The Three Miss Kings

"Most happy. What book is it?"

"It is one of Thackeray's. I think you told us you had a complete edition of Thackeray that some one gave you for a birthday present. I scarcely know which volume it is, but it has something in it about a man being hanged – and a crowd – " She broke off with an embarrassed laugh, hearing how oddly it sounded.

"You must mean the 'Sketches,'" he said. "There is a paper entitled 'Going to See a Man Hanged' in the 'London Sketches' – "

"That is the book I mean."

"All right – I'll get it and send it in to you at once – with pleasure."

"Oh, thank you. I'm so much obliged to you. I'll take the greatest care of it," she assured him fervently.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FAIRY GODMOTHER

Elizabeth went upstairs at a run, and found Patty and Eleanor trying to make Mrs. Duff-Scott understand who Paul Brion was, what his father was, and his profession, and his character; how he had never been inside their doors until that afternoon, and how he had at last by mere accident come to be admitted and entertained. And Mrs. Duff-Scott, serene but imperious, was delivering some of her point-blank opinions upon the subject.

"Don't encourage him, my dears – don't encourage him to come again," she was saying as Elizabeth entered the room. "He and his father are two very different people, whatever they may think."

"We cannot help being grateful to him," said Patty sturdily. "He has done so much for us."

"Dear child, that's nonsense. Girls can't be grateful to young men – don't you see? It is out of the question. And now you have got me to do things for you."

"But he helped us when we had no one else."

"Yes, that's all right, of course. No doubt it was a pleasure to him – a privilege – for him to be grateful for rather than you. But – well, Elizabeth knows what I mean" – turning an expressive glance towards the discreet elder sister. Patty's eyes went in the same direction, and Elizabeth answered both of them at once.

"You must not ask us to give up Paul Brion," she said, promptly.

"I don't," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. "I only ask you to keep him in his place. He is not the kind of person to indulge with tea and music, you know – that is what I mean."

"You speak as if you knew something against him," murmured Patty, with heightened colour.

"I know this much, my dear," replied the elder woman, gravely; "he is a friend of Mrs. Aarons's."

"And is not Mrs. Aarons – "

"She is very well, in her way. But she likes to have men dangling about her. She means no harm, I am sure," added Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, in the matter of scandal, prided herself on being a non-conductor, "but still it is not nice, you know. And I don't think that her men friends are the kind of friends for you. You don't mind my speaking frankly, my love? I am an old woman, you know, and I have had a great deal of experience."

She was assured that they did not mind it, but were, on the contrary, indebted to her for her good advice. And the subject of Paul Brion was dropped. Patty was effectually silenced by that unexpected reference to Mrs. Aarons, and by the rush of recollections, embracing him and her together, which suddenly gave form and colour to the horrible idea of him as a victim to a married woman's fascinations. She turned away abruptly, with a painful blush that not only crimsoned her from throat to temples, but seemed to make her tingle to her toes; and, like the headlong and pitiless young zealot that she was, determined to thrust him out for ever from the sacred precincts of her regard. Mrs. Duff-Scott was satisfied too. She was always sure of her own power to speak plainly without giving offence, and she found it absolutely necessary to protect these ingenuous maidens from their own ignorance. Needless to say that, since she had adopted them into her social circle, she had laid plans for their ultimate settlement therein. In her impulsive benevolence she had even gone the length of marking down the three husbands whom she considered respectively appropriate to the requirements of the case, and promised herself a great deal of interest and pleasure in the vicarious pursuit of them through the ensuing season. Wherefore she was much relieved to have come across this obscure writer for the press, and to have had the good chance, at the outset of her campaign, to counteract his possibly antagonistic influence. She knew her girls quite well enough to make sure that her hint would take its full effect.

She leaned back in her chair comfortably, and drew off her gloves, while they put fresh tea in the teapot, and cut her thin shavings of bread and butter; and she sat with them until six o'clock, gossiping pleasantly. After giving them a history of the morning's ceremonies, as witnessed by the Government's invited guests inside the Exhibition building, she launched into hospitable schemes for their enjoyment of the gay time that had set in. "Now that I am come back," she said, "I shall take care that you shall go out and see everything there is to be seen. You have never had such a chance to learn something of the world, and I can't allow you to neglect it."

