“I have asked you to keep me company,” said he, grimly, “to save me from that!”
Mrs. Abercarne read the letter, which was in a large and modern lady’s hand. The paper was perfumed, and in colour a very pale rose-pink—the latest Bayswater fashion in notepaper.
“Cambridge Terrace,
“Kensington, W.“My Dear Cousin John—Need I say how utterly delighted we were with your most kind invitation? Lilith and Rose are perfectly charmed, and so is Donald, whom you will not recognise! He has grown into a splendid fellow. What is this I hear, that you have been so dull that you have had to get a housekeeper? Surely you know that you had only to mention it, and we would have done long ago what we propose to do now, namely—migrate from town to the wilds of Wyngham to be near you. Yes, this is absolutely and truly what we are going to do. Retrenchment is the order of the day, now that we have a family growing up around us, and I think we cannot do better than settle ourselves where we shall get the benefit of the shadow of your wing. I suppose there is some society in or about the place, and the fact of our being related to you, besides the value of our own name, would of course give us the entrée. Would it be asking too much of you to look out for a modest house such as you would care for your relations to live in; not too far away from you, I need not say.
“William wishes to be remembered to you most kindly. As for Rose and Lilith, and the boys, they send so many messages that I cannot remember them all.
“Believe me, dear cousin John, you shall not long be left to the hired society of strangers, when your own family are only too anxious to do all they can to cheer you, and to serve you in any way in their power.
“Ever your sincerely affectionate cousin,
“Maude Graham-Shute.”
Mrs. Abercarne read the letter slowly through with the help of her eyeglasses, and then gave it back in a dignified manner.
“A very affectionate letter,” she remarked, having read between the lines of the effusive epistle and conceived for its writer an antagonism quite as violent as that which the writer evidently felt towards her.
“Very affectionate,” he answered, drily. “It will cost me say two hundred pounds. And cheap at the price, perhaps, you’ll say.”
Mrs. Abercarne coughed: comment was dangerous, and, indeed, unnecessary. Chris, who, without having seen the letter, made a judicious guess at the tenor of it, glanced from the one to the other.
“You will think I have brought it on myself,” he went on, as he glanced once more at the letter before putting it in his pocket. “However, the woman is so amusing with her airs and her pretensions that I am doing the neighbourhood a good turn by providing it with a laughing-stock. A good-natured soul, too! I was in love with her once. There was less of her then.”
Every word he uttered concerning the effusive cousin increased the aversion with which Mrs. Abercarne already regarded her.