They did not go immediately, however, but she kept all the men hovering about her, and adroitly avoided being alone with Haverford for an instant.
"Did I hear you make an assignation for to-morrow with that dear, dull person?" she queried listlessly as Mrs. Brenton and she were swept fleetly homewards in Haverford's electric carriage.
"Yes; he is coming to see me in the morning, or rather to see somebody else." And then Mrs. Brenton explained further.
"I fancy his mother must be a cat," said Camilla, yawning; "they don't seem to meet very often. I am sure I am not surprised, for he is a very dreary person, you know, Agnes, my dear."
"Since when?" Mrs. Brenton spoke with some irritation. "I thought you liked him so much?"
"Oh, I change my mind occasionally!" She yawned again. "The fact is, I do like him sometimes, but then again I dislike him more often. You see, he bores me, and life is much—much too short to be bored...."
Mrs. Brenton sat silent a moment; then she said—
"Camilla, I want to..."
"No," said Camilla, "don't! I know so exactly what you want to say. I know it all by heart. He cares for me; he issucha good man; it will be such asplendidthing for me! Don't you suppose I can hear everybody saying this? Well, of course, it would be a splendid thing. I am not denying that; but oh! Agnes, he depresses me so horribly. When he talks to me I feel as though I were being prepared for confirmation, and he has a way of sitting and looking at me that is positively unbearable. If he only had a spice of the devil in him...."
"Like Sammy, I suppose!" said Agnes Brenton drily.
"Yes"—impatiently—"like Sammy or any other man who lives, and moves, and is not always up in the clouds contemplating the road to Heaven. My dear Agnes, there is no getting away from the fact that Rupert Haverford is a bore, a distinct and definite bore!"
"Well," said Mrs. Brenton, "if that is your opinion of the man, I should not bother about him so much."
"Now you are cross with me," said Camilla, "dear sweet old thing! Don't you know I always speak out my thoughts with you? Oh, here we are at your lodgings already! Look here, Agnes, you must let me help you with this girl. Poor soul! she must feel pretty miserable, I expect. Why not bring her in to luncheon to-morrow?"
Mrs. Brenton kissed the speaker.
"Why will you always try and make me believe you are what you are not?" she asked, half lightly, half sadly.
"Silly Agnes," said Camilla, laughingly, "it is all your own fault; you are so anxious to make me a saint, and all the time I am very much the other thing. Good night, darling!"
Mrs. Lancing's maid was waiting for her mistress, and there were some letters and a note from Sir Samuel Broxbourne.
Camilla opened the note first.
It was merely a reminder that she had promised to ride with him the following morning if the weather was good.
Sir Samuel was, of course, lending Mrs. Lancing a horse.
"I am deadly tired, but I don't believe I shall sleep a wink, Dennis. You had better give me some bromide," Camilla said, as she was made ready for bed.
"If I could only be sure," she said to herself when the maid was gone; "heseemsjust the same, and yet now and then he looks at me in rather an odd way." She caught her breath. "Sammy can be so hard! All the world knows that."
She sat crouched up looking into the fire for a long time, then she shrugged her shoulders.
"Well, if ever the worst were to happen, and he should turn nasty, I have the money now." She got up, and stood looking into the fire once again "Only if," she said slowly, "he will not be satisfied with money, if he...."
She shivered, not once, but several times, and hurriedly taking up the sleeping draught her maid had prepared, she swallowed it, and then got into bed; where she lay staring at the shadows on the walls and ceiling made by the dancing flames of the fire, till her eyes closed at last unconsciously in the sleep she had commanded.
Another person lay in bed that night watching the fireglow light up the room and make fantastic patterns and shadows on the walls.
Caroline had been thoroughly tired out when Mrs. Brenton's maid had arranged everything and she had been left alone. But she was too tired to sleep.
The strangeness of her surroundings, and the strangeness of her position generally, filled her with a kind of excitement. She had not very much in front of her of a pleasurable nature, and yet the morrow had for her a certain glamour.
As the first sensation of alarm and indignation provoked naturally by the treatment she had received, by the abruptness with which her life of dependence had been ended, died away, Caroline became conscious that there was an undoubted charm about her present situation. A day before, the future (when she had thought about it) had stretched before her in a grey, a monotonous, an almost desolate fashion. Now all things were possible, and hope began almost immediately to shed a glow on her thoughts.
It was an amazingly delightful sensation to feel that she owned no master.
Indeed, she felt a little irritated now with herself that she should have supported so much with such an unquestioning docility, or that having given so much obedience she should never have tried to satisfy herself why this should have been exacted.
At school, of course, it had been the outcome of rules, of arégimewhich had existed ever since she could remember, but when the school life had ended, and she had gone to Mrs. Baynhurst, there really had been no occasion, so she told herself now, to have accepted the laws laid down for her with the same old obedience.
"Only she really never gave me the chance to speak," the girl mused to herself, "and then I was such a little idiot when I first met her that she frightened me! I expect she will be furious because I went to Mr. Haverford. Now that I have seen him and spoken with him, it is easy enough to understand why his mother prefers to see him only on rare occasions. He has a blunt, straightforward way about him which must be an abomination to her. He was not too amiable to me. Still, I must do him justice," Caroline admitted here readily; "he saw at once that I had a sort of claim on him, and duty with him evidently counts for a good deal."
She turned comfortably on the soft pillow.
It was her first experience of a really luxurious bed, for she had been better housed and better fed at school than as a dependant in Mrs. Baynhurst's household.
She ought really to have gone to sleep, but whenever she closed her eyes some new thought of the morrow and of all the other morrows would make them spring open again.
The events of the last few hours had been so new that they had left her startled out of her usual quiet acquiescence. Mrs. Brenton's warm sympathy seemed to Caroline a heaven-sent gift. She had never realized the lack of this sympathy in her life till now, nor, in truth, all the many other things that she had lacked—those trivial everyday things which stock the lives of most young creatures. Her childish joys had all been secondhand ones. She had never had holidays, never any excitement; there had been no Christmas or birthday presents for her, no books or work-baskets, lace collars or ribbons. As a matter of fact, she did not even know on what date she had been born, and except for her school friends, and the little children whom she had taught the last two years, she had never been kissed. Yet for all this she had been a happy child and a happy girl.
Her orphanhood had cast no blight upon her, and she had made pleasures for herself out of her very unpromising surroundings, as most healthy young creatures will do.
Perhaps her greatest trial since she had lived with Octavia Baynhurst had been the fact that she had never once left London, and the call of the country to her nature at times had been so pressing that she had felt like a wild flower cribbed and confined in a world of bricks and mortar.
There had not even been a green leaf on which she could look. Mrs. Baynhurst did not care for flowers. Neither did she consider it necessary that anybody required exercise or fresh air.
