Part 6
In the stress of a great crisis, Pikey had not paused en route to consider details of procedure, but now that she had reached her destination they simply had to be faced. Should she go up boldly to the front door and ring the bell? Certainly that seemed to be the right course to take. But then arose the question, for whom must she ask if she did so? For Pikey was now “up against” the fact that she had quite forgotten the name of Miss No-Class, even if, and it was a point upon which she was by no means clear, she had ever known it. However she did not spend much time in wreaking a vain rage upon herself, for she realized that by now she was a long way from Clavering Park, and that circumstances called sternly for action. Therefore without delay she walked along the carriage drive and rang the front door bell. The Laurels was a stucco residence of the glorified suburban villa type with A. D. 1880 engraved on the stone lintel.
The summons was answered by a slightly tarnished parlor-maid in a pink print dress. She was inclined to be pert and the aristocratic spirit of Pikey rose and fell in almost the same moment.
“Can I see the governess, please?” said Pikey, breathing hard. That, after all, was the only formula.
“She’s out with Miss Joan and Master Peter.” The parlor-maid regarded the visitor with an eye of frank disfavor.
Pikey’s heart sank. “Which way has she gone?” she bleakly inquired.
“She’s gone into Clavering to do some shopping for the mistress.”
Pikey took courage. If she could find out the road by which Elfreda was likely to return there was a hope of intercepting her. Happily, as the visitor was duly informed, the hope was much increased by the fact that there was only one road into Clavering.
“I wonder how I can have missed her.” Pikey drew a breath of relief. She offered curt thanks to the parlor-maid and was about to turn away from the door, when a sharp voice which was evidently that of the mistress of the house who had caught from afar the deep note of the visitor’s Irish intonation, said, “Don’t encourage beggars, Jarvis.”
With that insult stirring her blood, poor Pikey made off down the carriage drive, slammed her way out of the gate and took the road back to Clavering. Murder was in her heart, but her spirit was sore, her soul faint. It was a long way to Clavering Park, and she had never felt so disgruntled in her life. Indeed, a few yards on as she crossed a small stone bridge which spanned a local streamlet and lingered a moment to look at the water gurgling beneath, for one weak, wild instant she was almost tempted to try drowning as a remedy for a coil that grew more tragic at every thought she gave to it.
A hundred yards ahead was a sharp bend in the road. Rounding it in a state of utter despair, Pikey unexpectedly found herself converging upon a young woman in a green ulster who held a small girl and a smaller boy by the hand. Accompanying them was a tall, distinguished looking soldier in much beribanded khaki, who walked with a slight limp.
Somehow Pikey was not prepared for Elfreda, but she it was, although more than one glance under the cheap hat was needed to satisfy the maid that such was the case. Indeed, Elfreda recognized Pikey before Pikey recognized her. She was prompt, moreover, being a very quick-witted young woman, to meet the situation.
Elfreda’s method of dealing with it was delightfully simple. She sent on Miss Joan and Master Peter with the tall warrior in khaki, and then calmly and sternly she confronted the maid. With a coolness that literally took away Pikey’s breath she said, “Why, what in the name of fortune are you doing here?”
The luckless Pikey had no answer ready. Elfreda’s sheer impudence was sublime. Pikey could only gasp.
Elfreda calmly watched her charges disappear out of sight round the corner. Then she fixed the duenna with a blue eye of concentrated audacity. “Surely you don’t mean to say they’ve found out?”
Pikey was able to affirm that so far they had not.
“Then what on earth are you doing here?” The tone put the maid completely in the wrong.
Such a cynical carrying of the war into the country of the enemy was a little too much for Pikey. But she was not going to admit defeat. With a snort and a scowl she declared that she had come to fetch Elfreda and that no matter what happened it was her fixed resolve not to return to Clavering Park without her mistress.
XIII
IT was now the turn of Elfreda to be taken aback.
