Exonbury Crescent came to an end—she were still a widow, with no accumulated capital, her platform talents grown homely and stunted through narrow living, and her tender vein of poesy completely dispersed by it?  To calmly relinquish the struggle at that point would have been the act of a stoic, but not of a woman, particularly when she considered the children, the hopes of her mother for them, and her own condition—though this was least—under the ironical cheers which would greet a slip back into the mire.

It here becomes necessary to turn for a moment to Master Joey Chickerel, Ethelberta’s troublesome page and brother.  The face of this juvenile was that of a Graeco-Roman satyr to the furthest degree of completeness.  Viewed in front, the outer line of his upper lip rose in a double arch nearly to his little round nostrils, giving an expression of a jollity so delicious to himself as to compel a perpetual drawing in of his breath.  During half-laughs his lips parted in the middle, and remained closed at the corners, which were small round pits like his nostrils, the same form being repeated as dimples a little further back upon his cheek.  The opening for each eye formed a sparkling crescent, both upper and under lid having the convexity upwards.

But during some few days preceding the dinner-party at the Doncastles’ all this changed.  The luxuriant curves departed, a compressed lineality was to be observed everywhere, the pupils of his eyes seemed flattened, and the carriage of his head was limp and sideways.  This was a feature so remarkable and new in him that Picotee noticed it, and was lifted from the melancholy current of her own affairs in contemplating his.

‘Well, what’s the matter?’ said Picotee.

‘O—nothing,’ said Joey.

‘Nothing?  How can you say so?’

‘The world’s a holler mockery—that’s what I say.’

‘Yes, so it is, to some; but not to you,’ said Picotee, sighing.

‘Don’t talk argument, Picotee.  I only hope you’ll never feel what I feel now.  If it wasn’t for my juties here I know what I’d do; I’d ’list, that’s what I’d do.  But having my position to fill here as the only responsible man-servant in the house, I can’t leave.’

‘Has anybody been beating you?’

‘Beating!  Do I look like a person who gets beatings?  No, it is a madness,’ said Joey, putting his hand upon his chest.  ‘The case is, I am in love.’

‘O Joey, a boy no bigger than you are!’ said Picotee reprovingly.  Her personal interest in the passion, however, provoked her to inquire, in the next breath, ‘Who is it?  Do tell, Joey.’

‘No bigger than I!  What hev bigness to do with it?  That’s just like your old-fashioned notions.  Bigness is no more wanted in courting nowadays than in soldiering or smoking or any other duty of man.  Husbands is rare; and a promising courter who means business will fetch his price in these times, big or small, I assure ye.  I might have been engaged a dozen times over as far as the bigness goes.  You should see what a miserable little fellow my rival is afore you talk like that.  Now you know I’ve got a rival, perhaps you’ll own there must be something in it.’

‘Yes, that seems like the real thing.  But who is the young woman?’

‘Well, I don’t mind telling you, Picotee.  It is Mrs. Doncastle’s new maid.  I called to see father last night, and had supper there; and you should have seen how lovely she were—eating sparrowgrass sideways, as if she were born to it.  But, of course, there’s a rival—there always is—I might have known that, and I will crush him!’

‘But Mrs. Doncastle’s new maid—if that was she I caught a glimpse of the other day—is ever so much older than you—a dozen years.’

‘What’s that to a man in love?  Pooh—I wish you would leave me, Picotee; I wants to be alone.’

A short time after this Picotee was in the company of Ethelberta, and she took occasion to mention Joey’s attachment.  Ethelberta grew exceedingly angry directly she heard of it.

‘What a fearful nuisance that boy is becoming,’ she said.  ‘Does father know anything of this?’

‘I think not,’ said Picotee.  ‘O no, he cannot; he would not allow any such thing to go on; she is so much older than Joey.’

‘I should think he wouldn’t allow it!  The fact is I must be more strict about this growing friendliness between you all and the Doncastle servants.  There shall be absolutely no intimacy or visiting of any sort.  When father wants to see any of you he must come here, unless there is a most serious reason for your calling upon him.  Some disclosure or reference to me otherwise than as your mistress, will certainly be made else, and then I am ruined.  I will speak to father myself about Joey’s absurd nonsense this evening.  I am going to see him on another matter.’  And Ethelberta sighed.  ‘I am to dine there on Thursday,’ she added.

‘To dine there, Berta?  Well, that is a strange thing!  Why, father will be close to you!’

‘Yes,’ said Ethelberta quietly.

