CHAPTER VIII
In a select French boarding-school a girl sat reading a letter. She was about fifteen years old, a slender, lovely child, light and graceful, with a cascade of golden curls reaching to her waist, and wide, purple eyes. Her complexion was perfect. She had a vivid little red mouth, impulsive and generous, and a pink rose on each cheek.
On reading the letter, sorrow clouded her face. For it ran:—
"My Dear Little Pansy,
When you get this letter I shall be with your mother. I am leaving you the money she would not have. And it was worth having, you will agree, for it will bring you in about £60,000 a year. The only condition I make is that you take the name your mother refused, your own second name. And my one hope is that you will be more successful in love than I was.
Your affectionate 'grand-godfather,'
Henry Langham."
For some minutes Pansy sat brooding on her godfather's end. The poor old boy had been awfully ill for a long time, and now he was dead.
She blinked back a couple of tears. Then her thoughts went to the fortune she had inherited.
Presently she crossed to the mirror and looked at herself.
"No, old girl," she said to her reflection, "your head isn't turned."
Then she slipped the letter into her pocket and made straight for her great friend and confidante.
To the average eye there was nothing about Miss Grainger to attract a vivid, beautiful girl like Pansy Barclay—Pansy Langham as she would be now. Miss Grainger was middle-aged, grey-haired, thin and depressed-looking: the down-trodden English mistress, with no qualifications except good breeding.
She was poor and friendless, and life had gone hard with her, but these facts were sufficient to fill Pansy's heart with a warmth of generous affection and sympathy.
The girl's principal thought as she went along was not so much of the millions she had just inherited, but that she had always wanted to do something for Miss Grainger, and now she saw a way of doing it.
She entered the room that served the English mistress as bedroom, study and sitting-room, disturbing the latter in the midst of correcting an accumulated pile of exercise books.
"What is it, Pansy?" she asked, smiling at her favourite.
"Miss Grainger, you'll be pleased to hear I'm a millionaire."
The English mistress put down her pen carefully, and then sat staring at the child.
"Really, my dear," she said in a bewildered tone, "you have a way of saying the most surprising things in the most matter-of-fact manner. But, since you're saying it, it must be true."
"That's a character in itself," Pansy remarked, smiling, a smile that brought to view several bewitching dimples.
She produced the letter and handed it to her friend.
The English mistress read it through.
"Sixty thousand pounds a year!" she exclaimed. "It makes my head reel."
"Then yours can't be so firmly screwed on as mine. Mine isn't turned one little bit. I looked at myself in a glass to see."
"But what are you going to do with it all?" the governess asked helplessly.
"Spend it, of course. I take after my father and never shirk an unpleasant duty," she went on, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "To begin with, you, Miss Grainger, are going to be my companion, and we'll have a yacht and go all round the world together, and see and do everything that can be seen and done."
"You'll get married, Pansy," the governess said, looking lovingly at the beautiful flower-like, little face.
"Not much! You dear old antiquated thing. I'm not going to be tied by the leg in that fashion."
"As the English mistress, I must remind you that 'tied by the leg' is slang."
"When you're my companion you'll be talking slang yourself. I'm not so sure I won't make that one of the stipulations," the child went on teasingly. "It'll be such a change for you after thirty years of correcting stupid exercises."
"It will be rather," Miss Grainger said wistfully.
"And I shall come out at seventeen," Pansy went on. "I must start as early as possible if I'm to spend all that money. I shall write and ask my father if I may come out at seventeen. Do you think he'll refuse?"
"No man will ever refuse you anything, Pansy. You're too sweet and good and beautiful."
"And rich. Don't forget the rich. That'll be a tremendous draw."
Miss Grainger smiled at her favourite.
"I hope the man who marries you will pick you for your good heart and generous nature, not your looks and money," she remarked.
"Still harping on that old string, Mrs. Noah. Women don't get married nowadays if they can afford to stay single."
Then the school dinner-bell ringing sent Pansy from the room, but not before she had given an impetuous hug and kiss to her friend.