"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them how we will."
Hamlet.
It was arranged that Waveney was to remain at the Red House while painting and papering were being carried on at Number Ten, Cleveland Terrace.
Ann, the heavy-footed, was dismissed with a month's wages, and Mrs. Muggins accompanied her. A competent caretaker was put in charge. And Althea had already engaged two capable maids, to come in when the work of renovation was complete.
It was the first time Doreen and Althea had ever spent August in town; but Mrs. Mainwaring's sudden illness had detained them, and, as soon as she was fit to travel, they had promised to stay with her at Whitby.
While Waveney remained with her friends, Everard Ward and his son went down to a farm-house in Yorkshire, that Lord Ralston had recommended, where they would have excellent accommodation, at a very moderate price, and very good fishing. It was the first real holiday that Everard had enjoyed for years, and Noel wrote ridiculously illustrated epistles, retailing sundry ludicrous adventures. "His revered parent," as he informed Waveney, "was becoming fatter, and more plebeian, every day." And here there was a spirited pen-and-ink sketch of Everard in a huge straw hat, fishing on a boulder, with a briar-wood pipe in his mouth, and several small fishes winking at him as they frisked harmlessly by. "Caught nothing since Friday week," was written underneath the picture.
In spite of her happiness, Waveney could not reconcile herself to Mollie's absence. The parting had tried them both. No one forgot the bride's tear-stained face, as Lord Ralston lifted her into the carriage. "Oh, do take care of my Wave," were her last words to Althea, as they drove away.
Waveney shed many a tear in her Pansy Room. But she cheered up when Mollie's first letter came. And after that she wrote almost daily. She was very happy, she said, and Moritz was so good to her. But of course it was strange, being without her Wave. It was such a lovely place, and the cottage was so cosy. They were out all day, fishing, or wandering over the purple moors. Sometimes Moritz had a day's shooting with the keeper, and then she and Donald, the gamekeeper's son, drove down with the luncheon. They had dinner at eight—quite a grand dinner, and Donald waited on them. "I have given up pinching myself hard, to be sure that I am not dreaming," she wrote once, "but for all that I am leading a story-book existence. Oh, I am so happy, darling! I can hardly say my prayers without crying for sheer thankfulness. My dear Moritz spoils me so dreadfully. He says he hates me to be out of his sight for a moment, and if I were to believe half he says I should be as conceited as possible. It is just his blarney, I tell him. And then he pretends to be affronted."
"Don't you believe her, my dear," wrote a masculine hand. "She is a perfect darling, and the sweetest little wife in the world. When it comes to pinching oneself I can hardly believe I am that lucky and much-to-be-envied fellow, your affectionate brother-in-law,
"Monsieur Blackie."
When Althea showed Waveney the improvements she and Doreen had effected in Number Ten, Cleveland Terrace, the girl could hardly believe her eyes. New papers, and carpets, and curtains, had quite transformed the dingy old house. The stairs were covered with crimson felt, and the studio, and the bare, ugly room, where the sisters had slept, looked perfectly charming.