She bent forward suddenly and rang the bell.
"I must have the room arranged again," she said. Her pretty voice sounded a little husky. "It looks too hideous for words, and then, dearest, you shall have something to eat. On second thoughts, I am not sorry that Violet had a bad lunch. I hate every one who belongs to that old wolf! Oh, Agnes, let us talk about that girl Caroline—what's her name?"
Mrs. Brenton turned the heel of the sock, and her needles clicked musically for a few moments. Then she said—
"Well, I don't think you ought to do anything without consulting Mr. Haverford."
"Good Heavens! why not?" exclaimed Camilla. "Bring back the flowers," she ordered to the maid who appeared at the door at this moment. She got up and began to arrange the room in a restless fashion, unlocking drawers, and taking out all the things she had hidden. "I really don't see what Mr. Haverford has to do with it," she said irritably, after a while.
"Don't you?" queried Mrs. Brenton, with a smile. "You must remember that Miss Graniger went to him last night for advice and help."
Camilla moved impatiently.
"Oh! he will take a month to deliberate. He is so slow. Really it is very ridiculous. You know I must have some one for the children, and Miss Graniger wants work. Why on earth should she not come to me?"
"I don't like things done in a great hurry," said Mrs. Brenton. And then she added again, "It may annoy Mr. Haverford."
"And what do I care if it does?" exclaimed Camilla. She was nervous, and it did her good to speak sharply. "Anyhow, I can't very well draw back now. I have practically engaged the girl, and I settled that we would discuss terms and other things this afternoon. I like her, Agnes. She is a lady, and I think she is just the very person we want for Betty."
As the flowers were brought in and placed, Mrs. Lancing ordered tea.
"Tell cook to send up all sorts of things," she said. "I am ravenous. How much do you think I ought to give her, Agnes?" was her next question. "Fifty pounds a year?"
"My dear child!" said Mrs. Brenton, and then she sighed. "When will you learn the value of money?"
"Well, look here," said Camilla, sitting down on the stool, and putting a pleading note in her voice, "will you arrange all this for me? I don't want to let this girl slip through my fingers."
She looked over her shoulder at this juncture; the door was half open, and they caught the sound of the children returning.
"Well, have you been good little people?" she called aloud, and she got up briskly and went to the door. "I hope you are not tired, Miss Graniger? Oh, my dear! What are you doing? You must not carry that big, big, little lump!"
Baby had climbed up into Caroline's arms, and had her arms about the girl's neck, her head was cuddled on Caroline's shoulder.
"I is so awful tired, mammy," she said plaintively. Then Betty chimed in—
"I telled her a heap of times she was not to ask poor Caroline to carry her, but"—with a shrug of her shoulders—"you know what Baby is. The most onstinant creature in the world."
But Baby only smiled, and kissed Caroline.
Even when her mother tried to entice her away, she clung to the girl affectionately. So Camilla went up to the nursery, also scolding tenderly as she went.
She wanted to take Miss Graniger down to have tea with her, but the children opposed this so strenuously that she had to give way.
She did not leave them till she saw them seated at the table luxuriating in all sorts of delicacies.
"Don't let them worry you," Camilla said to Caroline. "Dennis will take them off your hands."
However, it seemed that Caroline had no intention of calling Dennis to the rescue, so Mrs. Lancing went downstairs, and wore a very triumphant expression as she entered the drawing-room.
"Believe it or not, just as you like, but it is a fact that that girl is absolutely happy with the children," she declared. "You ought to be pleased, Agnes. You pretended you were sorry for her. Can't you imagine the sort of existence that she has had in Mrs. Baynhurst's house. Well, here at least she will be treated like a human being." Then abruptly Camilla crossed the room, and sat down at her writing-table. "I am going to write to Mr. Haverford," she said, "and then I hope you will be satisfied, you dear old fidgety frump."
The note written, she had it despatched by a cab, and requested that an answer might be sent back.
"I don't see what earthly objection he can have," Camilla said, "but if he has any—well, now let him speak, or for ever hold his peace."
The cab came back in a very little while, bringing the information that Mr. Haverford had been called to the north unexpectedly. Further, it appeared that the butler had added that Mr. Haverford intended going to Paris when he came down from the north.
Mrs. Brenton smiled as she sipped her tea.
"That means he intends to see his mother, and go thoroughly into this Graniger business. There are no half measures with him."
Camilla moved petulantly.
