The remark was not a happy one.
“I don’t think I have grown at all for two years,” she said. “I have certainly stopped growing now.”
Her tone was not conciliating. Colonel St Quentin slightly raised his eyebrows.
“I beg your pardon, my dear,” he said. “I had forgotten your mature age. And to what then are we indebted for this unexpected pleasure?” he went on.
Madelene looked distressed. This was exactly the tone she most dreaded to hear her father take. He did not mean to hurt Ella, up to now indeed he had no reason to feel displeased with her. For all he knew she had been driven away from Mrs Robertson’s by an outbreak of smallpox, or by the house having been burnt down! And Madelene and Ermine were accustomed to this half-satirical, bantering manner of his, and the good understanding between the three was complete, more perfect indeed than is often the case between father and daughters. For there was an element of something nearly allied to gratitude in Colonel St Quentin’s affection for his elder daughters, which even on the parent’s side, between generous natures is quite compatible with the finest development of the normal paternal and filial relations.
“It was nothing wrong – that is to say no illness or anything of that kind,” Madelene hastily interposed, “but Ella thought it better to come away. Mr Burton, the old gentleman you know, papa, that Mrs Robertson – ”
“Yes, yes, that Mrs Robertson is going to marry. Well, what about him?” he interrupted. Colonel St Quentin was much more vivacious than his eldest child.
“He seems to have been getting rather jealous, exacting, I don’t know what to call it – annoyed at Ella’s sharing her aunt’s attention with him, I suppose. Is not that it, Ella? And he has shown it in a disagreeable, ill-bred way, it seems,” said Madelene.
“He was actually rude, insulting,” said Ella. “He seemed to think I was nothing and nobody, quite forgetting I was your daughter, and – ”
“Insufferable, purse-proud old ruffian he must be,” interjected her father.
Ella’s eyes danced.
“Yes, papa – that’s just what it is,” she said, “He could not have been less – respectful,” she added with a little hesitation, “if I had really been a penniless pauper, instead of having a family and home of my own.”
Colonel St Quentin glanced at Madelene. He was on the point of speaking, but a sign from her, imperceptible to Ella, restrained him. He contented himself with a sigh. Ella imagined it to be one of sympathy with her wrongs, and her spirits rose – “penniless pauper,” had been very telling, she said to herself.
“And so – and so, you and your aunt thought it best for you to come away,” he said. “Well, well, it is a pity things could not have gone on smoothly a little longer, considering how many years you have been with her and how good she has always shown herself to you. In any case she surely might have written or telegraphed – I certainly think she might have considered us a little as well as old Burton. Of course she sent a servant with you.”
“No, no,” said Ella, hesitatingly. “I came alone.”
Colonel St Quentin’s face darkened.
“She let you – a child like you, travel here alone!” he exclaimed. “Upon my word, Madelene – you knew this?” he added, turning to her.
Madelene looked very uneasy.
“Papa,” she said, “you don’t quite understand. Mrs Robertson is not so much to blame as you think. Ella – ” and she looked at her sister, “Tell papa yourself. It is no use concealing anything. Mrs Robertson will of course be writing herself, and then – ”
“I have no wish to conceal anything,” said Ella, haughtily. “I never dreamt of such a thing. Yes, what Madelene says is quite true, papa. Aunt Phillis did not send me away. She did not know of my leaving. She will only have heard it by a telegram I sent her from Weevilscoombe.”
“Do you mean to say,” said Colonel St Quentin slowly, “that you left your aunt’s house without her sanction or even knowledge, as well as without writing to consult me – in short, that you ran away?”
“Something very like it,” said Ella defiantly. Madelene looked grievously distressed.
“Oh, Ella,” she said, “do not speak like that. She does not mean it really, papa – she has explained more about it to me. Ella, tell papa you are sorry if you have vexed him. It was natural for her to come to us, papa – even if she has acted hastily.”
But Ella would say nothing. She stood there proudly obstinate, and Miss St Quentin’s appeal in her favour fell on unheeding ears. One glance at her, and her father turned away and began walking up and down the room in a way which as Madelene well knew betokened extreme irritation.
“Little something,” she heard him murmur, and she hoped Ella did not suspect that the half inaudible word was “fool” – “nothing, no conjunction of things could have been more annoying.”
Then he stopped short and stood facing his youngest daughter.
“Ella,” he said quietly, but there was something in his tone which made the girl inwardly tremble a little in spite of her determination, “you have acted very wrongly. You have placed me in a most disagreeable position – obliging me to apologise for your rudeness to your aunt, to whom already I was under heavy obligations for you,” here Ella glanced up in surprise, and seemed as if about to speak, but her father would not listen, “and you have certainly given this Mr Burton a victory. The more vulgar he is, if he really is vulgar – I don’t know that I feel inclined to take your word for it – the more he will enjoy it.” Ella compressed her lips tightly. “And,” Colonel St Quentin went on, his hard tone softening as he glanced at Madelene, “there are other reasons why I extremely regret the way you have chosen to behave. You have shown no sort of consideration for our – for your sisters’ convenience.”
Ella started up. This time she would be heard.
“That part of it I cannot in the least understand,” she said. “It seems extraordinary to talk of inconveniencing one’s own nearest relations by coming home when – when one had nowhere else to go,” and her voice faltered a very little.
Her father looked at her with a sort of expression as if he were mentally taking her measure.
“Ah, well,” he said, “I did not say I expected you fully to understand. You have shown yourself too childish. But you are not too childish to understand that when one does a distinctly wrong thing one may expect undesirable results in more directions than one. And this – the inconvenience to your sisters I lay stress upon, and I shall expect you to remember this. What room are you intending Ella to have?” he went on, turning rather abruptly to Madelene. “Those you meant for her of course are not ready.”
“No,” Miss St Quentin replied. “They are not yet begun, and what should be done will take some weeks. I wanted them to be so nice,” she said regretfully.
“I know you did,” said her father, and the sympathy in his tone made Ella unreasonably angry.
“In the meantime,” Madelene continued, “I was thinking of giving Ella one of the rooms in the north wing. Indeed they are the only – ”
“No,” said Colonel St Quentin, “that will not do. We may need those rooms for visitors any day. It is much better for her to have the nursery on the south side. You can easily have what additional furniture is needed moved in, and, as it is Ella’s own doing, she cannot object to less comfortable quarters than you had intended for her for a time.”
Ella reared her little head, but said nothing.
“You must be tired,” said Madelene, glad to suggest any change, “and I am sure you would like to take your hat and jacket off. Come with me to my room; and I will see about getting the nursery ready, papa.”
Ella’s head rose, if possible, still higher as she turned