The Third Miss St Quentin

“Oh, aunty,” she exclaimed, “I’m so sorry. Have I stayed too long?”

For a moment or two Mrs Burton could not get her breath to reply, instead of speaking she held out a letter – it was addressed to Ella in Ermine’s writing.

“I couldn’t wait till you came in. I was so eager to tell you. I felt so excited,” panted the good lady at last. “I am so pleased and I am sure it will bring things round. Madelene has written to me, that is how I know. I do think it very nice of her. And they have – your father and they have invited us to the wedding – Mr Burton and me. It is very gratifying,” and Aunt Phillis beamed with complacency.

Ella had taken the letter in silence. But she had grown deadly pale. It had come then – the blow which she had been vaguely anticipating; which she had – how mistakenly she now saw – come to believe she thoroughly realised, had fallen.

“I knew something was going to happen,” she said to herself; “I felt it coming, and like a fool I fancied it was going to be something happy.”

Her silence startled her aunt. She glanced at her hastily.

“My dear child,” she exclaimed. “You look quite white. How thoughtless of me to startle you so. Don’t be frightened, Ella dearest. It is pleasant – good news, nothing to be distressed about.”

Ella turned to her with what was intended to be a smile, but failed disastrously.

“I – I was only startled,” the poor child said at last, with a painful sort of gasp.

Mrs Burton grew more and more alarmed. She glanced round; there was a bench a few paces off.

“Let us sit down for a minute or two,” she said. “It is cold. But you must rest and recover yourself. Read your letter quietly. I won’t speak to you till you feel all right again.”

She had fortunately some eau de Cologne in her pocket, by the help of which and a few minutes of perfect quiet, Ella mastered her agitation. Then she opened the letter.

She had read but a few lines when a change came over her face, first a look of bewilderment which increased as she read, then a curious, half-fearful questioning appeared in her eyes, to be followed by a flush of eager, yet tremulous joy.

“Aunty,” she said breathlessly, “please look at it,” and she held out the letter, “am I making some strange mistake? I feel as if I were dreaming. Aunty – let me see your letter – do they tell you too who it is? Is it true – is it not Sir Philip that Ermine is going to marry?”

Mrs Burton glanced at her niece in astonishment, astonishment which soon changed to keen concern and sympathy as she understood Ella’s anxiety. She had plenty of good sense and ready wit however.

“Ella shall never know I have discovered her secret,” was the thought that flashed through her mind.

“Not Sir Philip,” she repeated, “why of course not – I never thought of him for either of your sisters. He has been far too much like a brother to them always.”

Her tone was quite matter-of-fact. Ella gave a half shy look at her – it was reassuring.

“Yes,” she said, “they have seemed like that, I know, but still – one never knows how things may turn out. Would you like to read my letter, aunt? – and may I see yours? Ermine’s is very, very kind.”

“Kinder than I deserve,” she added to herself. How grievously she had misjudged her sisters, Madelene especially! How suspicious and mean now seemed her fancies that Madelene was plotting to keep her out of Sir Philip’s way in order that she might bring about a marriage between him and Ermine! She grew more and more ashamed as she read Madelene’s own letter to her aunt, for it was evident that Miss St Quentin’s personal feelings were those of the greatest satisfaction; there was not the slightest shadow of regret or disappointment that Ermine’s choice should have fallen where it had.

“She could not have written as she does if she had ever thought of Sir Philip as I suspected,” thought Ella, and she sat, lost in her own reflections till her aunt’s voice interrupted her.

“Have you ever seen him, Ella – your future brother-in-law – Mr Guildford West?” asked Mrs Burton.

“N-no – no,” Ella replied, “at least I don’t remember him. I think – yes, I recollect Madelene’s saying once that he was at the Manor ball, but I don’t think I knew which he was.”

Then her mind reverted to what Madelene had said at different times about Ermine’s future, and she felt startled again to think how she had misinterpreted every allusion of the kind. Yet there was still something she could not altogether understand – why had Madelene spoken of her as such a care and burden, adding to the existing “complications?”

“No,” thought Ella, “I can’t quite make it out. But I will never mistrust Madelene again – it is the least I can do to trust her now after having so shamefully misjudged her. Some day perhaps, if she and I are ever together again – some day she will explain things perhaps and till then I can only ask her pardon in my heart.”

