"You are surprised at the time implied. My invitations were intentionally vague, for I had not at the time made up my mind as to various details. I have now decided that for the proper development of my scheme three months at least will be necessary. I therefore invite you to be my guests at the Court during that period."

Again came the involuntary, simultaneous start of surprise, and Jack Melland cried hastily--

"It is impossible! I am obliged to you, sir; but it is quite impossible, so far as I am concerned. My business--"

"My--my mother!" cried Ruth. "We could not leave her so long; she needs our help--"

Mr Farrell interrupted with upraised hand.

"We will defer objections, if you please! I am prepared to meet and answer them, later on. For the present I ask you to think quietly over the prospect which lies before you, and to consider how far such obstacles as you have mentioned should be allowed to stand in the way.

Surely the object is worth some temporary inconvenience or loss. This house, and all that it contains, with various properties bringing in an income of over ten thousand a year, will in due course become the property of one of your number--of the one who best fulfils a certain condition which I consider essential."

"And the condition--the condition?" queried Mollie eagerly.

Mr Farrell looked at her in silence, while a grim smile pa.s.sed over his features.

"That," he said slowly--"that, my dear Miss Mary,--will be discovered, with other things,--when you hear my will read aloud on the day of my funeral?"

CHAPTER EIGHT.

SPECULATIONS.

"Well!" exclaimed Ruth, sinking back in armchair number one, at the right of the bedroom fireplace.

"Well!" exclaimed Mollie, sinking back in armchair number two, facing her sister. "Likewise, good sooth! By my halidom! Gadzooks! Of a surety these are great happenings, fair sis!"

"Don't be so tiresome, Mollie! You make a joke out of everything. I want to talk over the position seriously."

"So do I--just dying to. Go on! Where shall we begin?"

"With the time, of course. Three months! I never dreamt of more than a fortnight, at most. Do you think we can possibly be spared?"

"I don't think at all--I know! If it was three years, with such an interest at stake, the poor little mother would jump at it. Three months soon pa.s.s, and there will be two people less to feed and wait upon, and a room less to keep in order. Every little tells when people are as hard up as we are, and with the savings mother will be able to pay Miss Carter to help with the mending. It will be good for Trix, too. The more you depend upon Trix the more she rises to the occasion.

I have a shrewd suspicion that she is going to cut us out, and be the show daughter of the family. Mother will be blissfully happy building castles in the air; Trix will be blissfully happy playing eldest daughter, and bossing the family. We shall be blissfully happy not pretending, but actually being, Berengaria and Lucille. It's all quite smooth and easy!"

Ruth heaved a sigh, half convinced, half reluctant.

"That's what you always say! I see such crowds of objections. To begin with, I hate the position; it's awkward and humiliating. To stay here on approval, studied like specimens in a case; being on one's good behaviour, and 'acting pretty' to try to get a fortune for oneself, away from other people--bah! It makes me hot even to think of it. I should feel a hypocrite!"

"Don't be high-flown, dear; it's quite unnecessary. You couldn't be a hypocrite if you tried; you are too ridiculously 'proud,' I suppose you would say. I call it quick-tempered! If Uncle Bernard snubs you, you will flare out, fortune or no fortune, and if you feel mopey, mope you will, if he disinherits you the next moment. I shall be honest, too, because I'm too lazy to be anything else; besides, you know, there is always the pleasing reflection that he may _prefer_ us to be crotchety!

Everything is possible where everything is vague. Imagine how maddening it would be if we kept our tempers, and smiled sweetly from morning till night, and in the end he left everything to that cross Mr Melland, because he considered it necessary for the owner of wealth to have a will of his own!"

Ruth laughed involuntarily.

"You _are_ a goose! Not much chance of your being the chosen one, I am afraid. Uncle Bernard is not in the mood for appreciating nonsense; he is too sad and ill, poor old man! That's another hateful thing. I should love to nurse and coddle him, and read aloud, and be good to him generally; but if one does, it will seem-- Oh, you know-- you understand! It's a loathsome position!"

"If I feel affectionate, I shall act affectionate! He will probably loathe it, so there's just as much chance of injuring one's chance as of bettering it. In fact, if we are to get on at all, we had better try to forget the wretched money, and behave as if it did not exist. If anyone had told us a month ago that we should be staying in a big house with two quite good-looking young men as fellow-guests, and carte blanche to enjoy ourselves as much as we pleased, we would have thought it too impossibly good to be true; but now that it has come true, we shall be idiots if we don't make the most of it. I hope Uncle Bernard keeps to his idea of making us each master of the ceremonies in turn. Won't I make the money fly when it comes to my turn! Picnics and luncheons by day, dances and theatricals by night--one giddy whirl of excitement the whole time long. I'll take the old dear at his word, and give no thought to expense, and entertain the whole countryside until the name of Mollie Farrell is immortalised for ever in grateful hearts. I have always credited myself with a genius for social life; now for the first time you will behold me in the halls of the great, and gaze with surprise at your sister reigning as queen over the a.s.sembled throngs?"

"In your one black dress?"

"Certainly not! I've thought of that, too. Suitable equipments must, of course, be part of the carte blanche."

"I am sure nothing was further from Uncle Bernard's thoughts. He looks to me like a man who would never notice clothes, or care what we looked like, so long, of course, as we were respectable. He has more important things on his mind."

