‘Oh! my dear sister,’ exclaimed Aunt Clem, whose own features were almost indistinguishable from the effect of her tears, ‘do try and cry. I am sure it would do you good.’
‘It has not done you any good, Clem,’ replied the poor mother. ‘Besides, we may expect her home at any moment now, and John has never been very patient of my tears. I should not like to meet them—I mean him—with my eyelids swollen. It might upset him. For we must be very quiet over it, you know, Clem. It is a very solemn occasion. Is everything ready for her reception?’
‘Yes, dear; I have arranged they shall carry her into your boudoir. It will make the room more dear to you afterwards, Ellen. Bradshaw helped me to remove the ornaments and drape the tables in white, and decorate the room with flowers. I think you will like it when you see it, dear. At least, I have done my best.’
‘I remember,’ said the mother, in a monotone, ‘how averse I was to call her Jane. John would have it so, because his sister Jane had only died a month before her birth, but I thought it such a plain name. I had set my heart upon calling her Ethel, after the heroine in Thackeray’s story of the Newcomes, but her father said it was romantic nonsense on my part, and he would have her nothing but plain “Jane.” But Mrs Sellon stood godmother to her, so she was called Emily, also, after her. Ah, well,’ with a heavy, deep-drawn out sigh, ‘it doesn’t signify now, does it?’
‘Hark!’ exclaimed Miss Bostock, changing colour, as the sound of carriage wheels was heard slowly advancing up the drive. ‘What is that?’
Mrs Crampton rose, trembling. They both knew but too well. It was the funeral coaches which they heard, coming back from the station where they had been ordered to await the nine o’clock train.
‘Let me go!’ cried Mrs Crampton wildly, rousing herself from her apparent apathy for the first time, ‘let me go to my child, my Jenny. I must be there to meet her.’
But Miss Bostock held her back.
‘Dear, dear Ellen,’ she said, ‘pray don’t go down stairs till John has come to fetch you; there is so much to be done yet. Stay here quietly, there’s a dear, till the arrangements are complete. Bradshaw promised to meet John and tell him where they were to carry her. Don’t make a scene in the hall. You know how he objects to any publicity.’
‘A scene in the hall, Clem,’ said Mrs Crampton, in a voice of surprise. ‘And when I am going to meet my own child and welcome her home? I don’t understand you! Let me see, though. Isn’t she married? Didn’t she marry that Mr Walcheren, or is it a mistake? It must be a mistake, Clem, or why should she come back to us? My pretty Jenny, the beauty of Hampstead, as they call her! How glad I shall be to have her home again.’