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قراءة كتاب The Third Miss St Quentin
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class="narrative">“Maddie, perhaps—not me,” Ermine interrupted. “Never mind, Phil. You and I will keep each other company.”
“But I’ve scarcely seen you these holidays,” said Philip. “Granny, can’t they come over to us?” Madelene shook her head.
“Not just now,” she said sadly. “We really have a good deal to do. One or other of us has to walk or ride with papa every afternoon—mamma fidgets so if she thinks he doesn’t go out—and then one of us must be within hail in case she was worse. And then there’s Ella—”
There was Ella in fact. For as she said the words, a little shrill voice came sounding over the lawn.
“Maddie, Ermie, I’m here. And oh there’s big Phil. Take me a ride, Phil, on you’s shoulders, do, do.”
“Horrid little minx—” the boy was beginning to say, though in a low voice, but the words died on his lips. The little figure looked so bright and innocent as it flew towards them like a lapwing, heedless of Harvey and her remonstrances in the background, sure, with the irresistible confidence of childhood, of its welcome.
“Good morning, godmother,” she said, holding up her sweet little face for a kiss. “I’se got a bad cold,” and she tried to cough, “but Harvey said it would do me good to come out a little in the sun. And I’m going to see mamma when I go in, to let her see my cold isn’t worse. Oh, big Phil, do take me a ride on your shoulders.”
She clasped her hands entreatingly. Everything she did was full of pretty childish grace, when, that is to say, Ella chose to be in good temper.
“Hoist her up,” said Philip, and between them the two elder sisters managed to settle the child on his shoulders.
“That’s right—gallop away. Oh! how nice!” she exclaimed, and when after two or three canters round the lawn, which was really as much as ever Philip had breath for, he deposited her again safely on the ground, she thanked him as graciously as a little princess.
“What a pity Maddie and Ermie are too big for you to ride them too,” she said condescendingly, at which they all laughed.
“Yes,” said Lady Cheynes, smiling, but not for Ella to hear, “you can be generous enough, my little girl, when you get your own way.”
“And when she is first” added Ermine. “It is too funny, auntie, to see that sort of feeling in Ella, already. I’m sure Maddie and I weren’t like that when we were little.”
Lady Cheynes looked round, Harvey was coming up the path, the old lady made a little sign to Ermine to take care.
“I think perhaps Miss Ella has been out long enough, if you’ll excuse me, my lady,” said the maid, in her smoothest tones.
“Take her in then by all means,” said Lady Cheynes. “Ella, my dear, your nurse is waiting for you.”
Ella was playing with Phil, a few paces off.
“I won’t go in,” she said coolly.
Madelene took her by the hand.
“Come, dear,” she said, “you mustn’t make your cold worse.”
The child pulled away from her.
“You’re very naughty, Maddie,” she said. “You only want me to go away that you and Ermie may play with Phil yourselves. Phil, say I’m not to go.”
“Not I,” said Philip. “You’re a spoilt, rude little girl, and I’m very sorry I gave you a ride.”
Ella turned upon him like a little fury, but Harvey interposed.
“Come, Miss Ella, my dear,” she said. “Sir Philip will think you’re growing into a baby instead of a big girl if you dance about like that.”
And by dint of coaxing and persuasion which Harvey knew how to employ skilfully enough when it suited her, the child was at last got away.
“Grandmother,” said Philip Cheynes, half-an-hour or so later, when the two were on their way home in the old lady’s pony-carriage, “don’t you think it is a great pity that Colonel St Quentin married again? It has brought them all nothing but trouble—Mrs St Quentin so delicate, and that spoilt little brat.”
“You mustn’t abuse my godchild, Phil,” Lady Cheynes replied. “She might be a charming child. And her poor mother—No, I think Madelene and Ermie owe a great deal to her.”
“Oh, well,” said Philip, boyishly, “I suppose they do. Maddie’s awfully cut up about Ella’s going away from them. For my part, I’m very glad she is going away. Still, she is a jolly little thing when she’s in a good temper.”
Chapter Two.
Eleven Years After.
Summer, not spring now. But the same garden and the same people in it—three of them, that is to say, little chance though there might be at the first glance, of our recognising them.
They were sitting together on the lawn—the two sisters Madelene and Ermine and their cousin Philip. They were less changed than he perhaps—Madelene especially, for she had always been tall, and at fourteen had looked older than her years, whereas now at five-and-twenty one could scarcely have believed her to be as much. She had fulfilled the promise of her girlhood for she was an undoubtedly beautiful woman, though to those who knew her but superficially, she might have seemed wanting in animation, for she was quiet almost to coldness, thoughtful and self-controlled, weighing well her words before she spoke and slow in making up her mind to any decision.
Ermine, brown-haired and brown-eyed, brilliantly handsome, was more popular than her elder sister. But rivalry or the shadow of it between the two was unknown. Never were two sisters more completely at one, more trusted and trusting friends.
“They are all in all to each other and to their father,” was the universal description of them. “Almost too much so indeed,” some would add. “It must be because they are so perfectly happy as they are that neither of them is married.”
For why the Misses St Quentin did not marry was every year becoming more and more of a puzzle to their friends and the world at large.
Sir Philip Cheynes got up from the comfortable garden chair on which he had been lounging and leant against the elm under whose wide-spreading branches the little party had established themselves. A table was prepared for tea, Ermine had a book on her knee which she imagined herself to be or to have been reading, Madelene was knitting.
“It will spoil it all,” said Philip at length after a silence which had lasted some moments, “spoil it all completely.”
“What?” asked Madelene, looking up, though her fingers still went on busily weaving the soft snowy fleece on her lap.
“Everything, of course. Our nice settled ways—this satisfactory sort of life together, knowing each other so well that we never have misunderstandings or upsets or—or bothers. Your father and my grandmother are a model aunt and nephew to begin with, and as for us three—why the world never before saw such a perfection of cousinship! And into the midst of this delightful state of things, this pleasant little society where each of us can pursue his or her special avocation and—and perform his or her special duties—for we’re not selfish people, my dears—I’m not going