Caroline had been rather a plump girl when she had said "good-bye" to her school, but she had wasted woefully in the last ten months. Though she had called herself strong when she had been speaking to Rupert Haverford, she possessed at this moment very little of her normal physical strength, but she had the force of a powerful will (although up to the present she had had scant opportunity of exercising this) and great courage, and to this she added the blessed gift of a cheerful spirit.
With the very smallest encouragement Caroline Graniger would be happy. There was nothing lachrymose about her or subservient. She had gone to Mrs. Baynhurst's primed with good intentions and eager to give of her very best to the woman who had claimed her.
Her schoolmistress had evidently been relieved to pass on the responsibility of Caroline to some other person, and, at the same time, had been rather flattered that one of her pupils should have been called upon to fill an important post with a person of such mental eminence.
Reflecting now on the events of the day just gone, Caroline came to the conclusion that she was rather glad there had been no opportunity of speaking with her first guardian, the mistress of the school.
"She would have put me through a cross-examination, and then I should have told her the truth, and then she would have been cross with me. I wonder where she has gone to? I feel sorry I have not written all these months. Perhaps she thinks me very ungrateful, for I firmly believe she kept me for a long time without any money."
This brought her back to the thought of what lay in the immediate future.
"I wish I knew a little more," she said restlessly to herself, "I am really very ignorant. No wonder that Mrs. Baynhurst found me useless! How she would sneer if she could know I have been trying to teach myself a little all these months!... Having made up her mind to the fact that I am a fool, she would strongly object to have to acknowledge that she had made a mistake, and I amnota fool," said Caroline to herself, with half a sigh and half a smile.
Really the bed was very comfortable, and the room was so cosy and pleasant. She would have liked the night to have lasted much, much longer than its proper span of hours.
"No, I am not a fool," she determined firmly, "and I shall demonstrate this by informing Mr. Haverford to-morrow that, whatever comes, I don't intend to go back to his mother's house. If sheismy guardian, she has proved that she is not fit for the post, and as she has practically turned me out of doors, it is not likely that I shall go back and ask for re-admittance. I should like to go to school again, but not here in London, somewhere where I can breathe, where I can run if I feel I want to. No doubt," she mused, half wearily, a little later, "Mr. Haverford will have some suggestions to offer. I dare say he will want me to go into one of his charity institutions. Perhaps he will send me to the workhouse."
She laughed at this, and so, thinking and pondering, she grew drowsy by degrees, and sleep came to her just as the day (a clear, bright frosty day) began to creep into existence.
It had been arranged between Mrs. Brenton and Haverford that Caroline Graniger should go to him early in the morning, but when her maid brought the news that Caroline was still sleeping, Mrs. Brenton sent him a telegram, asking him to call that afternoon instead.
It was nearly half-past nine before Caroline Graniger joined Mrs. Brenton at breakfast. The girl was greatly upset.
"I never slept late in my life before," she said. "I am generally awake about six, and I always get I up soon after I wake."
"You're like me, I expect," said Mrs. Brenton. "I never sleep very well the first part of the night when I am in a strange place, and then, of course, I am drowsy in the morning."
"I was so excited," said Caroline, "I could not go to sleep. It was so strange and so delightful to be in such a nice room. I am not used to luxury. I think I know now how the children feel on Christmas Eve, when they hang up their stockings, or when they expect a birthday. I kept my eye on the chimney, almost expecting Santa Claus to appear every other moment."
She laughed as she warmed her hands by the fire.
"Perhaps he did come, after all," Agnes Brenton said, "and there is something nice waiting for you to-day."
Caroline Graniger turned and looked at the speaker.
"You have already filled my stocking," she said, her thin face full of colour. Mrs. Brenton noticed that her eyes were not black, but dark, very dark blue. "It was your goodness to me last night that made everything so wonderful, so delightful. I never knew that any one could be so kind as you are. I have a much better opinion of the world this morning...."
"Let us talk about yourself," said Mrs. Brenton, as she poured out the coffee. "Of course, you are not going back to Mrs. Baynhurst?"
"No," said Caroline; she was silent a moment, and then she said "No" a second time. "But," she added, "I don't quite know what Iamgoing to do." She stirred her coffee, and coloured. When she had that colour in her face she looked much younger, and rather attractive. "I have been wondering if you would advise me," she said, with some hesitation. "I don't think I have the right to ask you, especially as you are so wonderfully kind to me; but people who are kind always have to pay some penalty. I found out that much when I was a very tiny child."
"How old are you?" asked Mrs. Brenton.
Caroline knitted her brows.
"I believe I am about nineteen. But I don't really know. I only go by what Miss Beamish told me. That is the woman who kept the school where I lived for such a long time," she explained; "and she always said that I was about four when I first went to her."
"Four years old," said Agnes Brenton quickly. She felt a sharp pang of pity for that little forlorn four-year-old child of the past. "That was starting life early with a vengeance."
"Yes," said Caroline Graniger, "but we all have to begin some time or another, and as, apparently, there was no one to object, I began at four." She spoke quite cheerfully. Then she smiled. "Miss Beamish has often told me that I was a very difficult child. They could not get me to eat anything. She declares that very often she had to sit up half the night and nurse me because I would not go to sleep in a bed." The smile rippled into laughter. "I have often tried to imagine Miss Beamish nursing me," she said. "If you knew her you would realize how funny it sounds."
"Funny!" said Agnes Brenton to herself.
She busied herself attending to the material comfort of her guest for a minute or two. Then she said—
"Of course I will advise you, Miss Graniger, and I shall be only too glad to help you if I can. Just tell me what you think you could do. What would you like to do?" Mrs. Brenton asked, going straight to the point in her practical way.
"It is difficult," said Caroline Graniger, "for I don't quite know what I can do. I have no accomplishments. I adore music, but I was never taught a note. Music was an extra, and I was a charity girl. I can read and write, and do a little arithmetic; I can sew, and I can dig," she finished with another smile. "I am really quite a good gardener," she said. "Whatever I do, I want, if possible, to be somewhere where there is a garden, or at any rate where I can see grass and some trees. The oppression of bricks and mortar is a great sufferance to me! Mrs. Baynhurst's house is built in by other houses; the rooms are so dreary. There is no air, and the windows are never open, and I never got out. I used to drive with her occasionally, but I never walked."
Agnes Brenton fretted her brows into a slight frown.
"Do you like children?" she asked, after a little pause.
The thin, sallow face lit up.
"Children, yes, I love children. I was a pupil-teacher two years before I left school. There were some quite tiny tots with Miss Beamish. She had a large Indian connection, and also children from all parts of the world. When I left there were two dear little souls there from Barbados. I cried at leaving them," she sighed, "and I don't often cry," she said.
Mrs. Brenton went on eating her breakfast, and Caroline Graniger relapsed into silence for a moment. Then, with a rush of colour to her cheeks, she said—
"But please don't let me bother you in any way, Mrs. Brenton. You have been already much too good. I dare say Mr. Haverford will arrange something for me."
