"We shall all have to work," finished Nan, with prudent vagueness, not daring to intrust their plan to Dorothy: "the cottage is small, and, of course, we can only keep one servant."

"I dare say I shall be able to manage if you will help me a little,"

returned Dorothy, drying her old eyes with the corner of her ap.r.o.n.

"Dear, dear! to think of such an affliction coming upon my mistress and the dear young ladies! It is like an earthquake or a flood, or something sudden and unexpected,--Lord deliver us! And to think of my speaking crossly to you Miss Nan, and you with all this worry on your mind!"

"We will not think of that," returned Nan, soothingly. "Susan's quarter will be up shortly, and we must get her away as soon as possible. My great fear is that the work may be too much for you, poor Dorothy; and that--that--we may have to keep you waiting sometimes for your wages," she added, rather hesitatingly fearing to offend Dorothy's touchy temper, and yet determined to put the whole matter clearly before her.

"I don't think we need talk about that," returned Dorothy, with dignity. "I have not saved up my wages for nineteen years without having a nest-egg laid up for rainy days. Wages,--when I mention the word, Miss Nan," went on Dorothy, waxing somewhat irate, "it will be time enough to enter upon that subject. I haven't deserved such a speech; no, that I haven't," went on Dorothy, with a sob. "Wages, indeed!"

"Now, nursey, you shan't be cross with Nan," cried Dulce, throwing her arms round the old woman; for, in spite of her eighteen years, she was still Dorothy's special charge. "She's quite right; it may be an unpleasant subject, but we will not have you working for us for nothing."

"Very well, Miss Dulce," returned Dorothy, in a choked voice preparing to withdraw; but Nan caught hold of the hard work-worn hand, and held her fast.

"Oh, Dorothy, you would not add to our trouble now, when we are so terribly unhappy! I never meant to hurt your feelings by what I said.

If you will only go to the Friary and help us to make the dear mother comfortable, I, for one, will be deeply grateful."

"And you will not talk of wages?" asked Dorothy, mollified by Nan's sweet, pleading tones.

"Not until we can afford to do so," returned Nan, hastily, feeling that this was a safe compromise, and that they should be eked out somehow. And then, the stewed pigeons being regarded as a failure, Dorothy consented to remove the supper tray, and the long day was declared at an end.

CHAPTER X.

THE FRIARY.

Oldfield was rather mystified by the Challoners' movements. There were absolutely three afternoons during which Nan and her sisters were invisible. There was a tennis-party at the Paines' on one of these days, but at the last minute they had excused themselves. Nan's prettily-worded note was declared very vague and unsatisfactory, and on the following afternoon there was a regular invasion of the cottage,--Carrie Paine, and two of the Twentyman girls, and Adelaide Sartoris and her young brother Albert.

They found Dulce alone, looking very sad and forlorn.

Nan and Phillis had gone down to Hadleigh that morning, she explained in rather a confused way: they were not expected back until the following evening.

On being pressed by Miss Sartoris as to the reason of this sudden trip, she added, rather awkwardly, that it was on business; her mother was not well,--oh, very far from well; and they had to look at a house that belonged to them, as the tenant had lately died.

This was all very plausible; but Dulce's manner was so constrained, and she spoke with such hesitation, that Miss Sartoris was convinced that something lay behind. They went out in the garden, however, and chose sides for their game of tennis; and, though Dulce had never played so badly in her life, the fresh air and exercise did her good, and at the end of the afternoon she looked a little less drooping.

It was felt to be a failure, however, by the whole party; and when tea was over, there was no mention of a second game. "No, we will not stay any longer," observed Isabella Twentyman, kissing the girl with much affection. "Of course we understand that you will be wanting to sit with your mother."

"Yes, and if you do not come in to-morrow we shall quite know how it is," added Miss Sartoris, good-naturedly, for which Dulce thanked her and looked relieved.

She stood at the hall door watching them as they walked down the village street, swinging their racquets and talking merrily.

"What happy girls!" she thought, with a sigh. Miss Sartoris was an heiress, and the Twentymans were rich, and every one knew that Carrie and Sophy Paine would have money. "None of them will have to work,"

said poor Dulce sorrowfully to herself: "they can go on playing tennis and driving and riding and dancing as long as they like." And then she went up to her mother's room with lagging footsteps and a cloudy brow.

"You may depend upon it there is something amiss with those Challoners," said Miss Sartoris, as soon as they were out of sight of the cottage; "no one has seen anything of them for the last three or four days, and I never saw Dulce so unlike herself."

"Oh, I hope not," returned Carrie, gravely, who had heard enough from her father to guess that there was pecuniary embarra.s.sment at the bottom. "Poor little thing, she did seem rather subdued. How many people do you expect to muster to-morrow, Adelaide?" and then Miss Sartoris understood that the subject was to be changed.

While Dulce was trying to entertain her friends, Nan and Phillis were reconnoitring the Friary.

They had taken an early train to London, and had contrived to reach Hadleigh a little before three. They went first to Beach House,--a small unpretending house on the Parade, kept by a certain Mrs. Mozley, with whom they had once lodged after Dulce had the measles.