"Oh! we all know by this time that you think him a paragon of perfection.... He is just your pet idea of what a man should be—solid, stodgy, prosaic. A creature as flat, and as level, and as enduring, and as uninteresting as a Roman road."
"Well," said Mrs. Brenton, picking up her knitting again, "there is a good deal to be said in favour of a smooth road, whether it is Roman or otherwise."
Camilla ate a cake, then some sandwiches, and then another piece of cake.
"The only thing worth having in life, except food when one is hungry, is the thing that comes unexpectedly. You can keep all your smooth roads to yourself, Agnes; give me Piccadilly when the wood pavement is simply honeycombed with holes, and one stands the chance of being jerked out of a cab, and perhaps out of existence, too, every other moment. Anyhow," she determined, brightly, "this settles matters so far as I am concerned. Miss Graniger will now stay, and if Mr. Haverford does not like this arrangement—well, he can lump it! Have some more tea? No? Well, then, let us go up to the children."
For a second time Caroline Graniger lay awake late into the night, watching the fire-glow glint the walls and throw fantastic shadows on the ceiling.
She had been sent to bed very early.
"You look so tired, you poor thing," Camilla had said as they had sat at dinner.
She herself was going out to a bridge party, but she had insisted on Agnes Brenton and Caroline sharing a dainty little dinner with her.
Of course it was at her suggestion that Miss Graniger was sleeping with the children.
"As you are going to stay with me," she had said, when she tarried a little while in the nursery after Mrs. Brenton had gone downstairs, "I think we had better start as we intend to go on. Agnes, I know, wants to carry you home again with her to-night, but Betty and Babsy want you—don't you, darlings?"
Caroline asked for nothing better, except, indeed, that she was divided in her desire to show deference to both these women who were so extraordinarily kind to her.
"I only hope I shall do," she said earnestly.
Camilla had laughed at this.
Her baby had climbed on her knee, and was cuddling her very tightly.
"This is not what frightens me," she said. "I am only afraid you won't stand our ways. This is a very funny sort of household—isn't it, Betty?"
The child nodded her head wisely. She looked so pretty with her bright hair screwed up in curl rags.
It was Caroline who introduced the subject of Rupert Haverford.
"I fancy Mrs. Brenton thinks I ought to have referred things to Mr. Haverford," she had said, a little hesitatingly.
"I know," Mrs. Lancing had answered quickly, "but I don't in the least see that. Of course you went to Mr. Haverford last night because you did not know what else to do. But surely that does not entitle him to order all your ways? I shall be awfully disappointed if you don't stay with me," she finished; and Caroline had laughed softly at this.
"Then you shall not be disappointed," she had answered.
And so everything had been arranged, and when Mrs. Lancing had whisked away for a long—and a late—evening at cards, Mrs. Brenton had kissed the girl, and told her to go to rest.
"Camilla is right; you do look very tired," she said.
"Oh, I am always pale, but I am not really tired—I am only happy. I don't think I could explain to you exactly how I feel. Just a little while ago I seemed to have nothing given to me, that nothing was possible; and now I feel almost as if I had found everything that had been lacking all these years!"
"Only because you have settled to be the governess to two children who are bound to be naughty and tiresome sometimes, you know?"
"No, not entirely because of that," Caroline answered.
There was something familiar to her to find herself occupying a small bed in a room with children, but this was the only element that was familiar; all the rest was so new and so sweet.
As she lay on the pillows and looked from one little sleeping form to the other her eyes filled, and she had a fluttering sensation at her heart.
After so many barren years these last few hours seemed over full with sympathy and kindness, and with that recognition from others that almost amounted to kinship.
She found herself endowed with a personality all at once.
It was very strange to realize that she had some defined standing; now that the oppression of dependence had been lifted she marvelled that she could have endured the burden so long.
"But it is too good to last," she said to herself once or twice. "Iknowsomething will happen, and I shall go out into the cold again."
Of course she could not sleep; she thought of a dozen things at the same time.
The spell of Camilla's magnetic personality, the calm strength and womanliness of Agnes Brenton, the charm and prattle of the children, held her in sway alternatively, and kept alive that new sense of warmth that had been kindled in her heart.
Every now and then, too, Rupert Haverford would come into her thoughts.
A note had been sent round from Mrs. Brenton's lodgings addressed to herself, and given to her just as she was going upstairs. In this Haverford had written that he regretted that he was called north on very important matters, but that he had spoken to the lady of whom he had told her, and that a home was arranged for her until she could make other plans.
