The Third Miss St Quentin

“Well, not civil speeches then – nice, gratifying speeches.”

“I should have thought you must be tired of that sort of thing,” Madelene replied.

Philip looked at her with an expression of inquiry, but of annoyance, too.

“Do you mean, Maddie, that you think I am spoilt?” he said. “If you do, I wish you would say so plainly.”

Madelene felt a little conscience-stricken.

“No,” she said, “I don’t really. But I think it is a great wonder that you are not. You are a fair prey to flattery – rich, handsome, clever – ”

“Madelene, stop,” exclaimed Philip. “I might retaliate – why are you and Ermine not spoilt then?”

Miss St Quentin hesitated.

“I don’t know,” she said at last naïvely. “I don’t think women – girls – do spoil so easily. And then – there are heaps of girls, here in England, as good-looking and far better-looking than we are – it is much rarer to find a man as handsome as you, Phil. And then – we have had more anxieties and responsibilities than you, and they keep one from being spoilt.”

“I have granny,” said Philip. “I don’t mean that she is an anxiety or a responsibility, but she is – pretty sharp on one, you know. She wouldn’t let me be spoilt.”

“No,” said Madelene, “she is very sensible. And after all you needn’t look so cross, Philip. I didn’t say you were spoilt – I said on the contrary it was great credit to you that you were not.”

“You didn’t,” said Philip, “you allowed me no credit whatever in the matter. I do think it’s rather hard on me to have all this severe handling just because I said I liked nice speeches from people I cared for – mind you, people I care for. That’s quite a different thing from being open to flattery.”

“Well, of course, it is,” said Madelene. “We don’t seem to be understanding each other with our usual perfection of sympathy, somehow, to-day.”

“It’s all because of that tiresome child’s coming,” said Ermine crossly. “I’m afraid Philip is right in dreading it. ‘Coming events cast their shadows before them.’ I can’t say I think Ella’s advent is likely to add to our sunshine.”

Just then came the sound of wheels up the avenue. “What can that be?” said Madelene.

“Callers,” Philip suggested.

“No, it is getting too late. Besides – it sounds too slow and heavy for a carriage or pony-carriage. It is more like – ” and she hesitated.

“Maddie won’t commit herself,” said Ermine laughing. “She sets up for a sort of ‘Fine Ear’ in the fairy-story, don’t you know, Philip?”

“No,” said Madelene. “It isn’t that. I only hesitated because what I was going to say seemed so silly. I thought it sounded so like the old Weevilscoombe fly – and what could it be coming here for at this time? The old Miss Lyndens hire it when they come out for their yearly visit, but that is over and past a fortnight ago.”

That it was an arrival of some kind, however, became clear. In another minute the hall bell was heard to ring – it was a bell of ponderous clang, impossible to mistake for any other.

Then the figure of Barnes, the butler – Barnes who never disturbed himself except on occasions of peculiar importance – was seen hastening along the terrace. The three cousins stared at each other.

“What can it be?” said Madelene, growing rather pale. “Can papa have met with an accident?”

The same thought had struck Sir Philip: he did not reply, but looked apprehensively towards Barnes.

“If you please, ma’am,” said that functionary, puffing a little with excitement and quick movement, “if you please, ma’am, it’s – it’s a lady. A young lady, with luggage – from Weevilscoombe, I suppose – anyhow, it’s the Weevilscoombe fly as has brought her – ” but though there was plenty of time for Madelene to have here exclaimed “I knew it,” she did not avail herself of Barnes’s pause, for this purpose.

“A young lady;” she repeated; “there must be some mistake. We are not expecting any one. What is her name – she gave it, I suppose?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Barnes, hesitating still more – though he had all the air and bearing of an old servant he had not been more than five or six years in their service – “she did and she said as her name was ‘Miss St Quentin’.”

The three looked at each other again.

“Miss St Quentin,” they at last repeated, simultaneously, though not perfectly so – Madelene was a little behind the others and her “tin” came out last.

“I thought,” began Barnes again, “I took the liberty of thinking, it must be a mistake. From what I have ’eard, ma’am, I should say it was, so to say, a slip of the tongue, the young lady being accustomed to be so addressed, living at a distance, if so be as I shrewbly suspect that her rightful desergnation is Miss – Hella St Quentin, the third Miss St Quentin, ma’am.”

And again – too startled to feel any inclination to smile at the butler’s grandiloquence, which was often, almost more than any one’s risible nerves could stand unmoved – the three cousins looked at each other. And again they made simultaneously the same exclamation; this time consisting of but one word, —

“Ella!” they all three ejaculated.

Chapter Three

“It is Really Ella.”

“What shall we do? What can be the matter?” said Madelene, when after an instant’s silence she began to take in the fact of Ella’s arrival.

“Receive her cordially of course. What else in Heaven’s name can you do?” Sir Philip replied with a touch of impatience. “After all there is nothing so extraordinary in a girl’s coming to her own father’s house – even taking refuge there if, as is possible – ”

“She has been turned out of her aunt’s,” interrupted Ermine. “Yes, I’m certain that’s it – she and old Burton have come to blows and Ella’s high spirits or high temper have proved too much for him.”

“Ermine,” said Philip, warningly, “you should really,” and he glanced in Barnes’s direction.

But if Barnes did hear what they were saying he at least appeared so absolutely unconscious that Philip’s remonstrance fell rather flat. The butler had retired to a few paces distance, where he stood awaiting orders with an irreproachably blank expression.

“Is the young – is Miss Ella St Quentin in the library?” asked Sir Philip suddenly.

“Yes, my – I beg pardon – yes, Sir Philip,” Barnes replied. His former master had been a peer, and even after some years of serving a commoner Barnes found it difficult to ignore the old habit.

“Then go and tell her Miss St Quentin; mind you, say it distinctly, no Miss Madelene or Miss Ermine – the young lady is, as you supposed, Miss Ella St Quentin – say that Miss St Quentin will be with her immediately. You’d better go at once, Maddie.”

“She couldn’t have meant to call herself Miss St Quentin – it was just an accident, no doubt,” said Madelene nervously.

“Of course, but it’s just as well from the first to remind her that she is not Miss St Quentin,” said Philip. “Stupid of her aunt to have let her get into the habit. But Madelene – ”

“Yes, yes. Ermine, hadn’t you better get some fresh tea? – this will be cold,” said Madelene, touching the teapot. “Philip, hadn’t Ermine better come too?”

No one could have believed it of her – no one ever did believe it possible that the cold, stately Madelene was in reality a martyr to shyness and timidity. But the two or three who knew her well, knew the fact and pitied her intensely, her cousin Philip among them. But he knew, too, the best way to treat it, cruel as it sometimes seemed.

“No,” he said, “decidedly not. You will get on much better alone, Maddie. Off with you, there’s a good girl. And good-bye. I’m going round to the stable-yard and I’ll mount there. I’m dying with curiosity, but all the same I’m too high-principled to indulge it. It wouldn’t do for me to stay – you and Ermine are quite enough for the poor child to face at first.”

“Oh, Philip,” said Madelene, stopping short again, for by this time she had got a few yards on her way, “I thought you would have stayed to help us.”

“Not I,” Philip called after her. “It’s much better not, I assure you. I’ll look in to-morrow to see how you’re all getting on, and to hear the whole story. And if I meet Uncle Marcus on his way home, as I dare say I shall, I’ll tell him of the arrival, so as to save you having to break it to him.”

“And do beg him to come home as quickly as he can,” replied Madelene.

Philip got up from his seat and moved to go.