In the gazebo at the extremity of the garden, by the new parterre, Miss Sinquier, in a morning wrapper, was waiting for the post.
Through the trellis chinks, semi-circular, showed the Close, with its plentiful, seasoned timber and sedate, tall houses, a stimulating sequence, architecturally, of whitewash, stone and brick.
Miss Sinquier stirred impatiently.
Wretch! – to deliver at the Palace before the Deanery, when the Deanery was as near!
‘Shower down over there, O Lord, ten thousand fearsome bills,’ extemporaneously she prayed, ‘and spare them not at all. Amen.’
Hierarchic hands shot upwards.
Dull skies.
She waited.
Through the Palace gates, at length, the fellow lurched, sorting as he came.
‘Dolt!’
Her eyes devoured his bag.
Coiled round and round like some sleek snake her future slumbered in it.
Husband; lovers … little lives, perhaps – yet to be … besides voyages, bouquets, diamonds, chocolates, duels, casinos! …
She shivered.
‘Anything for me, Hodge, to-day,’ she inquired, ‘by chance?’
‘A fine morning, miss.’
It had come …
That large mauve envelope, with the wild handwriting and the haunting scent was from her.
As she whisked away her heart throbbed fast. Through the light spring foliage she could see her father, with folded hands, pacing meditatively to and fro before the front of the house.
‘Humbug!’ she murmured, darting down a gravel path towards the tradesmen’s door.
Regaining her room, she promptly undid the seal.
Panvale Priory, Shaftesbury Avenue,
London, W.
Mrs Albert Bromley presents her compliments to Miss S. Sinquier and will be pleased to offer her her experience and advice on Thursday morning next at the hour Miss Sinquier names.
P.S. Mrs Bromley already feels a parent’s sympathetic interest in Miss Sinquier. Is she dark or fair? … Does she shape for Lady Macbeth or is she a Lady Teazle?
‘Both!’ Miss Sinquier gurgled, turning a deft somersault before the glass.
To keep the appointment, without being rushed, she would be obliged to set out, essentially baggageless, to-night – a few requisites merely, looped together and concealed beneath her dress, would be the utmost she could manage.
‘A lump here and a lump there!’ she breathed, ‘and I can unburden myself in the train.’
‘Okh!’
She peeped within her purse.
… And there was Godmother’s chain that she would sell!
It should bring grist; perhaps close on a thousand pounds. Misericordia: to be compelled to part with it!
Opening a levant-covered box, she drew out a long flat tray.
Adorable pearls!
How clearly now they brought her Godmother to mind … a little old body … with improbable cherry-cheeks and excrescent upper lip, with always the miniatures of her three deceased husbands clinging about one arm … ‘Aren’t they pleasant?’ she would say proudly every now and then … What talks they had had; and sometimes of an evening through the mauve moonlight they would strut together.
Ah! She had been almost ugly then; clumsy, gawky, gauche …
Now that she was leaving Applethorp, for ever perhaps, how dormant impressions revived!
The Saunders’ Fifeshire bull, one New Year’s night, ravaging the Close, driven frantic by the pealings of the bells. The time poor Dixon got drowned – at a Flower Show, a curate’s eyes – a German governess’s walk – a mould of calves’-foot jelly she had let fall in the Cathedral once, on her way somewhere—
She replaced ruefully her pearls.
What else?
Her artist fingers hovered.
Mere bridesmaid’s rubbish; such frightful frippery.
She turned her thoughts to the room.
Over the bed, an antique bush-knife of barbaric shape, supposed to have been Abraham’s, was quite a collector’s piece.
It might be offered to some museum perhaps. The Nation ought to have it …
She sighed shortly.
And downstairs in the butler’s room there were possessions of hers, besides. What of those Apostle spoons, and the two-pronged forks, and the chased tureen?
Leonard frequently had said it took the best part of a day to polish her plate alone.
And to go away and leave it all!
‘O God, help me, Dear,’ she prayed. ‘This little once, O Lord! For Thou knowest my rights …’
She waited.
Why did not an angel with a basket of silver appear?
‘Oh, well …’
Gripper, no doubt, would suspect something odd if she asked for her things ‘to play with’ for an hour …
A more satisfactory scheme would be to swoop into the pantry, on her way to the station, and to take them away for herself.
She had only to say, ‘Make haste with them crevets’, for Gripper to go off in a huff, and Leonard, should he be there, would be almost sure to follow.
Men were so touchy.
Hush!
Her mother’s voice came drifting from below.
‘Kate! Kate! Kate! Kate!’
She listened.
‘Have the chintz curtains in the white room folded,’ she could hear her say, ‘and remember what I said about the carpet …’
Dear soul!
Miss Sinquier sniffed.
Was it a tear?
Dear soul! Dear souls! …
‘Never mind,’ she murmured, ‘they shall have sofas in their box on the night of my début …’
She consoled herself with the thought.