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Flaming June

<h3>Chapter Four.</h3> Perfect health, radiant spirits, supreme self-confidence, a sweetly smiling determination to have her own way, and go her own course, though the skies fell, and all creation conspired to prevent her—these were the characteristics of Miss Cornelia Briskett most apparent on a superficial acquaintance. On the morning after her arrival, when Mary the housemaid carried the cup of early morning tea to her bedside, she found the young lady leaning back against the pillows, enveloped in a garment which suggested a garden party, rather than a night-gown, wide awake, and ready for conversation. Really a most affable young lady, who instead of vouchsafing a cool good-morning, launched out into quite a confidential talk, inquiring after the different members of Mary’s family, their names, ages, and occupations, and showing a most sympathetic interest in the girl’s own future. “I guess you are going to be married pretty soon! You’ve got a marrying face!” she said shrewdly, whereupon Mary, blushing, acknowledged that she had a friend, and that he did speak of early next spring. “Told you so!” cried Cornelia, dimpling. “Well, Mury, see here, you nip round and wait upon me the best you know, and I’ll give you an elegant present! I wear muslins most all the time in summer, and I can’t endoor to have them mussed. You keep carrying them away and ironing them out nice and smooth, without bothering me to tell you. See! I need lots of attention; there’s no getting away from that, but I’ll make it worth your while. You just put your mind to it, and I guess you’ll make a tip-top maid!” Mary was at least prepared to perish in the attempt. She related the conversation downstairs, with the natural result that each of the other three maids registered a vow to be second to none in her attentions to the young visitor. The breakfast-gong rang at eight o’clock, but it was a good ten minutes later before Cornelia came sauntering downstairs, singing an unknown ditty at the pitch of a sweet, if somewhat nasal voice. She was dressed in white of the most elaborate simplicity, and her shaded hair looked even more crisply conspicuous than on the night before. The last line of the song did not come to an end until she was half-way across the dining-room floor, and so far from being dismayed by her aunt’s stare of disapproval, she only laughed, waved her hands, and threw an extra flourish into the rallentando. Then she swooped down upon the stiff figure, hugged it affectionately, and planted three kisses on the cold, grey face; one on the lips, one on the brow, a third—deliberately—on the tip of the nose. “Cornelia, please! Recollect yourself, my dear! Have a little respect. You must never do that again!” cried Miss Briskett, irritably, but the girl showed not the faintest sign of being awed. “It’s the nose of my father, and I’ve just got to kiss it! It’s not a mite of use promising that I won’t. I’ve got to kiss it regularly every morning, and every night, until he comes over to be kissed himself!” she announced calmly, seating herself at the opposite side of the square dining-table, and peering curiously at the various dishes. “Poppar says you never have anything for breakfast in England but bacon and eggs, but I don’t see any here. What’s under this cover?—Fish?” “If you wait a few minutes your bacon will be brought in. It had grown cold with waiting so long, so I sent it away to be kept hot. The breakfast hour is eight; not a quarter past.” “It’s not a mite of use telling me the hours. I’m always late! I don’t suppose I’ve ever been down in time in my life, unless by a mistake,” returned Cornelia, cheerfully. “I like to stay in bed and let the day get sorter warmed up and comfortable, before I begin. What makes you want to get up so early, anyway? I should have thought nine would have been heaps early enough, when you have nothing to do.” It was not a promising beginning to the day. In her own household Miss Briskett was accustomed to an authority as complete as that of the general of an army. She was just, and she was generous; her servants were treated with kindness and consideration, but if they wished to retain their places, they had to learn the lesson of dumb, unquestioning obedience. She might be right, she might be wrong, she might remember, she might forget—no matter! it was not their business to enlighten her. “Theirs but to do, and die!” She would not brook a question as to her own authority. It was, therefore, a distinct blow to the good lady to find her decrees ignored by her young guest with a smiling good-nature, more baffling than the most determined opposition. She remained stolidly silent throughout the meal, but Cornelia apparently regarded he attitude as a tactful abdication in her own favour, and kept up an incessant flow of conversation from start to finish. When the bell was rung for prayers, she seated herself in a low chair, directly facing the servants’ seats, and