Chapter Thirteen
A Surprise Invitation
On the morning after the prize-giving day at Hazlitt Chase, Penelope rose with a headache. There was a great deal of bustle and excitement in the school, for nearly all the girls were going to their several homes on that special morning. Penelope and Mademoiselle d’Etienne would have the beautiful old house to themselves before twenty-four hours were over.
Penelope did not in the least care for Mademoiselle; she was not especially fond of her school life, but she detested those long and endless holidays which she spent invariably at Hazlitt Chase.
To-day all was in disorder. The usual routine of school life was over. The children were some of them beside themselves with the thought of the railway journey and the home-coming in the evening. Somebody shouted to Penelope to hurry with her dressing, in order to help to get off the little ones. The smaller children, including the two little Hungerfords, were to go in a great omnibus to the station and be conducted by a governess to their different homes in various parts of England.
Pauline Hungerford suddenly rushed into the room where Penelope was standing.
“Helen of Troy,” she said.
“Oh, please don’t!” said Penelope. “I am not Helen of Troy – I don’t wish to be called by that odious name.”
“But you were so beautiful!” said little Pauline. “Do you know that while we were looking at you, even Nellie forgot about her bracelet; but she’s crying like anything over the loss of it this morning. It is quite too bad.”
“Yes, indeed it is,” said Penelope. “I do trust your mother will take steps to get it back. I hear that some of the railway officials were supposed to have stolen it.”
“Oh dear,” said Pauline, “how wicked of them! What awful people they must be! Who told you that, Penelope?”
“Well, it was mentioned to me by my sister, who came here yesterday. You saw her, of course?”
“Yes – she was talking a lot to my brother. She is very pretty; of course – of course I saw her. And she says it was the railway people who stole it? I will tell mother that the very instant I get back. But oh, please, Penelope, Honora wants you; she said you promised to go to her room before ten, and she would be so glad if you would go at once – will you?”
“Yes, I will go,” said Penelope.
She had forgotten Honora’s words, being absorbed in her own melancholy thoughts. It now occurred to her, however, that she might as well keep her promise to the pretty girl who ought to have been Helen of Troy. She went slowly down the passage, tapped at Honora’s door, and entered her bedroom. The young lady was just dressed for her journey. She wore dainty white piqué and a pretty hat to match. She looked fair and fresh and charming.
“I am just off – I have hardly a minute,” she said. “I want to ask a great favour of you, Penelope.”
“What is that?” said Penelope.
She spoke ill-naturedly. She felt the contrast between them. She almost disliked Honora for her beauty on this occasion.
“It is this,” said Honora. “I have been asking mamma – and she says I may do it. Will you come and stay with us for part of the holidays?”
“I!” said Penelope – amazement in her face.
“Yes. We live at Castle Beverley: it is not very far from Marshlands-on-the-Sea.”
“Oh dear!” exclaimed Penelope, clasping her hands. “Why, it is there my sister is going.”
“Then of course you can see her; that will be nice. But will you come? I will write to fix the day after I get home. I should like you to have a good time with us. We shall be quite a big party – boys and girls, oh, – a lot of us, and I think there’ll be no end of fun. The little Hungerfords are coming, and Fred. Fred is such a nice boy. Will you come, Penelope? Do say ‘Yes.’”
Penelope’s eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“Will I come!” she said. “Why, I’d just love it beyond anything. Oh, you are good! Do you ask me because you pity me?”
“Well – yes, perhaps a little,” said Honora, colouring at this direct question – “but also because I want to like you. I know you are worth liking. No one who could look as you did last night could be unworthy. It was after I saw you that I asked mamma; and she said: most certainly you should come. It will probably be next week: I will write you fixing the day as soon as ever I get home. And now, I must be off. Good-bye, dear. You may be certain I will do my very utmost to give you a really happy time.”
Honora bent her stately head, pressed a little kiss on Penelope’s forehead, and the next minute had left her. Penelope’s first impulse had been to rush downstairs; but she restrained herself. She sat down on Honora’s vacant bed and pressed her hand to her forehead.
