Lydia was too much vexed and too much embarrassed to make any attempt at stating her case, and Grandpapa had begun the tense process of hoisting himself out of his arm-chair. When he was on his feet at last, he allowed Uncle George to come and assist him out of the room and up the stairs.
“Good night all,” said Grandpapa in a sorrowful, impersonal sort of way, as he hobbled out of the room on his son’s arm. “I am getting to be an old fellow now—I can’t afford to keep late hours. Bed and gruel, that’s all that’s left for the old man.”
Aunt Beryl looked at Lydia with dismay.
“What’s all this about? Grandpapa hasn’t been like this since he was so vexed that time when Uncle George took Shamrock out and lost him, and he was away three days before a policeman brought him back. I remember Grandpapa going on in just the same way then, talking about being an old man and nobody caring for him. Such nonsense!”
Lydia had seldom heard so much indignation expressed by her quiet aunt, and for a moment she hoped that attention might be diverted from her own share in the disturbance of Grandpapa’s serenity.
But an early recollection of the unfortunate effects upon Aunt Beryl of her withheld confidence, five years previously, came to her mind. Lydia considered the position quietly for a few moments, and then decided upon her line of attack.
“I know you’ll understand much better than Grandpapa did, and help me with him,” she began.
Not for nothing had the child Lydia learnt the necessity for diplomacy in dealing with those arbitrary controllers of Destiny called grown-up people.
Aunt Beryl seemed a good deal startled, and perhaps rather disappointed, which Lydia indulgently told herself was natural enough, but the subtle appeal to range herself with her niece against Grandpapa’s overdone pretensions was not without its effect.
And Lydia found an unexpected ally in Uncle George, when her scheme had presently reached the stage of family discussion.