Great Possessions Part 10

Molly did not come back with any air of mystery, but with a curiously negative look.

"Thirty-five pounds," she said very quietly.

Lady Groombridge sat up, very wide awake.

"More than half his allowance for a whole year," she said with conviction.

"Oh dear, dear," said Lady Rose, rising as gracefully as a guardian angel from her _prie-dieu_.

Molly made no comment, although in her heart she was very angry with Mrs. Delaport Green. Her quick "Good-night" was very cordially returned by the other two.

"Now tell me something more about Miss Molly Dexter," said Rose, sinking on to a tiny footstool at Lady Groombridge's feet as soon as they were alone.

"I am ashamed to say that I know very little about her; I am simply furious with myself for having asked them at all. I don't often yield to kind-hearted impulses, and I'm sure I'm punished enough this time."

Lady Groombridge gave a snort.

"But who is she? Is she one of the Malcot Dexters?"

"Yes; I can tell you that much. She is the daughter of a John Dexter I used to know a little. He died many years ago, not very long after divorcing his wife, and this poor girl was brought up by an aunt, and Sir Edmund says she had a bad time of it. Then she made one of those odd arrangements people make nowadays, to be taken about by this Mrs.

Delaport Green, and I met them at Aunt Emily's, and, of course, I thought they were all right and asked them to come here. After that I heard a little more about the girl from some one in London; I can't remember who it was now."

"Poor thing," said Rose; "she looks as if she had had a sad childhood.

But what curious eyes; I find her looking through and through me."

"Yes; you have evidently got a marked attraction for her."

"Repulsion, I should have called it," said Rose, with her gentle laugh.

Lady Groombridge laughed too, and got up to go to bed.

"And what became of the mother?"

"She is living--" said the other; then she caught her sleeve in the table very clumsily, and was a moment or two disengaging the lace. "She is living," she then said rather slowly, "in Paris, I think it is, but this girl has never seen her."

"How dreadful!"

"Yes. Good-night, Rose; do get to bed quickly,--a wise remark when it is I who have been keeping you up!"

Lady Groombridge, when she got to her own room, murmured to herself:

"I only stopped just in time. I nearly said Florence, and that is where the other wicked woman lives. It's odd they should both live in Florence. But--how absurd, I'm half asleep--it would be much odder if there were not two wicked women in Florence."

Sir Edmund was aware as soon as he took his seat by Molly at the breakfast-table that she knew why Lady Groombridge was pouring out tea with a dark countenance. He put a plate of omelette in his own place, and then asked if Molly needed anything. As she answered in the negative he murmured as he sat down:

"Mrs. Delaport Green is not down?"

"She has a furious toothache."

Molly's look answered his.

"I suppose there is no such thing as a dentist left in London on Easter Monday?"

No more was safe just then; but by common consent they moved out on to the terrace as soon as they had finished breakfast.

"It is too tiresome, too silly, too wrong," said Molly.

"Yes; the pet vice should be left at home," said Edmund. "Many of them do it because it's fas.h.i.+onable, but this one must have it in the blood.

I saw her begin to play, and she was a different creature when she touched the cards. What sort of repentence is there?"

"I found her crying last night like a child, but this morning I see she is going to brazen it out. But she wants to quarrel with me at once, so I don't get much confidence."

"But you don't mind that?"

"Not in the least, only--" Molly sighed, but intimate as their tone was, she did not now feel any inclination to reveal her greater troubles.

"I don't want to end up badly with my first venture, and I have nowhere else to go. For to-day I think she will talk of going to see the dentist until she finds out how she is treated here."

"Oh! that will be all right for to-day," said Edmund. "There are no possible trains on Bank holiday, and no motor. Let her get off early to-morrow."

Molly had evidently sought his opinion as decisive, and she turned as if to go and repeat it to Mrs. Delaport Green.

"But what will you do yourself?" he asked very gently.

"I shall go away with her, and then--I wonder--" She hesitated, and looked full into his face. "Would you be shocked if I took a flat by myself? I don't want to hunt for another Mrs. Delaport Green just now."

Sir Edmund paused. It struck him for a moment as very tiresome that he should be falling into the position of counsellor and guide to this girl, while he had anything but her prosperity at heart. He looked at her, and there was in her att.i.tude a pathetic confidence in his judgment.

"I don't want," she went on, holding her head very straight and looking away to the wooded hills, "I don't want to do anything unconventional."

A deep blush overspread the dark face--a blush of shame and hesitation, for the words, "your mother's daughter ought to be more careful than other girls," so often in poor Molly's mind, were repeated there now.

"If there were an old governess, or some one of that sort," suggested Sir Edmund, with hesitation.

"Oh yes, yes!" cried Molly eagerly; "there is one, if I could only get her. Oh, thank you, yes! I wonder I did not think of that before." And she gave a happy, youthful laugh at this solution.

"Is it some one you really care for?" asked Edmund, with growing interest.

"I don't know about really caring"--Molly looked puzzled--"but she would do. There is one thing more I wanted to ask you. About the silly boy last night: whom does he owe the money to? I know nothing about bridge."

"He owes it to Billy."

Molly looked sorry.

"I thought, if it were to Mrs. Delaport Green----"

"You might have paid the money?" Edmund smiled kindly at her. "No, no, Miss Dexter, that will be all right."