She glanced up with a slight suspicious dewiness in her lovely brown eyes.
“Poor little thing,” murmured Ermine half under her breath, but a glance from Madelene restrained her. “I know how she means, Maddie,” she said aloud, “I hate the feeling of unexpressed blame or disapproval more than the worst scolding spoken out to me.”
“But there is no question of either, just now,” said Madelene smiling a little. “I did tell Ella openly what I thought, but she did not agree with me, and so I don’t see that there’s the least use in saying more. Do let us get into the shade – and I am sure Ella is longing for some tea.”
“It is all ready,” said Ermine, leading the way to the table under the trees, as she spoke. “I had some fresh made.”
“And Philip?” asked Madelene with the very slightest possible touch of hesitation.
“He is gone,” said Ermine. “He left immediately after you went in.”
“I thought perhaps he would have stayed after all,” she said vaguely.
Ella listened, not without curiosity.
“Who is Philip?” she had it on the end of her tongue to say, but she hesitated. “If they wanted to make me feel at home —one of them,” she said to herself, “they would have begun telling me all about everybody and everything, and if they don’t choose to tell I don’t choose to ask. ‘Philip,’ I remember something about some one of the name in a dreamy way. And just now in the house Madelene spoke of a cousin – ‘our cousin,’ I think she said. Well I suppose he is my cousin too, and if so, I can’t but hear about him before long, without asking.”
One question however occurred to her as a perfectly natural and permissible one.
“Is my godmother, Lady Cheynes, at home just now?” she asked abruptly.
Madelene looked a little surprised.
”‘My godmother,’” she repeated to herself inwardly, “what a queer way of speaking of our aunt! Of course it is only because she is our aunt that she is Ella’s godmother, I remember her offering to be it ‘just to please poor Ellen,’ as she said. What does Ella want to know for? Perhaps she is thinking of making a descent upon Cheynesacre if she doesn’t find things to her mind here! I suppose our mention of Philip put it in her head.”
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!”