"I thought you would have come in, George," said Mrs Canninge, entering
her son's library, where he was seated, looking very moody and
thoughtful.
"Come in? Come in where?"
"To the drawing-room, dear. Beatrice Lambent called. I thought you
would have known."
"I saw some one come by," he said quietly. "I did not know it was she."
"She is in great trouble, poor girl!" continued Mrs Canninge; "or, I
should say, they are all in great trouble at the Vicarage."
"Indeed! I'm very sorry. What is wrong!"
"Nothing serious, my dear; only you know what good people they are, and
when they make a _protegee_ of anybody, and that body doesn't turn out
well, of course they feel it deeply."
"Of course," said George Canninge absently; and his mother bit her lip,
for she had not excited his curiosity in the least and she had wanted
him to ask questions.
"It seems very sad, poor girl!" she said after a pause.
"My dear mother," said the young squire rather impatiently, "Is it not
rather foolish of you to speak of Beatrice Lambent as `poor girl'? She
must be past thirty."
"I was not speaking of Beatrice Lambent, my dear," said Mrs Canninge;
"though, really, George, I do not think you ought to jump at conclusions
like that about dear Beatrice's age, which is, as she informed me
herself, twenty-five. I was speaking of their _protegee_ at the
Vicarage."
"I beg your pardon," said George Canninge. "I did not know, though,
that they had a _protegee_."
"Well, perhaps I am not quite correct, my dear boy, in calling her their
_protegee_; but they certainly have taken great interest in her, and it
seems very sad for her to have turned out so badly. They took such
pains about getting the right sort of person, too."
"Whom do you mean?" said the young man carelessly; "their new cook?
Why, the parson was bragging about her tremendously the other day when
he dined here--a woman who could make soup fit for a prince out of next
to nothing."
"My dear boy, how you do run away, and how cynically and bitterly you
speak!" exclaimed Mrs Canninge, laying her hands upon her son's
shoulders. "I was not speaking of Mr Lambent's cook; I meant the new
schoolmistress."
There was a pause.
"I felt his heart give a great throb," said Mrs Canninge to herself.
"Calm as he is striving to be, I can understand him, and read him as
easily as can be."
"Indeed!" said George Canninge at last, as soon as he could master his
emotion. "I was not aware the Vicarage people thought so much of Miss--
of the new schoolmistress."
"Well, you see, dear, she is only a schoolmistress, but they have been
very kind and considerate to her. They found her to be a young person
of prepossessing manners, and, like all country people, they took it for
granted that she would be worthy of trust; and, therefore this discovery
must have been a great shock to them."
It needed all George Canninge's self-command to keep him calmly seated
there while his mother, from what she considered to be a sense of duty,
went on poisoning his wound. But he mastered himself, and bore it all
like a stoic, denying himself the luxury of asking questions, though the
suspense was maddening, and he burned to hear what his mother had to
say.
"I declare, George," she said at last; "it is quite disheartening. You
seem to have given up taking an interest in anything. I thought you
would have liked to hear the Vicarage troubles."
"My dear mother, why should I worry myself about the `Vicarage
troubles'?" said the young squire calmly. "I have enough of my own."
"But you are the principal landholder here, my dear, and you must learn
to take an interest in parish matters for many reasons. Now, this Miss
Thorne has been trusted to a great extent by Mr Lambent and it seems
shocking to find one so young behaving in an unprincipled manner."
George Canninge rose.
There is an end to most things; certainly there is to the forbearance of
a man, and Mrs Canninge's son could bear no more.
"Unprincipled is a very hard term to apply to a young lady, mother," he
said, with the blood flushing into his cheeks.
"It is, my dear boy, I grant it; and very sad it is to find one who
seemed to be well educated and to possess so much superficial
refinement, ready to yield to temptation."
The ruddy tint faded out of George Canninge's cheeks, leaving him very
pale; but he remained perfectly silent, while his mother went on--
"It is the old story, I suppose: that terrible love of finery that we
find in most young girls. I must say I have noticed myself that Miss
Thorne dressed decidedly above her station."
George Canninge did not speak. His eyelids drooped over his eyes, and
he stood listening, with every nerve upon the stretch; and very slowly
and deliberately Mrs Canninge went on--
"I am sure I am very sorry, my dear, for it seems so sad; though,
really, I do not see that I need trouble myself about it. The foolish
girl, I suppose, wanted money for dress, and having these school funds
in her hand--children's pence and some club money--she made use of them.
So foolish, too, my dear, because she must have known that sooner or
later, she would be found out."
"Who has told you this, mother!" said George Canninge sternly.
"I heard it from Beatrice Lambent, my dear, just now. She is in
terrible trouble about it."
"Miss Lambent has been misinformed," said George Canninge calmly; but it
cost him a tremendous effort to speak as he did.
"Oh, dear me, no, my dear George!" exclaimed Mrs Canninge eagerly.
"She was present when Mr Piper went to the school to receive the money,
and she confessed to having spent it; and it seems that these people are
terribly in debt as well."
"There is some mistake, mother," said George Canninge again, in the same
calm, judicial voice; "it cannot be true."
"But it is true, my dear boy," persisted Mrs Canninge, who, woman of
the world as she was, had not the prudence upon this occasion to leave
her words to rankle in her son's breast, but tried to drive them home
with others in her eagerness to excite disgust with an object upon which
George Canninge seemed to have set his mind.
"I say, mother, that it cannot be true," he said, speaking very sternly
now; and he crossed the room.
"You are not going out dear?" said Mrs Canninge. "I want to talk to
you a little more."
"You have talked to me enough for one day, mother," said the young man
firmly; "and I must go."
"But where, dear? You are not going to the Vicarage to ask if what I
have told you is true? I had it from dear Beatrice's own lips, and she
is terribly cut up about it."
"I am not going to the Vicarage, mother," said the young man firmly. "I
am going down to the school to ask Miss Thorne."
"George, my dear son!"
Her answer was the loudly closing door, and directly after she heard
steps upon the gravel-drive.
She ran to the window, and could see that her son was walking rapidly
across the park; for George Canninge was so deeply considering the words
he had heard that he would not wait for his horse.
"It is monstrous!" cried Mrs Canninge, stamping angrily. "It shall
never be! It would be a disgrace!"
The next minute she had thrown herself angrily into her son's chair, and
sat there with clenched hands and lowering brow. A minute later, and
she was acting as most women do when they cannot make matters go as they
wish. Mrs Canninge took out her pocket-handkerchief, and shed some
bitter, mortified tears.