“Fun for me,” – she thought – “for me! I shan’t have lonely holidays. I shall go to one of the nicest houses in England, and be with nice people, good people, true people. There’s Brenda – of course I wish – I do wish Brenda were not at Marshlands; but I suppose I can’t have everything. I wish – I wish I could understand Brenda. Why did she force me to get all that money for her? I wonder if any of the girls who gave it me will be there. Well, well – I won’t be disagreeable – I am going to have a jolly time – I, who never have any fun. Oh, I am glad – I am very glad!”
About an hour later, the great house of Hazlitt Chase seemed quite silent and empty. Except for some housemaids who went to the different rooms in order to fold up the sheets and put away the blankets and take the curtains down from the windows and generally reduce the spotless, dainty chambers to the immaculate order of holiday times, Penelope did not see any one. She was glad that Mademoiselle d’Etienne was not in sight. She thought she could endure her holiday now that she had something to look forward to, if only Mademoiselle were not with her. But she could not stand the housemaids: they were so full of gossip and noise. Their accustomed reverence for the young ladies was not extended to the lonely girl who always spent vacation at Hazlitt Chase.
Penelope put on her hat, seized the first book she could find, and went out into the open air. The grounds still bore traces of yesterday’s revels. There was the wood – dark, cool, and beautiful – which had been used for that scene in which she took so distinguished a part. Penelope’s first desire was to get within the shade of the wood; but then she remembered how many things had happened there; how it was there that she had made terms with the girls with regard to the conditions on which she would act Helen of Troy. It was there, too, that Honora Beverley had found her when the play was over – when she was feeling so wrought up, so desolate, and, somehow, so ashamed of herself. She did not want to go into the wood. She walked, therefore, down one of the sunny garden paths, and at last came to a grassy sward with a huge elm-tree in the middle. There was shade under the elm. She eat down on the grass and opened her book. But she was not inclined to read. Penelope was never a reader. She had no special nor strong tastes. She could have been made a very nice, all-round sort of girl; her brain could have been well developed, but she would never be a genius or a specialist of any sort. Nevertheless, she had one thing which some of those girls who despised her did not possess; that was, a real, vibrating, suffering, longing, and passionate soul. She longed intensely for love, and she would rather be good than bad – that was about all.
She sat with her book open and her eyes fixed on the flickering sunlight and shade of the lawn just in front of her. After all she, Penelope, would have a good time – just like the other girls. She would come back to school able, like the other girls, to talk of her holidays, to describe where she went and what companions she found and what friends she made; to talk as the others talked of this delightful day and that delightful day. Oh, yes – she would have a good time! She pressed her hand to her eyes and her eyelids smarted with tears. It had been a very long time since Penelope had cried. Now, notwithstanding her sudden and unlooked-for bliss, there was a pain within her breast. She was terribly – most terribly disappointed in Brenda. She had not seen Brenda for a long time, and she had always rather worshipped her sister. When a little child, she had thoroughly revelled in Brenda’s beauty. When the time came that she and Brenda must part, little Penelope had sobbed hard in her elder sister’s arms – had implored and implored her not to leave her, and afterwards, when the separation had taken place, had been sullen and truly miserable for a long time.
Then she had been admitted to Mrs Hazlitt’s school on those special conditions which came to a few girls and had been arranged by those governors who put a certain number on the foundation terms of the school. The foundation girls were never known to be such by any of their companions. They were treated exactly like the others. In fact, if anything, they had a few more indulgences. Not for worlds would Mrs Hazlitt have given these children of poverty so cruel a time as to make their estate known to their companions.
But, it so happened that Penelope was obliged always to spend her holidays at the school. That was the only difference made between her and the others. She had not seen Brenda for years. But Brenda had written to her little sister and had made all use possible of that sister’s affection. She had worked up her feelings with regard to her own dreadful poverty and, in short, had got Penelope to blackmail four girls of the school for her sake.
“It was a dreadful thing to do,” thought Penelope to herself, as she sat now under the shade of the elm-tree. “I don’t think I’d have done it if I’d known. I wonder if she really wanted the money so very badly. There’s some one who loves her, and she must look nice for his sake. But all the same – I wish I hadn’t done it, and I wish she were not going to Marshlands-on-the-Sea. For she is just the sort to make it unpleasant for me, and to expect the Beverleys to ask her to Beverley Castle; and oh – I am disappointed in her!”
