CHAPTER V.
No answer to that telegram; no arriving daughter. Yet nobody showed any
uneasiness or seemed surprised; that is, nobody but Washington. After
three days of waiting, he asked Lady Rossmore what she supposed the
trouble was. She answered, tranquilly:
“Oh, it’s some notion of hers, you never can tell. She’s a Sellers, all
through–at least in some of her ways; and a Sellers can’t tell you
beforehand what he’s going to do, because he don’t know himself till he’s
done it. She’s all right; no occasion to worry about her. When she’s
ready she’ll come or she’ll write, and you can’t tell which, till it’s
happened.”
It turned out to be a letter. It was handed in at that moment, and was
received by the mother without trembling hands or feverish eagerness,
or any other of the manifestations common in the case of long delayed
answers to imperative telegrams. She polished her glasses with
tranquility and thoroughness, pleasantly gossiping along, the while,
then opened the letter and began to read aloud:
KENILWORTH KEEP, REDGAUNTLET HALL,
ROWENA-IVANHOE COLLEGE, THURSDAY.
DEAR PRECIOUS MAMMA ROSSMORE:
Oh, the joy of it!–you can’t think. They had always turned up
their noses at our pretentions, you know; and I had fought back as
well as I could by turning up mine at theirs. They always said it
might be something great and fine to be rightful Shadow of an
earldom, but to merely be shadow of a shadow, and two or three times
removed at that-pooh-pooh! And I always retorted that not to be
able to show four generations of American-Colonial-Dutch Peddler-
and-Salt-Cod-McAllister-Nobility might be endurable, but to have to
confess such an origin–pfew-few! Well, the telegram, it was just a
cyclone! The messenger came right into the great Rob Roy Hall of
Audience, as excited as he could be, singing out, “Dispatch for Lady
Gwendolen Sellers!” and you ought to have seen that simpering
chattering assemblage of pinchbeck aristocrats, turn to stone!
I as off in the corner, of course, by myself–it’s where Cinderella
belongs. I took the telegram and read it, and tried to faint–and I
could have done it if I had had any preparation, but it was all so
sudden, you know–but no matter, I did the next best thing: I put my
handkerchief to my eyes and fled sobbing to my room, dropping the
telegram as I started. I released one corner of my eye a moment–
just enough to see the herd swarm for the telegram–and then
continued my broken-hearted flight just as happy as a bird.
Then the visits of condolence began, and I had to accept the loan of
Miss Augusta-Templeton-Ashmore Hamilton’s quarters because the press
was so great and there isn’t room for three and a cat in mine. And
I’ve been holding a Lodge of Sorrow ever since and defending myself
against people’s attempts to claim kin. And do you know, the very
first girl to fetch her tears and sympathy to my market was that
foolish Skimperton girl who has always snubbed me so shamefully and
claimed lordship and precedence of the whole college because some
ancestor of hers, some time or other, was a McAllister. Why it was
like the bottom bird in the menagerie putting on airs because its
head ancestor was a pterodactyl.
But the ger-reatest triumph of all was-guess. But you’ll never.
This is it. That little fool and two others have always been
fussing and fretting over which was entitled to precedence–by rank,
you know. They’ve nearly starved themselves at it; for each claimed
the right to take precedence of all the college in leaving the
table, and so neither of them ever finished her dinner, but broke
off in the middle and tried to get out ahead of the others. Well,
after my first day’s grief and seclusion–I was fixing up a mourning
dress you see–I appeared at the public table again, and then–what
do you think? Those three fluffy goslings sat there contentedly,
and squared up the long famine–lapped and lapped, munched and
munched, ate and ate, till the gravy appeared in their eyes–humbly
waiting for the Lady Gwendolen to take precedence and move out
first, you see!