But at this Jean opened wide, protesting eyes.
“As if I would! My own little child! She isn’t superfluous. I shall adore her as much as the others, but just at first it is a disappointment. But I’ll call her after you this time, Vanna, say what you will, and you shall be her second mother.”
“Yes! I’d like this one to have my name, and she is mine, for I wanted her, and you didn’t. Remember that, if you please. No one pays one penny piece for anything this baby wears, or wants, or learns, but her Mother Vanna. I’m going to have a real claim, not only sentiment. She’s going to mean a great, great deal in my life!”
Jean smiled, well content. For herself it would be a relief to be freed from extra expense; and she realised that in giving her consent she was enriching rather than impoverishing her friend’s life. And so little Vanna adopted a second mother.
Chapter Twenty Five.
The Indian Mail.
Two years had passed since Piers Rendall had left England, and still there came no word of his return. Vanna heard from him regularly every mail, letters as long, as intimate, as tender as during the first month after his sailing, yet gradually there dawned in them a difference which made itself surely, increasingly felt. What was it? In the depths of her own heart, where alone the change was admitted, Vanna pondered the question, but could find no reply. The first zest of interest and occupation in a new world had died an inevitable death; that was natural enough and could raise no surprise. The effects of a hot climate were beginning to make themselves felt, he had been overworked, overstrained—natural again; but in this case the remedy lay in his own hands. Why did he not use it? Vanna had never allowed herself to ask one questioning word on the subject of Piers’s return; but she could not avoid knowing that the junior partner whose place he had taken was entirely recovered, and most anxious to return to his post. Old Mrs Rendall, too, was growing sadly impatient, and, on the rare occasions when they met, treated Vanna with frigid disapproval. It was this girl’s doing that her son was homeless and exiled—deprived of the joys of manhood. There was some mystery about this long, dragging engagement—a mystery which had been purposely concealed, a mystery which in some inexplicable fashion referred to Vanna herself. What could it be? The consciousness of this underlying curiosity had been one of Vanna’s greatest trials in her social intercourse during the last few years, and its presence heightened the ever-growing longing for Piers’s return. The evening of mail-day often found her depressed rather than cheered, though the three closely written sheets had arrived as usual; for weary and disconsolate as was Piers’s mood, there was still no reference to a return; but during the week hope would again lift up its head and whisper encouragement concerning “next time.” So elastic a thing is the human heart, that a bracing wind, a gleam of sunshine through the fog, will send the spirits racing upwards, and open out possibilities where the road has appeared hopelessly barred.
It was in such a mood that Vanna greeted her weekly letter one grey morning in February. The night before she had spent a particularly happy evening with Jean and Robert, who had appeared in better spirits than since the beginning of their trouble. Little Vanna had developed a fresh set of baby charms, and had allowed herself to be nursed with bland complacence, and on returning to her own house Robert had spoken a few memorable words when saying good-bye: “Every day of my life I thank God for you, Vanna! Such a friend is a big gift. You have been a good angel to us this last year.” The memory of those words had been a good sleeping-draught; the warmth of them remained to cheer her as she dressed in the morning, and when her eye fell on the well-known envelope on the breakfast table, a little leap of the heart prophesied good news. To-day it seemed fitting that her waiting should come to an end.