“Hit to leg for six,” remarked Claude, who was the cricketer.
After this no one thought it strange that Lionel should treat the governess with great friendliness, and as the Follitts were all kind-hearted people, no allusions were made to her undesirable appearance.
On the contrary, it occurred to Lady Jane before long that the poor girl might really make some improvement in her looks without endangering her ladyship’s peace of mind. Miss Scott was turning out to be so thoroughly satisfactory, and “knew her place so well,” that Lady Jane’s heart was softened. “I am sure you won’t mind my speaking of a rather delicate matter,” she said one morning, when she chanced to be alone with Miss Scott for a few moments. “I should certainly not mention it if I did not hope that you will stay till the girls are grown up.”
“I will stay as long as I can,” answered Miss Scott demurely. “You are all very kind to me, and I am very happy here.”
“That’s very nice, and I am sure you won’t be offended if a much older woman gives you a little piece of advice.”
“Oh, not at all! I should be most grateful.”
“The truth is,” answered Lady Jane, “it’s about your hair. Are you sure you don’t mind? Don’t you think that perhaps, if you did not draw it back so very tight, it might look — er — a little less — er — unprepossessing?”
“It’s so easy to do it in this way,” answered Miss Scott, and she made her right eye wander rather wildly, for that was one of the tricks she had learnt in amateur theatricals. “But I shall be only too happy to try something else, if you do not think it would seem ridiculous.”
“I’m sure you needn’t be afraid of that,” said Lady Jane; “and besides, no one else will notice it, you know. I mean,” she added, not wishing to seem unkind, “I mean that no one will care, you know, except me, and I should like you to look — er — a little more like other people.”
“I quite understand,” answered Miss Scott; “I’ll do my best. But I ought to tell you that when my hair isn’t pulled straight back, it’s wavy.”
“All the better,” answered Lady Jane, with satisfaction. “That will be very nice.’ She had really felt that, in spite of Miss Scott’s admirable qualities, she was almost too hideous to be seen in town with two very smart girls. She might perhaps be taken for a maid.
As I have said, Ellen had nice wavy hair, though it was of no particular colour, and when she came down to breakfast the next morning, having arranged it as she did at home, the change in her appearance was surprising. She still had a red nose, a blotched cheek, and a bump on her shoulder, and she limped; but she no longer looked like a skinned rabbit. Evelyn and Gwendolen exchanged glances, and said in their evil hearts that the change was a step in the right direction, since it must be intended to please Lionel. Lady Jane smiled at her and nodded approvingly, but her prediction proved to be well founded, for neither the Colonel, nor Jocelyn, nor Claude, nor any one of the three Trevelyans, even glanced at the governess. And she had managed to tell Lionel of the advice his mother had given her, so that he showed no surprise.
On that day and the next, a large party of people came for the week-end, and when the house was full the governess and the girls had all their meals apart in the regions of the schoolroom, visited only by Lady Jane and occasionally by Lionel.
But he was obliged to be a good deal with the others, and incidentally with Miss Trevelyan. He was the last man in the world to fancy that a woman was falling in love with him merely because she always seemed glad to talk with him, and he was inclined to resent the way in which his mother did her best to bring him and Anne together at all times; but when there was a large party he preferred the society of the few whom he knew more or less intimately to the conversation of those whom he rarely met more than three or four times in a year, and had sometimes never met at all — for in London he avoided the crowd as much as he could. The consequence was that, on the present occasion, Anne saw much more of him than when the Trevelyans had been the only people stopping at the house.
If he had been wise in the ways of the world he would have known that when a woman has a fancy for a man she talks to him about herself, or himself, and has little to say about any one else; and he would have observed before now that Miss Trevelyan asked questions and led the conversation from general subjects to people. She seemed more interested in his brothers than in him, and particularly in Jocelyn — though she actually treated the latter with more coldness, or less cordiality, than the others.
“He has no ambition,” she said to Lionel. “I wish he would go in for ballooning!”
Lionel smiled a little. They were strolling along a path on the outskirts of the park, near the Malton road.
“I hadn’t associated ballooning with ambition before,” he answered, “but I daresay that if you suggested it as a career, he might take a fancy to it.”
“Not much!” answered Miss Anne, in a tone of conviction. “That would be just the way to make him do the opposite.”
“I doubt that. But do you mind telling me what the opposite of ballooning would be? Diving, I suppose, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t be horrid! You know what I mean.”
Lionel did not know, but she had never before shown so clearly what she thought about Jocelyn’s opinion of her. Lionel was interested, and thought he knew her well enough to ask a direct question.
“You like Jocelyn, don’t you?” He looked at her quietly.
“Do you mind?” inquired Anne, with a short laugh.
“Not a bit. But, as a matter of fact, my mother has got it into her head that it’s your duty to like me.” He laughed too.
“You’re a very calm person.”
“I didn’t mean to be cheeky,” answered Lionel. “But as we are very good friends, and seem to be expected to fall in love with each other, though we never shall, it’s just as well to be frank, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I was only chaffing. You’re quite right.”