smiled a dazzling greeting to each in turn. They sat down in their usual positions, heads bent, hands folded on the middle of their clean white aprons; feet tucked carefully out of sight; there was no outward sign of irreverence or inattention in their demeanour, but Miss Briskett felt, that every single woman of them was absorbed—utterly, consumedly absorbed—in casting sly glances at that distracting white vision in the easy chair; at the dully glowing hair, the floating folds of white, the tiny, extended feet. She might have read a page of the dictionary, and they would not have noticed; even Heap, who was old enough to know better, was edging sideways in her chair, to get a better view! When the four stiffly-starched dresses had rustled out of the room, Cornelia yawned, and stretched herself like a sleepy, luxurious kitten, then snoodled down once more in her comfortable chair. Her eyes were fixed upon her aunt’s face, while that good lady bustled about the room, folding the newspaper into an accurate square, and putting it away in a brass-bound cage; collecting scattered envelopes and putting them in the waste-paper basket, moving the flower-vases on the chimney-piece, so that they should stand at mathematically the same distance from the central clock. At every movement she waited to hear the expected, “Can I help you, Aunt Sophia?” which right feeling would surely prompt in any well-principled damsel, and though her reply would of a certainty have been in the negative, she felt aggrieved that the opportunity was not vouchsafed. She was determined not to look in the girl’s direction, nor to meet those watching eyes, but presently, in spite of herself, she felt a magnetic compulsion to turn her head to answer the bright, expectant glance. “Well?” queried Cornelia, smiling. “Well what, my dear?” “How are you going to amuse me this forenoon?” Miss Briskett sat down suddenly in the nearest chair, and suffered a mental collapse. Positively this view of the situation had never once dawned upon her unimaginative brain! Mrs Ramsden had dimly wrestled with the problem, solving it at last with an easy, “She can talk to Elma!” but the aunt and hostess had been too much occupied with consideration for her own comfort to think of anyone else. It had crossed her mind that the girl might tire her, bore her, worry her, or humiliate her before the neighbours; in an occasional giddy flight of fancy she had even supposed it possible that Cornelia might amuse her, and make life more agreeable, but never for the fraction of a second had she realised that she herself was fated either to bore, or to amuse Cornelia in return! The discovery was a shock. Being a just woman, Miss Briskett was forced to the conclusion that she had been selfish and self-engrossed; but such self-revelations do not as a rule soften our hearts towards the fellow-creature who has been the means of our enlightenment. Miss Briskett was annoyed with herself, but she was much more annoyed with Cornelia, and considered that she had good reason to be so. “I have no time to think of frivolities in the morning, my dear. I am too busy with household duties. I am now going to the kitchen to interview my cook, then to the store-room to give out what is needed for the day, and when that is accomplished I shall go to the shops to give my orders. If you wish, I shall be pleased to have your company!” “Right oh!” cried Cornelia, nodding. “It will be a lesson in your silly old pounds and pence. What do you keep in your store-room, Aunt Soph? Nice things? Fruits? Candy? Cake? I wouldn’t mind giving out the stores for a spell, now and again. Well! ... I’ll just mouch round, and be ready for you when you set out for your walk.” Miss Briskett left the room, in blissful ignorance of what “mouch” might mean, and much too dignified to inquire, but by the time that ten o’clock had struck, she had learnt to connect the expression with all that was irritating and presumptuous. In the midst of her discussion with the cook, for instance, the sound of music burst upon her ears; the echo of that disused piano which had almost forgotten to be anything but a stand for ornaments and lamps. Bang went the bass, crash went the treble, the tune a well-known dance, played with a dash and a spirt, a rollicking marking of time irresistible to any human creature under forty, who did not suffer from corns on their toes. In the recesses of the scullery a subdued scuffling was heard. Tweeny was stepping it to and fro, saucepans in hand; from the dining-room overhead, where Mason was clearing away the breakfast dishes, came a succession of mysterious bumping sounds. Heap stood stolid as a rock, but her eyes—her small, pale, querulous eyes—danced a deliberate waltz round the table and back... “I must request Cornelia not to play the piano in the morning!” said Miss Briskett to herself. From the store-room upstairs a sound of talking and laughing was heard from within the visitor’s bedroom, where sat that young lady in