A MILD REQUEST.
Grace was standing on the platform at the Dynechester station the
afternoon of the next day, as the train from London pulled slowly up.
In her sealskin coat and cap she looked strikingly handsome, but more
than one of the people who knew her well had remarked a difference in
the girl’s usually bright, happy expression. In fact, Grace had a pale,
tired air this afternoon, very unlike her general bearing.
The brother’s eyes noted this from the railway carriage before they had
clasped hands.
“What’s amiss, Gracie?” Val asked, as they walked down the platform
together; “and what have you been doing to yourself? You look quite
ill.”
“I could not close my eyes last night,” Grace answered. “I had a great
shock yesterday. Oh! Val, it is nice to see you! I think last night was
the longest _year_ I have ever known. No; I don’t want to drive. Joseph
is coming down for your bag and things, and I can tell you better all
that has happened out here in the air as we walk.”
Valentine tucked his sister’s hand through his arm.
“Fire away, dear old girl!” was all he said.
He knew something of a heavy nature must have fallen on Grace to upset
her in this way; she was neither an alarmist nor a person given to any
form of exaggeration.
“Somehow I don’t believe you will be in the least surprised to hear
my news,” Grace said, as they walked briskly toward the Dower House,
avoiding the town.
The weather had changed. It was much colder.
Up in London there had been sleet and rain, but down here in the
country it was dry, flaky snow that was falling, whispering against
their faces not unpleasantly, and covering them with a thin white veil.
“Yesterday, just after you had gone,” Grace continued, “I had a
visitor. I had barely got home from the station, and was giving Joseph
some orders in the hall when there came the sound of carriage wheels,
and a loud peal at the bell, and before I knew where I was, Val, I
found myself face to face with Lady Wentworth.”
Val said “Ah!” and that was all; but the exclamation was full of
significance.
“You can imagine my astonishment,” Grace said, clinging to her big
brother, and pouring out all her story with a childlike eagerness. “I
am afraid I forgot my manners for a few seconds, I was so surprised;
but, of course, I soon recovered, and I asked her into my little room
and ordered tea just as if she were in the habit of coming every day.
She was quite as much at her ease, and she took the most comfortable
chair, and drank the tea with the air of a queen; but I saw her eyes
going round my little snuggery, and somehow everything seemed suddenly
to look old and shabby. What strange eyes she has, Val,” Grace said,
with a faint shiver. “They are so beautiful, and yet so cold and hard.”
“What did she want?” asked Valentine, after he had piloted his sister
round a rather bleak corner, and they were within a stone’s throw of
their home.
“Oh! something very simple in her view of the matter. But to me——”
Grace could not help her voice breaking for a moment. “Val, she wants
the Dower House. She wants our dear old home. She—she barely gives
us time to pack our things and get out of it. She wants it in such a
hurry!”
By the light of one of the old-fashioned lanterns slung from one
of the old walls Grace saw her brother’s face. It was very stern,
white and fixed, as though in pain. The next instant it changed as
the man, looking down, caught the tears in his sister’s eyes, and the
unhappiness of her expression.
“My poor little Gracie. This is awfully hard on you!” he said, tenderly.
“And on you, too, dear,” the girl answered.
She was silent a moment; then she said, quietly:
“Yes; it is hard. Very—very hard. Somehow it gets a little harder each
time I try to realize it, and I think the hardest bit of all is the
fact that Mark should be so unkind to us. For, of course,” Grace said,
with a sigh, “she could not have come as she did yesterday without
Mark’s knowledge and sanction. Could she, Val?”
Ambleton opened the doorway that led them through a large courtyard to
a side entrance of the house.
“Mark most possibly knows all there is to know by this time; but
whether he sanctioned it or not is quite another matter. I take it Lady
Wentworth is not the kind of nature to be controlled by the will of
anyone, least of all by such a will as Mark possesses. When she makes
up her mind to do a certain thing, that thing she will do, Gracie,
dear, if not by straight means, then by crooked ones! What excuse did
she give you for commanding this eviction?” Val asked, abruptly, and
with that curious grim smile of his, as they entered the house and
stood by the warmth of the hall fire for a few moments.
“She said,” Grace answered, as she slipped off her coat and shook it
free from the snow, “that her husband had decided to offer the Dower
House as a permanent home to her mother and sister. I gathered from
what she said that the father’s death had left them very poor. I
suppose you think this reason was fictitious, Val?”
Val did not answer all at once.
He had again before his eyes the memory of Polly as he had seen her
yesterday, and at this memory the hot anger in his heart melted a
little. Truly she had looked poor enough and very sorrowful. It would
have given him a touch of pleasure to cede his home to her, and to
that poor, weak mother she loved so well; but he knew without any need
of words that Christina Wentworth had not the smallest intention of
settling these two, either in Dynechester or elsewhere. It was but a
clever method on her part this suggestion of affection and care, and it
had been used merely as a means to an end.