Again Penelope cried, not hard or much, for this was not her nature, but sufficiently to relieve some of the load at her heart. Then, all of a sudden, she started to her feet. Mademoiselle d’Etienne was coming down the central lawn to meet her. Mademoiselle was in many respects an excellent French governess, but had the usual faults of the proverbial Frenchwoman. She was both ugly and vain. She could not in the least read character, but she had the knack of discovering which was the girl whose acquaintance was most worth cultivating.
Mrs Hazlitt had made a mistake in introducing this woman into the school. She had not interviewed her in advance, and was altogether disappointed when she arrived. It was her intention to get another French governess to take her place at the beginning of next term. Mademoiselle had, in fact, received notice to this effect and was exceedingly annoyed. She was in that state when she must vent her spleen on some one, and, as Penelope was the only girl now at Hazlitt Chase, she went up to her crossly.
“What are you doing here, mon enfant?” she cried. “You leave the poor French mademoiselle all alone – it is sad – it is strange – it is wrong. Come this minute into the house. I have my woes to relate, and I want even a petite like you to listen. Come at once, and sit no longer under this shade, but make of yourself a use.”
Penelope rose, looking more grim and forbidding than usual. She followed Mademoiselle up the garden, past the wood, and into the house.
“Behold the desolation!” cried Mademoiselle, when they got indoors. She spread out her two fat, short arms and looked around her. “Not a petite in sight – not a sound – the whole mansion empty, and Madame gone – gone with venom! She have left me my dismissal; she say, ‘You teach no more les enfants in this school.’ She gave no reason, but say, ‘I find another and you teach no more!’ Who was that spiteful and most méchant enfant who reveals secrets of poor Mademoiselle to Madame?”
“I don’t know,” said Penelope. “I hadn’t an idea you were going. I know nothing about it,” she continued. “Aren’t we going to have any lunch? I am so hungry.”
“And so am I,” cried Mademoiselle, who was exceedingly greedy. “I starve – I ache from within. Sonnez, mon enfant– I entreat; let us have our déjeuner– my vitals can stand the strain no longer.”
Penelope rang the bell, and presently a towsled-looking housemaid appeared, to whom Mademoiselle spoke in a volley of bad English and excellent French.
“Get us something to eat,” said Penelope, “that is what we want. Isn’t Patience here to wait on us as usual?”
Patience was one of the immaculate parlour maids.
“No,” said the girl; “Patience has gone on her holiday.”
She withdrew, however, quickly after making this remark, for Mademoiselle’s eyes flashed fire.
“I suffer not these tortures,” she cried, “and the insolence of English domestiques! I return to my own adorable land and partake of the ragoûts so delicate and the bouillon so fragrant and the omelettes so adorable. I turn my back on your cold England. It loves not the stranger – and the stranger loves it not!”
A meal was hastily prepared in another room, and Penelope and the governess went there together.
“What I dread,” said Mademoiselle, “what I consider so triste and execrable – is that I should remain here in this so gloomy climate, far, far from my beloved land, with you – the most ennuyeuse of all my pupils during the time of holiday. I call it shameful! I rebel!”
“Then why do you stay?” said Penelope.
Again Mademoiselle extended her fat hands and arms.
“Would I lose that little character which is to me the breath of existence?” she enquired. “Were Madame to know that I had left you, my triste pupil, all alone during these long days and weeks, would she give me a paper with those essential qualifications written on it which secure for me employment elsewhere?”
“I am going away myself next week,” said Penelope, bluntly.
“Next week!” cried Mademoiselle, much startled and delighted at this news. “But is that indeed so? for Madame say nothing of it. She say to me this morning: ‘You take excellent care of my pupil, Penelope Carlton, and give her of the food sufficient, and of the mental food also, that she will digest.’”
“I won’t digest any of it,” said Penelope, bluntly.
“That was my thought, but I dared not express it. I knew well the dulness of your intellect, and although last night you did soar into a different world —ma foi, you did take me by surprise! – you are yourself a very triste little girl – an enfant indistinguishable, with neither the gifts of beauty nor of genius.”