Agnes Brenton was about to answer this with some kindly words when they were startled by a sharp rap with a stick on the door, and then the door was opened and Camilla presented herself.
She was in a riding-habit, and looked slim and boyish and radiant, and extraordinarily pretty and young.
"Oh, you lazy Agnes," she said, "not finished breakfast yet! Look at the time—nearly ten minutes past ten, and I have been out since half-past eight." She bent to kiss Mrs. Brenton, and then gave Caroline a smile and a little nod, as Agnes Brenton hurriedly introduced them.
"Give me something to eat, for the Lord's sake! I am positively famished," she declared. She threw off her riding-gloves and tossed them, with her stick and her hat, on to the couch.
"Didn't you have anything before you went out?" asked Mrs. Brenton.
"Good heavens, no!" said Camilla.
She stood in front of the looking-glass and ruffled her hair becomingly.
"Sammy sent word at eight o'clock that he was coming at half-past eight. He made Dennis wake me up. There was no time for anything except a bath, and how I tumbled into these thingsIdon't know."
She sat down opposite to Caroline, and began to eat with real enjoyment.
"I am rather glad you are breakfasting late; it is a bit of luck for me. You have no idea how lovely it was in the Park, Agnes," she said. "There was not a scrap of fog. Thank goodness for that! Those two dear chickies of mine will be able to get out to-day. And oh! Agnes, another blow! Nurse came to me this morning, just as I was going out, with a doleful story about her father, or her mother, or somebody being dreadfully ill, and asking me if she might go and nurse the sick person. Isn't it too tiresome? She had only been with me a few months, but really she seemed quite a likely person. Those poor children! They do get such chopping and changing. Oh, by the way!" said Camilla, "I think I had better send the horse away; I can go home in a hansom. May I ring the bell?"
She half rose from the table, but Caroline Graniger was quicker.
"May I take your message?" she asked. She spoke shyly. This young and very pretty woman was a new experience to her. She felt a little out of the atmosphere, and imagining swiftly that Mrs. Brenton and Mrs. Lancing might have something to say to one another, she seized the chance of leaving them together.
"Oh, thank you!" said Camilla; "you are very kind. Just say to the groom that Mrs. Lancing will not ride any more to-day.—Poor little soul," said Camilla, sympathetically as the door closed, "how miserably thin she is; she looks as if she had not had enough to eat, and you are in your proper quarter, Agnes, playing the part of the good Samaritan. Well, now you must helpme, my dear, because nurse is in earnest. I quite expect to find that she has gone when I get back. Why on earth do servants have parents and relations? I believe they exist on purpose to have the most mysterious diseases at the most inconvenient moments. Did you ever know a cook whose mother had not a bad leg, whatever that may be? Oh, how I hate housekeeping! I feel half inclined to live in an hotel."
"You ought to take the children into the country," said Mrs. Brenton in her quiet way.
Camilla ate a very good breakfast, and then looked up at her friend with a quizzical expression.
"Well, Agnes," she said, and paused.
Mrs. Brenton just smiled.
"Well, Camilla?" she answered.
Mrs. Lancing laughed as she spread some butter on some toast.
"When you look straight down your nose in that fashion it means the wind is in a bad quarter for somebody, and I fancy that somebody is me just now."
Agnes Brenton laughed, but only slightly, and, getting up, moved to the fireplace.
"My dear child," she said, "I wish you would not do these sort of things."
"What sort of things?" asked Camilla.
Mrs. Brenton took up the poker and stirred the fire vigorously.
"You know quite well what I mean," she said a little impatiently, "and I confess I don't understand you, Camilla. I thought you really disliked Sammy Broxbourne. You used to be always running him down, I remember."
"Oh! it's Sammy you object to, is it?" said Camilla. "My dear, dear soul, I do assure you there wasn't a creature about this morning! That is why I enjoyed the ride. We flew through the Park as if we had been a couple of birds."
"You have such a heap of people that you can go about with," said Mrs. Brenton, half impatiently; "why choose the one man that is likely to do you harm?"
"Oh, you know that is all rubbish, Agnes!" Mrs. Lancing said a little impatiently in her turn. "Sammy is not a hero, but he is no worse than any other man; and then we are connected, you know, and that goes a long way."
"He is a second cousin of your late husband's," said Mrs. Brenton; "that is no kind of relationship. However," she added, "I suppose you know your own business best, and I have no right to interfere as long as you are happy, my dear child. Happiness is the one great thing, after all."
Camilla finished the toast, and then got up.
She sighed a quick, impatient sigh.
"If I sit here I shall eat all there is on the table, and I have driven that girl away," she said; "she looks rather nice, Agnes. What is she going to do?"
"I was just talking things over with her," said Mrs. Brenton, "though I suppose really this is a matter for Mr. Haverford to settle. But she interests me, and I feel so sorry for her. She will not go back to his mother, that is very sure. I think she will try and get a place as nursery governess or something of that sort. She seems devoted to children."
"Perhaps she would do for me," said Camilla in her impulsive way.
Mrs. Brenton only smiled.
"We must go into matters a little bit more," she said, "before we can come to any conclusion."
"Well, you are going to bring her to lunch, aren't you?"
At this moment a maid came in and handed a telegram to Mrs. Brenton.
It was from Rupert Haverford, announcing that he would be with her directly, as in the afternoon he was unfortunately engaged.
Camilla picked up her hat and gloves in a great hurry.
"Oh, let me get away!" she said. "I don't think I will bother to have a cab, it is such a short distance, and I can walk that far. Don't forget lunch, one-thirty."
As she passed out, Camilla met Caroline Graniger on the stairs.
"Mrs. Brenton is going to bring you to lunch with me to-day," she said. "I hear you like children, I am sure you will like mine. They are two such sweethearts."
She nodded brightly, and ran down the staircase.
Mrs. Brenton handed Haverford's telegram to Caroline when the girl joined her.
"Perhaps it is as well that he should come over early," she said, "then we can have the rest of the day to ourselves." They chatted a little more on the subject of Caroline's future. Mrs. Brenton wanted the girl to have some definite scheme to propose to Haverford when he came. While they talked she apprised Caroline's different points, and found many things that she liked.
Caroline spoke very well. It was not the pretty, careless method of speech which Camilla affected. She seemed to be chary of her words, as a rule. When "no" sufficed, she said "no," and nothing more. She walked well, and her manners were those of a lady.
"Such a girl," said Agnes Brenton to herself, "must have patience in her bones. Not patience by nature, but by education. I am not at all sure that she would not be the very person for Camilla's children. They want a refined influence about them; education and all the rest can wait a year or two; but Betty ought not to be so constantly with uncultivated people. Camilla hardly seems to realize that the child is no longer a baby."
