THE COLLECTED NOVELS OF E. M. DELAFIELD (6 Titles in One Edition). E. M. Delafield
silence.
"That will be very nice, dear. How much longer are you going to be in town?" Zella looked at her father.
"We are going to Villetswood to-morrow, but perhaps another day or two "he began.
"This child must come to us," said Alison St. Craye, once more laying a proprietory hand on Zella. "Let her come to-morrow, and we will send her home to you at the end of the week."
The surprised Louis looked at Lady St. Craye.
"Yes, Louis," she said eagerly, do let her come. Alison would like it. You know she has no one of her own age, and"
"My dear parent," broke in Alison with a laugh, in which annoyance and superiority were mingled, "please don't drag in the conventional 'companion of my own age ' myth. I dislike the companionship of the average young woman intensely, as you know, and the dislike is perfectly mutual. But if this little one spent two or three days with us, I fancy we should find that we had something in common."
She smiled at Zella, who smiled back rather confusedly, not in the least knowing what to say, but feeling flattered.
"It is more than good of you, Cecily," said Louis, determinedly addressing Lady St. Craye, and ignoring the compelling gaze fixed upon him by her daughter's heavy-lidded hazel eyes.
"Will you let me write you a line to-night, when I shall know better what our plans are?"
"That is shirking," Alison told him with serious directness. She turned her back upon them with no further farewells, saying over her shoulder to Zella, "I count upon you," and swept into the throng of people now congregating near the door for the bride's departure.
-" Louis, do let her come, if you can manage it," said Lady St. Craye plaintively. "Alison does not often take a fancy to other girls, and I should so like them to be friends."
"And I, my dear Cecily," he said courteously.
He looked at Zella, who nodded imperceptibly. "Then since you are really so kind, I will bring her to you tomorrow; and perhaps you would see her off on Saturday, to rejoin me at Villetswood."
Lady St. Craye looked pleased, and said to Zella:
"That will be so nice, dear. We must do a theatre one night. Here comes the bride at last."
They moved into the entrance, where Muriel, in blue silk and elaborate hat, was making her radiant farewells.
The humorously inclined best man was tying a satin shoe on to the back of the electric brougham with the help of a giggling bridesmaid, and a shower of rice at the last moment sent Muriel and her husband into the shelter of the brougham shrieking with laughter. It drove off rapidly, and James said to Zella:
"Come back with us. My mother will be upset, and want somebody to talk to."
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans had, indeed, reached the stage of replying to all congratulations with a faint smile and choked "my only daughter," and had discarded her lace handkerchief for one of larger dimensions.
James put her into the carriage very kindly, and said:
"Would you like Zella, mother? I thought father and I would walk home across the Park."
"Yes, my dear boy. Remember that you are all that your mother has now, for it will never be quite the same thing again."
Her agitation increased so much that James said to Zella:
"Get in with her, quick! And let her talk. She hasn't been able to get anyone to look at it her way, and it's frightfully hard on her."
The words were not spoken with James's habitual precision of utterance, and, as Zella got into the carriage beside her weeping Aunt Marianne, she heard him add rather incomprehensibly:
"My mother seems to me the only real thing about this whole show."
She looked back, wondering to whom he had made the odd remark. It was to Louis de Kervoyou, who replied quietly:
"I know what you mean, and I agree. Come down to Villetswood as soon as you can spare the time, James."
XXI
"YES, Zella dear," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, "I quite understand that poor papa liked the idea of your staying on in London for a day or two with the St. Crayes; though, as you know, darling, you could quite well have stayed on here if you had only asked me, and I should have been glad of your help in packing up all the presents. But I thought you had quite settled to go back to Villetswood with poor papa, as was originally arranged."
"It was only that Lady St. Craye was so kind as to ask me, and it would have been rather difficult to refuse," faltered Zella, with the old childish feeling of guilt strong upon her, under Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's mild implacability.
"Of course, dear, and it would have been very dull for you here with Muriel gone, and all the excitement over, and only the tiring job of tidying up left."
"Oh, Aunt Marianne! Now you are making me feel horrid. Do let me stay and help you," said Zella, wondering what on earth she should do if Aunt Marianne accepted the offer.
But Mrs. Lloyd-Evans as a martyr was determined.
"Oh no, dear, of course it is quite out of the question for you to throw over Lady St. Craye, since you have accepted her invitation. Very kind of her to ask you, when you had only just been introduced; but she is an odd, impulsive woman."
"Of course, she is an old friend of papa's," said Zella, annoyed.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans raised her eyebrows slightly.
"Let me see," she mused: "it must be quite fifteen years since they met. I was reminding Lady St. Craye of it not so very long ago, oddly enough. I dare say that brought it to her mind, and helped her to recognize poor papa, who has changed a good deal since those days. I am glad you are going to spend a day or two with her, Zella; though I can't say that I think you will like the girl, Alison, as she calls herself," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, with the inference in her tone that Alison was to blame for so calling herself.
'What is she like?" asked Zella mechanically, attaching no value whatever to her aunt's judgment, and perfectly capable of forming one of her own, but adapting herself, as ever, to what was evidently expected of her.
"My dear, she is odd," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans decidedly. "Her mother has always spoilt her, and made a great deal of fuss about her; and the result is that Alison thinks herself quite wonderful, and puts on airs and affectations which have made her thoroughly unpopular. You must have seen for yourself how very bad her manners are."
"I thought her rather good-looking," observed Zella.
"No, darling," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans firmly. "I don't say she mightn't be nice-looking if she were simple and unaffected, and like other girls; but she is not, and it quite spoils any looks she might ever have had."
The logic of this conclusion might not be irrefutable, but Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's tone of conviction was final.
"I am afraid poor Lady St. Craye has been very weak and foolish," she added compassionately; "but she is one of those women who do not feel things at all deeply, so I dare say Alison is not as much of a disappointment as she would have been to a different mother. Lady St. Craye is very shallow and frivolous, though good-natured, in her way."
Zella had been rather disposed to gather the same impression from her brief interview with Lady St. Craye, but she instinctively began to believe herself mistaken at these evidences that Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's penetration had taken the same direction.
"Is Lady St. Craye at all clever?"
"No, dear, not in the least. She may talk a good deal about music and pictures in rather an affected way, but that is only a pose. She is one of those women whom I call," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans with an air of originality, "a butterfly."
"I'm