CHAPTER XXXII

The spring drew on disagreeably, according to its vernal wont. But if the thermometer did not tell that winter was on the wane, the lengthening days did so, and the flower-baskets in the streets told the town-dweller what sheets of anemone and narcissus were spreading over the pleasant fields of France, and scenting the sea round Scilly. As to the temperature, what did that matter in London? Warmed by every one else’s fire as well as your own, you had pity enough and to spare for shiverers in the odious country, but not much need for compassion yourself.

Such were a part of Miss Ransome’s reflections on the 10th of March. So far they were comfortable ones; but they shared the theatre of her mind with many less complacent--with many deep misgivings. Tom had not yet re-appeared on the scene, having transferred himself and his fishing-tackle to a wild part of Ireland; but his re-entrance could hardly be much longer delayed. That it was imminent Bonnybell gathered by the increased frequency of Felicity’s lamentations over the necessity for their ever parting. That it was _not_ a necessity never seemed to occur to her, even in mid-Jeremiad; even when Bonnybell, with a touch too light to brush the bloom from a butterfly’s wing, threw in an infinitely far-off hint to that effect. The satisfaction which she therefore derived from being continually told that she was Lady Bletchley’s right hand was a very mutilated one. No sign of flinching on the part of that heroic lady from the intention of cutting off that right hand was perceptible to eyes that daily and hourly grew more strainingly anxious to discover it. To make herself indispensable, that was her one chance. It had always been the leading principle of her actions since her enforced return; but she was also by nature eminently obliging and _serviable_. Nor did she slack her efforts, even when each day added something to her conviction that they were going to be useless. “I shall be dismissed on the day before Tom’s return,” she said to herself, with lugubrious shrewdness. “Felicity will not turn me out earlier, for her own sake, and also because she is rather compunctious about me. That is why she is thrusting me down Mrs. Slammer’s throat.”

No sign of help showed on the horizon from the direction of Stillington. The intercourse between the two families seemed slighter than ever, and it had never been close. And even if they--if Camilla--had been willing to re-house her, she was almost sure that she did not wish to go back. After what she had learnt, it would be stupid to put herself in the way of growing fonder of Edward than she already was. The degree and pertinacity of her regard for him often annoyed her. No, she had no wish to go back to Stillington, and yet--what a noise those tiresome birds must be making in the wood by now!

To be Lady Bletchley’s right hand was no sinecure; but though the humanitarian interest could scarcely be said to be strongly developed in Miss Ransome, she took up her share of the burden of Felicity’s good works--increased tenfold by the latter’s rise in life--with a will, reflecting philosophically that it was quite as well not to have much time to think, since she had nothing satisfactory to think about, and finding or making many little oases of worldly pleasure amid the sands of philanthropy. Lady Bletchley had announced that she was not going out; but abstention from society, as understood by her, was compatible with seeing a large number and variety of people.

Bonnybell had received ample confirmation of the verdict pronounced by the Bond Street hansoms on the first day of her arrival. She had met many young men, gilded and ungilt, in Felicity’s drawing-room, a large number of whom had been obviously willing to endear themselves to her. It was a more respectful form of love than she had been used to in the old days; but her wary eye had detected a want of seriousness in the intentions of the majority, and even among the business-like minority not one was found, after careful sifting of their positions and prospects, worth running the risk of provoking another of Charlie’s anonymous revelations. “I must not let myself go cheap because I am in low water just now,” she said, to herself, with no sense of special cynicism in the reflection. “I can well afford to wait. I shall probably even improve, and”--with a sigh--“I think I dislike the idea of marriage, if possible, more than ever!”

Charlie! Yes, Charlie was in London. She had caught sight of him one day in a little street off the Strand--Charlie was not fond of frequented thoroughfares--whither Felicity had sent her to look up a case of sweating, and, to the surprise of the chaperoning maid, had darted into a tobacconist’s shop to hide herself from him. She hoped that he had not seen her; but with Charlie one never knew. Oh, if she could make some one--some one really eligible--love her enough to dare to tell him about M----’s and the other places, she might defy Charlie--snap her fingers at him! But the test mentally applied to every one of her aspirants broke down hopelessly.

It was the 10th of March on which the blow fell. The room was the same room in which poor Miss Ransome had been made aware of Edward’s disqualifications. It seemed to gloomy after-reflections as if its one purpose in life was to be the setting for disagreeable communications. Though business was its predominant note, luxury was not altogether banished from Felicity’s sitting-room, and it was in a very well stuffed armchair, if that could be any source of comfort to her, that the “right hand” received its amputation. It was not often that Felicity allowed herself time to sit down, but she also was in an armchair, taking a brief respite from labour between the trying of Court gowns and laying the foundation-stone of a Home for Infant Inebriates.

