reflection. "Do let me try, papa,"she went on more eagerly and naturally, "it must be rather dull for youalone, when you can't get about."
"And for you too, my dear," he said kindly. "What have you been doingwith yourself all day--since your sisters left, I mean?"
Ella grew rather red.
"Oh," she replied, "I've been practising, and doing my French andGerman--much the same as usual. And then I've been sewing."
It did not sound very lively. The "much as usual," struck Colonel StQuentin too, and again he glanced at his youngest daughter. It struckhim that she looked paler and thinner than formerly, and less bright andspirited. The fact was that Ella was blue and pinched with having satin her fireless room for more than an hour, but this her father did notknow. He moved uneasily on his couch.
"You can read to me if you like," he said. "I think I have exhaustedthe papers, but this book is rather interesting. Madelene is reading itto me but she can finish it to herself afterwards."
Half pleased and half frightened, Ella took the book. She had doneherself scant justice in saying she read "pretty well." She read verywell indeed, and at the end of three-quarters of an hour Colonel StQuentin looked up with real gratification.
"Thank you, my dear," he said. "That is a good place to stop at, Ithink. I have enjoyed it very much. Now I shall rest a while, for Ihope to be able to come in to dine with you. It would be too dreary foryou all alone."
Ella did not reply, but her father saw that her face flushed again alittle.
"You are not looking as well as I should like to see you," he said. "Doyou not feel well?"
"Oh, yes," said Ella, touched in spite of herself. "I'm quite well,thank you, papa, but," and here, in spite of all her heroic resolutionsto endure in silence, the girl's impulsive nature burst out--"it israther dull. I have tried to do as you wished about my lessons andpractising, and I like them, but it is rather dull," she repeated.
"While your sisters are away, you mean? Just this day or two?" askedColonel St Quentin.
"No, I meant altogether," answered Ella frankly. "I--I've beenaccustomed to more variety I suppose, and at auntie's I wasn'tconsidered a mere child. I think it's that that makes it seem so dull."
Colonel St Quentin made no reply for a moment or two. He sat, leaninghis head on his hand, considering deeply. It seemed as if what Madelenehad tried to warn him of had come true. Had he made a mistake in thetone he had insisted upon being taken with Ella? He had never liked herso well as to-day, nor felt so drawn to her, and quite unreasonably hebecame almost inclined to blame his elder daughters for not "managingbetter."
"I have given in to their wish that no formal explanations should bemade to her, not," they said, "till they had gained her affection andconfidence."
"I certainly don't think they are much nearer doing so than they werethe day she came. It is an uncomfortable state of things altogether,"he said to himself.
Suddenly he looked up.
"How old _are_ you, Ella?" he said abruptly.
"Nearly eighteen, papa. I shall be eighteen in two months," she repliedpromptly.
"That is seventeen and ten months," Colonel St Quentin replied dryly."Well now, my dear, you can run away. I think I shall manage to getinto the dining-room by dinner-time."
Ella went off.
"`Run away,' indeed," she repeated to herself, "as if I were aboutthree! I wonder he doesn't ring for my nurse to fetch me."
Still, on the whole, the interview with her father had raised herspirits.
"I _almost_ think," reflected Ella, "I _almost_ think that if it wereall to come over again, papa would tell Madelene I _was_ to go. Nobodyscarcely but would pity me, left here alone, and it would have seemed somuch more natural for me to go than either of the others, who have hadyears and years of it. I'm quite sure, when I'm as old as Madelene Ishan't care about dances and things like that, _especially_ if I'm anold maid."
The evening passed tranquilly. Colonel St Quentin dined with hisdaughter, Ella greatly enjoying her seat at the head of the table. Andafter dinner they spent an hour together in the drawing-room, when Ellavery prettily volunteered to play, for her father to judge of herimprovement.
Colonel St Quentin was pleased and touched.
"You must have practised diligently, my dear," he said. "You find itless tedious now, do you not?"
Ella hesitated.
"I shall never care much for playing," she said. "But I am glad youthink I have improved. May I sing to you a little?"
"Certainly--you are sure you have no cold? You must never sing if youhave the least cold," said her father anxiously.
But Ella's clear notes set all such fears at defiance. She chose two orthree of the songs which she knew to have been her mother's favourites,and she felt that she sang them beautifully. Her father said little,but she knew that she had pleased him.
A few minutes' silence followed; then Colonel St Quentin said he felttired and would go to his own room.
"I hope to be quite well to-morrow, or nearly so at least," he said ashe kissed Ella. "I really begin to hope I may escape easily this time,"for the poor man was from time to time a martyr to gout. "I am onlysorry to have to leave you so early, but it gives me a better chance forto-morrow. Good-night, my dear."
"Good-night, papa," said Ella dutifully. "It isn't very early. Igenerally go to bed at ten, and it is half-past nine," this with thetiniest of tiny sighs. "What will they be doing to-night, papa? Do youthink they will be dancing, just the party in the house, to try thefloor, perhaps?"
"I can't say, I'm sure. No, no, I should scarcely think so," repliedColonel St Quentin, half consolingly, half irritably. Ella's smallshaft had gone home.
And Ella went up to her own room, and as she settled herself comfortablyin the old nursery easy chair before the now brightly blazing fire, a"Mudie book," which Madelene had thoughtfully provided for her in herhand, she did not look altogether an object of pity.
"Yes," she said to herself, "I really do think if it came over again,papa would make them take me. I'll try again to-morrow to make himunderstand better."
But to-morrow, alas! brought disappointment. To begin with, the weatherwas atrocious. It continued bitterly cold, with the aggravation of justfalling short of frost, and by nine o'clock the rain set in again, thecruel, pitiless winter rain, blurring the sky and the land with its grimveil.
Ella, who had planned a brisk walk early in the morning, gazed out ofthe dining-room window in despair.
"What _can_ I do all day long?" she thought, and then as her eyes fellon the table where breakfast was waiting, she moved from it impatiently."They might have let me have my meals in one of the smaller rooms," shethought. "It looks too ghastly--that table and only poor me. I wish Ihad pretended to have a cold and stayed in bed."
Just then her father's servant came in with a message--a message notcalculated to raise her spirits. Colonel St Quentin was not so well,very much less well this morning indeed. He was very sorry, the manwent on, not to be able to get up. He would send for Miss Ella later inthe day, but just now he was going to try to sleep a little.
"It's too bad," thought Ella, "just as we seemed to be getting to knoweach other better! And very likely Madelene and Ermine will make outthat I've made him ill, somehow. Oh dear, I wish I hadn't quarrelledwith old Burton and then I could have asked auntie to have me on avisit?"
She had been so diligent the day before, that this morning there waseven less than usual for her to do, and after the hour-and-a-half'spiano practising there was literally no obligation on her of any kind.
The library books were in perfect order, the flowers in the drawing-roomhad been all attended to, and if not, thought Ella bitterly, what wasthe use of dressing up the room for nobody to see!
The morning seemed interminable. Tired of the big, empty rooms Ella atlast went off up stairs to give herself another dose ofstocking-darning, as a preparation for the governessing which againbegan to fill her imagina
tion as the only possible escape from thisunendurable state of things.
The fire was not lighted. Hester had felt so certain that herremonstrance of the day before would be effectual, that she had notthought it needful to take further precautions. Hence it came aboutthat Ella was seated like the day before, muffled up in a shawl, whichdid not prevent her looking blue and pinched, her eyes slightly reddenedby tears of sympathy with her own woes, when, in answer to her ratherstartled "come in," (Ella's conscience made her cowardly of Hester) atap at the door
The Third Miss St Quentin Page 20