Out in the Forty-Five Part 37

I turned to Miss Newton with my eyes full, as Annas rose from the harp.

The expression of her face was a curious mixture of feelings.

"Was ever such a song sung in Mrs Desborough's drawing-room!" she cried. "She will think it no better than a Methodist hymn. I am afraid Miss Keith has done herself no good with her hostess."

"But Grandmamma would never--" I said, hesitatingly. "Annas Keith's connections are--"

"I advise you not to be too sure what she could never," answered Miss Newton, with a little capable nod. "Mrs Desborough would scarce be civil to the Princess herself if she sang a pious song in her drawing-room on a reception evening."

"But it was charming!" I said.

Miss Newton shrugged her shoulders. "The same things do not charm everybody," said she. "It seemed to me no better than that Methodist doggerel. The latter half, at least; the beginning promised better."

When we went up to bed, Annas came to me as I stood folding my shoulder-knots, and laid a hand on each of my shoulders from behind.

"Cary, we must say 'good-bye,' I think. I scarce expected it. But Mrs Desborough's face, when my song was ended, had 'good-bye' in it."

"O Annas!" said I. "Surely she would never be angry with you for a mere song! Your connections are so good, and Grandmamma thinks so much of connections."

"If my song had only had a few wicked words in it," replied Annas, with that slight curl of her lip which I was learning to understand, "I dare say she would have recovered it by to-morrow. And if my connections had been poor people,--or better, Whigs,--or better still, disreputable rakes--she might have got over that. But a pious song, and a sisterly connection of spirit with Mr Whitefield and the Scottish Covenanters.

No, Cary, she will not survive that. I never yet knew a worldly woman forgive that one crime of crimes--Calvinism. Anything else! Don't you see why, my dear? It sets her outside. And she knows that I know she is outside. Therefore I am unforgivable. However absurd the idea may be in reality, it is to her mind equivalent to my setting her outside.

She is unable to recognise that she has chosen to stay without, and I am guilty of nothing worse than unavoidably seeing that she is there. That I should be able to see it is unpardonable. I am sorry it should have happened just now; but I suppose it was to be."

"Are you going to tell her so?" I asked, wondering what Annas meant.

"I expect she will tell me before to-morrow is over," said Annas, with a peculiar smile.

"But what made you choose that song, then? I thought it so pretty."

"I chose the one I knew, to which I supposed she would object the least," replied Annas. "She asked me to sing."

When we came down to breakfast, the next morning, I felt that something was in the air. Grandmamma sat so particularly straight up, and my Aunt Dorothea looked so prim, and my Uncle Charles fidgetted about between the fire and the window, like a man who knew of something coming which he wanted to have over. My Aunt Dorothea poured the chocolate in silence. When all were served, Grandmamma took a pinch of snuff.

"Miss Keith!"

"Madam!"

"Do you think the air of the Isle of Wight wholesome at this season of the year?"

"So much so, Madam, that I am inclined to propose we should resume our journey thither."

Grandmamma took another pinch.

"I will beg you, then, to make my compliments to Sir James, and tell him how much entertained I have been by your visit, and especially by your performance on the harp. You have a fine finger, Miss Keith, and your choice of a song is unexceptionable."

"I thank you for the compliment, Madam, which I shall be happy to make to Sir James."

There was nothing but dead silence after that until breakfast was over.

When we were back in our room, I broke down. To lose both Annas and Flora was too much.

"O Annas! why did you take the bull by the horns?" I cried.

She laughed. "It is always the best way, Cary, when you see him put his head down!"

Annas and Flora are gone, and I feel like one shipwrecked. I wander about the house, and do not know what to do. I might read, but Grandmamma has no books except dreary romances in huge volumes, which date, I suppose, from the time when she was a girl at school; and my Uncle Charles has none but books about farming and etiquette. I have looked up and mended all my clothes, and cannot find any sewing to do.

I wrote to Sophy only last week, and they will not expect another letter for a while. I wish something pleasant would happen. The only thing I can think of to do is to go in a chair to visit Hatty and the Bracewells, and I am afraid that would be something unpleasant. I have not spoken to Mr Crossland, but I do not like the look of him; and Mrs Crossland is a stranger, and I am tired of strangers. They so seldom seem to turn out pleasant people.

