“How do you do, Miss Goff, Have I kept you waiting? I was out.”
“Not at all,” said Miss Goff, with a confused impression that red hair was aristocratic, and dark brown (the color of her own) vulgar. She had risen to shake hands, and now, after hesitating a moment to consider what etiquette required her to do next, resumed her seat. Miss Carew sat down too, and gazed thoughtfully at her visitor, who held herself rigidly erect, and, striving to mask her nervousness, unintentionally looked disdainful.
“Miss Goff,” said Lydia, after a silence that made her speech impressive, “will you come to me on a long visit? In this lonely place I am greatly in want of a friend and companion of my own age and position. I think you must be equally so.”
Alice Goff was very young, and very determined to accept no credit that she did not deserve. With the unconscious vanity and conscious honesty of youth, she proceeded to set Miss Carew right as to her social position, not considering that the lady of the castle probably understood it better than she did herself, and indeed thinking it quite natural that she should be mistaken.
“You are very kind,” she replied, stiffly; “but our positions are quite different, Miss Carew. The fact is that I cannot afford to live an idle life. We are very poor, and my mother is partly dependent on my exertions.”
“I think you will be able to exert yourself to good purpose if you come to me,” said Lydia, unimpressed. “It is true that I shall give you very expensive habits; but I will of course enable you to support them.”
“I do not wish to contract expensive habits,” said Alice, reproachfully. “I shall have to content myself with frugal ones throughout my life.”
“Not necessarily. Tell me, frankly: how had you proposed to exert yourself? As a teacher, was it not?”
Alice flushed, but assented.
“You are not at all fitted for it; and you will end by marrying. As a teacher you could not marry well. As an idle lady, with expensive habits, you will marry very well indeed. It is quite an art to know how to be rich — an indispensable art, if you mean to marry a rich man.”
“I have no intention of marrying,” said Alice, loftily. She thought it time to check this cool aristocrat. “If I come at all I shall come without any ulterior object.”
“That is just what I had hoped. Come without condition, or second thought of any kind.”
“But—” began Alice, and stopped, bewildered by the pace at which the negotiation was proceeding. She murmured a few words, and waited for Lydia to proceed. But Lydia had said her say, and evidently expected a reply, though she seemed assured of having her own way, whatever Alice’s views might be.
“I do not quite understand, Miss Carew. What duties? — what would you expect of me?”
“A great deal,” said Lydia, gravely. “Much more than I should from a mere professional companion.”
“But I am a professional companion,” protested Alice.
“Whose?”
Alice flushed again, angrily this time. “I did not mean to say—”
“You do not mean to say that you will have nothing to do with me,” said Lydia, stopping her quietly. “Why are you so scrupulous, Miss Goff? You will be close to your home, and can return to it at any moment if you become dissatisfied with your position here.”
Fearful that she had disgraced herself by ill manners; loath to be taken possession of as if her wishes were of no consequence when a rich lady’s whim was to be gratified; suspicious — since she had often heard gossiping tales of the dishonesty of people in high positions — lest she should be cheated out of the salary she had come resolved to demand; and withal unable to defend herself against Miss Carew, Alice caught at the first excuse that occurred to her.
“I should like a little time to consider,” she said.
“Time to accustom yourself to me, is it not? You can have as long as you plea-”
“Oh, I can let you know tomorrow,” interrupted Alice, officiously.
“Thank you. I will send a note to Mrs. Goff to say that she need not expect you back until tomorrow.”
“But I did not mean — I am not prepared to stay,” remonstrated Alice, feeling that she was being entangled in a snare.
“We shall take a walk after dinner, then, and call at your house, where you can make your preparations. But I think I can supply you with all you will require.”
Alice dared make no further objection. “I am afraid,” she stammered, “you will think me horribly rude; but I am so useless, and you are so sure to be disappointed, that — that—”
“You are not rude, Miss Goff; but I find you very shy. You want to run away and hide from new faces and new surroundings.” Alice, who was self-possessed and even overbearing in Wiltstoken society, felt that she was misunderstood, but did not know how to vindicate herself. Lydia resumed, “I have formed my habits in the course of my travels, and so live without ceremony. We dine early — at six.”
Alice had dined at two, but did not feel bound to confess it.
“Let me show you your room,” said Lydia, rising. “This is a curious drawingroom,” she added, glancing around. “I only use it occasionally to receive visitors.” She looked about her again with some interest, as if the apartment belonged to some one else, and led the way to a room on the first floor, furnished as a lady’s bedchamber. “If you dislike this,” she said, “or cannot arrange it to suit you, there are others, of which you can have your choice. Come to my boudoir when you are ready.”
“Where is that?” said Alice, anxiously.
“It is — You had better ring for some one to show you. I will send you my maid.”
Alice, even more afraid of the maid than of the mistress, declined hastily. “I am accustomed to attend to myself, Miss Carew,” with proud humility.
“You will find it more convenient to call me Lydia,” said Miss Carew. “Otherwise you will be supposed to refer to my grandaunt, a very old lady.” She then left the room.
Alice was fond of thinking that she had a womanly taste and touch in making a room pretty. She was accustomed to survey with pride her mother’s drawingroom, which she had garnished with cheap cretonnes, Japanese paper fans, and knick-knacks in ornamental pottery. She felt now that if she slept once in the bed before her, she could never be content in her mother’s house again. All that she had read and believed of the beauty of cheap and simple ornament, and the vulgarity of costliness, recurred to her as a hypocritical paraphrase of the “sour grapes” of the fox in the fable. She pictured to herself with a shudder the effect of a sixpenny Chinese umbrella in that fireplace, a cretonne valance to that bed, or chintz curtains to those windows. There was in the room a series of mirrors consisting of a great glass in which she could see herself at full length, another framed in the carved oaken dressing-table, and smaller ones of various shapes fixed to jointed arms that turned every way. To use them for the first time was like having eyes in the back of the head. She had never seen herself from all points of view before. As she gazed, she strove not to be ashamed of her dress; but even her face and figure, which usually afforded her unqualified delight, seemed robust and middle-class in Miss Carew’s mirrors.
“After all,” she said, seating herself on a chair that was even more luxurious to rest in than to look at; “putting the lace out of the question — and my old lace that belongs to mamma is quite as valuable — her whole dress cannot have cost much more than mine. At any rate, it is not worth much more, whatever she may have chosen to pay for it.”
But Alice was clever enough to envy Miss Carew her manners more than her dress. She would not admit to herself that she was not thoroughly a lady; but she felt that Lydia, in the eye of a stranger, would answer that description better than she. Still, as far as she had observed, Miss Carew