Felicity was overdoing herself with the thoroughness of a fine lady “doubled” by a social reformer. But at the present moment something besides fatigue sat on her troubled countenance. And Bonnybell recognized, through having seen it before on another face, the signal for ejection. It was too late to avert it, yet none the less was there a cheerful daughterly sympathy in her pretty voice as she said--

“What a pity that you cannot put off the Infant Inebriates to another day! I know how specially interested you are in them, poor little things, even more than you are”--with an accent of affectionate reverence--“in all good works; but you do look so tired!”

“I am tired,” replied the other. “I am always tired now. As soon as the bazaar is well over--by-the-by, the Duchess has never yet answered as to the date--I shall take a rest cure. Dr. ---- says it is indispensable; that I am living on my nerves.”

The first blast of the Trump of Doom had sounded. The second was not slow to follow.

“I shall be more tired still when I have to do without you.” The voice was tender and complaining, but there was also a sort of confusion--a _mauvaise honte_ in it. Ejectment was on the edge of the lamenting lips.

Bonnybell was silent. (At all events, I will not make it easier for her.)

“Tom has written to say that he will be back on Tuesday.”

Miss Ransome’s was, after all, a brave spirit. There was an interval of scarcely five seconds before she was answering playfully, in quite a gallant voice--

“And he naturally wishes his house to be cleared of rubbish before his return.”

The confusion on Felicity’s face deepened. As an actress she had neither facility nor distinction.

“You have always an amusing way of putting things, but of course you do not mean it! You know as well as I do that Tom is the last person in the world to think anybody ‘rubbish;’ and he is the soul of hospitality, but--he has been away a long time, and perhaps--at first--he would expect to have me to himself!”

Bonnybell made a little gesture of assent. She would be able to speak in a moment or two. One thought of pious thankfulness meanwhile darted across her dismay. Thank Heaven! she had not paid any of her bills, and Camilla’s tips lay intact in her despatch-box.

“What day would you like me to go?” she asked presently, with a mild but purposed baldness, in pursuance of her intention of not, as she would have phrased it, letting Felicity down easily. “Perhaps, by working very hard, I might get the bazaar lists finished by to-morrow.”

Under the apparent generosity of the sentence there lurked a little snake of pardonable malice. Miss Ransome was well aware that the function alluded to, “The Fancy Fair for All England Cataleptics,” to be held under Distinguished Patronage in the Albert Hall in mid-May, one of the Vice-Presidencies of which had been accepted by Lady Bletchley before her new honours, with all their attendant labours, had fallen upon her, was rapidly developing into an incubus and a nightmare. Bonnybell was also aware that the loss of her own aid would be an irreparable one; but there was perhaps more subtlety than kindliness in reminding her patroness of the fact at the moment. The success was all she could have wished.

“_What day I wish you to go?_ You can have very little idea what you have been to me to put such a question.”

Miss Ransome received the reproach, made with every evidence of a wounded feeling tending towards hysterics, in unwonted silence. She did not feel inclined to caress Felicity, and for once she might follow a natural bent, since clearly nothing was to be gained by endearments. She was thinking that though Felicity had repudiated the idea of any likeness existing between herself and her brother, there was--though he was far the more delicate artist of the two--a certain resemblance between their attitude as “Chuckers Out.” There was a hurt disappointment at not receiving an answering burst of affection in return for her output of fond reproach in Lady Bletchley’s tone when she resumed--

“As to the lists, there is no hurry; for though you will not be actually in the house, you will be able to help me almost as much as if you were. You will not be far off.”

“I do not quite know where I shall be.” A moment later, in uncomplaining after-thought--“If you could spare me for an hour this afternoon, I might inquire about lodgings; they would be better for me than an hotel, don’t you think--and--cheaper?”

At this suggestion a hot flush overspread Felicity’s fagged face.

“Lodgings! a hotel!” she repeated. “I do not know what you are talking about. Is it possible that you suppose I am going to plant you on the pavement, because I am _most_ reluctantly compelled to abridge your visit? Would that be like me?”

The extreme out-of-countenanceness--if such a clumsy word may be framed--of her patroness, and a consciousness of how well-founded in sound reason was her own removal from Lord Bletchley’s hearth-stone before his return to it, produced a half-magnanimous, half-malicious pity in Bonnybell, and gave her back her priceless gift of feigning.

“Because you have been incomparably good to me for many weeks gives me no claim upon you for further kindness.” Such un-upbraiding acquiescence in unmerited chastisement spoke in tone and words that Felicity’s rejoinder came chokingly.

“There is no question of kindness; between people who love each other there can be no question of kindness; but come”--pulling herself together--“we must not let ourselves be silly, and make mountains out of molehills; we shall still be able to see a great deal of each other. It is not more than five minutes’ walk from the Slammers’ house here.”