Just as I had written that, as if to complete my vexation, my Aunt Dorothea looked in and told me to put on my cherry satin this evening, for Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter were expected. If there be a creature I particularly wish not to see, he is sure to come! I wish I knew why things are always going wrong in this world! There are two or three people that I would give a good deal for, and I am quite sure they will not be here; and I should think Cecilia dear at three-farthings, with Sir Anthony thrown in for the penny.

I wish I were making jumb.a.l.l.s in the kitchen at Brocklebank, and could have a good talk with my Aunt Kezia afterwards! Somehow, I never cared much about it when I could, and now that I cannot, I feel as if I would give anything for it. Are things always like that? Does nothing in this world ever happen just as one would like it in every point?

In my cherry-coloured satin, with white shoulder-knots, a blue pompoon in my hair, and my new hoop (I detest these hoops; they are horrid), I came down to the withdrawing room, and cast my eye round the chamber.

Grandmamma, in brocaded black silk, sat where she always does, at the side of the fire, and my Uncle Charles--who for a wonder was at home-- and my Aunt Dorothea were receiving the people as they came in. The Bracewells were there already, and Hatty, and Mr Crossland, and a middle-aged lady, who I suppose was his mother, and Miss Newton, and a few more whose faces and names I know. Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter came in just after I got there.

What has come over Hatty? She does not look like the same girl.

Grandmamma can never talk of her glazed red cheeks now. She is whiter almost than I am, and so thin! I am quite sure she is either ill, or unhappy, or both. But I cannot ask her, for somehow we never meet each other except for a minute. Several times I have thought, and the thought grows upon me, that somebody does not want Hatty and me to have a quiet talk with each other. At first I thought it was Hatty who kept away from me herself, but I am beginning to think now that somebody else is doing it. I do not trust that young Mr Crossland, not one bit.

Yet, why he should wish to keep us apart, I cannot even imagine. I made up my mind to get hold of Hatty and ask her when she were going home; I think she would be safer there than here. But it was a long, long while before I could reach her. So many people seemed to be hemming her in.

I sat on an ottoman in the corner, watching my opportunity, when all at once a voice called me back to something else.

"Dear little Cary, I have been so wishing for a chat with you."

Hatty used to say that you may always know something funny is coming when you see a cat wag her tail. I had come to the conclusion that whenever one person addressed me with endearing phrases, something sinister was coming. I looked up this time: I did not courtesy and walk away, as I did on the last occasion. I wanted to avoid an open quarrel.

If she had sought me out after that, I could not avoid it. But to speak to me as if nothing had happened!--how could the woman be so brazen as that?

I looked up, and saw a large gold-coloured fan, most beautifully painted with birds of all the hues of the rainbow, from over which those tawny eyes were glancing at me; and for one moment I wished that hating people were not wicked.

"For what purpose, Madam?" I replied.

"Dear child, you are angry with me," she said, and the soft, warm, gloved hand pressed mine, before I could draw it away. "It is so natural, for of course you do not understand. But it makes me very sorry, for I loved you so much."

O serpent, how beautiful you are! But you are a serpent still.

"Did you?" I said, and my voice sounded hard and cold to my own ears.

"I take the liberty of doubting whether you and I give that name to the same thing."

The light gleamed and flashed, softened and darkened, then shot out again from those wonderful, beautiful eyes.

"And you won't forgive me?" she said, in a soft sad voice. How she can govern that voice, to be sure!

"Forgive you? Yes," I answered. "But trust you? No. I think never again, my Lady Parmenter."

"You will be sorry some day that you did not."

Was it a regret? was it a threat? The voice conveyed neither, and might have stood for both. I looked up again, but she had vanished, and where she had been the moment before stood Mr Raymond.

"A penny for your thoughts, Miss Courtenay."

"You shall have my past thoughts, if you please," said I, trying to speak lightly. "I would rather not sell my present ones at the price."