“And what will happen to her grand piano now? I suppose it will have to be got out again,” said Ludovic nonchalantly.
“That’s what I was just telling you,” Lady Argent mistakenly assured him. “In a way they really are to be congratulated, poor little things. I believe Bertie Tregaskis is going to look after them.”
“Is that the woman who pervades Cornwall with model dairies and good works generally, and if so, what is she doing in this galère?”
“She was a cousin of Mrs. Grantham’s, and the very day after Mrs. Grantham became so much worse Bertie was down here to see after those poor little girls. So exactly like her, because it wasn’t a particularly near relationship or anything—simply one of her magnificent, generous impulses. They really have nobody, poor waifs; the mother doesn’t seem to have had any belongings at all, or if she had, they are Hungarians of sorts, and much better not raked up, in all probability.”
“It is difficult to see who is available to do the raking, certainly,” Ludovic admitted.
“Oh, Bertie would do anything that was right, of course, but she’s simply solved the whole problem by saying she’ll take them home with her. A woman who’s got more responsibilities already than anyone I know—and a child of her own besides—it really is rather magnificent of her, Ludovic.”
“But haven’t they got any guardian or anything?”
“Nothing at all. That’s one of the things that shows you what poor Mrs. Grantham was. Although she must have known for at least a year that she was dying, she never made any sort or kind of will. As a matter of fact I don’t suppose she had anything to leave, and the father’s money is safely secured for the two girls, Bertie says.”
“So Mrs. Tregaskis won’t have to take them for charity, so to speak?”
“Oh no! I don’t think even she could do that, wonderful manager though she is. She’s not at all well off. But of course it’s everything for girls of that age—or of any age, for that matter—to have a home. And she’ll be such a mother to them! She always says she was meant to be the mother of a large family and is wasted with just one little girl.”