Part 32 (2/2)

Certainly I could not feel otherwise than grateful to my protector for his ingenious and powerful defence, as we appeared before the offended group at the door of the cloakroom. Though my aunt received it politely, I well knew the wrath that her knit brow portended, and Josephine's look of contempt was unmistakable. Mr. Rutledge had his visor down; no earthly intelligence could discover anything of his emotions through that impa.s.sive exterior. Even the captain was irritated; Phil was neutral, but Victor was my only friend.

”Good night,” he whispered, as he put me into the carriage. ”We'll finish that redowa at Mrs. Humphrey's to-morrow night.”

I wished, with all my heart, it was to-morrow night, and all that I foresaw must intervene, safely past. The scolding was not to come before morning, I saw at once, and when my aunt, on our arrival at home, dismissed me to my room, it was with a cold, ”I wish to have a few minutes' conversation with you after breakfast to-morrow.”

With that dread before me--with a guilty sense of wrong-doing, and a bitter sense of shame, a humbled condemnation of myself, and an angry resentment toward others, the restless hours of that night offered anything but repose, anything but pleasant retrospect or antic.i.p.ation.

CHAPTER XXII.

”And if some tones be false or low, What are all prayers beneath But cries of babes, that cannot know Half the deep thought they breathe?”

KEBLE.

Mrs. Churchill understood, if ever any did, the art of reprimand.

Without the least appearance of agitation herself, with a perfectly unmoved and stony composure, she managed to overawe and disarm the prisoner at the bar, whatever might be his or her offence, or shade or degree of guilt. Defence died on my lips at the dreaded interview, and I bore my sentence in silence, which was, a total seclusion from society after to-night--a return to the oblivion of the nursery and study. This ball at Mrs. Humphrey's was to be my last appearance in public till I should have learned how to behave myself. As I had accepted, it was proper I should go to-night, otherwise she would no means have allowed it.

”_Nous verrons_,” I said to myself, as I went upstairs. ”If I continue to want to go to parties, no doubt she will have to let me go. I am a fraction too old to be put in a dark closet, or sent to bed for being naughty, and Aunt Edith knows it.”

That Wednesday was a very busy day to Mrs. Churchill and Josephine. A wedding reception took up the morning, from which they returned but to dress for a dinner at the Wynkars, and thence returning, made a hurried toilette for the ball. It seemed making rather a toil of pleasure, if one might judge from my aunt's haggard looks, and Josephine's impatient complaints.

There was an anxious contraction on Mrs. Churchill's brow as she came down from the nursery after breakfast, and apparently a struggle in her mind between home duties and social duties, when it became necessary for her to decide about going out. That she sincerely believed in the stringent nature of both, no one could doubt who watched her closely. It was not pleasure that took her away from little Essie that morning; it was a mistaken sense of duty. She had set up for her wors.h.i.+p an idol, in whose hard service she had unconsciously come to sacrifice time, ease, and affection, as stoically as many have suffered in a cause whose reward is not altogether seen and ended in this world.

So it was, that, trying to make up for her absence by many injunctions and cautions to those left in charge, she turned her back upon the child for the greater part of the day.

”I hoped,” said she, as she paused at the nursery door, in her rustling silk and heavy India shawl, ”I hoped that the doctor would have come before I went out, but I really do not see but what you can do as well as I can, Felicie. Pay particular attention to his directions, and send John out immediately for any prescription he may leave for her. And be sure you tell him just how she was yesterday, and how well she slept last night. I don't like,” she continued, taking off one glove to feel again of the child's hot forehead, ”her having fever again this morning.

I thought yesterday she was so much better.”

”Oh, madam is too anxious. It is nothing but a little excitement that has brought it on again,” said the nurse. ”If madam would tell Mademoiselle Esther how very naughty it is for her to cry to go into her cousin's room, and fret and strike me when I try to keep her quiet, perhaps she might mind better. It is that that brings her fever on, madam, I am afraid.”

”Now, Esther,” said her mother, with authority, ”I shall have to punish you if you do so any more. I shall be very angry if you do not mind Felicie to-day, and if you hurt or strike her, remember I shall punish you when I come back--do you hear?”

Esther heard, yes. She sat bolt upright in her little bed, and looked at the speaker with her parched lips parted, and a strange, bewildered expression in her eyes, and a restless movement of her tiny hands.

Before the interview was over, however, the startled look had settled into a vacant, listless stare; and a peevish moan, after her mother left the room, was all the evidence she gave of being impressed or alarmed by the injunctions laid upon her. I heard the miserable little complainer unmoved as long as I could; after a while, putting down my book, I went into the nursery. She stretched out her arms, and cried:

”Take me to your room.”

”If you will stop crying,” I said, taking her up in my arms, and wrapping her dressing-gown about her.

Felicie looked up quickly, and said, ”_Madame a dit que non._”

Felicie always lied in her native tongue, and this was but an additional proof to me that madame had said no such thing, and I told her so, rather strongly. Grace came in just then, and Felicie appealed to her for confirmation.

”Certainly,” said Grace, promptly, ”mamma's last charge was that Esther should not go out of the nursery; so, missy, you may just make yourself easy where you are. Don't suppose everybody is going to spoil you like your precious cousin there.”

Essie still clung tightly round my neck; much, however, as my pride rebelled, there was no way but to submit to the orders they promulged.

So, carrying her back to the bed, and loosening her arms from my neck, I put her down with,

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