“Well – I am going – it is arranged. Mrs Hazlitt will doubtless be written to.”
“And where do you go, pauvre petite?” asked the governess.
“I am going to stay with Honora Beverley, at Castle Beverley,” replied Penelope, with even a touch of arrogance in her small voice.
Mademoiselle opened her eyes wide.
“With her! – my pupil magnifique, and so beautiful! She has the air distinguished and the manner noble. She belongs to the rich and to the great. She takes you up – but pourquoi?”
“Kindness – I suppose,” said Penelope. “I am lonely, and they have a big house; I am going there.”
“It is wonderful,” said Mademoiselle, “you of all people. Honora is one with thoughts the most lofty, and she signifies a preference for you! It is strange – it gives me mal à la tête even to think of it!”
“Why should it?” asked Penelope.
“Do I not know some of your ways, mon enfant– and that little, little transaction in the wood?”
“What in the world do you mean?” said Penelope, turning ghastly white.
“Ah! I mean no wrong. I have eaten enough of your odious English cookery; let us rise from table. I am glad to feel that you are going to that friend so unsuitable – to that lady so supérieure. Would she ask you if she knew what I know? – ”
“I can’t tell, I am sure, what you do know,” said Penelope; “but what I feel at present is that I want rest – you’re not obliged to follow me about all the afternoon – may I stay by myself until supper time?”
“Ungrateful!” cried Mademoiselle. “But I shall go – I need you not. I have myself to attend to, and my affairs so sombre to settle. I will meet you again at the hour of supper, when I have put matters in train for myself.”
Penelope left her. How much did Mademoiselle know? She disliked her heartily, and did not want to trouble her head too much over the circumstance. She felt certain that the four girls who had given her the money would not confide their secrets to any one, far less to Mademoiselle, whom they distrusted. Nevertheless, the governess was scarcely likely to speak as she had done without reason. She was evidently jealous of Penelope’s invitation to Beverley Castle, and was very angry at being dismissed from Hazlitt Chase.
“She can’t by any possibility know the truth,” thought the girl, “and I won’t fret about it. I will just humour her as best I can until next week arrives, and then say good-bye to her for ever. I am heartily glad she is leaving the school; I never liked her so little as I do now.”
Now, Mademoiselle D’Etienne and Brenda Carlton would have made their fortunes by ways that deceived. There was a great deal of affinity in their insincere natures. With Mademoiselle, it was truly bred in the bone; but she was not altogether ill-natured, and, after considering matters for a short time, decided that, unless special circumstances turned up, she would not disturb Penelope’s chance of having a good time at Castle Beverley. Her jealousy of the girl died down and she thought of herself and her own circumstances. Then it occurred to her that she would perhaps make some use of her pupil’s unexpected absence from Hazlitt Chase. If Penelope went to Castle Beverley for several weeks of the holidays, it would surely not be necessary for Mademoiselle to stay in that mansion so triste, so desolate. Mrs Hazlitt was the soul of kindness. Mademoiselle was in her employ, and earning a considerable salary until the middle of September. It might be possible that Mrs Hazlitt could find some amusement for the poor lonely girl who was banished from her native land. Where could she go? what could she do to relieve the heavy air of England, to take the oppression from her heart? It would be more than delightful if she, too, could have an invitation to Castle Beverley, and, just for a minute, it entered her head that she might manage this by means of that little secret which she held over Penelope.
But, after all, the secret was not so intensely valuable. What she knew was simply this. She had observed Cara Burt opening a letter on a certain morning and taking an unexpected five-pound note out of it. Mademoiselle was avaricious. The sight of the money had awakened desires within her. What could a girl like Cara want with anything so precious as a five-pound note in term time? She resolved to question her.
“How good your people are to you!” she said.
Cara had asked the governess what she meant, and the governess had prettily replied in her broken English that she had seen the “note so valuable” in Cara’s hand when she opened the letter.
