Paid for; yes, of course, everything must have been paid for. In an instant all her pleasure became trans.m.u.ted to gold. The very strawberries--strawberries at Christmas! What must they not have cost?
And they had been got for her. She felt, hotly, as if she were being bribed.
"If you will finish your lunch," came Ned"s voice in an undertone, "we can start back as soon afterwards as you choose. Yes! Hirsch," he added out loud, "I know I"m done all round. But it amuses people, and it doesn"t hurt me. The only use of money is to get rid of it."
"I never, Mrs. Tressilian," protested Lady Smith-Biggs plaintively, "quite understand what your cousin means."
"I don"t wonder," replied Helen soothingly, then smiled to herself, for, in truth, the lady in question seldom understood anything, but, being the wife of a conservative manufacturer who stood for his native town, thought it her duty to take an interest in social and political questions. "Ned loves paradoxes, but he really hates being cheated as much as any one."
"I only meant, Lady Smith-Biggs," put in Lord Blackborough, gravely, "that I am quite willing to subscribe--as I am sure Sir Joseph does--to all the great truths which underlie our commercial prosperity. That is to say, first, that everything is worth what it will fetch, and a trifle more for underhand percentages. Secondly, that nothing can be called cheating in an open market. Thirdly, that truth is the affair of the purchaser, or his creator."
"Bah! my dear Lord Blackborough," laughed Mr. Hirsch, "you would have a world without money; it would be a pretty paradise."
"But," protested Lady Smith-Biggs again, her diamond ear-rings twinkling--they were so magnificent that they made one forget the redness and the fatness of the face against which they shone, "I really do not understand. If you have no money, how can you pay your bills?"
"I pay mine by cheque," remarked Ned with a side-glance at Aura. After her sudden desire to escape which his aside had checked, she had become amused, then interested, by the conversation. And now his allusion made her flush up, then smile, for she was beginning to realise that this curious world, in which money played so important a part, was really the world in which she had always lived. She had not seen the token; that was all.
"But, my dear Ned," said Miss Vyvyan placidly, "you can"t pay everything by cheque. The bank doesn"t like cashing small sums. I know when I send for my thread to Honiton--I have to send there, you know, it is so fine," she explained to Lady Smith-Biggs, laying her hand on the tiny black roll which, as usual, was beside her plate, "I always have to send a postal order."
"Exactly so," breathed Lady Smith-Biggs with a sigh of relief; "so you are wrong, Lord Blackborough. Why! even the very children have pennies. I used to think it rather dreadful their doing so much shopping for their mothers, but Sir Joseph says you cannot train them too early to understand the real value of money. And I am sure he is right, for it is quite impossible to live without it."
"That is a question which we ought to refer to Miss Graham," remarked Ned Blackborough coolly, "I believe she has never even seen a sixpence."
If a bomb had fallen on the lunch-table it could not have produced a greater effect. Mr. Hirsch sat petrified, his fork halfway to his mouth. All eyes were turned on Aura, who bore the brunt with smiles, for there was something of pure mischief in her host"s face which was infectious. Even Ted, over the way, waited, amused.
"I believe she did, once, see a sovereign," continued Ned. "Perhaps she will tell you what she did with it."
The girl"s face dimpled with laughter. "I gave it to the c.o.c.katoo."
Dynamite could not possibly have been more disconcerting.
"The c.o.c.katoo!" echoed Mr. Hirsch automatically, as, becoming aware that the _sole au vin blanc_ on his fork was dripping on to his waistcoat, he dabbed blindly at the spot with his napkin. "And--and may I ask, my dear young lady, what--what the c.o.c.katoo did with it?"
"He wouldn"t eat it," said Aura.
"And so," interrupted Ted rather viciously, "it was thrown into the stream."
Aura turned swiftly on Ned. This was news. "Did you?" she began.
"So there it lies," remarked Ned, "as the beginning of a Welsh gold-mine. Make a prospectus out of that, Hirsch; it would be as true as most of them, I expect."
