The Third Miss St Quentin

Ella repeated her question in another form.

“Lady Cheynes lives near here, does she not? and she is my godmother,” she said with a touch of asperity, as much as she dared show to Madelene, for there was something in Miss St Quentin’s calm, self-contained manner which awed even while it irritated her younger sister.

“Yes,” Madelene replied. “She lives at Cheynesacre, which is about five miles from here. But she is our aunt.”

“Oh,” said Ella, looking a little mystified, “then should I call her aunt? When I have written to her I have always said ‘godmother.’”

“She is not your aunt,” said Madelene gently. “Unless she particularly wished it, I should think it best for you just to call her by her name.”

Ella grew crimson.

“Another snub,” she said to herself.

“She is really our great-aunt,” Ermine said quickly, as if divining Ella’s feelings. “She was our mother’s aunt, and her grandson, Sir Philip Cheynes, is, therefore, only papa’s first cousin once removed. But he always calls papa uncle.”

“Oh,” said Ella. “Of course,” she went on bitterly, “I can’t be expected to understand all the family connections, considering I have been brought up a stranger even to my father. I suppose Colonel St Quentin is my father,” she went on sarcastically, “but I begin to feel a little doubtful even about that.”

“Ella,” said Ermine, “what do you mean? You must not take that tone. You are vexing and hurting Madelene,” for Miss St Quentin’s face was pale and her lips quivering, “and I can just tell you, my dear child, now at once, at the first start, that I won’t have Madelene vexed or hurt. You are a foolish baby, otherwise – ”

Ella’s crimson had turned to something still fierier by this, and her eyes were literally gleaming. She controlled herself for a moment or two to the extent of not speaking, but she lost no time in mentally retracting her decision that she “would like Ermine the best.” It was, perhaps, fortunate that at that moment Barnes reappeared upon the scene. He was not in the habit of so much condescension, but for once dignity had yielded to curiosity. Barnes was dying to have another look at the new arrival, and to be able to judge how things were going to turn out. So he seized the excuse of his master’s dog-cart being seen approaching to betake himself again to the lawn.

“If you please, ma’am,” he began, hesitating when he had got so far, partly because he did not feel quite at ease under Miss Ermine’s rather sharp glance, and partly because he was conscious of being rather out of breath —

“Well, Barnes?” said Madelene coldly.

“I thought you would like to know, ma’am, that the colonel will be here directly. James has just seen the dog-cart at the mile-end turn.”

This was a land-mark visible by experienced eyes from Coombesthorpe gates, though at some considerable distance.

“Very well. Thank you, Barnes. You can tell my father he will find me in the library. I should like to see him as soon as he comes in,” said Madelene composedly, and Barnes retired, very little the wiser for his expedition, though Ella’s burning cheeks had not been altogether lost upon him, and he gave it as his private opinion to the housekeeper that less peaceful times were in store for “his” young ladies than hitherto.

Miss St Quentin got up.

“Ella,” she said, “will you come with me at once to see papa?”

Ella looked a little taken aback. She had expected to find that Madelene was going to have a long, confidential talk with her father in the first place.

“If you like – if you think it best,” she said, with the first approach to misgiving or shyness she had yet shown.

“Would you like better to see papa alone?” asked Madelene.

Ella instinctively made a little movement towards her.

“Oh no, no, thank you,” she said, looking really, frightened.

“Well then, we will go together,” said Madelene softened, though her manner scarcely showed it.

And in a few minutes Ella found herself again in the library where she had waited for her sister, little more than half-an-hour before.

Wheels crunching the gravel drive were heard almost immediately, then Barnes’s voice and another in the hall.

“In the library, do you say?” this new voice repeated. And in a moment the door was opened quickly.

“Are you here, Madelene? There is nothing wrong, I hope? Barnes met me at the door to tell me you wanted me at once.”

“Yes, papa,” said Miss St Quentin, rising as she spoke. “You didn’t meet Philip, then? No, there is nothing wrong. It is only that – ” She half turned to look for Ella. The girl was standing just behind her, and it almost seemed to Madelene as if she had intentionally tried to conceal herself from Colonel St Quentin’s notice at the first moment of his entering the room. And for the second time a softened feeling, half of pity, half almost of tenderness, passed through her towards her young sister. “Ella,” she went on, and Ella came forward. “You see, papa,” Madelene added, “this is why I wanted to see you at once. Ella has arrived – sooner than we expected.” She tried to speak lightly, but Colonel St Quentin knew her too well not to detect her nervousness. He knew, too, that this sudden move on Ella’s part could not but be annoying and disappointing to his elder daughters, who had been making all sorts of plans and arrangements for her joining them at the time already fixed upon.

