“Yes; it is hard. Very—very hard. Somehow it gets a little harder each time I try to realize it, and I think the hardest bit of all is the fact that Mark should be so unkind to us. For, of course,” Grace said, with a sigh, “she could not have come as she did yesterday without Mark’s knowledge and sanction. Could she, Val?”
Ambleton opened the doorway that led them through a large courtyard to a side entrance of the house.
“Mark most possibly knows all there is to know by this time; but whether he sanctioned it or not is quite another matter. I take it Lady Wentworth is not the kind of nature to be controlled by the will of anyone, least of all by such a will as Mark possesses. When she makes up her mind to do a certain thing, that thing she will do, Gracie, dear, if not by straight means, then by crooked ones! What excuse did she give you for commanding this eviction?” Val asked, abruptly, and with that curious grim smile of his, as they entered the house and stood by the warmth of the hall fire for a few moments.
“She said,” Grace answered, as she slipped off her coat and shook it free from the snow, “that her husband had decided to offer the Dower House as a permanent home to her mother and sister. I gathered from what she said that the father’s death had left them very poor. I suppose you think this reason was fictitious, Val?”
Val did not answer all at once.
He had again before his eyes the memory of Polly as he had seen her yesterday, and at this memory the hot anger in his heart melted a little. Truly she had looked poor enough and very sorrowful. It would have given him a touch of pleasure to cede his home to her, and to that poor, weak mother she loved so well; but he knew without any need of words that Christina Wentworth had not the smallest intention of settling these two, either in Dynechester or elsewhere. It was but a clever method on her part this suggestion of affection and care, and it had been used merely as a means to an end.
To vent her spite on him, there was nothing this woman would not have done willingly, and he was forced to confess that out of all the many things she might have done she had chosen the one best calculated to hurt him. The hurt was not for himself, but for Grace. The girl had a love for the home she had lived in so long that could not be measured by words, and Lady Wentworth must have understood this very quickly, and laid her plans accordingly.
Val felt he was near the truth when he told Grace that Christina was acting on her own account and intention entirely.
He knew all Mark Wentworth’s faults, and he condemned them as strongly as they needed to be condemned; but he knew also that the very worst of his cousin’s faults lacked the element of cruelty and the desire for vengeance that was prominent in such a nature as Christina’s.
This attack, therefore, had been Christina’s conception alone. He doubted even whether Mark Wentworth as yet knew anything of the matter, and he had sufficient faith in the young man’s former affection for himself and Grace to be sure that the news, when it was communicated to Mark, would make a great impression on him. Naturally, if all this quick summing up on Val’s part was true, and Christina had acted without her husband’s knowledge, it would be a foregone conclusion that she would be ready with some plausible explanation of her own invention to smooth down Mark’s feelings on the matter. Or, perhaps, what was even more possible, having so bold and strong a hold on her husband, she would not trouble to give any explanation at all.