“Well, whenever I was out walking with Uncle Lochmaben and Uncle Fane, I kept hearing little bits about ‘that woman’ and ‘suicide’ and papa, so I thought it might be that. I didn’t listen, truly—I couldn’t help hearing, and I didn’t understand.”
Lady Grizell put back the hair from the boy’s square forehead and looked into his honest grey eyes, then she spoke:
“Geordie dear, there are always things in life that we cannot understand, and things we cannot help; what we must do is to be as brave and honest as we can, and leave the rest to God. Your dear father is very lonely and he has recently married a lady who will be your new mamma. You must try to be as good and courteous and obedient to her as you are to me—and Geordie, son! don’t forget me!”
Here Lady Grizell broke down, and Geordie thought it no shame to cry too.
That week was terribly short. At the end of it Geordie went out into the draughty world again, while Lady Grizell went about saying like her more famous namesake: “Oh, werena my heart lecht I wad dee!”
Geordie could never be induced to speak much about the three months that followed. During those three months Lady Grizell grew thin and pale.
One morning she received a letter from the Hon. Donald in which he informed her that he and his wife had made arrangements for Geordie to go in September to an excellent school in the Forest of Dean where boys received board and education for the modest sum of twenty guineas a year.
Lady Grizell gave a little cry, and stared at the letter in her hand as though it had been some horrible phantom. Then she flew downstairs and into her husband’s study, where he sat writing a report for the Society of Agriculture.
“Augustus, read this! I am going to see Donald to-day, and tell him that I will receive his wife—I can’t let my pride stand in the way of that child any longer—read this!” and she thrust the letter under her husband’s aristocratic nose.
Mr. Fane put on his glasses, read the letter, took them off, folded them up and put them in the case—a methodical, deliberate man, Mr. Fane—then he said slowly: