“And grandpa consented to this willingly?” Maddy said, feeling a throb of pleasure at thoughts of release. But Guy could not answer that the grandfather consented willingly.
“He thinks it best. When he comes back you can ask him yourself,” he said, just as Uncle Joseph opened the door and brought their interview to a close by asking very meekly, “If it would please the Lord Governor to let him spit!”
The blood rushed at once to Maddy’s face, and she could not repress a smile, while Guy laughed aloud, saying to her softly: “For your sake, I tried my skill to stop what I knew must annoy you. Pardon me if I did wrong!” then turning to Uncle Joseph, he gave the desired permission, together with the promise of a handsome spittoon, which should be sent down on the morrow. With a bow Uncle Joseph turned away, muttering to himself, “High doings, now Martha’s gone; but new lords, new laws. I trust he’s not going to live here;” and very slyly he asked Flora if the Lord Governor had brought his things?
At this point Grandpa Markham came in, and to him Guy appealed at once to know if he were not willing for Maddy to return to school.
“I said she might if she thought best,” was the reply, spoken so sadly that Maddy’s arms were at once twined round the old man’s neck, while she said to him:
“Tell me honestly which you prefer. I’d like so much to go to school, but I am not sure I should be happy there, knowing how lonely you were at home. Say, grandpa, which do you prefer?” and Maddy tried to speak playfully, though her heart-beats were almost audible as she waited for the answer.
Grandpa could not deceive her. “He wanted his darling sorely, and he wanted her to be happy,” he said. Perhaps they could get on just as well without her. When Mr. Guy was talking it looked as if they might, he made it all so plain, but the sight of Maddy was a comfort. She was all he had left. Maybe he shouldn’t live long to pester her, and if he didn’t, wouldn’t she always feel better for having staid with her old grandpa to the last?
He looked very pale and thin, and his hair was as white as snow. He could not live many years, and, turning resolutely from Guy, who, so long as he held her eye, controlled her, Maddy said:
“I’ve chosen once for all. I’ll stay with grandpa till he dies,” and with a convulsive sob she clung tightly to his neck, as if fearful that without such hold on him her resolution would give way.
It was in vain that Guy strove to change Maddy’s decision, and late in the afternoon he rode back to Aikenside a disappointed man, with, however, the feeling that Maddy had done right, and that he respected her all the more for withstanding the temptation.