Maude had espoused Edna’s cause at once, and her heart was full of sympathy for the poor girl, for she foresaw just how lonely and dreary her life would be at Leighton, where every one’s hand was against her.
“Mrs. Churchill will worry and badger her, and Roy without meaning to do it will freeze her with indifference, while Aunt Burton and Georgie will criticise and snub her awfully,” she thought. “But I will do what I can for her, and make her room as attractive as possible.”
So all of Saturday morning was spent by Maude in brushing up and righting Charlie’s old room for the reception of the widowed Edna. There were many traces of the dead in there, and Maude’s eyes were moist with tears as she put them away, and thought how Charlie would never want them again. It was a very pleasant room, and under Maude’s skilful hands it looked still pleasanter and more inviting on the morning when the party was expected.
“I mean she shall come right in here with me at once,” Maude said to herself, as she gave the fire a little poke, and then for the fourth time brushed the hearth and rug.
There was an easy chair before the fire, and vases of flowers on the mantel, and bracket, and stand, and a pot of ivy stood between the windows, the white muslin curtains of which were looped back with knots of crape, sole sign of mourning in the room. Maude had asked her employers for two days’ vacation, and so she was virtually mistress of ceremonies, though Mrs. Burton bustled in and out, and gave the most contradictory orders, and made poor Mrs. Churchill’s nerves quiver with pain as she discussed the proper place for Charlie to be laid, and the proper way for the funeral to be conducted.
And through it all Roy lay utterly helpless, knowing that it was not for him to look upon his brother’s face, or to join in the last tribute of affection paid to his memory. He knew that Maude confidently expected that Edna was coming to Leighton, and so he supposed she was, and he felt a good deal of curiosity with regard to the girl who had caricatured him in a poke bonnet, and stigmatized him as a Betty. Not a word concerning her had passed between himself and his mother since the receipt of the telegram. Indeed, he had scarcely seen his mother, for she had kept mostly in her room, and either Maude or Mrs. Burton had been the medium of communication between them. The latter had indulged in some very pious talk about resignation and all that, and then had descanted upon Georgie’s great kindness and unselfishness in leaving her own business, and coming back to Leighton. She knew this from the second telegram received from Georgie, saying, “We shall reach Leighton sometime on Monday.”
That Georgie was coming was of itself enough to take away half the pain, and in her blind fondness for her adopted daughter, Mrs. Burton wondered why Roy and his mother should look as white and grief-stricken as they did that October afternoon, when the carriage was waiting at the station for the living, and the hearse was waiting for the dead.
CHAPTER IV.
GEORGIE.
Georgie Burton was a brilliant, fascinating woman, several years older than Maude Somerton, and wholly unlike her both in looks and disposition. She was not only very beautiful, but she had about her an air of culture and high breeding which would have atoned for the absence of all beauty.