“Ella!” he exclaimed. Then he held out his hand, and, drawing her towards him, kissed her quickly on the forehead. “Is there anything the matter with your Aunt Phillis? You have grown a good deal since last year.”

For he had seen Ella from time to time, though but hurriedly.

The remark was not a happy one.

“I don’t think I have grown at all for two years,” she said. “I have certainly stopped growing now.”

Her tone was not conciliating. Colonel St Quentin slightly raised his eyebrows.

“I beg your pardon, my dear,” he said. “I had forgotten your mature age. And to what then are we indebted for this unexpected pleasure?” he went on.

Madelene looked distressed. This was exactly the tone she most dreaded to hear her father take. He did not mean to hurt Ella, up to now indeed he had no reason to feel displeased with her. For all he knew she had been driven away from Mrs Robertson’s by an outbreak of smallpox, or by the house having been burnt down! And Madelene and Ermine were accustomed to this half-satirical, bantering manner of his, and the good understanding between the three was complete, more perfect indeed than is often the case between father and daughters. For there was an element of something nearly allied to gratitude in Colonel St Quentin’s affection for his elder daughters, which even on the parent’s side, between generous natures is quite compatible with the finest development of the normal paternal and filial relations.

“It was nothing wrong – that is to say no illness or anything of that kind,” Madelene hastily interposed, “but Ella thought it better to come away. Mr Burton, the old gentleman you know, papa, that Mrs Robertson – ”

“Yes, yes, that Mrs Robertson is going to marry. Well, what about him?” he interrupted. Colonel St Quentin was much more vivacious than his eldest child.

“He seems to have been getting rather jealous, exacting, I don’t know what to call it – annoyed at Ella’s sharing her aunt’s attention with him, I suppose. Is not that it, Ella? And he has shown it in a disagreeable, ill-bred way, it seems,” said Madelene.

“He was actually rude, insulting,” said Ella. “He seemed to think I was nothing and nobody, quite forgetting I was your daughter, and – ”

“Insufferable, purse-proud old ruffian he must be,” interjected her father.

Ella’s eyes danced.

“Yes, papa – that’s just what it is,” she said, “He could not have been less – respectful,” she added with a little hesitation, “if I had really been a penniless pauper, instead of having a family and home of my own.”

Colonel St Quentin glanced at Madelene. He was on the point of speaking, but a sign from her, imperceptible to Ella, restrained him. He contented himself with a sigh. Ella imagined it to be one of sympathy with her wrongs, and her spirits rose – “penniless pauper,” had been very telling, she said to herself.

“And so – and so, you and your aunt thought it best for you to come away,” he said. “Well, well, it is a pity things could not have gone on smoothly a little longer, considering how many years you have been with her and how good she has always shown herself to you. In any case she surely might have written or telegraphed – I certainly think she might have considered us a little as well as old Burton. Of course she sent a servant with you.”

“No, no,” said Ella, hesitatingly. “I came alone.”

Colonel St Quentin’s face darkened.

“She let you – a child like you, travel here alone!” he exclaimed. “Upon my word, Madelene – you knew this?” he added, turning to her.

Madelene looked very uneasy.

“Papa,” she said, “you don’t quite understand. Mrs Robertson is not so much to blame as you think. Ella – ” and she looked at her sister, “Tell papa yourself. It is no use concealing anything. Mrs Robertson will of course be writing herself, and then – ”

“I have no wish to conceal anything,” said Ella, haughtily. “I never dreamt of such a thing. Yes, what Madelene says is quite true, papa. Aunt Phillis did not send me away. She did not know of my leaving. She will only have heard it by a telegram I sent her from Weevilscoombe.”

“Do you mean to say,” said Colonel St Quentin slowly, “that you left your aunt’s house without her sanction or even knowledge, as well as without writing to consult me – in short, that you ran away?”

“Something very like it,” said Ella defiantly. Madelene looked grievously distressed.

“Oh, Ella,” she said, “do not speak like that. She does not mean it really, papa – she has explained more about it to me. Ella, tell papa you are sorry if you have vexed him. It was natural for her to come to us, papa – even if she has acted hastily.”

But Ella would say nothing. She stood there proudly obstinate, and Miss St Quentin’s appeal in her favour fell on unheeding ears. One glance at her, and her father turned away and began walking up and down the room in a way which as Madelene well knew betokened extreme irritation.

“Little something,” she heard him murmur, and she hoped Ella did not suspect that the half inaudible word was “fool” – “nothing, no conjunction of things could have been more annoying.”

Then he stopped short and stood facing his youngest daughter.

