“Plenty of good, if you like. You don’t live quite at the other end of England. From Haslemere to Liss is not half an hour’s journey; and if you happen to like Miss Marchant—as I think you will—you might ask her to visit you at Merewood.”
A light dawned upon the hitherto unsuspecting mother, a light which was far from welcome. She sat looking at her son dumbly.
“Why not ask the whole five, while you are about it, Mrs. Vansittart?” said Claudia Champernowne, her thin lips contracting a little, as if she, too, saw cause for offence in Vansittart’s suggestion.
“My dear Jack, you must know I am the last person in the world to invite strange young women to my house—young women whose Bohemian ways would make me miserable,” remonstrated Mrs. Vansittart, severely. “I can’t think what can have put such an idea into your head.”
“Christian charity, no doubt,” sneered Claudia.
“Well, after all, these girls are not actually disreputable,” pleaded Lady Hartley, who was always good-natured; “one sees them at all the omnium gatherums in the neighbourhood, and they don’t behave worse than the general run of girls. If you had asked me to take notice of them, Jack, I could understand you—but to bother mother—mother who lives in another county, and who can’t be supposed to care about taking up strange girls.”
“So be it, Maud. You shall go with me the next time I call at the Homestead.”
“What, you are actually going to keep up a calling acquaintance with the Marchant girls? How very eccentric!”
“Yes, I am going to keep up my acquaintance with the Miss Marchants. I am going to make myself acquainted with their father. I am going to see with my own eyes whether Lucifer is quite as black as he is painted,” answered Vansittart, doggedly.
“You won’t like the Colonel. I am positive upon that point,” said Maud. “Hubert is an excellent judge of character, and he couldn’t stand the Colonel; although he felt sorry for the man and tried to be civil to him. Colonel Marchant is an impossible person.”