"A deuced pretty girl!" said Dunstanbury, in reflective tones. He was doing his best to reproduce the impression he had received at Morpingham Hall, but obviously with no great success.
"On some pretext, frivolous though it be, let us drive over and see this miracle," Pindar suggested.
"How could we better employ this last day of our visit? You'll drive us over, Percival?"
"No, thank you, Mr. Pindar," said the young man, resolute in wisdom. "I'll send you over, if you like."
"I'll come with you," said Pikes. "But how account for ourselves? Old Brownlow is unknown to us."
"If Percival had been going, I'd have had nothing to do with it, but I don't mind taking you two old sillies," said Lady Margaret. "I wanted to pay a call on Elizabeth Brownlow anyhow. We were at school together once. But I won't guarantee you a sight of the kitchen-maid."
"It's a pretty drive – for this part of the country," observed Dunstanbury.
"It may well become your favorite road," smiled Mr. Pindar, benevolently.
"And since Lady Meg goes with us, it's already ours," added Mr. Pikes, gallantly.
So they used to go on – for hours at a time, as Dunstanbury has declared – both at Hazleby when they were there, and at Lady Meg's house in Berkeley Square, where they almost always were. They were pleased to consider themselves politicians – Pikes a Whig, twenty years behind date, Pindar a Tory, two hundred. It was all an affectation – assumed for the purpose, but with the very doubtful result of amusing Lady Meg. To Dunstanbury the two old waifs – for waifs of the sea of society they were, for all that each had a sufficient income to his name and a reputable life behind him – were sheerly tiresome – and there seems little ground to differ from his opinion. But they were old family friends, and he endured with his usual graciousness.
Their patroness – they would hardly have gibed at the word – was a more notable person. Lady Meg – the world generally, and Sophy always, spoke of her by that style, and we may take the same liberty – was only child of the great Earl of Dunstanbury. The title and estates passed to his grandnephew, but half a million or so of money came to her. She took the money, but vowed, with an outspoken thankfulness, that from the Dunstanbury family she had taken nothing else. If the boast were true, there must have been a powerful strain of eccentricity and perversity derived from elsewhere. All the Dunstanbury blood was Whig; Lady Meg counted the country ruined in 1688. Even Dunstanbury had been a man of sensibility; Lady Meg declared war on emotion – especially on the greatest of all emotions. The Dunstanbury attitude in thought had always been free, even tending to the materialistic; Lady Meg would believe in anything – so long as she couldn't see it. A queer woman, choosing to go to war with the world and infinitely enjoying the gratuitous conflict which she had herself provoked! With half a million pounds and the Duddington blood one can afford these recondite luxuries – and to have a Pindar and a Pikes before whom to exhibit their rare flavor. She was aggressive, capricious, hard to live with. Fancies instead of purposes, whims instead of interests, and not, as it seems, much affection for anybody – she makes rather a melancholy picture; but in her time she made a bit of a figure, too.
The air of the household was stormy that day at Morpingham – an incentive to the expedition, not a deterrent, for Lady Meg, had she known it. Sophy was in sore disgrace – accused, tried, and convicted of insubordination and unseemly demeanor towards Mrs. Smilker. The truth seems to be that this good woman (Rest her soul! She has a neat tombstone in Morpingham church-yard) loved – like many another good creature – good ale sometimes a trifle too well; and the orders she gave when ale had been plentiful did not always consort with her less-mellow injunctions. In no vulgar directness, but with a sarcasm which Mrs. Smilker felt without understanding, Sophy would point out these inconsistencies. Angered and humiliated, fearful too, perhaps, that her subordinate would let the secret out, Mrs. Smilker made haste to have the first word with the powers; and against the word of the cook the word of the cook-maid weighed as naught. After smaller troubles of this origin there had come a sort of crisis to-day. The longest of long lectures had been read to Sophy by mistress and repeated (slightly condensed) by master; then she was sent away to think it over; an abject apology to outraged Mrs. Smilker must be forthcoming, or banishment was the decree. Informed of this ultimatum, Sophy went out and hung about the avenue, hoping for Julia to appear. Soon Julia came and heard the story. She had indignation in readiness, and – what was more to the purpose – a plan. Soon Sophy's eyes grew bright.
Into this storm-tossed house came Lady Meg and her spaniels. This unkind name, derived at first from the size and shape of Mr. Pindar's ears (they were large, and hung over at the top), had been stretched to include Mr. Pikes also, with small loss of propriety. Both gentlemen were low of stature, plump of figure, hairy on the face; both followed obediently at the heels of commanding Lady Meg. The amenities of the luncheon-table opened hearts. Very soon the tale of Sophy's iniquities was revealed; incidentally, and unavoidably if Sophy's heinous fault were to appear in its true measure, the tally of the Brownlows' benevolence was reckoned. But Mrs. Brownlow won small comfort from Lady Meg: she got a stiff touch of the truth.
"Ran in and out of the drawing-room!" she said. "Did she? The truth is, Lizzie, you've spoiled her, and now you're angry with her for being spoiled."
"What is she now, Mrs. Brownlow?" asked Pindar, with a sly intention. Was this Percival's deuced pretty girl?
"She works in the kitchen, Mr. Pindar."
"The girl!" his eyes signalled to Mr. Pikes. "Let Lady Meg see her," he urged, insinuatingly. "She has a wonderful way with girls."
"I don't want to see her; and I know your game, Pindar," said Lady Meg.
"I'm afraid she must go," sighed Mrs. Brownlow. Her husband said, more robustly, that such an event would be a good riddance – a saying repeated, with the rest of the conversation, by the butler (one William Byles, still living) to the gratified ears of Mrs. Smilker in the kitchen.
"But I'm not easy about her future. She's an odd child, and looks it."
"Pretty?" This from Mr. Pindar.
"Well, I don't know. Striking-looking, you'd rather say, perhaps, Mr. Pindar."
"Let her go her own way. We've talked quite enough about her." Lady Meg sounded decisive – and not a little bored.
"And then" – Mrs. Brownlow made bold to go on for a moment – "such a funny mark! Many people wouldn't like it, I'm sure."
Lady Meg turned sharply on her. "Mark? What do you mean? What mark?"
"A mark on her face, you know. A round, red mark – "
"Big as a threepenny bit, pretty nearly," said the Squire.
"Where?"
"On her cheek."
"Where is the girl?" asked Lady Meg. Her whole demeanor had changed, her bored air had vanished. "She seemed fair excited," Mr. Byles reports. Then she turned to the said Byles: "Find out where that girl is, and let me know. Don't tell her anything about it. I'll go to her."
"But let me send for her – " began the Squire, courteously.
"No, give me my own way. I don't want her frightened."
The Squire gave the orders she desired, and the last Mr. Byles heard as he left the room was from Lady Meg:
"Marks like that always mean something – eh, Pindar?"
No doubt Mr. Pindar agreed, but his reply is lost.
The girls in the avenue had made their plan. Sophy would not bow her head to Mrs. Smilker, nor longer eat the bread of benevolence embittered by servitude. She would go with Julia; she, too, would tread the boards – if only she could get her feet on them; and when did any girl seriously doubt her ability to do that? The pair were gay and laughing, when suddenly through the gate came Lady Meg and the spaniels – Lady Meg ahead as usual, and with a purposeful air.
"Who are they?" cried Sophy.
Hazleby is but twelve miles from Morpingham. Julia had been over to see the big house, and had sighted Lady