“Ella,” he said quietly, but there was something in his tone which made the girl inwardly tremble a little in spite of her determination, “you have acted very wrongly. You have placed me in a most disagreeable position – obliging me to apologise for your rudeness to your aunt, to whom already I was under heavy obligations for you,” here Ella glanced up in surprise, and seemed as if about to speak, but her father would not listen, “and you have certainly given this Mr Burton a victory. The more vulgar he is, if he really is vulgar – I don’t know that I feel inclined to take your word for it – the more he will enjoy it.” Ella compressed her lips tightly. “And,” Colonel St Quentin went on, his hard tone softening as he glanced at Madelene, “there are other reasons why I extremely regret the way you have chosen to behave. You have shown no sort of consideration for our – for your sisters’ convenience.”

Ella started up. This time she would be heard.

“That part of it I cannot in the least understand,” she said. “It seems extraordinary to talk of inconveniencing one’s own nearest relations by coming home when – when one had nowhere else to go,” and her voice faltered a very little.

Her father looked at her with a sort of expression as if he were mentally taking her measure.

“Ah, well,” he said, “I did not say I expected you fully to understand. You have shown yourself too childish. But you are not too childish to understand that when one does a distinctly wrong thing one may expect undesirable results in more directions than one. And this – the inconvenience to your sisters I lay stress upon, and I shall expect you to remember this. What room are you intending Ella to have?” he went on, turning rather abruptly to Madelene. “Those you meant for her of course are not ready.”

“No,” Miss St Quentin replied. “They are not yet begun, and what should be done will take some weeks. I wanted them to be so nice,” she said regretfully.

“I know you did,” said her father, and the sympathy in his tone made Ella unreasonably angry.

“In the meantime,” Madelene continued, “I was thinking of giving Ella one of the rooms in the north wing. Indeed they are the only – ”

“No,” said Colonel St Quentin, “that will not do. We may need those rooms for visitors any day. It is much better for her to have the nursery on the south side. You can easily have what additional furniture is needed moved in, and, as it is Ella’s own doing, she cannot object to less comfortable quarters than you had intended for her for a time.”

Ella reared her little head, but said nothing.

“You must be tired,” said Madelene, glad to suggest any change, “and I am sure you would like to take your hat and jacket off. Come with me to my room; and I will see about getting the nursery ready, papa.”

Ella’s head rose, if possible, still higher as she turned to leave the room. Madelene was leading the way, but as they got to the door her father called her back.

“I don’t want to give her a room with a north exposure,” he said to his eldest daughter in a low voice, “you know we cannot be sure of her health yet, and she has hitherto been always in such mild places. But of course we must not make her fanciful.”

“No, papa. I quite understand,” said Madelene, gently.

But this little incident did not tend to smooth down the ruffled wings of the small personage who followed her sister up the wide staircase with the gait of a dethroned queen.

“For to-night, Ella,” said Madelene, “I think you had better sleep in my dressing-room. There is a nice little sofa-bed there that Ermine sometimes uses when we have a fancy for being quite close together. Sometimes when papa is away this big house seems so lonely.”

“Is there no bed in the – the nursery?” she inquired icily.

“Oh, yes,” said Madelene, “there has always been a bed there. It is a comfortable little room; it is not what used to be the night nursery; that has been turned into a large linen room. But this is what was your day nursery when you were a tiny child. You can’t remember the house in the least of course?”

“Not in the least.”

“We have used the nursery, as we still call it, now and then for visitors when the house was very full,” Madelene went on.

“Oh, yes; for ladies’-maids, I suppose,” said Ella pleasantly.

“No,” said Madelene, “not for ladies’-maids. We would not put our sister in a room used for servants. And I do not wish you to sleep there till it has been made quite comfortable. It is perfectly clean and aired, but I shall change some of the furniture to make it look nicer, even though you are only to have it temporarily, and, to-night, as I said, you can sleep in my dressing-room. Here it is.” She threw open a door as she spoke and passed quickly through the large bedroom it opened into to a smaller one beyond. Both rooms were very pretty and handsomely furnished, with all sorts of girlish “household gods” about, telling of simple but refined tastes, and long association. For in the bookcase, side by side with the favourites of Madelene’s grown-up years, were old childish story-books in covers that had once been brighter than now, and behind the glass of the cabinets were many trifling ornaments of little value save for the memory of those by whom, or the occasions on which, they had been given.

Ella glanced around with a peculiar expression. The fresh admiration which had escaped her at sight of the garden was wanting. She said nothing, but stood looking in at the dressing-room door.