“Very well. Then you won’t mind if I tell you just what I think. You like Jocelyn, and you are quite sure he does not care for you. Is that it?”
Anne Trevelyan did not answer for a moment, and there was a little more colour in her handsome face. “Yes,” she said, after a few seconds. “That’s it. Rather humiliating, isn’t it? All the same, I would rather that you should know.”
“Thank you. But you don’t give him much encouragement to be nice to you, do you?”
“Well, hardly!” answered Anne, holding up her head. “I don’t think it would be very nice if I did, considering that he evidently dislikes me.”
“You’re quite mistaken,” said Lionel in a tone of certainty. “If you did not pretend to ignore him half the time, as you do, you would soon find it out.”
“Nonsense! You might as well say that he likes that dreadful governess!”
“I don’t think Miss Scott at all dreadful,” answered Lionel, in a tone that made his companion look at him quickly. “Her looks are against her, I admit, but I assure you she is a very nice girl.”
“I was only thinking of her looks, of course. And I forgot that you knew her father. What did you say he was?”
She asked the question in a tone of real interest, which was intended as a sort of apology for having said anything against the governess.
“He’s in the British Museum; but he is not really her father. He adopted her and brought her up, that’s all. She was left on his doorstep, I believe.”
“Really! How interesting! Do tell me all about it.”
“There’s not very much to tell,” said Lionel. “Herbert Scott has been in the Museum five-and-twenty years, I believe, and has always lived in the same little house in Kensington. He began life in India, and I fancy he must be almost sixty. One morning, about twenty-two years ago, he was lying awake at dawn, when he heard a child crying just under his window. At first he paid no attention to the sound, but as it went on persistently, he went down and opened the door. He found a little gi
rl baby, nicely dressed and quite clean, lying on the doorstep, kicking and screaming. He thought the baby might be about a year old. That’s the story.”
“Except the rest of it,” observed Miss Trevelyan. “The interesting thing would be to know what he did with it — a man living alone, and who had probably never touched a baby in his life!”
“He went to the police and made inquiries, and advertised, but as he could not get any information, and the woman servant he had was a respectable middle-aged widow who was fond of children, they kept it and brought it up. That’s all I know.”
“I have heard of such things before,” said Anne Trevelyan thoughtfully. “The child must have been kidnapped by thieves who tried to get a ransom and failed.”
“Or gipsies,” suggested Lionel.
“No, not gipsies. They hardly ever give up a child they have stolen, unless they are in danger of being caught; and if that had been the case in your story, the child’s parents would probably have claimed it, for they would have been employing detectives, and the police would have been informed. I should think the baby Mr. Scott found must have been an orphan in charge of some relations who were glad to get rid of it.”
“That certainly sounds likely,” answered Lionel. “I think it will be better not to speak about it to my mother or the others. I’m not quite sure why I’ve told you.”
“You told me because I called Miss Scott dreadful. I am sorry I did. I won’t do it again.”
“That’s all right — you didn’t mean it. We were talking about Jocelyn, I remember.
I never understand how women do their thinking, and I suppose that I am not curious enough to study them.”
“What has that to do with anything?” asked Miss Trevelyan quickly.
“I was only wondering why, since you like Jocelyn, you are always as disagreeable as possible to him and as nice as possible to me.”
Miss Trevelyan laughed and looked away from him. “Of course you don’t understand!” she said. “Men never do.”
“I’ll give you a piece of advice, Miss Anne. The next time you make an ascent, make Jocelyn go with you, and see what happens.”
“Nothing would induce him to go, I am sure.”
“I think I could manage it, if you will only ask him.”
“I’ll take odds that you can’t,” declared Miss Anne emphatically.
“Six to four,” offered Lionel, who was not a Follitt for nothing.
“Two to one would be more like it,” proposed the young lady. “I only mean sovereigns, of course. I’m not on the make.”
“Done!” answered Lionel promptly. “I wish it were thousands!”
“Well, it’s in your stable!” laughed Miss Anne, who seemed pleased, “and I suppose you know what you can do.”
“There’s only one condition. You must ask him before me.”
“All right.”
CHAPTER V
THE INTERVIEW WHICH was the consequence of Miss Trevelyan’s bet took place the following morning, in the presence of most of the family. As has been said, the Trevelyans had the privilege of the mess-room when the house was full; and as Anne was very much in earnest, she found her way there after breakfast, when she was sure Jocelyn and his brothers would be together. She was not disappointed. They were scattered about the big room when she came in, and the Colonel was writing a note at his little desk before the window.
Lionel guessed why she had come, and gave her a lead at once. He had the morning paper in his hand.
“Have you seen this?” he asked, looking at her directly. “There’s been another of those awful motor accidents. The thing ran away, and caught fire, and was smashed by an express train. Frightful, isn’t it!”
“Anybody we know?” asked Miss Anne, coming up to him.
“Nothing particular was found of the people,” he answered; “but there seems to be an idea that they were foreign tourists. It’s one to you, Miss Anne. No one ever seems to get killed in a balloon, unless they go to the North Pole.”
