Turquoise and Ruby
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“What in the world do you mean?” said Penelope, turning ghastly white.
“Ah! I mean no wrong. I have eaten enough of your odious English cookery; let us rise from table. I am glad to feel that you are going to that friend so unsuitable – to that lady so supérieure. Would she ask you if she knew what I know? – ”
“I can’t tell, I am sure, what you do know,” said Penelope; “but what I feel at present is that I want rest – you’re not obliged to follow me about all the afternoon – may I stay by myself until supper time?”
“Ungrateful!” cried Mademoiselle. “But I shall go – I need you not. I have myself to attend to, and my affairs so sombre to settle. I will meet you again at the hour of supper, when I have put matters in train for myself.”
Penelope left her. How much did Mademoiselle know? She disliked her heartily, and did not want to trouble her head too much over the circumstance. She felt certain that the four girls who had given her the money would not confide their secrets to any one, far less to Mademoiselle, whom they distrusted. Nevertheless, the governess was scarcely likely to speak as she had done without reason. She was evidently jealous of Penelope’s invitation to Beverley Castle, and was very angry at being dismissed from Hazlitt Chase.
“She can’t by any possibility know the truth,” thought the girl, “and I won’t fret about it. I will just humour her as best I can until next week arrives, and then say good-bye to her for ever. I am heartily glad she is leaving the school; I never liked her so little as I do now.”
Now, Mademoiselle D’Etienne and Brenda Carlton would have made their fortunes by ways that deceived. There was a great deal of affinity in their insincere natures. With Mademoiselle, it was truly bred in the bone; but she was not altogether ill-natured, and, after considering matters for a short time, decided that, unless special circumstances turned up, she would not disturb Penelope’s chance of having a good time at Castle Beverley. Her jealousy of the girl died down and she thought of herself and her own circumstances. Then it occurred to her that she would perhaps make some use of her pupil’s unexpected absence from Hazlitt Chase. If Penelope went to Castle Beverley for several weeks of the holidays, it would surely not be necessary for Mademoiselle to stay in that mansion so triste, so desolate. Mrs Hazlitt was the soul of kindness. Mademoiselle was in her employ, and earning a considerable salary until the middle of September. It might be possible that Mrs Hazlitt could find some amusement for the poor lonely girl who was banished from her native land. Where could she go? what could she do to relieve the heavy air of England, to take the oppression from her heart? It would be more than delightful if she, too, could have an invitation to Castle Beverley, and, just for a minute, it entered her head that she might manage this by means of that little secret which she held over Penelope.
But, after all, the secret was not so intensely valuable. What she knew was simply this. She had observed Cara Burt opening a letter on a certain morning and taking an unexpected five-pound note out of it. Mademoiselle was avaricious. The sight of the money had awakened desires within her. What could a girl like Cara want with anything so precious as a five-pound note in term time? She resolved to question her.
“How good your people are to you!” she said.
Cara had asked the governess what she meant, and the governess had prettily replied in her broken English that she had seen the “note so valuable” in Cara’s hand when she opened the letter.
“Oh, that is for a purpose – an important one,” answered Cara. Then she bit her lips, for she was sorry she had said so much. But other girls had received their money on the very same day and Mademoiselle, alert and auspicious, had crept to the rendezvous where they all met. Poor Penelope! When Penelope received the five-pound Bank of England notes, Mademoiselle’s dark, wicked face was peering from behind the shade of a magnificent oak tree. The girls themselves did not perceive her. She was much elated with her discovery and resolved to enfold it, as she said, within her breast for future use.
Now, it occurred to her that she might simply relate to Penelope what she had done, or rather tell her pupil enough to show her that she was in the secret. That very evening, when the two had finished their supper she began her confidence. She told the girl that she had not wished to injure her, but at the same time that she knew for a fact that she had received four five-pound notes from four different girls of the school.
“To me it is extraordinary,” she said, “why they should give to you the precious money, but that they have done so is beyond doubt. I go by the evidence of these eyes at once piercing and true! Do you deny it, mon enfant? Do you dare to be so méchante?”
“I admit nothing and deny nothing,” said Penelope, as calmly as she could speak.
