'It was not true—not a word of it!' she returned in a low vehement voice. 'You may ask Cyril. Oh, how angry he was when the report reached him! He came home and took me in his arms and said we should not stay there—no one should talk against his mother. They did say such horrid things against me, Miss Ross; and yet how could I help Dr. Forester calling on me sometimes? He was never invited—no one asked him to repeat his visits. Mollie will tell you I was barely civil to him. I suppose he admired me, that is the truth; and his daughter knew it, and it made her bitter. Well, after that, I declared that nothing would induce me to receive gentlemen again, unless they were Cyril's friends and he brought them himself.'
Audrey was silent. She had been very angry when Geraldine had told her the story. She had declared it was a pure fabrication—a piece of village gossip.
'Besides, if it were true,' she had continued, 'where is the harm of a wealthy widower, with one daughter, falling in love with a good-looking widow? And yet Edith Bryce seems to hint darkly at some misconduct on Mrs. Blake's part.'
'You are putting it too strongly, dear,' replied her sister. 'Edith only said she considered Mrs. Blake rather flippant in manner, and a little too gracious to gentlemen——' but Audrey had refused to hear more.
'I was utterly wretched at Headingly,' went on Mrs. Blake, in her sweet, plaintive voice; 'and Cyril grew to hate it at last—for my sake. He says he is sure it will be different here, and that people are so much nicer. I believe he thinks you angelic, Miss Ross, and your mother only a degree less so. Only last night he said to me, as we were walking up and down in the moonlight, "I am certain you will be happy at Rutherford, mother. You have one nice friend already, and——" But, there, I had better not repeat my boy's words.'
Audrey felt anxious to change the subject.
'Where did you live before you went to Headingly?' she asked abruptly, and Mrs. Blake was clever enough to take her cue.
'We were in lodgings in Richmond,' she answered readily. 'You know we were poor, and I was straining every nerve to keep Cyril at Oxford. I had been saving up every year for it, but I cannot deny we were sadly pinched. I had to send Biddy home for a year or two, and Mollie and Kester and I lived in three little rooms, in such a dull street. Cyril generally got a holiday engagement for the summer, but when he joined us—I procured him a bedroom near us—it used to make him very unhappy to see the way we lived. But I always comforted him by reminding him that one day he would make a home for us, and that cheered him up.'
'You were certainly very good to him. Some mothers would not have done half so much,' observed Audrey.
She was repaid for this little speech, as a smile, almost infantile in its sweetness, came to Mrs. Blake's lip.