Chapter 13

'I thought you were asleep,' said Picotee. 'Shall we ask Joey? I have not heard the door close.'

Joey was summoned, and after a leisurely ascent, interspersed by various gymnastic performances over the handrail here and there, appeared again.

'He's there jest the same: he don't seem to be in no hurry at all,' said Joey.

'What is he doing?' inquired Picotee solicitously.

'O, only looking at his watch sometimes, and humming tunes, and playing rat-a-tat-tat upon the table. He says he don't mind waiting a bit.'

'You must have made a mistake in the message,' said Ethelberta, within.

'Well, no. I am correct as a jineral thing. I jest said perhaps you would be engaged all the evening, and perhaps you wouldn't.'

When Joey had again retired, and they had waited another ten minutes, Ethelberta said, 'Picotee, do you go down and speak a few words to him. I am determined he shall not see me. You know him a little; you remember when he came to the Lodge?'

'What must I say to him?'

Ethelberta paused before replying. 'Try to find out if--if he is much grieved at not seeing me, and say--give him to understand that I will forgive him, Picotee.'

'Very well.'

'And Picotee--'

'Yes.'

'If he says he must see me--I think I will get up. But only if he says must: you remember that.'

Picotee departed on her errand. She paused on the staircase trembling, and thinking between the thrills how very far would have been the conduct of her poor slighted self from proud recalcitration had Mr. Julian's gentle request been addressed to her instead of to Ethelberta; and she went some way in the painful discovery of how much more tantalizing it was to watch an envied situation that was held by another than to be out of sight of it altogether. Here was Christopher waiting to bestow love, and Ethelberta not going down to receive it: a commodity unequalled in value by any other in the whole wide world was being wantonly wasted within that very house. If she could only have stood to-night as the beloved Ethelberta, and not as the despised Picotee, how different would be this going down! Thus she went along, red and pale moving in her cheeks as in the Northern Lights at their strongest time.

Meanwhile Christopher had sat waiting minute by minute till the evening shades grew browner, and the fire sank low. Joey, finding himself not particularly wanted upon the premises after the second inquiry, had slipped out to witness a nigger performance round the corner, and Julian began to think himself forgotten by all the household. The perception gradually cooled his emotions and enabled him to hold his hat quite steadily.

When Picotee gently thrust open the door she was surprised to find the room in darkness, the fire gone completely out, and the form of Christopher only visible by a faint patch of light, which, coming from a lamp on the opposite side of the way and falling upon the mirror, was thrown as a pale nebulosity upon his shoulder. Picotee was too flurried at sight of the familiar outline to know what to do, and, instead of going or calling for a light, she mechanically advanced into the room. Christopher did not turn or move in any way, and then she perceived that he had begun to doze in his chair.

Instantly, with the precipitancy of the timorous, she said, 'Mr. Julian!' and touched him on the shoulder--murmuring then, 'O, I beg pardon, I--I will get a light.'

Christopher's consciousness returned, and his first act, before rising, was to exclaim, in a confused manner, 'Ah--you have come--thank you, Berta!' then impulsively to seize her hand, as it hung beside his head, and kiss it passionately. He stood up, still holding her fingers.

Picotee gasped out something, but was completely deprived of articulate utterance, and in another moment being unable to control herself at this sort of first meeting with the man she had gone through fire and water to be near, and more particularly by the overpowering kiss upon her hand, burst into hysterical sobbing. Julian, in his inability to imagine so much emotion--or at least the exhibition of it--in Ethelberta, gently drew Picotee further forward by the hand he held, and utilized the solitary spot of light from the mirror by making it fall upon her face. Recognizing the childish features, he at once, with an exclamation, dropped her hand and started back. Being in point of fact a complete bundle of nerves and nothing else, his thin figure shook like a harp-string in painful excitement at a contretemps which would scarcely have quickened the pulse of an ordinary man.