"My absence may delay the explanation you desire from my mother," Rupert had written, "but in the event of your requiring any reference, you will of course use my name."
It was a brief and very businesslike letter, but Caroline felt grateful to him all the same.
Assuredly he must have troubled himself about her even to have made such arrangements.
Once indeed she felt a little qualm.
"Perhaps Mrs. Brenton was right, and I ought to have asked his advice." The next moment, however, she dismissed this. "It cannot matter to him how I earn my bread."
"I shall send him back the greater portion of the money he lent me," she determined at another moment. "I must get myself a few things to wear. I cannot go about with the children quite so shabby as I was to-day. But I shall not require more than half the money he lent me, and I shall pay the other off as quickly as I can get my salary."
When she remembered his mother she laughed.
"Explanation! ... It is very evident that he does not know her as well as I do."
It was very late before Caroline's eyes closed drowsily, and then she had slept scarcely an hour when she was awakened with a start.
Little hands were pulling her, and a little voice was whispering out of the darkness.
"Caloline! ... Caloline! ... may I come into your bed?"
Instantly the girl was awake.... She sat up and held out her arms.
Dennis had warned her—
"If Miss Baby wants to rouse you and creep in with you, don't you let her, miss," she had said; "you'll want all the rest you can get, and children shouldn't never be encouraged in such goings on."
But Caroline forgot to be sensible; rules and regulations went down before the sweetness, the delight of holding that warm little bundle in her arms so closely.
Baby kissed her many times, whispered sleepily for a few minutes, and then lay quite still, one little loving hand linked in Caroline's.
*****
Mrs. Brenton went back to the country the next day.
It had been arranged that her husband would follow her to town; but instead of doing this, he managed to contract a very bad cold, and as he was not the strongest man in the world, his wife took alarm, and departed in a hurry for Yelverton, notwithstanding all Camilla's entreaties.
"But remember," Mrs. Brenton said as she went, "you have promised to come to me for Christmas; that is understood, Camilla. It will be delightful to have the children, and we must have a Christmas-tree and a jolly time altogether."
"I am not sure that I shall know you in the future," replied Camilla; then she laughed. "I don't know why I want you so much, because you are always scolding me—aren't you? But Idowant you, and I think it is horrid of you to go rushing back now, just because Dick has happened to sneeze twice. If he had come up to town, we could have all nursed him."
Caroline saw the children's mother only intermittently during the next two or three days.
Camilla always seemed to be in a tremendous hurry. Except for breakfast, she did not have a single meal in the house.
Nevertheless, the atmosphere was charged with a certain sort of excitement. The telephone bell was always ringing; so was the door-bell.
Mrs. Lancing's friends seemed to employ an army of telegraph boys, and she herself would dash home in cabs every now and then in a violent hurry apparently. Though she might neglect or postpone other duties, she never forgot a flying visit to the nursery at bath-time.
The clamour of the children, however, and the nonsense and the kisses, precluded anything further than the interchange of smiles and a few words between Mrs. Lancing and her new governess.
It was Dennis who reported that Miss Graniger had settled down to her work admirably; that she was a decided acquisition.
"You've never had any one near so nice, ma'am," was Dennis's opinion, given emphatically. "She doesn't give herself airs, and isn't above doing all sorts of little things that nurse would never have dreamed of doing; and the way she understands children—well, there, it gets over me! Miss Betty was in one of her tantrums this morning, but Miss Graniger, she soon set things right. I'd 'ope, ma'am," Dennis added, "that there'll be no change this time...."
"I never want to change, you know that," Camilla's answer was to this.
She found time to scribble a few words, conveying what Dennis had told her, to Agnes Brenton, and added—
"As the great Mogul has never taken any notice of us since you left town, we are left conjecturing whether he is indifferent or annoyed."
Just when she was closing this letter Camilla took out the paper again and wrote a postscript.
"Violet Lancing scratched to some purpose the other day! I have had a letter from the old mancommandingme to take the children to spend Christmas with him. I have not answered him, but I mean to tell him to go to ..."—she made a great dash—"church on Christmas morning," she finished. "As I am promised to you, I cannot go to the Lancings, can I?" she wrote underneath.
Caroline was far too busy in these the first days of new occupation to give much heed to the fact that Rupert Haverford had sent no answer to the letter she had written to him.
Naturally the life was not so golden-hued in these after days as it had seemed that first day.
She found the children, if not exactly spoilt, certainly not trained as they should have been trained.
