Part 49 (1/2)

Rupert Haverford himself wrote the message that brought his half-brother home.

He himself was on the eve of sailing for the United States when his mother's condition became so serious.

He had promised Mrs. Brenton to spend one night at Yelverton before leaving for America, but of course all his arrangements were upset.

”It is impossible to describe to you the suffering my poor mother is enduring just now,” he wrote. ”She is amazingly brave, and her brain is as active as ever. It sounds cruel to say it, but I almost regret this, for she persists in fatiguing herself. Only yesterday she worked for three hours.”

Another time he wrote--

”She has been very ill for some time, how ill no one but she herself has known; but undoubtedly she has hastened matters to the present crisis by her unhappiness about Cuthbert's marriage. It was a great shock to her; she craves for him, and seems to torture herself with vain and unreasonable jealousy. I am most unhappy about her.... It is a bitter thing to feel that I have not the gift of ministering to her!”

All these letters pa.s.sed into Caroline's hands.

Usually she read them out in the garden, and when she was alone.

She was well again, but very restless in these days. After that nervous breakdown Mrs. Brenton endeavoured to treat her as a kind of invalid, but she quickly abandoned this as a hopeless undertaking, and indeed the girl very speedily picked up her colour and her strength. But she was changed; her calm, determined, practical mood was gone altogether.

There were times when Mrs. Brenton was puzzled by her manner, and nothing was more difficult for her to understand than the friends.h.i.+p which appeared to have sprung up between Caroline and Sir Samuel Broxbourne.

Sir Samuel was always turning up at Yelverton at unexpected moments.

As the Brentons had known him since he was a boy he was outside the category of guests; but though Mrs. Brenton was hospitality itself, she really chafed a little at his constant visits, and if she could only have imagined that he was indirectly or directly connected with what she in her plain-spoken way called Camilla's ”wickedness,” he would have found himself shut out of Yelverton in particularly quick time.

As it was, very little of what went on in Broxbourne's world found its way to Mrs. Brenton's ears, and she was in happy ignorance of the fact that when Camilla had broken her traces in that startling fas.h.i.+on, Broxbourne had been as much an object of curiosity to a certain section of society as Rupert Haverford himself.

Nevertheless she gave him very little encouragement to come so often; but Sir Samuel was, happily for himself, thick-skinned.

”What _do_ you find to talk about, you two?” she asked Caroline on one occasion, almost irritably; and the girl had shrugged her shoulders.

”I listen,” she said; and then, with an effort, she had added, ”Sir Samuel amuses the children. He is always inventing some marvellous games.”

”Yes,” said Mrs. Brenton, thoughtfully; ”but it is not a bit like Sammy Broxbourne to spend his time inventing games to amuse children.”

Caroline's eyes had flashed, and she had laughed for a moment.

”I expect he finds the country air refres.h.i.+ng after town.”

”Is it possible,” Mrs. Brenton said to her husband after this little conversation, ”is it possible that Sammy has fallen in love with Caroline?”

Mr. Brenton closed his book with his finger in it to keep the place.

”It does not seem improbable,” he said; and then he added, ”Caroline is a very sweet girl.”

To which his wife retorted--

”Do you think I don't know that? She is much too sweet for a man like Sammy.”

In a vague sort of way this question of Broxbourne seemed to divide Caroline and Mrs. Brenton. The older woman resented, not unnaturally, the fact that the girl should not confide in her.

”Of course if he is in love, and he wants to marry her, it might be foolish to do anything to prevent it. Though he is not very nice himself, he has a very nice position, and his people are the kindest creatures in the world. It would be what the world would call a wonderful marriage for Caroline, I suppose. But _does_ he want to marry her? And would she have him?” Here Mrs. Brenton had to shrug her shoulders hopelessly. ”I should have thought he would have been the last man on earth to attract her.”