“All her life she has had some one ready to come to her,” the girl said to herself; “and this was the office that Hubert could have filled so well had Winnie not spoiled everything. Mr. Ambleton has been so good to us it would be strange if mother did not care to see him again, and frequently. I wish, in a sense, they lived nearer. Grace would be a great help to me, unless she, too, like all the rest, is different from what she seems to be.”
Contrary to Polly’s expectations, Valentine answered Mrs. Pennington’s letter in person the very day he received it. In fact, he traveled up from Dynechester on purpose to pay this visit.
Polly was out when he called, and although she returned before his visit had come to an end, she did not let him know this, but stole upstairs softly, and did not emerge from the seclusion of her own room until she had heard the big door shut, and she knew he was gone.
She found her mother looking quite bright when she went down, eventually.
“Mr. Ambleton has been a long time, and, oh! Polly, is it not nice, they—he and Miss Ambleton—have decided to come to town for some months. Val says he is glad that his sister should leave Dynechester for a little while. She has been much tried by her grandmother’s death, and, apart from this, it seems she is not happy in her house, and frets at having lost her old home. I can understand this so well. Anyhow, I am glad they are coming—very glad.”
“It will be very nice,” Polly said, unsteadily.
This news upset her, and yet against herself she caught the infection of her mother’s pleasure.
The reason Valentine gave for coming to London for a time was so reasonable, that Polly did not for an instant question whether there was not some other motive urging him on to a move that must be fraught, for him, with a certain amount of difficulty.
Neither was Polly to know that this idea had come to Valentine quite suddenly, as he had sat listening to Mrs. Pennington’s plaintive voice.
Winnie would have immediately colored the situation according to her vanity, but Polly, though she had been forced to see, as we know, that she possessed a certain power of attraction where Val was concerned, did not encourage herself to imagine things without very good foundation. She did not, in fact, dwell too much on the fulfillment of this scheme, and only believed in it fully when she received a letter from Grace confirming what Valentine had said.