Mademoiselle laughed. After a long pause, she said:
“I am a nature the most generous, and I would not hurt a hair of the head of my pupil. You will go and enjoy the festival and the time so gay and the friends so kind at Castle Beverley, and that enfant so magnifique, Honora Beverley, will be your companion. I could prevent it, for she is, with all her nobleness, fanatical in her views, and of principles the most severe.”
“I will never ask you to keep anything back,” said Penelope. “You can write to Honora if you wish: I don’t know how you can say anything about me without maligning yourself.”
“Ah – mademoiselle I do you think I could so injure you?” said the governess. “That would indeed be far from my thoughts. But if I have the consideration the very deepest for you, will you not assist me to have a less triste time than in this lonely house with even you away?”
“What can I do?” asked Penelope, in surprise. “I am a rather friendless girl, how can I possibly assist you to have a gay time? I never yet had a gay time myself, this is the first occasion.”
“And it fills you with so great delight?”
“I am very glad,” said Penelope.
“I write this evening,” said Mademoiselle, “to Madame, and I mention to her the fact that my one pupil departs on the quest of pleasure, and I ask her to liberate me from my solitaire position here and to perhaps do me a little kindness by assisting me to spend the holiday by the gay, bright, and charming sea. A little word thrown in from you, too, mademoiselle, might do much to influence Madame to think of the poor governess. Will you not write that word?”
Penelope hesitated for a minute. Then she said, bluntly:
“I will mention the fact that you will be quite alone, and I will write myself to Mrs Hazlitt to-night.”
As she spoke, she got up, and left the room. Penelope hated herself for having to write the letter. She longed more than ever for the moment when she would be free to go to Castle Beverley. She was not really afraid of Mademoiselle. She would rather all the girls in the school knew what she had done than be, in any respect, in Mademoiselle’s power. In fact, such a strange revulsion of feeling had come over her, that she would have told the truth but for Brenda. But, although she was deeply disappointed in Brenda, it was the last wish in her heart to do anything to injure or to provoke her.
Accordingly, she wrote a careful and really nice letter to her headmistress, telling her what Honora had said, and begging of her to allow her to accept the invitation, when it arrived. She also said that Mademoiselle d’Etienne would be quite alone, and seemed put out at the fact of her going. At the same time, she begged that the thought of Mademoiselle would not prevent Mrs Hazlitt’s allowing her to accept the invitation.
Penelope’s letter was duly put into the post, accompanied by one of much persuasiveness from the French governess. The result of these two letters was, that as soon as the post could bring replies, replies came. Mrs Hazlitt said that she would be delighted to allow Penelope to go to Castle Beverley, and that as she knew the house would be full of gay young people, she enclosed her a five-pound note out of a fund which she specially possessed for the purpose, to allow the girl to get a few nice things.
“Mademoiselle will help you to purchase these,” she said, “and you can have all your school frocks nicely washed and done up in the school laundry. I am afraid I cannot spend more on your dress, Penelope, but I think you can manage with the money I send you.”
Mademoiselle’s cheeks were flushed when she devoured the contents of her own letter; for enclosed in it was a cheque so generous that her eyes blazed with pleasure.
“Madame is of the most mean, and yet of the most generous!” she cried. “She allows me to go when you go, petite, and she gives me a little sum to spend on myself, so that I make a holiday the best that I can. I knew where I will reside. I will go to that place near Castle Beverley – I forget its long name – but it is gay, sad on the sea.”
“You’re not going to Marshlands?” cried Penelope, in some alarm.
“That is the place that I will go to,” said Mademoiselle. “I have looked it out on the map, and it is far off, but not too far off. There I can watch over you, although it is the distant view that I will obtain, and I can, from time to time, see my other most beloved pupil, and perhaps go to Castle Beverley, and wish them adieu before I depart to that land of sun —la belle France.”
Penelope did not at all like the idea of Mademoiselle’s going to Marshlands. She hoped she would not come across Brenda, and she trusted sincerely that she would not be invited to Castle Beverley. But, as Mademoiselle was determined to have her own way, Penelope resolved to take the good which lay at hand, and not to trouble herself too much about the future.
Mademoiselle was now extremely good-natured, and helped Penelope to renovate her very simple wardrobe and, in short, made herself as charming as a Frenchwoman of her character knew how. All in good time, Honora’s delightful letter of invitation arrived, and Mademoiselle resolved to travel with her pupil as far as Marshlands.
