CHAPTER XIII.
THE SQUIRE'S DAUGHTER.
On his hundred-and-seventh birthday grandpapa gave up hope, went to London for some new clothes, started a groom and two horses, laid in a stock of the choicest wines, and began to live on his capital. My little portion had gone in the "Automatic Postcards."
"What there is left over after the final smash you can keep," said he to me; "but I tell you frankly there won't be much. I've got about five thousand left, and I'm going to live at the rate of two thousand or more a year. That will enable me to get into society if I spend it the right way. In two years I shall be ten years old. Then you can look after me again. But, during those two years, it might almost be better if you left me and went to live somewhere else. You won't get any solid satisfaction out of watching me. I shall marry very likely, or do any other fool's trick that takes my fancy."
Of course I refused to leave him, and he said I might stay if I particularly wished to, but he warned me never to interfere with him.
"And if you must stay," he added, "I will thank you to buy some better clothes. You're getting too much of a back number to suit me. I don't like bringing classy people into the house. You're fifty years behind the times. I'm a particular man myself, and I wish my relations to look smart and prosperous. I'm sorry I didn't give out you were a rich aunt, and that I was your nephew, with expectations. Then it wouldn't have mattered. As it is, you must pull yourself together, and try to look as little like a guy as possible. I can hang on here for another six months--till I'm five-and-twenty. Then I suppose my moustache will begin to moult, or something cheerful. When that happens, we'll toddle back to town, and I'll finish my career there."
I humoured him, bought a silk dress in the latest fashion, and a few pieces of jewellery, for which he supplied the money. This was done with an object. Heaven is aware that precious stones gave me no pleasure, but I looked forward to the time when we should be bankrupt, or when grandpapa would depart, leaving me at the workhouse door, so to speak. Against this evil hour I bought the jewels and silk dress. They delighted my grandparent.
"Good old dowager!" he exclaimed at sight of me, "we are a proper old box of tricks now! I tell you what, Martha, my tulip: this must be shown to the county. We'll give a dinner--a regular spread. Men laugh at me for living on in this little hole, but I laugh back, and tell 'em I like it. They believe I'm enormously wealthy, and fancy that to spend but two thousand a year is miserly. Yes, they think me awfully eccentric--well, let 'em; God knows I am. As to this feed, we'll get the grub from Salisbury, open the folding doors, and ask twenty people. The Dawsons and the Westertons, and the parson and Squire Talbot and his wife and daughter. Then we'll invite a big clerical pot or two from Salisbury, and certain men I know. The affair will distract me. You must write the invitations and so on. If you don't know how to, I'll buy you an etiquette book, with all the rotten rules and regulations."
"One point only, grandpapa. Please, for my sake, don't ask the Talbots. It isn't right; it isn't fair to the girl. You're a man to make any pretty child's heart ache now. I know you ride with her, and spend half your time at Talbot Priory. Recollect----"
"That's enough," he said, shortly. "You remember, too. The Talbots are to be asked. Mabel Talbot and I are friends. That is all."