CHAPTER VI.

GEOFF "WON'T STAND IT."

Geoff hurried on with his dressing. He was wretchedly unhappy--all the more so because he was furiously angry with Elsa, and perhaps, at the bottom of his heart, with himself.

His room was, as I have said, at the top of the house. He did not hear the front-door bell ring while he was splashing in his bath; and as he rushed downstairs a quarter of an hour or so after Elsa had left him, he was considerably taken aback to be met at the foot of the first flight by the now familiar figure of Mr. Byrne.

"Geoffrey," he said quietly, "your sisters have gone to lie down and try to sleep for a little. They have been up all night, and they are likely to want all their strength. Go down to the school-room and get your breakfast. When you have finished, I will come to talk to you a little before you go to school."

Geoff glanced up. There was something in Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot's face which made him feel there was no use in bl.u.s.tering or resisting.

"Very well," he said, putting as little expression in his voice as he could; and as Mr. Byrne turned away, the boy made his way down to the school-room.

It looked dreary and strange this morning. It was earlier than usual, and perhaps the room had been less carefully done, for Mrs. Tudor's illness had upset the whole household. The fire was only just lighted; the preparations for Geoff's breakfast were only half ready. It was a very chilly day; and as the boy sat down by the table, leaning his head on his hands, he shivered both with cold and unhappiness.

"They all hate me," he said to himself. "I've known it for a long time, but I've never been so sure of it before. It is much the best for me to go away. Mamma _has_ cared for me; but they're making her leave off, and they'll set her entirely against me. She'll be far better and happier without me; and when she gets well--I dare say they have exaggerated her illness--they will have the pleasure of saying it's because I'm gone.

There's only Vic who'll really care. But she won't mind so very much, either. I'll write to her now and then. I must think how best to do about going away. I hate the sea; there's no use thinking of that. I don't mind what I do, if it's in the country. I might go down to some farmhouse--one of those jolly farms where d.i.c.k and I used to get a gla.s.s of milk last summer. I wouldn't mind a bit, working on one of those farms. It would be much jollier than grinding away at school. And I am sure d.i.c.k and I did as much work as any haymakers last summer."

He had worked himself up into positively looking forward to the idea of leaving home. Vague ideas of how his mother and sisters would learn too late how little they had appreciated him; visions of magnanimously forgiving them all some day when he should have, in some mysterious way, become a landed proprietor, riding about his fields, and of inviting them all down into the country to visit him, floated before his brain.

He ate his breakfast with a very good appet.i.te; and when Mr. Byrne entered the room, he was surprised to see no look of sulkiness on the boy's face; though, on the other hand, there were no signs of concern or distress.

"Is he really _heartless_?" thought the old man, with a pang of disappointment. "Am I mistaken in thinking the good material is there?"

"I want to talk to you, Geoff," he said. "You are early this morning.

You need not start for twenty minutes or more."

"Am I to understand you intend to prevent me seeing my mother, sir?"

said Geoff, in a peculiar tone.

Mr. Byrne looked at him rather sadly.

"It is not _I_ preventing it," he said. "The doctor has left his orders."

"I understand," said Geoff, bitterly. "Well, it does not much matter.

Mother and the others are not likely to see much more of me."

The old gentleman looked at him sharply.

"Are you thinking of running away?" he said.

"Not running away," said Geoffrey. "I'm not going to do it in any secret sort of way; but I've made up my mind to go. And now that mother has thrown me over too, I don't suppose any one will care."

"You've not been going the way to make any one care, it strikes me,"

said Mr. Byrne. "But I have something to say to you, Geoff. One thing which has helped to make your poor mother ill has been anxiety about money matters. I had not wished her to know of it; but it was told her by mistake. I myself have known for some time that things were going wrong. But now the worst has come----"

"What is the worst?" asked Geoffrey. "Have we lost everything?"

"Yes," said Mr. Byrne, "I think that's about it."

"I think I should have been told this before," said Geoff.

"Well," said his uncle, "I'm not sure but that I agree with you. But your mother wished to save you as long as she could. And you have not borne small annoyances so well that she could hope for much comfort from you in a great trouble."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY TO YOU, GEOFF."]

Geoff said nothing.

"I shall take care of your mother and sisters," Mr. Byrne went on.

"I am not even to be allowed to work for my mother, then?" said Geoffrey.

"At your age it will be as much as you can do to work for yourself,"

said the old man. "And as yet, you cannot even do that directly. You must go on with your education. I have found a school in the country where you will be well taught, and where you will not be annoyed by not being able to have all that your companions have, as you have so complained about."

"And who is to pay for my schooling?" asked the boy.

"I," replied Mr. Byrne.

"Thank you," said Geoffrey. His tone was not exactly disrespectful, but it was certainly not grateful. "I know I should thank you, but I don't want you to pay schooling or anything else for me. I shall manage for myself. It is much best for me to go away altogether. Even--even if this about our money hadn't happened, I was already making up my mind to it."

Mr. Byrne looked at him.

"Legally speaking, your mother could stop your leaving her," he said.

"She is not likely to do so," replied the boy, "if she is so ill that she cannot even see me."

"Perhaps not," said the old gentleman. "I will send my servant to you at mid-day, to say how your mother is."

"Thank you," said Geoffrey again.

Then Mr. Byrne left the room, and Geoff went off to school.

He was in a strange state of mind. He hardly took in what he had been told of the state of his mother's money matters. He hardly indeed believed it, so possessed was he by the idea that there was a sort of plot to get rid of him.

"It isn't mother herself," he reflected. "It's all Elsa and Frances, and that horrid old Hoot-Toot. But as for going to any school _he'd_ send me to--no, thank you."

He was standing about at noon with some of his companions, when the coloured servant appeared.

"Please, sir," he said, "I was to tell you that the lady is better--doctor say so;" and with a kind of salaam he waited to see what the young gentleman would reply.

"All right," said Geoff, curtly; and the man turned to go.

Geoff did not see that at the gates he stood still a moment speaking to another man, who appeared to have been waiting for him.

"That young gentleman with the dark hair. You see plain when I speak to him," he said in his rather broken English.