“Dear me, no,” replied Miss Deveen, still laughing a little. And the subject dropped, and we finished luncheon.
The rain had come on, a regular downpour. We went into the breakfast-room: though why it was called that, I don’t know, since breakfast was never taken there. It was a fair-sized, square room, built out at the back, and gained by a few stairs down from the hall and a passage. Somehow people prefer plain rooms to grand ones for everyday use: perhaps that was why we all took a liking to this room, for it was plain enough. An old carpet on the floor, chairs covered with tumbled chintz, and always a good blazing fire in the grate. Miss Deveen would go in there to write her business letters—when she had any to write; or to cut out sewing with Cattledon for the housemaids. An old-fashioned secretary stood against the wall, in which receipts and other papers were kept. The French window opened to the garden.
“Pour, pour, pour! It’s going to be wet for the rest of the day,” said Tod gloomily.
Cattledon came in, equipped for church in a long brown cloak, a pair of clogs in her hand. Did none of us intend to go, she asked. Nobody answered. The weather outside was not tempting.
“You must come, Janet Carey,” she said very tartly, angry with us all, I expect. “Go and put on your things.”
“No,” interposed Miss Deveen. “It would not be prudent for your niece to venture out in this rain, Jemima.”
“The church is only over the way.”
“But consider the illness she has only just recovered from. Let her stay indoors.”
Cattledon went off without further opposition, Janet kneeling down unasked, to put on her clogs, and then opening her umbrella for her in the hall. Janet did not come in again. Miss Deveen went out to sit with a sick neighbour: so we were alone.
“What a cranky old thing that Cattledon is!” cried Bill, throwing down his newspaper. “She’d have walked that girl off in the wet, you see.”
“How old is Cattledon?” asked Tod. “Sixty?”
“Oh, you stupid fellow!” exclaimed Helen, looking up from the stool on the hearthrug, where she was sitting, nursing her knees. “Cattledon sixty! Why, she can’t be above forty-five.”
It was disrespectful no doubt, but we all called her plain “Cattledon” behind her back.
“That’s rather a queer girl, that niece,” said Tod. “She won’t speak to one: she’s like a frightened hare.”
“I like her,” said Anna. “I feel very sorry for her. She gives one the idea of having been always put upon: and she looks dreadfully ill.”
“I should say she has been kept in some Blue Beard’s cupboard, amongst a lot of hanging wives that have permanently scared her,” remarked Bill.
“It’s Cattledon,” said Tod; “it’s not the wives. She puts upon the girl and frightens her senses out of her. Cattledon’s a cross-grained, two-edged–”
He had to shut up: Janet Carey was coming in again. For about five minutes no one spoke. There seemed to be nothing to say. Bill played at ball with Miss Deveen’s red penwiper: Anna began turning over the periodicals: Helen gave the cat a box when it would have jumped on her knee.
“Well, this is lively!” cried Tod. “Nothing on earth to do; I wonder why the rain couldn’t have kept off till to-morrow?”
“I say,” whispered Helen, treason sparkling from her bright eyes, “let us have up that old fortune-teller! I’ll go and ask Lettice.”
She whirled out of the room, shutting the tail of her black silk dress in the door, and called Lettice. A few minutes, and Mrs. Ness came in, curtsying. A stout old lady in a cotton shawl and broad-bordered cap with a big red bow tied in front.
“I say, Mrs. Ness, can you tell our fortunes?” cried Bill.
“Bless you, young gentlefolks, I’ve told a many in my time. I’ll tell yours, if you like to bid me, sir.”
“Do the cards tell true?”
“I believe they does, sir. I’ve knowed ’em to tell over true now and again—more’s the pity!”
“Why do you say more’s the pity?” asked Anna.
“When they’ve fortelled bad things, my sweet, pretty young lady. Death, and what not.”
“But how it must frighten the people who are having them told!” cried Anna.
“Well, to speak the truth, young gentlefolks, when it’s very bad, I generally softens it over to ’em—say the cards is cloudy, or some’at o’ that,” was the old woman’s candid answer. “It don’t do to make folks uneasy.”
“Look here,” said Helen, who had been to find the cards, “I should not like to hear it if it’s anything bad.”
“Ah, my dear young lady, I don’t think you need fear any but a good fortune, with that handsome face and them bright eyes of yours,” returned the old dame—who really seemed to speak, not in flattery, but from the bottom of her heart. “I don’t know what the young lords ’ud be about, to pass you by.”
Helen liked that; she was just as vain as a peacock, and thought no little of herself. “Who’ll begin?” asked she.
“Begin yourself, Helen,” said Tod. “It’s sure to be something good.”
So she shuffled and cut the cards as directed: and the old woman, sitting at the table, spread them out before her, talking a little bit to herself, and pointing with her finger here and there.
“You’ve been upon a journey lately,” she said, “and you’ll soon be going upon another.” I give only the substance of what the old lady said, but it was interspersed freely with her own remarks. “You’ll have a present before many days is gone; and you’ll—stay, there’s that black card—you’ll hear of somebody that’s sick. And—dear me! there’s an offer for you—an offer of marriage,—but it won’t come to anything. Well, now, shuffle and cut again, please.”
Helen did so. This was repeated three times in all. But, so far as we could understand it, her future seemed to be very uneventful—to have nothing in it—something like Miss Deveen’s.
“It’s a brave fortune, as I thought, young lady,” cried Mrs. Ness. “No trouble or care in store for you.”
“But there’s nothing,” said Helen, too intently earnest to mind any of us. “When am I to be married?”
“Well, my dear, the cards haven’t told so much this time. There’ll be an offer, as I said—and I think a bit of trouble over it; but–”
“But you said it would not come to anything,” interrupted Helen.
“Well, and no more it won’t: leastways, it seemed so by the cards; and it seemed to bring a bother with it—old folks pulling one way maybe, and young ’uns the other. You’ll have to wait a bit for the right gentleman, my pretty miss.”
“What stupid cards they are!” cried Helen, in dudgeon. “I dare say it’s all rubbish.”
“Any ways, you’ve had nothing bad,” said the old woman. “And that’s a priceless consolation.”
“It’s your turn now, Anna.”
“I won’t have mine told,” said Anna. “I’m afraid.”
“Oh, you senseless donkey!” cried Bill. “Afraid of a pack of cards!” So Anna laughed, and began.
“Ah, there’s more here,” said the old woman as she laid them out. “You are going through some great ceremony not long first. See here—crowds of people—and show. Is it a great ball, I wonder?”
“It may be my presentation,” said Anna.
“And here’s the wedding-ring!—and