Ten to one “Grey” was not the real name of the family. How then, with all the goodwill in the world to help forward this tardy reparation, could my father have done anything effectual, except by public advertisement or some step of the kind which would have been horror for the principals in the affair? How, again, could the Paynes, father or son, even suspecting what they already did, have used their influence in any practical way had Mr Grey continued to refuse to give the name of the traitor he had so long concealed, but for my assurance that they were on the right track? Indeed the ins and outs of the possibilities and contingencies were too bewildering and useless to dwell upon. What I had to do was simple enough. I calculated that if my father replied at once, as I felt sure he would—it was before the days of telegrams being privately employed to any appreciable extent—I should receive a letter the day after to-morrow by the first post, immediately upon which I must try to arrange to see Clarence, and probably his father.
So I wrote that same day to the former, telling him that I hoped he would be able to call on Thursday morning, on the chance, approaching a certainty, of my having something of great importance to talk over with him.
“It is better to write this to him,” I reflected.
“It will prevent his pondering unnecessarily over what I have asked him to decide, and it will make his coming to see me much more likely.”
This second letter written and sent, I gave a sigh of relief. I had done all I could for the present, and though still conscious of a good deal of nervous anxiety, or rather, perhaps, excitement, I felt more at rest, and freer to enjoy my kind godmother’s plans for the day. The “season” was advancing now, and as the time for my return home was close at hand, these plans of hers for my amusement were multiplying hourly, so determined was she that the last part of my visit to her should in no way fall flat.
“I want you to want to come back again,” she said to me that afternoon, as we drove off in her charming carriage to some pleasant party—what or where, I forget—and as she said it she glanced at me scrutinisingly. “I have just one fault to find with you,” she continued, “tomboy though your mother called you, and as you called yourself, if I am not mistaken, before now—I am afraid there is some danger of your growing too sedate. That would never do, and to tell you the truth, the danger of it has struck me since your return from those good folk in Granville Square. I hope they have not put it into your wise little head, Reggie, that your godmother is too frivolous or fashionable, or any nonsense of that kind?”
“Oh dear, no,” I replied emphatically and truthfully, though nevertheless something in her inquiry made me blush a little—not with any consciousness of a word, or the shadow of a word, having been said by the Paynes of the kind she alluded to, but because I knew I had secret cause for “sedateness,” as Lady Bretton called it; “preoccupation” would have been a more appropriate word. And also because I still felt the charm of the quiet, somewhat more serious tone of the peaceful and dignified home-life of my new friends, and in my heart hoped that my next visit to my godmother might mean one to them too. “Oh dear, no,” I repeated, “they are not at all that kind of family. They seem to have nice feelings to and about everybody, as far as I can judge. Indeed, dearest godmother, I can’t tell you how much I shall look forward to another visit to you. You have been so very, very kind.”
“That’s all right, then,” she replied. “And next time there must be no interruptions. I won’t have you going off to Granville Square or anywhere. You won’t care to do so. It isn’t as if there were daughters in the family,” and here there was a touch of inquiry in her tone; “that reminds me, by the way, that before you come again, I want to hunt up a few—even one or two—girl friends for you. You see I could scarcely do so before, till I knew you a little better and could judge what your tastes were, and so on.”
“And the sort of girl friends you thought I needed! Evidently they will not be of the ultra-serious order,” I reflected, with a little secret amusement. But aloud I just laughed, and begged my godmother to believe that no girl friends she could possibly hunt up or down for me would suit me half or a quarter as well as her own charming young-hearted self. “I have Isabel Wynyard now,” I said, “and I do feel that she has made me much more like other people—other girls, I mean.”
Lady Bretton glanced at me with affectionate approval.