‘How I should like to see you sitting at a grand dinner-table, among lordly dishes and shining people, and father about the room unnoticed!  Berta, I have never seen a dinner-party in my life, and father said that I should some day; he promised me long ago.’

‘How will he be able to carry out that, my dear child?’ said Ethelberta, drawing her sister gently to her side.

‘Father says that for an hour and a half the guests are quite fixed in the dining-room, and as unlikely to move as if they were trees planted round the table.  Do let me go and see you, Berta,’ Picotee added coaxingly.  ‘I would give anything to see how you look in the midst of elegant people talking and laughing, and you my own sister all the time, and me looking on like puss-in-the-corner.’

Ethelberta could hardly resist the entreaty, in spite of her recent resolution.

‘We will leave that to be considered when I come home to-night,’ she said.  ‘I must hear what father says.’

After dark the same evening a woman, dressed in plain black and wearing a hood, went to the servants’ entrance of Mr. Doncastle’s house, and inquired for Mr. Chickerel.  Ethelberta found him in a room by himself, and on entering she closed the door behind her, and unwrapped her face.

‘Can you sit with me a few minutes, father?’ she said.

‘Yes, for a quarter of an hour or so,’ said the butler.  ‘Has anything happened?  I thought it might be Picotee.’

‘No.  All’s well yet.  But I thought it best to see you upon one or two matters which are harassing me a little just now.  The first is, that stupid boy Joey has got entangled in some way with the lady’s-maid at this house; a ridiculous affair it must be by all account, but it is too serious for me to treat lightly.  She will worm everything out of him, and a pretty business it will be then.’

‘God bless my soul! why, the woman is old enough to be his mother!  I have never heard a sound of it till now.  What do you propose to do?’

‘I have hardly thought: I cannot tell at all.  But we will consider that after I have done.  The next thing is, I am to dine here Thursday—that is, to-morrow.’

‘You going to dine here, are you?’ said her father in surprise.  ‘Dear me, that’s news.  We have a dinner-party to-morrow, but I was not aware that you knew our people.’

‘I have accepted the invitation,’ said Ethelberta.  ‘But if you think I had better stay away, I will get out of it by some means.  Heavens! what does that mean—will anybody come in?’ she added, rapidly pulling up her hood and jumping from the seat as the loud tones of a bell clanged forth in startling proximity.

‘O no—it is all safe,’ said her father.  ‘It is the area door—nothing to do with me.  About the dinner: I don’t see why you may not come.  Of course you will take no notice of me, nor shall I of you.  It is to be rather a large party.  Lord What’s-his-name is coming, and several good people.’

‘Yes; he is coming to meet me, it appears.  But, father,’ she said more softly and slowly, ‘how wrong it will be for me to come so close to you, and never recognize you!  I don’t like it.  I wish you could have given up service by this time; it would have been so much less painful for us all round.  I thought we might have been able to manage it somehow.’

‘Nonsense, nonsense,’ said Mr. Chickerel crossly.  ‘There is not the least reason why I should give up.  I want to save a little money first.  If you don’t like me as I am, you must keep away from me.  Don’t be uneasy about my comfort; I am right enough, thank God.  I can mind myself for many a year yet.’

Ethelberta looked at him with tears in her eyes, but she did not speak.  She never could help crying when she met her father here.

‘I have been in service now for more than seven-and-thirty years,’ her father went on.  ‘It is an honourable calling; and why should you maintain me because you can earn a few pounds by your gifts, and an old woman left you her house and a few sticks of furniture?  If she had left you any money it would have been a different thing, but as you have to work for every penny you get, I cannot think of it.  Suppose I should agree to come and live with you, and then you should be ill, or such like, and I no longer able to help myself?  O no, I’ll stick where I am, for here I am safe as to food and shelter at any rate.  Surely, Ethelberta, it is only right that I, who ought to keep you all, should at least keep your mother and myself?  As to our position, that we cannot help; and I don’t mind that you are unable to own me.’

‘I wish I could own you—all of you.’

‘Well, you chose your course, my dear; and you must abide by it.  Having put your hand to the plough, it will be foolish to turn back.’

