CHAPTER XII.

"LADDIE" PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE.

"I think we have managed that as well as possible!" exclaimed Phillis, when they found themselves outside the gates. "What a good thing Adelaide and Mrs. Forbes and Lily were there! Now we need only call at those three houses to say good-bye. How hot you look, Nan! and how they all hemmed you in! I was obliged to come to your rescue, you were so beset; but I think I have put them off the scent."

"Yes, for the present; but think, Phil, if Carrie really carries out her intention, and all the Paine tribe and Adelaide come down to Hadleigh next summer! No wonder I am hot; the bare idea suffocates me."

"Something may turn up before then; it is no good looking so far ahead," was the philosophical rejoinder. "Adelaide is rather formidable, certainly, and, in spite of her good nature, one does not feel at home with her. There is a flavor of money about her, I think; she dresses, talks, and lives in such a gilded way one finds her heavy; but she may get married before then. Mr. Dalrymple certainly seemed to mean it when he was down here last winter, and he will be a good match for her. But here we are at Fitzroy Square. I wonder what sort of humor her ladyship will be in?"

Lady Fitzroy received them very graciously. She had just been indulging in a slight dispute with her husband, and the interruption was welcome to both of them; besides, she was always gracious to the Challoners.

"You have just come in time, for we were boring each other dreadfully," she said, in her pretty languid way, holding out a hand to each of them. "Percival, will you ring the bell, please? I cannot think why Thorpe does not bring up the tea as usual!"

Lord Fitzroy obeyed his wife's behest, and then he turned with a relieved air to his old friend Phillis. She was the clever one; and though some people called her quiet, that was because they did not draw her out, or she had no sympathy with them. He had always found her decidedly amusing and agreeable in the days of his bachelorhood.

He had married the beauty of a season, but the beauty was not without her little crotchets and tempers; and though he was both fond and proud of his wife, he found Phillis's talk a relief this afternoon.

But Phillis was a little _distraite_ on this occasion: she wanted to hear what Nan was saying in a low voice across the room, and Thorpe and his subordinate were setting the tea-table, and Lord Fitzroy would place himself just before her.

"Now look here, Miss Challoner," he was saying, "I want to tell you all about it;" but here Thorpe left the room, and Lady Fitzroy interrupted them:

"Oh, Percival, what a pity! Do you hear?--we are going to lose our nicest neighbors? Dear little Glen Cottage is to be empty in a week or so!"

"Mr. Ralph Ibbetson will decide to take it, I think; and he and Miss Blake are to be married on the 16th of next month," returned Nan, softly.

"Ibbetson at Glen Cottage! that red-headed fellow! My dear Miss Challoner, what sacrilege!--what desecration! What do you mean by forsaking us in this fashion? Are you all going to be married? Has Sir Francis died and left you a fortune? In the name of all that is mysterious, what is the meaning of this?"

"If you will let a person speak, Percival," returned his wife, with dignity, "you shall have an answer:" and then she looked up in his handsome, good-natured face, and her manner softened insensibly. "Poor dear Mrs. Challoner has had losses! Some one has played her false, and they are obliged to leave Glen Cottage. But Hadleigh is a nice place,"

she went on, turning to Nan: "it is very select."

"Where did you say, Evelyn?" inquired her husband, eagerly. "Hadleigh, in Suss.e.x? Oh, that is a snug little place; no Toms and Harries go down there on a nine hours' trip. I was there myself once, with the Shannontons. Perhaps Lady Fitzroy and I may run down one day and have a look at you," he continued, with a friendly look at Phillis. It was only one of his good-natured speeches, but his wife took umbrage at it.

"The sea never agrees with me. I thought you knew that, Percival!"

rather reproachfully; "but I dare say we shall often see you here,"

she went on, fearing Nan would think her ungracious. "You and the Paines are so intimate that they are sure to have you for weeks together; it is so pleasant revisiting an old neighborhood, is it not?

I know I always feel that with regard to Nuneaton."

"Nuneaton never suits my const.i.tution. I thought you would have remembered that, Evelyn," returned her husband, gravely; and then they both laughed. Lord Fitzroy was not without a sense of humor, and often restored amity by a joking word after this fashion, and then the conversation proceeded more smoothly.

Nan and Phillis felt far more at their ease here than they had felt at the Paines'. There were no awkward questions asked: Lady Fitzroy was far too well bred for that. If she wondered at all how the Challoners were to live after they had lost their money, she kept such remarks for her husband's private ear.

"Those girls ought to marry well," observed Lord Fitzroy, when he found himself alone again with his wife. "Miss Challoner is as pretty a creature as one need see, but Miss Phillis has the most in her."

"How are they to meet people if they are going to bury themselves in a little sea-side place?" she returned, regretfully. "Shall I put on my habit now, Percy? do you think it will be cool enough for our ride?"

"Yes, run along, my pet, and don't keep me too long waiting."