Poor Picotee, feeling herself in the wind of a civil d---, started back also, sobbing more than ever. It was a little too much that the first result of his discovery of the mistake should be absolute repulse. She leant against the mantelpiece, when Julian, much bewildered at her superfluity of emotion, assisted her to a seat in sheer humanity. But Christopher was by no means pleased when he again thought round the circle of circumstances.

'How could you allow such an absurd thing to happen?' he said, in a stern, though trembling voice. 'You knew I might mistake. I had no idea you were in the house: I thought you were miles away, at Sandbourne or somewhere! But I see: it is just done for a joke, ha-ha!'

This made Picotee rather worse still. 'O-O-O-O!' she replied, in the tone of pouring from a bottle. 'What shall I do-o-o-o! It is--not done for a--joke at all-l-l-l!'

'Not done for a joke? Then never mind--don't cry, Picotee. What was it done for, I wonder?'

Picotee, mistaking the purport of his inquiry, imagined him to refer to her arrival in the house, quite forgetting, in her guilty sense of having come on his account, that he would have no right or thought of asking questions about a natural visit to a sister, and she said: 'When you--went away from--Sandbourne, I--I--I didn't know what to do, and then I ran away, and came here, and then Ethelberta--was angry with me; but she says I may stay; but she doesn't know that I know you, and how we used to meet along the road every morning--and I am afraid to tell her--O, what shall I do!'

'Never mind it,' said Christopher, a sense of the true state of her case dawning upon him with unpleasant distinctness, and bringing some irritation at his awkward position; though it was impossible to be long angry with a girl who had not reasoning foresight enough to perceive that doubtful pleasure and certain pain must be the result of any meeting whilst hearts were at cross purposes in this way.

'Where is your sister?' he asked.

'She wouldn't come down, unless she MUST,' said Picotee. 'You have vexed her, and she has a headache besides that, and I came instead.'

'So that I mightn't be wasted altogether. Well, it's a strange business between the three of us. I have heard of one-sided love, and reciprocal love, and all sorts, but this is my first experience of a concatenated affection. You follow me, I follow Ethelberta, and she follows--Heaven knows who!'

'Mr. Ladywell!' said the mortified Picotee.

'Good God, if I didn't think so!' said Christopher, feeling to the soles of his feet like a man in a legitimate drama.

'No, no, no!' said the frightened girl hastily. 'I am not sure it is Mr. Ladywell. That's altogether a mistake of mine!'

'Ah, yes, you want to screen her,' said Christopher, with a withering smile at the spot of light. 'Very sisterly, doubtless; but none of that will do for me. I am too old a bird by far--by very far! Now are you sure she does not love Ladywell?'

'Yes!'

'Well, perhaps I blame her wrongly. She may have some little good faith--a woman has, here and there. How do you know she does not love Ladywell?'

'Because she would prefer Mr. Neigh to him, any day.'

'Ha!'

'No, no--you mistake, sir--she doesn't love either at all--Ethelberta doesn't. I meant that she cannot love Mr. Ladywell because he stands lower in her opinion than Mr. Neigh, and him she certainly does not care for. She only loves you. If you only knew how true she is you wouldn't be so suspicious about her, and I wish I had not come here--yes, I do!'

'I cannot tell what to think of it. Perhaps I don't know much of this world after all, or what girls will do. But you don't excuse her to me, Picotee.'

Before this time Picotee had been simulating haste in getting a light; but in her dread of appearing visibly to Christopher's eyes, and showing him the precise condition of her tear-stained face, she put it off moment after moment, and stirred the fire, in hope that the faint illumination thus produced would be sufficient to save her from the charge of stupid conduct as entertainer.

Fluttering about on the horns of this dilemma, she was greatly relieved when Christopher, who read her difficulty, and the general painfulness of the situation, said that since Ethelberta was really suffering from a headache he would not wish to disturb her till to-morrow, and went off downstairs and into the street without further ceremony.

