Muriel was frankly envious of a cousin whose father could suddenly arrive, as Uncle Louis had done, and take his daughter away from Miss Vincent and the routine of lessons and walks, to spend the winter abroad.
Miss Vincent said rather coldly:
"This will be an opportunity, Zella, for you to learn Italian. I hope you will make the most of it."
"When shall you start ?" Muriel asked wistfully.
"We are going to London on Monday, and to Paris next day; but I dare say we shall stay there a day or two," said Zella in the most matter-of-fact tone at her command. "Of course, I know Paris quite well already."
"You are lucky," said Muriel enviously.
"I am rather fond of travelling!" observed Zella casually.
Even the submissive Muriel was moved at this to say rather defiantly:
"Of course, I shall go abroad myself when I'm seventeen, to finish my education. I expect I shall go to Germany, so as to work at my violin-playing."
This reference to an accomplishment which she did not herself possess did not please Zella, and she replied that perhaps by that time, Muriel would have given up the fiddle. Muriel was offended, and the two cousins might have parted with some coldness but for the chastening influence of the Last Evening.
It was a modified edition of that Last Evening consecrated to James's departure, and the weight of it oppressed Zella strangely. She had not been happy at Boscombe, and had been glad to know she was leaving; yet she found herself gazing regretfully round the drawing-room, grown so familiar in the last two months, and at her silent relatives, of whom only her father was talking cheerfully and unconstrainedly.
She despised Muriel, and found her irritating and uncongenial; but she now sat and held Muriel's hand, and promised to write her long letters from Rome.
She even said, " Oh, I do wish you were coming, too! I shall miss you so," and felt that Muriel was her first cousin, exactly of her own age, and that they had been, and would always continue to be, sisters to one another.
And Muriel waxed disconsolate and affectionate, and gave Zella a small flat bottle of very strong scent "for the train."
Aunt Marianne also gave her a present.
She came to Zella's room after her niece was in bed, and said very kindly:
"Here is a little keepsake, darling, and I want you to make Aunt Marianne a promise."
The little keepsake was a copy of the "Imitation," bound in soft green morocco, with a green satin ribbon marker, and the smallest print Zella had ever seen. The promise was that she should read a chapter of it every night before going to bed.
She made the promise willingly, feeling intensely grateful for the gift, as a token that Aunt Marianne had, after all, found something about her niece that was lovable, although Zella knew herself to be a liar and deceitful and ungrateful.
"Aunt Marianne has marked one or two passages," Mrs. Lloyd-Evans told her gently. "But of course you can find others for yourself that will have a special meaning for you as you grow older. I always think that a book means so much more to one when one has marked all the little bits that come home to one most."
Zella, more than most children, had been brought up to consider scribbling on the pages of a book little short of criminal; but grave and considered underlinings and annotations in a book of devotion were a different matter. She rather looked forward to discovering in the " Imitation," which she had never read, passages peculiarly suited to the especial needs of her soul.
"I have put in a little pressed fern leaf from the garden, dear, to remind you of your home at Boscombe," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans; "and I thought one day you would like to add another for yourself, from your dear, dear mother's resting-place near the little church at Villetswood."
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans still avoided the expressions " grave" or "churchyard," and used such euphemisms as the present one, when speaking to Zella.
"I wish you could have paid a little visit there, dear, before going away, just to say good-bye to it."
"Oh, so do I! cried Zella, who had not thought of it before, but now felt a sudden wish that she and her father had been returning to Villetswood before leaving England. "But it isn't really good-bye; we shall be back in a month or two."
"I hope so," sighed Mrs.Lloyd-Evans. "Good-night, dear child, and remember that you can always count upon a welcome here whenever you like, and for as long as you please."
Zella knew that it was true, and felt more ashamed than ever for having wanted so much to go away from kind Aunt Marianne and dear Muriel.
The next day she and her father left Boscombe.
"Good-bye, Marianne, and thank you a hundred times for being so good to Zella. I wish I could tell you how grateful I am."
"Good-bye, Louis. One is so glad to have done all one could. . . . Take care of yourself, and let us know when you have arrived safely. Zella, my dear child, good-bye, and don't forget to write to Aunt Marianne. God bless you!" Mrs. Lloyd-Evans added in a low voice: " Be a great comfort to poor papa."
"Good-bye, Zella," said Muriel, hugging her. "You will write to me, won't you?"
"Yes, of course I will; and you'll write to me, won't you? Good-bye, Muriel darling "
"Good-bye, Uncle Henry."
"Good-bye, Zella."
"Good-bye."
The hall resounded with farewells.
At last Zella and her father were in the carriage, and Zella and Muriel had waved handkerchiefs from the hall door and the carriage window respectively, and the horses had turned down the drive and out of sight.
"Oh, I wonder when Zella will be back here again," instantly sighed Muriel.
"You had better run up to the schoolroom, darling," said her mother. And she remarked to her husband, when Muriel was out of hearing: "Henry, one never realized before, when dear Esmée's influence was there, how very foreign poor Louis really is."
"H'm. I see what you mean, ' was Henry's non-committal rejoinder. He did not see particularly, but Mrs. Lloyd-Evans at once enlightened him.
"What Englishman," she sighed, "would dream of taking a child like Zella, who is already rather a spoilt, artful little thing, to such a place as Rome? Mark my words, Henry; I should not be in the least surprised if the next thing we hear is that poor Louis, who is very weak and easily led, has been got hold of by some artful old Cardinal and turned into a Roman Catholic."
VIII
ZELLA followed her father up the narrow stone stairs to the mezzanino of the house in the Via Gregoriana where lodged the Baronne de Kervoyou and her daughter.
She had not seen the Baronne for what seemed to her a very long while. The last time had been in Paris, when she and her father and mother had stayed at the Hôtel Meurice for a fortnight. The memory of that time, which seemed so unutterably bright in the retrospect, brought the ready tears to Zella's eyes.
She felt rather nervous, though she would not have acknowledged it, and wondered if Grand'mère would make any allusion to her mother. If so, Zella thought, she would very likely begin to cry.
But when they were admitted, by a smiling and bowing man-servant in a white apron, into the small salon, Zella perceived that there was to be no display of emotion.
The Baronne de Kervoyou, stouter than ever, rose with difficulty from her chair, said, " Ah, mon ami, vous voila!" very quietly and kissed her stepson on both cheeks.
She