The Third Miss St Quentin

“My mother died when I was three years old —that makes a difference,” said Ella. Her companion nodded her head as if to say she “understood,” and a picture of a harsh and unloving stepmother turning this pretty young creature out of her home crossed her mind’s eye. But she was too delicate-minded to ask any questions, and the conversation drifted off to less personal subjects. The girl was leaving England the next day; Ella never saw her again, but her words had left their impression. It was with a little shiver that lying awake in the middle of the night she recalled them. “Roughing it,” what might that not mean? Rough words and looks and tones, as well as more practical physical discomfort – nobody to care about her, whether she were happy or miserable – nobody to love her – “and I have so longed to be loved,” thought Ella. “But except poor aunty, and – yes, I believe my godmother does love me, or did, she will probably give me up in disgust now – except those two I hardly think any one has ever really loved me. Oh, Madelene, if you had only been a little loving, I would have turned to you now and – perhaps if I had been able to confide in you I would not have been so easily taken in by him, by his manner, which meant nothing when I thought it meant everything. For Madelene was wise – she did warn me; if only she had cared for me a little. But it is too late now. Such as it was, it was my home, but I have thrown it away. What would that poor girl think if she could see it? Fancy her never having had any home – ”

Ella’s pillow was wet with tears the next morning when she woke. She dreaded and yet hoped for a letter – but there was none. Mrs Ward noticed her anxious face.

“There has hardly been time for an answer from Fräulein Braune,” she said kindly, though in her heart not sorry that the girl was beginning to realise the full bearing of her rash step. “You would be the better for a little air, I think. Would you not like to go out?”

Ella glanced down the long breakfast-table.

“Is there any one who could go with me, do you think?” she asked timidly. Mrs Ward looked up rather sharply.

“Are you afraid of going out alone?” she said. “You must get used to it, my dear. You will never get on if you are so dependent.”

“I am not afraid,” replied Ella, growing very red as she spoke. “But it is just that I have never had to go out alone.”

“Ah, well – perhaps I can get some one to go with you for once. But you know we are all very busy people here.”

She spoke to one of the elder ladies, who undertook to accompany Ella. For Mrs Ward felt it right to take special care of the girl in her peculiar position. Yet she knew that it was well for her to have the practical side of the future she had chosen brought home to her. “If her people really care for her,” thought Mrs Ward, “they can easily get her to go home again. She is tiring of it already.”

But she scarcely understood the character she had to deal with.

Ella went out with Miss Lister, and though the walk was only to a music shop where her companion had to choose a large selection of “pieces” for her pupils, and though the day was so cold and gloomy as to suggest impending fog, the mere fact of being out of doors and walking quickly raised her impressionable spirits again. She was in a decidedly less conciliatory mood than before going out, and it was with a heightened colour and resolutely compressed lips that she received the parlour-maid’s announcement that a lady had come to see her, and was waiting in the drawing-room.

“Madelene, no doubt,” thought Ella with a rush of curiously mingled feeling, among which considerably to her own surprise she was conscious that there vibrated a thrill of something very like delight.

“Do I care for her, after all?” she thought. But before she had time to answer the question, other sensations followed. Madelene had come to urge her return, Madelene who knew, or at least suspected the root of her bitterest suffering; Madelene who had planned and schemed for Ermine regardless of the poor little half-sister! Ella hardened her heart.

“No,” she thought, “I will not go home. No. She may beg and pray me to do so, I will not. Not at least for a long, long time, till I have got accustomed to it all – to Ermine and Philip – or at least till I have learnt to hide what I feel. And when they see how firm I am they will have to give in and let me go to that German place. I don’t care what it is or how rough it is if only I can get away.”

She looked and felt cool and determined enough, as, after a moment’s pause outside the drawing-room door, she turned the handle and entered. Only the two bright red spots on her cheeks betrayed any inward disturbance.

“Madelene,” she began at once, before her eyes had taken in any details of the figure that rose from the sofa at the sound of the door opening. But in an instant she stopped, the words on her lips died away as a keen dart of disappointment sped through her.