state, issuing orders to Mary, who was blissfully employed in unpacking the contents of one of the big dress boxes, and hanging up skirts in the mahogany wardrobe. “I must beg Cornelia not to interfere with the servants’ work in the morning!” said Miss Briskett once more. At half-past ten silence reigned, and she went downstairs, equipped in her black silk mantle and her third best bonnet, to announce her readiness to start on the usual morning round. Cornelia was not in the morning-room; she was not in the drawing-room, though abundant signs of her recent presence were visible in the littered ornaments on the open piano. “I must beg Cornelia to put things back in their proper places!” said Miss Briskett a third time as she crossed the hall to the dining-room. This room also was empty, but even as she grasped the fact, Miss Briskett started with dismay to behold a bareheaded figure leaning over the garden gate, elbows propped on the topmost bar, and chin supported on clasped hands. This time she did not pause to determine what commands she should issue in the future, but stepped hastily down the path to take immediate and peremptory measures. “My dear! in the front garden—without a hat—leaning over the gate! What can you be thinking of? The neighbours might see you!” Cornelia turned in lazy amusement. “Well, if it’s going to be a shock to them, they might as well begin early, and get it over.” She ran a surprised eye over her aunt’s severe attire. “My, Aunt Soph, you look too good to live! I’m ’most frightened of you in that bonnet. If you’d given a hoot from the window I’d have hustled up, and not kept you waiting. Just hang on two shakes while I get my hat. I won’t stay to prink!” “I am not accustomed—” began Miss Briskett, automatically, but she spoke to thin air. Cornelia had flown up the path in a cloud of swirling skirts; cries of “Mury! Mury!” sounded from within, and the mistress of the house slowly retraced her steps and seated herself to await the next appearance of the whirlwind with what patience she could command. It was long in coming. The clock ticked a slow quarter of an hour, and was approaching twenty minutes, when footsteps sounded once more, and Cornelia appeared in the doorway. She had not changed her dress, she had not donned her jacket; her long, white gloves dangled from her hand; to judge from appearances she had spent a solid twenty minutes in putting on a tip-tilted hat which had been trimmed with bows of dainty flowered ribbon, on the principle of the more the merrier. Miss Briskett disapproved of the hat. It dipped over the forehead, giving an obviously artificial air of demureness to the features; it tilted up at the back, revealing the objectionable hair in all its wanton profusion. It looked—odd, and if there was one thing more than another to which Norton objected, it was a garment which differentiated itself from its fellows. Aunt and niece walked down the path together in the direction of the South Lodge, the latter putting innumerable questions, to which the former replied in shocked surprise. “What were those gardens across the road?”—They were private property of householders in the Park.—“Did they have fine jinks over there in summer time?”—The householders in the park never, under any circumstances, indulged in “jinks.” They disapproved thoroughly, and on principle, of anything connected with jinks!—“Think of that now—the poor, deluded creatures! What did they use the gardens for, anyway?”—The gardens were used for an occasional promenade; and were also valuable as forming a screen between the Park and the houses on the Western Road.—“What was wrong with the houses on the Western Road?”—There was nothing wrong with the houses in question. The residents in the Park objected to see, or to be seen by, any houses, however desirable. They wished to ensure for themselves an unbroken and uninterrupted privacy.—“My gracious!” Mrs Phipps, the dragon of the South Lodge, came out to the doorstep, and bobbed respectfully as Miss Briskett passed by, but curiosity was rampant upon her features. Cornelia smiled radiantly upon her; she smiled upon everyone she met, and threw bright, curious glances to right and to left. “My! isn’t it green? My! isn’t it still? Where is everyone, anyway? Have they got a funeral in every house? Seems kind of unsociable, muffling themselves up behind these hedgerows! Over with us, if we’ve got a good thing, we’re not so eager to hide it away. You can walk along the sidewalk and see everything that’s going on. In the towns the families camp out on the doorsteps. It’s real lively and sociable. ... Are these your stores? They look as if they’d been made in the year one.” They were, in truth, a quaint little row—butcher, grocer, greengrocer, and linen-draper, all nestled into a little angle between two long, outstanding buildings, which seemed threatening at every moment to fall down and crush them to atoms. The windows were small, and the space inside decidedly limited, and this morning