have to write a note,’ said Juliana, moving off to another table; whereupon Phœbe ventured to propose herself as a substitute, and was accepted.
Maria sat entranced, with her mouth open; and presently Mrs. Fulmort looked up from a kind of doze to ask who was playing. For some moments she had no answer. Maria was too much awed for speech in the drawing-room; and though Bertha had come back, she had her back to her mother, and did not hear. Mrs. Fulmort exerted herself to sit up and turn her head.
‘Was that Phœbe?’ she said. ‘You have a clear, good touch, my dear, as they used to say I had when I was at school at Bath. Play another of your pieces, my dear.’
‘I am ready now, Augusta,’ said Juliana, advancing.
Little girls were not allowed at the piano when officers might be coming in from the dining-room, so Maria’s face became vacant again, for Juliana’s music awoke no echoes within her.
Phœbe beckoned her to a remote ottoman, a receptacle for the newspapers of the week, and kept her turning over the Illustrated News, an unfailing resource with her, but powerless to occupy Bertha after the first Saturday; and Bertha, turning a deaf ear to the assurance that there was something very entertaining about a tiger-hunt, stood, solely occupied by eyeing Juliana.
Was she studying ‘come-out’ life as she watched her sisters surrounded by the gentlemen who presently herded round the piano?
It was nearly the moment when the young ones were bound to withdraw, when Mervyn, coming hastily up to their ottoman, had almost stumbled over Maria’s foot.
‘Beg pardon. Oh, it was only you! What a cow it is!’ said he, tossing over the papers.
‘What are you looking for, Mervyn?’ asked Phœbe.
‘An advertisement—Bell’s Life for the 3rd. That rascal, Mears, must have taken it.’
She found it for him, and likewise the advertisement, which he, missing once, was giving up in despair.
‘I say,’ he observed, while she was searching, ‘so you are to chip the shell.’
‘I’m only going to London—I’m not coming out.’
‘Gammon!’ he said, with an odd wink. ‘You need never go in again, like the what’s-his-name in the fairy tale, or you are a sillier child than I take you for. They’—nodding at the piano—‘are getting a terrible pair of old cats, and we want something young and pretty about.’
With this unusual compliment, Phœbe, seeing the way clear to the door, rose to depart, most reluctantly followed by Bertha, and more willingly by Maria, who began, the moment they were in the hall—
‘Phœbe, why do they get a couple of terrible old cats? I don’t like them. I shall be afraid.’
‘Mervyn didn’t mean—’ began perplexed Phœbe, cut short by Bertha’s boisterous laughter. ‘Oh, Maria, what a goose you are! You’ll be the death of me some day! Why, Juliana and Augusta are the cats themselves. Oh, dear! I wanted to kiss Mervyn for saying so. Oh, wasn’t it fun! And now, Maria,—oh! if I could have stayed a moment longer!’
‘Bertha, Bertha, not such a noise in the hall. Come, Maria; mind, you must not tell anybody. Bertha, come,’ expostulated Phœbe, trying to drag her sister to the red baize door; but Bertha stood, bending nearly double, exaggerating the helplessness of her paroxysms of laughter.
‘Well, at least the cat will have something to scratch her,’ she gasped out. ‘Oh, I did so want to stay and see!’
‘Have you been playing any tricks?’ exclaimed Phœbe, with consternation, as Bertha’s deportment recurred to her.
‘Tricks?—I couldn’t help it. Oh, listen, Phœbe!’ cried Bertha, with her wicked look of triumph. ‘I brought home such a lovely sting-nettle for Miss Fennimore’s peacock caterpillar; and when I heard how kind dear Juliana was to you about your visit to London, I thought she really must have it for a reward; so I ran away, and slily tucked it into her bouquet; and I did so hope she would take it up to fiddle with when the gentlemen talk to her,’ said the elf, with an irresistibly comic imitation of Juliana’s manner towards gentlemen.
‘Bertha, this is beyond—’ began Phœbe.
‘Didn’t you sting your fingers?’ asked Maria.
Bertha stuck out her fat pink paws, embellished with sundry white lumps. ‘All pleasure,’ said she, ‘thinking of the jump Juliana will give, and how nicely it serves her.’
Phœbe was already on her way back to the drawing-rooms; Bertha sprang after, but in vain. Never would she have risked the success of her trick, could she have guessed that Phœbe would have the temerity to return to the company!
Phœbe glided in without waiting for the sense of awkwardness, though she knew she should have to cross the whole room, and she durst not ask any one to bring the dangerous bouquet to her—not even Robert—he must not be stung in her service.
She met her mother’s astonished eye as she threaded her way; she wound round a group of gentlemen, and spied the article of which she was in quest, where Juliana had laid it down with her gloves on going to the piano. Actually she had it! She had seized it unperceived! Good little thief; it was a most innocent robbery. She crept away with a sense of guilt and desire to elude observation, positively starting when she encountered her father’s portly figure in the ante-room. He stopped her with ‘Going to bed, eh? So Miss Charlecote has taken a fancy to you, has she? It does you credit. What shall you want for the journey?’
‘Boodle is going to see,’ began Phœbe, but he interrupted.
‘Will fifty do? I will have my daughters well turned out. All to be spent upon yourself, mind. Why, you’ve not a bit of jewellery on! Have you a watch?’
‘No, papa.’
‘Robert shall choose one for you, then. Come to my room any time for the cash; and if Miss Charlecote takes you anywhere among her set—good connections she has—and you want to be rigged out extra, send me in the bill—anything rather than be shabby.’
‘Thank you, papa! Then, if I am asked out anywhere, may I go?’
‘Why, what does the child mean? Anywhere that Miss Charlecote likes to take you of course.’
‘Only because I am not come out.’
‘Stuff about coming out! I don’t like my girls to be shy and backward. They’ve a right to show themselves anywhere; and you should be going out with us now, but somehow your poor mother doesn’t like the trouble of such a lot of girls. So don’t be shy, but make the most of yourself, for you won’t meet many better endowed, nor more highly accomplished. Good night, and enjoy yourself.’
Palpitating with wonder and pleasure, Phœbe escaped. Such permission, over-riding all Juliana’s injunctions, was worth a few nettle stings and a great fright; for Phœbe was not philosopher enough, in spite of Miss Fennimore—ay, and of Robert—not to have a keen desire to see a great party.
Her delay had so much convinced the sisters that her expedition had had some fearful consequences, that Maria was already crying lest dear Phœbe should be in disgrace;
