"Tell us about them, darling!" exclaimed one.
"Tell us!" said the other.
"--Us"--gasped the third.
Beatrice narrated her morning adventure with some spirit, praised her new friends, defended them from any score of rudeness, and altogether conjured up an interesting picture of them.
The Bells turned to walk with her. Matty hung on one arm, Alice on another, Sophy hopped backwards in front. Before she quite knew that she meant to do so, Beatrice had asked the Bells to join the tennis party that evening. They accepted the invitation rapturously.
"Might Polly and Daisy Jenkins come too, and might Polly"s brother come, and if they met Mr. Jones, the curate--Mr. Jones did so love tennis--might _he_ come?"
"Is the brother an officer in the real army?" inquired Matty.
"Real army--"
"Army--" echoed the others
Beatrice was able to a.s.sure them that Captain Bertram had nothing spurious about him.
"I"ll see you at seven," she added, nodding to her companions. "Yes, you can bring the Jenkinses and the boys, and Mr. Jones. I really must hurry home now."
She reached the Gray House, found her mother nodding, as usual, in her great easy-chair, and told her what she had done.
"I met the Bertrams on the water, and had lunch with them, and they are coming to tennis to-night, and to supper afterwards, mother," she said.
Mrs. Meadowsweet always approved of her daughter"s doings. She approved now, nodding her kind old head, and raising her face with a smile.
"Quite right, Trixie," she said. "How many Bertrams are there? Is Mrs.
Bertram coming? If so, I had better put on my cap with the Honiton lace."
"Mrs. Bertram is not coming, mother, but you must put on your best cap all the same. Mrs. Bertram is from home. It was the girls I met this morning--the girls, and their brother, Captain Bertram."
"Oh, well, child, if they are all young folk the cap with Maltese lace will do. I don"t wear Honiton, except for those who know."
"Mother, I thought we might have supper in the garden. The weather is so lovely now, and it is quite light at half-past eight. Shall I give the order, and take all the trouble off you?"
Mrs. Meadowsweet rose with a slight effort to her feet.
"Do you think I am going to let you be worried, child?" she said. "No, no, what good is the old mother if she can"t manage a thing of that sort? Of course you shall have supper in the garden, and a good supper, too. I am glad you have asked your friends, Bee. How well and bright you look. I am very glad you have made nice friends at last, child."
"All my friends are nice, mother, at least I think so. By the way, I met the little Bells, and they were dying to come, so I asked them, and they said perhaps they would bring the Jenkinses, and Mr. Jones, and of course, the boys will drop in."
"My word, child, but that"s quite a party! I had better send out at once for a salmon, and two or three lobsters and some crabs. There"s cream enough in the house, and eggs, and plenty of stuff in the garden for salads. Oh, I"ll manage, I"ll manage fine. I got in a couple of chickens and a pair of ducks this morning; I"ll warrant that your grand friends have enough to eat, Trixie. But now I must go and have a talk with Jane."
CHAPTER VIII.
n.o.bODY ELSE LOOKED THE LEAST LIKE THE BERTRAMS.
It was the fashion to be punctual at Northbury, and when Catherine, Mabel and Loftus Bertram arrived about ten minutes past seven at the Gray House they found the pleasant old drawing-room already full of eager and expectant guests.
Beatrice would have preferred meeting her new friends without any ceremony in the garden, but Mrs. Meadowsweet was nothing if she was not mistress of her own house, and she decided that it would be more becoming and _comme il faut_ to wait in the drawing-room for the young visitors.
Accordingly Mrs. Meadowsweet sat in her chair of state. She wore a rose-colored silk dress, and a quant.i.ty of puffed white lace round her neck and wrists; and a cap which was tall and stiff, and had little tufts of yellow ribbon and little rosettes of Maltese lace adorning it, surmounted her large, full-blown face. That face was all beams and kindliness and good-temper, and had somehow the effect of making people forget whether Mrs. Meadowsweet was vulgar or not.
