“He never was like this before,” she said. “Oh, don’t think he is rude or unkind, Mr. Fanshawe. There never was anyone so good or so tender; but his heart is broken. He can think of nothing but poor Tom.”
“And you’ll write to Charlie?” said Mr. Charles. “I don’t wonder at him being anxious. If you’ll think what India is, and what the life is—a life made up of accidents, and fevers, and everything that’s deadly. The lad might be bitten by some venomous creature; some ill beast might fall foul of him; or he might catch the jungle fever, which they tell me is most dangerous—”
“But all this might have happened to him for years past, I suppose,” said Fanshawe; “unless he went to India very recently. These dangers are not new.”
“He was not the heir then!” said Mr. Charles very simply; and he too rose from the table. “Would you like to come and see my room, Mr. Fanshawe? There is not much to show, but I have some prints that are not just what you will see every day, and a curiosity or two; while Marjory writes her letters.” And as he left the room he too looked back to say: “You’ll write at once, May; you’ll be very urgent? It will be good for us all to have Charlie at home.”
“Oh, May!” cried little Milly, who did not remember her second brother; “why are they so anxious for Charlie to come home?”
“Who is anxious, Milly, besides papa and Uncle Charles?”
“Oh, the whole house!” said Milly. “Mrs. Simpson asks me every time she sees me; and old Fleming. ‘Mr. Charlie must come home now!’ they say. May, will you tell me why?”
“To fill Tom’s place!” said Marjory, with an outburst of sudden tears. “Oh, my little Milly, that is what we do even when we love best. My father is breaking his heart for Tom; yet he wants Charlie to fill Tom’s place.”
“Nobody could ever fill your place, May,” cried Milly; “I would never let them; dinna cry. I could cry too, for papa never minds me, never looks at me; and oh, he’s so strange; the house is so strange! but May, so long as there is you—”
The little girl’s arms clinging round her neck were a comfort to Marjory. Little Milly was wounded too; she had received that first lesson of her own unimportance, which is hard even for a child; she was half indignant, half angry even with “poor Tom,” though she cried at the sound of his name—and very sore about Charlie, whom everybody wished for.