Meanwhile other things had happened upstairs. No sooner had Picotee left her sister's room, than Ethelberta thought it would after all have been much better if she had gone down herself to speak to this admirably persistent lover. Was she not drifting somewhat into the character of coquette, even if her ground of offence--a word of Christopher's about somebody else's mean parentage, which was spoken in utter forgetfulness of her own position, but had wounded her to the quick nevertheless--was to some extent a tenable one? She knew what facilities in suffering Christopher always showed; how a touch to other people was a blow to him, a blow to them his deep wound, although he took such pains to look stolid and unconcerned under those inflictions, and tried to smile as if he had no feelings whatever. It would be more generous to go down to him, and be kind. She jumped up with that alertness which comes so spontaneously at those sweet bright times when desire and duty run hand in hand.

She hastily set her hair and dress in order--not such matchless order as she could have wished them to be in, but time was precious--and descended the stairs. When on the point of pushing open the drawing-room door, which wanted about an inch of being closed, she was astounded to discover that the room was in total darkness, and still more to hear Picotee sobbing inside. To retreat again was the only action she was capable of at that moment: the clash between this picture and the anticipated scene of Picotee and Christopher sitting in frigid propriety at opposite sides of a well-lighted room was too great. She flitted upstairs again with the least possible rustle, and flung herself down on the couch as before, panting with excitement at the new knowledge that had come to her.

There was only one possible construction to be put upon this in Ethelberta's rapid mind, and that approximated to the true one. She had known for some time that Picotee once had a lover, or something akin to it, and that he had disappointed her in a way which had never been told. No stranger, save in the capacity of the one beloved, could wound a woman sufficiently to make her weep, and it followed that Christopher was the man of Picotee's choice. As Ethelberta recalled the conversations, conclusion after conclusion came like pulsations in an aching head. 'O, how did it happen, and who is to blame?' she exclaimed. 'I cannot doubt his faith, and I cannot doubt hers; and yet how can I keep doubting them both?'

It was characteristic of Ethelberta's jealous motherly guard over her young sisters that, amid these contending inquiries, her foremost feeling was less one of hope for her own love than of championship for Picotee's.

23. ETHELBERTA'S HOUSE (continued)

Picotee was heard on the stairs: Ethelberta covered her face.

'Is he waiting?' she said faintly, on finding that Picotee did not begin to speak.

'No; he is gone,' said Picotee.

'Ah, why is that?' came quickly from under the handkerchief. 'He has forgotten me--that's what it is!'

'O no, he has not!' said Picotee, just as bitterly.

Ethelberta had far too much heroism to let much in this strain escape her, though her sister was prepared to go any lengths in the same. 'I suppose,' continued Ethelberta, in the quiet way of one who had only a headache the matter with her, 'that he remembered you after the meeting at Anglebury?'

'Yes, he remembered me.'

'Did you tell me you had seen him before that time?'

'I had seen him at Sandbourne. I don't think I told you.'

'At whose house did you meet him?'

'At nobody's. I only saw him sometimes,' replied Picotee, in great distress.

Ethelberta, though of all women most miserable, was brimming with compassion for the throbbing girl so nearly related to her, in whom she continually saw her own weak points without the counterpoise of her strong ones. But it was necessary to repress herself awhile: the intended ways of her life were blocked and broken up by this jar of interests, and she wanted time to ponder new plans. 'Picotee, I would rather be alone now, if you don't mind,' she said. 'You need not leave me any light; it makes my eyes ache, I think.'

Picotee left the room. But Ethelberta had not long been alone and in darkness when somebody gently opened the door, and entered without a candle.

'Berta,' said the soft voice of Picotee again, 'may I come in?'

'O yes,' said Ethelberta. 'Has everything gone right with the house this evening?'

'Yes; and Gwendoline went out just now to buy a few things, and she is going to call round upon father when he has got his dinner cleared away.'

'I hope she will not stay and talk to the other servants. Some day she will let drop something or other before father can stop her.'

