Chapter Eight.

The Vanburghs Arrive.

The next day, when Kitty arrived at Thurston House, she was informed of Ned Talbot’s visit, and promptly remarked that it was a “mean shame”—the shame consisting in the fact of the visit having been so timed that she herself had been deprived of the pleasure of seeing one who was honoured by her special approval. All interest in Ned and his doings was soon wiped away, however, by a piece of intelligence so exciting that the listeners could only gasp, and hold on to their chairs for support.

It was Maud who brought the news to the schoolroom. She had been in the kitchen interviewing the cook, and had received it straight from the lips of that authority.

“Children, children!” she cried breathlessly, “the Vanburghs have arrived! They came late last night, cook says. She saw the table laid for breakfast this morning, and the postman said he had taken some letters to the house.”

“Arrived!” The girls stared at one another in mingled excitement and disgust. “And we never saw them! How simply disgusting, when we have been sitting staring out of this window for the last three weeks! Late at night! What sneaks! Why couldn’t they come in the daylight, in a decent, honest fashion? They might be ashamed of themselves! How many are there, and what are they like?”

But Maud knew nothing beyond the mere fact of the arrival, and the schoolroom party were obliged to control their curiosity as best they might until lessons were over, and they were free to station themselves once more in their place of observation. If the Vanburgh family had ventured out of the house about noon, they would have been slightly disconcerted to see the row of heads in the window opposite, all craning forward to watch their slightest movement, and bobbing behind the curtains when they imagined themselves observed. But, alas! they did not come out. The nailed door remained closely shut, and the disappointed watchers tried to console themselves by inventing satisfactory reasons for their non-appearance.

“They are busy, you see. There is so much to unpack. Gabrielle is hanging her ball-dresses in the wardrobe and covering them over with muslin curtains.”

“She wouldn’t unpack for herself, silly! They have a French maid who does all that sort of thing for them!”

“I know they have; but Gabrielle is so particular! She can’t bear any one to touch her dresses but herself; besides, Thérèse has enough to do attending to the other young ladies. Evangeline has a bad sick headache. She is lying down in that room where the curtains are drawn. Travelling always does make her ill!”

“Ermyntrude is arranging her treasures. Her bedroom looks out on the garden, and she is nailing up pictures, and draping the mantelpiece. She has piles and piles of photographs to arrange. They will keep her busy all day. It’s ridiculous to suppose that they would go out the very first morning after their arrival. You know how it is with us when we come home after a few weeks’ holiday! There are a thousand things to be done.”

The girls unanimously agreed in this decision. Nevertheless, the hope that one of the four Miss Vanburghs might appear at the windows kept them glued to their own posts until it was time to start for the daily walk.

The conversation turned exclusively on the subject of the new neighbours, as the little procession of girls and governess filed dejectedly down the street, and great ingenuity was exhibited in expressing disappointment in the language which was the order of the day.

“C’est un horrible shame,” sighed Kitty sadly. “C’est tout bien pour vous, parce que vous êtes toujours ici; mais moi, je suis chez moi, et si elles sortez quand je ne suis pas ici, je serais mad!”

“J’expect qu’elles sorteraient quand nous sommes tous loin. C’est toujours le fashion!” sighed Chrissie, acutely conscious that her French was superior to that of her friend, but politely ignoring the fact. “Je demanderai à ma mère—er—er—(how do you say ‘pay calls’?)—à faire une visite, aussitôt que possible.”

“Moi aussi,” assented Kitty. “Et puis vous savez, elle peut dit: ‘J’espère, Madame Vanburgh, que vos mademoiselles seraient très grand amies avec mes filles. Voulez vous permittez qu’elles venez à thé mercredi prochaine?’”

“Oui, et puis elles nous inviteraient en retourn.” Christabel tossed her mane over her shoulders and smiled in anticipation. She made up her mind then and there to decorate her bedroom with her most treasured nick-nacks on the afternoon of the Vanburghs’ visit, and to keep her new hair ribbon unused for the occasion.

But no Miss Vanburghs appeared! The next day passed, and the next, and still another, and still no sign of a feminine presence lightened the dark windows of the Grange. The solemn butler flitted to and fro; the figure of a white-haired man could be dimly discerned, stretched upon a sofa, in the oak-panelled apartment immediately facing the porch-room of Thurston House; but that was all that the most unremitting scrutiny could discover. Nan shivered at an attic window for an hour on end, with no more exciting result than a glimpse of a tablecloth and a row of silver dishes; and the great nailed door remained persistently closed.

And then the blow fell!

There were no Miss Vanburghs! There was not even a Mrs Vanburgh! Could it be believed there was no woman in the family—no one but an old invalid gentleman, who spent his days on a sofa, or in a wheeled chair being slowly driven about the garden? A solitary man as tenant of the Grange! The finest house in the neighbourhood monopolised by an invalid! The ball-room, the billiard-room, the music-room, given over to the possession of one who would never use them; the stables unused; the gardens deserted! The Rendell girls could not believe it. It was too horrible to be true. Ermyntrude, Evangeline, and Gabrielle had no existence. The happy dreams which had been woven about them could never be fulfilled. It was indeed a cruel and crushing disappointment.

