Rupert Haverford came back from America about the beginning of October.
He went down immediately to Yelverton.
The children were still with Mrs. Brenton--that is to say, they had
gone for a brief while to stay with their mother; but the visit had not
been a success, and Camilla herself proposed that she should make some
arrangement to let the little folk stay for a few months longer under
Mrs. Brenton's care.
"You see, we haven't got a house yet," she said; "nothing would induce
Cuthbert to live in the house his mother left him. We must get that off
our hands before we settle ourselves in another, and then I think we
shall go to the Riviera this winter. He has several portraits that he
wants to paint there."
Once, with a laugh, she had said--
"I have two minds to ask Rupert to lend us that big house of his. It is
absurd to shut it up for months at a time when we are homeless."
It was, therefore, as much on the children's account as anything else
that Haverford went to Yelverton.
Nevertheless, he found himself travelling down to Mrs. Brenton's
comfortable house with a sense of eagerness that was half pleasure.
The reason for his visit to the States had not been wrongly reported;
chance had brought to his knowledge the fact that there were some
connections of Matthew Woolgar settled in America--humble, struggling
people to whom money would be a godsend.
He spent at least a couple of months before he came across a trace of
these people, and then, to his disappointment, found that the family
had dwindled to two old people, who were quite unfit to take the voyage
to England, and for whom little was possible except placing them in
comfortable circumstances.
So he said to Agnes Brenton when he told her of all this.
"You see, I can't get rid of my money."
"It seems to me," said Mrs. Brenton, "you have made a very good attempt
at it." Then, with a little colour in her face, she added, "I go back
to my old theory about you. I want to see you well married. I should
like you to take a prominent part in the life of the day."
He made no remark for a little while, then he said--
"Yes, I shall marry; I hope soon."
To herself Mrs. Brenton confessed a great disappointment.
"An American woman!" she said to herself. "I did hope he would have
married somebody over here."
The welcome the children gave him was a royal one; but Caroline barely
touched his hand, and expressed no pleasure at seeing him again. It
seemed however, that he had something to say to her.
"I want to talk to you about the children," he said. "Will you come out
into the garden?"
"I thought everything was settled for the time being," Caroline said.
"There are various things I should like to discuss with you."
She stole a little glance at him as they walked into the
well-remembered path, where now the rose-bushes were barren of bloom
and the ground was carpeted with faded leaves.
He was looking wonderfully well, with that bronzed look in his skin,
which made his teeth so white, and his eyes so delightful. She noticed
that he seemed altogether brisker, and his first speech touched on this.
"Do you know that my trip to America has done me a lot of good? It has
shaken me up--hustled me out of my old groove. The Americans are a
wonderful nation! There are no rich idle men there, they have given me
enough hints to keep me employed for the rest of my existence."
He looked at her with half a smile.
"I am glad," said Caroline.
"Are you? Well say it a little more as if you meant it."
Against herself she laughed.
Then he stretched out his hand.
"You don't bear me any grudge, Caroline?"
"Why should I?"
She did not take his hand, and with a quick frown he let it drop to his
side.
"Well, you know you have not written me a line since I have been away."
She looked at him with open eyes at this.
"Did you expect me to write?"
"Of course," he said, with a smile. "It would have been the proper
thing for a ward to do. And that brings me to the question I put to you
just now. Are you still angry with me because I tried to enforce my
authority when last I saw you?"
"No," she said, "I am not angry."
"Then look more pleasant."
Again she had to laugh, but it was a very transitory laugh.
"I thought you wanted to talk about the children."
"You are one of the children," he answered.
As she made an impatient movement he changed his tone.
"I want to talk to you about myself. I'm not exactly a child, but I
find I want some one to give me just a little of the attention that you
give Betty and Baby."
She grew very hot, and found it rather difficult to breathe.
"I am not satisfied with you only as a ward," Haverford said, and there
was an indescribable note of tenderness in his voice, "because there
are such difficulties in the way of seeing you. I want you for
something closer, better, more helpful. Caroline, will you be my wife?"
She stopped dead, and looked at him with eyes ablaze, then, in a choked
voice, she said--
"No!" and then again, "No!" and then she walked on very quickly. He
followed her.
