Capricious Caroline Part 21

"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 ent.i.tle 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. "I _know_ something 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.

a.s.suredly 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 I _do_ want you, and I think it is horrid of you to go rushing back now, just because d.i.c.k 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."