Capricious Caroline Part 35

Miss Graniger followed the children and their mother downstairs.

It made her heart thrill to see the way Haverford turned to greet Camilla. He was evidently sharply concerned about Mrs. Lancing's indisposition, but he did not fuss her, and she stood with both children clinging to her as she exchanged a few words with him.

At lunch-time Caroline found herself seated next to him. Betty was on his other side.

"Look after Miss Graniger, please, Rupert," Mrs. Brenton had said to him, and he took up the duty in a literal sense.

"This is a typical English Christmas dinner," he said to her once. He tried to make her smile and talk, but Caroline had no command of words.

She felt dazed with the myriad sensations that encircled her about.

When the plum-pudding, all afire, was brought in with cheers, and every one stood up to sing "Should auld acquaintance be forgot," Caroline broke down for a moment. But only Haverford knew this. Almost at once she had conquered herself, and as he asked her to clink gla.s.ses with him she smiled. Her face moved him sharply; it was quivering with emotion; her eyes were most beautiful.

She had lost her white, careworn look, and though she was still thin there was a pinkish glow in her skin; no one would have called her plain in this moment.

"Suppose you change places with me," he said; "Betty wants to have you near her."

They effected the change quite quietly, and with the need of looking after the child, that oppression of emotion slipped gradually away from the girl's heart.

Long afterwards, when all that was new and strange had grown into a calm and natural background, Caroline remembered that Christmas luncheon at Yelverton as one of the pleasantest experiences ever granted to her.

Mrs. Lancing ate nothing, but she did her best to be bright; that she was suffering all the time was, however, clear to both Caroline and Haverford.

It was a long time before she could escape from the festivities, but when everybody had trooped to the Christmas tree, she managed to slip away, and she drew Caroline aside with her.

"Come and help me," she said. "This is one of Dennis's rare holidays, and I don't believe I can get upstairs by myself."

It was on Caroline's lips to ask if she should call Mr. Haverford; but glancing back, she saw that he had been summoned by Mrs. Brenton to officiate at the huge tree, so they pa.s.sed out together.

"It is a shame to bother you," said Camilla when she got up to her room. She was trembling as with cold, and her brows and eyes were contracted with the sharpness of the pain.

"You know I am glad to come," said Caroline in her quietest way.

"I know you are very comforting; just the sort of person one wants about one when one is ill. Don't go away for a little while."

Caroline made up the fire, and then sat down in an armchair beside it, just as she had sat on another memorable occasion. She looked ever and again at Mrs. Lancing, who had crouched on the sofa, both her hands pressed to her head.

In a little while the tension seemed to relax, and Camilla opened her eyes.

"Has Rupert told you your own story?" she asked.

"A little bit; not all."

"He says it is my duty to let you leave me if you want to go," said Camilla, after another little pause.

Caroline looked at her with a little start.

"Why should I want to leave you?"

"Well"--it was a very weak little laugh that Camilla gave--"of course, now that you are an independent young person, you may not care to stop." Her brows came together again sharply for a minute, and she held her hand pressed tightly to her eyes, "Fancy that odious mother of his cheating you out of your money all this time," she said feebly when she spoke.

Caroline felt hot, and yet there was a blank sensation about her at the same time.

"Money?" she said.

"Oh, hasn't he told you? How like him! I suppose it will be a month before he will let you know everything."

"I think Mr. Haverford meant to speak to me this afternoon," Caroline said very hurriedly, "but we have had no chance as yet of any private conversation. He did tell me that I was right in supposing that I had a claim upon Mrs. Baynhurst, and he told me also a little about my mother, but that was all."

"Well, there doesn't seem very much to tell," said Mrs. Lancing, after a pause, "except that you have a certain small income of your own, which his mother, it appears, has kept entirely for herself all these years. I don't know that I ought to say very much about that sort of thing," said Camilla, with her half bitter laugh. "I am not so wonderfully straight and honest myself, and I hate throwing stones at anybody else. Still, I don't know that I should defraud a child, and that is what Mrs. Baynhurst did, and would have continued doing if she had not been in a bad temper one day, and turned you out of her house."

Caroline sat with her hands locked round one of her knees.

"I expect she did it because of Cuthbert," she said.

This remark seemed to rouse Mrs. Lancing.

"Oh, by the way, he is staying with the Bardolphs," she said; "it is the first time I have met him. You know he is a very handsome fellow, Caroline, and how clever! He sings enchantingly. Pam Bardolph is raving about him. He is painting her portrait. Did you ever know two men more unlike than he and Rupert?"

"Yes, they are very unlike," said Caroline.

Mrs. Lancing lay still a minute or two, and then she opened her eyes again and smiled at Caroline.

There was no light in the room, except the strong glow from the flames which shot up the chimney. From below they could hear the murmur of voices, and sometimes the excited laughter of the children.

"But you won't leave me just yet, will you?"

"I am afraid you will have to turn me out when you want to get rid of me," said Caroline. A moment later, in a low and moved voice, she said, "Do you imagine it would be so easy for me to separate myself from you and the children?"

The woman on the couch stretched out her hand, and Caroline stooped forward and took it in hers.

"I should like to think that you would stick to me, that you would never turn against me," she said, and her lips quivered.

Caroline's only answer was to tighten her hold on that slender hand.

Then she rose and put a warmer wrap over Mrs. Lancing.

"Don't you think if I were to leave you now you would sleep? Perhaps I had better go downstairs again, and see what the children are doing.

They may be getting into mischief and I am sure Babsy, dear little heart, must be nearly worn out."

And with some persuasion Mrs. Lancing a.s.sented to this. As she reached the big hall, Caroline met Rupert Haverford.

"Mrs. Lancing is resting. I have persuaded her to lie down. She wants to be well for dinner."

Rupert thanked her.

"I was just coming to look for you. The children are clamouring to know why 'Caroline' has vanished? So I volunteered to find her. Are you having a happy Christmas?" he asked, with a smile.

"I am happy altogether," Caroline answered him; "it is so wonderful to find that after all I have a little place of my own in the world, and that there are people who actually care to know what is pa.s.sing with me."