When Haverford arrived, Mrs. Brenton left Miss Graniger and he together.
"I telegraphed to my mother first thing this morning," said Rupert Haverford, breaking a slightly awkward pause as the door closed behind Mrs. Brenton. "I hope to have some communication from her during the day."
"Yes," said Caroline Graniger. She had fallen back into her stiff attitude of the night before.
"I have asked her for an explanation. Meanwhile," Rupert added, "I want to arrange something for you. Mrs. Brenton has been extremely kind, but I feel sure you will not like to encroach on that kindness." He put some bank-notes on the table. "I have brought you twenty pounds," he said; "with that I dare say you can manage for a little while, and I know of a place where you can stop till we have heard satisfactorily from my mother."
"I don't think it matters very much what your mother writes," Caroline Graniger said shortly; "she may have explanations to give you, and I shall certainly require such explanations later, but I have determined to cut myself adrift from Mrs. Baynhurst for good and all." She paused an instant, and then, colouring vividly, she said, "I—I will borrow five pounds, Mr. Haverford, it will be quite enough, and I shall be very glad to stay at this place you speak of till I get some kind of work."
"I advise you to take the twenty pounds," said Haverford a little drily, "you may want to buy things. You can always repay me at some future date. This is the address of the lady who will be very glad to give you house room for a little while. She is a woman who does a great deal of work for me, and, as she is in contact with all kinds and conditions of people, she may be able to find you employment."
There was another pause, and then he addressed her rather abruptly.
"Has my mother never told you anything about yourself at all?"
She shook her head.
"And you have no recollection beyond the school where you lived?"
Again she shook her head, and then hurriedly she said—
"Sometimes a vague memory comes to me. If I shut my eyes I can imagine myself being carried in some one's arms, hearing a voice singing to me, and the sound of the sea in the near distance. It is none of it very clear, but I have always imagined that I must have been on board a ship at some time when I was a tiny child, because I recollect seeing the dark sky with stars in it, and then some ropes and a tall, straight piece of wood like a tree, that I know now must have been a mast. I am rather fond of that old memory," Caroline Graniger said. She spoke dreamily, as if to herself.
He looked at her sharply, and he pitied her.
She must have had a very unlovely existence in his mother's house.
Mrs. Brenton came back at that moment, and Haverford told her what he had arranged.
"Well, I dare say that will be all right, but I cannot part with Miss Graniger till to-morrow, or perhaps a day or so later," said Mrs. Brenton in her brisk, pleasant manner. "As a matter of fact, I have some ideas of my own which I should like to discuss with her. You won't mind staying with me a little while longer, will you?" she said, turning with a smile to Caroline. The girl did not answer; she bit her lip sharply.
The tears that would never come for harshness or even for sorrow rushed to her eyes now. She turned away and stood looking out of the window while Mrs. Brenton chatted on lightly to Mr. Haverford, and in a few minutes he took his leave.
"Now I must write some letters," Agnes Brenton said briskly. "My dear, do ring that bell, and we will have that table cleared, and after that we must go out, it is a shame to lose this bright morning. Just make yourself cosy by the fire, and look at these papers. Camilla sent them. She buys every newspaper going, and when she reads them is a mystery."
Caroline took the papers, but they lay in her lap untouched.
She sat looking at the roofs of the houses opposite. They were powdered with the white of a hoar frost, and the red, red sun shone from behind and made the frost a network of jewels.
A slight mist hung in the air like a veil. The sense of unreality, the delightful excitement that had held Caroline as in a spell throughout the night had sway with her again now; nothing was very tangible or distinct. Rupert Haverford had brought her spirit to earth and hard facts for a few moments, but as he had left the house the range of resentful feeling he had roused had gone with him. She even passed away from the vexation of having to be temporarily obliged to him. As she rested back in the comfortable chair, looking at the glory of the winter sky, she felt that she and happiness had really met for the first time.
"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Brenton, "my letter to Dick is written. A very long time ago I spoiled my husband," she said, looking back over her shoulder; "whenever we were apart I promised to write to him every day, and now he holds me to this bargain. I really do owe him a letter this morning, however," said Agnes Brenton, "for I came away in such a hurry with her. Mrs. Lancing insisted on bringing me up to town, and I had scarcely time to explain things, or arrange my household affairs. Happily, Dick is an old hand at housekeeping...." She broke off, and turned again in her chair.
From the staircase beyond there came all at once the sound of an important approach; there was a great stamping of feet, accompanied by observations in clear, high-pitched little voices.
"Camilla's children!" said Mrs. Brenton.
As she put down her pen and rose the door was opened very widely, and two small persons entered hand-in-hand.
Caroline had never seen two prettier little mortals, or two so daintily attired.
They flung themselves on Mrs. Brenton, and hugged her with enthusiasm.
"Good morning, Auntie Brenny," said Betty, the eldest, and she settled her ruffled plumage as she spoke. "How is you this morning, darling? Aren't you very pleased to see us? We comed because we have brought you this letter from mother, and because we promised to come." She advanced to Caroline and took her little sister with her. "Good morning," she said; "how d-ye-do? Say 'Good morning', Baby."
Baby put out a tiny hand in a white woollen glove with fingers that were much too large.
"Dormez bien!" she said, with an angelic smile and a doubtful accent.
She cuddled up to Caroline to be kissed, and then, detaching herself from her sister, went and seated herself at the table, while Betty administered correction.
"'Dormez bien' is not 'good morning,' Baby; it's 'good night,'" she said; then she looked at Caroline and shrugged her shoulders. "Baby does say such extra-ninary things," she observed.
"I want somefing to eat," said Baby in a very determined voice.
Dennis, the maid who was in charge of the children, and was speaking to Mrs. Brenton, advanced quickly.
"Oh no, Miss Baby, dear, youcan'twant anything to eat, I am sure! Please ma'am," appealing to Mrs. Brenton, "don't give her anything."
But Miss Baby had her own views on this subject.
"I want some 'oney and some 'am," she said, tearing off her pretty grey fur cap and removing her gloves. "Nasty Dennis, go away! I'm awful 'ungry!"
Betty was making great friends with Caroline.
"I like you," she said candidly; "why have I never met you before? What is your name?" Then she whispered, "I'm going to have a birthday in March; but don't tell Baby, she'll want it too, and she does fuss so when she wants things. How old are you?" Caroline knelt down the better to study the child's brilliantly lovely little face.
Betty Lancing at six had all the charm and distinction of her mother. Already she commanded homage.
"I was only born yesterday," Caroline answered the child, and her voice was not quite steady.
"Oh!" said Betty. She stared at Caroline thoughtfully. "You look very big for a baby," she said, "I've seen littler babies than you. Mrs. Bates, that's the lady that cleans our kitchen sometimes, has a tiny, tiddy little baby, and it is three months—that's older than you, a lot. Your eyes are wet," said Betty pointedly; "are you crying? What for? Has any one smacked you?"