‘It would, I suppose.  Yet I wish I could get a living by some simple humble occupation, and drop the name of Petherwin, and be Berta Chickerel again, and live in a green cottage as we used to do when I was small.  I am miserable to a pitiable degree sometimes, and sink into regrets that I ever fell into such a groove as this.  I don’t like covert deeds, such as coming here to-night, and many are necessary with me from time to time.  There is something without which splendid energies are a drug; and that is a cold heart.  There is another thing necessary to energy, too—the power of distinguishing your visions from your reasonable forecasts when looking into the future, so as to allow your energy to lay hold of the forecasts only.  I begin to have a fear that mother is right when she implies that I undertook to carry out visions and all.  But ten of us are so many to cope with.  If God Almighty had only killed off three-quarters of us when we were little, a body might have done something for the rest; but as we are it is hopeless!’

‘There is no use in your going into high doctrine like that,’ said Chickerel.  ‘As I said before, you chose your course.  You have begun to fly high, and you had better keep there.’

‘And to do that there is only one way—that is, to do it surely, so that I have some groundwork to enable me to keep up to the mark in my profession.  That way is marriage.’

‘Marriage?  Who are you going to marry?’

‘God knows.  Perhaps Lord Mountclere.  Stranger things have happened.’

‘Yes, so they have; though not many wretcheder things.  I would sooner see you in your grave, Ethelberta, than Lord Mountclere’s wife, or the wife of anybody like him, great as the honour would be.’

‘Of course that was only something to say; I don’t know the man even.’

‘I know his valet.  However, marry who you may, I hope you’ll be happy, my dear girl.  You would be still more divided from us in that event; but when your mother and I are dead, it will make little difference.’

Ethelberta placed her hand upon his shoulder, and smiled cheerfully.  ‘Now, father, don’t despond.  All will be well, and we shall see no such misfortune as that for many a year.  Leave all to me.  I am a rare hand at contrivances.’

‘You are indeed, Berta.  It seems to me quite wonderful that we should be living so near together and nobody suspect the relationship, because of the precautions you have taken.’

‘Yet the precautions were rather Lady Petherwin’s than mine, as you know.  Consider how she kept me abroad.  My marriage being so secret made it easy to cut off all traces, unless anybody had made it a special business to search for them.  That people should suspect as yet would be by far the more wonderful thing of the two.  But we must, for one thing, have no visiting between our girls and the servants here, or they soon will suspect.’

Ethelberta then laid down a few laws on the subject, and, explaining the other details of her visit, told her father soon that she must leave him.

He took her along the passage and into the area.  They were standing at the bottom of the steps, saying a few parting words about Picotee’s visit to see the dinner, when a female figure appeared by the railing above, slipped in at the gate, and flew down the steps past the father and daughter.  At the moment of passing she whispered breathlessly to him, ‘Is that you, Mr. Chickerel?’

‘Yes,’ said the butler.

She tossed into his arms a quantity of wearing apparel, and adding, ‘Please take them upstairs for me—I am late,’ rushed into the house.

‘Good heavens, what does that mean?’ said Ethelberta, holding her father’s arm in her uneasiness.

‘That’s the new lady’s-maid, just come in from an evening walk—that young scamp’s sweetheart, if what you tell me is true.  I don’t yet know what her character is, but she runs neck and neck with time closer than any woman I ever met.  She stays out at night like this till the last moment, and often throws off her dashing courting-clothes in this way, as she runs down the steps, to save a journey to the top of the house to her room before going to Mrs. Doncastle’s, who is in fact at this minute waiting for her.  Only look here.’  Chickerel gathered up a hat decked with feathers and flowers, a parasol, and a light muslin train-skirt, out of the pocket of the latter tumbling some long golden tresses of hair.

‘What an extraordinary woman,’ said Ethelberta.  ‘A perfect Cinderella.  The idea of Joey getting desperate about a woman like that; no doubt she has just come in from meeting him.’

‘No doubt—a blockhead.  That’s his taste, is it!  I’ll soon see if I can’t cure his taste if it inclines towards Mrs. Menlove.’

‘Mrs. what?’

‘Menlove; that’s her name.  She came about a fortnight ago.’

‘And is that Menlove—what shall we do!’ exclaimed Ethelberta.  ‘The idea of the boy singling out her—why it is ruin to him, to me, and to us all!’

She hastily explained to her father that Menlove had been Lady Petherwin’s maid and her own at some time before the death of her mother-in-law, that she had only stayed with them through a three months’ tour because of her flightiness, and hence had learnt nothing of Ethelberta’s history, and probably had never thought at all about it.  But nevertheless they were as well acquainted as a lady and her maid well could be in the time.  ‘Like all such doubtful characters,’ continued Ethelberta, ‘she was one of the cleverest and lightest-handed women we ever had about us.  When she first came, my hair was getting quite weak; but by brushing it every day in a peculiar manner, and treating it as only she knew how, she brought it into splendid condition.’