'O Berta!' said Picotee, close beside her. She was kneeling in front of the couch, and now flinging her arm across Ethelberta's shoulder and shaking violently, she pressed her forehead against her sister's temple, and breathed out upon her cheek:

'I came in again to tell you something which I ought to have told you just now, and I have come to say it at once because I am afraid I shan't be able to to-morrow. Mr. Julian was the young man I spoke to you of a long time ago, and I should have told you all about him, but you said he was your young man too, and--and I didn't know what to do then, because I thought it was wrong in me to love your young man; and Berta, he didn't mean me to love him at all, but I did it myself, though I did not want to do it, either; it would come to me! And I didn't know he belonged to you when I began it, or I would not have let him meet me at all; no I wouldn't!'

'Meet you? You don't mean to say he used to meet you?' whispered Ethelberta.

'Yes,' said Picotee; 'but he could not help it. We used to meet on the road, and there was no other road unless I had gone ever so far round. But it is worse than that, Berta! That was why I couldn't bide in Sandbourne, and--and ran away to you up here; it was not because I wanted to see you, Berta, but because I--I wanted--'

'Yes, yes, I know,' said Ethelberta hurriedly.

'And then when I went downstairs he mistook me for you for a moment, and that caused--a confusion!'

'O, well, it does not much matter,' said Ethelberta, kissing Picotee soothingly. 'You ought not of course to have come to London in such a manner; but, since you have come, we will make the best of it. Perhaps it may end happily for you and for him. Who knows?'

'Then don't you want him, Berta?'

'O no; not at all!'

'What--and don't you really want him, Berta?' repeated Picotee, starting up.

'I would much rather he paid his addresses to you. He is not the sort of man I should wish to--think it best to marry, even if I were to marry, which I have no intention of doing at present. He calls to see me because we are old friends, but his calls do not mean anything more than that he takes an interest in me. It is not at all likely that I shall see him again! and I certainly never shall see him unless you are present.'

'That will be very nice.'

'Yes. And you will be always distant towards him, and go to leave the room when he comes, when I will call you back; but suppose we continue this to-morrow? I can tell you better then what to do.'

When Picotee had left her the second time, Ethelberta turned over upon her breast and shook in convulsive sobs which had little relationship with tears. This abandonment ended as suddenly as it had begun--not lasting more than a minute and a half altogether--and she got up in an unconsidered and unusual impulse to seek relief from the stinging sarcasm of this event--the unhappy love of Picotee--by mentioning something of it to another member of the family, her eldest sister Gwendoline, who was a woman full of sympathy.

Ethelberta descended to the kitchen, it being now about ten o'clock. The room was empty, Gwendoline not having yet returned, and Cornelia, being busy about her own affairs upstairs. The French family had gone to the theatre, and the house on that account was very quiet to-night. Ethelberta sat down in the dismal place without turning up the gas, and in a few minutes admitted Gwendoline.

The round-faced country cook floundered in, untying her bonnet as she came, laying it down on a chair, and talking at the same time. 'Such a place as this London is, to be sure!' she exclaimed, turning on the gas till it whistled. 'I wish I was down in Wessex again. Lord-a-mercy, Berta, I didn't see it was you! I thought it was Cornelia. As I was saying, I thought that, after biding in this underground cellar all the week, making up messes for them French folk, and never pleasing 'em, and never shall, because I don't understand that line, I thought I would go out and see father, you know.'

'Is he very well?' said Ethelberta.

'Yes; and he is going to call round when he has time. Well, as I was a- coming home-along I thought, "Please the Lord I'll have some chippols for supper just for a plain trate," and I went round to the late greengrocer's for 'em; and do you know they sweared me down that they hadn't got such things as chippols in the shop, and had never heard of 'em in their lives. At last I said, "Why, how can you tell me such a brazen story?--here they be, heaps of 'em!" It made me so vexed that I came away there and then, and wouldn't have one--no, not at a gift.'

'They call them young onions here,' said Ethelberta quietly; 'you must always remember that. But, Gwendoline, I wanted--'

Ethelberta felt sick at heart, and stopped. She had come down on the wings of an impulse to unfold her trouble about Picotee to her hard-headed and much older sister, less for advice than to get some heart- ease by interchange of words; but alas, she could proceed no further. The wretched homeliness of Gwendoline's mind seemed at this particular juncture to be absolutely intolerable, and Ethelberta was suddenly convinced that to involve Gwendoline in any such discussion would simply be increasing her own burden, and adding worse confusion to her sister's already confused existence.