“Pikey,” she said, “are you mad?”
The look in the eyes of the duenna rather suggested that condition. But Elfreda did not yield an inch. “Are you mad, Pikey?” she repeated sternly.
Before such hardihood the spirit of the Dragon quailed. So proper and natural would it have been for Pikey to ask the question that Elfreda by adopting the simple expedient of asking the question herself completely took the wind out of Pikey’s sails.
“Go back at once.” Elfreda was perfectly amazing. “How dare you come here.” She might have been scolding a disobedient dog. “I am quite ashamed of you, Pikey. Didn’t I say I would write to you?”
A conflict began in the faithful bosom of Pikey as an eye flashing with scorn transfixed her.
“Tell me, Pikey, didn’t I say I would write to you?”
Faced by an attitude so preposterous yet so uncompromising, Pikey began to feel less sure of her ground. The dismal admission was wrung out of her that her charge had promised to do so.
“Very well, then.” In spite of her green ulster and her cheap hat Elfreda grew positively majestic. “Go back as quickly as ever you can and don’t dare to come here again unless you are sent for. If you wish to communicate with me privately, please do so by letter. Do you understand?”
Notwithstanding a very definite sense of outrage Pikey felt absolutely cowed. This really was a little spitfire and yet she was just as cool as you please.
“It is your duty to look after Miss--Miss What’s-her-name and to see that she doesn’t make mistakes or get into mischief or give us away or anything of that kind.”
To the wretched Pikey’s eternal dishonor she could only muster the spirit for a dismal and forlorn acquiescence. Even as she did so, she knew that she was tamely submitting to be put in the wrong. The thought filled her with fury, but there was nothing to be done. Ruefully she realized that the headstrong little wretch was altogether too much for her.
“I--I shall write to Herself.”
“Don’t dare to do anything of the kind.” A blue eye suddenly blazed forth like an angry sapphire. “Please understand that if it is found out I take all responsibility.”
Pikey could only gasp.
“But,”--the words of the amazing Elfreda were half ice, half fire--“if you can really behave like a sensible creature nobody need be any the wiser.”
“Whatever will his lordship say?”
“I wouldn’t worry about his lordship if I were you, Pikey.” The voice of the little wretch had taken the soft wheedling tone which somehow had always been able to get round her nurse. “Don’t worry about anything. You’ll see it will all come right. And if it doesn’t, the whole of the responsibility is mine.”
Just then Pikey would cheerfully have slain her charge, but alas! she knew herself at heart for a foolish fond old woman who was without any real hope of being able to prevail against her favorite. She never had been able to prevail against her, if it came to that.
Pikey was not merely in the presence of defeat. The final words of Elfreda struck her with panic.
“I want you to let me have two blouses, some silk stockings, a pair of shoes and a decent hat as soon as you can. Send them by post, and mind you pack them carefully. You understand?”
Pikey’s heart sank. No matter what she might be on the surface, immediately below it she was very much a woman and by no means deficient in the intuitions of her sex. Such a demand was full of sinister meaning. The martial figure in khaki that had passed on round the corner now recurred vividly to the eye of her mind. “You must either come to Clavering Park or I shall write to Herself.” That should have been her rejoinder to this shameless rebel. Beyond doubt a wise woman would have made it, but do as she would at this fatal moment she simply could not find the necessary courage.
“Address the parcel to Miss Cass, in the care of Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson at The Laurels. I will write it down for you so that there shall be no mistake.”
The amazing Elfreda calmly unbuttoned the green ulster, produced a small pocket diary and wrote down the address with a deliberate care that seemed decidedly ironical. Then she tore out the leaf. “As soon as ever you can, Pikey. You quite understand?”
Once more, at the tone’s finality, the duenna could merely gasp. It was the only form of protest she had now the wit or the power to make.