‘Well, this is the devil to pay, upon my life!’ said Mr. Chickerel, with a miserable gaze at the bundle of clothes and the general situation at the same time.  ‘Unfortunately for her friendship, I have snubbed her two or three times already, for I don’t care about her manner.  You know she has a way of trading on a man’s sense of honour till it puts him into an awkward position.  She is perfectly well aware that, whatever scrape I find her out in, I shall not have the conscience to report her, because I am a man, and she is a defenceless woman; and so she takes advantage of one’s feeling by making me, or either of the menservants, her bottle-holder, as you see she has done now.’

‘This is all simply dreadful,’ said Ethelberta.  ‘Joey is shrewd and trustworthy; but in the hands of such a woman as that!  I suppose she did not recognize me.’

‘There was no chance of that in the dark.’

‘Well, I cannot do anything in it,’ said she.  ‘I cannot manage Joey at all.’

‘I will see if I can,’ said Mr. Chickerel.  ‘Courting at his age, indeed—what shall we hear next!’

Chickerel then accompanied his daughter along the street till an empty cab passed them, and putting her into it he returned to the house again.

29. ETHELBERTA’S DRESSING-ROOM—MR. DONCASTLE’S HOUSE

The dressing of Ethelberta for the dinner-party was an undertaking into which Picotee threw her whole skill as tirewoman.  Her energies were brisker that day than they had been at any time since the Julians first made preparations for departure from town; for a letter had come to her from Faith, telling of their arrival at the old cathedral city, which was found to suit their inclinations and habits infinitely better than London; and that she would like Picotee to visit them there some day.  Picotee felt, and so probably felt the writer of the letter, that such a visit would not be very practicable just now; but it was a pleasant idea, and for fastening dreams upon was better than nothing.

Such musings were encouraged also by Ethelberta’s remarks as the dressing went on.

‘We will have a change soon,’ she said; ‘we will go out of town for a few days.  It will do good in many ways.  I am getting so alarmed about the health of the children; their faces are becoming so white and thin and pinched that an old acquaintance would hardly know them; and they were so plump when they came.  You are looking as pale as a ghost, and I daresay I am too.  A week or two at Knollsea will see us right.’

‘O, how charming!’ said Picotee gladly.

Knollsea was a village on the coast, not very far from Melchester, the new home of Christopher; not very far, that is to say, in the eye of a sweetheart; but seeing that there was, as the crow flies, a stretch of thirty-five miles between the two places, and that more than one-third the distance was without a railway, an elderly gentleman might have considered their situations somewhat remote from each other.

‘Why have you chosen Knollsea?’ inquired Picotee.

‘Because of aunt’s letter from Rouen—have you seen it?’

‘I did not read it through.’

‘She wants us to get a copy of the register of her baptism; and she is not absolutely certain which of the parishes in and about Knollsea they were living in when she was born.  Mother, being a year younger, cannot tell of course.  First I thought of writing to the clergyman of each parish, but that would be troublesome, and might reveal the secret of my birth; but if we go down there for a few days, and take some lodgings, we shall be able to find out all about it at leisure.  Gwendoline and Joey can attend to mother and the people downstairs, especially as father will look in every evening until he goes out of town, to see if they are getting on properly.  It will be such a weight off my soul to slip away from acquaintances here.’

‘Will it?’

‘Yes.  At the same time I ought not to speak so, for they have been very kind.  I wish we could go to Rouen afterwards; aunt repeats her invitation as usual.  However, there is time enough to think of that.’

Ethelberta was dressed at last, and, beholding the lonely look of poor Picotee when about to leave the room, she could not help having a sympathetic feeling that it was rather hard for her sister to be denied so small an enjoyment as a menial peep at a feast when she herself was to sit down to it as guest.

‘If you still want to go and see the procession downstairs you may do so,’ she said reluctantly; ‘provided that you take care of your tongue when you come in contact with Menlove, and adhere to father’s instructions as to how long you may stay.  It may be in the highest degree unwise; but never mind, go.’

Then Ethelberta departed for the scene of action, just at the hour of the sun’s lowest decline, when it was fading away, yellow and mild as candle-light, and when upper windows facing north-west reflected to persons in the street dissolving views of tawny cloud with brazen edges, the original picture of the same being hidden from sight by soiled walls and slaty slopes.

Before entering the presence of host and hostess, Ethelberta contrived to exchange a few words with her father.