"But I do not quite understand," protested Lady Smith-Biggs once more, her pale blue eyes fixed vacantly on Aura. "What! you have never seen a sixpence--how--how dreadful!"
"That is easily remedied," remarked Peter Ramsay; "I believe I have so much in my pocket, anyhow."
"Stay a bit, Ramsay," said Lord Blackborough; "Miss Graham"s ignorance is not confined to sixpence. She is generally unacquainted with the coin of the realm."
Mr. Hirsch"s eyes were almost starting out of his head, partly in admiration of the girl whom he now discovered to be exceedingly beautiful. "Gott in Himmel!" he muttered, "I believe I have half a crown an" two shillings."
"Capital!" cried Ned. "Simmonds, take the plate round, and then bring it to Miss Graham."
"Admirable! Admirable! Blackborough, _mon cher!_ You have imagination!" exploded Mr. Hirsch, fumbling excitedly in his pockets.
"What luck! I have a two-florin bit, and I swore at them when they gave it me! Ah! young lady! one does not often meet one so old--a thousand pardons, mademoiselle, but at your age one need not be so afraid." His good-natured face was brimful of kindliness and honest enjoyment, and Aura responded to it.
"You needn"t be in the least afraid," she smiled, "I shall be twenty-one on New Year"s Day."
The information was welcome to at least two of the party, and the others, carried away out of the conventional for the time, applauded the confidence.
"Soh!" exclaimed Mr. Hirsch, who was now busy with coins and a silver salver, while the butler and two footmen stood behind him sn.i.g.g.e.ring.
"Aha! young lady, you began a new era; ah! we must all send you a--what do you call _etrennes_ in English to commemorate this extraordinary--Mein Gott! Has any one a three-penny bit?"
So with much laughter, Lady Smith-Biggs absolutely contributing from a very small purse a whole five-shilling piece, a complete set of coins was handed to Aura.
"With the company"s compliments, Miss," said the butler.
"That ends your hours of innocence, Miss Graham," remarked Ned Blackborough gravely, as the ladies left the room.
It did not end Aura"s ordeal, however, for, once in the drawing-room, Lady Smith-Biggs begged to be introduced in form.
"Oh! I am sorry," said Aura innocently, reaching up to the good lady"s outstretched waggling hand; "but I always shake hands lower down. Is that the right way?"
The question verged on the impossible, since Lady Smith-Biggs lived in the highest circles. But she ignored it, and all her good breeding did not prevent her descending on the girl with a perfect cataract of questions. Where did she live, who was her father, had she any brothers or sisters?
Aura began to grow restive.
"No!" she replied shortly; then fearing she had been too incisive, added, "I have often wished I had. I should have liked them."
Helen Tressilian coming to the rescue looked at her with soft approving eyes. "They would have liked you, I"m sure. I expect you are very fond of children."
The girl turned to her impulsively. "Yes--very! You don"t know how often I"ve wished that I had a baby."
It was worse than the sixpence. Lady Smith-Biggs gasped.
Her matronly breast heaved. She cast a nervous glance towards her daughter, who was providentially occupied in looking at Miss Vyvyan"s lace-work.
"My dear," she said majestically, "you haven"t a mother, so you"ll excuse me telling you that we don"t say that sort of thing in society."
Aura blushed a furious red.
"Why not?" she asked, and her voice had a militant ring in it.
"O Ned, Ned!" whispered Helen Tressilian to her cousin, as at that moment the gentleman entered the room, "for Heaven"s sake take her away from us soon or she will be spoilt!"
He grasped the situation in a moment. "I"m afraid we must be starting, Miss Graham. We are going to row you across the estuary, and then we can walk home over the hills. You have never been in a boat, have you?"
"No!" said poor Aura, suddenly feeling inclined to cry. It seemed to her as if she knew nothing and had seen nothing.