The quick flush upon Harriet’s cheek showed that the old lady had got home. She was always formidable at close quarters; even Harriet had to be wary in trying a fall with her.
“The child must have a good, sensible upbringing. Let her be taught cooking, sewing, plain needlework, and so on. And I shall be very glad to give a little advice from time to time. But I repeat it will be most unwise to set her up, no matter who her parents may be, above the station in life to which it has pleased Providence to call her.”
Again the light of battle darkened the eyes of Harriet.
“It is early days at present to talk about it,” she said. And she laughed suddenly in a high-pitched key.
V
Water flowed under London Bridge. The flight of time demanded that Mary should fulfill her promise of being the most wonderful child ever seen. She did not fail, but grew in grace and beauty like a flower. At the date of her arrival her age was deemed to be one month. By the time it had been multiplied by twelve a personality had begun to emerge, twelve months later it was possible to gauge it.
There never was such a child. Eliza held that opinion from the first, and godmother Harriet shared it. Aunt Annie was more discreet, but her actions expressed an interest of the highest kind. From the moment she had committed herself to the memorable statement that “Whoever’s child she may be, she is not a child of common parents,” there was really no more to be said. But as the months passed and Mary became Mary yet more definitely, the old lady, to the astonishment of both her nieces, began to identify herself intimately with the fortunes of the creature.
The critical age of two was safely passed. And the age of three found Mary more than ever the cynosure of Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas. The infant had such health, her eyes were so blue, her laugh was so gay, her rose-bloom tints were so dazzling, that the childless hearth of the Kellys’ was somehow touched with the hues of Paradise. In moments of gloom Joe had his doubts, and now and again expressed them. He had certainly done very wrong, the whole matter was most irregular, but the look in Eliza’s face was a living contradiction to official pessimism.
In the meantime Aunt Annie sat many an hour, spectacles on nose, making “undies” for her new niece. The old lady was much courted by the rest of her family. Even amid the remoter outposts of the clan, her word was law. Apart from the romance of her career, she enjoyed a substantial pension, she owned house property, and the stocking in which she kept her savings was known to be a long one. But beyond all things was the woman herself. It was sheer weight of character that gave her such a special place among her peers.
The clan Sanderson was extensive, and inclined to exclude. There were Sandersons holding positions of trust in various parts of London and the country. There was Mr. George Sanderson, who was in a bank at Surbiton, who, if he did not actually share the apex with his cousin Annie, was immensely looked up to; there was Francis, who, from very small beginnings, had blossomed into a chartered accountant; there was young Lawrence, of the new generation, who had given up being a page boy in very good service, for the lures of journalism. He was far from being approved by his Aunt Annie, and he had not the sanction of his Uncle George, but he was understood to be doing very well, and if he only kept on long enough and made sufficiently good in this eccentric way of life, the mandarins of the family might regard him a little more hopefully. Finally, there was Harriet. Hers was a truly remarkable case.