‘In excellent time,’ he whispered, full of paternal pride at the superb audacity of her situation here in relation to his.  ‘About half of them are come.’

‘Mr. Neigh?’

‘Not yet; he’s coming.’

‘Lord Mountclere?’

‘Yes.  He came absurdly early; ten minutes before anybody else, so that Mrs. D. could hardly get on her bracelets and things soon enough to scramble downstairs and receive him; and he’s as nervous as a boy.  Keep up your spirits, dear, and don’t mind me.’

‘I will, father.  And let Picotee see me at dinner if you can.  She is very anxious to look at me.  She will be here directly.’

And Ethelberta, having been announced, joined the chamberful of assembled guests, among whom for the present we lose sight of her.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the evening outside the house was deepening in tone, and the lamps began to blink up.  Her sister having departed, Picotee hastily arrayed herself in a little black jacket and chip hat, and tripped across the park to the same point.  Chickerel had directed a maid-servant known as Jane to receive his humbler daughter and make her comfortable; and that friendly person, who spoke as if she had known Picotee five-and-twenty years, took her to the housekeeper’s room, where the visitor deposited her jacket and hat, and rested awhile.

A quick-eyed, light-haired, slight-built woman came in when Jane had gone.  ‘Are you Miss Chickerel?’ she said to Picotee.

‘Yes,’ said Picotee, guessing that this was Menlove, and fearing her a little.

‘Jane tells me that you have come to visit your father, and would like to look at the company going to dinner.  Well, they are not much to see, you know; but such as they are you are welcome to the sight of.  Come along with me.’

‘I think I would rather wait for father, if you will excuse me, please.’

‘Your father is busy now; it is no use for you to think of saying anything to him.’

Picotee followed her guide up a back staircase to the height of several flights, and then, crossing a landing, they descended to the upper part of the front stairs.

‘Now look over the balustrade, and you will see them all in a minute,’ said Mrs. Menlove.  ‘O, you need not be timid; you can look out as far as you like.  We are all independent here; no slavery for us: it is not as it is in the country, where servants are considered to be of different blood and bone from their employers, and to have no eyes for anything but their work.  Here they are coming.’

Picotee then had the pleasure of looking down upon a series of human crowns—some black, some white, some strangely built upon, some smooth and shining—descending the staircase in disordered column and great discomfort, their owners trying to talk, but breaking off in the midst of syllables to look to their footing.  The young girl’s eyes had not drooped over the handrail more than a few moments when she softly exclaimed, ‘There she is, there she is!  How lovely she looks, does she not?’

‘Who?’ said Mrs. Menlove.

Picotee recollected herself, and hastily drew in her impulses.  ‘My dear mistress,’ she said blandly.  ‘That is she on Mr. Doncastle’s arm.  And look, who is that funny old man the elderly lady is helping downstairs?’

‘He is our honoured guest, Lord Mountclere.  Mrs. Doncastle will have him all through the dinner, and after that he will devote himself to Mrs. Petherwin, your “dear mistress.”  He keeps looking towards her now, and no doubt thinks it a nuisance that she is not with him.  Well, it is useless to stay here.  Come a little further—we’ll follow them.’  Menlove began to lead the way downstairs, but Picotee held back.

‘Won’t they see us?’ she said.

‘No.  And if they do, it doesn’t matter.  Mrs. Doncastle would not object in the least to the daughter of her respected head man being accidentally seen in the hall.’

They descended to the bottom and stood in the hall.  ‘O, there’s father!’ whispered Picotee, with childlike gladness, as Chickerel became visible to her by the door.  The butler nodded to his daughter, and became again engrossed in his duties.

‘I wish I could see her—my mistress—again,’ said Picotee.

‘You seem mightily concerned about your mistress,’ said Menlove.  ‘Do you want to see if you have dressed her properly?’

‘Yes, partly; and I like her, too.  She is very kind to me.’

‘You will have a chance of seeing her soon.  When the door is nicely open you can look in for a moment.  I must leave you now for a few minutes, but I will come again.’

Menlove departed, and Picotee stood waiting.  She wondered how Ethelberta was getting on, and whether she enjoyed herself as much as it seemed her duty to do in such a superbly hospitable place.  Picotee then turned her attention to the hall, every article of furniture therein appearing worthy of scrutiny to her unaccustomed eyes.  Here she walked and looked about for a long time till an excellent opportunity offered itself of seeing how affairs progressed in the dining-room.

