Capricious Caroline Part 17

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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.ses of yellowish hair, had short-sighted eyes, and a dull white skin. She always used long, blue-tinted gla.s.ses, 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."