“I part from you,” she said, “at the railway station where you will meet your friends so distinguished; and I, the governess, the foreigner, will go to search for appartements that are cheap. You will bid me farewell, and permit me to shake the hand once again of my pupil Honora. Ah! but I am kind to you – am I not?”
“Yes,” murmured Penelope, feeling all the time that Mademoiselle was unbearably trying. The joys, however, of going to Castle Beverley should not be damped even by this incident.
The girl and the Frenchwoman travelled second-class together, and arrived at the somewhat noisy station of Marshlands-on-the-Sea between six and seven o’clock on a glorious evening in August Penelope had not beheld the blue, blue sea since she was quite a little girl, and her eyes sparkled now with delight. She looked quite different from the limp and somewhat uninteresting girl she had appeared to every one at Hazlitt Chase. The anticipation of happiness was working marvels in her character. Penelope had taken good care not to inform Brenda of the day of her arrival. She was quite sure she would have to meet her sister; but she would at least give herself a little rest before the encounter took place. She rejoiced, too, in the knowledge that up to the present Mademoiselle d’Etienne and Brenda did not know each other.
As soon as the train drew up to the platform, Mademoiselle poked out her head and uttered a little shriek when she beheld Pauline and Nellie Hungerford, as well as Honora herself and a tall footman waiting on the platform. Mademoiselle rushed up to Honora, taking both her hands and shaking them up and down while she burst into an eager volley of French, in which she informed that “pupil best beloved” that the desire to be near her had brought her to Marshlands-on-the-Sea, and that she was even now going with her humble belongings to seek apartments appropriate to her means.
“I meet you, my pupil,” she said, “with a joy which almost ravishes my breast, for sincere and true are my feelings towards you. And now I stay not, but perhaps some day you will think of the governess in her humble appartements by the lone sea, and allow her to pay you a little visit.”
Honora murmured something which scarcely amounted to an invitation. Mademoiselle turned to the little girls, and Honora ran to Penelope’s side.
“I am so glad to see you! I hope you are not frightfully tired. Oh, you do look hot and dusty, but we shall have a delicious drive up to the Castle. My home is quite outside the town, which is somewhat noisy. Ah, I see Dan has collected your luggage; shall we come at once? Good-bye, Mademoiselle. I hope you will secure nice rooms.”
Mademoiselle was flattering, and full of charm to the end. She insisted on marching down the platform with Pauline’s hand clasped in one of hers, and her humble little bag in the other. She did not part from her pupils until she saw them all ensconced in the luxurious carriage which was to bear them rapidly into the pleasant country. But, when that same carriage had turned the corner and she found herself alone, an ugly expression crossed her face.
“It is not good to have these feelings,” she murmured to herself. “I like not the jealousies when they come to devour; but why should Penelope with her schemes and her behaviour the most strange be taken to the very heart of the best of all my pupils? I will see into this by-and-by. Meanwhile —ma foi– how hot it is!”
Chapter Fourteen
The Castle
Castle Beverley was even a more delightful place than Penelope had the least idea of before she arrived at it. She had her own vivid imagination, and had pictured the old castle, its suites of apartments, its crowds of servants, its stately guests, many and many a time before the blissful hour of her arrival. But when she did get to Castle Beverley, she found that all her pictures had been wrong.
It is true, there was an old castle, and a tower at one end of an irregular pile of building; but the modern part of the house, while it was large, was also unpretentious and simple.
The children who ran to meet the carriage were many of them Penelope’s schoolfellows. Mrs Beverley had a charming and placid face and a kindly manner. Mr Beverley was a round-faced, rubicund country squire, who made jokes about every one, and was as little alarming as human being could be. In short, it was impossible for Penelope not to feel herself at home. Her old schoolfellows welcomed her almost with enthusiasm. They had not cared for her greatly when at Hazlitt Chase, but they were just in the mood to be in the best temper with everything, and had been in raptures with her rendering of Helen of Troy. Honora, too, had pictured, very pathetically, the scene of the lonely girl afterwards weeping by herself in the wood, and the delightful inspiration which had come over her to give her some weeks’ holiday at Castle Beverley. Perhaps Cara Burt would have preferred her not being there, but Mary L’Estrange, who was also a visitor at the Castle, had quite forgiven Penelope for her desire to obtain five pounds. She put it down altogether, now, to the poor thing’s poverty, and hoped that the transaction would never be known. Annie Leicester had not yet arrived, but was expected. Susanna, the most to be feared, perhaps, of the four girls who had given Penelope the money, had gone abroad for the holidays.