XIV
WITHOUT another word Elfreda moved on round the corner and crossed the stone bridge. As soon as she came in view of The Laurels she found quite a number of people collected about its gate. It appeared that a man had just stuck a bill on one of its wooden posts, that he was now being severely admonished by the mistress of the house while an edified Miss Joan, an equally edified Master Peter, and an amused young man in khaki looked on.
To add to the piquancy of the scene the bill-sticker, conscious of the fact that he was engaged on work of national importance and that his services were at a premium, was inclined to give as good as he got. “Thought as how you wouldn’t mind seein’ it were for a charitable h’object,” said the offender, doggedly.
Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson, a tall, angular, fresh-complexioned lady with light eyelashes and mouse-colored hair, had a decided weakness for “the high horse.”
“You had no right to think anything of the kind,” she fluted on her favorite note of high expostulation. “I consider it a great liberty.”
In spite of Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson’s fierce assault the offender stood his ground.
“You might at least have taken the trouble to ask my permission. I have a great mind to have the bill removed. As my name is not thought good enough to appear as a Lady Patroness, although I have subscribed for six tickets in the front seats, perhaps my gate may not be good enough to advertise the performance.”
“It can come down if you like, mum,” said the bill-sticker doggedly.
The mistress of The Laurels turned impressively to the young man in khaki. “Would you have it down, General, if the gate were yours?”
“I should let it stay up,” said the General, who looked surprisingly youthful for the rank accorded him. He spoke briefly and succinctly as one knowing his own mind, on that particular subject at any rate; moreover as he did so he smiled rather broadly in the direction of the new governess who had just come on to the scene.
“Very well, then, it may do so,” said Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson. “But tell me, man”--she was determined to ride off the field victorious--“by whose orders did you stick it up?”
“The vicar’s, mum.”
“The vicar’s!” Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson was sensibly mollified. “Then why didn’t you say so at once?”
“Because you didn’t ax me,” said the bill-sticker with the ready defiance of true democracy.
General Norris and the new governess had barely time to exchange one furtive smile before Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson augustly interposed. “Miss Cass, remind me after luncheon that I write to the Vicar to complain of this man’s impertinence.”
Instead of regarding her employer with the smile sycophantic as any new governess who really knew her business might have been expected to do in such circumstances, Miss Cass again reserved her glance for the young man in khaki. Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson was too busy with the recalcitrant bill-sticker to observe this breach of etiquette, but Miss Joan, a spectacled young woman of seven, who had an uncomfortable habit of noticing everything, noticed it for her. Miss Joan, however, made no comment, the bill-sticker was sent on his way, and the offending poster was allowed to remain on the gate post of The Laurels.
“_Grand, original production of ‘The Lady of Laxton,’_” read the young man in khaki in his precise, good-humored voice. “_First performance on any stage. Under the personal direction of the author, Sir Toby Philpot Bart and Montagu Jupp, Esquire, of the Mayfair Theater. The cast will consist of The Lady Elfreda Catkin and the following ladies and gentlemen_----”
Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson brought a pair of eyeglasses into action in order to study the _dramatic personæ_. “Miss Ethel Lancelot is in it, I see. If she is as stiff in her acting as she is in herself she might empty the Assembly Rooms quite easily. But I don’t suppose they will be more than half full in any case.”
“You have taken six tickets, though,” said General Norris cheerfully. “And if this entire list of distinguished patronesses has done the same there may not be so very much room in the building.”
“By the way,” said Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson, her voice going a whole octave higher, “who is Lady Elfreda Catkin? I don’t think she belongs to this part of the world.”
“One of the Carabbas girls I believe,” said the young man off-handedly.
“Have you met her?”
“No,” George Norris spoke with a slight air of boredom. “But the _Society Pictorial_ says she’s very clever. Her portrait and all about her is in this week.”
“I must look at the _Society Pictorial_,” said Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson. “Have you the time, George?”
“Quarter to one,” said George after consulting the watch on his wrist.