Nevertheless, Lord Fitzroy did not object when his wife made room for him a moment beside her on the couch, while she made it up to him for her cross speeches, as she told him.

"There, little mother, it is all done!" exclaimed Phillis, in a tone of triumph, as later on in the afternoon they returned to the cottage; but in spite of her bravado, both the girls looked terribly jaded, and Nan especially seemed out of spirits; but then they had been round the Longmead garden, and had gathered some flowers in the conservatory, and this alone would have been depressing work to Nan.

From that time they lived in a perpetual whirl, a bustle of activity that grew greater; and not less, from day to day. Mrs. Challoner had quietly but decidedly refused the Paines' invitation. Nan was right; nothing would have induced her to leave her girls in their trouble: she made light of their discomfort, forgot her invalid airs, and persisted in fatiguing herself to an alarming extent.

"You must let me do things; I should be wretched to sit with my hands before me, and not help you," she said with tears in her eyes, and when they appealed in desperation to Dorothy, she took her mistress's side:

"Working hurts less than worrying. Don't you be fretting about the mistress too much, or watching her too closely. It will do her no harm, take my word for it." And Dorothy was right.

But there was one piece of work that Nan set her mother to do before they left the cottage.

"Mother," she said to her one day when they were alone together. "Mrs.

Mayne will be wondering why you do not answer her letter. I think you had better write, and tell her a little about things. We must not put it off any longer, or she will be hurt with us." And Mrs. Challoner very reluctantly set about her unpleasant task.

But, after all, it was Nan who furnished the greater part of the composition. Mrs. Challoner was rather verbose and descriptive in her style. Nan cut down her sentences ruthlessly, and so pruned and simplified the whole epistle that her mother failed to trace her own handiwork: and at the last she added a postscript in her own pretty handwriting.

Mrs. Challoner was rather dissatisfied with the whole thing.

"You have said so little, Nan! Mrs. Mayne will be quite affronted at our reticence."

"What is the use of harrowing people's feelings?" was Nan's response.

It was quite true she had dwelt as little as possible on their troubles.

The few opening sentences had related solely to their friends'

affairs.

"You will be sorry to hear," Mrs. Challoner wrote after this, "that I have met with some severe losses. I dare say Mr. Mayne will remember that my poor husband invested our little income in the business of his cousin, Mark Gardiner. We have just heard the unwelcome news that Gardiner & Fowler have failed for a large amount. Under these circ.u.mstances, we think it more prudent to leave Glen Cottage as soon as possible, and settle at Hadleigh, where we have a small house belonging to us called the Friary. Fortunately for us, Mr. Trinder has found us a tenant, who will take the remainder of the lease off our hands. Do you remember Mr. Ralph Ibbetson, the Paines' cousin, that rather heavy-looking young man, with reddish hair, who was engaged to that pretty Miss Blake?--well, he has taken Glen Cottage; and I hope you will find them nice neighbors. Tell d.i.c.k he must not be too sorry to miss his old friends, but of course you will understand this is a sad break to us. Settling down in a new place is never very pleasant; and as my girls will have to help themselves, and we shall all have to learn to do without things, it will be somewhat of a discipline to us; but as long as we are together, we all feel, such difficulties can be easily borne.

"Tell Mr. Mayne that, if I had foreseen how things were to turn out, I would have conquered my indisposition, and not have forfeited my last evening at Longmead."

And in the postscript Nan wrote hurriedly,--

"You must not be too sorry for us, dear Mrs. Mayne, for mother is as brave as possible, and we are all determined to make the best of things.

"Of course it is very sad leaving dear Glen Cottage, where we have spent such happy, happy days; but, though the Friary is small, we shall make it very comfortable. Tell d.i.c.k the garden is a perfect wilderness at present, and that there are no roses,--only a splendid pa.s.sion-flower that covers the whole back of the house."

Nan never knew why she wrote this. Was it to remind him vaguely that the time of roses was over, and that from this day things would be different with them?

Nan was quite satisfied when she had despatched this letter. It told just enough, and not too much. It sorely perplexed and troubled d.i.c.k; and yet neither he nor his father had the least idea how things really were with the Challoners.

"Didn't I tell you so, Bessie?" exclaimed Mr. Mayne, almost in a voice of triumph, as he struck his hand upon the letter. "Paine was right when he spoke of a shaky investment. That comes of women pretending to understand business. A pretty mess they seem to have made of it!"

"Mother," said poor d.i.c.k, coming up to her when he found himself alone with her for a moment, "I don't understand this letter. I cannot read between the lines, somehow, and yet there seems something more than meets the eye."

"I am sure it is bad enough," returned Mrs. Mayne, who had been quietly crying over Nan's postscript. "Think of them leaving Glen Cottage, and of these poor dear girls having to make themselves useful!"

"It is just that that bothers me so," replied d.i.c.k, with a frowning brow. "The letter tells us so little; it is so constrained in tone; as though they were keeping something from us. Of course they have something to live upon, but I am afraid it is very little."