“But I don’t mean to do wrong, grandma,” said Valentine, with a little self-assertion. “Why should you think I would? Is there anything particular about me?”
“There is a great deal particular about you,” said the old lady; “you are the hope and the joy of two old folk that would never hold up their heads again in this world if any harm came to you. Is not that enough? But I am not afraid of my boy,” she added, seeing that the admonition had gone far enough, and smiling a wintry watery smile, the best she could muster. “Mind all that Mr Grinder says, and don’t be too rough in your play. You’re a very stirring boy, Val; but I want my boy to be always a gentleman, and not too rough. Your manners are not so nice as they once were——”
“I’m not a baby any longer,” said the boy. “I don’t know how to speak to ladies and grand people; but I don’t mean to be rough.”
“Well, dear, perhaps that is true,” said Lady Eskside, with a sigh; “but you’ll mind, Val, to be very particular about your manners as well as other things. It’s more important than you think.”
“I wish you would tell me something, grandma,” said Val; “why is it more important than I think? and what do grandpapa and you mean by saying that I need to be on my guard more than others? There must be something particular about me.”
“Then your grandpapa has been speaking to you!” said the old lady, with a little vexation, feeling herself forestalled. “I suppose, being old, we are more particular than most people, and more anxious. Your father, you see, makes no such fuss.”
“I don’t know anything about my father, grandma.”
“Oh, Val, hush! he is at a distance, where duty keeps him; he has never been at home but that once since you came, and he is not a good correspondent; but now that you are at school you must write to him direct, and be sure he will answer. He knows you are safe in our hands.”
“That may be,” said Val, seriously; “but still, you see, grandma, it’s a fact that I don’t know much about my father—nor my mother either,” he added, suddenly dropping his voice. Since he had been a small child, he had not mentioned her before. Lady Eskside could not restrain a startled movement, which he felt, standing so close to her. The boy lifted his eyes and fixed them on her face.
“Was that her, grandma,” he said in a low voice, “that brought me here? and why is she never here now? I know there is something strange about me, for all you say.”