To vent her spite on him, there was nothing this woman would not have
done willingly, and he was forced to confess that out of all the many
things she might have done she had chosen the one best calculated to
hurt him. The hurt was not for himself, but for Grace. The girl had a
love for the home she had lived in so long that could not be measured
by words, and Lady Wentworth must have understood this very quickly,
and laid her plans accordingly.
Val felt he was near the truth when he told Grace that Christina was
acting on her own account and intention entirely.
He knew all Mark Wentworth’s faults, and he condemned them as strongly
as they needed to be condemned; but he knew also that the very worst of
his cousin’s faults lacked the element of cruelty and the desire for
vengeance that was prominent in such a nature as Christina’s.
This attack, therefore, had been Christina’s conception alone. He
doubted even whether Mark Wentworth as yet knew anything of the matter,
and he had sufficient faith in the young man’s former affection for
himself and Grace to be sure that the news, when it was communicated
to Mark, would make a great impression on him. Naturally, if all this
quick summing up on Val’s part was true, and Christina had acted
without her husband’s knowledge, it would be a foregone conclusion that
she would be ready with some plausible explanation of her own invention
to smooth down Mark’s feelings on the matter. Or, perhaps, what was
even more possible, having so bold and strong a hold on her husband,
she would not trouble to give any explanation at all.
All these things, however, made the bitterness of the moment none the
less bitter to poor Grace, and Val hardly knew what line of sympathy
and consolation to offer to his sister.
The loss of a house was not irremediable under ordinary circumstances;
but Grace’s circumstances were not ordinary. Indeed, Val found it
difficult to picture his sister established anywhere else save in this
quaint, charming old dwelling.
“You are not going to fret and make yourself ill, Grace, I hope?” he
said, as the girl came and took off his heavy overcoat. “After all, if
we do leave the Dower House, we shall be still together, and that will
constitute a home wherever we are.”
Grace kissed him as she answered as cheerfully as she could:
“Of course I shan’t fret, dear. It—it is just now, at the very
beginning, that I feel things a little sharply. Last night—but I won’t
think of last night,” she added, resolutely. “You were not here, so it
made all the difference, Val. I have not thanked you for coming back
to-day. I hope you have not left any important business. I waited a
long time before I sent you that telegram, but finally I had to let it
go. I never felt so crushed and lonely in my life before.”
“Poor little Gracie!” Val held his sister’s hands in a caressing way
peculiar to him, and he drew her to him and kissed her brow. “We
will have a thorough confabulation together after dinner,” he said,
cheerily, “and now run along and put on a cozy teagown, and tell Joseph
to bring some champagne. I am going to insure you a good, sound sleep
to-night, whatever happens.”
Grace laughed almost in her old, bright way as she picked up her coat
and disappeared, and Val sent a tender look after the girl.
He had always had a pride in realizing the splendid qualities of his
sister’s nature, and he knew now that deep as this premeditated cruelty
on Christina’s part must cut, Grace would quickly rise superior to the
occasion.
He stood a long time in front of the blazing wood fire, and a little of
the unbounded regret that Grace must feel at parting from this dear,
cozy old home came to him.
He was far removed from being a sentimental man, but he was a man to
whom home and home ties appealed strongly, and, after all, the greater
portion of his life had been lived beneath this roof.
If he shut his eyes he could see in fancy his mother’s delicate, frail
figure pass slowly down the old oaken staircase; the day of her funeral
came back to him clearly in this moment of retrospection. He remembered
how the boy, Mark, had wept for the loss of his gentle, suffering aunt.
There had always been good in Mark’s heart, that small touch of human
sympathy which was so redeeming a quality.
Valentine felt sure had he yielded to impulse, and gone direct up to
his cousin at Sunstead, that this business would have been rearranged
in a very little while.
Though the rift between them was very wide, and seemed to grow wider
every day, Val did not allow himself to feel that the once strong bond
of affection that had existed between Mark and himself could be utterly
broken, and had his cousin been free now from any outside influence,
Val might not have hesitated to have gone direct to the young man and
in a few, plain words set the whole business right.
The very suggestion, however, of such a proceeding, under existing
circumstances, was, of course, impossible.
Christina ruled with an undivided sovereignty, and Val, though his hot,
quick anger rose at the knowledge of this, and of the most unworthy use
this woman was putting her influence to, resolved not to allow himself
to come in contact with his cousin’s wife, or to let Grace be subjected
any further, if this were possible, to the keen-edged spite of one whom
he regarded as being contemptible.
The dinner that night at the Dower House was a very serious matter.