“Miss Cass,” fluted Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson. “Will you walk on with the children. Please wash their hands and brush their hair.”
For one very brief fraction of time it looked almost as if the new governess would have preferred to delegate this simple and elementary duty to Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson herself. That lady was too much occupied with General Norris to observe the fact, but the young woman in spectacles who noticed everything, noticed it all right.
“Come on, Petah,” she said. “Come and let Miss Cass wash your hands and brush your hair.”
Master Peter, whose age was five, gave himself a shake and a wriggle. “Don’t warn-too,” he said.
“Petah-darling!” fluted Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson to her son and heir.
Miss Cass made no comment, but she took Miss Joan quietly but firmly in one hand and Master Peter with equal quietude and firmness in the other. Without preface or apology she proceeded to lead them in the direction of the house. It was not quite the mode of procedure of former governesses--her charges had had four within the last twelve months--but the grip of Miss Cass was so resolute that Master Peter was able to shake and wriggle with rather less effect than usual.
“Tell me, George,” said Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson, suddenly becoming confidential as the small procession of three passed from view, “what do you think of the new governess?”
The question was really superfluous. By the aid of the sixth sense given to her sex in these little matters, Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson was already fully informed as to what George Norris thought of the new governess. Moreover she had been informed so plainly, that although the new governess had not been four and twenty hours under her roof the subject threatened already to become a matter of some concern.
“I think she is extremely nice.” The answer of George Norris was simple, unstudied, genuinely sincere. And it was very much the answer Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson anticipated, except that she had not looked for it to be quite so candid.
The response of Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson to what almost amounted to enthusiasm on the part of George Norris was rather formal. “She speaks nicely,” she said. “And of course that is of great importance in a governess.”
George Norris, who for all his remarkable array of decorations seemed a very simple young man, naïvely said that he supposed it must be of great importance for a governess to speak nicely, yet he may have thought privately, had he ever been tempted to give thought to the subject, that it was in the nature of a governess to do so.
In fact, although he did not put that view into words, his tone rather implied it. But Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson, who subsconciously followed his train of ideas, felt it to be her duty to convict him of error.
“Governesses don’t always, I assure you,” she said. “Our last one had quite a cockney accent.”
George Norris seemed surprised at the revelation.
“I am sure I hope Miss Cass will suit us.” The tone of Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson did not sound very optimistic. “One finds governesses such a difficult class. You see they are not always ladies.”
George Norris betrayed more surprise. But Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson’s confession was not without a certain method.
She was by no means well pleased that her guest should have walked into Clavering with Miss Cass. He was a young man who in the course of four years had won really remarkable military distinction, but his hostess could not disguise from herself that his knowledge of the world had hardly kept pace with his martial renown. In a word he lacked social experience.
The truth was Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson had come to regard herself as the social mentor of General Norris. In a peculiar degree she felt responsible for him. His career had been one of the many romances of the war. In August, 1914, he had been a clerk in her husband’s office in receipt of a salary of three pounds a week. He had joined up on the morning war was declared, and having some little previous experience with the local volunteer battalion, had gained a commission almost at once. In France he had proved himself a born soldier in much of the hardest fighting of the war, had been twice wounded, had won some very high distinctions, had taken a course at the Staff College and was now a professional soldier and a general officer to boot.
In launching this remarkable young man upon the world Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson may have been a little influenced by the fact that her husband’s former clerk had been received with open arms in certain local circles wherein Colonel Trenchard-Simpson and herself were constrained to move with delicacy, even if they might be said to move in them at all. Even those most exclusive people, the Lancelots of Amory Towers, who wielded so much influence in that part of the world, had taken George Norris under their wing. He had neither money nor prospects apart from his profession and very little was known of his origin, but in the little world of Clavering St. Mary’s, Colonel (on carpet consideration) Trenchard-Simpson’s ex-clerk was cutting just now such an amazingly distinguished figure that the wife of his former employer felt that she really owed it to George Norris to do what she could for him.
