CHAPTER XXV
Charades
Hodson was waiting in the road when they came out. Miss Norton spoke to her kindly.
"We need not trouble you to take the young ladies back to Brackenfield, they can return with me across the moor," she said. "I dare say you are anxious to get home to The Tamarisks."
"Yes, thank you, m'm, it's got rather late," answered Hodson gratefully, setting off at once along the Whitecliffe Road.
The girls and Miss Norton took a short cut across the moor. They walked on for a while in silence. Then the mistress said:
"I didn't know it was you two who have been so kind to Eric. I should like to explain about him, and then you'll understand. My eldest brother married very much beneath him. He died when Eric was a year old, and his wife married again—a man in her own station, who is now keeping the 'Royal George'. I can't bear to think of Eric being brought up in such surroundings, but I have no power to take him away; his mother and step-father claim him. I had planned that when he is a little older I would try to persuade them to let me send him to a good preparatory school, but now"—her voice broke—"it is not a question of education, but whether he will grow up at all. I am writing for a specialist to come and see him next week. I won't give up hope. He's the only boy left in our family. Both my other brothers were killed at the beginning of the war." She paused for a moment, and then went on. "I'm sure you'll understand that I did not want anybody at Brackenfield to know that my relations live at a village inn. I have not spoken of it to Mrs. Morrison. May I ask you both to keep my secret and not to mention the matter at school?"
"We won't tell a soul, Miss Norton," the girls assured her.
"Thank you both for your kindness to Eric," continued the house mistress. "You have made his little life very bright lately. I need hardly tell you how dear he is to me."