The Golden Calf | Page 9

doubt she is quite aware that this is one of her numerous rules which we diligently set at nought.'
Urania began her letter, but although her pen moved swiftly over her paper in that elegant Italian hand which was, as it were, a badge of honour at Mauleverer Manor, her ears were not the less open to the conversation going on close beside her.
'Marry a soap-boiler, indeed!' exclaimed Bessie, indignantly; 'you ought to be a duchess!'
'No doubt, dear, if dukes went about the world, like King Cophetua, on the look out for beggar-maids.'
'I am so happy to think you are coming to Kingthorpe! It is the dearest old place. We shall be so happy!'
'It will not be your fault if we are not, darling,' said Ida, looking tenderly at the loving face, uplifted to hers. 'Well, I have written to my father to ask him for five pounds, and if he sends the five pounds I will go to Kingthorpe. If not, I must invent an excuse--mumps, or measles, or something--for staying away. Or I must behave so badly for the last week of the term that old Pew will revoke her sanction of the intended visit. I cannot come to Kingthorpe quite out at elbows.'
'You look lovely even in the gown you have on,' said Bessie.
'I don't know anything about my loveliness, but I know that this gown is absolutely threadbare.'
Bessie, sighed despondently. She knew her friend's resolute temper, and that any offer of clothes or money from her would be worse than useless. It would make Ida angry.
'What kind of man is your father, darling?' she asked, thoughtfully.
'Very good-natured.'
'Ah! Then he will send the five pounds.'
'Very weak.'
'Ah! Then he may change his mind about it.'
'Very poor.'
'Then he may not have the money.'
'The lot is in the urn of fate, Bess, We must take our chance. I think, somehow, that the money will come. I have asked for it urgently, for I do want to come to Kingthorpe.' Bessie kissed her. 'Yes, dear, I wish with all my heart to accept your kind mother's invitation; though I know, in my secret soul, that it is foolishness for me to see the inside of a happy home, to sit beside a hospitable hearth, when it is my mission in life to be a dependent in the house of a stranger. If you had half a dozen small sisters, now, and your people would engage me as a nursery governess--'
'You a nursery governess!' cried Bessie, 'you who are at the top of every class, and who do everything better than the masters who teach you?'
'Well, if my perfection prove worth seventy pounds a-year when I go out into the world, I shall be satisfied,' said Ida.
'What will you buy with your five pounds?' asked Bessie.
'A black cashmere gown, as plain as a nun's, a straw hat, and as many collars, cuffs, and stockings as I can get for the rest of the money.'
Miss Rylance listened, smiling quietly to herself as she bent over her desk. To the mind of an only daughter, who had been brought up in a supremely correct manner, who had had her winter clothes and summer clothes at exactly the right season, and of the best that money could buy, there was a piteous depth of poverty and degradation in Ida Palliser's position. The girl's beauty and talents were as nothing when weighed against such sordid surroundings.
The prize-day came, a glorious day at the beginning of August, and the gardens of Mauleverer Manor, the wide reach of blue river, the meadows, the willows, the distant woods, all looked their loveliest, as if Nature was playing into the hands of Miss Pew.
'I am sure you girls ought to be very happy to live in such a place!' said one of the mothers, as she strolled about the velvet lawn with her daughters, 'instead of being mewed up in a dingy London square.'
'You wouldn't say that if you saw the bread and scrape and the sloppy tea we have for breakfast,' answered one of the girls,
'It's all very well for you, who see this wretched hole in the sunshine, and old Pew in her best gown and her company manners. The place is a whited sepulchre. I should like you to have a glimpse behind the scenes, ma.'
'Ma' smiled placidly, and turned a deaf ear to these aspersions of the schoolmistress. Her girls looked well fed and healthy. Bread and scrape evidently agreed with them much better than that reckless consumption of butter and marmalade which swelled the housekeeping bills during the holidays.
It was a great day. Miss Pew the elder was splendid in apple-green moiré antique; Miss Pew the younger was elegant in pale and flabby raiment of cashmere and crewel-work. The girls were in that simple white muslin