“What can he want with a house like that, the selfish, horrid creature?” demanded Agatha, nigh to tears. “If he is an invalid, what is the use of having a house big enough to hold a regiment of soldiers? There are hundreds of villas where he might have been as ill as he liked, without monopolising our only Grange! What is to become of us, if all the best houses in the country are sold to hermits, and invalids, and white-haired old patriarchs, with not a single child to boast of! Selfish! Inconsiderate!”

“I’m sorry his back is bad; but he had no business to come here,” agreed Chrissie firmly. “We don’t want invalids. We want a nice, big, lively family, with plenty of money and hospitable hearts. Oh dear! I’m lonely without Gabrielle. I’d taken such a fancy to her! This is worse than if the place had never been sold at all.”

“But still, you know the old man may be nice!” Kitty suggested hopefully. “Wouldn’t it be lovely if he took a fancy to us, and made us all his heirs? A million each! I’d buy a pony-cart and a phonograph—a friend of father has a phonograph at his home, and it’s such fun listening to it. The cornet-solo is fine, and there’s a cylinder of a baby crying which sounds just like a dog barking. The poor little soul was quite good, but its parents thought it would be nice to preserve its howls; so they pinched it and made it cry. Mean, I call it! Imagine her feelings when she is grown up, and this wretched thing is wound up to amuse strangers. So degrading! Parents ought to consider their children’s feelings. I read an awful story once of a girl who was looking over old magazines with some friends, and she came upon a photograph of herself as an advertisement of Infants’ Food! If that had happened to me, I should disown my parents and leave the country. Mr Vanburgh hasn’t any children of his own, but he may like us all the more for that. It would be an interest in life for him to make us happy, and we should reward him by our devotion. It sounds like a book, and perhaps it may turn out for the best, after all. I believe it will!”

“Don’t be so horribly resigned! I hate people who are resigned when I am miserable!” said Chrissie sharply. “I want some nice girls, and I don’t care a rap about phonographs—silly, squeaky things! There was one on the parade at the seaside last year, and it irritated me beyond words! Besides, I don’t think it’s at all nice to make up to a person just because he is rich, and might leave you some money. I wouldn’t do it. It’s toadying; and if there is one thing I detest above anothah, it is—”

“I never said I would ‘make up’ to him. I never hinted at such a thing. We were not supposed to dream that he would leave us anything until he was dead, and then we would be overcome with surprise. I should hope I detest toadying as much as you! Toady, indeed!” and Kitty tossed her head and curled her lip in disdain. Both girls were upset by the sudden overthrow of their hopes, and therefore inclined to take offence more readily than usual. Christabel retired to the window in dignified displeasure, while Kitty wriggled into the corduroy jacket, stuck the Tam O’Shanter on her head at a rakish angle, and hitched her books under her arm in preparation to depart. Agatha’s expressive frowns and smiles were of no avail towards a reconciliation, and the parting took place in forced and chilly manner.

“Good by-ee!”

Then the door banged, and Kitty went stalking home, to drown her woes in afternoon tea, and to have her ruffled feathers smoothed down by her mother’s kindly sympathy.

Mrs Maitland regarded the disappointment from a personal standpoint, for the discovery that there was no Mrs Vanburgh was almost as great a blow to her as the absence of daughters had been to the schoolroom party. She agreed with Kitty that it was most officious of a solitary male to monopolise the Grange, and bemoaned the loss to the neighbourhood in a manner tragic enough to satisfy even her daughter’s requirements.

“Oh dear! oh dear! and I was looking to her for so many subscriptions! I had put her down for two five-pound notes, and half a dozen guineas. I meant her to take half my stall at the hospital bazaar, and to be the secretary of the Mission. How useful I had made that woman, to be sure! and now she has vanished into thin air before my eyes. I’m terribly disappointed, Kit; but we must make the best of it. Poor, lonely old man! He will be bored to death in that silent house. Lies on his back, you say, and is wheeled about in a chair? That means paralysis, I suppose, or very bad rheumatism. It’s sad to be old, and ill, and lonely.” Mrs Maitland stared thoughtfully before her, cup in hand, and her eyes grew suddenly moist. She was thinking how blessedly well off she was in her cheery, sunny little home, with husband and child to love her, and good health to enable her to do her work, and to find pleasure in the doing; and the picture of the strange old man lying on his couch in the dim oak-panelled halls seemed by comparison gloomier than ever.

“We’ll help him, Kit!” she said briskly. “We’ll help him, you and I! We’ll make his life brighter for him, and cheer him in every way we know!”

But, as it turned out, Mr Vanburgh was not anxious to be cheered, and Mrs Maitland found it more difficult than she expected to put her good resolves into practice.