XXI

XXI

Annestarted for London next morning, intending to spend the night in town, and devote the next day to her brother, and to Sylvia Carfax, to whom she had not found time to write.

Early on Thursday morning she drove to Carlisle House.

The page boy who took her up in the lift, indicated a door at the end of the corridor, and left her.

Anne knocked, and in response to a voice within, entered Sylvia’s bedroom.

It was littered with cardboard boxes, open trunks, dresses, hats, raiment of all sorts, and stumbling over the obstacles in her way, Sylvia rushed towards her with a cry of joy.

Even before she kissed her, Anne had time to notice the worried look on the girl’s face, which robbed it of its youthful prettiness.

“Oh!” she gasped. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come in time, and I didn’t knowwhatto do, or how to get out of it. Oh! I’m so thankful to see you, Miss Page. Sit down.Do sit down—if you can find a place,” she added, trying to laugh.

Anne chose the bed as the only available spot.

“My dear child, what’s the matter?” she exclaimed. “You’re packing, I suppose. Where are you going?”

“To—America,” returned Sylvia, with a gulp.

Anne looked at her, and drew her down beside her on the bed.

“Tell me all about it from the very beginning,” she said, with quiet insistence.

“Don’tbe angry with me,” implored Sylvia, her lips trembling. “I thought I’d been so clever to arrange it all myself, without saying a word about it. But—but now I’m frightened. And my contract’s signed, and I daren’t——”

“But what’s it all about? Tell me clearly, Sylvia.”

Sylvia made an effort to obey, and though lucidity was not the strong part of her story, by the end of half an hour’s questioning and explanation, Anne gathered that the girl had fallen into the hands of the manager of a third-rate theatrical company. The man had tempted her with the offer of a “star” part in a musical comedy, and she had signed a contract with him for America.

“He said he would make my fortune,” she declared. “He praised my voice so much, and told me I was wonderful, and that I should make a great hit. But he made me promise not to tell any one I was going. He said he wanted to have the credit of discovering me, and all that sort of thing. I knew mother and father would be horrified, but I thought it was too good a chance to lose, and that I’d risk their anger. Because, if I turned out a success, and made a lot of money, they would be very proud,” she added.

The instinctive knowledge of human nature shared by the pillars of the Church, caused Anne despite her anxiety, a secret smile.

“I thought he was so kind,” Sylvia went on pitifully, “and he seemed so nice at first, but lately he’s been different, and his manner has been so funny. He—he looked at me in a horrid way yesterday,” she confessed, “and held my hand tight, and when I tried to get away, he laughed. But my contract’s signed,” she declared with a wail of despair in her voice.

“Haven’t the principals of this place interfered?” Anne inquired. “The matron, or whoever it is who’s supposed to look after you?”

“They think I’m going home,” confessedSylvia in an abashed voice. “I managed it so that they should think so.”

Anne rose, and with a terrified expression, the girl clung to her hand.

“Oh! Miss Page,” she gasped. “You’re not going? I’m to sail to-morrow night, and——”

“Don’t be frightened, you silly little thing. Of course you won’t sail to-morrow, nor any other night. Give me the address of this man.”

Sylvia falteringly repeated it.

Anne wrote it down, and stooped to kiss her.

“Unpack all those things, and put them tidy,” she said. “I haven’t time to scold you now, but I’ll come back and do it thoroughly this afternoon.”

The girl’s look of relief touched her, but she could scarcely repress a smile as she turned at the door, to see her standing like a penitent baby amongst all her finery.

“I wonder what I should have done with daughters?” she asked herself, half humorously, as she stepped into a cab, outside.

The question was answered by a smile and a sigh that were almost simultaneous.

Anne spent a busy morning. She went first to her solicitor, and after an hour’s colloquy with him on the case of Sylvia Carfax, shedrove on to her brother’s house in Kensington. It stood in a highly respectable square, and was one of the hundreds of dull substantial edifices which came into existence during the mid-Victorian era.

Anne rang the bell, and stood waiting rather excitedly under the stucco canopy supported by pillars.

Her present meeting with Hugh was divided from the last, by a period of twenty years. It was odd to remember how little she knew of this brother, her only near relative in the world. He would be much changed, of course.

A sudden vivid recollection of the last time she had met him, swept through her mind, as she stood waiting admittance. How desolate she had been. How shy. How filled with the sense of being an outsider, a forgotten guest, unbidden to the banquet of life!

The door opened, and it was Hugh himself who drew her over the threshold, and welcomed her in the loud, kind voice she remembered.