With the elder one, indeed, a good many difficulties threatened, but Caroline was resolved to find nothing too hard or difficult, and her long experience of school discipline came into splendid prominence now.
Her starting task was to try and put a little organization into the life of the nursery.
She did not mind what she did herself to bring about some method to regulate the hours, but she quickly let the servants know that they must meet her halfway.
She found it necessary to change any number of accepted habits. When she learned how irregular had been the nursery arrangements, she marvelled that her little charges were so healthy or so tractable.
Dennis gave her great assistance.
"You keep things down, my dear. Don't you be afraid of having your own way. The mistress won't interfere. She trusts every one. That's why she gets done so often."
Another time Dennis introduces the question of expense.
"The way money is just thrown away in this house! ... There's not a one, barrin' myself, to give a thought to the one as has to pay. Why, many's the time I've seen nurse pitch away a bottle of special milk what couldn't be used; and d'ye think that stopped her in the orderin'? Not it!"
That there had been waste and extravagance to an almost criminal degree Caroline had quickly discovered for herself. Dennis had told her that the children possessed more feathers and frills, more lace frocks than any other two children in the United Kingdom, and this was no exaggeration. In all things that were practical and necessary, however, they were as shabby and as ragged as any little beggar in the street.
Every night Caroline devoted herself to overlooking the children's wardrobe.
She mended what could be mended, and arranged all as far as she could, but she could not spin stockings or weave warm under garments out of thin air.
For a day or two the girl hesitated as to whether she should approach Mrs. Lancing on this subject. She was really unwilling to do so, but finally decided it was better that she should go straight to the point in this and in all other matters connected with the children and her care of them.
And so one evening, as Camilla was dressing for an early dinner engagement, there came a knock at her door, and Dennis asked if she would see Miss Graniger.
Mrs. Lancing was sitting in front of her looking-glass, her short, wavy hair was loose on her shoulders.
At sight of Caroline she took alarm, and, turning round, waved her hair-brush protestingly.
"Don't tell me that you have come to give me notice," she said forcibly, "because I won't take it!"
Caroline laughed.
"I am still marvelling at my good fortune at being with you," she said. She looked admiringly at Camilla. How pretty! how very pretty this woman was! Each time that she saw Mrs. Lancing she seemed to see her in a more attractive way.
Now, in her white flowing gown, with her curly hair falling about her face, she looked hardly older than little Betty herself.
There was an unconscious wistfulness in Camilla Lancing's eyes that waked a strong rush of tenderness and protective affection in Caroline's heart whenever she looked into them.
Brief as had been her stay in the house, she had been long enough to know from other sources than Dennis's confidences that trouble stalked side by side with the gaiety; long enough to have grasped with that intuition which was one of her strongest gifts that this charming, childlike, happy-go-lucky mistress of the house would always buy her sunshine very dearly, with a heavy shadow threatening it.
Camilla heaved a sigh of relief.
"I breathe again," she said; "sit down and let me look at you. Well, you are better, I think; you have a nice little bit of colour, but you must get much, much fatter. Are the chickies asleep? Dear child, I must congratulate you! You are a marvellous person. We have never had such peace in the house as we have had since you have been here—have we, Dennis? And you are such a child yourself! How is this sort of thing done? I suppose it comes naturally to you."
"I am so glad you are satisfied with me," Caroline said. She sat down and looked about her curiously, and yet with pleasure. The dainty appointments, the rosebud chintz, the lace-covered bed, upon which was spread the gown Mrs. Lancing was going to wear, the crystal-topped toilet table with its burden of brushes, and jars, and scent-bottles, and nicknacks, the cosy chairs, the soft carpet, all made a picture of prettiness, luxury, and comfort such as had not even visioned itself in her imagination, busy as that had been at times. Portraits of the children abounded, and in the middle of the mantelshelf Caroline noticed a large cabinet photograph of Edward Lancing. The children had a smaller one like it in the nursery.
Betty kissed it every night after she had said her prayers, and Baby, of course, always clamoured for daddy's picture to do the same thing. Although, as Betty said frequently, "You never knowed him, so he isn't properly your daddy."
Caroline brought her wandering attention to order sharply.
"I have come to bother you," she said.
Dennis had begun to comb out the brown curls and arrange them in a loose and a graceful manner, fastening them here and there with a sparkling pin.
"I have brought a list of the things that the children want."
"Do they want anything? They had new coats and hats the day you came," said Mrs. Lancing.