Thus, all was sunshine on this first evening, and when Penelope found herself joking and repeating little bits of school news and some of the funny things which had occurred between herself and Mademoiselle, the others laughed heartily. Yes, that first evening was a golden one, long to be remembered by the somewhat lonely girl.
When she went to bed that night, she was so tired that she slept soundly until the morning. When the morning did arrive, and she was greeted by a smiling housemaid and a delicious cup of tea, she felt that, for the time at least, she was in the land of luxury.
“I’ll enjoy myself for once,” she thought, “I’ll forget about school and that I am very poor and that I am disappointed with Brenda, and that Brenda is staying at Marshlands, and Mademoiselle, too, is staying at Marshlands. I will forget everything but just that it is very, very good to be here.”
So she arose and dressed herself in one of the new white linen dresses which Mademoiselle had purchased for her out of Mrs Hazlitt’s money, and she came down to breakfast looking fresh and almost pretty.
“You do seem rested – I am so glad!” said Honora. “Oh, no, we are not breakfasting in that room. Father and mother and the grown-ups use the front hall for breakfast in the summer, and we children have the big old school-room to ourselves. You didn’t see it last night; we had so much to show you, but it is – oh – such a jolly room. Come now this way, you will be surprised at such a crowd of us.”
As Honora spoke, she took Penelope’s hand, and, pushing open a heavy oak door, led the way through a sort of ante-chamber and then down a corridor to a long, low room with latticed windows, over which many creepers cast just now a most grateful shade. There were several boys and girls in the room, and a long table was laid, with all sorts of good things for breakfast. Amongst the boys was Fred Hungerford and a younger brother called Dick, and there were three or four boys, brothers and cousins of Honora herself. There were altogether at least thirteen or fourteen girls. The two little Hungerfords flew up to Penelope when they saw her. They seemed to regard her as their special friend.
“Honora,” said Pauline, “may we sit one at each side of Penelope and tell her who every one is and all about everything? Then she’ll feel quite one of us and be – oh – so happy!”
“That’s an excellent idea, Pauline,” said Honora. “Here, Penelope, come up to this end of the table, and I’ll jog the children’s memories if they forget any one.”
So Penelope enjoyed her first breakfast at Castle Beverley, and could not help looking at Honora with a wonderful, new sensation of love in her eyes. Honora, whose dazzling fairness and stately young figure had made her appear at first sight such an admirable representative of the fair Helen of the past, had never looked more beautiful than this morning.
She wore a dress of the palest shade of blue cambric and had a great bunch of forget-me-nots in her belt. Her face was like sunshine itself, and her wealth of golden hair was quite marvellous in its fairness. Her placid blue eyes seemed to be as mirrors in which one could see into her steadfast and noble mind. All her thoughts were those of kindness, and she was absolutely unselfish. In fact, as one girl said: “Honora is selfless: she almost forgets that she exists, so little does she think of herself in her thought for others.”
Now, Honora’s one desire was to make Penelope happy, and Penelope responded to the sympathetic manner and kindly words as a poor little sickly flower will revel in sunshine. But Pauline presently spoke in that rather shrill little voice of hers:
“We are happy here: even Nellie’s better, aren’t you, Nellie?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Nellie. She looked across the table at Pauline, and gave half a sigh and half a smile.
“Of course you are happy, Nellie,” said Honora. “You’re not thinking any more about that bracelet, are you?”
“I do wish I could get it back,” said Nellie, “but, all the same I am happy.”
“But please, Penelope, tell us about your sister,” said Pauline. “Oh, do you know – ”
“Yes —do tell us that!” interrupted Nellie.
“Why, Fred saw her yesterday at Marshlands-on-the-Sea,” continued Pauline. “She’s quite close to us – isn’t it fun? Fred came back quite interested in her – he thinks her so very pretty!”