Fortunately at this moment Betty was awakened to a sense of her responsibilities, for she turned and saw her sister regaling herself at the table.
"Baby!" she exclaimed. She darted forward and vigorously shook the shoulder of the small person devouring bread and honey.
"Oh! you greedy greed. And you had such a lot of breakfast! I never knowed such a child in all my life," commented Betty severely; then, shrugging her shoulders, she turned to Mrs. Brenton. "I can't do nothing with her!" she said.
This remark provoked a scene in which Baby amply demonstrated that honey was excellent for strengthening the vocal cords.
Finally she consented to sit on Caroline's knee whilst her hands and little person generally were made clean, and then—Betty having eaten several biscuits meanwhile—the time for halting was declared at an end.
"If we don't go now we shall get no walk; and Miss Betty, please promise to hold my hand," pleaded Dennis the maid. "She do play such pranks, ma'am, she makes my heart fair jump, that she do."
But Betty and Baby were hanging on to Caroline.
"We want you to come out with us," was their cry; and Betty added magniloquently, "We'll be most awful good if you'll come too."
Mrs. Brenton smiled into Caroline's eyes.
"Put on your things and have a good run with them," she said.
A few moments later three persons attempted to go down a very narrow staircase abreast. It was a difficult occupation, and Caroline in the centre was quite wedged in. Useless was the voice of remonstrance from Dennis in the background, Betty and Baby refused to be separated from their new companion.
"It must be managed some way," said Caroline, who had a resourceful mind; and, picking up both small grey-coated figures, she carried them down the stairs under her arms like parcels.
The result was most satisfactory.
"Do it again," said Baby delightedly. But Betty came to the rescue.
"No, no, Baby," she said, "it's cruel; can't you hear her blowing? And just look how red she is!"
Outside in the street, Betty scanned Caroline closely and critically.
"Nurse has a jacket like that, but it's new, and she wears awful smart gloves. She's a lot smarter than you...."
Dennis intervened piteously.
"Miss Betty ... my dear!"
But Caroline only laughed, and off they started down the street—a little grey fairy hooked on to either arm—so quickly that Dennis had almost to run to keep up with them.
Mrs. Brenton stood at the window and watched them with a smile till they were out of sight, then sat down to her writing again.
"It might be the very thing both for the girl and the children," she mused.
Then she opened the little note Betty had brought her from her mother.
Camilla wrote in a hurry.
"Such a fearful bore!... I have just had a telegram from Violet Lancing, inviting herself to luncheon.... I know what this means! the old story of prying and questioning, all done under a pretence of love for 'poor Ned's children.' Don't, for Heaven's sake, fail to come. I shall feel a little better if you are with me. Oh, how tired I am of being overlooked by these Lancing people! Really, I do think I shall have to do something that will make me free of this worry, at all events. Don't the children look sweet in their new coats?
"Ever yours,"Camilla."
"P.S.—Of course nurse has gone. Honestly, I should like to try this girl who is with you. She looks capable, and if she has had such a bad time with that Baynhurst woman, I dare say she would manage to rub along here. If you don't think she will do, then, darling,dotry and find some one else."
Another postscript:
"I have half a mind to tell Violet that Miss Graniger is the children's new governess; she is sure to pull a long face if she hears that they are without a nurse. And it would not bequiteuntrue. What do you think?"
Out in the Park Caroline found a land of veritable enchantment. The red sun had mounted higher into a clear, cloudless sky, and it endowed the earth with a ruddy suggestion of warmth, but it was merely a suggestion; the keen cold of the air held its own, and the grey bloom of the hoar-frost lay like a veil on the grass.
Dennis was left far behind. She had a pinched look, and her nose was red.
"Keep on the path, please, Miss Betty," she feebly protested every now and then.
But her voice was thin and weak; in any case Betty had no ears for her.
She danced, and she sang, and she curveted gracefully on the frost-covered grass.
"Isn't it lovely? I want to roll in it!" she declared, as she paused at last and panted for breath.
Baby looked up at Caroline with half-shut eyes.
"I want a bun," she said plaintively.
"A bun!" cried Caroline.... "Whatisa bun?"
Both children exclaimed at this, and then proceeded to volunteer explanations.
"You see," Betty said to Baby, and she stooped her flower-like face confidentially to the smaller one, "she can't know as much as me and you, 'cause she was only borned yesterday, and I don't suppose she's ever eated a bun."
"Oh!" said Baby, looking at Caroline meditatively.
She had such an adorable air, standing with her little head on one side, and her eyes black as sloes, full of mysterious thought, that Caroline was obliged to hug her.
After that they had races, and Dennis watched them with pleasure and some envy as she stood shivering in the cold wind.
"You're the proper sort to be with children, miss," she remarked to Caroline, when at last they turned homewards. "Now I never do know what to do with 'em, and Miss Betty she does ask such queer questions too."
Caroline returned from her walk flushed and dishevelled, but happy-eyed.
It was almost impossible to recognize in her the thin, white-faced, rather defiant girl of the night before.
"What dear little loves!" she exclaimed, as she and Mrs. Brenton met. She had accompanied the children back to their home, and was rather late in making her appearance.
Another note had come from Camilla, in which Mrs. Brenton was urged to be with Mrs. Lancing at least a quarter of an hour before lunch-time.
"Then we can have five minutes to ourselves," Camilla scribbled, "and I shall feel fortified to meet all the catty things Violet means to say!"
Caroline rather drew back from the thought of accepting Mrs. Lancing's invitation.
"She is really very, very kind," she said earnestly, "but still I don't know that I ought to go to lunch."
Agnes Brenton answered this promptly.
"Of course, you must come with me. Camilla is the most hospitable person in the world, and I know she will be very disappointed if you don't go. She has taken a fancy to you."
Mrs. Brenton did not think it desirable to add more than this. She knew Camilla so well.
It would be unkind to put false hopes into the girl's mind; in all probability the suggestion Camilla had made about Miss Graniger would have passed already from her thoughts.
So it was settled, and Caroline made her modest toilet. That is to say, she arranged her hair carefully and put on her shabby hat and coat with more consideration than she had ever worn them before.
When they reached Mrs. Lancing's small house, Camilla, who had evidently been waiting for them, pounced on them both, and drew them into the dining-room.
"Violet arrived at a quarter to one," she announced, "Isn't it like her? I know she thought to have a good time alone with my writing-table, but I was a little too sharp for her! I locked up everything. She pretends she is very glad to meet you, Agnes. She has got a cold," said Camilla, the next moment, "and looks more like a poached egg than ever. By the way, you are going to have a wretched lunch, my dear friends, so I warn you!... I did intend giving you something nice, and Violet loves good things to eat, but she would sniff at a sole if she saw it on my table, and faint if we had a pheasant, and all the Lancing family would shake with horror at the extravagance of a sweet and cheese at the same time! Never mind!" Camilla added, with a sparkle in her eyes, "you shall have a lovely tea to make up for everything. Agnes, do go up and speak to her, there's a dear."