She took the paper that Caroline handed her, and read it aloud.
"Stockings, nightgowns, flannels, shoes. Dear child! of course they shall have these things. But are they so badly off?"
Caroline nodded her head.
"Yes; I have put everything together for you to see," she said. "I have only written down what is absolutely necessary."
"Now, isn't that shocking, Dennis?" said Camilla, with a note of desperation in her voice. "Doesn't it make you want toshakenurse? ... What did she do with the things? She must have eaten them."
"I've gone carefully through every drawer and every box," said Caroline, "and I cannot find any good clothes put away."
"Let me think." Mrs. Lancing sat and puckered her brows. Dennis had put on an expression that said as plainly as words that these things would have been set right a long time ago if only she had been given the authority to attend to them.
"You had better go to ... No!" said Camilla, checking herself without mentioning the name, "you can't go there. I owe them quite a lot already, and that other shop in Regent Street, they, too, are rather nasty about their bill. I'll tell you what, I will give you some ready money, and then you had better go and buy just what is actually required. What do you suppose these will all come to? Dennis, you are good at this sort of thing, you might help Miss Graniger. Dear sweethearts, fancy not having a stocking, or a decent petticoat." She caught her breath with a sigh. "I am afraid I am not a very good mother."
"I'm sure you pay enough, ma'am," said Dennis. "Why, the money has just been poured out for the nursery this last year."
"Well, money is not everything, we all know that," her mistress said, as she took up her hand-glass and looked at the back of her head critically.
Caroline for herself proposed a second time that Mrs. Lancing should see how matters stood, but Mrs. Lancing refused.
"No, no," she said; "I don't want to see for myself. Do you think I doubt you? I know only too well you have not exaggerated a single thing."
Here the sound of a cab stopping reached her ears.
"Oh! my goodness," said Camilla, "that must be Sammy, and, of course, I am late! Dennis, get me into my gown quickly ... quickly!"
Caroline moved to the door.
"Good night," she said. "I hope you are going to enjoy yourself."
Camilla called her back.
"Do one thing for me like a darling, will you?" she asked. "Just run down and tell Sir Samuel that I shall be with him directly. I promised faithfully to be in time, and he does so hate to be kept waiting."
Some one was being shown up into the drawing-room as Caroline left Mrs. Lancing's bedroom.
She paused a moment, and then went down the stairs.
"It's Sir Samuel Broxbourne, miss," the parlourmaid said.
Caroline nodded her head.
"Yes; Mrs. Lancing knows. I have a message for him."
Caroline's first impression as she opened the drawing-room door was that the young man standing with his back to the fireplace was much too big for the room.
Sir Samuel had not troubled to remove his overcoat, and the heavy fur collar on this coat accentuated the squareness and breadth of his shoulders.
He always looked red, as if he had just come out of a bath, or had been running; his hair, too, had a touch of red in it.
Caroline took all this in at one glance, and she decided right away that he was a very ugly young man.
"Mrs. Lancing begs me to say she will be down directly," she said, but she did not advance into the room.
Sir Samuel whipped his single eyeglass into what he called his "off" eye, and took a step forward. As Caroline was withdrawing, and the door was half closed, he spoke to her.
"Here, I say," he said, "can you ... I mean is there any one in the house who can glue this button on for me?"
He pulled off one of his white gloves as he spoke, and held it out to her.
With a little frown Caroline turned, paused an instant, and then advanced and took the glove from him.
"It's a beastly nuisance when the buttons come off," said Sir Samuel; "the Johnnies that sell gloves ought to do the stitching themselves—eh?..."
He was studying Caroline attentively, wondering the while who the deuce she was. He thought he had sampled all the inmates of Mrs. Lancing's small house. Those he had seen he had found very unexciting; but this girl was different.
"I think this button is quite firm, it will not come off just yet," said Caroline, and she gave him back the glove.
Before he could speak again she had vanished, and the door was shut behind her.
Sir Samuel pulled the glove on with a jerk.
"D——d fine eyes," he said, "but she knows all about that, and puts frills on in consequence."
Mrs. Lancing's door was widely open, and she herself arrayed in all her glory as Caroline mounted the stairs and paused on the landing.
"Is he very furious?" asked Mrs. Lancing.
