“Oh, pooh! As though anyone cares a rush for such stuff!” broke in Miss Wield scornfully. “Sir Waldo is first in consequence with the ton, and of the first style of elegance, besides being very handsome, and hugely wealthy!”
“Elegant! Handsome!” jeered Courtenay, mimicking her. “Much you know about it!”
“I do know!” she flashed. “When I was at my uncle’s house in Portland Place—”
“Yes, you were as thick as inkle-weavers with him, of course! What miff-maff you do talk! I don’t suppose you’ve ever so much as clapped eyes on him!”
“I have, I have! Frequently! Well, several times! And he is handsome and elegant! Ancilla, he is, isn’t he?”
Miss Chartley, who was a very gentle, prettily behaved girl, seized the opportunity to intervene in what promised to develop into a shrill quarrel, turning towards Miss Trent, and saying in her soft, shy voice: “I expect you know more about Sir Waldo than any of us, for you were used to live in London, were you not? Perhaps you may even have met him?”
“No, indeed I have not,” Miss Trent replied. “I never saw him, to my knowledge, and know no more of him than the rest of the world.” She added, with the glimmer of a smile: “The company he keeps was quite above my touch!”
“I daresay you didn’t wish for his acquaintance,” said Charlotte. “I’m sure I don’t: I hate beaux! And if he is coming here to hold up his nose at us all I hope he will go away again!”
“I expect he will,” said Miss Trent, threading her needle.
“Yes, that is what Papa says,” agreed Miss Chartley. “He thinks he can only be coming to settle with the lawyers, and perhaps to sell Broom Hall, for he can’t wish to live in it, can he? Papa says he has a very beautiful house in Gloucestershire, which has been in his family for generations. And if he is so very fine and fashionable he must think this a dull place, I daresay—though it is quite close to Harrogate, of course.”
“Harrogate!” said Courtenay contemptuously. “That won’t fadge! He won’t remain at Broom Hall above a sennight, I’ll be bound! There’s nothing to make him wish to stay, after all.”
“No?” said his cousin, a provocative smile on her exquisite countenance.
“No!” he stated, revolted by this odious self-satisfaction. “And if you think he has only to see you to fall in love with you you much mistake the matter! I dare swear he is acquainted with a score of girls prettier by far than you!”
“Oh, no!” she said, adding simply: “He couldn’t be!”
Miss Chartley protested involuntarily: “Oh, Tiffany, how can you? I beg your pardon, but indeed you shouldn’t—!’”
“It’s perfectly true!” argued Miss Wield. “I didn’t make my face, so why shouldn’t I say it’s beautiful? Everyone else does!”
Young Mr Underhill instantly entered a caveat, but Miss Chartley was silenced. Herself a modest girl, she was deeply shocked, but however much she might deprecate such vainglory honesty compelled her to acknowledge that Tiffany Wield was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen or imagined. Everything about her was perfection. Not the most spiteful critic could say of her that it was a pity she was too tall, or too short, or that her nose spoiled her loveliness, or that she was not so beautiful in profile: she was beautiful from every angle, thought Miss Chartley. Even her dusky locks, springing so prettily from a wide brow, curled naturally; and if attention was first attracted by her deep and intensely blue eyes, fringed by their long black lashes, closer scrutiny revealed that a little, straight nose, enchantingly curved lips, and a complexion like the bloom on a peach were equally worthy of admiration. She was only seventeen years of age, but her figure betrayed neither puppy-fat nor awkward angles; and when she opened her mouth it was seen that her teeth were like matched pearls. Until her return, a short time since, to Staples, where her childhood had been spent, Patience Chartley had been generally held to be the prettiest girl in the neighbourhood, but Tiffany had quite eclipsed her. Patience had been brought up to believe that one’s appearance was a matter of no importance, but when the parent who had inculcated one with this dictum said that It gave him pleasure merely to rest his eyes on Tiffany’s lovely face one might perhaps be pardoned for feeling just a trifle wistful. No one, thought Patience, observing herself in the mirror when she dressed her soft brown hair, was going to look twice at her when Tiffany was present. She accepted her inferiority meekly, so free from jealousy that she wished very much that Tiffany would not say such things as must surely repel her most devout admirers.
Apparently sharing her views, Mrs Underhill expostulated, saying in a voice which held more of pleading than censure: “Now, Tiffany-love! You shouldn’t talk like that! Whatever would people think if they was to hear you? It’s not becoming—and so, I’ll be bound, Miss Trent will tell you!”
“Much I care!”
“Well, that shows what a pea-goose you are!” struck in Charlotte, firing up in defence of her idol. “Because Miss Trent is much more genteel than you are, or any of us, and—”
“Thank you, Charlotte, that will do!”
“Well, it’s true!” muttered Charlotte rebelliously.
Ignoring her, Miss Trent smiled at Mrs Underhill, saying: “No, ma’am: not at all becoming, and not at all wise either.”
“Why not?” Tiffany demanded.
Miss Trent regarded her thoughtfully. “Well, it’s an odd circumstance, but I’ve frequently observed that whenever you boast of your beauty you seem to lose some of it. I expect it must be the change in your expression.”
Startled, Tiffany flew to gaze anxiously into the ornate looking-glass which hung above the fireplace. “Do I?” she asked naively. “Really do I, Ancilla?”
“Yes, decidedly,” replied Miss Trent perjuring her soul without the least hesitation. “Besides, when a female is seen to admire herself it sets up people’s backs, and she finds very soon that she is paid fewer compliments than any girl of her acquaintance. And nothing is more agreeable than a prettily turned compliment!”
“That’s true!” exclaimed Tiffany, much struck. She broke into laughter, flitting across the room to bestow a brief em-brace upon Miss Trent. “I do love you, you horrid thing, because however odious you may be you are never stuffy! I won’t admire myself any more: I’ll beg pardon for being an antidote instead! Oh, Patience, are you positively sure Sir Waldo is coming?”
“Yes, for Wedmore told Papa that he had received orders from Mr Calver’s lawyer to have all in readiness for Sir Waldo by next week. And also that he is bringing another gentleman with him, and several servants. The poor Wedmores! Papa said all he might to soothe them, but they have been thrown into such a quake! Mr Smeeth seems to have told them how rich and grand Sir Waldo is, so, of course, they are in dread that he will expect a degree of comfort it is not in their power to provide for him.”
“Now, that,” suddenly interjected Mrs Underhill, “puts me in mind of something I should like to know, my dear! For when my Matlock told me I couldn’t credit it, for all she had it from Mrs Wedmore herself. Is it true that Mr Calver left them nothing but twenty pounds, and his gold watch?”
Patience nodded sorrowfully. “Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid it is. I know one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but one can’t help feeling that it was very wrong and ungrateful, after so many years of faithful service!”
“Well, for my part, I never did see, and no more I ever shall, that being dead makes a scrap of difference to what you was like when you were alive!” said Mrs Underhill, with unwonted energy. “A nasty, disagreeable clutchfist he was, and you may depend upon it that’s what he is still! And not in heaven either! If you can tell me who ever said one should speak respectfully of those who have gone to the other place, you’ll have told me something I never heard before, my dear!”