Part 13 (2/2)
Nora nodded gravely.
”It was I,” pursued Lady Tonbridge, penitentially,--”who saddled him with that woman--and I know he never forgave me. He as good as told me so when we last met--for those few hours--at Basle. But how could I tell? How could anybody tell--she would turn out such a creature? I only knew that she had taken all kinds of honours. I thought I was sending him a treasure.”
”All the same you did it, Mummy. And it won't do to give yourself airs now! That's what Mr. Winnington says. You've got to help him out.”
”I say, don't talk secrets!” said a voice just outside the room. ”For I can't help hearing 'em. May I come in?”
And, pus.h.i.+ng the half-open door, Mark Winnington stood smiling on the threshold.
”I apologise. But your little maid let me in--and then vanished somewhere, like greased lightning--after a dog.”
”Oh, come in,” said Lady Tonbridge, with resignation, extending at the same time a hand of welcome--”the little maid, as you call her, only came from your workhouse yesterday, and I haven't yet discovered a grain of sense in her. But she gets plenty of exercise. If she isn't chasing dogs, it's cats.”
”Don't you attack my schools,” said Winnington seating himself at the tea-table. ”They're A1, and you're very lucky to get one of my girls.”
Madeleine Tonbridge replied tartly, that if he was a poor-law guardian, and responsible for a barrack school it was no cause for boasting. She had not long parted with another of his girls, who had tried on her blouses, and gone out in her boots. She thought of offering the new girl a free and open choice of her wardrobe to begin with, so as to avoid unpleasantness.
”We all know that every mistress has the maid she deserves,” said Winnington, deep in gingerbread cake. ”I leave it there--”
”Yes, jolly well do!” cried Nora, who had come to sit on a stool in front of her mother and Winnington, her eager eyes glancing from one to the other--”Don't start Mummy on servants, Mr. Winnington. If you do, I shall go to bed. There's only one thing worth talking about--and that's--”
”Maumsey!” he said, laughing at her.
”Have you accomplished anything?” asked Lady Tonbridge. ”Don't tell me you've dislodged the Fury?”
Winnington shook his head.
”_J'y suis--j'y reste_!”
”I thought so. There is no civilised way by which men can eject a woman. Tell me all about it.”
Winnington, however, instead of expatiating on the Maumsey household, turned the conversation to something else--especially to Nora's first attempts at golf, in which he had been her teacher. Nora, whose reasonableness was abnormal, very soon took the hint, and after five minutes' ”chaff” with Winnington, to whom she was devoted, she took up her work and went back to the garden.
”n.o.body ever snubs me so efficiently as Nora,” said Madeleine Tonbridge, with resignation, ”though you come a good second. Discreet I shall never be. Don't tell me anything if you don't want to.”
”But of course I want to! And there is n.o.body in the world so absolutely bound to help me as you.”
”I knew you'd say that. Don't pile it on. Give me the kitten--and describe your proceedings.”
Winnington handed her the grey Persian kitten reposing on a distant chair, and Lady Tonbridge, who always found the process conducive to clear thinking, stroked and combed the creature's beautiful fur, while the man talked,--with entire freedom now that they were _tete-a-tete._
She was his good friend indeed, and she had also been the good friend of Sir Robert Blanchflower. It was natural that to her he should lay his perplexities bare.
But after she had heard his story and given her best mind to his position, she could not refrain from expressing the wonder she had felt from the beginning that he should ever have accepted it at all.
”What on earth made you do it? Bobby Blanchflower had no more real claim on you than this kitten!”
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