Edward Phillips Oppenheim

The Yellow House Edward Phillips Oppenheim

POSITIVELY every one, with two unimportant exceptions, had called upon us. The Countesshad driven over from Sysington Hall, twelve miles away, with two anæmic-lookingdaughters, who had gushed over our late roses and the cedar trees which shaded the lawn. The Holgates of Holgate Brand and Lady Naselton of Naselton had presented themselves onthe same afternoon. Many others had come in their train, for what these very great peopledid the neighborhood was bound to endorse. There was a little veiled anxiety, a fewelaborately careless questions as to the spelling of our name; but when my father hadmentioned the second "f," and made a casual allusion to the Warwickshire Ffolliots-withwhom we were not indeed on speaking terms, but who were certainly our cousins-adistinct breath of relief was followed by a gush of mild cordiality. There were wrongFfolliots and right Ffolliots. We belonged to the latter. No one had made a mistake orcompromised themselves in any way by leaving their cards upon a small country vicar andhis daughters. And earlier callers went away and spread a favorable report. Those whowere hesitating, hesitated no longer. Our little carriage drive, very steep and very hard toturn in, was cut up with the wheels of many chariots. The whole county within a reasonabledistance came, with two exceptions. And those two exceptions were Mr. Bruce Deville ofDeville Court, on the borders of whose domain our little church and vicarage lay, and thewoman who dwelt in the "Yellow House."I asked Lady Naselton about both of them one afternoon. Her ladyship, by the way, hadbeen one of our earliest visitors, and had evinced from the first a strong desire to becomemy sponsor in Northshire society. She was middle-aged, bright, and modern-a thoroughlittle cosmopolitan, with a marked absence in her deportment and mannerisms of anythingbucolic or rural. I enjoyed talking to her, and this was her third visit. We were sitting outupon the lawn, drinking afternoon tea, and making the best of a brilliant October afternoon. A yellow gleam from the front of that oddly-shaped little house, flashing through the darkpine trees, brought it into my mind. It was only from one particular point in our garden thatany part of it was visible at all. It chanced that I occupied that particular spot, and during alull in the conversation it occurred to me to ask a question.