"Dear Mrs. Duff-Scott," said Elizabeth, "we have already been indulging ourselves too much, I am afraid. We have done no reading – at least none worth doing – for days. We are getting all behind-hand. The whole of yesterday and all this morning – "

"What did you do this morning?" Mrs. Duff-Scott interrupted quickly.

They gave her a sketch of their adventures, merely suppressing the incident of the elder sister's encounter with the mysterious person whom the younger ones had begun to style "Elizabeth's young man" – though why they suppressed that none of them could have explained.

"Very well," was her comment upon the little narrative, which told her far more than it told them. "That shows you that I am right. There are a great many things for you to learn that all the books in the Public Library could not teach you. Take my advice, and give up literary studies for a little while. Give them up altogether, and come and learn what the world and your fellow-creatures are made of. Make a school of the Exhibition while it lasts, and let me give you lessons in – a – what shall I call it – social science? – the study of human nature?"

Nothing could be more charming than to have lessons from her, they told her; and they had intended to go to school to the Exhibition as often as they could. But – but their literary studies were their equipment for the larger and fuller life that they looked forward to in the great world beyond the seas. Perhaps she did not understand that?

"I understand this, my dears," the matron replied, with energy. "There is no greater mistake in life than to sacrifice the substance of the present for the shadow of the future. We most of us do it – until we get old – and then we look back to see how foolish and wasteful we have been, and that is not much comfort to us. What we've got, we've got; what we are going to have nobody can tell. Lay in all the store you can, of course – take all reasonable precautions to insure as satisfactory a future as possible – but don't forget that the Present is the great time, the most important stage of your existence, no matter what your circumstances may be."

The girls listened to her thoughtfully, allowing that she might be right, but suspending their judgment in the matter. They were all too young to be convinced by another person's experience.

"You let Europe take care of itself for a bit," their friend proceeded, "and come out and see what Australia in holiday time is like, and what the fleeting hour will give you. I will fetch you to-morrow for a long day at the Exhibition to begin with, and then I'll – I'll – " She broke off and looked from one to another with an unwonted and surprising embarrassment, and then went on impetuously.

"My dears, I don't know how to put it so as not to hurt or burden you, but you won't misunderstand me if I express myself awkwardly – you won't have any of that absurd conventional pride about not being under obligations – it is a selfish feeling, a want of trust and true generosity, when it is the case of a friend who – " She stammered and hesitated, this self-possessed empress of a woman, and was obviously at a loss for words wherein to give her meaning. Elizabeth, seeing what it was that she wanted to say, sank on her knees before her, and took her hands and kissed them. But over her sister's bent head Patty stood up stiffly, with a burning colour in her face. Mrs. Duff-Scott, absently fondling Elizabeth, addressed herself to Patty when she spoke again.

"As an ordinary rule," she said, "one should not accept things from another who is not a relation – I know that. Not because it is improper – it ought to be the most proper thing in the world for people to help each other – but because in so many cases it can never happen without bitter mortifications afterwards. People are so – so superficial? But I – Patty, dear, I am an old woman, and I have a great deal of money, and I have no children; and I have never been able to fill the great gap where the children should be with music and china, or any interest of that sort. And you are alone in the world, and I have taken a fancy to you – I have grown fond of you – and I have made a little plan for having you about me, to be a sort of adopted daughters for whom I could feel free to do little motherly things in return for your love and confidence in me. You will indulge me, and let me have my way, won't you? It will be doing more for me, I am sure, than I could do for you."

"O no – no —no!" said Patty, with a deep breath, but stretching her hands with deprecating tenderness towards their guest. "You would do everything for us, and we could do nothing for you. You would overwhelm us! And not only that; perhaps – perhaps, by-and-bye, you would not care about us so much as you do now – we might want to do something that you didn't like, something we felt ourselves obliged to do, however much you disliked it – and if you got vexed with us, or tired of us – oh, think what that would be! Think how you would regret that you had – had – made us seem to belong to you. And how we should hate ourselves."

She looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott with a world of ardent apology in her eyes, before which the matron's fell, discouraged and displeased.

"You make me feel that I am an impulsive and romantic girl, and that you are the wise old woman of the world," she said with a proud sigh.

But at this, Patty, pierced to the heart, flung her arms round Mrs. Duff-Scott's neck, and crushed the most beautiful bonnet in Melbourne remorselessly out of shape against her young breast. That settled the question, for all practical purposes. Mrs. Duff-Scott went home at six o'clock, feeling that she had achieved her purpose, and entered into some of the dear privileges of maternity. It was more delightful than any "find" of old china. She did not go to sleep until she had talked both her husband and herself into a headache with her numerous plans for the welfare of her protégées, and until she had designed down to the smallest detail the most becoming costumes she could think of for them to wear, when she took them with her to the Cup.

CHAPTER XIX.

A MORNING AT THE EXHIBITION

Paul Brion was wakened from his sleep next morning by the sound of Mrs. Duff-Scott's carriage wheels and prancing horses, and sauntering to his sitting-room window about ten minutes later, had the satisfaction of seeing his young neighbours step into the distinguished vehicle and drive away. There was Elizabeth reposing by her chaperon's side, as serene as a princess who had never set foot on common earth; and there were Patty and Eleanor, smiling and animated, lovelier than their wont, if that could be, nestling under the shadow of two tall men-servants in irreproachable liveries, with cockades upon their hats. It was a pretty sight, but it spoiled his appetite for his breakfast. He could no longer pretend that he was thankful for the fruition of his desires on their behalf. He could only feel that they were gone, and that he was left behind – that a great gulf had suddenly opened between them and him and the humble and happy circumstances of yesterday, with no bridge across it that he could walk over.

The girls, for their part, practically forgot him, and enjoyed the difference between to-day and yesterday in the most worldly and womanly manner. The sensation of bowling along the streets in a perfectly-appointed carriage was as delicious to them as it is to most of us who are too poor to indulge in it as a habit; for the time being it answered all the purposes of happiness as thoroughly as if they had never had any higher ambition than to cut a dash. They went shopping with the fairy godmother before they went to the Exhibition, and that, too, was absorbingly delightful – both to Elizabeth, who went in with Mrs. Duff-Scott to assist her in her purchases, and to the younger sisters, who reposed majestically in the carriage at the door. Patty's quick eyes caught sight of Mrs. Aarons and a pair of her long-nosed children walking on the pavement, and she cheerfully owned herself a snob and gloried in it. It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, she said, to sit there and look down upon Mrs. Aarons.

As they passed the Melbourne Club on their way to the Exhibition, the coachman was hailed by the elder of two gentlemen who were sauntering down the steps, and they were introduced for the first time to the fairy godmother's husband. Major Duff-Scott, an ex-officer of dragoons and a late prominent public man of his colony (he was prominent still, but for his social, and not his official qualifications), was a well-dressed and well-preserved old gentleman, who, having sown a large and miscellaneous crop of wild oats in the course of a long career, had been rewarded with great wealth and all the privileges of the highest respectability. He had been a prodigal, but he had enjoyed it – never knowing the bitterness of either hunger or husks. He had tasted dry bread at times, as a matter of course, but only just enough of it to give a proper relish to the abundant cakes and ale that were his portion; and the proverb which says you cannot eat your cake and have it was a perfectly dead letter in his case. He had been eating his all his life, and he had got it still. In person he was the most gentle-looking little man imaginable – about half the size of his imposing wife, thin and spare, and with a little stoop in his shoulders; but there was an alertness in his step and a brightness in his eye, twinkling remotely between the shadow of his hat brim and a bulging mass of white moustache that covered all the lower part of his small face, which had suggestions of youth and vigour about them that were lacking in the figure and physiognomy of the young man at his side. When he came up to the carriage door to be introduced to his wife's protégées, whom he greeted with as much cordiality as Mrs. Duff-Scott could have desired, they did not know why it was that they so immediately lost the sense of awe with which they had contemplated the approach of a person destined to have so formidable a relation to themselves. They shook hands with him, they made modest replies to his polite inquiries, they looked beyond his ostensible person to the eyes that looked at them; and then their three grave faces relaxed, and in half a minute were brimming over with smiles. They felt at home with Major Duff-Scott at once.

