“What is Gertie Rogers and that woman to Mrs. Schuyler? Are they relatives of hers, that she has so persistently interested herself in them since she first came to Hampstead? It would certainly seem as if they were more than mere chance acquaintances, as she affirms.”
“Julia, hush! I will hear no more!” the colonel said; but Julia would not stop, and continued, hotly:
“I wonder what my mother would say could she know the kind of society to which her children are subjected, and the danger threatening Godfrey.”
“Godfrey!” the colonel repeated, in surprise; and Julia answered him:
“You must have been blind not to have seen the interest he has taken in Gertie Rogers ever since she came here. Why, she has even presumed to criticise his manners and his mode of talk; and he has promised to improve for her sake, and holds her up as a pattern for Alice and me to imitate. If he does this now, when she is in her proper place, what may he not do when he finds her here, an equal, and a daughter of the house, as I understand Mrs. Schuyler says she is to be. Possibly she may yet be the daughter really; and if so, you’ll have yourself to thank.”
Now, Julia had not the slightest fear for Godfrey, and the entire secret of her aversion to the child lay in the interest which Robert Macpherson manifested in her. From the first Julia had appropriated Robert to herself, and was fearfully jealous of any one who stood in her way in the least. She had quarrelled with Rosamond Barton because he once escorted her home from a party, and had refused to speak to Emma for an entire day when she found her in the summer-house alone with Robert, who was reading “Lady Geraldine’s Love” to her; and though Gertie was a mere child, she was even jealous of her because of Robert’s interest in her, and the unbounded praise he so unhesitatingly bestowed upon her. He thought her face the most beautiful he had ever seen, and he had painted her portrait and called it “La Sœur,” and spoke of her so often in Julia’s presence that she began to hate the girl, who had heretofore been only indifferent to her as one beneath her notice; and now she was to become an inmate of the family, where Mr. Macpherson would meet her on terms of equality when he came back to Hampstead in the spring; and this was the cause of Julia’s anger, and the reason why she dared talk as she did to her father, who was made quite as uncomfortable as she wished him to be.
Perhaps it was an unwise thing to bring Gertie into the house on terms of equality. She was very pretty. She would, of course, grow prettier with years, while Godfrey was headstrong and impetuous, and might be led to do her harm by attentions which to him would mean nothing, but would, nevertheless, be much to her. The colonel tried to believe that it was only for Gertie that he anticipated harm. Godfrey would never be in earnest, and, consequently, no serious injury could accrue to him, except, indeed, the moral one of deceiving and playing with the feelings of another. The real hurt would fall on Gertie, and for her sake it might have been better if he had left her where she was. Thus Colonel Schuyler reasoned after Julia left him to his own reflections, which finally assumed the conviction that Edith had been foolish, if not unreasonable, to wish Gertie to come there, and he unwise to permit it. But it was too late now. She was expected that very afternoon, and as he went up to look at his boy before going into town, he stumbled over dustpan and broom which were standing before the door of the room opposite Edith’s, and which he knew was to be Gertie Westbrooke’s. Glancing in, he saw a bright fire in the grate, and a pretty bouquet of flowers on the dressing-table, while Edith herself was arranging the chairs and curtains and ornaments upon the mantel.
“Edith, what are you doing here in this cold room?” he said, rather sharply.
He had never spoken to her in this tone of voice, and she turned toward him with a look of surprise in her face as she replied:
“It is not cold; the fire has been kindled some time, and I wanted to see that Gertie’s room was all right. I am so sorry for her, and wish her to feel at home.”