Sir John made no response. He folded his arms and looked down at Antonia. His face looked very cold and satirical; his lips were so tightly shut as to appear like a straight line. Antonia's face, all enthusiasm and fire, gazed up at him.

"Can I melt that iceberg?" she said inwardly. "Now for the tug of war."

"This is the heart and kernel of my reason for wishing to see you," she said. "I have taken up the cause of the Lorrimers. The Lorrimers are leaving the Towers because Squire Lorrimer has got into money difficulties. I don't know how, and I don't know why. He is obliged to sell the beautiful and n.o.ble home of his ancestors to clear himself of these difficulties. The children are all sorry to go--Molly loses the freshness of her youth when she leaves the Towers; Guy loses his rightful inheritance; the younger children are embittered by an unnatural feud which I need not trouble you about, but which will sour their characters; Nell is not strong, and simple grief may shorten her days; and the Squire, the Squire himself is so cut up, so heart-broken, that he cannot bring himself to say good-bye to the old place. He is in town, here, close to us; he is hiding somewhere near us because his proud old heart is broken. His hair is white ... his head is bowed and his eyes are dim."

"What does all this mean?" interrupted Sir John.

"What does it mean?" exclaimed Antonia, springing like a young lioness from her chair. "It means that you are to come to the rescue. Why should all that family be made wretched? and why should the Towers go to strangers when you can put things right? Take your money out of the bank, or wherever you have placed it--it will be the finest deed you ever did in your life--and buy back the Towers and give it to Squire Lorrimer and to Guy for their own place again. Yours is the talent buried in the ground. Take it out and save the Squire, and you'll be so happy you won't know yourself. Why, you'll be all on fire and alive with gladness. There, that's what I telegraphed to you for; you know now.

You'll do it ... of course you'll do it. I have spoken now. You know what I want."

Antonia sank down into her chair again. She was trembling visibly through all her slender figure. Sir John gazed at her in amazement. Her eyes met his fully, and then her heart gave a leap in her breast. He was not angry. She guessed then that she had won her cause.

"You certainly are a queer girl," he said, sitting down near her. "You amaze me. I never heard of a girl who would take up a thing in this way ... and the Lorrimers are not even your friends. Oh, no! I am not angry ... not now. Hester frets morning, noon, and night, at the thought of parting with Molly; but Hester never thought of this. It is fine of you--quite impossible, of course; but I always admire real bravery when I see it."

"Never mind praising me," said Antonia; "tell me why you call it impossible."

"My dear young lady, do you think for a single moment Squire Lorrimer would accept a gift of this sort from me? Do you think the Towers would be of the least value to him won back in such a way? _n.o.blesse oblige_ would prevent his accepting such an offer."

"I have thought of all that," said Antonia. "I guessed that there would be a good deal of pride to overcome. Fortunately I am not bothered with _n.o.blesse oblige_; but I guessed that you county people would worry over it. We art lovers never think of it; we rise above it; we go back to the old, old, _old_, times, when those who loved each other had all things in common."

"As long as we live in the world," said Sir John, "the men of the world must adhere to its usages. It is not the custom for one man to present another with the sort of gift you propose that I should favour Squire Lorrimer with."

"Then you must not give it in the form of a gift. You must go to your solicitor and consult him about the matter. I happen to know that Susy Drummond hates the Towers, so I am quite sure that Mr. Drummond would be very glad to be out of his bargain. The Squire wants a certain sum of money; you must lend it to him on very easy terms. Oh! of course you know how to manage! You must make it possible for him to stay at the Towers whatever happens. Oh! I know you'll do it! I know you'll be clever enough and kind enough to do it. You'll think of a way, and in all the world no man will ever have a more faithful daughter than I'll be to you. Dear me! how dead tired I am! Are you going out to your club to dinner? If so, I'll go to bed."

CHAPTER XXIX

G.o.d BLESS ANTONIA.

Mrs. Bernard Temple waited up for Sir John that night; but he did not appear. When he left Antonia he went straight to his club, ordered dinner, and ate it with his usual refined and somewhat languid appet.i.te.

He then went up to his room, and being tired thought he would go early to bed. He did go to bed--he even went to the length of shutting his eyes, preparatory for a peaceful night's slumber. Up to that point he was the Sir John of old. The calculating, reserved, cold-natured Englishman; but beyond that point he was different, altogether different from what he had been before. Between him and his accustomed night's rest came the eager face and pa.s.sionate words of a girl--a lanky, untidy, and, in his opinion, most disagreeable girl. Still, she had roused him as he had never yet been roused. She had absolutely awakened a sort of conscience in him. For the first time in his whole existence, he carefully considered the question, who is my neighbour?

Certainly Squire Lorrimer was his neighbour. Their estates joined; they had been good friends from boyhood upward; they had been lads at the same school, and afterwards men of the same college. His children and Squire Lorrimer's children loved each other dearly. He had noticed of late how often Hester's eyes had been red as if with tears. She had been very good about his own proposed marriage, but she had cried when the Lorrimers were mentioned Nan had been sulky and disagreeable and defiant, and this was also on account of the Lorrimers. He was very sorry for his children, and very sorry also for the Lorrimers, but never until to-night had it entered into his head to help the Lorrimers out of their trouble.