"Come, come," said the fairy godmother rather impatiently, when something like a fine aroma of badinage was beginning to perfume the conversation, "you must not stop us now. We want to have a long morning. You can join us at the Exhibition presently, if you like, and bring Mr. Westmoreland." She indicated the young man who had been talking to her while her spouse made the acquaintance of her companions, and who happened to be one of the three husbands whom she had selected for those young ladies. He was the richest of them all, and the most stupid, and therefore he seemed to be cut out for Patty, who, being so intellectual and so enterprising, would not only make a good use of his money, but would make the best that was to be made of him. "My dears," she said, turning towards the girls, "let me introduce Mr. Westmoreland to you. Mr. Westmoreland, Miss King – Miss Eleanor King – Miss Patty King."

The heavy young man made a heavy bow to each, and then stared straight at Eleanor, and studied her with calm attention until the carriage bore her from his sight. She, with her tender blue eyes and her yellow hair, and her skin like the petals of a blush rose, was what he was pleased to call, in speaking of her a little later to a confidential friend, the "girl for him." Of Patty he took no notice whatever.

Mrs. Duff-Scott, on her way to Carlton, stopped to speak to an acquaintance who was driving in an opposite direction, and by the time she reached the Exhibition, she found that her husband's hansom had arrived before her, and that he and Mr. Westmoreland were waiting at the entrance to offer their services as escort to the party. The major was the best of husbands, but he was not in the habit of paying her these small attentions; and Mr. Westmoreland had never been known, within her memory of him, to put himself to so much trouble for a lady's convenience. Wherefore the fairy godmother smiled upon them both, and felt that the Fates were altogether propitious to her little schemes. They walked up the pathway in a group, fell necessarily into single file in the narrow passage where they received and returned their tickets, and collected in a group again under the great dome, where they stood to look round on the twenty acres of covered space heaped with the treasures of those nations which Victoria welcomed in great letters on the walls. Mrs. Duff-Scott hooked her gold-rimmed glasses over her nose, and pointed out to her husband wherein the building was deficient, and wherein superfluous, in its internal arrangements and decorations. In her opinion – which placed the matter beyond discussion – the symbolical groups over the arches were all out of drawing, the colouring of the whole place vulgar to a degree, and the painted clouds inside the cupola enough to make one sick. The major endorsed her criticisms, perfunctorily, with amused little nods, glancing hither and thither in the directions she desired. "Ah, my dear," said he, "you mustn't expect everybody to have such good taste as yours." Mr. Westmoreland seemed to have exhausted the Exhibition, for his part; he had seen it all the day before, he explained, and he did not see what there was to make a fuss about. With the exception of some mysteries in the basement, into which he darkly hinted a desire to initiate the major presently, it had nothing about it to interest a man who, like him, had just returned from Europe and had seen the Paris affair. But to our girls it was an enchanted palace of delights – far exceeding their most extravagant anticipations. They gave no verbal expression to their sentiments, but they looked at each other with faces full of exalted emotion, and tacitly agreed that they were perfectly satisfied. The fascination of the place, as a storehouse of genuine samples of the treasures of that great world which they had never seen, laid hold of them with a grip that left a lasting impression. Even the rococo magnificence of the architecture and its adornments, which Mrs. Duff-Scott, enlightened by a large experience, despised, affected their untrained imaginations with all the force of the highest artistic sublimity. A longing took possession of them all at the same moment to steal back to-morrow – next day – as soon as they were free again to follow their own devices – and wander about the great and wonderful labyrinth by themselves and revel unobserved in their secret enthusiasms.

