The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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      Chapter Five

      After she had taken her early tea in the morning, Emily Fox-Seton lay upon her pillows and gazed out upon the tree-branches near her window, in a state of bliss. She was tired, but happy. How well everything had “gone off”! How pleased Lady Maria had been, and how kind of Lord Walderhurst to ask the villagers to give three cheers for herself! She had never dreamed of such a thing. It was the kind of attention not usually offered to her. She smiled her childlike smile and blushed at the memory of it. Her impression of the world was that people were really very amiable, as a rule. They were always good to her, at least, she thought, and it did not occur to her that if she had not paid her way so remarkably well by being useful they might have been less agreeable. Never once had she doubted that Lady Maria was the most admirable and generous of human beings. She was not aware in the least that her ladyship got a good deal out of her. In justice to her ladyship, it may be said that she was not wholly aware of it herself, and that Emily absolutely enjoyed being made use of.

      This morning, however, when she got up, she found herself more tired than she ever remembered being before, and it may be easily argued that a woman who runs about London on other people’s errands often knows what it is to be aware of aching limbs. She laughed a little when she discovered that her feet were actually rather swollen, and that she must wear a pair of her easiest slippers. “I must sit down as much as I can to-day,” she thought. “And yet, with the dinner-party and the excursion this morning, there may be a number of little things Lady Maria would like me to do.”

      There were, indeed, numbers of things Lady Maria was extremely glad to ask her to do. The drive to the ruins was to be made before lunch, because some of the guests felt that an afternoon jaunt would leave them rather fagged for the dinner-party in the evening. Lady Maria was not going, and, as presently became apparent, the carriages would be rather crowded if Miss Fox-Seton joined the party. On the whole, Emily was not sorry to have an excuse for remaining at home, and so the carriages drove away comfortably filled, and Lady Maria and Miss Fox-Seton watched their departure.

      “I have no intention of having my venerable bones rattled over hill and dale the day I give a dinner-party,” said her ladyship. “Please ring the bell, Emily. I want to make sure of the fish. Fish is one of the problems of country life. Fishmongers are demons, and when they live five miles from one they can arouse the most powerful human emotions.”

      Mallowe Court was at a distance from the country town delightful in its effects upon the rusticity of the neighbourhood, but appalling when considered in connection with fish. One could not dine Without fish; the town was small and barren of resources, and the one fishmonger of weak mind and unreliable nature.

      The footman who obeyed the summons of the bell informed her ladyship that the cook was rather anxious about the fish, as usual. The fishmonger had been a little doubtful as to whether he could supply her needs, and his cart never arrived until half-past twelve.

      “Great goodness!” exclaimed her ladyship when the man retired. “What a situation if we found ourselves without fish! Old General Barnes is the most ferocious old gourmand in England, and he loathes people who give him bad dinners. We are all rather afraid of him, the fact is, and I will own that I am vain about my dinners. That is the last charm nature leaves a woman, the power to give decent dinners. I shall be fearfully annoyed if any ridiculous thing happens.”

      They sat in the morning-room together writing notes and talking, and as half-past twelve drew near, watching for the fishmonger’s cart. Once or twice Lady Maria spoke of Lord Walderhurst.

      “He is an interesting creature, to my mind,” she said. “I have always rather liked him. He has original ideas, though he is not in the least brilliant. I believe he talks more freely to me, on the whole, than to most people, though I can’t say he has a particularly good opinion of me. He stuck his glass in his eye and stared at me last night, in that weird way of his, and said to me, ‘Maria, in an ingenuous fashion of your own, you are the most abominably selfish woman I ever beheld.’ Still, I know he rather likes me. I said to him: ‘That isn’t quite true, James. I am selfish, but I’m not abominably selfish. Abominably selfish people always have nasty tempers, and no one can accuse me of having a nasty temper. I have the disposition of a bowl of bread and milk.”

      “Emily,”—as wheels rattled up the avenue,—”is that the fishmonger’s cart?”

      “No,” answered Emily at the window; “it is the butcher.”

      “His attitude toward the women here has made my joy,” Lady Maria proceeded, smiling over the deep-sea fishermen’s knitted helmet she had taken up. “He behaves beautifully to them all, but not one of them has really a leg to stand on as far as he is responsible for it. But I will tell you something, Emily.” She paused.

      Miss Fox-Seton waited with interested eyes.

      “He is thinking of bringing the thing to an end and marrying some woman. I feel it in my bones.”

      “Do you think so?” exclaimed Emily. “Oh, I can’t help hoping—” But she paused also.

      “You hope it will be Agatha Slade,” Lady Maria ended for her. “Well, perhaps it will be. I sometimes think it is Agatha, if it’s any one. And yet I’m not sure. One never could be sure with Walderhurst. He has always had a trick of keeping more than his mouth shut. I wonder if he could have any other woman up his sleeve?”

      “Why do you think—” began Emily.

      Lady Maria laughed.

      “For an odd reason. The Walderhursts have a ridiculously splendid ring in the family, which they have a way of giving to the women they become engaged to. It’s ridiculous because—well, because a ruby as big as a trouser’s button is ridiculous. You can’t get over that. There is a story connected with this one—centuries and things, and something about the woman the first Walderhurst had it made for. She was a Dame Something or Other who had snubbed the King for being forward, and the snubbing was so good for him that he thought she was a saint and gave the ruby for her betrothal. Well, by the merest accident I found Walderhurst had sent his man to town for it. It came two days ago.”

      “Oh, how interesting!” said Emily, thrilled. “It must mean something.”

      “It is rather a joke. Wheels again, Emily. Is that the fishmonger?”

      Emily went to the window once more. “Yes,” she answered, “if his name is Buggle.”

      “His name is Buggle,” said Lady Maria, “and we are saved.”

      But five minutes later the cook herself appeared at the morning-room door. She was a stout person, who panted, and respectfully removed beads of perspiration from her brow with a clean handkerchief.

      She was as nearly pale as a heated person of her weight may be.

      “And what has happened now, cook?” asked Lady Maria.

      “That СКАЧАТЬ