Etheldreda the Ready Part 14

But this was not at all what Dreda desired, and her voice took a tone of keen personal entreaty as she replied:

"Oh, please don't go away! Mother can finish the dressing and be back in ten minutes from now, and I've ordered tea, and my sister will give it to you while you wait. We have so few callers, and it's such a dull, wet day. Do _please_ stay and have tea!"

At that the smile gave place to a laugh. Mr Seton found it altogether delightful to be welcomed in so appreciative a fashion, and told himself that it was a treat, indeed, to meet a girl so natural and unaffected.

He made no further demur, but when Dreda left the room sat down in a comfortable chair and stretched his long legs towards the fire, smiling to himself with obvious enjoyment of his recollections. It was indeed a grey wintry afternoon, and he was by no means averse to sitting by this cheery fire, looking forward to tea and further conversation with "Miss Golden-locks."

And the sister who was to entertain him meantime--that must be Miss Saxon, the grown-up daughter of whom he had heard, though he did not know her by sight. He did not care for grown-up girls as a rule, they were too self-conscious and self-engrossed--schoolgirls were far more fun. Then the door creaked once more, and he started to his feet to behold a square, stolid form advancing towards him, and to receive a pompous greeting from Maud, who had waited only until Dreda was safely out of the house, and had then hurried into the drawing-room determined to enjoy "her turn" before Rowena arrived.

"How do you do? My mother will soon be here. My sister has gone to fetch her. I hope you are quite well."

"Perfectly so, thank you. I hope you are the same. To whom have I the pleasure of speaking?" inquired Mr Seton, with a sudden change of demeanour which said much for his powers of adaptability. With Dreda he had been all candour and friendliness; confronted with Maud he became at once a solemn model of decorum.

"I am Maud--Maud Saxon. We are all named to match, because we are Saxons by name as well as appearance. You are the Mr Seton who lives in the grey house at Fenley. I have seen you on the roads riding a grey cob with a white nose."

"Very probably. He is a great treasure. Are you interested in horses?

Perhaps you ride yourself!"

"I did once, but I don't now. We're _rejuiced_!" announced Maud, rolling out the new word with an enjoyment at which the hearer had much ado to retain his composure. "We used to keep five horses, and ride in the Row, but horses cost too much now. Stables and grooms, and things to eat, and, of course, they may die. We've got nothing now except the car, and that saves money, for you can bring home the stores from the station, and drive Dreda to school, and save the fares."

"Just so," said Mr Seton dryly. "Gars are most useful. Especially in the country." Maud had taken possession of a chair at the opposite side of the fireplace, and as he looked at her square, solemn face, he prayed that it would not be long before Mrs Saxon and her elder daughter returned. "Do you also go to school?"

"No," Maud pursed her lips with an injured air. "Dreda was going to a finishing school in Paris this term, and I had a resident governess.

Then--we were `rejuiced,' and she had to go to a cheaper one at Horsham.

That was her _trial_. There are horrid girls there, and she's misunderstood, and when she came home she was so quenched you wouldn't know her, but after a day she was just as bad as ever. And our governess went away, and Rowena teaches me, to save expenses. She hates it, and so do I. She hasn't enough patience for training the young."

Guy Seton privately thought that quite a large stock of patience would be required to train this particular specimen of the young. He was embarra.s.sed by the personal note of Maud's confessions, and cast about in his mind for a means of changing the conversation. The elder sister!

Was she in the house? Could she be expected to appear?

"Is Miss Saxon at home? I should like to see her before I go."

Maud nodded solemnly.

"She's coming! She's changing her dress. She had on a flannel blouse, and rushed upstairs to put on her best frock when she heard you were here."

"You little wretch!" cried Guy Seton, mentally. The colour mounted to his face in mingled anger against the offender, and sympathy for the absent sister whose efforts on his behalf had been so ruthlessly betrayed, but before he had time to reply in words a sudden sound from behind attracted his attention, and he turned, to behold the blue-robed figure of Rowena standing in the doorway, her face white and set, her wide reproachful eyes fixed on her sister's face!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

It was an awkward moment for all three occupants of the room. The young man stood, flushed and silent, looking from one sister to the other, conscious of an increasing anger towards Maud, and a kindly and chivalrous sympathy for the confusion of her sister. Poor girl! She was too young, had too little experience of the world to carry off the situation with a laugh. A young woman of society would have seized the opportunity for cementing a friendship, would have swept gaily forward holding out her skirts, and laughingly demanding his approval, but Rowena could do none of these things, her utmost efforts could succeed only in hiding the signs of confusion beneath a frosty coldness of demeanour.