She sat in her chair of state facing the garden, and her visitors, all on the tip-toe of expectation, stationed themselves round her. The Bells had taken possession of the Chesterfield sofa. By sitting rather widely apart they managed to fill it; they always looked alike. To-night they so exactly resembled peas in a pod that one had a sense of ache and almost fatigue in watching them. This fatigue and irritation rose to desperation when they spoke. The Bells were poor, and their dresses bore decided signs of stint and poverty. They wore white muslin jackets, and pale green skirts of a shining substance known as mohair. Their mother fondly imagined that the shine and glitter of this fabric could not be known from silk. It was harsh, however, and did not lie in graceful folds, and besides, the poor little skirts lacked quant.i.ty.
The Bells had thin hair, and no knack whatever with regard to its arrangement. They looked unprepossessing girls, but no matter. Beatrice thought well of them. Mrs. Meadowsweet bestowed one or two broad glances of approval upon the inseparable little trio, and their own small hearts were dancing with expectation.
Would Bee, their darling, delightful, beautiful Bee, introduce them to Captain Bertram? Would he speak to them and smile upon them? Would he tell them stories of some of his gallant exploits? The Bells" round faces seemed to grow plumper, and their saucer eyes fuller, as they contemplated this contingency. What supreme bliss would be theirs if Captain Bertram singled them out for attention? Already they were in love with his name, and were quite ready to fall down in a phalanx of three, and worship the hero of many imaginary fights.
Standing by the open window, and with no shyness or stiffness whatever about them, Daisy and Polly Jenkins were to be seen. Daisy was a full-blown girl with a rather loud voice, and a manner which was by some considered very fascinating; for it had the effect of instantly taking you, as it were, behind the scenes, and into her innermost confidence.
Daisy was rather good-looking, and was the adored of Albert Bell, the little round-faced girls" brother. She was dressed in voluminous muslin draperies, and was a decidedly large and comfortable-looking young woman.
Polly was a second edition of her sister, only not so good-looking. She had made up her mind to marry Mr. Jones, the curate, who for his part was deeply in love with Beatrice.
"They are frightfully late, aren"t they?" exclaimed Daisy Jenkins, giving a slight yawn, and looking longingly out at the tennis courts as she spoke. "I suppose it"s the way with fashionable folk. For my part, I call it rude. Mrs. Meadowsweet, may I run across the garden, and pick a piece of sweet brier to put in the front of my dress? Somehow I pine for it."
"I"ll get it for you," said Albert Bell, blushing crimson as he spoke.
He was a very awkward young man, but his heart was as warm as his manners were uncouth.
"I"ll get it for you, Daisy," he said. His dull eyes had not the power of shining or looking eloquent. He stepped from behind the sofa where his sisters sat, and stumbled over Mrs. Meadowsweet"s footstool.
"I think, my dears, we"ll just wait for our guests," said the old lady.
"We"ll all just be present, please, when they come. It"s my old-fashioned ideas, my loves, just for us all to be ready to give them a right-down, good welcome."
"Bother!" exclaimed Miss Daisy. She flounced her full skirts, cast a withering glance at young Bell, and once more looked out of the open window.
"Come here, Beatrice," exclaimed Polly.
Mr. Jones was talking to Beatrice, and Polly hoped they would both approach the window together.
"Come and tell us about that Adonis you went rowing with to-day," called the girl in her shrill, half-jealous voice.
It was just at that moment that the door was flung open by Jane, and the Bertrams made their appearance.
Catherine and Mabel wore the simplest white washing-dresses. Their girlish waists were encircled by sashes of pale gold. Catherine"s thick dark hair was coiled tightly round her head--Mabel"s more frizzy and paler locks fell in wavy curls round her forehead and on her shoulders.
n.o.body else looked the least like the Bertrams. Their dresses were as cheap as any other girl"s dresses in the room. Daisy and Polly Jenkins had really much handsomer and finer hair, but somehow the effect produced by the Bertrams was altogether different.
Mrs. Meadowsweet addressed them in a deferential tone as "Miss," and it went like an electric flash through the minds of all the other visitors that the old lady was quite right when she thought it her duty to receive them in state.
Bertram was in flannels, and these were cut not exactly after the pattern of those worn by young Bell, who looked with a sort of despair at his true love, Daisy, whose eyes, in company with the three pairs of eyes of the Bells, were directed full upon the aristocratic face of Captain Bertram.