She was very pale and there were tears in her eyes as she roused herself to take part in her aunt’s eager speculations and comments on the interesting piece of news.

“It is so nice of Madelene to say they will hope to see us at the wedding. I hope Mr Burton will go; he is rather shy, you see, Ella, having been so long a bachelor, and that makes him seem gruff till people get to know him. But we must get him to go – it will be charming to see you as bridesmaid. I am so pleased about it altogether. And your father is pleased – it will do him good. Mr West must be very nice in every way,” she went on, “not very rich, I suppose, but with Ermine’s fortune that was not necessary.”

Ella turned to her with a little surprise.

“Will Ermine have much while papa lives?” she asked. “I have never heard much about it, but papa never speaks as if he were very rich.”

Mrs Burton fidgeted a little.

“Oh – Ermine will have a very handsome income,” she said evasively. “But I dare say they will explain things themselves to you, now you are really grown-up. I consider it a very good marriage for Mr West too.”

And Ella’s girlish mind gave no more thought to this part of the matter. Pounds, shillings, and pence were such very unimportant considerations in her eyes.

Chapter Twenty

“Having It Out.”

The primroses were over – the paler hues of spring were giving place to the richer and fuller beauty of early summer when Ella found herself once more at Coombesthorpe. It was the day before that of Ermine’s marriage when she arrived there with Mr and Mrs Burton. It had been proposed that she should precede her aunt, but she shrank from doing so, and with real kindliness and tact, her sisters had refrained from pressing the matter.

“She must feel uncomfortable, poor little thing,” said Ermine, “and it will be easier for her if she only arrives when there are a good many other people here.”

“And naturally she feels that any sort of ‘explanations’ would be ill-timed just now when we have so much to think of,” agreed Madelene. “Nothing could be sweeter or gentler than her letters. Ermine, what can have come over the child? I cannot yet understand her strange bitterness – for after all, what she overheard could have been simply explained. It will have to be explained sooner or later – about money matters I mean, and papa’s exaggerated way of looking at it. Ermine – I fear it was a mistake not to tell her the whole at first. Do you remember the day she came, just when we had been talking it all over with Philip? Not a year ago yet.”

“If nobody ever did wrong and nobody ever made mistakes, this world would not be this world any more, and I’m not at all sure but that it would – with our present feelings – be a very dull place indeed,” said Ermine, philosophically. “Keep up your spirits, Maddie. I should not be half as cheerful as I am about leaving you if I had not great faith in some, at least, of my pet schemes ending well after all.” Madelene said nothing for a minute or two.

“If – if you are still thinking about Philip and Ella, you are only preparing fresh disappointment for yourself,” she said. “He never mentions her scarcely; he seems to have forgotten all about her.”

“It did not look as if he were indifferent that day that you were so horribly frightened about her – the day she ran off I mean,” Ermine replied.

“No,” Madelene allowed. “That day I did think – He was fearfully upset. But it may have been principally on our account. I shall never forget how he looked when I sent over in my desperation to fetch him back from Cheynesacre – he was almost rough to me – fancy, Ermine! But I did not mind – I was so frightened myself. And he was so clever and sensible about it. He found out so wonderfully quickly that she was safe with Fräulein Braune.”

“And he managed Mrs Burton very well too,” said Ermine.

“Don’t forget our promise never to tell it was he who went to see her,” said Madelene, quickly.

“Ella shall certainly not hear it from us,” said Ermine, “but I doubt Mrs Burton’s capacity for keeping a secret.”

“I hope she has not told it,” said Madelene; “I could not bear poor Ella to be misled into thinking Philip cares for her – I did my best to warn her, but I doubt if it did any good.”

“Except to make her angry with you,” said Ermine. “That is usually the fate of the warner in such cases.”

“And perhaps it put the idea more in her head than it was,” added Madelene, regretfully. “They say, Ermine, that Philip is a great deal at the Belvoirs’ now, and Leonora is certainly a very nice girl.”

“Rubbish,” said Ermine. “He has known Leonora Belvoir since she was a baby, and seen her constantly. And she is not half as pretty, as Ella. If only Ella had come back sooner, I think I could have got Guildford to find out about it,” she added meditatively. “I suppose you couldn’t get Bernard to do so?”