Through the partly-opened door there became visible a sideboard which first attracted her attention by its richness.  It was, indeed, a noticeable example of modern art-workmanship, in being exceptionally large, with curious ebony mouldings at different stages; and, while the heavy cupboard doors at the bottom were enriched with inlays of paler wood, other panels were decorated with tiles, as if the massive composition had been erected on the spot as part of the solid building.  However, it was on a space higher up that Picotee’s eyes and thoughts were fixed.  In the great mirror above the middle ledge she could see reflected the upper part of the dining-room, and this suggested to her that she might see Ethelberta and the other guests reflected in the same way by standing on a chair, which, quick as thought, she did.

To Picotee’s dazed young vision her beautiful sister appeared as the chief figure of a glorious pleasure-parliament of both sexes, surrounded by whole regiments of candles grouped here and there about the room.  She and her companions were seated before a large flowerbed, or small hanging garden, fixed at about the level of the elbow, the attention of all being concentrated rather upon the uninteresting margin of the bed, and upon each other, than on the beautiful natural objects growing in the middle, as it seemed to Picotee.  In the ripple of conversation Ethelberta’s clear voice could occasionally be heard, and her young sister could see that her eyes were bright, and her face beaming, as if divers social wants and looming penuriousness had never been within her experience.  Mr. Doncastle was quite absorbed in what she was saying.  So was the queer old man whom Menlove had called Lord Mountclere.

‘The dashing widow looks very well, does she not?’ said a person at Picotee’s elbow.

It was her conductor Menlove, now returned again, whom Picotee had quite forgotten.

‘She will do some damage here to-night you will find,’ continued Menlove.  ‘How long have you been with her?’

‘O, a long time—I mean rather a short time,’ stammered Picotee.

‘I know her well enough.  I was her maid once, or rather her mother-in-law’s, but that was long before you knew her.  I did not by any means find her so lovable as you seem to think her when I had to do with her at close quarters.  An awful flirt—awful.  Don’t you find her so?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If you don’t yet you will know.  But come down from your perch—the dining-room door will not be open again for some time—and I will show you about the rooms upstairs.  This is a larger house than Mrs. Petherwin’s, as you see.  Just come and look at the drawing-rooms.’

Wishing much to get rid of Menlove, yet fearing to offend her, Picotee followed upstairs.  Dinner was almost over by this time, and when they entered the front drawing-room a young man-servant and maid were there rekindling the lights.

‘Now let’s have a game of cat-and-mice,’ said the maid-servant cheerily.  ‘There’s plenty of time before they come up.’

‘Agreed,’ said Menlove promptly.  ‘You will play, will you not, Miss Chickerel?’

‘No, indeed,’ said Picotee, aghast.

‘Never mind, then; you look on.’

Away then ran the housemaid and Menlove, and the young footman started at their heels.  Round the room, over the furniture, under the furniture, through the furniture, out of one window, along the balcony, in at another window, again round the room—so they glided with the swiftness of swallows and the noiselessness of ghosts.

Then the housemaid drew a jew’s-harp from her pocket, and struck up a lively waltz sotto voce.  The footman seized Menlove, who appeared nothing loth, and began spinning gently round the room with her, to the time of the fascinating measure

‘Which fashion hails, from countesses to queens,
And maids and valets dance behind the scenes.’

Picotee, who had been accustomed to unceiled country cottages all her life, wherein the scamper of a mouse is heard distinctly from floor to floor, exclaimed in a terrified whisper, at viewing all this, ‘They’ll hear you underneath, they’ll hear you, and we shall all be ruined!’

‘Not at all,’ came from the cautious dancers.  ‘These are some of the best built houses in London—double floors, filled in with material that will deaden any row you like to make, and we make none.  But come and have a turn yourself, Miss Chickerel.’

The young man relinquished Menlove, and on the spur of the moment seized Picotee.  Picotee flounced away from him in indignation, backing into a corner with ruffled feathers, like a pullet trying to appear a hen.

‘How dare you touch me!’ she said, with rounded eyes.  ‘I’ll tell somebody downstairs of you, who’ll soon see about it!’

‘What a baby; she’ll tell her father.’

‘No I shan’t; somebody you are all afraid of, that’s who I’ll tell.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Menlove; ‘he meant no harm.’

