That Stick ...

p. 244‘I know it, papa, I know it!  There has been nothing of the kind, I assure you,’ said Rose, who during the last discourse had had time to reflect; ‘and he is going away to-morrow or next day, so you need not be afraid, though I must see him or send to him once more before he goes.’

‘Well, if you are helping him to get some present for his sisters, I do not see so much objection for this once; only it must not occur again.’

Rose was much tempted to let this suggestion stand, but truth forbade her, and she said, ‘No, papa, I cannot say it is that; but you will know all about it before long, and you will not disapprove, if you will only trust your little Rose,’ and she looked up for a kiss.

‘Well, I never found you not to be trusted, though you are a coaxing puss,’ said her father, and so the matter ended with him, but she had another encounter with her mother.

‘Mind, Rose, if that churching—which Sunday was enough for any good girl in my time—is only to lead to walking with young gents which has no call to you, I won’t have it done.’

Mrs. Rollstone was not cultivated up to her husband’s mark, neither had she ever inspired so much confidence, and Rose made simple answer, ‘It is all right, mamma; I have spoken to papa about it.’

‘Oh, if your pa knows, I suppose he is satisfied; but men aren’t the same as a mother, and if that there young Mr. Morton comes dangling and gallanting after you, he is after no good.’

‘He is doing no such thing,’ said Rose in a p. 245resolutely calm voice that might have shown that she was with difficulty controlling her temper; ‘and, besides, he is going away.’

Wherewith Mrs. Rollstone had to be satisfied.

Rose took a bold measure when she had taken her five five-pound notes from the savings bank.  She saw her father preparing to waddle out for his daily turn on the beach, and she put the envelope containing them, addressed to H. Morton, Esq., into his hand, begging him to give it to Mr. Morton himself.

Which he did, when he met Herbert trying to soothe his impatience with a cigar.

‘Here, sir,’ he said, ‘my daughter wishes me to give you this.  I don’t ask what it is, mind; but I tell you plainly, I don’t like secrets between young people.’

Herbert tried to laugh naturally, then said, ‘Your daughter is no end of a trump, Mr. Rollstone.’

‘Only recollect this, sir—I know my station and I know yours, and I will have no nonsense with her.’

‘All right!’ said Herbert shortly, with a laugh, his head too full of other matters to think what all this implied.

He wished to avoid exciting any disturbance, so he told his mother that he should be off again the next day.

‘It is very hard,’ grumbled Mrs. Morton, ‘that you can never be contented to stay with your poor mother!  I did hope that with the regatta, and the yachts, and Mr. Brady, you would find amusement enough to give us a little of your company; p. 246but nothing is good enough for you now.  Which of your fine friends are you going to?’

Herbert was not superior to an evasion, and said, ‘I’m going up to town first, and shall see Dacre, and I’ll write by and by.’

She resigned herself to the erratic movements of the son, who, being again, in her eyes, heir to the peerage, was to her like a comet in a higher sphere.

p. 247CHAPTER XXXVI

IDA’S CONFESSION

The move to Malvern was at last made, and the air seemed at once to invigorate Lord Northmoor, though the journey tried his wife more than she had expected, and she remained in a very drooping state, in spite of her best efforts not to depress him.  Nothing seemed to suit her so well as to lie on a couch in the garden of their lodging, with Constance beside her, talking, and sometimes smiling over all her little Mite’s pretty ways; though at other times she did her best to seem to take interest in other matters, and to persuade her husband that his endeavours to give her pleasure or interest were successful, because the exertions he made for her sake were good for him.

He was by this time anxious—since he was by the end of three weeks quite well, and fairly strong—to go down to Westhaven, and learn all he could about the circumstances of the fate of his poor little son; and only delayed till he thought his wife could spare him.  Lady Adela urged him at last to go.  She thought that Mary lived in a state of p. 248effort for his sake, and that there was a certain yearning and yet dread in the minds of both for these further details, so that the visit had better be over.

Thus it was about six weeks after Herbert’s departure that Mrs. Morton received a note to tell her that her brother-in-law would arrive the next evening.  It was terrible news to Ida, and if there had been time she would have arranged to be absent elsewhere; but as it was she had no power to escape, and had to spend her time in assisting in all the elaborate preparations which her mother thought due to the Baron—a very different personage in her eyes from the actual Frank.