“I see it all, of course,” he said. “It is brave of your daughter to have come herself, Mrs Percy, and it seems to me it was the best thing to do. There is certainly a very strong likeness between her and Mary, though I have not seen Mary for four years. If I had been told you were Mary,” he went on, turning to me with a smile, “I think I should have believed it. Now, have you the courage to beard the—to come with me to Mrs Fetherston alone? I think, perhaps, that is the best chance.”
Mamma and I looked at each other, and Major Whyte looked at us both.
“Yes,” I said, “I’ll come alone, if it’s best.”
“Bravo,” said our new friend—I felt he was a friend at once—and he held out his hand to me in a way I could not resist or resent, though generally I stood on my dignity a good deal. “We had been thinking of trying a rather desperate experiment to bring my poor aunt to her senses,” he said. “But I believe your effort will be more successful.”
We left the room together, he and I. I followed him upstairs to the first floor, and through two big drawing-rooms into a third and smaller one at the back. In he stalked, coughing a little now and then; in I crept after him. A big fire was blazing, an armchair was drawn close to it, and on, or rather in, the armchair, which almost seemed to swallow her up, was seated a small dark figure. She was reading the newspaper.
“What is it, Hugo?” she said, at the sound of my conductor’s footsteps. “There you are again, in and out as usual, exposing yourself to every draught, of course.”
The sharp tones, the queer, black, unnatural-looking curls were all too familiar to me. I could not help shivering a little.
“Aunt Angela,” he said—only fancy that being her name!—“I have brought a young lady to see you,” and he drew me forward a little. “You have seen her before,”—piercing eyes were upon me by this time—“but perhaps I can best introduce her and best explain her visit by telling you she is not your great-niece, Mary Whyte.”
He stood still to watch the effect of his audacity. The old lady began to tremble a little, though she tried to hide it. But this gave me courage, because it made me sorry for her.
“Who—who are you then? Who do you say you are?” she said, in a shaky, quavering voice.