As Mrs. Brenton obediently went up the stairs, Camilla slipped her hand through Caroline's arm.
"The children are quite mad about you, Miss Graniger," she said, "and they have been entreating me to let you stay with them. I wish you would! I am so tired of having ignorant and unsympathetic people about them. Agnes was telling me this morning that you would like to be with children. Why shouldn't you be with mine?"
Caroline did not find it very easy to speak.
Mrs. Lancing's manner charmed and yet startled her; it was so new, too, and so pleasant to be addressed in this semi-familiar, easy fashion.
When she found her voice it was to make a protest.
"I do love children," she said, "and it would be a great happiness to me to be with yours.... But you don't know anything about me. I am sure you would want some one cleverer and better than I am, and then"—Caroline paused an instant.... "Mrs. Baynhurst is sure to give me a very bad character," she added hurriedly.
Camilla snapped her fingers.
"I am not going to trouble about Mrs. Baynhurst," she said. "Everybody knows that she is a crank. Look here, we'll settle all sorts of things afterwards. Now I must go upstairs, or I shall have my dear sister-in-law crawling down to see what I am doing. Betty will come down to lunch," Camilla added, "and it would be so sweet of you if you would just keep an eye on her; she shall sit next to you. Would you like to go up to the nursery and come down with her?"—this was suggested with the air of one who has a sudden and happy inspiration. "You can leave your hat and coat in my bedroom."
Caroline followed Mrs. Lancing up the stairs.
She was fascinated into compliance. Camilla's pretty ways won her heart very much as the children had won it. There was something magnetic in the sympathy that pervaded her.
Caroline felt bewildered, and moved, and excited, but only in a pleasurable sense.
When they reached the drawing-room door, Mrs. Lancing smiled and whispered.
"My room is on the floor above this," she said, "and the nursery is above that again. Do, like a dear, see that Betty has her hair done, and that her face and hands are washed. Her aunt always examines her as if she were a curious insect or a mineral specimen. Babsy will have her dinner with Dennis, and come down later."
Camilla gave a little sigh of contentment as Caroline Graniger passed up the stairs, and she glanced at herself in a long mirror that was placed at a convenient angle to make the staircase seem bigger.
Her appearance satisfied her. Dennis had picked out the oldest gown she possessed, and she had carefully denuded herself of all the little jewelry that she was accustomed to wear. But a shabby gown could not dim the real radiance of her beauty.
Mrs. Horace Lancing was sitting bolt upright by the fire, talking to Agnes Brenton; she was rather plump, with masses of yellowish hair, had short-sighted eyes, and a dull white skin. She always used long, blue-tinted glasses, and turned them on Camilla now.
It was evident that the drawing-room had been arranged for her coming. Like Camilla's own charming person, the room had been swept of innumerable little prettinesses, and it looked bare and almost shabby.
Sir Samuel's flowers had been carefully concealed.
"Dear Violet," Camilla said, "won't you really take off your hat? It looks as if you were going to rush away so soon, dear, and, of course, you are going to stay the afternoon."
Mrs. Horace Lancing shook her head stiffly.
"I have to meet Horace at the stores at three," she said, "we are going back by the three-fifty train, so I must leave you early. Aren't the children in yet, Camilla?"
"Betty is being made ready for luncheon, and Baby will come down by-and-by. You have no idea, Agnes, how much I like Miss Graniger ... the children's new governess," Camilla explained to her sister-in-law.
Mrs. Brenton half frowned and half smiled. She had not supposed that matters would have gone so far in so short a time, and resented the prevarication on Caroline's account and on her own. But she said nothing.
"Isn't that a new photograph of you, Camilla?" asked Mrs. Lancing, getting up and peering at a frame on the piano.
"A snapshot," said Camilla, lightly. She moved near to Mrs. Brenton for an instant, and said in a low tone, "Don't glare at me so fiercely, Agnes.... I have arranged everything; she is enchanted, and I know she will be just the very girl for me...."
Mrs. Horace Lancing put down the portrait.
"Extremely well done for a snapshot," she said coldly. "I did not know you went in motors; those furs are new to me."
Camilla laughed.
"I am a fraud," she cried, "dressed up in other people's possessions. Ah! here is lunch at last! I hope you can eat leg of mutton, Violet? I confess I am not very fond of it, but," with a sigh, "everything nice is so dear. Don't you think life costs more and more every day?"
Out on the staircase Betty was standing with her arm entwined in Caroline's. She allowed herself to be kissed with reluctance by her aunt, but clung about her mother's neck ecstatically for a moment.
Camilla had done well to warn her guests; it was a very depressing luncheon; the mutton was underdone, the greens were gritty, and the potatoes full of water. Camilla made a few apologies.
"A good cook is quite beyond my means, you know," she said plaintively.
Mrs. Brenton tried hard not to laugh as she remembered the dainty fare Camilla's cook usually provided.
She made the best of everything, but Mrs. Horace Lancing, who was very hungry, looked annoyed.
"I never have cheap food," she observed, "it is not an economy."
At this Camilla opened her eyes.
"Do you really think that?" she asked; "and I am always trying to be so very cheap."
Conversation lagged. Betty at the lower end of the table, had a good deal to say to Caroline, but it was all said in whispers.
When, however, the suet pudding with treacle had made its round the child demanded some dessert, and her mother, forgetful for the moment, gave her permission to carry round a silver basket from the sideboard, in which grapes and pears and other delightful fruits were clustered together in picturesque fashion.
"She is learning to be useful, you see, Violet," Camilla observed plaintively.
But Mrs. Horace Lancing was looking at the dessert through her blue-tinted glasses.
"Peaches!" she said, her tone a mixture of satisfaction and hostile criticism.
Camilla bit her lips, and was thankful that she had locked away her tradesmen's books with her letters and intimate papers.
"Take care, Betty, my sweetheart," she said, and then she explained as the child cautiously carried her burden from one to another. "A present," she said, "Mr. Haverford often sends me fruit; it is so good of him; such things are much appreciated by us."
"Mr. Haverford," repeated her sister-in-law, "who is he? I don't know his name."
"He's a dear," Betty responded before her mother could speak. "I 'dore Mr. Haverford! I wish he lived with us.... I tell you what," continued Betty, her eyes glistening, her little voice clear and high, "I wish he'd come and sleep with us, mumsy ... that would be really, really fun! I'm sure he wouldn't snore like nurse does, and I know he'd tell us a lot of stories. Oh, here is Baby! Come along, ducksie, and have a bit of Betty's appy...." Betty was always maternal with her little sister.