“Whom do I think pretty, Miss?” called out Fred from a little way down the table. “No taking of my name in vain – if you please.”
“You know, Fred,” said Pauline, in her somewhat solemn little voice, “that you think dear Penelope’s sister sweetly pretty.”
“I should think so, indeed!” said Fred, “and, by the way, she is at Marshlands. She had three of the funniest little girls out walking with her yesterday that you ever saw in your life. Did you know she was going to be at Marshlands, Miss Carlton?”
“Yes,” said Penelope, feeling not quite so happy as she did a few minutes ago.
“We’ll ask her up here some day to have a good time with us, dear, if you like,” said Honora.
“Thank you,” replied Penelope, but without enthusiasm.
“I spoke to her yesterday,” said Fred. “She really did look awfully nice; only they were the rummest little coves you ever saw in all your life – the children who are there.”
“They are her pupils; they’re the daughters of a clergyman,” said Penelope.
“I don’t care whose daughters they are, but they go about with your sister, and they do look so funny. I told her you were coming and she gave me her address. Would you like to go in to see her this morning?” Penelope trembled.
“Not this morning, please,” she said.
She felt herself turning pale. She felt she must have one happy day before she began to meet Brenda. She had a curious feeling that when that event took place, her peace, and delight in her present surroundings would somehow be clouded. Brenda was so much cleverer than she was, so gay, so determined, so strange in many ways. Oh, no; she would not go to see her to-day.
“If you like,” said Honora, observing Penelope’s confusion, and rather wondering at it, “I could send a note to your sister to come up to-morrow to spend the day here. We’re not going to do anything special to-morrow, and mother always allows me to ask any friends we like to the Castle. We have heaps of croquet courts and tennis courts, and the little girls could come with her, for of course she couldn’t leave them behind. How would that do, Penelope? Would that please you?”
“I don’t know,” said Penelope. Then she said, somewhat awkwardly:
“Oh, yes – yes – if you like – ”
Honora had a curious sensation of some surprise at Penelope’s manner; but it quickly passed. She accounted for it by saying to herself that her friend was tired and of course must greatly long to see her only sister.
“She’s not absolutely and altogether to my taste,” thought Honora, “but I am just determined to give her the best of times, and we can have the sister up and the funny children for at least one day. What’s the good of having a big place if one doesn’t get people to enjoy it?”
It was just then that Nellie said:
“I do wish, Penelope, you had not done one thing.”
“What is that?” asked Penelope, who had hardly got over the shock of having Brenda so soon with her.
“Why did you bring Mademoiselle to Marshlands? We don’t care for Mademoiselle, do we, Pauline?”
“No, indeed,” said Pauline, “and she took my hand yesterday and clutched it so tight and wouldn’t let it go before I pulled two or three times, and oh! I’m quite positive sure that she’ll find us out, and I wish she wouldn’t!”
“Frankly, I wish she wouldn’t too,” said Honora, “but I do not see,” she added, “why Penelope should be disturbed on that account – it isn’t her fault.”
“No, indeed it isn’t,” said Penelope, “and I wish with all my heart she hadn’t come with me to Marshlands-on-the-Sea.”
When breakfast was over, all the young people streamed out into the gardens with the exception of Honora and Penelope.
“One minute, Penelope dear,” said Honora. “Just write a little line to your sister and I will enclose one, in mother’s name and mine, inviting her to come up with the children to-morrow. Here are writing materials – you needn’t take a minute.”
Penelope sat down and wrote a few words to Brenda. For the life of her, she could not make these words cordial. She hardly knew her own sensations. Was she addressing the same Brenda whom she had worshipped and suffered for and loved so frantically when she was a little girl? Was it jealousy that was stealing into her heart? What could be her motives in wishing to keep this sister from the nice boys and girls who made Castle Beverley so charming? Or was she – was she so mean – so small – as to be ashamed of Brenda? No, no – it could not be that, and yet – and yet – it was that: she was ashamed of Brenda! The children she was now with belonged to the best of their kind. Penelope had lived with people of the better class for several months now and was discerning enough to perceive the difference between gold and tinsel. Oh, was Brenda tinsel; Brenda – her only sister? Penelope could have sobbed, but she must hide all emotion.