He could do so, of course--he was a very rich man--he was also a careful man, never living up to his large yearly income. By no means extravagant in his tastes, not specially fond of h.o.a.rding money, but being really possessed of more than his wants required. He lay awake, and thought and thought, and after an early breakfast the next morning he did adopt Antonia's suggestion, and went to see his solicitor. From there he wrote a brief note to Mrs. Bernard Temple.

"As she had not, after all, required his presence in town," he wrote, "he would not come to see her. He happened to be particularly engaged, and wanted to return to the Grange that evening."

This letter was delivered at Mrs. Bernard Temple's house by a Commissionaire. It made that good lady very uneasy, but when Antonia read it she proceeded to skip up and down the drawing-room with such energy that two papier-mache tables were knocked over and a valuable china cup and saucer smashed.

"Don't speak to me, mother," she exclaimed. "I have nothing whatever to say, only if I don't give vent to my feelings in some sort of exercise I shall go mad."

The next day or two pa.s.sed without anything special occurring, but on the third day Mrs. Bernard Temple received a letter which astonished her very much.

It was from Sir John, begging of her to come back to the Grange, and especially asking that Antonia should accompany her.

"Dear old man," murmured Antonia when she received this message. "I knew he'd rise to it; I knew he would. Mother, which is the most fashionable shop in London?"

"For what, my dear?"

"For an up-to-date costume. I must go at once and be rigged up. You had better order a hansom--never mind the extravagance--it will be untold torture, but it is a promise, and it must be done. Annie, love, you are exquisite on the subject of dress; come and see Antonia made fashionable."

"Yes, go with her, Annie," said Mrs. Bernard Temple. "I cannot imagine what this queer thing portends, but anything to make Antonia look like an ordinary girl I willingly agree to. Don't be extravagant, my love, for my purse is not too heavy; but anything under ten pounds I will willingly spend to make you presentable."

"It's appalling to think of the waste of money," said Antonia. "Oh, what would not ten pounds do in the cause of Art? But a promise is a promise.

Come along, Annie, we'll go to Regent Street and choose."

Five minutes later, the two girls set off. Antonia's face was wreathed with wonderful smiles, but she was mute as to the subject of her thoughts, even to Annie.

"I suppose I must have a respectable hat," she said, suddenly; "and I suppose it must sit in the correct way on my head; therefore, the first thing is to go to a hairdresser's. I must be fringed, and curled, and frizzed."

"Oh, Antonia, no, no;" said Annie. "Your beautiful hair--it would be a sin to put a pair of scissors near it."

"A promise is a promise," said Antonia. "Which is the best hairdresser?"

They stopped at one in Bond Street, and half an hour later Antonia left the shop, very stiff about the head and red about the face.

"The hairpins are sticking into me all over," she gasped, "and the weight of the fringe is like a furnace on my forehead; but never mind."

"It isn't at all becoming either," said Annie.

Antonia looked at her with large eyes of reproach.

"Do you think I _want_ it to be becoming?" she said. "That would be the final straw."

The fashionable dress was not only bought, but put on, and Mrs. Bernard Temple scarcely knew her daughter when she saw her back again.

"I'm in misery," said Antonia; "but a promise is a promise. My dear mother, when you are married to Sir John, that dear, dear old man, you need not expect to see me often at the Grange."

"I really do not see, Antonia, why you should speak of your future father as so very old."

"He's old to me," said Antonia. "I always speak of people as I find them."

"You are a most extraordinary girl," remarked her mother.

But she made this remark so often that Antonia did not think it necessary to reply.

By a late train in the afternoon the whole party were conveyed back to the Grange, where Hester received them with rather a puzzled expression on her face. As soon as possible she drew Annie aside, and began to speak to her.

"I cannot imagine what is the matter," she said; "father is going on in a most extraordinary way. You won't mind my speaking frankly, Annie, but he seemed really quite relieved when you all went away. Then he got that telegram from Mrs. Bernard Temple, and rushed off to town in a hurry. He came back the following evening completely altered--very silent and absorbed, but with a kind of change over him which Nan and I could not help noticing. I asked him if he had seen anything of Squire Lorrimer, and he looked hard at me and said--'I wonder if you are in it, too.'"

"Oh, I know, I know," said Annie softly, rubbing her hands; "dear Antonia, dear Antonia."

"Oh, for pity's sake, Annie, don't you get mysterious," exclaimed Hester, almost fretfully. "What can Antonia have to say to Squire Lorrimer? Let me finish my story. I asked father if he had seen him, and he replied, 'I have heard and seen enough of Lorrimer to fill all my thoughts.' He would not tell me another word; but he went to town again the next morning, and came back absolutely excited in the evening. Fancy my father in a state of excitement! He was ever so nice to me; and when Nan said that she must go to school almost immediately, he said that Mrs. Willis should be invited to come back to the Grange, for he wanted us all to have a happy meeting before his wedding. And he has been telegraphing to all kinds of people all day, and I believe all the Lorrimers are coming here to-morrow. Father said he wanted to have a real, jolly time, and that everyone of the Lorrimers, even to little Phil, and, of course, Jane Macalister, were to be asked. I ventured to remind him that dear Molly and all of them were not just in the mood for festivities at present, but he would not listen to me for a moment. He said, that on such an auspicious occasion he must have his own way, and that he would engage that they would be jolly enough when the time came."