Madelene grew crimson.

“Ermine, how can you be so thoughtless?” she exclaimed. “It is really unkind of you. I hope most earnestly, as you know, that Captain Omar will not come. Philip knows I do not want him to come.”

But Ermine said no more.

The day of the marriage was bright and sunny. When Ella woke up, and saw from her window the familiar scene in all its summer beauty, she shut her eyes for a moment, while a sort of fantastic wish went through her that the last few months might prove to be only a dream, that she had only now arrived for the first time at her home, and that all happy possibilities lay before her. She was again in her old “nursery” – she had begged that it might be so, though the rooms her sisters had originally intended for her were long ago ready.

“Oh, dear, if I could but go back again, how different I would be,” she thought. “How is it? Madelene and Ermine seem so different now – it is as if scales had fallen from my eyes. I wonder,” she went on, “I wonder if I had never remembered that silly old fancy about being like Cinderella – I wonder if Harvey had never put it into my head, if things would have turned out better? How sad it seems that bad or foolish things should stick to us like burrs all through the years, and that good and wise and useful things should be so quickly forgotten!”

She roused herself before long however; there was plenty for her to do this wedding-day. She was full of the wish to be of all the help and support she possibly could be to Madelene. For calm and quiet as Miss St Quentin appeared, Ella well knew that the parting with her sister, her “other self,” for such indeed Ermine had been to her, was no light matter, no slight wrench. And this reflection bore good fruit with the youngest sister.

“I will never call Madelene cold or heartless again,” she thought. “I know how she loves Ermine, and yet she is quietly smiling and calm – a stranger might say she did not mind it at all.”

It was still the old-fashioned days of early morning marriages: most of the guests were to assemble at the house, for the distance thence to the church was very short. Ella had not as yet seen anything of her godmother, for the evening before, with the exception of aunt Phillis and her husband, Colonel St Quentin and his children had spent alone – and the thought of the meeting with Lady Cheynes lay rather heavily on the girl’s mind. But like many anticipated evils it turned out quite differently from her fears.

“Run down to the fernery, Ella,” said Madelene, as they were giving the last touches to the bride, “and bring me one or two more sprays of maidenhair. No, Ermine, I’m not putting too much green. It needs just a tiny bit more.”

Off ran Ella, but half-way down stairs, at a sudden turn she came full tilt against Lady Cheynes, slowly mounting to Ermine’s room.

“Oh, dear – I beg your pardon,” Ella began. Then in a different voice, “Oh! godmother, dear godmother, is it you!”

She half threw her arms round the old lady’s neck, then drew back in affright.

“Oh, godmother, dear, will you kiss me? Will you forgive me?” she cried. “I’m afraid you’ve been very, very vexed with me, but I didn’t mean to do wrong – it – it was all a mistake somehow.”

Her voice faltered as if she were going to cry; in an instant Lady Cheynes was kissing her.

“My darling,” she said, “my poor little silly child. No, no – I was more grieved than vexed, dear, but perhaps I understand you as well as, or better than you understand yourself. But don’t cry, my little Ella. It would never do to have tears to-day.”

“I won’t, godmother, I won’t cry,” said Ella, choking back the tears bravely, “it is only,” she went on, “that you are – you are all so very good to me.”

“Well, well – we must have a good talk when all this bustle is over. I am going up to see Ermine; shall I be admitted?”

“Oh, dear, yes,” said Ella, “she is almost ready. But I must be quick – I was running down to the conservatory for some fern.”

She ran off again, meeting no one till she had chosen and cut the sprays of maidenhair. Then as she turned to leave the fernery, by way of the drawing-room, she heard voices there. Two or three persons had entered while she was busy about the maidenhair. And one of the voices was that of Sir Philip Cheynes. Ella hesitated; her heart beat fast, she felt for a moment or two as if she could not face him composedly; and at that juncture she would have given years of her life rather than let him perceive any traces of nervousness or agitation. Yet stay where she was for more than a minute she could not.

“I am not going to play eavesdropper again. What an unlucky place this fernery seems for me.”

She could not avoid overhearing a little – the end of a conversation between Sir Philip and another man, as they came strolling towards the spot where she stood.