there was an unusual rush of customers. It seemed as if every housewife in the neighbourhood had sallied forth to make her purchases at the exact hour when Miss Briskett was known to do her daily shopping. At the grocer’s counter Cornelia was introduced to Mrs Beaumont, of The Croft. “My niece, Miss Cornelia Briskett. Mrs Beaumont,” murmured Miss Briskett. “Mrs Beaumont!” repeated Cornelia, loudly, with a gracious, sidelong observance, at which unusual manner of receiving an introduction both ladies stared in surprise. Presently Mrs Beaumont recovered herself sufficiently to put an all-important question. “How do you like England?” “I think it’s lovely,” said Cornelia. In the fishmonger’s shop Mrs Rhodes and Mrs Muir came up in their turn, and opened wide eyes of surprise as the strange girl again repeated their names in her high monotone. Evidently this was an American custom. Strange people, the Americans! The ladies simpered, and put the inevitable query: “How do you like England?” “I think it’s sweet,” said Cornelia. The draper’s shop was a revelation of old-world methods. One anaemic-looking assistant endeavoured to attend to three counters and half a dozen customers, with an unruffled calm which they vainly strove to emulate. Miss Briskett produced a pattern of grey ribbon which she wished to match. Four different boxes were lifted down from the wall, and their contents ransacked in vain, while the patient waiters received small sops in the shape of cases and trays, shoved along to their corner of the counter. When persuasion failed to convince Miss Briskett that an elephant grey exactly matched her silvery fragment—“I’ll see if we have it in stock!” cried the damsel, hopefully, and promptly disappeared into space. The minutes passed by; Cornelia frowned and fidgeted, was introduced to a fourth dame, and declared that England was “’cute.” Weary waiters for flannel and small-wares looked at their watches, and fidgeted restlessly, but no one rebelled, nor showed any inclination to walk out of the shop in disgust. At length the assistant reappeared, flushed and panting, to regret that they were “sold out,” and “What is your next pleasure, madam?” Madam’s next pleasure was a skein of wool, which investigation again failed to produce. “But we have a very nice line in kid gloves; can I show you something in that line this morning?” Miss Briskett refused to be tempted, and produced a coin from her purse in payment of a small account. Cornelia was interested to be introduced to “hef-a-crown,” and tried to calculate what would be left after the subtraction of a mysterious “seven-three.” She had abundant time to calculate, for, to the suspicious mind, it might really appear as if the assistant had emigrated to foreign climes with the half-crown as capital in hand. The little shop was dull and stuffy; an odour of flannel filled the air; the faces of the patient waiters were colourless and depressed. Cornelia flounced on her seat, and curled her beautiful lips. “My stars and stripes!” she cried aloud. “I’ll take root if I sit here much longer. Seems as that change won’t be ready till the last trump!” She sprang from her chair as she spoke, too much absorbed in her own impatience to note the petrifaction of horror on the faces of the waiters at the counter, and in the doorway came face to face with a plump, dignified little lady, accompanied by a girl in navy blue. “How do you do, my dear? I am Mrs Ramsden,” said the stoat lady, holding out her hand with a very pleasant friendliness. “As the niece of my dear friend and neighbour, allow me to give you a hearty welcome to our shores. This is my daughter, Elma, with whom I hope you will be great friends. I will leave you to talk together while I make my purchases. Young people always get on better alone!” She smiled, a kind, motherly smile, nodding her head the while, until the upright feather quivered on its stem, then disappeared through the dingy portals, leaving the two girls on the narrow pavement staring at each other with bright, curious eyes. “How—how do you like England?” queried Elma, shyly, and Cornelia answered with a happy laugh— “I’ve been asked that question hef a dozen times already, and I only set foot on these shores day before yesterday. I think it seems a real good place for a nerve rest, but if you want to hustle!—” She shrugged expressively, and Elma smiled with quick understanding. “Ah, you have been shopping at Willcox’s! But Willcox’s is not England—Norton is not England; it’s just a sleepy little backwater, shut away from the great current of life. Don’t judge England by what you see here. You’d like the real England—you couldn’t help liking that!” “I like you!” said Cornelia, bluntly. She held out her hand with a gesture of frank camaraderie, and Elma clasped it, thrilling with pleasure. A happy conviction assured her that she had found a friend after her own heart. <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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