How unnatural was this manner was plainly demonstrated by the behaviour of the offender herself. At the first moment of Rowena's appearance Maud had appeared embarra.s.sed indeed, but with a fearful joy mingling with her shame, the joy of one who has greatly dared, and is prepared to endure the consequences; but when Rowena swept forward, calm and stately, when she seated herself and began to talk polite nothings, with never so much as a word or a glance in her own direction, then, visibly and unmistakably, terror fell upon Maud's childish heart--she made a bee-line for the door, and slunk hastily out of sight.

"Little wretch!" soliloquised Guy Seton once more. "Lands me into this pleasant position, and then sneaks away, and leaves me to fight it out alone! Poor little girl!"--this last epithet obviously did _not_ refer to Maud! "Hard lines to arrive at such an awkward moment. Furious, of course, with the whole three--the child for speaking, with me for hearing, with herself for having given the opportunity! Such a pretty frock, too; and she is ripping in it! Jolly good of her to have taken the trouble, but now I suppose she'll hate the sight of me, and bear me a lasting grudge. Hope to goodness Golden-locks is not long in coming back!"

"Quite a chilly wind. We are so very exposed and open in this house!"

Rowena was saying in high, artificial tones. She hailed the arrival of tea with evident relief, and the conversation flowed on a trifle more easily when there was something definite to do; nevertheless both heaved sighs of joy as the sound of Dreda's high, cheery voice was heard from without, and she entered the room by her mother's side.

Guy Seton privately expected Rowena to follow Maud's example and quietly disappear, so he admired all the more the pretty little air of dignity with which she stuck to her post and forced herself to take her natural part in the conversation.

"Plucky little girl! Stands to her guns, and won't allow herself to run away," he told himself approvingly, as he proceeded to unfold the object of his visit.

"We are arranging a small frolic for Friday in the shape of a paper- chase. Everybody within five miles is coming on horseback or bicycles, as suits them best, and we ought to have a good run. We start at eleven prompt from our gates, and return for a scramble luncheon at about two.

I hope you will all come!"

His glance wandered from Dreda to Rowena--the first he felt sure would accept with enthusiasm; the latter he feared would politely refuse; but Rowena smiled again, her set meaningless little smile, and allowed a subdued murmur of thanks to mingle with Dreda's rhapsodies. It was cleverly done, for without being in any way committed she had escaped drawing attention upon herself by a refusal; nevertheless as he met her eye, and held her limp, unresponsive hand in his at parting, Guy Seton felt more convinced than ever that whoever else might honour his paper chase, Miss Rowena Saxon would not be among the number!

He walked down the drive twirling his stick in a threatening manner, his face grim and set. It was bad luck indeed to make such a bad beginning with one of the prettiest and most attractive-looking girls he had ever met, and a near neighbour into the bargain. He had a momentary vision of Rowena spinning along on a bicycle, her fair face flushed with exercise, her sweet eyes alight with interest and excitement; and of a sudden it seemed a dull, senseless thing to fly over the country-side, with ordinary everyday neighbours and friends. _How_ ordinary and everyday they seemed, when contrasted with Rowena's stately young grace!

And now she was prejudiced against him for ever, and at this very moment was probably denouncing her sister's stupidity, and vowing never willingly to meet him again!

Rowena, however, was doing nothing of the kind. Calm and composed, she sat on beside her mother and Dreda, and declared that the idea of a paper-chase failed to attract her, and that she had no intention of tiring herself out, and running needless risks by riding breathlessly across country on so stupid and frivolous an aim! Mrs Saxon was both puzzled and disappointed, while Dreda expostulated in her usual violent fashion.

"Rowena, how mad! How idiotic! What are you raving about! What's the use of grumbling and growling because there's nothing to do, and no one to see you, and then the moment anyone appears--such a dear, too, with such sweet, twinkly eyes!--to behave like a cold-blooded frog, mincing your words, and looking as if you were made of ice, and then saying you won't go, when it's a chance of no end of fun, and seeing everyone there is to be seen! Idiotic!"

"Dreda! Dreda, dear, really is it necessary to be quite so violent?"

Mrs Saxon shook her head in smiling reproach, and Rowena tilted her chin in air, but Dreda refused to be suppressed.