“It is awfully good of you, Phil, to take such an interest in it – but – no I am not sanguine. If the obstacles are to some extent imaginary, they are, with an almost morbidly conscientious mind like hers, all the more difficult to combat. And this recent affair has done great harm; she will take all the blame of it to herself.”

“Yes,” came Philip’s voice in reply, “I know. But don’t lose heart, my dear fellow. You can’t – Why, Ella!” with a sharp exclamation, “is it – is it really you?”

Ella’s lips were trembling, but she made a tremendous effort. And the sudden perception that Sir Philip was quite as nervous, or considerably more so than herself helped in a marvellous way to calm her.

“I was cutting some maidenhair for Ermine,” she began. “I – there was no one in the drawing-room when I passed through.”

“It is certainly a curious coincidence,” said Sir Philip. “I – I wish – I hate this place – one never knows who may or may not be here,” he added vehemently.

Ella grew cold as ice.

“If you mean that I have been listening, a second time,” she said with frigid haughtiness, “you are mistaken. I only heard the last few words you and this gentleman were saying, and that I could not help.”

The gentleman in question came forward; he smiled slightly as he caught sight of Ella, but there was a half quizzical look on his face which did not tend to smooth her ruffled plumage.

“I am afraid – I hope we have not been trespassing?” he began, looking rather puzzled. “We should not have come so early, perhaps, Cheynes?”

“Oh no,” said Ella sweetly, with a complete change of tone, as she turned to the stranger, “of course it was quite right for – but – are you Mr West?” she exclaimed suddenly, as the idea struck her.

The tall, dark man before her bowed formally.

“I have not the honour of being Mr West,” he said. “I am only – ”

“You have met before,” Philip interrupted. “Ella, don’t you remember Captain Omar – Bernard Omar?”

Ella in her turn looked perplexed.

“I remember the name – I have often heard it,” she said: “But I don’t remember ever seeing you, the bearer of it, before.”

She pointedly addressed the stranger, and she seemed to take a perverse pleasure in looking her sweetest and speaking in her softest tones. Sir Philip bit his lip and turned away.

“I’ll have it out with her,” he muttered.

Captain Omar smiled again, more thoroughly this time; he had very white teeth, and very blue eyes, though his hair was dark and his complexion bronzed. And as his eyes smiled as well as his lips, the effect was very pleasant.

“I cannot expect you to remember,” he said. “But I do – the last summer you spent here, as a baby almost – before you went to live with your aunt – that summer I spent my holidays here – at Cheynesacre, that is to say. That was in the days when Cheynes was ‘big Phil,’ and ran races with a certain little lady perched on his shoulders.”

Ella grew crimson – but she would not seem annoyed by anything Captain Omar said.

“Yes,” she replied – her calm tone belying her face, “what absurd creatures children are. But I was really only a baby then. No, I don’t remember you, Captain Omar, but I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

She held out her hand graciously – Bernard took it deferentially, as if he appreciated the honour. Ella had not shaken hands with Philip.

“I must be quick,” she said, “my sisters will think I have forgotten what I was sent for,” and with a smile and nod to Captain Omar she flew off.

“What a lovely girl she has become,” said he enthusiastically.

Sir Philip gave a sort of grunt.

“You think so?” he said. “Well, yes – she is very much admired.”

“She will marry soon, I should think,” said Captain Omar.

Sir Philip said nothing.

“She has no fortune,” he remarked dryly after a minute or two’s silence.

Captain Omar gave a slightly bitter laugh.

“Upon my word I think that fact is not likely to be an obstacle. If – if Madelene had had no fortune you don’t suppose things would have been as they are for me? I wouldn’t have allowed it in that case.”

Sir Philip hesitated.

“It’s not so much her being rich, as her having this place – and all the responsibilities it brings, and the complication of her father and his peculiar position, and – and latterly the addition of Ella and the care of her future.”

“But Ella will marry – that’s to say she’s sure to have opportunities of doing so, if Madelene doesn’t shut her up,” said Captain Omar impatiently. “Now that I have seen Ella, I understand all these new difficulties less and less. Yet, surely,” and he turned to Philip with a sort of anguish in his eyes, “don’t think me a brute, Cheynes, for saying it – you have known the whole story all through – it can’t be that she has left off caring for me, and that she puts it on these pretexts, and – ”

“No, no,” Sir Philip interrupted, “don’t get anything of that kind into your head, Omar. I’m perfectly certain that Madelene is as true as steel, and – if things were to disentangle themselves a little, if she was quite happy and satisfied about Ella’s future and saw her way to marrying you without any fear of conflicting duties, I’m sure it would be all right. Don’t lose heart just yet, my good fellow.”

