Aline felt relieved. After all it was only the linen and Mistress Mowbray even thought she had bought it; but the angry dame went on;—“The more I see of you the more I mislike your conduct and I do not care for such baggage to associate with my daughter. It would be my will to turn you from the house, but Master Mowbray sheweth a foolish kindness toward you, so I have compacted with my sister Anne that Audry shall go over to Appleby right speedily and pay her a long visit. She hath ever wanted to have the child there and it will be an opportunity for Audry to come to know her respectable cousins, and meanwhile I can keep you more under my eye.”
Poor little Aline. At the moment this seemed more terrible even than anything that could have happened if the book had been discovered.
“Moreover,” said Mistress Mowbray, “you are getting too much of the fine lady altogether, you seem to forget that you are not a member of this family and that your position should in sooth be that of a menial.”
Eleanor Mowbray calculated that, with Audry out of the way, it would be more possible for her to wreak her spite on the child without it being known. Why should this pauper dependent, this mere skelpie, dare to thwart her will? Master Gower and Master Latour indeed! should she not be mistress in her own house? And by way of further justification, was not Aline depriving Audry of her birthright, since, attracted as all undoubtedly were by Audry, they were attracted by Aline still more?
She then sent for Audry and Aline escaped to her room and flung herself on her bed. She was too heartbroken even to cry and could only moan piteously,—“Oh, Father dear, why did you go away and leave your little girl all alone in the world?” She then took out the miniatures of her father and mother and gazed at them. “Mother dear, when Father was alive, your little motherless girl could be happy; but now it is so very hard; but she will try to be brave.” She then knelt down and prayed, and after that the unnatural tension passed and the tears flowed freely, so that when Audry came up to their room she was calmer.
“I call it a downright shame,” said Audry. “If I am to go to Aunt Anne, why should not you come too? Aline, dear, I cannot bear to go away without you. I think I love you more than any one else in the world. Of course I shall have my cousins, but, oh! I shall miss you; and you will be so lonely.”
“Yes, but grieve not, Audry, darling, you will come back again, and in sooth you should have a good time and Master Mowbray anyway will be kind to me and so will Elspeth.”
“But that is not the same thing at all; there will be no one even to brush your hair, so this will be almost the last time.”
The children were by now half undressed and Audry with the assistance of the new comb went through the somewhat lengthy process of brushing and combing the wonderful hair that reached nearly to Aline’s knees.