After luncheon the two children were ranged in front of Mrs. Horace Lancing, who interrogated them with a nervous manner and in the unnatural voice that some people think necessary to affect with children. Betty resented her questions and was mute, and she in her turn resented, as she always did, the little creatures' dainty appearance.
They only wore overalls of brown holland, but no home scissors had cut the holland, and, like their mother, they had already attained the art of giving distinction to the most ordinary garments.
Mrs. Brenton had discreetly withdrawn, and Caroline would have gone too, but a pleading look from Camilla restrained her.
She stood in the background, feeling amused rather than uncomfortable as Mrs. Horace, failing in conversational efforts, scanned the two small figures critically through her glasses.
"Don't you think you ought to have Marian's hair cut?" she queried. "It is so bad for little children to have such long hair. And I think Elizabeth is looking very thin," was her verdict on Betty. "Camilla, do you give her maltine or anything nourishing?"
Camilla knelt down and took both her children in her arms; surreptitiously she kissed her baby's bright curls.
"Now, darlings, kiss Aunt Violet, and run away. Miss Graniger, I think it must be another walk, it is such a lovely day, but please come in quite early."
The two little persons disappeared with a right good will, and as the sisters-in-law were left alone they heard sounds of laughter and singing, signs of joy at freedom, from the staircase beyond.
"I am very lucky to have such a nice governess," Camilla said.
Mrs. Horace said—
"Yes; but I always think these sort of persons want such a lot of looking after. I never would have a governess. Mabel went to school very early. I suppose you have good references with that girl? To me she looks too young," she said the next moment; "and Elizabeth needs to be in such careful hands. She is intelligent, of course, but her manner is rather pert.... But then I suppose you never attempt to correct her, Camilla?"
"I was never slapped when I was a child, so I don't know how to slap other people," said Camilla.
She drew up a stool in front of the fire, and sat down on it.
She was perfectly well aware that something disagreeable was coming, and she ranged herself to meet it with resignation.
"I have no doubt," she added, with a little laugh, "that it would have been an excellent thing for me if daddy had spanked me now and then; but, dear old soul, he couldn't hurt any living creature, much less me. When I was naughty he gave me chocolates instead of the whip; but, on the whole, I was a fairly good child. I have a theory, you know, Violet, that sympathy can do far more than punishment. If Betty sees me unhappy when she is naughty, it makes her wretched; that is just how I was with daddy. Ah! well, if I had no slaps in those old days, I have plenty now!"
"I don't think you have much to grumble at," said Violet Lancing.
Camilla looked up at her and frowned slightly, then she smiled.
"Let us get it over," she said. "I can see that you have come here to scold to-day."
"Horace has been waiting to hear from you as you promised," said Mrs. Horace, stiffly. "You had your quarter's allowance quite six weeks ago, and you have never written."
Camilla frowned again, this time sharply; she was shielding her face with her two hands. She had expected the usual tirade; not this. So Horace had given her away! How mean of him! She had never supposed that he would have confided in Violet.
"I am so sorry," she began, and then she stopped with a quick sigh. She was so weary, so unutterably weary of this kind of thing! There came upon her a reckless sort of feeling to speak out frankly, and send this woman to the uttermost ends of the earth, or to perdition; the latter for choice.
"I don't think you know what it means to us," said Violet Lancing, getting agitated. "If Horace had told me about your letter when it came in the summer, I should never have permitted him to lend you that money. I only found it out by chance the other day, and I must say I am surprised, Camilla, that you should have gone to Horace for help. You know perfectly well that we have the hardest work to get along on what we have. I suppose you think grandpa does a lot for us," ... here the speaker laughed shortly. "As he almost ruined himself over Ned, you see, he has no money to give to any of the rest of the family!"
"And naturally Ned's widow and children are eating him out of house and home," Camilla said. She had grown pale. Except on occasions like this she never spoke her dead husband's name.
"I am not grumbling about that, Camilla. You have a right to be provided for, especially as Ned treated you so badly. But you ought to manage better, and I can only repeat that you have no right to borrow from us. Horace advanced you a hundred pounds last August, and you promisedfaithfullyto give it back to him when grandpa sent you your quarter's cheque. A hundred pounds is not a hundred pence," said Mrs. Horace, sententiously; "it isn't to be picked up every day."
Camilla got up and kicked the stool away.
"I am horribly sorry, Violet. I give you my word of honour I intended to send Horace the money, but you don't know how pressed I was in September. I have an awfully hard time to make ends meet. Of course, Ned's father is very good to allow me what he does, but the fact is it is practically impossible to live on what I have."
"Yes, as you live, certainly," agreed Mrs. Horace Lancing; "but you could manage splendidly if you did what you ought to do—cut down expenses in every direction, and go into the country. You ought never to have kept on this house."
Camilla moved about the room.
"Oh, that old, old story again!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Don't you know how we threshed out all the ways and means when...?" She hurried on, "Colonel Lancing himself decided that it was best for me to stay on here, and so if you want to quarrel with any one, go to him, Violet; it is no use coming to me...."
Mrs. Horace Lancing got a little red in the face. "I don't want to interfere with you or your arrangements, Heaven knows," she said; "I only want you to be just with us, for, whatever you may say, you know as well as I do that you ought to have paid Horace back as you arranged." There was a little pause. "I shall be very much obliged if you will let me know what you are going to do about this, Camilla. We are not in a position to wait indefinitely. I really came here to-day," Mrs. Horace Lancing said, firmly, "to ask you to let me have some of the money at once."
Camilla stood by the window flicking the long curtains.
This subject, and the recrimination it provoked, made every nerve in her body tingle; in such a moment the sordidness of this perpetual difficulty with money, the ugliness of money itself, settled on her spirit, crushing it down as by some actual physical effort.
The spell of ease and relief that Haverford's generosity had signified had been very brief. After a good deal of deliberation, she had filled in the blank cheque for a thousand pounds.
Her inclination and her necessity had both urged her to make it three times that sum, but she had been temperate, feeling the need of caution. The cheque had gone to her bank the day before, and already she had drawn very largely against it. She dared not drain the money in its entirety, otherwise she would leave herself unprotected should the evil she feared (to meet which she had borrowed this sum) fall upon her.
In casting up her position, she had dealt only with those things that were disagreeably prominent ... and she had absolutely forgotten her obligation to her brother-in-law. She regretted now, impatiently enough, that she had not drawn upon Haverford for a much larger amount. If she were to give Violet even a portion of this debt, she would leave herself without a penny of ready money once more.
Mrs. Horace Lancing was continuing to press the matter home in an aggravating way; she enumerated the many necessities her life lacked, and all that she would have done during the last few months if only her husband had cultivated prudence instead of generosity.
It suddenly dawned upon Camilla that her brother-in-law must have passed through an exceedingly unpleasant time.