However, they enjoyed themselves to-day beyond all expectation. After skimming the cream of the many sensations offered to them, sauntering up and down and round and round through the larger thoroughfares in a straggling group, the little party, fixing upon their place of rendezvous and lunching arrangements, paired themselves for a closer inspection of such works of art as they were severally inclined to. Mrs. Duff-Scott kept Patty by her side, partly because Mr. Westmoreland did not seem to want her, and partly because the girl was such an interesting companion, being wholly absorbed in what she had come to see, and full of intelligent appreciation of everything that was pointed out to her; and this pair went a-hunting in the wildernesses of miscellaneous pottery for such unique and precious "bits" as might be secured, on the early bird principle, for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection. Very soon that lady's card was hanging round the necks of all sorts of quaint vessels that she had greedily pounced upon (and which further researches proved to be relatively unworthy of notice) in her anxiety to outwit and frustrate the birds that would come round presently; while Patty was having her first lesson in china, and showing herself a delightfully precocious pupil. Mr. Westmoreland confined his attentions exclusively to Eleanor, who by-and-bye found herself interested in being made so much of, and even inclined to be a little frivolous. She did not know whether to take him as a joke or in earnest, but either way he was amusing. He strolled heavily along by her side for awhile in the wake of Mrs. Duff-Scott and Patty, paying no attention to the dazzling wares around him, but a great deal to his companion. He kept turning his head to gaze at her, with solemn, ruminating eyes, until at last, tired of pretending she did not notice it, she looked back at him and laughed. This seemed to put him at his ease with her at once.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked, with more animation than she thought him capable of.

"Nothing," said she.

"Oh, but you were laughing at something. What was it? Was it because I was staring at you?"

"Well, you do stare," she admitted.

"I can't help it. No one could help staring at you."

"Why? Am I such a curiosity?"

"You know why. Don't pretend you don't."

She blushed at this, making herself look prettier than ever; it was not in her to pretend she didn't know – nor yet to pretend that his crude flattery displeased her.

"A cat may look at a king," he remarked, his heavy face quite lit up with his enjoyment of his own delicate raillery.

"O yes, certainly," she retorted. "But you see I am not a king, and you are not a cat."

"'Pon my word, you're awfully sharp," he rejoined, admiringly. And he laughed over this little joke at intervals for several minutes. Then by degrees they dropped away from their party, and went straying up and down the nave tête-à-tête amongst the crowd, looking at the exhibits and not much understanding what they looked at; and they carried on their conversation in much the same style as they began it, with, I grieve to say, considerable mutual enjoyment. By-and-bye Mr. Westmoreland took his young companion to the German tent, where the Hanau jewels were, by way of giving her the greatest treat he could think of. He betted her sixpence that he could tell her which necklace she liked the best, and he showed her the several articles (worth some thousands of pounds) which he should have selected for his wife, had he had a wife – declaring in the same breath that they were very poor things in comparison with such and such other things that he had seen elsewhere. Then they strolled along the gallery, glancing at the pictures as they went, Eleanor making mental notes for future study, but finding herself unable to study anything in Mr. Westmoreland's company. And then suddenly came a tall figure towards them – a gentlemanly man with a brown face and a red moustache – at sight of whom she gave a a little start of delighted recognition.

"Hullo!" cried Mr. Westmoreland, "there's old Yelverton, I do declare. He said he'd come over to have a look at the Exhibition."

Old Yelverton was no other than "Elizabeth's young man."

CHAPTER XX.

CHINA V. THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY

Meanwhile, Major Duff-Scott took charge of Elizabeth, and he was very well satisfied with the arrangement that left her to his care. He always preferred a mature woman to a young girl, as being a more interesting and intelligent companion, and he admired her when on a generous scale, as is the wont of small men. Elizabeth's frank face and simple manners and majestic physical proportions struck him as an admirable combination. "A fine woman," he called her, speaking of her later to his wife: "reminds me of what you were when I married you, my dear." And when he got to know her better he called her "a fine creature" – which meant that he recognised other good qualities in her besides that of a lofty stature.