"You can't mean that," he said, his tone one of absolute astonishment.
She answered him over her shoulders.
"I do most emphatically." He looked quite dismayed, and the girl broke
in hurriedly, "Of course it is very astonishing, I suppose; but call it
a caprice, if you like, I have an objection to marry a very rich man. I
have an objection," she said, with quivering lips, "to be chosen for a
wife just as somebody would choose a carpet, or a piece of furniture."
"Good God!" said Haverford. "Do you suppose that I want to buy you?"
"I don't suppose anything," said Caroline, "except that I thank you
very much for your offer; and I decline it."
He let her walk on, and stood looking after her bewildered and pained.
She had grown so closely into his thoughts of late, she had become so
individualized with all his new schemes for the future, she was so
necessary, so dear, so precious (especially since he had learned how he
had misjudged her, and Mrs. Brenton had lost very little time in making
him acquainted with this) that he could hardly realize that she had
turned so deliberately away from him.
He made no effort to follow her, however; there had been something
authoritative in her voice and in her manner--something that stung him
almost reproachfully. But his chief sensation was a rueful realization
of failure.
"I am a vain, clumsy fool!" he said to himself, with a vast amount of
irritation.
And after he had walked about for some considerable time, and had
pondered the situation carefully, this unflattering estimate of himself
strengthened.
If he could have comfortably taken himself away from Yelverton he would
have done so; but as he had proposed himself for this visit it would
have been difficult to have found a tangible reason for ending it in so
abrupt a fashion.
The quiet, comfortable influence of the house, and particularly the
presence of the children, worked pleasantly on his troubled mood,
however, and at dinner-time he sat chatting briskly away over his
American experiences, and noting with some satisfaction (and a good
deal more vexation) that the girl in the white gown on the opposite
side of the table matched himself in ease of manner and flow of spirit.
"I find him wonderfully improved," said Mrs. Brenton, as she and
Caroline sat having their coffee in the hall.
"Oh, he was always fairly good looking," said the girl, carelessly.
She had let Betty decorate her for dinner, and there was a large red
flower tucked in among the masses of her dark hair just behind one
small ear. She had grown taller, but was just as slim as ever; although
Mrs. Brenton invented all sorts of fattening dishes entirely for
Caroline's consumption, she refused to grow fat.
"Oh, I don't mean his looks, I mean his manner! Don't you find him ever
so much brighter and brisker? He seems quite happy too. I am glad of
that!"
Caroline put down her coffee-cup. She heard the dining-room door open.
"I am just going to run upstairs to see if Betty has dropped off. She
looked very wakeful."
Her white gown whisked out of sight as Mr. Brenton and his guest came
out of the dining-room, and though they sat a long time chatting and
smoking, Miss Graniger never came back.
"I am trying to divide her a little from this devotion to the children,
but it is not very successful," Mrs. Brenton said to Rupert, "and yet
she cannot remain with them all her life."
"I am afraid she is rather obstinate," Haverford remarked, a trifle
grimly.
The next morning he left Yelverton early--so early that the children
were only half dressed when he went.
Betty lamenting, recalled a score of promises unfulfilled, and wept
bitterly; and Caroline, as she listened to the child, felt almost
ashamed.
"Although," she argued with herself, "he need not have gone away if he
had not wanted to go."
Mrs. Brenton at luncheon gave it as her opinion that the change she had
remarked in Rupert Haverford denoted more than a surface alteration.
"I am convinced," she said, "he is going to marry an American. Isn't it
too abominable? I am so disappointed."
"When I marry," observed Betty, "I'm going to keep hens, speckley
yellow ones. You know the sort, Baby, same as the one you chooced out
of Aunt Brenny's garden."
"Chased," corrected Caroline.
"Chased," said Betty, then, in a different tone, "How _red_ you are,
Caroline, quite like as if you was boiled."
"Well," said Mr. Brenton in his quiet way, "you were saying the other
day you wanted him to marry, you know."
"So I do," agreed Agnes Brenton, "but I did not suppose he would care
about an American wife."
They discussed the probable union for some time.
It struck Caroline as so strange that both these people should regard
it as natural and certain that he should marry, and not from a mere
sense of duty, but from inclination, even from affection.
"Do they forget so easily?" she asked herself.