‘What about?’ asked Emmeline. ‘Oh, because of your being late for breakfast? No, I expect she has forgotten all about you. She’s just heard that her dearest friend is dying.’
Micky’s round, impudent face suddenly fell, and he was so much awestruck that he had got to the dining-room door before it occurred to him to make any remark.
When the two children came into the room Aunt Grace was sitting very still, gazing straight in front of her, with eyes that did not seem to be seeing anything. Without saying a word Micky went straight up to her and gave her a rough hug.
‘My own boy!’ she murmured, a little absently, but very tenderly, as she stroked his ruffled head—Micky’s toilet that morning had left much to be desired—and seemed to find a certain comfort in the touch. Emmeline suddenly felt a queer lump rising in her throat. Kitty could run messages for Aunt Grace, and Micky could comfort her; she alone could do nothing.
‘Won’t you try and eat something, Aunt Grace?’ she suggested, shyly, after a moment. ‘Let me butter some toast for you.’
‘Thank you, Emmeline,’ said Aunt Grace, gratefully; and though she had no appetite for food just then, she made a brave effort to eat the toast so as not to disappoint the child, and the little kindness given and received brought them nearer together than ever before.
‘I didn’t know Miss King was ill, even,’ Emmeline ventured, timidly. ‘It’s very sudden, isn’t it?’
‘In a sense, yes,’ said Aunt Grace sadly; ‘but she has known, and I have known for a long time past, that she had this disease, and that the end might come at any time. That was why I went on living with her in London till her sister could return from India, instead of coming at once to look after you, as I should naturally have done. She would have let me go, poor darling, for she never thought of herself. But I just couldn’t leave her alone, knowing that all this suffering and danger might come on at any time.’
It was the first time that Aunt Grace had talked to Emmeline so much as she would have done to a grown-up person, and the little girl listened with a strange mixture of feelings, among which gratification, perplexity, and self-reproach came uppermost. She had hitherto always taken for granted that Aunt Grace had stayed in London because she was absorbed in a round of gaiety, and now that the real reason appeared to have been such a very different one, she found her whole point of view shifting in a disconcerting fashion. Could it be that Aunt Grace was really a quite different kind of person from what Emmeline had always imagined her?