"'What, talking about Harry?' said Lady Brent, as she joined us. 'We all talk a great deal about Harry, Mr. Grant. I don't think there is a boy in the world on whom greater hopes are set. We have made him happy between us so far, but I am glad you are coming here with your young people, to bring a little more life into this quiet place. Young people want young life about them. It is the only thing that has been lacking for him. And it is all too short a time before he will have to go out into the world.'
"This all gave me a great deal to think about. I hope I have given you such an account of everything that passed, and the important parts of what was said to make you see it as I do. Consider this kind good lady, gifted more than most, rich, titled, intellectual, calculated to shine in society, yet content to live a quiet life out of the world for the sake of the bright boy upon whom so many hopes depend. She has gone through much trouble, with her only son and her husband reft from her within a few weeks of one another. She cannot have welcomed the wife whom her son had chosen, but she lives in constant companionship with her, and treats her with every consideration. My heart warms towards her. We are indeed fortunate in having such a chatelaine as Lady Brent in the place in which we are to spend our lives and do our work. Of her kindness and thoughtfulness towards myself I have not time to write, as it is getting very late, and I must to bed. But when you come here you will find her everything that you can wish, and I shall be surprised if you do not make a real friend of her, a friend who will last, and on whom you can in all things depend."
When Mrs. Grant had at last finished this voluminous letter, she summoned Miss Minster to her, and read her many passages from it. Miss Minster was the lady who looked after the education of Jane and Pobbles, and had somewhat of a hard task in doing so, though she fulfilled it without showing outward signs of stress. She was of about the same age as Mrs. Grant—that is in the early thirties, and they had been friends together at school. They were friends now, and Mrs. Grant trusted Miss Minster's judgment in some things more even than she trusted her husband's.
"Somehow, I don't see Lady Brent," said Mrs. Grant, when she had read out all that had been written about her. "She seems to have made a great impression upon David, but it looks to me as if it was the impression she wanted to make."
"If any other man but David had written all that," said Miss Minster, "I should have said that there was something behind it all. I should have said that Lady Brent had some dark reason for keeping herself and the rest of them shut up there, and that this Mr. Wilbraham, who doesn't seem to behave like a tutor at all, was in the conspiracy. As it is, I think his pen has run away with him, and they are all very ordinary people, and there's nothing behind it at all."
"Well, my idea is just the opposite," said Mrs. Grant. "If David had sniffed a story he would have put it in. He doesn't think there is anything behind it. I do. Perhaps Mrs. Brent wasn't married, and this young Sir Harry isn't the rightful heir. That would be a good reason for Lady Brent to lie low. Perhaps Mr. Wilbraham knows about it, which would be the reason for his not behaving like an ordinary tutor; though, as for that, I don't think there's much in it, and he behaves like an ordinary tutor according to David's account just as much as you behave like an ordinary governess."
"A good point as far as it goes," said Miss Minster, "and a joyous life it would be for you if I did behave like an ordinary governess. But you're worse than David in making up twopence coloured stories. I don't think we need worry ourselves about the Brents till we get down there. Then we shall be able to judge for ourselves. No man ever knows what a woman is really like the first time he sees her. Whatever Lady Brent and Mrs. Brent are like, you may depend upon it that we shan't find them in the least as David has described them. Now read what he says about the Vicarage again, and see if we can make anything of that, beyond that it is embowered in massy trees."
CHAPTER III
THE CHILD
When young Sir Harry had made that laughing appeal to the figure framed in the square of orange light above him, and turned away into the shadows, he had already forgotten that there had been a witness to his escapade.