"May I admire you?" asked Caroline in reply. "This sort of thing is all so new to me. I have never seen any one in evening dress before, except once, and that was in a fashion paper." Her eyes had a glow in them as she scanned Camilla, over whose white clinging gown Dennis was just slipping a theatre wrap of pink chiffon and chinchilla. "How Betty would love to see you as you are now. She imagines you go to a fairy-world every night, and if she saw you she would believe in her dreams."
"I feel as if I were coming to pieces," Camilla laughed. "But I simply detest being hurried! Dennis, put a safety-pin in here, and you need not sit up. I have my key."
As she was passing out Mrs. Lancing paused by Caroline and kissed her lightly.
"You are a nice thing," she said affectionately, "and I wish you were coming with me. I shall take you to the play one night." Then gathering up her skirts, she rustled softly on to the landing and disappeared.
Sir Samuel's patience had evidently evaporated; he had emerged from the drawing-room, and was now expostulating.
"Don't swear too audibly," Caroline heard Mrs. Lancing say, with her rippling laugh, "or you will wake the babies, and then everybody will call you a monster!"
The girl's delicate brows met in a frown. Even in this far-off way she felt the arrogant familiarity of this man's manner towards Mrs. Lancing, and resented it, just as she had resented his attempt at impertinent familiarity with herself. She supposed, however, as Sir Samuel seemed to be so intimate, that he must be a connection, probably a near relative. Later on, however, when Dennis came up from her supper, and they went together through a minute examination of the children's belongings, Caroline learned casually, from the maid's chatter, that Sir Samuel Broxbourne was not really a relation—only a friend; and she found herself wondering a little why so refined and dainty a woman as Camilla should care for friendship with such a man.
This was not the only matter that seemed strange and even inexplicable where Mrs. Lancing was concerned. Naturally Caroline was a novice in life as it was lived in the world in which the children's mother occupied a prominent place; she was, indeed, to a great extent ignorant of the ways and doings of everyday people (since at school she had known nothing of what passed beyond the school boundaries, and in Octavia Baynhurst's house her outlook had been even more circumscribed), so that it was no great matter for surprise if she found herself unable to understand all that passed about and around her now. But what she lacked in actual experience, in definite knowledge, was filled in by natural wit and sympathy and intuition. It needed no deep study to grasp the best and sweetest traits of so human a being as Camilla, nor was it necessary for worldly knowledge to open her eyes to the glaring faults, the amazing contrasts in this woman's character.
The first time she had heard Mrs. Lancing tell a lie—quite pleasantly, and without the slightest effort or hesitation—Caroline had winced; it had been such a trivial, such a petty untruth; but what had given it importance in Caroline's eyes, accentuating the unworthiness of the act, had been the fact that both the children had been present, and that Betty had laughed at her mother's cleverness as at an excellent joke.
To doubt the woman's anxious, deep-rooted love for her children was to doubt the light of the sun itself; but Caroline summed it up as a love without discrimination or any sense of real responsibility.
Camilla Lancing would have been aghast if any one had told her this; for there would be no sacrifice too great—of this the girl was convinced—for the mother to undertake on behalf of her children, if circumstances should demand it of her.
Caroline, however, was judging her by her everyday attitude, when life was running on ordinary and not heroic lines, and she drew her conclusions from those unconscious signs and uncounted actions that reveal the personality far more truthfully than any deliberate or analytical study can ever do.
Dennis, who was a garrulous person, was fond of dilating on her mistress's little ways; but she was loyal. It was soon made evident that she was very fond of Mrs. Lancing.
"She never had no proper chance," she said this night to Caroline as they made notes and agreed to buy only what was absolutely necessary. "Started out, she did, with everything that money can give. My sister was a second housemaid in her old home. That was before her father lost everything and they come down to next to nothing. Miss Camilla was only a bit of a child then, and if Sir Edmund had done the proper thing by her he would have let his sister take her. You see his wife died when Miss Camilla was born. But he wouldn't part with her—and so they went wandering about goodness knows where, never staying more nor a month in any place. How I came to know so much was because I took service with Sir Edmund's sister, Lady Settlewood, and a hard place I had with her too; a little bit different to what I get now! Her ladyship was for ever wantin' to have Miss Camilla to live with her, she'd no children of her own. She declared as it was a sin and a crime that the girl should grow up any-hows, with no chance of schooling; but there, she just talked to deaf ears! For if even the father would have given her up, Miss Camilla wouldn't have left him neither. There's a picture of Sir Edmund hanging beside Mrs. Lancing's bed," said Dennis. "You look at it when you go in her room next time, and you'll see what a nice face he had. Many's the time he's given me a sovereign when I know he'd none too many to spare!"
