Capricious Caroline Part 20

she ordered to the maid who appeared at the door at this moment. She got up and began to arrange the room in a restless fas.h.i.+on, unlocking drawers, and taking out all the things she had hidden. "I really don't see what Mr. Haverford has to do with it," she said irritably, after a while.

"Don't you?" queried Mrs. Brenton, with a smile. "You must remember that Miss Graniger went to him last night for advice and help."

Camilla moved impatiently.

"Oh! he will take a month to deliberate. He is so slow. Really it is very ridiculous. You know I must have some one for the children, and Miss Graniger wants work. Why on earth should she not come to me?"

"I don't like things done in a great hurry," said Mrs. Brenton. And then she added again, "It may annoy Mr. Haverford."

"And what do I care if it does?" exclaimed Camilla. She was nervous, and it did her good to speak sharply. "Anyhow, I can't very well draw back now. I have practically engaged the girl, and I settled that we would discuss terms and other things this afternoon. I like her, Agnes.

She is a lady, and I think she is just the very person we want for Betty."

As the flowers were brought in and placed, Mrs. Lancing ordered tea.

"Tell cook to send up all sorts of things," she said. "I am ravenous.

How much do you think I ought to give her, Agnes?" was her next question. "Fifty pounds a year?"

"My dear child!" said Mrs. Brenton, and then she sighed. "When will you learn the value of money?"

"Well, look here," said Camilla, sitting down on the stool, and putting a pleading note in her voice, "will you arrange all this for me? I don't want to let this girl slip through my fingers."

She looked over her shoulder at this juncture; the door was half open, and they caught the sound of the children returning.

"Well, have you been good little people?" she called aloud, and she got up briskly and went to the door. "I hope you are not tired, Miss Graniger? Oh, my dear! What are you doing? You must not carry that big, big, little lump!"

Baby had climbed up into Caroline's arms, and had her arms about the girl's neck, her head was cuddled on Caroline's shoulder.

"I is so awful tired, mammy," she said plaintively. Then Betty chimed in--

"I telled her a heap of times she was not to ask poor Caroline to carry her, but"--with a shrug of her shoulders--"you know what Baby is. The most onstinant creature in the world."

But Baby only smiled, and kissed Caroline.

Even when her mother tried to entice her away, she clung to the girl affectionately. So Camilla went up to the nursery, also scolding tenderly as she went.

She wanted to take Miss Graniger down to have tea with her, but the children opposed this so strenuously that she had to give way.

She did not leave them till she saw them seated at the table luxuriating in all sorts of delicacies.

"Don't let them worry you," Camilla said to Caroline. "Dennis will take them off your hands."

However, it seemed that Caroline had no intention of calling Dennis to the rescue, so Mrs. Lancing went downstairs, and wore a very triumphant expression as she entered the drawing-room.

"Believe it or not, just as you like, but it is a fact that that girl is absolutely happy with the children," she declared. "You ought to be pleased, Agnes. You pretended you were sorry for her. Can't you imagine the sort of existence that she has had in Mrs. Baynhurst's house. Well, here at least she will be treated like a human being." Then abruptly Camilla crossed the room, and sat down at her writing-table. "I am going to write to Mr. Haverford," she said, "and then I hope you will be satisfied, you dear old fidgety frump."

The note written, she had it despatched by a cab, and requested that an answer might be sent back.

"I don't see what earthly objection he can have," Camilla said, "but if he has any--well, now let him speak, or for ever hold his peace."

The cab came back in a very little while, bringing the information that Mr. Haverford had been called to the north unexpectedly. Further, it appeared that the butler had added that Mr. Haverford intended going to Paris when he came down from the north.

Mrs. Brenton smiled as she sipped her tea.

"That means he intends to see his mother, and go thoroughly into this Graniger business. There are no half measures with him."

Camilla moved petulantly.

"Oh! we all know by this time that you think him a paragon of perfection.... He is just your pet idea of what a man should be--solid, stodgy, prosaic. A creature as flat, and as level, and as enduring, and as uninteresting as a Roman road."

"Well," said Mrs. Brenton, picking up her knitting again, "there is a good deal to be said in favour of a smooth road, whether it is Roman or otherwise."

Camilla ate a cake, then some sandwiches, and then another piece of cake.

"The only thing worth having in life, except food when one is hungry, is the thing that comes unexpectedly. You can keep all your smooth roads to yourself, Agnes; give me Piccadilly when the wood pavement is simply honeycombed with holes, and one stands the chance of being jerked out of a cab, and perhaps out of existence, too, every other moment. Anyhow," she determined, brightly, "this settles matters so far as I am concerned. Miss Graniger will now stay, and if Mr. Haverford does not like this arrangement--well, he can lump it! Have some more tea? No? Well, then, let us go up to the children."

CHAPTER VII

For a second time Caroline Graniger lay awake late into the night, watching the fire-glow glint the walls and throw fantastic shadows on the ceiling.

She had been sent to bed very early.

"You look so tired, you poor thing," Camilla had said as they had sat at dinner.

She herself was going out to a bridge party, but she had insisted on Agnes Brenton and Caroline sharing a dainty little dinner with her.

Of course it was at her suggestion that Miss Graniger was sleeping with the children.

"As you are going to stay with me," she had said, when she tarried a little while in the nursery after Mrs. Brenton had gone downstairs, "I think we had better start as we intend to go on. Agnes, I know, wants to carry you home again with her to-night, but Betty and Babsy want you--don't you, darlings?"

Caroline asked for nothing better, except, indeed, that she was divided in her desire to show deference to both these women who were so extraordinarily kind to her.

"I only hope I shall do," she said earnestly.

Camilla had laughed at this.

Her baby had climbed on her knee, and was cuddling her very tightly.

"This is not what frightens me," she said. "I am only afraid you won't stand our ways. This is a very funny sort of household--isn't it, Betty?"

The child nodded her head wisely. She looked so pretty with her bright hair screwed up in curl rags.

It was Caroline who introduced the subject of Rupert Haverford.

"I fancy Mrs. Brenton thinks I ought to have referred things to Mr.

Haverford," she had said, a little hesitatingly.