“Oh, that is for a purpose – an important one,” answered Cara. Then she bit her lips, for she was sorry she had said so much. But other girls had received their money on the very same day and Mademoiselle, alert and auspicious, had crept to the rendezvous where they all met. Poor Penelope! When Penelope received the five-pound Bank of England notes, Mademoiselle’s dark, wicked face was peering from behind the shade of a magnificent oak tree. The girls themselves did not perceive her. She was much elated with her discovery and resolved to enfold it, as she said, within her breast for future use.
Now, it occurred to her that she might simply relate to Penelope what she had done, or rather tell her pupil enough to show her that she was in the secret. That very evening, when the two had finished their supper she began her confidence. She told the girl that she had not wished to injure her, but at the same time that she knew for a fact that she had received four five-pound notes from four different girls of the school.
“To me it is extraordinary,” she said, “why they should give to you the precious money, but that they have done so is beyond doubt. I go by the evidence of these eyes at once piercing and true! Do you deny it, mon enfant? Do you dare to be so méchante?”
“I admit nothing and deny nothing,” said Penelope, as calmly as she could speak.
Mademoiselle laughed. After a long pause, she said:
“I am a nature the most generous, and I would not hurt a hair of the head of my pupil. You will go and enjoy the festival and the time so gay and the friends so kind at Castle Beverley, and that enfant so magnifique, Honora Beverley, will be your companion. I could prevent it, for she is, with all her nobleness, fanatical in her views, and of principles the most severe.”
“I will never ask you to keep anything back,” said Penelope. “You can write to Honora if you wish: I don’t know how you can say anything about me without maligning yourself.”
“Ah – mademoiselle I do you think I could so injure you?” said the governess. “That would indeed be far from my thoughts. But if I have the consideration the very deepest for you, will you not assist me to have a less triste time than in this lonely house with even you away?”
“What can I do?” asked Penelope, in surprise. “I am a rather friendless girl, how can I possibly assist you to have a gay time? I never yet had a gay time myself, this is the first occasion.”
“And it fills you with so great delight?”
“I am very glad,” said Penelope.
“I write this evening,” said Mademoiselle, “to Madame, and I mention to her the fact that my one pupil departs on the quest of pleasure, and I ask her to liberate me from my solitaire position here and to perhaps do me a little kindness by assisting me to spend the holiday by the gay, bright, and charming sea. A little word thrown in from you, too, mademoiselle, might do much to influence Madame to think of the poor governess. Will you not write that word?”
Penelope hesitated for a minute. Then she said, bluntly:
“I will mention the fact that you will be quite alone, and I will write myself to Mrs Hazlitt to-night.”
As she spoke, she got up, and left the room. Penelope hated herself for having to write the letter. She longed more than ever for the moment when she would be free to go to Castle Beverley. She was not really afraid of Mademoiselle. She would rather all the girls in the school knew what she had done than be, in any respect, in Mademoiselle’s power. In fact, such a strange revulsion of feeling had come over her, that she would have told the truth but for Brenda. But, although she was deeply disappointed in Brenda, it was the last wish in her heart to do anything to injure or to provoke her.
Accordingly, she wrote a careful and really nice letter to her headmistress, telling her what Honora had said, and begging of her to allow her to accept the invitation, when it arrived. She also said that Mademoiselle d’Etienne would be quite alone, and seemed put out at the fact of her going. At the same time, she begged that the thought of Mademoiselle would not prevent Mrs Hazlitt’s allowing her to accept the invitation.
Penelope’s letter was duly put into the post, accompanied by one of much persuasiveness from the French governess. The result of these two letters was, that as soon as the post could bring replies, replies came. Mrs Hazlitt said that she would be delighted to allow Penelope to go to Castle Beverley, and that as she knew the house would be full of gay young people, she enclosed her a five-pound note out of a fund which she specially possessed for the purpose, to allow the girl to get a few nice things.
“Mademoiselle will help you to purchase these,” she said, “and you can have all your school frocks nicely washed and done up in the school laundry. I am afraid I cannot spend more on your dress, Penelope, but I think you can manage with the money I send you.”
Mademoiselle’s cheeks were flushed when she devoured the contents of her own letter; for enclosed in it was a cheque so generous that her eyes blazed with pleasure.