Caroline interposed here a little gently.
"Perhaps Mrs. Lancing would rather not have these things talked about, Dennis?"
But Dennis, who was folding up the clothes and putting them away, only shrugged her shoulders.
"She knows there'll be nothing told bad if it's told by me," she said; "besides," added the woman, "I'm telling you this because you're the first person as has come into this house as I'd care to see stay in, and that's the truth. My dear," said the maid, straightening herself for a minute, "she wants a friend awful badly. Some one different to me. There's things she could talk to you about which she couldn't talk to me. I'd like you to know, now you're starting out, just what she is, and why things seem to go so crookedly. How do you expect her to keep account of pennies when she was brought up in the way she was? I always 'oped her ladyship was going to stand by Miss Camilla, and so I think she would have done if only there hadn't been that miserable marriage!"
Dennis was silent for a while, then she said—
"Poor Sir Edmund, he just broke his heart when Miss Camilla run off with Captain Lancing. I'll never forget his look the day he came to her ladyship's house and asked if we could any of us give him news of his girl!" Dennis was running her hand into a pile of stockings all riddled with holes. "You see he'd never taken any heed of the fact, as Miss Camilla was a beauty." She talked on. "He'd always laughed when her ladyship kept on as he ought to have a governess or somebody about with Miss Camilla. He looked on her as no more nor a child. And so she was a child," said Dennis, hotly, as if she were suddenly defending her mistress against some accuser, and she flung the stockings on to the table viciously. "How couldsheknow what she was doing? Wasn't he handsome enough to turn the head of any girl? Who was to think that he'd be such a blackguard, and he coming of such a sanctimonious church-going lot? People as turn their noses up at everybody who hasn't got the Lord's Prayer printed on their backs! If them sort of folk is saints, give me sinners, I say!"
"I think four pairs of stockings each will do for the winter," Caroline said here.
She was fascinated, even excited by this story of Camilla Lancing's early history; at the same time, she shrank from hearing these things unknown to Camilla. But when Dennis was started on this subject it was hard to stop her.
"Well, she came to know the truth, poor dear, when it was too late; when her father was in his grave, and her ladyship wouldn't hear her name spoke. Oh, some folk is hard and no mistake. There was a woman with a comfortable three thousand a year, and not a soul to leave it to but Miss Camilla, and if you believe me, when she went there wasn't not even the name of the poor child mentioned in the will! That's what's forced her to turn round and let these Lancings do for her. Her father had left her what he had, but, bless you, that went noway with the captain having the handling of it! ... I think, my dear," Dennis said here, "as we'd best put down a yard or two of blue serge. I'll run up a couple of dark overalls for the house. That'll make a big difference in the washing bill."
"It would be so nice of you if you would give me a few lessons in dressmaking, Dennis," Caroline said; "it seems a pity that the children should have such costly clothes. They only grow out of them. Look at all these lace frocks. They must have cost any amount of money, and they are all torn to ribbons. Perhaps we can use them up in the summer in some way or other."
"It's thrift that's wanted here," said Dennis; "just a little thought, just a little care. Of course, I do what I can, but I hate to go vexing her when there's such a lot of other people ready to worrit, and, bless you, you can't put it into the servants' heads. What is it to them when the books run on for months; whose to check 'em? Ah, my dear. There's a sight, of things you could do if you only would!"
The parlourmaid brought up a letter for Caroline at this moment, and she put it on one side till she was alone.
When everything was thoroughly well arranged Dennis said "good night!"
"I'll make time to go along with you in the morning, and the children will enjoy it. Bless you, Miss Betty she loves shoppin' and getting new clothes just as if she was growed up."
Caroline opened her letter when she was undressed.
It was from Rupert Haverford—a tardy answer to the few lines she had sent him. Nothing could have been colder than this letter.
Though he made no definite expression of objection, Caroline felt that he was sharply annoyed at what she had done. This fact annoyed her in its turn.
"So Mrs. Brenton was right," she said to herself, "and heisangry. It is very unreasonable and rather absurd! I suppose he expects everybody to give him the obedience of slaves, that any sort of independence is objectionable to him. Well, he is mistaken as far as I am concerned. It is my business to be independent, to think and act for myself, and I am assuredly not going to throw up this work just to please Mr. Haverford."
She read the letter through twice.
