“C’est un horrible shame,” sighed Kitty sadly. “C’est tout bien pour vous, parce que vous êtes toujours ici; mais moi, je suis chez moi, et si elles sortez quand je ne suis pas ici, je serais mad!”
“J’expect qu’elles sorteraient quand nous sommes tous loin. C’est toujours le fashion!” sighed Chrissie, acutely conscious that her French was superior to that of her friend, but politely ignoring the fact. “Je demanderai à ma mère—er—er—(how do you say ‘pay calls’?)—à faire une visite, aussitôt que possible.”
“Moi aussi,” assented Kitty. “Et puis vous savez, elle peut dit: ‘J’espère, Madame Vanburgh, que vos mademoiselles seraient très grand amies avec mes filles. Voulez vous permittez qu’elles venez à thé mercredi prochaine?’”
“Oui, et puis elles nous inviteraient en retourn.” Christabel tossed her mane over her shoulders and smiled in anticipation. She made up her mind then and there to decorate her bedroom with her most treasured nick-nacks on the afternoon of the Vanburghs’ visit, and to keep her new hair ribbon unused for the occasion.
But no Miss Vanburghs appeared! The next day passed, and the next, and still another, and still no sign of a feminine presence lightened the dark windows of the Grange. The solemn butler flitted to and fro; the figure of a white-haired man could be dimly discerned, stretched upon a sofa, in the oak-panelled apartment immediately facing the porch-room of Thurston House; but that was all that the most unremitting scrutiny could discover. Nan shivered at an attic window for an hour on end, with no more exciting result than a glimpse of a tablecloth and a row of silver dishes; and the great nailed door remained persistently closed.
And then the blow fell!
There were no Miss Vanburghs! There was not even a Mrs Vanburgh! Could it be believed there was no woman in the family—no one but an old invalid gentleman, who spent his days on a sofa, or in a wheeled chair being slowly driven about the garden? A solitary man as tenant of the Grange! The finest house in the neighbourhood monopolised by an invalid! The ball-room, the billiard-room, the music-room, given over to the possession of one who would never use them; the stables unused; the gardens deserted! The Rendell girls could not believe it. It was too horrible to be true. Ermyntrude, Evangeline, and Gabrielle had no existence. The happy dreams which had been woven about them could never be fulfilled. It was indeed a cruel and crushing disappointment.
“What can he want with a house like that, the selfish, horrid creature?” demanded Agatha, nigh to tears. “If he is an invalid, what is the use of having a house big enough to hold a regiment of soldiers? There are hundreds of villas where he might have been as ill as he liked, without monopolising our only Grange! What is to become of us, if all the best houses in the country are sold to hermits, and invalids, and white-haired old patriarchs, with not a single child to boast of! Selfish! Inconsiderate!”
“I’m sorry his back is bad; but he had no business to come here,” agreed Chrissie firmly. “We don’t want invalids. We want a nice, big, lively family, with plenty of money and hospitable hearts. Oh dear! I’m lonely without Gabrielle. I’d taken such a fancy to her! This is worse than if the place had never been sold at all.”
“But still, you know the old man may be nice!” Kitty suggested hopefully. “Wouldn’t it be lovely if he took a fancy to us, and made us all his heirs? A million each! I’d buy a pony-cart and a phonograph—a friend of father has a phonograph at his home, and it’s such fun listening to it. The cornet-solo is fine, and there’s a cylinder of a baby crying which sounds just like a dog barking. The poor little soul was quite good, but its parents thought it would be nice to preserve its howls; so they pinched it and made it cry. Mean, I call it! Imagine her feelings when she is grown up, and this wretched thing is wound up to amuse strangers. So degrading! Parents ought to consider their children’s feelings. I read an awful story once of a girl who was looking over old magazines with some friends, and she came upon a photograph of herself as an advertisement of Infants’ Food! If that had happened to me, I should disown my parents and leave the country. Mr Vanburgh hasn’t any children of his own, but he may like us all the more for that. It would be an interest in life for him to make us happy, and we should reward him by our devotion. It sounds like a book, and perhaps it may turn out for the best, after all. I believe it will!”