Part 35 (1/2)

'N-n-o. But it was the same.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'It was to pay a man--a man's that's dead.'

'That may be; but what right did that give you to spend the money otherwise? Who was the man?'

'Professor Muhlwa.s.ser, for some books of plates.'

'How do you know he is dead! Who told you so? Eh! Was it Flinders? Ah!

you see what comes of trusting to an unprincipled man like that. If you had only been open and straightforward with Aunt Lily, or with any of us, you would have been saved from this tissue of falsehood; forfeiting your Uncle Reginald's good opinion, and enabling Flinders to do your father this great injury.' She paused, and, as Dolores made no answer, she went on again--'Indeed, there is no saying what you have not brought on yourself by your deceit and disobedience. If Flinders is apprehended, you will have to appear against him in court, and publicly avow that you gave away what your father trusted to you.'

Dolores gave a little moan and start, and her aunt, perceiving that she had touched an apparently vulnerable spot, proceeded--'The only thing left for you to do is to tell the whole story frankly and honestly. I don't say so only for the sake of showing Aunt Lily that you are sorry for having abused her confidence. I wish I could think that you are; but, unless we know all, we cannot s.h.i.+eld you from any further consequences, and that of course we should wish to do, for your father's sake.'

Dolores did not feel drawn to confession, but she knew that when Aunt Jane once set herself to ask questions, there was no use in trying to conceal anything. So she made answers, chiefly 'Yes' or No,' and her aunt, by severe and diligent pumping, had extracted bit by bit what it was most essential should be known, before the gong summoned them.

Dolores would rather have been a solitary prisoner, able to chafe against oppression, than have been obliged to come down and confront everybody; but she crept into the place left for her between Mysie and Wilfred. She had very little appet.i.te, and never found out how Mysie was fulfilling her resolution of kindness by baulking Wilfred of sundry attempts to tease; by subst.i.tuting her own kissing-crust for Dolly's more unpoetical piece of bread; and offering to exchange her delicious strawberry-jam tartlet for the black-currant one at which her cousin was looking with reluctant eyes.

Mysie and Valetta were grievously exercised about their chances of returning to the G.F.S. Tree. Indeed Gillian went the length of telling them that Fly was behaving far better in her disappointment as to the b.u.t.terfly's Ball than they were as to this 'old second-hand tree.' Fly laughed and observed, 'Dear me, things one would like are always being stopped. If one was to mind every time, how horrid it would be! And there's always something to make up!'

Then it occurred to Gillian, though not to her younger sisters, that Lady Phyllis Devereux lived in general a much less indulged, and more frequently disappointed, life than did herself and her sisters.

However, there was great delight at that dinner-table. Jasper had ridden to get the letters of the second post, and Lord Rotherwood had his hands and his head full of them when he came in to luncheon--there being what Lady Merrifield called a respectable dinner in view. In the first place.

Lord Ivinghoe was getting on very well, and was up, sitting by the fire, playing patience. n.o.body was catching the measles, and quarantine would be over on the 9th of January. Secondly, 'Fly, shall you be very broken-hearted if I tell you.'

'Oh, daddy, you wouldn't look like that if it was anything very bad!

Lion isn't dead?'

'No; but I grieve to say your unnatural grand-parents don't want you!

Grandmamma is nervous about having you without mamma. What did we do last time we were there, Fly?'

'Don't you remember, daddy? they said there was nothing for me to ride to the meet, and you and Griffin put the side-saddle on Crazy Kate, and we went out with the hounds, and I've got the brush up in my room!'

'I don't wonder grandmamma is nervous,' observed Lady Merrifield.

'Will you be nervous, Lily,' said Lord Rotherwood, 'if this same flyaway mortal is left on your hands till the 9th?'

Dinner, manners, silence before company, and all, could not repress a general scream of ecstacy, which called forth the reply. 'I should think you and her mother were the people to be nervous.

'Oh! my lady has been duly instructed in Merrifield perfections, and esteems you a model mother.'

The children's nods and smiles said 'Hear, hear!'

'Well, you've got it all in her own letter,' continued Lord Rotherwood.

'You see, they've got a caucus at High Court, and a dinner, and I must go up there on Monday; but if you'll keep this dangerous Fly--'