Part 16 (1/2)

”I hope you had a pleasant journey,” she was beginning formally, when Mrs. Caldwell suddenly burst into tears. ”What is the matter, Caroline?” Aunt Victoria asked.

”Oh, nothing,” the poor lady answered in a broken voice. ”Only it does seem a sad home-returning--alone--without _him_--you know.”

Aunt Grace Mary furtively patted Mrs. Caldwell on the back, keeping an eye on Aunt Victoria the while, however, as if she were afraid of being caught.

All this time the tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of ”Hamilton's Exercises for Beginners” on the piano had been going on; now it stopped. Aunt Grace Mary slipped into a chair, and sat with a smile on her face; Aunt Victoria became a trifle more rigid over her tatting; and Mrs.

Caldwell hurriedly wiped her eyes. Then the door opened deliberately, and there entered a great stout man, with red hair sprinkled with grey, large prominent light-coloured eyes, a nondescript nose, a wide shapeless gash of a mouth, and a red moustache with straight bristly hairs, like the bristles of a broom.

”How do you do, Caroline?” he said, holding out his big, fat, white hand, and kissing her coldly on the forehead. He drawled his words out with a decided lisp, and in a very soft voice, which contrasted oddly with his huge bulk. Having greeted his sister, he turned and looked at the children. Mildred went up and shook hands with him.

”Your sisters, I perceive, have no manners,” he observed.

Beth had been beaming round blandly on the group; but upon that last remark of Uncle James's the pleased smile faded from her face, and she coloured painfully, and offered him a small reluctant hand.

”You are Elizabeth, I suppose?” he said.

”I am Beth,” she answered emphatically.

She and Uncle James looked into each other's eyes for an instant, and in that instant she made a most disagreeable impression of fearlessness on the big man's brain.

”I hope, Caroline,” he said precisely, ”that you will not continue to call your daughter by such an absurd abbreviation. That sort of thing was all very well in the wilds of Ireland, but here we must have something rational, ladylike, and recognised.”

Mrs. Caldwell looked distressed. ”It would be so difficult to call her Elizabeth,” she pleaded. ”She is not at all--Elizabeth.”

”You may call me what you like, mamma,” Beth put in with decision; ”but I shall only answer to Beth. That was the name my father gave me, and I shall stick to it.”

Uncle James stared at her in amazement, but Beth, unabashed, stared back obstinately; and so they continued staring until Aunt Grace Mary made a diversion.

”James,” she hurriedly interposed, ”wouldn't they like some refreshment?”

Uncle James pulled the bell-rope. ”Bring wine and cake,” he lisped, when the servant answered.

Then he returned to his seat, crossed one great leg over the other, folded his fat hands on his knee, and inspected his sister.

”You certainly do not grow younger, Caroline,” he observed.

Mrs. Caldwell did not look cheered by the remark; and there was a painful pause, broken, happily, by the arrival of the cake and wine.

”You will not take more than half a gla.s.s, I suppose, Caroline, at _this_ time of the day,” Uncle James said playfully, as he took up the decanter; ”and marsala, _not_ port. I know what ladies are.”

Poor Mrs. Caldwell was exhausted, and would have been the better for a good gla.s.s of port; but she meekly held her peace.

Then Uncle James cut the cake, and gave each of the children a very small slice. Beth held hers suspended half-way to her mouth, and gazed at her uncle.

”What _is_ that child staring at?” he asked her mother at last.

”I think she is admiring you,” was Mrs. Caldwell's happy rejoinder.

”No, mamma, I am not,” Beth contradicted. ”I was just thinking I had never seen anything so big in my life.”

”_Anything!_” Uncle James protested. ”What does she mean, Caroline?”