“There’s not much time left for keeping up my heart in,” the other replied. “My leave’s over next month, Cheynes.”

But Sir Philip had no time to say more, for just then some other wedding guests made their appearance in the drawing-room.

It was not till late that afternoon that Sir Philip had an opportunity of putting into practice his doughty resolve of “having it out” with little Ella. All had “gone off,” as the saying is, to perfection; the bride and bridegroom had driven away, most of the “assistants” had thoughtfully taken their departure and Madelene, poor Madelene, had ventured to shut herself up for an hour or two like the bride’s sister in the old song. She had some reason for tears, though scarcely as much as she made herself believe, but Ella in her new-born sympathy with her eldest sister, was almost inclined to exaggerate Madelene’s troubles, and ready to fly out like a little turkey-cock at any one who should venture to think lightly of them.

With the object of securing some quiet for Miss St Quentin, Ella had cleverly decoyed away the few younger guests who were remaining till the next day, out to the tennis-court, where, with Mrs Burton as chaperon, some sets were quickly arranged. But Ella herself hated tennis, she was glad to find she was not required to play, and seeing everybody apparently happily engaged, she strolled off a little way among the shrubberies by herself. A rustic bench in a shady corner tempted her; she sat down, gazing before her vaguely. She felt tired and strange, and the remembrance of the contretemps in the unlucky fernery that morning did not tend to soothe or calm her feelings.

“I wonder what they are going to settle about me,” she said to herself. “I – I should like to stay here if I could be any good to Madelene, but it doesn’t look as if that could be. And for some things I would like to go away and never come back again. I should like never to see Philip Cheynes again.”

A wish not to be fulfilled, for at that moment a quick step along the path made her look up, Philip stood before her. Ella’s eyes fell, and she grew red as she congratulated herself that her last words had not been spoken aloud. But she quickly looked up again, with a sort of cold inquiry in her face.

Philip smiled slightly as he caught her expression.

“Yes,” he said, “I knew you would be vexed at my following you. I kept out of the tennis on purpose. I must speak to you, Ella. I want to know what is the matter. Why did you behave so – uncivilly to me this morning – and before Omar, too?”

“I had overheard a little of what you were saying,” said Ella haughtily. “It was much the same sort of thing as – as that other time.”

Sir Philip muttered something between his teeth which Ella could not catch. Then suddenly to her surprise his tone changed; he turned to her with a smile.

“Are you glad Ermine is married?” he said. “Don’t you like West?”

Ella hesitated.

“I like what I have seen of him,” she replied. “He is not good-looking though; he is small and rather insignificant.”

“Not like Omar?”

“No,” she agreed, “not nearly as handsome as Captain Omar.” Then with a sudden impulse, “Sir Philip,” she said, “won’t you explain to me —why won’t Madelene marry Captain Omar? Why am I made a – a burden and a difficulty of? I would do anything; I have been so unhappy. I know I have misjudged Madelene in some ways, but I don’t now. I do want to – to be good and nice, and – and – ”

But the rest of her confidences were lost; her voice broke, and Philip knew that she was crying.

“Ella,” he exclaimed, “Ella, darling, I can’t bear to see you like that. Have we all been very cruel to you, somehow? I feel as if we had. I feel as if I had, and yet – and yet – I would do anything – I would give my life to make you happy.”

Ella’s sobs ceased. She glanced up at Philip with a curious mingling of expressions on her face.

“Sir Philip,” she said quietly, “I am not a child. You shouldn’t speak to me quite – quite like that, though I know you mean it kindly.”

“Kindly!” he repeated hotly. “Ella – you know it isn’t that. I dare say I’m a fool – you will probably only laugh at me, but I have waited and I don’t think it has done any good. Granny said you were too young, and that it wasn’t fair upon you till you had seen more of the world, but things have gone wrong quite enough. I won’t risk it any more. Ella – do you, no, could you ever get to care for me?”