Playtime was now getting short, and further antics being dangerous on that account, the performers retired again downstairs, Picotee of necessity following.  Her nerves were screwed up to the highest pitch of uneasiness by the grotesque habits of these men and maids, who were quite unlike the country servants she had known, and resembled nothing so much as pixies, elves, or gnomes, peeping up upon human beings from their shady haunts underground, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill—sometimes doing heavy work, sometimes none; teasing and worrying with impish laughter half suppressed, and vanishing directly mortal eyes were bent on them.  Separate and distinct from overt existence under the sun, this life could hardly be without its distinctive pleasures, all of them being more or less pervaded by thrills and titillations from games of hazard, and the perpetual risk of sensational surprises.

Long before this time Picotee had begun to be anxious to get home again, but Menlove seemed particularly to desire her company, and pressed her to sit awhile, telling her young friend, by way of entertainment, of various extraordinary love adventures in which she had figured as heroine when travelling on the Continent.  These stories had one and all a remarkable likeness in a certain point—Menlove was always unwilling to love the adorer, and the adorer was always unwilling to live afterwards on account of it.

‘Ha-ha-ha!’ in men’s voices was heard from the distant dining-room as the two women went on talking.

‘And then,’ continued Menlove, ‘there was that duel I was the cause of between the courier and the French valet.  Dear me, what a trouble that was; yet I could do nothing to prevent it.  This courier was a very handsome man—they are handsome sometimes.’

‘Yes, they are.  My aunt married one.’

‘Did she?  Where do they live?’

‘They keep an hotel at Rouen,’ murmured Picotee, in doubt whether this should have been told or not.

‘Well, he used to follow me to the English Church every Sunday regularly, and I was so determined not to give my hand where my heart could never be, that I slipped out at the other door while he stood expecting me by the one I entered.  Here I met M. Pierre, when, as ill luck would have it, the other came round the corner, and seeing me talking to the valet, he challenged him at once.’

‘Ha-ha-ha!’ was heard again afar.

‘Did they fight?’ said Picotee.

‘Yes, I believe they did.  We left Nice the next day; but I heard some time after of a duel not many miles off, and although I could not get hold of the names, I make no doubt it was between those two gentlemen.  I never knew which of them fell; poor fellow, whichever it was.’

‘Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!’ came from the dining-room.

‘Whatever are those boozy men laughing at, I wonder?’ said Menlove.  ‘They are always so noisy when the ladies have gone upstairs.  Upon my soul, I’ll run up and find out.’

‘No, no, don’t,’ entreated Picotee, putting her hand on her entertainer’s arm.  ‘It seems wrong; it is no concern of ours.’

‘Wrong be hanged—anything on an impulse,’ said Mrs. Menlove, skipping across the room and out of the door, which stood open, as did others in the house, the evening being sultry and oppressive.

Picotee waited in her seat until it occurred to her that she could escape the lady’s-maid by going off into her father’s pantry in her absence.  But before this had been put into effect Menlove appeared again.

‘Such fun as they are having up there,’ she said.  ‘Somebody asked Mr. Neigh to tell a story which he had told at some previous time, but he was very reluctant to do so, and pretended he could not recollect it.  Well, then, the other man—I could not distinguish him by his voice—began telling it, to prompt Mr. Neigh’s memory; and, as far as I could understand, it was about some lady who thought Mr. Neigh was in love with her, and, to find whether he was worth accepting or not, she went with her maid at night to see his estate, and wandered about and got lost, and was frightened, and I don’t know what besides.  Then Mr. Neigh laughed too, and said he liked such common sense in a woman.  No names were mentioned, but I fancy, from the awkwardness of Mr. Neigh at being compelled to tell it, that the lady is one of those in the drawing-room.  I should like to know which it was.’

‘I know—have heard something about it,’ said Picotee, blushing with anger.  ‘It was nothing at all like that.  I wonder Mr. Neigh had the audacity ever to talk of the matter, and to misrepresent it so greatly!’

‘Tell all about it, do,’ said Menlove.

‘O no,’ said Picotee.  ‘I promised not to say a word.’

‘It is your mistress, I expect.’

‘You may think what you like; but the lady is anything but a mistress of mine.’

The flighty Menlove pressed her to tell the whole story, but finding this useless the subject was changed.  Presently her father came in, and, taking no notice of Menlove, told his daughter that she had been called for.  Picotee very readily put on her things, and on going outside found Joey awaiting her.  Mr. Chickerel followed closely, with sharp glances from the corner of his eye, and it was plain from Joey’s nervous manner of lingering in the shadows of the area doorway instead of entering the house, that the butler had in some way set himself to prevent all communion between the fair lady’s-maid and his son for that evening at least.

