Part 9 (2/2)
Her Ladys.h.i.+p had a way of winning her welcome wherever she went. Lady Anne had begun, like a good many other people, with a certain distrust of the brilliant young woman who desired to conquer so many kingdoms. In the end she yielded unreservedly.
”A fine, big-hearted, generous creature,” she said. ”It makes me young to look at her and hear her talk. And so she has taken a huge fancy to my Mary. Very well, then, she can come and go; but she's not to have my Mary for all that, for I want her for myself.”
”No one really wants me,” said Mary, with suddenly dimmed eyes, ”except you and papa. But if they did they couldn't have me. I belong to you and papa.”
CHAPTER IX
THE RACE WITH DEATH
It might have been considered great promotion for the daughter of Walter Gray, who attended all day to the ailments of watches with a magnifying gla.s.s stuck in his eye, to be the friend of Lady Agatha Chenevix as well as the adopted child almost of Lady Anne Hamilton. Indeed, in the early days, when Lady Agatha's friends.h.i.+p for Mary brought her into the finest society the country provided, Lady Anne sometimes watched Mary narrowly, to see how she was taking it. The result of these observations must have been quite satisfactory to the old lady, judging by the energetic shaking of her head after one or two of these occasions when she was alone and thought over things. Once she spoke her thoughts to Lady Agatha, to whom, indeed, she found herself often talking in a way that surprised herself. There was something about the minx that forced even a suspicious and reticent old lady into trust and confidence, and as her trust and confidence increased so did her affection for the brilliant young peeress.
”People said I was mad,” she remarked, ”when I took Mary Gray into my house, and into my heart. Matilda Drummond even said--and I have never forgotten it to her--that if she was my nephew, Jarvis, she'd have my condition of mind inquired into. Yet see how it has turned out! Is she spoilt? Is she an upstart? Is she set above her family? She's over there this minute with that poor little drab stepmother of hers. She wors.h.i.+ps her father. The joys and sorrows of the poor little household are as much to her to-day as the day she left them.”
”I know,” said Lady Agatha. ”She's pure gold. I saw it in her face the first day I laid eyes on her. The only quarrel I have with her is that so many people push me out with her. I don't mean you, of course, Lady Anne. But yesterday I could not have her because she must go to your doctor's wife, and to-day she was going for a long walk with that little Miss Baynes. To-morrow it will be her father. It is his free afternoon.”
”I heard an amusing thing about the father the other day,” said Lady Anne. ”Of course, Mary knows nothing about it. I called at Gordon's--that is where Mr. Gray is employed--about a new catch for my amethyst bracelet. I have known Mr. Gordon for years. He is a thoroughly respectable man. It seems there is a very ill-conditioned person who works in the same room as Mr. Gray--a good workman, but most ill-conditioned. When he is especially bad-tempered he vents his anger on his quiet room-fellow, who never seems to hear him but works away as though he were a thousand miles distant from the grumbling and scolding.
Well, it seems that the other day, despairing, perhaps, of rousing Mr.
Gray by any other methods, he made a reference to Mary as having got into fine society and looking down on her father. It's a little place, after all, my dear, and you and your motor-car are known as well as the Town Hall. Mr. Gray got up very quietly and threw the man downstairs; then went back to his work without a word. Gordon saw it in quite the right way. He said that the person thoroughly well deserved it, but that the next time he mightn't get off with a few bruises, and that would be awkward for Mr. Gray. So he has given him another room.”
”Ah, bravo!” Lady Agatha clapped her hands together. ”That's where Mary gets it. I've seen the light of battle in her eye--haven't you?”
”Sometimes--when she has heard of cruelty and injustice.”
Now that Mary's schooling was over, she was to see the world under Lady Anne's auspices. They were to go abroad soon after Christmas, to be in Rome for Easter, to dawdle about the Continent where they would and for as long as they would. Everything was planned and mapped out. Mary had her neat travelling-dress of grey cloth, tailor-made, her close-fitting toque, her veil and gloves, all her equipment, lying ready to put on.
Her old friend, Simmons, had packed her travelling trunk. It had come to almost the last day.
And, to be sure, Mary must be much with her father and the others during those last hours. She had gone with her father for a long country walk.
”I wish you were coming, too,” said Mary, clinging closely to his arm.
”You will be bringing me back fine stories,” her father said, patting her hand. ”I shall be seeing the world through your eyes, child.”
”I shall write to you every day.”
”I shan't expect that, Mary. You will be moving from place to place. I know you will write when you can, and I am always sure of your love.”
While they talked Lady Anne was receiving Dr. Carruthers professionally.
She had had symptoms, weaknesses, pangs, of which she had told n.o.body.
”I was inclined to go without telling you anything about it, doctor,”
she said. ”I was as keen upon it as the child. I am more disappointed than she will be. I have been wilful all my life, but I am glad I did not take my own way this time. It would have been a nice thing for poor Mary if I had been taken ill in some of those foreign places.”
”You will be much better in your own comfortable home.”
Dr. Carruthers spoke cheerfully, but he could not keep the anxiety out of his face.
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