“The _Slammers_?”

“Yes; how stupid of me!”--hurrying on. “I forgot that I had not explained to you that I have arranged with Mrs. Slammer for you to pay her a good long visit.”

“_Mrs. Slammer!_”

“Yes”--still more rapidly. “You know that she is a sort of connection of yours; and she has none of that unamiable feeling about--about the _past_ which you told me your relations in general had shown, and she is rather lonely, poor woman. _Entre nous_, I do not think the marriage is a great success; she has taken an immense fancy to you, and she needs a--a”--“secretary” was on the edge of Lady Bletchley’s tongue, but a memory of Bonnybell’s hopelessly fancy spelling arrested it--“a nice girl to be a sort of daughter to her. I--I could not think of anything better for the moment. I do not see why it may not work pretty well; Colonel Slammer is a great deal away from home.”

Even the _naïveté_ of the last implication failed to stir the least sense of merriment in Miss Ransome. With lips parted by horror and dismay, she sat staring stupidly at the author of the atrocious project thus revealed, while the near future unrolled itself before her mental vision in all its squalid terror; a future of abetting a second-rate fool in her chimerical efforts for the elevation of minds to whose raising or lowering Miss Ransome was and would remain absolutely indifferent; a future of conducting unwilling maid-servants by bus and tram and subterranean grimynesses to museums and libraries, which it was impossible that they could dislike more than she. The prospect was monstrous, unfaceable, and for a moment or two the idea of evading it by taking refuge with Flora, abandoning the struggle to be or seem “nice,” and returning to the old life, presented itself as the most endurable alternative. The old life and _Charlie_? No, Charlie was more to be shunned than any museum! That would not do....

It fell out, with an irony whose pungency Miss Ransome felt to the full, that the close of the day on which a second shipwreck had overtaken her light bark was dedicated to the last “Happy Evening” of the season. Through previous functions of the kind her gay _insouciance_ and adaptability had carried her triumphantly. She had been a great success among the girls; had borne their affectionate horseplay with light, good humour, and had received with gratitude, tempered with regret that they should be so audible to her coadjutor, the expressions of their candidly uttered preference of her to Miss Sloggett. To-day she had no coadjutor, the secretary being confined to bed by one of those large outspoken colds which always made Lady Bletchley angry.

As Bonnybell drove along eastwards her heart felt depressed almost beyond the power of rebound. This was to be her life; this process of being bandied about from one set of unwilling benefactors to another, at every change sinking deeper into distasteful drudgery. This was all the good she was to gain from being extraordinarily pretty, and always ready to agree with everybody. If the figure of Charlie had not stood like a beacon warning her off, she would have gone back to the old life, to the _petits diners_ at improper restaurants; to the loose talk and equivocal love-making.

Whether it were due to the want of spring in her own spirits, or simply to the agency of an unkind fate, the fact remained that the girls were more unruly than usual, and more difficult to amuse. It being Friday, dancing was not among the pastimes allowed, yet Miss Ransome must have been at her wits’ end before proposing the game of Consequences to which--as a last resource, when the clamour was getting beyond her control--she resorted.

“Had they ever played Consequences?”

One girl answered, “Ow yes, miss, I ’ave onst.”

Pencils and papers were produced, and the game began. Bonnybell herself was to read out the papers at the end.

The results were disastrously successful, as far as the entertainment of the players was concerned, but also in some cases unspeakable. The luckless initiator of the game was reduced to having to pretend an inability to read the handwritings submitted to her, floundering in efforts to suppress and substitute. What they were doing was invariably “kissing.” “He gave her a kiss, and she gave him a black eye.” “They met, as often as not, in a ditch.” “He said to her, ‘Give me a kiss,’ and she said to him, ‘Gow ’ome.’” The “consequences” were---- No one could call Bonnybell squeamish, yet the consequences bathed her in blushes.

A grimly amused sense of a likeness to poor Sloggett in the ill-success of her evening’s labours streaked the ink of Miss Ransome’s reflections on her homeward way.

The butler, who opened the door to her, gave her the information that her ladyship had returned, and would like to speak to Miss Ransome in her bedroom.

Felicity was in bed, but sitting up, with writing materials before her, though looking still more fagged than earlier in the day, and a good deal flushed. She dismissed Bonnybell’s expressions of surprised concern very slightly.

“Yes, the hall was hot. I felt rather faint, and had to come out before the end, but the meeting went off admirably. The delegates were delighted with their reception. What I wanted to say to you to-night, in case I might forget it to-morrow morning--not that that is likely--is that you must impress upon Mrs. Slammer that she cannot expect your help at her stall at the Cataleptics. You must explain to her that you have been engaged to me since last autumn--ever since last November.”