Despite the champagne, and the warmth, and coziness of the
surroundings, Val could not succeed in driving the white, troubled look
from his sister’s face.
They talked the whole matter through in that practical, straightforward
way so characteristic of them both.
“Lady Wentworth asked me if we could vacate the house about the middle
of January. This leaves us very little time to fix ourselves anywhere,
Val, even if we had the smallest idea where to look for a new home,”
Grace had said at the commencement of the discussion.
Val resolutely thrust his own feelings into the background.
“I shall take a week’s holiday, and move everything myself. I flatter
myself I am worth two ordinary workmen,” he laughed, lightly. “We had
better send a few words to our Christmas guests, Grace, and explain
the situation to them.” But Grace, with a sudden rush of color to her
cheeks, negatived this.
“Let us have one more Christmas in our usual fashion. I—I don’t think
I shall ever care for Christmas again,” she said, as she bent down to
speak caressingly to her dogs, and to hide the rush of tears to her
eyes.
“You shall do all you want to do, dear,” Val said, tenderly, and
then he looked at her half quizzically, “and do you know, I fancy I
see something lurking in the corner of your eyes. Have you not been
formulating some little plan of your own that you have not told me
about?”
Grace smiled faintly.
“Why am I such a transparent person, I wonder? Yes,” she added,
frankly, a moment later, “I have a plan which I was going to try and
put in action before all this happened, Val. I want you to ask Mark to
consent to our having grannie to live with us. I am most unhappy about
her. She is so old, and suffers so much, and I—I fear,” Grace said,
in a low tone—“I fear, Val, she does not get the attention she needs.
Ellen made me very sad about her the other day. Of course, dear, if you
object, we won’t move in the matter, especially now,” and Grace paused
abruptly.
Val, however, took the matter up warmly.
“Now is just the moment to speak, Grace. I have already decided on our
new home. We will take that pretty house that poor Mrs. Bentley has
been so anxious to let ever since her husband’s death. I will go about
it to-morrow. We must remain in Dynechester. Apart from my appointment,
I am quite sure you would never be so happy anywhere else.”
“I feel,” Grace said, “that I ought to urge you to let me live in
London, then I could make a home for Sacha and for you, too, but——”
The brother understood the “but” to the full.
“Mrs. Bentley’s house is charming,” he said, cheerily; “it is almost as
old as this, and in your skillful hands will be quite as picturesque.
We can get into it without any very great bother, and to-night I will
write to Mark and propose your plan about grannie.”
Grace looked at her brother.
“If he should refuse?”
Val shook his head with a smile.
“Lady Wentworth likes a house with plenty of space at her disposal,” he
said, dryly, “and grannie is only a tiresome old woman, who takes much
too long to die.”
Grace had never heard her brother speak like this before. Her face grew
a little sadder.
“What will be Mark’s future?” she said, wistfully. “I could not help
thinking yesterday, Val, how much power lies in this woman’s hands.
I believe she could make Mark into something better than he had ever
been, and yet I am sure she will work in just the opposite direction.
How right you were to mistrust her!”
“And how right you were,” Valentine said to this, “to urge me not to
interfere in the matter when Mark’s determination was made. Had I never
gone to Christina Pennington that bygone day, it is possible Christina
Wentworth would have been our friend now instead of our enemy, Grace.
It was a big mistake, and I was so clumsy, I made the mistake worse a
hundred times than it need have been.”
He had Polly’s face before his eyes as he said this, and Polly’s
little, frank utterance of how much she had hated him for his
interference that day. It was wonderful what a softness came over his
angry thoughts when he remembered Polly.
“Did Lady Wentworth tell you when her mother and sister were coming?”
he asked.
Grace shook her head.
“She merely said she was going to establish them here. I suppose, Val,
we have no legal right to this house?”
“Absolutely none. The person who could claim this place for her
lifetime is poor grannie, but Lady Wentworth can easily afford to
dismiss her from all connection in the matter. Were it not for you,
Grace dear, and for all the thousand and one associations that are the
very essence of our home here, I should feel almost glad to think that
Lady Wentworth’s mother and sister should take our place. They are not
of the same world as she. I have always felt a little pang when I have
remembered poor Mrs. Pennington. She had a face that would go straight
to your heart, Grace, and the sister is——” Val paused, as though he
could not find the right word to apply to Polly, as, indeed, he could
not.
“The sister, then, is quite different to Lady Wentworth?” Grace said,
half listlessly.
She was beginning to feel the reaction of the mental excitement through
which she had passed, and Val’s hesitation did not convey anything to
her.
She rose as she spoke, and Valentine rose, too.
“Oh! yes; the sister is quite different,” he said, hastily, and with
that the subject of Polly dropped.