When the Birds Begin to Sing Part 7

"Everything is beautiful," she gasps, clasping her hands. "There's a room to be frivolous and lazy in, a study for book learning (I'm going to read no end) and, oh! if you want to sing----"

She draws a deep breath at the remembrance of the grand piano in the drawing-room. "It is ever so much bigger than the one at the vicarage, which was always out of tune. I'll get my cousin Joe to send me a list of songs, and we will buy a harmonium, too, Philip. I can play the harmonium splendidly."

"I am glad you are pleased, Eleanor," ha replies, kissing her upturned face.

"And now, I am going to dress, for I feel horrible after my journey.

May I ring for Sarah?"

"Of course. What a question! Do exactly as you like with your own servants."

She finds Sarah in her room busily unpacking.

"Oh! there you are," cries Eleanor. "I forgot I had given you my keys.

It is such a blessing to be able to talk in English, that foreign stuff was awful, I could not speak a word! Yes, I will wear my lovely pink tea-gown--did you ever see anything so pretty, Sarah? I must make you put it on some day, just to see how it looks on another person. You are a bit stouter than I am though, but perhaps you could pull in----"

And so Eleanor rattles on, just as if Sarah were one of the farm-servants at home, and she the same unaffected light-hearted Miss Grebby.

"Do you come from the country, Sarah?" she asks at last.

"Yes, ma'am. My father's a grocer, and mother keeps house for the doctor's children in our next village."

"Then they don't live together?"

"No, ma'am, it's father's temper. We none of us can't live at home, he is that hasty! It ain't safe, ma'am, it ain't really!"

"How dreadful," sighs Eleanor. "Doesn't it frighten you?"

"Lor! yes, ma'am. I have seen him grow purple round the eyes, and crimson in the cheeks, and throve a whole sack of flour through the window."

Eleanor receives the information with an expressive "Oh!" as she shakes down her hair, and tells Sarah to brush it.

"How many servants have I got?" gazing at her face in the mirror contentedly.

"Three, ma'am. There's me, and Judith, and cook."

"Do you like Richmond?"

"Well enough, ma'am, thank you, but Judith would have rather been in London, and cook has always set her face against the suburbs."

"Then why did they come?"

"Well, you see, ma'am, the gentleman engaged them, and he seemed that put about they hadn't the heart to refuse."

"Good gracious! whatever is that noise?"

"The dinner gong. Judith is very strong in the arms, and she do make it sound, ma'am!"

"Light a few more candles; I want to have a good look at myself."

Eleanor walks up and down before the gla.s.s, with spasmodic gasps of satisfaction, till Philip comes to the door to see if she is ready.

Eleanor is br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with conversation during the evening meal; she has something to say about everything, and her ideas seem to expand over each fresh course. At the soup she wants a pony cart, but over the fish decides on a brougham and victoria. The _entree_ introduces a pair of prancing chestnuts, and Philip is quite afraid that the arrival of the meat will suggest powdered footmen in silk stockings.

"You see, dear," he explains at dessert, when Sarah and Judith have left the room, "I have a very comfortable income to live in a fairly luxurious style without undue extravagance. We can easily keep one horse and man, which I have waited to choose with you."

"I see," replies Eleanor, peeling a banana. There is a pause, then she looks up and repeats uncertainly: "I see, Philip."

"You will try and make a good little housekeeper and manage everything splendidly. I often think of you, Eleanor, in your peaceful domesticity at Copthorne. How quiet it was, and----"

"How _dull_!" (sighing).

It all comes back with a rush--the pewter dinner service, and spotless parlour, smelling of lavender and soap, the cackle of hens and lowing of cows. Eleanor pushes aside the dish of bananas, "Let us go out in the moonlight," she says. "It is lovely in the garden, and you can smoke. Let me light your cigar?" striking a match on the sole of her velvet slipper, and narrowly escaping burning her pink silk train.

"You must not do that, dear, it is dangerous," remonstrates Philip.

"Oh, no! not if you put up your foot so," ill.u.s.trating her meaning by striking another. "What is that pretty yellow stuff you are drinking?"

"Chartreuse."

Eleanor kneels down by his side and sips out of his gla.s.s. "What queer tasting stuff, not half as nice as elderberry wine!"

"Don't you like it?"

"No; it's almost as nasty as the cowslip tea I used to make. But do come for a stroll; I like wandering about in this long silk gown, it feels so grand."

"What myriads of stars!" exclaims Philip, who is well versed in astronomy. "Don't they make you feel like a mere atom, Eleanor, when you think they are all worlds?"

"No, I never bother my head about stars. I like moonlight, it's so pretty, and the moonbeams look ghostly and fairylike. But isn't it cold in the garden? I only just realise that summer is over, and what an eventful summer it has been for me! The other girls at Copthorne were mad with jealousy at my wedding. They all want to marry gentlemen now, and come to London. Do you remember the schoolchildren, Philip?

How they scattered flowers and crowded round to kiss me. I gave them my wedding cake (or rather what was left of it) when we went, and the three cheers for 'Teacher' is quite the nicest recollection."

Eleanor's pa.s.sionate love for children pleases her husband, it shows that her nature is good. He puts his arm lovingly round her as they return to the house.

"Are you happy, Eleanor?" he whispers. A soft brightness creeps into her eyes.

"Yes, Philip, there isn't a lighter heart in Richmond!"

"Oh! dear, more cards! I returned the doctors' wives' visits yesterday, three of them, Philip--each intent on her husband's business, I suppose. Two were at home, and I looked so aggravatingly healthy. I could not think what to talk about, having never done that sort of thing before. The first mercifully had a dog, which I admired for a quarter of an hour, the second showed me her pigeons. I knew all about _them_."

Philip looked at the latest cards which Eleanor handed him.

"Mrs. Mounteagle," he read, "why she is the lady next door. I don't want you to know her, Eleanor. She has not the best of names in Richmond; this place teems with scandal! I am acquainted with half-a-dozen people who positively cram it down your throat whenever you are unfortunate enough to meet them."

"And what have they against Mrs. Mounteagle?"

"Well, my dear, nothing alarmingly serious, only she is rather a fast widow, and not a nice companion for you. She has a queer set at her house, and is almost too 'up-to-date' even for Richmond society."

"But since she has called, Philip, and we live next door, what am I to do?"