"She won't promise. I shall see what Dick says about it."
"Then you'll just do nothing of the sort, Jack," said his grandmother,
"making mountains out of mole-hills. Nettie is going to London to stay
with her aunt Cheriton, and have some music and French lessons with
Dolly and Kate. I'd settled it all this morning. She doesn't attend
enough to her studies here. You'll take her up when you go to Oxford,
and there'll be an end of the matter."
"Yes, yes," said Mr Lester. "Grandmamma and I were talking it over
just now."
"Not that it is on account of your remarks, Jack," said Mrs Lester.
"That would be making far too much of her foolish behaviour; but in
London she'll learn better."
"To be sure," said Mr Lester, who had been stopped on his way out
riding by Jack's appeal, and was now glad to escape from an unpleasant
discussion. "Nettie will come back at Christmas, and we shall hear no
more of such childish tricks."
Nettie looked like a statue, and never spoke a word; but there was a
look of fright through all her sullenness. Jack was not accustomed to
think much of her appearance, but he knew as a matter of fact that she
was handsome, and it struck him forcibly that she looked "grown-up."
"You've done more harm than you know," she said; "but I will not tell,
and I will not promise." And with a sort of dignity in her air, she
walked out of the room.
"What does she mean?" said Jack.
"Never you mind," said his grandmother, "and don't you raise the
countryside on her by saying a word to Dick or any one. Hold your
tongue, and be thankful. The Seytons are the plague of the place, and
we'll ask them all to dinner before Nettie goes, Dick included."
"Ask them to dinner?" said Jack.
"Yes; we'll have no talk of a quarrel. And besides, your father finds
that people are apt to think that it was Virginia's fault that your
half-brother left her in the lurch; and that's not so, though she _is_ a
Seyton."
"No, indeed!"
"So my son means to have a dinner-party, and to show that we are all
good friends, and pay them proper attention. A bad lot they are;
there's not one of them to be trusted."
"But, Granny," said Jack anxiously, "what do you think about Nettie?
What secret can she have?"
"Eh, I can't tell. He may be getting her a puppy or a creature of some
kind; but Nettie's secret may be one and Dick's another. I always
blamed Cherry for encouraging the Seytons about the place."
"Poor Cherry!" muttered Jack to himself, with a great longing to throw
the burden of his difficulty on to Cherry's shoulders.
Nettie remained sullen and impenetrable. She treated Jack with an
intense resentment that vexed him more than he could have supposed.
Neither her father nor her grandmother asked her any questions; but she
was watched, though not palpably in disgrace, and she suffered from an
agony of shame and of self-reproach which contended strangely with the
motive that in her view justified the stolen meetings. Whether her
womanly instincts, roughly awakened, justified the warnings given her,
or whether, she merely resented the unjust suspicion, she herself
scarcely knew, and not for worlds would she have explained her feelings.
The dread of giving an advantage, the intense sulky self-respect that
leads to an exaggeration of reserve and false shame, was in her nature
as in that of all the Lesters, and if Cheriton had been present she
could not probably have uttered a word to him. Being absent, she could
venture to soften at the thought of him, and cried for him many a time
in secret.