Part 16 (2/2)
”Yes, you are getting on,” admitted Frau Wurm patronisingly. ”You will be a good little housekeeper before I have finished with you. Tell me--how is your aunt to-day?” she asked abruptly.
”She seems better, much better.”
”Yes, much better--better since yon came; you rouse her, though she doesn't get up now till eleven o'clock. She suffers from such a strange complaint--very mysterious,” she added with a significant sniff.
”I don't think there is anything mysterious about neuralgia.”
”Oh, yes, there is,” rejoined Frau Wurm, lowering her voice; ”we often talk it over and wonder. Long ago she was as others; now she is different, and seems but half awake--always so jaded and feeble and vague. There was only one who understood the case--that was Fernanda, and she has gone away, ach so!”
Sophy found her present life unexpectedly strenuous. The mornings were devoted to incessant house-keeping, writing lists, and making pickles and German condiments; in the afternoons her aunt absorbed her time.
She did not seem to come to life till then.
”I know I am selfish,” she confessed, as she looked through a number of invitations and cards which had been left for Sophy. ”I do so want to keep you to myself; I don't wish to share you with the Maitlands and Morgans and Pomeroys; you have brought me a new lease of life. Of late I have felt like a half-dead creature, without even the energy to open a book, much less to get up and dress. I have the Burma head, and take _no_ interest in anything.”
”Then do please take an interest in me, Aunt Flora,” said Sophy coaxingly, putting her arm about her and smiling into her haggard eyes.
”Very well, my dear; yes, I will--and at once. I shall take you out and amuse you. No time like the present! To-day I shall telephone for a motor, get Lily to look out my smartest clothes, and you and I will make a round of calls. You know it is the duty of a new arrival to wait on the residents?”
Sophy nodded.
”We will go in the afternoon, when they are all out, and so get through a number. There are no end of sets here: the Government House, the civilian, military, the legal, and above all the mercantile--they really _count_, these merchant princes, being numerous, wealthy, and so generous and charitable, and can snap their fingers at precedence.
Then there is the German set, to which I should belong--but I don't. I tell Karl that my father was an English General and I am English--a real Englander. We differ in so many ways from these German women--in what we eat, like, and believe, and how we make our beds, do our hair, and even how we knit!”
Dressed for making a round of visits, Mrs. Krauss presented a different appearance from that loglike invalid her niece had first beheld. She was a picturesque, graceful woman, with a pair of heartrending dark eyes, while a little touch of colour on her faded cheeks illuminated a face that still exhibited the remains of a remarkable beauty. Mrs.
Krauss, in a hired and luxurious motor, made a rapid round of calls among the princ.i.p.al mem-sahibs--who, as predicted, were not at home--and wrote her own and Sophy's name in Government House book.
The last house they visited was ”The Barn.” Mrs. Gregory received them and gave Mrs. Krauss and her niece a genial welcome. She and Mrs.
Krauss had known one another for years, but had never been really intimate or close friends. Mrs. Gregory was energetic, modern and vivacious; the other, a somewhat lethargic beauty, was not interested in the burning questions of the day, and had long ceased to take part in local gaieties; but her niece, as Milly said, was charming, and Mrs.
Gregory felt immediately inspired by a liking for this pretty, graceful, unaffected girl. Sophy, for her part, was delighted with this large, English-looking drawing-room, with chintz-covered furniture, quant.i.ties of flowers, books, an open grand piano, and a pile of music. The hostess, too, Mrs. Milward's cousin, attracted her and made her feel at home.
”And what do you think of Rangoon?” inquired Mrs. Gregory.
”Oh, do not ask her,” interposed Mrs. Krauss with a dramatic gesture, ”she has been with me for more than a fortnight, and this is the first time she has been beyond Kokine. It is all my fault; she has had such a lot of housekeeping to see to and take over, and she is such a delightful companion that I have not been able to bear her out of my sight.”
”But, dear Mrs. Krauss, we cannot allow you to appropriate Miss Leigh altogether. I hope you will spare her to me now and then. Perhaps Miss Leigh could come with me to the Gymkhana dance next week?”
”I should like it very much indeed,” said Sophy, glancing interrogatively at her aunt.
”Well, if I cannot take her myself, I shall be glad if you will chaperon Sophy. She has not had any amus.e.m.e.nt yet and one is young but once! And now we must go; no thank you, we won't wait for tea. I intend to rush the child round the lakes--she has not seen them--and then do some shopping in the bazaar.”
After the departure of her visitors, Mrs. Gregory stood in the veranda and watched them as they sped away together--the dark faded beauty, the pretty, fresh girl--and said to herself:
”I wonder!”
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