Miss Vincent made no mention whatever of Zella's abilities, but was eloquent on the subject of her extreme backwardness, and she found herself easily surpassed by Muriel at almost all their lessons.
Zella, who thought herself clever and Muriel very stupid, was angry and mortified; but she lacked the faculty of perseverance, and remained unable to demonstrate her superiority except on the rare occasions when some out-of-the-way piece of information came into question, when she could draw upon her fund of miscellaneous reading for supplying it.
At the end of six weeks she was miserable and homesick.
A longing for the old days at Villetswood, that would never return, came upon her, and the passion of the past obsessed the precocious child of fourteen.
She cried herself to sleep, as she had done during the first week or two after her mother's death, and grew pale and heavy-eyed. .
Everything was hateful : the daily lessons, where she toiled over sums and learnt dates that Muriel had mastered; three years ago; the schoolroom meals, when Miss Vincent and Muriel talked British French, and began every sentence with "Esker " ; the daily walks along the muddy high-road, and the evenings in the drawing-room, when Muriel and she played draughts or halma until bedtime.
Zella resolved to go home. A vague instinct that Villetswood without her mother's laughing, loving presence would be different, with the gladness and freedom gone from it, did not deter her.
At Villetswood was her father, who must surely become again, some day, his kindly, merry self. At Villetswood all the servants were her friends, and would be glad to welcome her again, and make much of her.
With a sense of doing something that Aunt Marianne would certainly consider contraband, Zella wrote to her father and asked if she might come home again.
She wrote the letter in the schoolroom before breakfast, taking time and trouble over the composition; for she had a nervous fear lest her father might think, as Aunt Marianne had assured her he must, that a few months of regular life with a companion of her own age would do her good.
After Zella had taken the letter down to the post-box in the hall, she went up to the schoolroom again, happier than she had been for some weeks.
It was with no shadow of apprehension that she heard Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, after luncheon, call her into the drawing-room.
"Would you like to come and talk to Aunt Marianne for a little while, instead of going for a walk ?" she asked very kindly, and Zella gladly thanked her.
Just hold this skein of wool then, dear, while I wind it. I always think one should have something to do with one's hands while one is talking.
"' Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.'"
Zella took the skein of red wool and sat down on a small chair opposite her aunt's sofa.
"How are your lessons getting on, dear?"
"All right, I think," said Zella rather wonderingly.
"I'm glad to hear it, for I know you have had no very regular lessons until you came here; and that's a great drawback, you know, Zella. You must work hard now to make up for lost time."
Zella felt the latent resentment, which her Aunt Marianne could always rouse, rising within her.
Her face expressed defiance, but Mrs. Lloyd-Evans did not raise her eyes from the ball of wool.
"Later on," she pursued, "when you have caught up with Muriel, it will be more interesting."
The inference that her visit was to be of an indeterminate length alarmed Zella, and she said hastily:
"Oh, but, Aunt Marianne, I expect I shall be back at Villetswood before so very long. I've been here nearly three months, and I think papa will want me back soon."
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans saw the opening for which she had been waiting.
"Dear child, you are quite right to think of that, of course, but papa won't want you back just yet. It was quite arranged that you were to stay with us for a long visit, and I expect it will be more or less of a permanent one. You know how glad we are to have you."
"But, Aunt Marianne "Zella was scarlet from dismay and a sort of fear.
"You see, dear, things aren't quite the same now. A gentleman cannot very well look after a little girl, and, besides, it would be very lonely for you at Villetswood. Papa might, of course, find a good governess for you, and leave you there under her care while he went abroad, as he so frequently does," interpolated Mrs. Lloyd-Evans rather resentfully; "but I do not think that is very likely. In fact, I know that his real wish is to leave you under my care for a year or two."
The foundation for this statement was not very apparent even to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans herself, but she found ample justification for it in the knowledge that gentlemen did not always quite understand what was most suitable.
"But," said Zella faintly, "he said I should go back to him in a little while."
"Yes, dear, and I'm sure he would let you do so if you wished to. But you are quite happy with us, aren't you, Zella ?" said Aunt Marianne very kindly indeed.
Zella could have burst into tears. It was constitutionally impossible to her to tell Aunt Marianne, when she spoke so kindly, that she was not happy at Boscombe, in spite of all that was being done for her.
She felt herself a craven and a traitor when she thought of her already written letter to her father, but Zella was morally unable to make any further reply than a rather quavering:
"Yes, Aunt Marianne."
"That's right, dear. Besides, don't you think it would be rather unkind to worry poor papa just now, when he is so glad to think that you are good and happy here? You see, it is very hard tor a gentleman to have to make arrangements for a little girl, and if you make difficulties it will bring his sad loss home to him more than ever. You understand, I know, darling."
"Oh yes."
"Write him nice cheerful letters, then—won't you, dear ?—and let him see that you are contented and happy."
Zella felt as though her aunt must have seen through the letter-box and the envelope it contained, to the letter inside. But she choked out another "Yes."
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans looked rather relieved, kissed Zella, and sent her upstairs again.
She was convinced that Louis de Kervoyou was quite unfitted to look after his daughter, and trusted that Providence would second her efforts to retain charge of Zella, or at the very least place her in a satisfactory school.
VII
ZELLA spent that day and the next in a characteristic agony of apprehension.
She thought that she had acted treacherously, and dreaded lest her Aunt Marianne should find it out. What if her father wrote from Villetswood to tell Aunt Marianne that Zella was unhappy under her charge, and wanted to come home at once? Or supposing he really thought, as Aunt Marianne said, that she was better at Boscombe, and wrote to say that she could not return to Villetswood for the present?
She suffered acutely in anticipating these and other varied replies to her appeal, before her father's letter actually arrived, by return of post.
"Ma Chèrie—Je compte venir passer 2 ou 3 jours chez ta tante, jeudi, si elle pent me recevoir. Sois tranquille; nous arrangerons la chose et tu feras comme tu voudra.—Ton pere qui t'aime."
Zella felt a rush of grateful tenderness at the old indulgent tone, which she had learnt to value as never before, in the well-regulated Lloyd-Evans household, from whence it was so conspicuously absent.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, beyond saying, with a heavy sigh, that