“Madame is of the most mean, and yet of the most generous!” she cried. “She allows me to go when you go, petite, and she gives me a little sum to spend on myself, so that I make a holiday the best that I can. I knew where I will reside. I will go to that place near Castle Beverley – I forget its long name – but it is gay, sad on the sea.”
“You’re not going to Marshlands?” cried Penelope, in some alarm.
“That is the place that I will go to,” said Mademoiselle. “I have looked it out on the map, and it is far off, but not too far off. There I can watch over you, although it is the distant view that I will obtain, and I can, from time to time, see my other most beloved pupil, and perhaps go to Castle Beverley, and wish them adieu before I depart to that land of sun —la belle France.”
Penelope did not at all like the idea of Mademoiselle’s going to Marshlands. She hoped she would not come across Brenda, and she trusted sincerely that she would not be invited to Castle Beverley. But, as Mademoiselle was determined to have her own way, Penelope resolved to take the good which lay at hand, and not to trouble herself too much about the future.
Mademoiselle was now extremely good-natured, and helped Penelope to renovate her very simple wardrobe and, in short, made herself as charming as a Frenchwoman of her character knew how. All in good time, Honora’s delightful letter of invitation arrived, and Mademoiselle resolved to travel with her pupil as far as Marshlands.
“I part from you,” she said, “at the railway station where you will meet your friends so distinguished; and I, the governess, the foreigner, will go to search for appartements that are cheap. You will bid me farewell, and permit me to shake the hand once again of my pupil Honora. Ah! but I am kind to you – am I not?”
“Yes,” murmured Penelope, feeling all the time that Mademoiselle was unbearably trying. The joys, however, of going to Castle Beverley should not be damped even by this incident.
The girl and the Frenchwoman travelled second-class together, and arrived at the somewhat noisy station of Marshlands-on-the-Sea between six and seven o’clock on a glorious evening in August Penelope had not beheld the blue, blue sea since she was quite a little girl, and her eyes sparkled now with delight. She looked quite different from the limp and somewhat uninteresting girl she had appeared to every one at Hazlitt Chase. The anticipation of happiness was working marvels in her character. Penelope had taken good care not to inform Brenda of the day of her arrival. She was quite sure she would have to meet her sister; but she would at least give herself a little rest before the encounter took place. She rejoiced, too, in the knowledge that up to the present Mademoiselle d’Etienne and Brenda did not know each other.
As soon as the train drew up to the platform, Mademoiselle poked out her head and uttered a little shriek when she beheld Pauline and Nellie Hungerford, as well as Honora herself and a tall footman waiting on the platform. Mademoiselle rushed up to Honora, taking both her hands and shaking them up and down while she burst into an eager volley of French, in which she informed that “pupil best beloved” that the desire to be near her had brought her to Marshlands-on-the-Sea, and that she was even now going with her humble belongings to seek apartments appropriate to her means.
“I meet you, my pupil,” she said, “with a joy which almost ravishes my breast, for sincere and true are my feelings towards you. And now I stay not, but perhaps some day you will think of the governess in her humble appartements by the lone sea, and allow her to pay you a little visit.”
Honora murmured something which scarcely amounted to an invitation. Mademoiselle turned to the little girls, and Honora ran to Penelope’s side.
“I am so glad to see you! I hope you are not frightfully tired. Oh, you do look hot and dusty, but we shall have a delicious drive up to the Castle. My home is quite outside the town, which is somewhat noisy. Ah, I see Dan has collected your luggage; shall we come at once? Good-bye, Mademoiselle. I hope you will secure nice rooms.”
Mademoiselle was flattering, and full of charm to the end. She insisted on marching down the platform with Pauline’s hand clasped in one of hers, and her humble little bag in the other. She did not part from her pupils until she saw them all ensconced in the luxurious carriage which was to bear them rapidly into the pleasant country. But, when that same carriage had turned the corner and she found herself alone, an ugly expression crossed her face.
“It is not good to have these feelings,” she murmured to herself. “I like not the jealousies when they come to devour; but why should Penelope with her schemes and her behaviour the most strange be taken to the very heart of the best of all my pupils? I will see into this by-and-by. Meanwhile —ma foi– how hot it is!”