Capricious Caroline Part 29

"Do sit down," she said suddenly; and there was a little nervous tone in her voice.

Instead of obeying her he put a question to her.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" he asked.

She pretended to misunderstand him.

"I told Caroline I was sure I was not fit to be seen to-day;" then she shrugged her shoulders. "Late hours, my dear friend. The result of all the silly, stupid things that I know you want to denounce from the housetop. I came home very late last night," she said, after a little pause. "I played cards, and I lost a lot!... And then I found some tiresome letters waiting for me, and so"--she shrugged her shoulders a second time--"I had a bad night, and to-day, of course, I look a wreck."

"I think you ought to see a doctor," said Rupert Haverford.

Camilla moved impatiently in her chair.

"How unoriginal a man is! You are all alike," she said. "You imagine that as soon as a doctor has scribbled something on a paper, and the chemist has sent in a neat little white packet, and an equally neat little bill, then everything must be all right! Shakespeare was a man, but he knew things better than most of you do. He knew, for instance, that all the doctors in the world cannot do any good when the mind is ill."

There was a pause, in which Camilla made a strange discovery. She found she could hear her own heart beat quite plainly.

Was it chance or Providence that had sent this man to her now?

"The other day," said Rupert Haverford, in his quiet, seemingly unemotional way, "you came to me to ask me to help a friend of yours.

You know my only reason for existence just now is that I may be of some service to other people. I cannot help feeling that perhaps I might be of some use to you. If you won't try a doctor, suppose you try me?"

"Suppose we talk about something else," said Camilla. "I know I have something to say to you--what is it?" She wrinkled her brows and closed her eyes, and he looked at her almost hungrily.

Lying back with her eyes closed, it seemed to him that her face had grown more delicate, that her general aspect was more fragile.

The very suggestion that she should be really in trouble, that care should be fretting her, was torture to him.

"Ah, I know what it was," she said, opening her eyes and bending forward. "I have a bone to pick with you. I hear that you are not pleased because Miss Graniger accepted the situation I offered her. I call that horrid of you."

"I suppose I have no right to feel anything about the matter one way or another," Rupert answered; "but, in reality, I did feel a little annoyed. I was not sure that it would be a good arrangement for either of you. You see, I know practically nothing about this girl."

"And you know too much about me," finished Camilla, with a little laugh. "Well, as it happens, it is the happiest thing for both of us.

You can see for yourself that the children have turned to Caroline just as little ducklings turn to water; and as for myself, except for Agnes Brenton, I think this girl is the nearest approach to what I call a _real_ woman I have ever met; so I hope," with a flash of her old manner, "you are not going to interfere, exert your rights as a guardian or a parochial officer, or whatever you are, and take Caroline away."

He only smiled. The question of Caroline Graniger was of no interest to him.

As he remained silent Camilla felt that heart-beat sound again with heavy thuds in her ears.

"Do sit down," she said to him, almost weakly; "you--you look so big, so commanding as you stand there. I a.s.sure you I am not well enough to be awed to-day. I think I must have some tea. If I have a cup of tea I shall be stronger."

When the bell had been rung, and answered, she really had taken a grip of herself.

"It is very nice of you to come and see me," she said. "When did you get back?"

"I arrived just before lunch," he said; "I came down in the motor."

"Wasn't it very cold?"

He nodded his head.

"Yes; the country is rather bleak just now." Then he smiled. "Now I will sit down," he said, "since my size is so alarming!"

Camilla's delicate fingers were picking at the lace on her sleeve a little nervously.

"So you have only been back an hour or two, and you came to see me at once. Now that was very sweet of you, Mr. Haverford. Some instinct must have told you that I was dull and lonely, and dying for a pleasant companion."

Haverford's brown face coloured a little.

"The truth is, Mrs. Lancing," he said, "I felt in need of sympathy, so I came to you."

"Sympathy! Has something happened? Oh! do let me know!"

She spoke for the first time naturally.

He sat forward and looked into the fire for a moment, and then quietly and in a very few words he gave her the story of what had happened, or, rather, the story of what he had discovered up north, and Camilla listened eagerly; her own trouble, bitter and pressing and painful as it was, faded from her as she listened.

"I don't suppose anybody in the wide world knows what this means to me," Haverford said slowly, when he had spoken of his disappointment, of the breakdown of his hopes. "I was so fond of those people. I counted so surely on their faith in me, in their real affection. Money is a very destructive thing, Mrs. Lancing! I will stake my existence that there is not a man or a woman who had not a good thought for me in the old days. And now there is not one who would not enjoy flinging a brick at me."

Camilla did not speak for a moment.

"I think I understand," softly; then she said, "But I don't believe I can give you sympathy, Mr. Haverford. I am sure this has gone too deeply for any words of mine to help you."

She stretched out her hand, however, as she spoke, and Rupert took it, laying it on one broad palm and closing his other tenderly over it. He felt the nervous thrill that ran through her. Her face was scarlet as she took her hand away with a jerk.

"Here comes tea," she said. "You are going to wait upon me, please, Mr.

Haverford. I don't feel quite equal to lifting the teapot."

When he had done this gravely, taking any amount of care, and they were alone, without any further interruption, he stood once more by the fireplace, and looked at her.

"Now I have told you my trouble, won't you tell me yours?"

She winced and caught her breath, and then with a sudden irresponsible movement she put her hands to her face, and he saw that she was crying.

His own hands moved convulsively, but almost immediately Camilla had mastered her weakness.

"Don't ... think me quite a fool," she said, "and don't, _please_ don't, run away with the idea that I want to cry. I must be very strong now.... I never want to cry ... tears are useless at all times, but they are worse than useless now. I believe," she said, as she dried her eyes hurriedly, "that it won't surprise you in the least to be told that I have always been more or less in difficulty. Of course it is money--hateful, horrible, _horrible_ money."

She got up and moved away from him, still drying her eyes.

"I dare say lots of people have told you all there is to know about me, and so you may have heard that the only money I have in the world to live upon has come to me from my husband's people. Well! then you will understand a little bit why I am so upset to-day when I tell you that Colonel Lancing, that is, the children's grandfather, is so angry with me that he has stopped my money, and ... and ..." she broke off here, and put her hands against her trembling lips. "He thinks to force my hand, you see," she said, hoa.r.s.ely; "he knows I have nothing, that there is no one to give me anything but himself, he knows that if I am content to starve myself I cannot let the children starve, and that is why he says the children are to belong to him. Oh!" she turned again, flinging out her hands with a little gesture of despair, "I am not going to try and defend myself. I know better than anybody can tell me how foolish I have been. What a mult.i.tude of wrong things I have done.

I have been preparing myself for some sort of punishment--people who do wrong always do get punished, don't they? But I never, never thought of this. Of course he cannot take them from me by law. I am their mother, they are mine ... _mine_.... But if he cuts off the money, that gives him law!"

She sat down on a couch the other side of the room and dabbed her eyes with her wet handkerchief, and Rupert Haverford looked across at her with eyes that were wet too.

The silence that was so natural to him, and so irritating to Camilla, became oppressive now. She got up with a jerk.

"You _would_ make me tell you what the matter was with me, and now I have bored you," she said. "Other people's troubles _are_ bores, say what one will!"