“No, no, my darling, not Madelene. Only your poor old auntie,” and in a moment she was enfolded in Mrs Burton’s embrace. “Oh, Ella, my dear, I have been so miserable about you ever since Sir – ever since your sister sent to me! Oh, my child, you see how it has ended. Why did you leave me as you did? All might have been happy and peaceful. Mr Burton’s heart is really such a kind one – it is only manner, my dear. You will get to see it is only manner, I can assure you – ”

But Ella calmly disengaged herself from Mrs Burton, with an unreasonable feeling of irritation and impatience.

“I thought it was Madelene,” she said. “I thought – ”

“You were nervous about meeting her, my darling. Of course it was only natural. She has never understood you – that is clear. But it is all going to be happy now; you will see – all’s well that ends well, you know Ellie.”

“Have they sent you for me? Do they want me to go home?” she exclaimed. “For I – I had reason for what I did – I am not a child. I cannot consent to go back – I – ”

“No, no, of course not. How could you wish to go back, where I can see and feel you have been so misunderstood and unhappy? Oh, no, dear, you may make your mind quite easy on that score. You don’t think your poor auntie would have come on such an errand – to persuade you to go back to prison again, for prison indeed it must have been. Oh, no, even Madelene saw that – there was no question of your returning there.”

No question of her returning there! She had cut the bonds then only too effectually – a sharp, yet chill pain seemed for an instant to take the girl’s breath away.

“They don’t want me back again, then?” she said. And then without giving her aunt time to speak, she answered her question herself. “No, of course not – how could they? I heard it with my own ears; they wanted to be rid of me.”

But the last few words were too low for her aunt to catch.

“How could they indeed, knowing how unhappy they had made you, my darling?” said Mrs Burton. “No, no, I would never have come on such an errand!”

Ella looked up.

“Then did they not send you? How did you know? I don’t understand,” she said in a dull, bewildered way. “I am tired, I think, aunty, and the not expecting to see you, you know. Please tell me all about it; I will sit here quietly and listen.”

“My darling,” Mrs Burton repeated, possessing herself of Ella’s hand as she spoke. It lay passive in her grasp for a minute or two, but before long the girl managed to draw it away.

“Tell me, aunt, please,” she repeated. “I have got out of those petting sort of ways, I suppose,” she said to herself. “I wish aunt Phillis wasn’t quite so caressing.”

Chapter Nineteen

“A Marriage is Arranged.”

This was what Mrs Burton had to tell. On the evening her niece had left Coombesthorpe she had been startled by a telegram from Madelene, inquiring if Ella were with her, to which of course she was obliged to reply in the negative.

“I was not so very frightened as I would have been had I not that very morning got your letter asking me to invite you for a visit. Fortunately Mr Burton was out when the telegram came,” she went on, “so I did not need to tell him about it – it is just as well – I don’t think he need hear more than that you are coming on a visit – oh, but I am running on without explaining,” seeing Ella raise her eyebrows with a look of surprise. “I must tell you that all the next day and the day after, I kept thinking you would walk in, my dear, and when you did not come and there was no letter I began to be really frightened. I was just making up my mind to tell Mr Burton all about it and start for Coombesthorpe when last night to my astonishment there came a message – ”

“A telegram?” Ella interrupted.

“No, neither a telegram nor a letter. A message brought by a messenger from your sister Madelene,” said Mrs Burton, with a little confusion of manner which did not escape Ella’s sharp eyes, “as she could not come herself – ”

“And why could she not come herself? If she had really cared – ” interrupted Ella with a little choke in her voice.

“And your father so ill! You forget, Ella.”

“Papa ill – he was much better?” Ella exclaimed with a little start.

“But he had a sort of attack the evening you left. Did you not know? Oh, no of course, how could you. He had had a good deal to agitate him that day, it appears, and at first they were very much alarmed, but it was more nervousness than anything else, and he is better now, but he won’t hear of Madelene leaving him. She must have had rather a time of it, I fancy – what with the fright about you and all. But I dare say it will do her no harm to be shaken out of her apathy a little.”

Ella’s face had grown very grave. Poor Madelene! Had she been frightened about her – Ella – then, and Ermine away?

“Was it about my – about me that papa was upset, do you think, aunt?” she asked.

