Capricious Caroline Part 51

The children were asleep. They had been in a great excitement all day because it had suddenly been decided that there was to be a departure from the country to the sea.

Mrs. Brenton had expected to have relinquished her little charges to the care of their mother, but this was now postponed indefinitely.

The note Camilla had scribbled just before leaving London had touched Agnes Brenton almost in the old way.

She wrote so lovingly. One could see that her heart yearned for her children, and yet that she could not separate herself from this new tie.

She burdened both Mrs. Brenton and Caroline with all sorts of charges for her two little ones; above all, she entreated them pathetically to keep her always vividly in front of her children's eyes.

"If I did not know that they were so safe with you, that they were put completely out of the reach of Ned's people, I should never be able to leave them."

At once Mrs. Brenton decided that they would go away from Yelverton.

"A change will be good for all of us," she declared, with something of her old briskness. "You have never been to Normandy, have you, Caroline? Well, prepare yourself for a delightful experience!"

On the morrow the packing would commence, and Caroline smiled half faintly to herself as she conjured up the importance of this occasion to Betty and Baby. How busy they would be, and what a muddle they would make!

Caroline leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes.

It was deliciously cool and quiet. This was the moment that she loved to be alone, when the gardens had greater beauty for her and the healing tranquillity of the country spoke to her eloquently.

She was glad to go away, and yet it would be a wrench to leave this place, which now seemed sown with the most precious of her thoughts, watered with her heart's tears, and warmed with that joy which, though it had come in secret, had remained to illumine her whole life.

She had written him a few words of sympathy. They were not framed in the usual conventional formula; she wrote from her heart. She seemed to know that his mother's death would have a far greater significance to him now than at any other time; that, as he had stood and looked on his mother, dead, there must have come a new and a deeper rush of bitterness.

The grave Camilla had dug had been the burial-ground of all those sweet hopes and dreams which had cl.u.s.tered about him like children of late.

His heart must have been barren as he had stood by his mother's grave.

She had not seen him since that most memorable evening; it did not seem likely or probable that they should see him again before they went away.

Betty had been writing him a number of epistles. It appeared that she required a great many things to go abroad with, and she had already learned to turn to Rupert for the fulfilment of all her wishes. Nothing touched Caroline so much as his att.i.tude to the children; he was, if possible, more tender than before. He adopted a little more serious air, and in every sort of way made it known to all that he was their guardian.

"I was afraid," Mrs. Brenton had said once to the girl--"I was afraid that he might have changed in this, but I ought to have known him better!" Another time she said, "Did I tell you he had refused to take back a single thing he had given her? She told me all this in the first letter she wrote from Italy, and yet even now," Mrs. Brenton added, in a low tone, "I don't believe she grasps the full meaning of his generosity. After telling me all this, she added that, of course, if it had been any other man than Cuthbert she could not have kept the jewels; but that, as Cuthbert was his brother, he had a right to share in so much wealth."

"That was not her own suggestion," Caroline had said quickly.

Her thoughts hovered pityingly about Camilla this night, and about the memory of the woman who was just dead.

That year in his mother's house had taught her to know Cuthbert Baynhurst through and through.

His desertion now of his duty, his cowardice and exacting selfishness were made doubly contemptible, when she remembered his mother's clinging love, her heart-whole devotion, her pride in him.

"He is not worthy to be walked on by Rupert," Caroline determined hotly. And at that very moment some one spoke her name, and, starting violently, she turned to find Rupert himself standing just behind her chair.

"Do forgive me," he said quickly, realizing how much he had startled her. "Mrs. Brenton sent me to find you. She told me you are always out here at this time."

"I fancied I was quite alone," said Caroline nervously; then she added, "Have you been here long? Did you motor down?"

He said "Yes."

Their hands had clasped and unclasped.

"I felt I must come down and see you all before you fly away. In particular, I want to speak to you."

"Yes," said Caroline.

"Are you tired?" Haverford asked rather abruptly. "Shall we walk?"

She got up at once.

"It is so delightful out here at this time. I will take you to Betty's garden. There is a rose waiting for you, Mr. Haverford. It was going to be sent by post in a box to-morrow. I don't know that I dare pick it, but you may look at it."

As they pa.s.sed under the interlacing branches of the trees, he said--

"I thought you would like to know that my mother spoke of you several times. She has bequeathed to you some odds and ends of jewellery which I fancy must have belonged to your mother. I cannot say that she spoke kindly," he said, with half a sigh; "but at least she remembered."

"It grieved me," said Caroline, in a low voice, "to know that she suffered so much."

He sighed.

"At times it was terrible. What stuff some of you women are made of!

She had her faults, my poor mother, but she had marvellous qualities.

In some ways you remind me of her, only you are not in the least masculine."

When they reached Betty's garden he knelt down and put his lips to the rose.

"Tell her I have been here, that I have left a kiss for her. I won't pick it. Dear little creature, let her send it on, if she wants to."

"But are you going back to-night?" Caroline asked.

In her white muslin gown she looked wraith-like, part of the mist which hovered like a white veil over the ground.

"I think so. I have a sort of fever in my bones.... I want to be moving all the time." Then quite abruptly he turned, and put his hand on her shoulder. "There is something else I want to say to you."

She trembled and drew back, and he at once removed his hand.

"Yes?"

"I am told that Sir Samuel Broxbourne has been coming here very often of late, coming apparently for the purpose of seeing you."

"Who has told you this?" Caroline asked very coldly.

"It has been told me by a friend, and from the very best of reasons."

"I know Mrs. Brenton is everything that is kind and good," said the girl, in a hard and cold tone; "yet I fail to see why she should approach you on such a matter as this."

"Do you?" said Haverford. "She does it because she knows that I have the right to know what is pa.s.sing with you, the right to enter into all that is important in your life. You are in my charge, subject to my command for the next two years."

Caroline laughed half bitterly and half weakly.