The good woman received them with the utmost cordiality. Her place was pretty nearly filled, she told them proudly; the drawing-room had been taken for three months, and an elderly couple were in the dining-room.

"But there is a bedroom I could let you have for one night," finished Mrs. Mozley, "and there is the little side parlor where you could have your tea and breakfast." And when Nan had thanked her, and suggested the addition of chops to their evening meal, they left their modest luggage and set out for the Friary.

Phillis would have gone direct to their destination, but Nan pleaded for one turn on the Parade. She wanted a glimpse of the sea, and it was such a beautiful afternoon.

The tide was out, and the long black breakwaters were uncovered; the sun was shining on the wet shingles and narrow strip of yellow sand.

The sea looked blue and unruffled, with little sparkles and gleams of light, and white sails glimmered on the horizon. Some boatmen were dragging a boat down the beach; it grated noisily over the pebbles. A merry party were about to embark,--a tall man in a straw hat, and two boys in knickerbockers. Their sisters were watching them. "Oh, Reggie, do be careful!" Nan heard one of the girls say, as he waded knee-deep into the water.

"Come, Nan, we ought not to dawdle like this!" exclaimed Phillis, impatiently; and they went on quickly, past the long row of old-fashioned white houses with the green before them and that sweet Suss.e.x border of soft feathery tamarisk, and then past the cricket-field, and down to the whitewashed cottage of the Preventive Station; and then they turned back and walked towards the Steyne, and after that Nan declared herself satisfied.

There were plenty of people on the Parade, and most of them looked after the two girls as they pa.s.sed. Nan's sweet bloom and graceful carriage always attracted notice; and Phillis, although she generally suffered from comparison with her sister, was still very uncommon-looking.

"I should like to know who those young ladies are," observed a military-looking man with a white moustache, who was standing at the Library door waiting for his daughter to make some purchases. "Look at them, Elizabeth: one of them is such a pretty girl, and they walk so well."

"Dear father, I suppose they are only some new-comers: we shall see their names down in the visitors' list by and by;" and Miss Middleton smiled as she took her father's arm, for she was slightly lame. She knew strangers always interested him, and that he would make it his business for the next few days to find out everything about them.

"Did you see that nice-looking woman?" asked Phillis, when they had pa.s.sed. "She was quite young, only her hair was gray: fancy, a gray-haired girl!"

"Oh, she must be older than she looks," returned Nan, indifferently.

She was not looking at people: she was far too busily engaged identifying each well-remembered spot.

There was the shabby little cottage, where she and her mother had once stayed after an illness of Mrs. Challoner's. What odd little rooms they had occupied, looking over a strip of garden-ground full of marigolds! "Marigolds-all-in-a-row Cottage," she had named it in her home letters. It was nearly opposite the White House where Mrs. Cheyne lived. Nan remembered her,--a handsome, sad-looking woman, who always wore black, and drove out in such handsome carriages.

"Always alone; how sad!" Nan thought; and she wondered, as they walked past the low stone walls with gra.s.sy mounds slopping from them, and a belt of shrubbery shutting out views of the house, whether Mrs. Cheyne lived there still.

They had reached a quiet country corner now; there was a clump of trees, guarded by posts and chains; a white house stood far back.

There were two or three other houses, and a cottage dotted down here and there. The road looked shady and inviting. Nan began to look about her more cheerfully.

"I am glad it is so quiet, and so far away from the town, and that our neighbors will not be able to overlook us."

"I was just thinking of that as a disadvantage," returned Phillis, with placid opposition. "It is a pity, under the circ.u.mstances, that we are not nearer the town." And after that Nan held her peace.

They were pa.s.sing an old-fashioned house with a green door in the wall, when it suddenly opened, and a tall, grave looking young man, in clerical attire, came out quickly upon them, and then drew back to let them pa.s.s.

"I suppose that is the new vicar?" whispered Phillis, when they had gone a few steps. "You know poor old Dr. Musgrave is dead, and most likely that is his successor."

"I forgot that was the vicarage," returned Nan. But happily she did not turn round to look at it again; if she had done so, she would have seen the young clergyman still standing by the green door watching them. "It is a shabby, dull old house in front; but I remember that when mother and I returned Mrs. Musgrave's call we were shown into such a dear old-fashioned drawing-room, with windows looking out on such a pleasant garden. I quite fell in love with it."

"Well, we shall be near neighbors," observed Phillis, somewhat shortly, as she paused before another green door, set in a long blank wall; "for here we are at the Friary, and I had better just run over the way and get the key from Mrs. Crump."

Nan nodded, and then stood like an image of patience before the shabby green door. Would it open and let them into a new untried life?

What sort of fading hopes, of dim regrets, would be left outside when they crossed the threshold? The thought of the empty rooms, not yet swept and garnished, made her shiver: the upper windows looked blankly at her, like blind, unrecognizing eyes. She was quite glad when Phillis joined her again, swinging the key on her little finger, and humming a tune in forced cheerfulness.