“Not only that. Si – the – I understood that Madelene made the best of it to the Colonel,” said Mrs Burton, “took the blame upon herself of some misunderstanding. You will tell me all about it of course. The least Madelene could do was to blame herself, I should say! And now, darling, that I have explained things, supposing you get ready? I have seen Mrs Ward and settled everything with her.”

“But I don’t understand in the least,” said Ella, “you haven’t explained anything, aunt Phillis. What did Madelene’s messenger say to you? Had she not seen Fräulein Braune? Do you not know that I am only waiting here for their consent – a nominal form that Mrs Ward insists on – to my going to Germany as – as a sort of governess?”

Mrs Burton gave a gasp. Yes – she knew it all, but she had been warned to act with the greatest caution and tact and to avoid as much as possible all irritating discussion. And just as she was flattering herself that she had done so, and managed it all so beautifully, here Ella faces round upon her, and nothing has been done or settled at all!

“My dearest child,” she exclaimed, “you cannot seriously think such a step would be allowed? Of course Madelene has seen Fräulein Braune and had a long talk with her. But it can’t be – your father would not hear of it. And think of the scandal!”

“I can’t help that,” said Ella quickly. “Of course people would talk of it – the daughter of a very rich man like my father, going out as a governess, would naturally make people talk. But I will not go back, and so as I won’t do what they wish I do not ask for any money – not even the money that when I am of age would be legally mine. I am quite willing to work for myself. I told Madelene, at least I wrote it, that I would give up my share, but I would not stay at home.”

“You wrote that to Madelene about giving up your share,” repeated Mrs Burton with a curious expression in her face, an expression which Ella did not understand.

“Of course I did. What is money without affection?” said Ella, rearing her little head superbly.

Mrs Burton hesitated. They were treading on delicate ground, ground on which she herself had been specially warned to tread with the greatest caution, and she grew nervous.

“My dearest child,” she began after a moment’s silence. “I have not said that your father insists on your returning to Coombesthorpe, even though he refuses his consent to your going to Germany. On the contrary he does not want you to go back to them. He seems to think it better not.”

“And Madelene?” asked Ella sharply. “What does she wish?”

“Personally, as far as I could make out, she was most anxious for you to go back. She was suffering terribly, so – that may have been exaggerated – at not being able to come herself to you, but she gave in to your father’s decision.”

“And what was that?”

“That you should come back to me, darling. It was what you wished yourself when you wrote last week,” said Mrs Burton anxiously.

“Yes, but things have changed since then. I don’t want any temporary plan. I want to – to be independent for good. I want never to return there, to Coombesthorpe,” said Ella, almost fiercely.

Mrs Burton groaned. What was she to do or say? She had undertaken the mission cheerfully and hopefully, confident in Ella’s affection for herself and, judging naturally enough by the letter she had so recently received, without any misgiving but that her niece would be ready and glad to return to her care, once she was assured of a welcome.

“It will be all right, you will see,” she had said to Miss St Quentin’s “messenger;” “she would have come straight to me, I know, but for her fears that Mr Burton might not be willing to receive her. And that I can satisfy her about.”

But Ella’s unexpected attitude set her quite at fault. She put her hand in her pocket to draw out her handkerchief, for she really felt as if she were going to cry, and with a sudden exclamation of relief she drew it out again, with not her handkerchief but a letter. It was addressed to Ella.

“I am forgetting this,” said Mrs Burton, “perhaps it may have more effect than my words.”

The writing was Madelene’s. A slight flush rose to Ella’s pale face as she saw it, and without speaking she opened the envelope.

“My dear Ella,” the letter began, —

“I have been completely miserable about you. I would have set off at once in search of you, had it been possible to leave papa. Thanks, to” and here some word was erased, “inquiries I was able to make without raising any gossip, I satisfied myself that you were in safe hands, and Fräulein Braune has now kindly come to see me herself. We cannot consent to your going to Germany; all I can do at present is to beg you to go to Mrs Burton’s in the meantime. I cannot tell you how unhappy I am that you should have overheard and somehow so terribly misconstrued what I said to Philip in the drawing-room. I do not altogether understand you even now, and I know you do not understand me. I can only pray that some day it may be different. Forgive the pain I have – oh, so unintentionally – caused you. If Ermine were here I would beg her to write instead of me – she would know better what to say, and I think you trust her. I shall know no peace till I hear that you are safe with your aunt. I have been almost overwhelmed these last few days and I scarcely know what I write. Papa is better, and I have not allowed him to blame you. I have made him see it has been my fault. Let me hear you are with Mrs Burton.