He had been housed at The Laurels rather less than a week as an honored guest, but his manly and judicious bearing had impressed his hostess so favorably that she had already invited Miss Dolores Parbury, a niece of her husband’s, who lived at Birmingham, to spend a few days under that hospitable roof.
The father of Miss Parbury had been able to leave the fair Dolores some six thousand a year; and as he had been a successful retail grocer and his only daughter had inherited not merely his money but also his view of life, she had rather set her heart upon “marrying a title.” It was a nice point, of course, whether a mere Brigadier-General fulfilled this condition, but Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson, after due reflection, came to the conclusion that she was fully justified in the special circumstances in sending for her husband’s niece.
Dolores was due to arrive at The Laurels in the course of the afternoon and at luncheon her coming was much discussed. Colonel Trenchard-Simpson, a recently hyphenated auctioneer, with a bald head and a loud voice, was proud of his niece. Six thousand a year is six thousand a year even if it is the fruit of retail grocery. On the other hand Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson in her heart was not quite sure whether Dolores was not a blot on the family escutcheon; she herself was the daughter of a button manufacturer who had dabbled in local politics to the extent of a knighthood. But such glittering accounts were given of her to George Norris that, had the young man been romantically inclined, extravagant hopes must have been raised in his bosom.
The new governess during her first luncheon at The Laurels was really more interested in her immediate surroundings than in the coming of Miss Parbury. There were several reasons for this. Foremost of course were the surprising circumstances. She had not been long enough in them as yet to regret the wicked trick she had played. Everything, so far, was new and strange. She had never seen people quite like these, nor had she ever found herself in this kind of household. Everything, including the table decorations, the menu, the conversation, the style and manner of the parlor-maid, came to her at a new and curious angle. But with Miss Joan one side of her and Master Peter the other, her opportunities for observation were a little curtailed. And when Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson instructed her rather pointedly to cut up the food of the one and to see that the other consumed hers properly, somehow these opportunities were curtailed still further.
There was another drawback also. And it was of an embarrassing, if temporary, character. Joan, it seemed, had told her mother of the meeting of Miss Cass and the strange woman. Moreover, the visit of Pikey had been duly reported by the parlor-maid. “Tell me, Miss Cass,” fluted Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson midway through the meal, “who was the person who came to see you this morning?”
Several courses were open to Elfreda. Perhaps the one most obvious was to lie royally. But she was such a calm and collected young woman that she promptly decided to amuse herself by telling the blunt and literal truth. “Oh, that old thing,” she said with a careless laugh that did credit to her histrionic powers. “She’s an old servant of my mother’s who happens to be living here just now.”
Unfortunately the offhand tone was a little overdone. It did not actually arouse suspicion, but such a casualness of manner with its underlying arrogance was hardly to be looked for in a governess. It did not occur to Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson that Miss Cass had anything to conceal, but certainly there was something about the new governess that was decidedly odd. There were moments when she seemed almost to patronize her employers, had it been humanly possible for her to do so. Certainly her manner made pursuit of this particular topic very difficult indeed.
Making allowance for all things, Elfreda’s first luncheon at The Laurels was a new and salutary experience, yet perhaps it was the young man seated opposite who interested her most. And as it was her nature to follow her own bent as far as circumstances allowed, General Norris received the lion’s share of her conversation.
Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson remarked privately to her husband after the meal, while Miss Cass put on the gaiters of Miss Joan and Master Peter and otherwise prepared them for the afternoon’s airing, that no matter what else the new governess might be, she certainly was not shy. She talked easily and with point on any subject that came uppermost, but somehow her discourse seemed lacking in that subtle deference which surely should have been exacted by their respective conditions. Nor was she at all well up in her duties, either; she certainly seemed to pay more attention to the guest than to her employers or their offspring; in a word, although she was a young woman of undeniably good address, Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson doubted gravely whether she would suit.