"Oh, mum, dear, _let_ me speak as I like! We have to be so proper at school. You can't say a word of slang while the govs. are about, and ordinary language is so _tame_. You can't make a really good effect with ordinary words. Suppose I said to Rowena: `Your conduct, my dear, is inconsistent, with your sentiments as expressed in conversation,' she wouldn't mind a bit, but when I call her a frog she's furious. Look how she's wagging her head! You can always tell by that when she's in a bait."

"Really, Dreda!" cried Rowena in her turn. She rose from her seat, and sailed haughtily out of the room, disdaining to bandy words with so outspoken a combatant. In truth, she herself was bitterly disappointed in being forced--as she thought--to refuse Mr Seton's invitation, the possibilities of which appealed to her even more strongly than to her sister. To meet a party of young people, to wheel gaily along in the brisk, keen air, laughing and jesting as in the old happy days; to return tired and hungry to the hospitable scramble luncheon--to sit around the fire rested and refreshed, feeling as if those few hours of intimate a.s.sociation had been more successful in cementing friendships than many months of ordinary a.s.sociation. Oh, how tempting _it_ sounded! What a blessed change from the level monotony of the last few months! And she needs must give it up, and stay quietly at home, darning stockings, or writing orders to the "Stores," because Maud's blundering tongue has laid her dignity so low, that everything else must needs be sacrificed to its preservation! _Rowena is putting on her best dress_--_she had on a flannel blouse, and she ran to change it because you were here_! One would need to be nineteen once more to realise the shame, the horror, the distress with which poor Rowena recalled those thoughtless words! She pressed her hands against her cheeks, and gave a little groan of distress. It was characteristic of her that the one thing she now asked was that no one else should know of her humiliation; her mother might remonstrate, and Dreda declaim to her heart's content, but nothing on earth should induce her to disclose the real reason of her refusal. As for Maud, having done the mischief, she might be trusted to keep quiet for her own sake; and even with her, Rowena would have kept silence if she had been allowed. Beyond an added touch of dignity, there was no change in her manner towards her younger sister, but, strange to say, the culprit was by no means satisfied to escape so easily. Maud suffered from an insatiable desire to be observed, and--so to speak--live in the public eye. If she could be observed with admiration, so much the better, but given a choice between being disgraced or ignored, she would not have hesitated for the fraction of a moment. Better a hundred times to be scolded and denounced than to be pa.s.sed by in silence as if one were a stick or a stone. So it happened that when Rowena treated her with stately indifference, Maud found it impossible to keep silent.

"You might as well say it out!" she declared, wriggling about in her seat, and pouting her lips with an air of offence. "I hate people who bottle things up when all the time you see them fizzling inside. I suppose you're furious with me about what I said."

Rowena drooped her eyelids, and smiled a smile of haughty detachment.

"It is a matter of perfect indifference to me _what_ you say."

"It was quite true!"

"Perfectly true. I should be the last person in the world to accuse you of imagination."

"You _were_ furious. You went white with rage, and he saw it as well as me. Now, I suppose you'll tell mother, and stop me going to the chase."

"I should not dream of interfering with your plans. It is a matter of perfect indifference to me whether you go or stay."

"But,"--Maud's eyes positively bulged with excitement--"I might say something else. You never know."

"Possibly you might. What then? Do you really imagine, my dear Maud, that anyone notices what _you_ say!"

Maud wriggled and spluttered, trying in vain to think of something scathing to say in return. Compared with this lofty indifference the most violent denunciations would have been enjoyable. "n.o.body noticed what she said!" Rowena could not have launched an arrow which would have rankled more bitterly. For the remaining hours of that day Maud crept about with a melancholy hang-dog expression, taking little or no part in the general conversation.

The next morning Rowena held firmly to her decision, and the two younger girls were obliged to start without her, Maud unfeignedly relieved, Dreda irritated and perplexed. Something must have happened to account for so unreasonable a change of front, something that had been said or done during that quarter of an hour during which she herself had been absent from the drawing-room. So much was certain, but what could it be? Rowena refused to be questioned, and Dreda was all unsuspicious of the fact that Maud had ventured to interview the visitor on her own account, and so had no suspicions in her direction. The first doubt arose when Guy Seton shook hands with both sisters as with old friends; this fact, combined with Maud's blushing discomfiture, gave Dreda a flash of insight, but for the moment she was more occupied with the young man's very evident disappointment at Rowena's absence.

"Is Miss Saxon not coming?"

"No. I'm so sorry. She sent apologies."

"Is she quite well?"