“Your affectionate sister, —

“Madelene.”

Ella kept her eyes fixed on the paper for some time after she had read it; she did not want her aunt to see the tears, which rose unbidden and which with a strong effort she repressed again. When she looked up it was with a calm, almost impassive expression.

“I will go back with you, aunt Phillis,” she said. “I do not wish to make an exposé of our family affairs by attempting to defy my father. I will go back with you in the meantime.”

“My darling!” Mrs Burton exclaimed. “I knew you would not be obstinate. And you will see – Mr Burton will be delighted to have you with us. You must feel you are really coming home, my own dear child.”

“Poor aunty,” said Ella half affectionately, half patronisingly. But she smiled graciously enough, and Mrs Burton was satisfied.

Ella contrived to say a word or two in private to Mrs Ward before she left. She thanked her for her kindness and added, —

“You must not think I have given up my plan, Mrs Ward. I had to give in in the meantime, but when I am of age, or sooner perhaps, you will probably hear of me again.”

The matron smiled.

“I shall always be pleased to hear of you, Miss St Quentin,” she answered. “But not as wanting to be a governess, I hope. Try to be happy and useful at home. There is no place like it – except in very exceptional circumstances. And then there are so many women who must work and find it very difficult to do so. I am always sorry to see their ranks increased unnecessarily.”

Ella seemed rather struck by this remark.

“I had never thought of it that way,” she said. It was not till her aunt and she were ensconsed in a comfortable railway carriage by themselves that she ventured upon the question she had been all along burning to ask.

“Aunt Phillis,” she began, “have you nothing more to tell me? Did – did Madelene’s messenger say nothing more?”

“What do you mean, my dear?” said Mrs Burton with manifest uneasiness.

“I am almost sure I know who the messenger was,” Ella went on, “and under the circumstances it was, I think, really kind. But you don’t want to tell me, so I won’t ask. Only – did this mysterious person not tell you any news – anything about Ermine?”

Mrs Burton looked up with evident relief. This was plainly a safe tack.

“About Ermine?” she said with perfect candour; “no, my dear, nothing at all – except – yes, I think – that was said – that she is coming home immediately; she must indeed be home already, I fancy.”

“And that was all?”

“Yes, all, I assure you. What news did you expect?”

“I can’t tell you,” Ella replied. “We shall be hearing it before long no doubt.”

Then she relapsed into silence, and Mrs Burton in her own mind began to put two and two together. Could Ella’s determination to leave her home have anything to do with the handsome young cousin of her sisters’ – Madelene’s “messenger,” as the girl had shrewdly surmised? Could it be that he had been playing a double game, and making the poor child believe he cared for her when in reality engaged, or in some tacit way plighted, to one of her sisters? For Mrs Burton had heard some gossip more than once about Sir Philip Cheynes and the Coombesthorpe heiresses. If it were indeed so it would explain all. And yet – it was difficult to believe anything of the kind of the young man.

“He seemed so frank and chivalrous,” thought Ella’s aunt, “and he spoke in such an entirely brotherly way of Madelene and Ermine. And they all seem to have unshed to make Ella happy. The keeping from her the true state of affairs about the property was kindly done. And I am sure Sir Philip Cheynes was genuinely concerned and anxious about Ella. He really seemed terribly sorry. I do wish she had never left me; and to think that poor Marcus’s money is all gone, and that there is nothing for her! If I had known it, I would never have married again, never, kind as Mr Burton is! I do hope he and Ella will take to each other, and I think they will, his best comes out to any one in trouble.”

It was very strange to Ella to find herself again – and after the lapse of comparatively speaking so short a time – under her aunt’s roof, or to speak more correctly, under Mr Burton’s. She would have shrunk from meeting the worthy gentleman a short time before, but late events had changed her greatly. She was quiet and gentle enough now, so much so indeed that her aunt and her husband agreed that they would be glad to see a spark or two of her old spirit.

