(“Oh, don’t be too hard upon him,”) whispered Ursula, in a parenthesis, afraid that this irony should drive the pupil to desperation. (“Hard upon him! he will never find it out,”) Phoebe whispered back in the same tone.
“Oh, hang it all, I don’t mean to be severe upon girls,” said Clarence, pulling his moustache with much complacency; “I am sorry for them, I can tell you. It ain’t their fault; I know heaps of nice girls who feel it horribly. What can they do? they can’t go in for cricket and football. There ought to be something invented for them. To be sure there is lawn-tennis, but that’s only for summer. I should go mad, I think, if I had nothing to do.”
“But you have more brain and more strength, you see, than we have; and besides, we are used to it,” said Phoebe. “I am afraid, Ursula, grandmamma will want me, and I must go.”
Here Mr. May said something to his daughter which filled Ursula with excitement, mingled of pleasure and displeasure.
“Papa says, will you come to dinner tomorrow at seven? It appears there is someone you know coming—a Mr. Northcote. I don’t know who he is, but it will be very kind if you will come on my account,” the girl concluded, whispering in her ear, “for how shall I ever get through a dinner-party? We never gave one in my life before.”
“Of course I will come,” said Phoebe. “Dinner-parties are not so common here that I should neglect the chance. I must thank Mr. May. But I hope you know who Mr. Northcote is,” she added, laughing. “I gave an account of myself loyally, before I permitted you to ask me; but Mr. Northcote—Oh, no! he does not belong to—the lower classes; but he is a fiery red-hot—”
“What?” cried eager Janey, pressing to the front. “Radical? I am a radical too; and Reginald used to be once, and so was Ursula. Oh, I wish it was tonight!” said Janey, clasping her hands.
“Not a radical, but a Dissenter; and you who are a clergyman, Mr. May! I like you, oh, so much for it. But I wonder what the people will say.”
“My dear Miss Beecham,” said the suave Churchman, quite ready to seize the chance of making a point for himself, “in the Church, fortunately, what the people say has not to be studied, as your unfortunate pastors, I am informed, have to do. While Mr. Copperhead is under my roof, I make his friends welcome—for his sake first, probably afterwards for their own.”
“Yes, I asked Northcote,” said Clarence; “I never thought they would have any objection. He’s not a common Dissenter, like the most of those fellows that have nothing but their salaries. He’s well off; he don’t require, bless you, to keep people in good temper, and toady to ’em, like most do. He’s as independent as I am; I don’t say that he’s quite as well off; but money always finds its level. I shouldn’t have thought of asking May to receive a common Dissenting fellow, like the rest.”
Phoebe laughed. It did not occur to the accomplished scion of the house of Copperhead, nor to the two girls, who were not experienced enough to think of such things, what was the meaning expressed in Phoebe’s laugh, which was not cheerful. Mr. May himself had the advantage of more discrimination.
“I hope you will find that, Dissenter or not, I know what is my duty to my friends,” he said. “What my guests may possess, or the exact nature of their opinions on all points, are not subjects to be discussed by me.”
“Oh, there is nothing to find fault with in you,” said Phoebe, with less than her usual universal courtesy; “you are always kind, Mr. May;” and then she laughed again. “Some people are very clever in finding out the vulnerable places,” she said.
“She is changed,” said Clarence, when she was gone. “She is not the jolly girl she used to be. She was always a very jolly girl; ready to help a fellow out of a scrape, you know. But Northcote’s a fearfully clever fellow. You should just hear him talk. He and May will go at it hammer and tongs, as sure as fate.”
XXIX
Ursula’s Entrées
It would be difficult to describe the anxiety with which that first “late dinner” was regarded by Ursula. Janey, too, had thrown herself into it heart and soul, until she received the crushing intimation from her father, that her company was not expected at this stately meal; a discovery which altogether extinguished poor Janey, accustomed to be always in the front whatever occurred, and to whom suggestions of things that could not be done by a girl who was not “out,” had never presented themselves. She retired to her own room dissolved in tears when this fearful mandate went forth, and for the rest of the morning was good for nothing, her eyes being converted into a sort of red pulp, her rough hair doubly dishevelled, her whole being run into tears. She was of no more use now to go errands between the kitchen and the drawing-room, or to read the cookery-book out loud, which was a process upon which Ursula depended very much, to fix in her mind the exact ingredients and painful method of preparation of the entrées at which she was toiling. Betsy, the former maid-of-all-work, now promoted under the title of cook, could be trusted to roast the saddle of mutton, which, on consideration that it