"Poor Horace!" she said to herself. He was the only member of her husband's family who had shown her a particle of sympathy, and she felt honestly sorry in this moment that she should have trespassed so heavily on that sympathy.
She let the curtain slip from her fingers.
"Look here, Violet, I can't possibly do anything now, really I can't; but at Christmas I promise faithfully."
Mrs. Horace laughed.
"At Christmas! Oh yes! And when Christmas comes it will be, 'Violet dear, I am so very sorry, but can't you possibly wait till Easter?' Oh, I know ... I know!"
There were two bright patches of unbecoming colour on her cheeks; she was adjusting her veil with hands that trembled.
"You have no right to say that sort of thing!" said Camilla, hotly; "it is very unjust and very untrue."
"And you have no right to go behind my back and borrow from my husband," said Violet Lancing. Her pale eyes looked very angry. "If you wanted money so badly you might have asked grandpa, I think, or somebody else. I consider it was awfully mean of you to go to Horace, and not to let me know a word about it. We have all sorts of worries ourselves, and the boys cost us no end of money; but you are just Ned all over again, Camilla! Everything you want you must have without considering any one or anything but yourself. I used to think all the old trouble was Ned's fault, and I was awfully sorry when you were left to fight for yourself, but now I know better!"
"Is all this necessary?" Camilla asked in a low voice.
But Mrs. Horace was wound up.
"I can't help it. You've brought it on yourself, and you ought to hear the truth now and again. You're not only horribly selfish, you're as deceitful as you can be.... You can't pretend so easily with me, Camilla! I know perfectly well that your life isn't dull and miserable as you try to make us believe, and I know, too, why you never want any of us to come here unawares." She jerked her veil down over her chin and tore it. "I am not a fool!" she finished, with a hard laugh, "though you may think I am."
"You are very angry with me, and you are talking a lot of nonsense," said Camilla.
She looked away from the other woman.
"I am very sorry you are vexed simply because when I was in trouble I turned to Ned's brother. It seemed the most natural thing to do. I know if Horace had asked Ned ... to help him in the old days he would have done it, and gladly, too!" She caught her breath, and for a moment she could not speak; then in a low voice she said, "I shall send this money back before Christmas; on that you may rely."
Mrs. Horace Lancing made a curious expression with her mouth, and rose to go. Instantly Camilla's manner changed.
"I am sorry you won't stay to tea.... You had such a horrid lunch. Give Horace my love, and tell him I am extremely hurt with him because he did not come here and fetch you. Will you have a cab?"
Violet Lancing shook her head, she picked up her tweed coat and squeezed herself into it with an effort. Her gloves took some time to put on. To make conversation and relieve the strained atmosphere, Camilla asked after the health of all the people she detested. She was particularly anxious to know how matters were passing with Mrs. Horace's own household, but she avoided all mention of her father-in-law a fact Mrs. Horace quickly made a note of.
"I didn't tell grandpa I was coming here," she observed, as she buttoned the last glove-button; it was evident she had more to say, and she said it. "I think it only friendly to let you know, Camilla, that grandpa is not very nice about you just now," she said. "Though you never see him, he seems to know all that is going on. The other night when you were being discussed at dinner-time, he was quite angry."
"He has always been nasty with me. That is nothing new," said Camilla, quickly.
Mrs. Horace Lancing looked at her in a sly kind of way.
"Well, of course, it is none of my business, but I do think you are foolish not to try and make friends with him. Have you ever thought what would happen if he were to stop your allowance? I have heard him threaten this more than once. And then he complains bitterly that you never take the children to see him. It would help things a lot for you if you were to do this now and then. He is an old man, you know, and old people like to be remembered sometimes."
Camilla's eyes were bright.
"I am sorry, but the suburbs make me ill. If Colonel Lancing wants to see the children he must come here...."
There was almost a frightened expression for an instant on the other woman's face; evidently "grandpa" was no joking matter to her.
"Well, you can't say I haven't warned you," she said, and then she laughed. "The suburbs have their uses all the same sometimes, haven't they?" she observed. "Let me see. I think I left my umbrella downstairs."
Camilla accompanied her departing guest to the door.
"Are you sure you won't have a cab; it is getting late, you know."
There was a package lying on the hall table beside Mrs. Lancing's umbrella.
"Do you mind taking that to Mabel?" asked Camilla. "It is some chocolate, it won't do her any harm; it came from Paris."
When she was alone she mounted the stairs slowly and sat down once more on the stool in front of the fire. With a sigh, she clasped her hands round one knee, and swayed backwards and forwards, shutting her eyes, and Agnes Brenton, coming in rather softly, found her like this.
Mrs. Brenton paused a moment before advancing, and then she went forward and put her hand gently on Camilla's shoulder.
"What is it, dear? Did she scratch you very badly?"
Camilla turned and laughed faintly.
"She always manages to upset me, and as she came on purpose to be disagreeable, her visit has been most successful."
Mrs. Brenton pulled forward a chair, and sat down. She had left her knitting on one of the small tables the day before, and she took it up now mechanically, and began to move the needles to and fro.
Camilla watched her in a dreamy sort of way. Vaguely she wondered to herself how many hundred pairs of socks Agnes had made in her life.
"I must be a horribly wicked woman," she said suddenly, "otherwise I could not possibly have been given such a scourge as being compelled to take bread from these people."
"I thought a long time ago," said Mrs. Brenton, in her calm, quiet way, "you had realized what to expect from Violet Lancing. Dear child, it is hardly possible that she should be sympathetic to you."
"I don't care two figs about her," said Camilla, "and, as a matter of fact, I am rather sorry for her. Did you see the cut of her skirt? And tea at the stores is the only gaiety she ever has, poor soul. If she would only give me half a chance," Camilla added, "I should be awfully kind to her."
After a moment's pause Camilla said—
"It's the old man whom I really hate. Ned always said his father was an old devil, and so he is! It appears he is extra furious with me because I never take the children to see him.... How can I? If he forgets all the horrible things he did and said to me, I have unfortunately a much better memory!"
Agnes Brenton took this matter up quickly.
"You have never understood Colonel Lancing," she said, "just as he could never be expected to understand you. That he is a hard man I know well; but I am convinced he is not so hard as you imagine. He set his face against your marriage with Ned, not because he objected to you personally; that would have been ridiculous," interpolated Mrs. Brenton with a smile; "but because he knew it was going to be a miserable business for you." Agnes Brenton paused half a moment, and then said in a low voice, "And the result justified that belief pretty surely."
Camilla spread out her two small hands to shield her face from the fire.
"Don't deceive yourself, Agnes; there is nothing good about him; he is hard, he is cruel, he is horrid." She moved restlessly. "I wish I could cut them all out of my life, especially the old man. What a difference to my daddy. Oh, Agnes, if I only had daddy with me now! Dear, good, loving heart, why did you die?"