“How you and she used to fight,” Mrs Burton exclaimed half regretfully.

“And now,” her husband added, “she is as quiet and mild as a lamb. I don’t like it, Phillis – no, my dear, I don’t like it. I take blame to myself for having let her leave you, and if there is anything I can do to make up for it, I will do so. She has such pretty, thoughtful ways too. Did you notice how she sees that my paper is always folded ready for me? Her father must be hard to please if he was not satisfied with her.”

It was true. Ella was much softened; her sore heart was grateful for kindness, and she was ashamed to recall her childish petulance and impertinence to her aunt’s husband. But kind as the Burtons were to her, there were often times when she regretted that she had not been allowed to take her own way; for life was dull and dreary to her. She missed the companionship of her sisters, little as she had prized it while with them. Madelene’s gentleness and refinement, Ermine’s merry humour and bright intellect had become more to her than she had in the least realised. “If only, oh, if only they had loved me a little,” she repeated to herself.

Time passed – slowly enough to Ella; at the end of a week she felt as if she had been a month with her aunt; at the end of a fortnight she could have believed a year had gone by since she left Coombesthorpe; before the first month was over the whole of the past year began to seem to her like a strangely mingled dream of pain and pleasure. She wrote to Madelene, gently and regretfully, but vaguely, and Madelene who had been longing for this letter, and building some hopes upon it, felt saddened and discouraged. She handed it to Ermine, who read it carefully.

“Can you understand her?” asked Miss St Quentin.

Ermine knitted her brows.

“Not altogether,” she said. “But, Maddie, I don’t despair yet of things coming right somehow. I suppose,” she added with a little smile, “when one is happy one’s self, it is easier to feel hopeful about other people, even – ” but here she hesitated; “even about you and Bernard.”

“Oh, Ermine, do leave that subject alone,” said Madelene.

“Next week I shall write to Ella,” said Ermine, “papa will let me send a message from him I feel sure.”

Ella had been fully four weeks at Mrs Burton’s when Ermine’s letter came. It was a mild day in March, one of the occasional early spring days which are not false to their name; Ella had persuaded her aunt to let her go for a walk by herself, and with many injunctions as to the direction she was to take, and the roads and paths she was not to wander from, Mrs Burton had consented. In spite of herself the fresh, yet soft air, the sensation of “promise” in the birds’ chirpings, and the few all but invisible green specks in the hedges, still more the discovery of a lingering snowdrop or two, and of something not unlike buds here and there among the primrose tufts, gave her a thrill of keen pleasure and invigoration.

“I wish I could go away – quite away, ever so far,” she said to herself. “I should like to make a fresh start and show them all I am not the spoilt, self-willed child they have thought me. I wish they would write and tell me about Ermine’s engagement, it must be openly announced by now. I do wish they would tell me of it, and then I think I would take courage and write to dear godmother. I am afraid she is very angry with me, and no wonder. It must have seemed very unnatural to her that if I was in trouble at home I did not go to her, when she was so sympathising about my thinking Madelene didn’t care for me. But Cheynesacre was the last, the very last place I could have gone to.”

She was crossing the wide breezy downs not far from Mrs Burton’s house on the outskirts of the town. Already the short afternoon was closing in, and the colours in the sky, softened by the wintry haze, announced the approaching sunset. Ella stood still to admire.

“How lovely it would be just now at home,” she thought; the word slipping out half-unconsciously, “I do love the real country, and yet when I was there with them I used to fancy I longed for streets and shops. I must have changed – yes, I am sure I have changed. But I am very babyish still. I do feel this afternoon somehow as if I were going to be happy – and yet I don’t know why.”

She hastened on.

“Aunty will be getting frightened,” she thought. And as if in reply to the thought, suddenly just emerging on to the open ground, she caught sight of Mrs Burton’s familiar figure. She was walking quickly, more quickly than usual, for aunt Phillis was stout and short and not very much given to exertion. Ella’s conscience reproached her as she perceived that the good lady was panting for breath and considerably redder in the face than usual.