"Humph!" Mollie tossed her saucy head. "If he doesn't notice of his own accord, his eyes must be gently, but firmly opened. We stay at his special request; at his special request we entertain and are entertained; it is only reasonable that he should bear the expense of making our appearance do him credit. I'll tell him so, too, if he doesn't see it for himself."

"Mollie, you won't! You shan't! You never could!"

"Couldn't I? You wait and see!"

"And if you did I would never touch a farthing. I warn you, once for all, that it is useless, so far as I am concerned."

Mollie looked at her sister's flushed, defiant face, and laughed her happy, light-hearted laugh.

"Dear old High-falutin'! We won't argue about it. Half a dozen invitations will show you the soundness of my position better than a hundred discussions. Meantime, I'm going to dress. I have a horrible conviction that that maid will return and offer to do 'your hair, madam,' so I mean to be beforehand with her."

Ruth sat still in her chair, enjoying the unwonted luxury of idling, with no disturbing spasm of conscience to remind her that she ought to be mending or patching, or giving Betty a music lesson, or helping Mary to hang clean curtains in the drawing-room. It was delightful to nestle back against the cushions and study one by one the dainty appointments of the room, and revel in the unaccustomed sense of s.p.a.ce. Imagine just for a moment--imagine possessing such a home of one's own! The house, with its treasures of beautiful and artistic furnishings, which represented the lifelong gatherings of a man renowned for his taste; the extensive grounds, with gardens and vineries and forests of gla.s.s, providing an endless summer of blossom; the income, that in itself was a fortune, and held such inexhaustible possibilities of good. What she could do with it, if it were only hers! With one stroke of the pen she would repay the poor old tired pater for all his goodness in the past, and lift the weight of care for the future from his shoulders. She would heap luxuries upon the dear little mother, who was still a child at heart; so pathetically easy to please that it seemed a sin that she should ever be sad. The girls should be sent to finishing schools, and the boys given a thorough training to equip them for their fight in life. Mollie, of course, should live at the Court, and share equally in all her possessions; and they would travel, and help the poor, and be kind to everyone, and never forget the day of small things! or grow arrogant and purse-proud. Ruth dreamed on in a pa.s.sion of longing till Mollie, standing before the dressing-table, with her white arms raised to her head, caught sight of her face in the mirror, and uttered a sharp exclamation.

"Ruth! What is it, darling?"

Ruth started nervously and glanced upwards with guilty eyes, but there was nothing alarming in the aspect of the figure which stood over her, white necked, white armed, with the loosened golden hair falling round the anxious face. She caught the outstretched hand, and gripped it tightly between her own.

"Oh, Mollie, I want it! I want it _dreadfully_! When I think of the possibility I feel half wild. If I am disappointed, I believe I shall die! I can't be unselfish, even for you. I want it for myself!"

She was on the verge of tears, but Mollie's matter-of-fact cheeriness had the usual bracing effect. She seemed neither shocked nor surprised, but only anxious to soothe.

"Of course you do; so do we all!" she replied easily. "It's humbug to pretend anything else, only I'm not going to die, in any case, but live and make myself agreeable to the Chosen. If it's you, I shall sponge on you for life, so don't imagine you will have all the fun to yourself.

Now get dressed, and don't think about it any more. We must look our best to awe those two superior young men. I am convinced that they look upon us as country b.u.mpkins, and it's most important to put them in their proper position at once, so that we may start fair. If you are going to do your hair in skriggles it will take you an age, so do begin!"

Ruth rose obediently. "Skriggles" was an inelegant but descriptive t.i.tle for her most becoming coiffure, which she had already decided must be adopted for the first eventful evening at the Court. She set to work at once, and was half-way through her task when the maid appeared, as Mollie had prophesied, paused upon the threshold for one horrified moment, and then hurried forward with an "Allow me, miss!" which could not be gainsaid.

The girls grimaced at one another furtively, but in the end the value of the skilled hands was proved by a dainty finish to hair and toilette which sent them downstairs agreeably conscious of looking their best.

CHAPTER NINE.

MR. JACK MELLAND.

In the drawing-room Mr Farrell and his two nephews were standing with their backs to the fire, in the position affected by mankind in that trying wait before dinner. Little Mrs Wolff was stiffly perched upon an uncomfortable chair, twisting her mittened fingers together and looking supremely uncomfortable, and there appeared to be no attempt at conversation. Everyone looked at the two girls as they crossed the wide room, and once again Mollie surprised that curious gleam of disapproval in Victor Druce's veiled eyes. Mr Melland was apparently still on his high horse, a faint flush upon his face, his nostrils curved and dilated. As for Uncle Bernard himself, his set face showed no sign of approval or the reverse; he simply bowed to his nieces, and waved them towards a seat, saying curtly--

"Our party is not complete. I have asked the vicar and his wife to dine with us, and make your acquaintance. They will probably arrive in a few minutes."

"Oh yes!" said Ruth vaguely. Even Mollie suffered a moment's eclipse, during which she sought in vain for an appropriate remark. It was too absurd, she told herself, to sit round the room like mutes at a funeral.

What was the use of a lady chaperon if she could not fill up the gaps with harmless inanities? She glanced from one stolid face to another, then made a desperate plunge.