Part 10 (1/2)
”I shall be very glad to help you if I can,” he said coldly; and then he waited for her to say more.
”Mrs. Baynhurst has sent me away,” the girl said; she spoke still in that same sharp, stiff way. ”A letter came from Paris this morning by a midday post, but as I have been out all day I did not get it till late this afternoon. I have brought it with me so that you can read it.”
Mr. Haverford looked annoyed.
He objected strongly to interfere in anything which concerned his mother.
”I am afraid it is not possible for me to go into this matter with you,” he said. ”I have nothing whatever to do with Mrs. Baynhurst's affairs.”
The girl answered him sharply, authoritatively.
”Some one _must_ listen to me, and as you are her son, I consider it your duty to do so.”
At this he wheeled round.
This kind of tone was a new experience to him in these latter days, when every one who approached him had a soft word on their lips, and a subservient suggestion in their manner.
”I think you have made a mistake,” he said, thoroughly annoyed now; ”if my mother has seen fit to dispense with your services she has, no doubt, the very best reason for doing so. You must apply to her. As I have just said, this is a matter in which I could not possibly interfere at any time. And now----”
”And now,” said Caroline Graniger, with a short laugh, ”you want to go back to your guests; to your dinner!” She shrugged her shoulders. ”Then go. I was a fool to come.”
She left the fireplace and walked past him to the door, but before she could get there Rupert Haverford made a move forward.
”Wait,” he said. He had suddenly caught a glimpse of her face; it wore an expression that was eloquent enough to him.
She paused, and stood biting her lip and blinking her eyes to keep back her agitation. Young as she was, she suggested an element of strength.
”I have not very much time at my disposal,” said Rupert quickly, ”but tell me exactly what has happened. If I can help you I will.”
She did not answer him immediately. When she did, that sharp, almost pert, tone had gone from her voice.
”I know quite well I have not given Mrs. Baynhurst satisfaction,” she said, ”though I have tried my very best to fall in with her ways. But she is not very easy. She does not make allowances. If it were only that I should not complain....” She bit her lip again, ”if I am not good enough for her as a secretary she is quite right to get some one else; but she ought to have prepared me, not dismiss me in this way. I did not go to her of my own accord. She took me away from the school where I have been living for so many years. I was given to understand that she was my guardian, but I suppose that cannot be true, or she would not write to me as she has written now,” she broke off abruptly.
”What are my mother's orders?” asked Haverford very quietly.
”She says I am to go away at once, as she has no further use for me. In her letter she writes that as she intends to remain in Paris for some time, the house in Kensington is to be shut up immediately. In fact”--the girl gave a shrug of her thin shoulders--”this is already done. I find that some one has been good enough to pack my few things in a box, and the only maid who remains informed me that she, too, had heard from Mrs. Baynhurst, and that by her mistress's orders I was to leave at once....”
She looked at Rupert very steadily, and there was something of contempt in the expression of her dark eyes.
”Your mother is proverbially careless, Mr. Haverford,” she said drily; ”she never troubles herself about those small things that are called duties by other people, so I suppose it has not even dawned on her that by cutting me adrift in this way she puts me in a very awkward position. And yet I don't know why I should suppose her in ignorance of this,” Caroline Graniger added the next moment, ”for our life together has been so miserably uncomfortable that I dare say she is glad to have such a good opportunity of getting rid of me. You see,” she smiled faintly, ”I cannot possibly annoy her when she is so far away. She knows, of course, that I should have not merely required, but demanded, an explanation if she had dismissed me herself, but she hopes, no doubt, that I shall accept the inevitable if she remains out of reach for some time; or,” with a shrug of her shoulders, ”she may possibly hope that some good chance, such as dest.i.tution, may take me out of her way altogether. I have not a penny in the world,” the girl said in that same harsh, sharp way, ”and no one to whom I can turn for advice or help. Please understand that this is my only excuse for coming to you.”
Then, before Mr. Haverford had time to speak, she went on eagerly--
”Above all things, I want to know something about myself. It is no new thing for me to feel lonely. I have always been one by myself. Perhaps I should have gone on accepting everything that came and asked no questions if this had not happened, but to-night I feel so ... so lost, so bewildered to know what to do: to understand....” She cleared her throat and looked pleadingly at Rupert Haverford. ”As you belong to Mrs. Baynhurst, perhaps you can answer my questions, perhaps you can tell me why she took me away from the school where I have lived ever since I can remember, why I was told she had the right to take me away?”
Haverford had moved to the fireplace, and was standing there looking at her with contracted brows.
He listened with a sense of the greatest discomfort, and even uneasiness.
”Believe me,” he said when he spoke, ”if I could answer those questions I would do so most gladly, but I am an absolute stranger to all that pa.s.ses in my mother's life. I know you were her secretary, but she has had a number of secretaries, and in this, as in other things, she acts for herself absolutely. She has never spoken to me about you.” Here he paused. ”If it is true that she called herself your guardian, this is a matter about which I know nothing. I am sorry,” he finished abruptly.