Suddenly Pollie and Jimmy, overtaken by sudden alarm, came running to me. And they began to cry.
'Where's Daddy?' wailed Jimmy. 'Oh, mother, where is Daddy?'
'Hush!' I said. I drew them quite close to me. 'You'll see him before very long.'
CHAPTER XIX
[IN TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION]
The rest of the events of that day do seem so jumbled together. I can hardly remember all that happened. Miss Desmond took the children and me into a room upstairs that big you could have put almost the whole of our house in Little Olive Street inside of it. There was a bed in it and all sorts of things, but the idea of my sleeping in it was too ridiculous. But it seemed that I was going to. There were two servants to wait on us, both grander than me, and one that dignified I didn't dare to look her in the face. When they went out for something, I begged and prayed Miss Desmond not to let them come back again, for they did make me that uncomfortable that I didn't know what I was doing. She smiled, in that quiet way she had, and when the one who spoke and looked as if she was a perfect lady--and I'm sure she was much more of a lady than ever I shall be--came back again, Miss Desmond got rid of her with some excuse or other, and glad enough I was.
Presently she took us into another room which, according to her, was called the school-room, and which she said the children would use as a nursery; though it was more like a room in a palace. There were heaps and heaps of things for them to play with--the likes of some of them I never did see; they must have cost a fortune, that they must--and it wasn't long before they were as happy as a king. For with little children, bless them! trouble's like water on a duck's back; they're crying broken-hearted one minute, and laughing as if they'd burst themselves the next.
Miss Desmond was that nice! She was a lady, she was. She had a way about her which seemed to take you right out of yourself; and made you feel at peace. But with all her gentle, pleasant manner I could see that she herself was just weighed down with trouble. I suspected that there was something between that Mr. Howarth and her; and that the way he had been carrying on was wearing her to a shadow. And when I knew she liked him, as any one could see she did, I thought better of him myself; for if a woman like her held him dear he couldn't be altogether bad. I hadn't been talking to her many minutes before I began to put this and that together, and to see how the whole matter stood. A queer business it all was. No wonder she'd had her troubles like the rest of us. Somehow the knowledge that that was so made my own trouble less.
I had no notion of what was going on downstairs. I didn't care much either. But I could see she was worried. Mr. Howarth's sister never came near us. She didn't like that; though I was glad enough. I could understand how, if my James was the Marquis, I should be in her way, through her wanting to marry the young gentleman who was the Marquis now, and so be the Marchioness. Considering that I was nothing and nobody, and had sprung up all in a moment, as it were, it wasn't strange she didn't like me, and perhaps never would. So on all accounts I felt it was just as well she kept away. At the same time, with Miss Desmond it was different. She'd done nothing to upset Miss Howarth, or Lady Violet as it seemed she was, and I could see she was afraid of a coldness growing up between them. So I begged that she wouldn't stop with me, for I should be perfectly right alone; and, after a while, she went.
She hadn't been gone very long, and off I'd started to think again--or rather to try to think, for, somehow, my thoughts wouldn't come; I felt all dazed--when in came the young gentleman with Mr. FitzHoward.