'What were you going to say?' said the honest and unsuspecting Gwendoline.

'I will put it off until to-morrow,' Ethelberta murmured gloomily; 'I have a bad headache, and I am afraid I cannot stay with you after all.'

As she ascended the stairs, Ethelberta ached with an added pain not much less than the primary one which had brought her down. It was that old sense of disloyalty to her class and kin by feeling as she felt now which caused the pain, and there was no escaping it. Gwendoline would have gone to the ends of the earth for her: she could not confide a thought to Gwendoline!

'If she only knew of that unworthy feeling of mine, how she would grieve,' said Ethelberta miserably.

She next went up to the servants' bedrooms, and to where Cornelia slept. On Ethelberta's entrance Cornelia looked up from a perfect wonder of a bonnet, which she held in her hands. At sight of Ethelberta the look of keen interest in her work changed to one of gaiety.

'I am so glad--I was just coming down,' Cornelia said in a whisper; whenever they spoke as relations in this house it was in whispers. 'Now, how do you think this bonnet will do? May I come down, and see how I look in your big glass?' She clapped the bonnet upon her head. 'Won't it do beautiful for Sunday afternoon?'

'It looks very attractive, as far as I can see by this light,' said Ethelberta. 'But is it not rather too brilliant in colour--blue and red together, like that? Remember, as I often tell you, people in town never wear such bright contrasts as they do in the country.'

'O Berta!' said Cornelia, in a deprecating tone; 'don't object. If there's one thing I do glory in it is a nice flare-up about my head o' Sundays--of course if the family's not in mourning, I mean.' But, seeing that Ethelberta did not smile, she turned the subject, and added docilely: 'Did you come up for me to do anything? I will put off finishing my bonnet if I am wanted.'

'I was going to talk to you about family matters, and Picotee,' said Ethelberta. 'But, as you are busy, and I have a headache, I will put it off till to-morrow.'

Cornelia seemed decidedly relieved, for family matters were far from attractive at the best of times; and Ethelberta went down to the next floor, and entered her mother's room.

After a short conversation Mrs. Chickerel said, 'You say you want to ask me something?'

'Yes: but nothing of importance, mother. I was thinking about Picotee, and what would be the best thing to do--'

'Ah, well you may, Berta. I am so uneasy about this life you have led us into, and full of fear that your plans may break down; if they do, whatever will become of us? I know you are doing your best; but I cannot help thinking that the coming to London and living with you was wild and rash, and not well weighed afore we set about it. You should have counted the cost first, and not advised it. If you break down, and we are all discovered living so queer and unnatural, right in the heart of the aristocracy, we should be the laughing-stock of the country: it would kill me, and ruin us all--utterly ruin us!'

'O mother, I know all that so well!' exclaimed Ethelberta, tears of anguish filling her eyes. 'Don't depress me more than I depress myself by such fears, or you will bring about the very thing we strive to avoid! My only chance is in keeping in good spirits, and why don't you try to help me a little by taking a brighter view of things?'

'I know I ought to, my dear girl, but I cannot. I do so wish that I never let you tempt me and the children away from the Lodge. I cannot think why I allowed myself to be so persuaded--cannot think! You are not to blame--it is I. I am much older than you, and ought to have known better than listen to such a scheme. This undertaking seems too big--the bills frighten me. I have never been used to such wild adventure, and I can't sleep at night for fear that your tale-telling will go wrong, and we shall all be exposed and shamed. A story-teller seems such an impossible castle-in-the-air sort of a trade for getting a living by--I cannot think how ever you came to dream of such an unheard-of thing.'

'But it is not a castle in the air, and it does get a living!' said Ethelberta, her lip quivering.

'Well, yes, while it is just a new thing; but I am afraid it cannot last--that's what I fear. People will find you out as one of a family of servants, and their pride will be stung at having gone to hear your romancing; then they will go no more, and what will happen to us and the poor little ones?'

'We must all scatter again!'