'Funny! If you'd heard Sir Arthur jerking out, "Good Ged, Bucksteed!" every minute as they rode behind me; and poor Dad saying, '"'Pon my honour, Arthur, I can't account for it!" Oh, how my cheeks tingled when I reached my room! But Cissie had laid out my very best evening dress, the white satin one, vandyked at the bottom with spots of morone foil, and the pearl knots, you know, catching up the drapery from the left shoulder.
I had poor mother's lace tucker and her coronet comb.'
'Oh, you lucky!' Una murmured. 'And gloves?'
'French kid, my dear'- Philadelphia patted her shoulder - 'and morone satin shoes and a morone and gold crape fan. That restored my calm. Nice things always do. I wore my hair banded on my forehead with a little curl over the left ear. And when I descended the stairs, en grande tenue, old Amoore curtsied to me without my having to stop and look at her, which, alas! is too often the case. Sir Arthur highly approved of the dinner, my dear: the mackerel did come in time. We had all the Marklake silver out, and he toasted my health, and he asked me where my little bird's-nesting sister was. I know he did it to quiz me, so I looked him straight in the face, my dear, and I said, "I always send her to the nursery, Sir Arthur, when I receive guests at Marklake Hall."'
'Oh, how chee - clever of you. What did he say?' Una cried.
'He said, "Not much change there, Bucksteed. Ged, I deserved it," and he toasted me again. They talked about the French and what a shame it was that Sir Arthur only commanded a brigade at Hastings, and he told Dad of a battle in India at a place called Assaye. Dad said it was a terrible fight, but Sir Arthur described it as though it had been a whist-party - I suppose because a lady was present.'
'Of course you were the lady. I wish I'd seen you,'said Una.
'I wish you had, child. I had such a triumph after dinner. Rene and Doctor Break came in. They had quite made up their quarrel, and they told me they had the highest esteem for each other, and I laughed and said, "I heard every word of it up in the tree." You never saw two men so frightened in your life, and when I said, "What was 'the subject of your remarks,' Rene?" neither of them knew where to look. Oh, I quizzed them unmercifully. They'd seen me jump off the pigsty roof, remember.'
'But what was the subject of their remarks?' said Una.
'Oh, Doctor Break said it was a professional matter, so the laugh was turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been something unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn't my triumph. Dad asked me to play on the harp. Between just you and me, child, I had been practising a new song from London - I don't always live in trees - for weeks; and I gave it them for a surprise.'
'What was it?'said Una. 'Sing it.'
'"I have given my heart to a flower." Not very difficult fingering, but r-r-ravishing sentiment.'
Philadelphia coughed and cleared her throat.
'I've a deep voice for my age and size,' she explained.
'Contralto, you know, but it ought to be stronger,' and she began, her face all dark against the last of the soft pink sunset:
'I have given my heart to a flower, Though I know it is fading away, Though I know it will live but an hour And leave me to mourn its decay!
'Isn't that touchingly sweet? Then the last verse - I wish I had my harp, dear - goes as low as my register will reach.'She drew in her chin, and took a deep breath:
'Ye desolate whirlwinds that rave, I charge you be good to my dear!
She is all - she is all that I have, And the time of our parting is near!'
'Beautiful!' said Una. 'And did they like it?'
'Like it? They were overwhelmed - accablEs, as Rene says. My dear, if I hadn't seen it, I shouldn't have believed that I could have drawn tears, genuine tears, to the eyes of four grown men. But I did! Rene simply couldn't endure it! He's all French sensibility.
He hid his face and said, "Assez, Mademoiselle! C'est plus fort que moi! Assez!" And Sir Arthur blew his nose and said, "Good Ged!
This is worse than Assaye!" While Dad sat with the tears simply running down his cheeks.'
'And what did Doctor Break do?'
'He got up and pretended to look out of the window, but I saw his little fat shoulders jerk as if he had the hiccoughs. That was a triumph. I never suspected him of sensibility.'
'Oh, I wish I'd seen! I wish I'd been you,'said Una, clasping her hands. Puck rustled and rose from the fern, just as a big blundering cock-chafer flew smack against Una's cheek.
When she had finished rubbing the place, Mrs Vincey called to her that Pansy had been fractious, or she would have come long before to help her strain and pour off.
'It didn't matter,' said Una; 'I just waited. Is that old Pansy barging about the lower pasture now?'
'No,' said Mrs Vincey, listening. 'It sounds more like a horse being galloped middlin' quick through the woods; but there's no road there. I reckon it's one of Gleason's colts loose. Shall I see you up to the house, Miss Una?'
'Gracious, no! thank you. What's going to hurt me?' said Una, and she put her stool away behind the oak, and strolled home through the gaps that old Hobden kept open for her.