“Thank you,” she said, “if I may leave my hat and jacket here just now; I will fetch them again as soon as I know where to put them. But I should prefer not to sleep here – I suppose there is no actual objection – it is not particularly inconvenient,” with a slight accent on the two last words, “that I should sleep at once in what is going to be my room. I should very much prefer doing so.”

“No,” said Madelene in a rather perplexed tone, “it can be got ready at once if you really wish it.” She was anxious not to oppose Ella when not actually obliged to do so, and she determinedly swallowed her own not unnatural disappointment that the young girl should seem so reluctant to meet her in any direction “half-way.”

“Thank you,” said Ella, more heartily than she had yet spoken, “yes, I should like it very much better. Perhaps you would not mind showing me my room now,” she went on, “then when it is ready I can find my way to it alone without troubling you again.”

Miss St Quentin did not speak, but she turned to leave the room, followed as before by Ella. They crossed the landing and passed down another corridor.

“Down there,” said Madelene, pointing to the end of the passage, “are your real rooms – those that Ermine and I have been planning about for you. The nurseries are down this way,” and she descended a few steps leading on to another smaller landing, from which a flight of back stairs ran down to the ground floor. “I warn you that the room will not seem very attractive, but there is a nice look-out at this side. Our mother and – and yours – both liked these nurseries. They get all the sun going, in winter.”

It was a plain room certainly, old-fashioned-looking, for it was less lofty than the other side of the house, and the furniture, such as there was, was simple and seemed to have seen good service. The carpet was rolled up, and the small bed was packed into a corner; the window-curtains were pinned up to keep them clean, though enough was left visible to show that they were of faded chintz.

Ella in her turn was silent, but she at once deposited the little hand-bag she carried, and her parasol on the only available place, namely the top of the chest of drawers, with an air of taking possession.

“I suppose my little box – I only brought one quite small one with me – may be brought up here?” she said.

“Yes, certainly, but you must leave the room to the housemaids for an hour or two,” Madelene replied. “Will you dress in Ermine’s room, in preference to mine? It is nearer – just up the little flight of stairs.”

“I don’t mind in the least,” said Ella. “I must say I had no idea, not the very slightest, that my coming would have caused such a fuss. Perhaps I should apologise, but – I begin to see I have been very foolish. I have been allowing myself to forget the real state of the case, I suppose.”

“What do you mean by the real state of the case?” asked Madelene, calmly resting her eyes on her sister’s face.

“Why – ” began Ella, a little discomfited though she would not show it, “I mean that you and Ermine are not, after all, my own sisters. I seem to be a sort of nobody’s sister – or nobody’s anything, and yet this is my own father’s house. I do not see why everybody should be so down upon me.”

“Nobody wishes to be down upon you, Ella,” said Madelene gently. “And I know that I have done and will do all I can to prevent papa being vexed with you. But it has not been a good beginning – there is no use in concealing it, and Ermine and I had wished to welcome you heartily. And won’t you come to my dressing-room after all, Ella, and let me feel that things are not uncomfortable for you?”

But Ella stood firm. She shook her little head, though a slight smile quivered about her mouth too.

“No thank you,” she said, “I like much better to begin as I am going to be. I hope you don’t think me such a donkey as to mind what kind of a room I have.”

“I mind,” said Madelene, as she turned away. The housekeeper and hostess instincts were very strongly developed in Miss St Quentin and Ella had succeeded in wounding her in a tender place.

A few minutes later, when Ermine had come up stairs and was standing in her own room, thinking about getting ready for dinner, there came a knock at the door, and in answer to her “come in” Ella appeared. She was carrying a dress on her arm.

“Would you mind – ?” she began. “Oh I am afraid I am disturbing you – I thought Madelene said something about – that I might dress in here.”

“So you may if you like,” said Ermine, not too graciously it must be allowed, for she suspected Ella had been annoying her elder sister. “There is plenty of time. I will go to Madelene till you are ready. You can ring for Stevens, the second housemaid, to help you.”

If Ella had had any idea of making friends with Ermine in preference to Madelene it was speedily discarded.

“I detest them both,” she exclaimed, as soon as the door had closed on her sister, “nasty, cold, stuck-up things. I almost think I’d rather be back with aunt, if it wasn’t for that horrid old Burton. But I’ll never let auntie know – no never, that I’m not happy here. It would be such a triumph to that old wretch.”

And this lively reflection stopped Ella’s seeking relief for her outraged feelings in tears, which she had been very nearly doing.

“Nobody shall be able to say I’m a cry-baby who doesn’t know her own mind,” she said resolutely, as she dressed herself quickly but carefully, for Ella had no love of making a fright of herself!