Chapter 4 Seaside shadows

But Miss Leyton was engaged talking to a Monsieur and

Mademoiselle Vieuxtemps-an old brother and sister, resident in the Lion d'Or-who had stopped to wish her Good-evening! They were dear, good old people, but rather monotonous and dull, and Elinor had more than once ridiculed their manner of talking and voted them the most terrible bores. Mrs. Pullen concluded therefore, that she would get rid of them as soon as courtesy permitted her to do so, and follow her. With a smile and a bow therefore, to the Vieuxtemps, she pushed her way through the crowd with Harriet Brandt, to where she perceived that three seats were vacant, and took possession of them. They were not good seats for hearing or seeing, being to one side of the salon, and quite in the shadow, but the place was so full that she saw no chance of getting any others. As soon as they were seated, the waiter came round for orders, and it was with difficulty that Mrs. Pullen prevented her companion purchasing sufficient liqueurs and cakes to serve double the number of their company.

"You must allow me to pay for myself, Miss Brandt," she said gravely, "or I will never accompany you anywhere again!"

"But I have lots of money," pleaded the girl, "much more than I know what to do with-it would be a pleasure to me, it would indeed!"

But Mrs. Pullen was resolute, and three limonades only were placed upon their table. Elinor Leyton had not yet made her appearance, and Mrs. Pullen kept craning her neck over the other seats to see where she might be, without success.

"She cannot have missed us!" she observed, "I wonder if she can have continued her walk with the Vieuxtemps!"

"O! what does it signify?" said Harriet, drawing her chair closer to that of Mrs. Pullen, "we can do very well without her. I don't think she's very nice, do you?"

"You must not speak of Miss Leyton like that to me, Miss Brandt," remonstrated Margaret, gently, "because-she is a great friend of our family."

She had been going to say, "Because she will be my sister-in-law before long," but remembered Elinor's request in time, and substituted the other sentence.

"I don't think she's very kind, though," persisted the other.

"It is only her manner, Miss Brandt! She does not mean anything by it!"

"But you are so different," said the girl as she crept still closer, "I could see it when you smiled at me at dinner. I knew I should like you at once. And I want you to like me too-so much! It has been the dream of my life to have some friends. That is why I would not stay in Jamaica. I don't like the people there! I want friends-real friends!"

"But you must have had plenty of friends of your own age in the Convent."

"That shows you don't know anything about a convent! It's the very last place where they will let you make a friend-they're afraid lest you should tell each other too much! The convent I was in was an Ursuline order, and even the nuns were obliged to walk three and three, never two, together, lest they should have secrets between them. As for us girls, we were never left alone for a single minute! There was always a sister with us, even at night, walking up and down between the rows of beds, pretending to read her prayers, but with her eyes on us the whole time and her ears open to catch what we said. I suppose they were afraid we should talk about lovers. I think girls do talk about them when they can, more in convents than in other places, though they have never had any. It would be so dreadful to be like the poor nuns, and never have a lover to the end of one's days, wouldn't it?" "You would not fancy being a nun then, Miss Brandt!"

"I-Oh! dear no! I would rather be dead, twenty times over! But they didn't like my coming out at all. They did try so hard to persuade me to remain with them for ever! One of them, Sister Féodore, told me I must never talk even with gentlemen, if I could avoid it-that they were all wicked and nothing they said was true, and if I trusted them, they would only laugh at me afterwards for my pains. But I don't believe that, do you?"

"Certainly not!" replied Margaret warmly. "The sister who told you so knew nothing about men. My dear husband is more like an angel than a man, and there are many like him. You mustn't believe such nonsense, Miss Brandt! I am sure you never heard your parents say such a silly thing!"

"O! my father and mother! I never remember hearing them say anything!" replied Miss Brandt. She had crept closer and closer to Mrs. Pullen as she spoke, and now encircled her waist with her arm, and leaned her head upon her shoulder. It was not a position that Margaret liked, nor one she would have expected from a woman on so short an acquaintance, but she did not wish to appear unkind by telling Miss Brandt to move further away. The poor girl was evidently quite unused to the ways and customs of Society, she seemed moreover very friendless and dependent-so Margaret laid her solecism down to ignorance and let her head rest where she had placed it, resolving inwardly meanwhile that she would not subject herself to be treated in so familiar a manner again.

"Don't you remember your parents then?" she asked her presently.

"Hardly! I saw so little of them," said Miss Brandt, "my father was a great doctor and scientist, I believe, and I am not quite sure if he knew that he had a daughter!"

"O! my dear, what nonsense!"

"But it is true, Mrs. Pullen! He was always shut up in his laboratory, and I was not allowed to go near that part of the house. I suppose he was very clever and all that-but he was too much engaged in making experiments to take any notice of me, and I am sure I never wanted to see him!"

"How very sad! But you had your mother to turn to for consolation and company, whilst she lived, surely?"

"O! my mother!" echoed Harriet, carelessly. "Yes! my mother! Well! I don't think I knew much more of her either. The ladies in Jamaica get very lazy, you know, and keep a good deal to their own rooms. The person there I loved best of all, was old Pete, the overseer!" "The overseer!"

"Of the estate and niggers, you know! We had plenty of niggers on the coffee plantation, regular African fellows, with woolly heads and blubber lips, and yellow whites to their eyes. When I was a little thing of four years old, Pete used to let me whip the little niggers for a treat, when they had done anything wrong. It used to make me laugh to see them wriggle their legs under the whip and cry!"

"O! don't, Miss Brandt!" exclaimed Margaret Pullen, in a voice of pain.

"It's true, but they deserved it, you know, the little wretches, always thieving or lying or something! I've seen a woman whipped to death, because she wouldn't work. We think nothing of that sort of thing, over there. Still-you can't wonder that I was glad to get out of the Island. But I loved old Pete, and if he had been alive when I left, I would have brought him to England with me. He used to carry me for miles through the jungle on his back,-out in the fresh mornings and the cool, dewy eves. I had a pony to ride, but I never went anywhere, without his hand upon my bridle rein. He was always so afraid lest I should come to any harm. I don't think anybody else cared. Pete was the only creature who ever loved me, and when I think of Jamaica, I remember my old nigger servant as the one friend I had there!"

"It is very, very sad!" was all that Mrs. Pullen could say.

She had become fainter and fainter, as the girl leaned against her with her head upon her breast. Some sensation which she could not define, nor account for-some feeling which she had never experienced before-had come over her and made her head reel. She felt as if something or someone, were drawing all her life away. She tried to disengage herself from the girl's clasp, but Harriet Brandt seemed to come after her, like a coiling snake, till she could stand it no longer, and faintly exclaiming:

"Miss Brandt! let go of me, please! I feel ill!" she rose and tried to make her way between the crowded tables, towards the open air. As she stumbled along, she came against (to her great relief) her friend, Elinor Leyton.

"O! Elinor!" she gasped, "I don't know what is the matter with me! I feel so strange, so light-headed! Do take me home!"

Miss Leyton dragged her through the audience, and made her sit down on a bench, facing the sea.

"Why! what's the matter?" demanded Harriet Brandt, who had made her way after them, "is Mrs. Pullen ill?"

"So it appears," replied Miss Leyton, coldly, "but how it happened, you should know better than myself! I suppose it is very warm in there!"