Ninth Scene: The Drawing-Room
Thus addressing one another in whispers, the three stepdaughters of Lady
Winwood stood bewildered in their own drawing-room, helplessly confronting an
object which appeared before them on the threshold of the door.
The date was the 23d of December. The time was between two and three in the
afternoon. The occasion was the return of the three sisters from the Committee
meeting of the Sacred Concerts' Society. And the object was Richard Turlington.
He stood hat in hand at the door, amazed by his reception. "I have come up this
morning from Somersetshire," he said. "Haven't you heard? A matter of business
at the office has forced me to leave my guests at my house in the country. I
return to them to-morrow. When I say my guests, I mean the Graybrookes. Don't
you know they are staying with me? Sir Joseph and Miss Lavinia and Natalie?"
On the utterance of Natalie's name, the sisters roused themselves. They turned
about and regarded each other with looks of dismay. Turlington's patience began
to fail him. "Will you be so good as to tell me what all this means?" he said, a little
sharply. "Miss Lavinia asked me to call here when she heard I was coming to
town. I was to take charge of a pattern for a dress, which she said you would give
me. You ought to have received a telegram explaining it all, hours since. Has the
message not reached you?"
The leading spirit of the three sisters was Miss Amelia. She was the first who
summoned presence of mind enough to give a plain answer to Turlington's plain
question.