“We’ve been waiting for you all the morning,” he declared, “and I rushed down when I heard the bell. Come in and let me look at you! It’s impossible to see anything in this wretched foggy atmosphere.”

With his arm still round her shoulder, hepushed open the door of a large room on the right of the hall.

“Here she is, Alice!” he exclaimed, as his wife rose from a sofa near the fire.

“Why Anne, what have you done to yourself?”

The words were uttered in amazement. Anne had slipped off her heavy cloak, and stood laughing tremulously as she held her brother by both hands, and noticed for the first time that his hair was white, and his good-natured bronzed face lined and wrinkled. She turned from him to greet her sister-in-law.

The slim little creature she remembered was a stout matron, whose hair was just touched with grey.

Alice’s start of amazement as she gazed a moment before she kissed her, was almost comic.

“Why, Anne, my dear, you’ve grown quite a beautiful woman!” declared her brother, so simply that the tears sprang to Anne’s eyes.

“She’s grown younger, hasn’t she, Alice?” He looked at her with a puzzled expression.

Anne laughed, and touched her hair. “But it’s your white hair that—— And yet I don’t know. It’s you altogether! I never saw such a change. You—— She looks like a great lady in a French picture, doesn’t she, Alice?Court of one of the French kings. Louis the Sixteenth, that sort of thing.”

Anne laughed again. “My dear boy. You make me embarrassed. Don’t stare at me so,” she begged.

The pink colour sprang into her cheeks, and the shy deprecating smile of François’ portrait crept for a moment to her lips.

“I’m just Anne—twenty years older than when you last saw me.”

“Well—it’s magic. I give it up,” declared Hugh.

“Where are the boys?” she asked, turning with a quick, eager movement to her sister-in-law. “I want to see my nephews.”

“They’re out to-day. I’m so sorry. They’ve gone to lunch with some relations of mine. But you’ll see them this evening. I let them go because I knew that you would want to talk to Hugh,” Alice answered. “You’ll excuse me a little while, won’t you? I must speak to cook.”

Her voice—her tone of deference, marked Alice’s recognition of the change in the woman she had once regarded as insignificant, a poor meek creature to be treated with compassion and tolerance; and her husband’s awkward laugh as she closed the door, was sufficient indication that her altered attitude was not lost upon him.

“She can’t help fussing about the servants. Old habits, you know,” he said, turning to his sister. “For years she did all the housework, and she can’t give it up.”

“But you’ve finished with work now, haven’t you, dear?” Anne asked, as she sat down beside her brother on the sofa.

“Thanks to you.” Hugh glanced at her gratefully.

“That money was just what I wanted, Anne. It made me. I only needed capital to develop the farm, and it came just at the right moment. We owe everything to your generosity, dear. And now we’re going to talk business. You’ve put me off in every letter, but I must insist——”

Anne laid her hand quickly on his lips. “I won’t hear a word about it!” she declared. “You’re not going to rob me of one of the greatest delights of my life, Hugh? The power I once had to help my only brother? You can’t be so unkind!”

Her tone of pained entreaty made him laugh. He kissed her again.

“You dear absurd woman! Why haven’t you married, Anne?” he exclaimed suddenly. “Some man’s been robbed of a wonderful wife. It’s not fair of you!”

She smiled. “Tell me about the boys,” she urged.

A maid entered to announce that lunch was served, and during the meal, the boys and their prospects were the chief topic of conversation.

“Alice thinks them both geniuses, of course,” laughed her husband. “But they’re only ordinary youths. I shall be quite satisfied if they can just jog along.”

“Rupert has great talent,” his mother assured Anne. “Don’t listen to Hugh. I’m sure he’ll make a splendid architect.”

“I’m sure he will,” she agreed sympathetically.

“You know we lost our little girl?” said Alice softly, when they returned to the drawing-room.

Her voice suddenly drew Anne’s heart.

“The boys are dears, of course,” she added. “But I should love to have had a daughter.”

Anne was silent a moment. Then with a sudden inspiration, she thought of Sylvia.

“Where’s your luggage?” inquired Hugh. “Bless my soul, I’d forgotten it! You’re going to stay with us, Anne, of course?”

“Your room is all ready,” Alice assured her rather timidly.

“Iwasgoing back to-day, and coming toyou later. But if I may send for my things from the hotel, I should like to stay a little while. There’s a child I know, a girl I must help out of a difficulty, and I find it will take a little time.”

She told them Sylvia’s story, and noticed with satisfaction that Alice seemed interested.

“Poor silly child!” she exclaimed. “She ought to be taken care of. She ought to live in some nice family.”

Anne made a mental note, but at the moment said nothing.

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