“Ballooning is no more dangerous than football,” answered Miss Trevelyan, turning her back to the fireplace and looking round the room. “You get rather bumped about sometimes, in coming down, but that’s all. Why don’t you try it?”
She looked about her vaguely.
“Is that meant for me?” inquired Lionel.
“It’s meant for anybody who will come with me next time.”
The brothers had dropped their newspapers and were listening, and the Colonel had turned in his seat, after finishing his note, and was looking at her.
“We can’t all go,” observed Claude.
“And as I have no time for that sort of thing,” said Lionel, “the choice is not large, for I don’t suppose the Governor is going in for aeronautics.”
“Why not?” asked the Colonel, perennially young.
“I wonder what the Lady would say?” laughed Claude.
“Of course my brother will go with us, so it will be quite proper,” said Miss Anne coolly.
“The Governor is welcome to my place,” said Claude. “I’ve promised to ride a steeplechase next month, and I’m not very keen about breaking any bones before it comes off.”
“That narrows the invitation to the Governor and Jocelyn,” observed Lionel, “and I’ll lay odds that the Governor will be the only one of the family who will accept.”
“What odds?” inquired Jocelyn, who had not spoken yet.
“Oh, anything,” laughed Lionel. “Five to one if you like.”
“Tens?” Jocelyn asked.
“Yes; I’ll go fifty against it.”
“Done!” answered Jocelyn promptly, for he was hard up, and Lionel knew it.
“Will you really come?” asked Anne, affecting cold surprise.
“Rather!”
“Jocelyn was always a sordid beast,” observed Claude in a brotherly manner. “He’d sell his soul for fifty pounds.”
But Jocelyn remained unmoved. “I don’t know about my soul,” he answered, “but you may have the brown filly at the price.”
“That imp of Satan? Not much!” Jocelyn made no answer to Claude’s disparaging remark about the filly, but turned to Miss Trevelyan in a businesslike manner.
“When is it to be, and where?” he asked. “We’ll make the usual start,” Anne answered. “But we shall have to wait till Bob’s wrist is all right again.”
“He isn’t wearing it in a sling any more,” said Jocelyn, who, for reasons of his own, was in a hurry to win his brother’s money.
“Call it three weeks from Monday,” said Anne, after a moment’s thought, during which she had mentally run over the list of her numerous engagements. “I’ll let you know the hour. We’ll start no matter what the weather is, of course. We always do.”
So the matter was settled much more easily than she had anticipated, and she was proportionately grateful to Lionel for making her lose her own small bet.
“You’ll be forty-nine sovereigns to the bad,” she said with a pleasant smile as she paid it, “and it’s rather a shady transaction, I suppose. But I’ll make it up to you somehow.”
“That’s all right.”
Lionel reflected on human nature afterwards, and more particularly on the ways of young women; but it is due to him and to Anne Trevelyan to say that he did not like her any the less for what she had done. On the contrary, he would cheerfully have made a larger sacrifice to see her married to his brother, since that happy result would effectually put an end to his mother’s plans for his future bliss.
During the remaining three days of the Trevelyans’ visit, after the house-party had scattered, he already had reason to congratulate himself on his investment. The singular transaction which had taken place in the mess-room had broken the ice between Anne and Jocelyn, and for the first time in their acquaintance they were seen talking together apart from the others. At dinner, too, they exchanged remarks, and judging from what they said the rest of the party might have supposed that their conversa
tion consisted chiefly in making satirical observations on each other’s personal tastes; but now and then, when Jocelyn said something particularly disagreeable, Anne laughed cheerfully, as though she liked it, and when she returned the thrust with interest Jocelyn’s large good-natured mouth twitched a little and then smiled. They acted like a couple of healthy terrier puppies, whose idea of a good game is to bite each other in the back of the neck and catch each other by the hind leg, and then to rush wildly off in opposite directions, only to turn back the next moment and go at each other again, with furious barking and showing of young teeth, which is all a part of the fun. It would be beneath their dignity as fighting dogs not to pretend to fight each other when no sworn enemy is about; but it would be against the laws of puppy honour to do each other any real harm.
Lionel saw and understood, and so did quiet little Mrs. Trevelyan; but the Colonel could not make out what was going on, for he was a mild man who had inherited the sentiments of the Victorian age, and only recognised that he was growing old because he felt that his own methods of being agreeable in the eyes of women were antiquated.
As for Lady Jane, she was not at all disturbed, for Lionel and Anne were as good friends as ever, and were, in fact, more intimate since they had entered into an offensive and defensive alliance. Besides, the presence of the undesirable governess had contributed greatly to her peace of mind. Her gratitude had already shown itself in the advice she had given Miss Scott as to arranging her hair, and the effect was so good that she contemplated some further improvements. What made the governess look like a housemaid, though it was clear that she was a lady, was her red nose and the blotch. A lady might limp and have a bad figure, and even be a little crooked, but a red nose was distinctly plebeian in Lady Jane’s code, and blotches were a somewhat repulsive disfigurement. She was really kind-hearted, but she knew that she was not always tactful, and it was with some trepidation that she approached the subject, having summoned Miss Scott to her morning room to ask whether the girls were doing well at their lessons.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1321