He watched Picotee and her brother off the premises, and the pair went on their way towards Exonbury Crescent, very few words passing between them.  Picotee’s thoughts had turned to the proposed visit to Knollsea, and Joey was sulky under disappointment and the blank of thwarted purposes.

30. ON THE HOUSETOP

‘Picotee, are you asleep?’ Ethelberta whispered softly at dawn the next morning, by the half-opened door of her sister’s bedroom.

‘No, I keep waking, it is so warm.’

‘So do I.  Suppose we get up and see the sun rise.  The east is filling with flame.’

‘Yes, I should like it,’ said Picotee.

The restlessness which had brought Ethelberta hither in slippers and dressing-gown at such an early hour owed its origin to another cause than the warmth of the weather; but of that she did not speak as yet.  Picotee’s room was an attic, with windows in the roof—a chamber dismal enough at all times, and very shadowy now.  While Picotee was wrapping up, Ethelberta placed a chair under the window, and mounting upon this they stepped outside, and seated themselves within the parapet.

The air was as clear and fresh as on a mountain side; sparrows chattered, and birds of a species unsuspected at later hours could be heard singing in the park hard by, while here and there on ridges and flats a cat might be seen going calmly home from the devilries of the night to resume the amiabilities of the day.

‘I am so sorry I was asleep when you reached home,’ said Picotee.  ‘I was so anxious to tell you something I heard of, and to know what you did; but my eyes would shut, try as I might, and then I tried no longer.  Did you see me at all, Berta?’

‘Never once.  I had an impression that you were there.  I fancied you were from father’s carefully vacuous look whenever I glanced at his face.  But were you careful about what you said, and did you see Menlove?  I felt all the time that I had done wrong in letting you come; the gratification to you was not worth the risk to me.’

‘I saw her, and talked to her.  But I am certain she suspected nothing.  I enjoyed myself very much, and there was no risk at all.’

‘I am glad it is no worse news.  However, you must not go there again: upon that point I am determined.’

‘It was a good thing I did go, all the same.  I’ll tell you why when you have told me what happened to you.’

‘Nothing of importance happened to me.’

‘I expect you got to know the lord you were to meet?’

‘O yes—Lord Mountclere.’

‘And it’s dreadful how fond he is of you—quite ridiculously taken up with you—I saw that well enough.  Such an old man, too; I wouldn’t have him for the world!’

‘Don’t jump at conclusions so absurdly, Picotee.  Why wouldn’t you have him for the world?’

‘Because he is old enough to be my grandfather, and yours too.’

‘Indeed he is not; he is only middle-aged.’

‘O Berta!  Sixty-five at least.’

‘He may or may not be that; and if he is, it is not old.  He is so entertaining that one forgets all about age in connection with him.’

‘He laughs like this—“Hee-hee-hee!”’  Picotee introduced as much antiquity into her face as she could by screwing it up and suiting the action to the word.

‘This very odd thing occurred,’ said Ethelberta, to get Picotee off the track of Lord Mountclere’s peculiarities, as it seemed.  ‘I was saying to Mr. Neigh that we were going to Knollsea for a time, feeling that he would not be likely to know anything about such an out-of-the-way place, when Lord Mountclere, who was near, said, “I shall be at Enckworth Court in a few days, probably at the time you are at Knollsea.  The Imperial Archaeological Association holds its meetings in that part of Wessex this season, and Corvsgate Castle, near Knollsea, is one of the places on our list.”  Then he hoped I should be able to attend.  Did you ever hear anything so strange?  Now, I should like to attend very much, not on Lord Mountclere’s account, but because such gatherings are interesting, and I have never been to one; yet there is this to be considered, would it be right for me to go without a friend to such a place?  Another point is, that we shall live in menagerie style at Knollsea for the sake of the children, and we must do it economically in case we accept Aunt Charlotte’s invitation to Rouen; hence, if he or his friends find us out there it will be awkward for me.  So the alternative is Knollsea or some other place for us.’

‘Let it be Knollsea, now we have once settled it,’ said Picotee anxiously.  ‘I have mentioned to Faith Julian that we shall be there.’

‘Mentioned it already!  You must have written instantly.’

‘I had a few minutes to spare, and I thought I might as well write.’

‘Very well; we will stick to Knollsea,’ said Ethelberta, half in doubt.  ‘Yes—otherwise it will be difficult to see about aunt’s baptismal certificate.  We will hope nobody will take the trouble to pry into our household. .