"He makes no mention of his mother this time," she mused, and her look took a smile that was half a sneer. "Perhaps it vexes him that I should be with one of his friends," was her next thought. "After all, he is Octavia Baynhurst's son, so there must be a good deal of objectionable element in his composition."
She made up the fire quietly, and then sat staring into it till a late hour.
This letter not only annoyed her, it disquieted her. She realized in this moment that she was changing, that the innumerable new sensations through which she was passing had taken from her altogether that kind of sullenness, that apathy that had fallen upon her like a cloak during her stay with Mrs. Baynhurst.
As a school-girl she had been very high-spirited, and even intolerant of restriction; it was wonderful, all things considered, that she had not been called upon to suffer for her strong will, her hot temper, and her defiant spirit. She was very grateful now to the woman who had guarded her and trained her all those years.
True, there had been no pretence of affection, softness, or gentle thought, but equally there had been no unnecessary repression, no hardship.
Caroline had been allowed freedom up to a certain point; her love of fields, and trees, and flowers, and young animals had never been curbed. In that deserted old school garden (that now gave her a pang to remember) there would be found a plot that had belonged entirely to herself, and where, with seeds and plants begged from the gardener, she had reared to herself a little world of flowers, as dear to her as human beings.
The change from this simple and health-giving life, to the unnatural confinement, the irritating atmosphere of Mrs. Baynhurst's house, had worked great ill to Caroline.
Unfitted and utterly unprepared to carry out the work Mrs. Baynhurst expected of her, she had shivered like a whipped slave beneath the bitter, biting sarcasm of her employer's tongue; she had been scourged all the time by the sense of her own imperfections; another year of such a life and Caroline would have broken down in mind and body.
She was nervous in these days, but only in a purely sympathetic way.
The generous affection of these little creatures, who were already as it were dependent on her, brought from the depths of her heart a hot flood of womanly tenderness; awakened with joy the knowledge that it was given to her to be blessed with love, to be permitted to give protective love in return; a wondrously beautiful gift to one who had never known love in any degree!
Then, again, contact with Camilla's charming personality was, like her brief intercourse with Mrs. Brenton, an awakening influence.
To have been treated as she had been treated by these two women, sympathetically, courteously; to realize that they recognized in her an equal, that friendship with her was not only possible, but desirable, endowed life for her in this moment with an indescribable grace.
After Dennis had left her this night she had sat thinking over the story she had heard; as she pondered it she felt she had drawn perceptibly nearer to comprehension of Camilla Lancing and her complex character, and the suggestion that it was in her power to be helpful and comforting to the children's mother had made her heart thrill.
Haverford's cold words of annoyance came most inopportunely.
It was only natural, perhaps, that she should misunderstand him.
"Perhaps he thinks that I asked for this work," she said to herself, and she flushed hotly with humiliation as the thought came. "I wish I had not gone to him! And yet," was her next quick thought, "if I had not gone I should not be here. Well! when I have paid him back the money he lent me there will be no need to trouble about him any more."
She laughed a little shortly to herself.
"If I had refused this work that would have been wrong!"
It was growing late, so she turned the light low, and then went to bed. There she lay thinking the matter over and over again.
"I think I will send this letter on to Mrs. Brenton," she decided, "and I will ask her to advise me what I ought to do." As the heat died out of her feeling and she grew calmer her mood changed a little. She began to judge Haverford less sharply. "Certainly he was kind to me in his own peculiar way, and there was no need really for him to have done anything at all. I suppose I ought to have consulted him!" She sighed several times. "I knew it was all too pleasant to last," she said wearily, "I knew something disagreeable would happen."
It was very strange, but a decided feeling of regret came in place of annoyance the more she thought over the situation.
She had grown accustomed to hear Rupert Haverford discussed and denounced in the bitterest fashion by his mother. Just for this very reason she had determined that it was probable that this man would be rich in those qualities that were so lacking in his mother. Indeed, it was the conviction that he was just and honest and straightforward that had driven her towards him when she had found herself so greatly in need of help. And he had not belied this belief in him. When he had convinced himself that she had an undoubted claim on his mother, he had without hesitation stepped into the breach and taken upon himself the right to protect and to provide for her. And viewing the matter in this quiet, practical way, it did not take Caroline very long to assure herself that she had not done exactly what she ought to have done.
"I shall write to him to-morrow, and I shall try and let him feel that I am sorry. Very probably he won't trouble himself any more about the matter; still, I shall write all the same."
And soothed by this determination, Caroline nestled down into the pillows and was soon asleep.