It was the same evening. The sisters had retired each to her own chamber, and Miss Jane was in the act of arranging her hair for the night, when Miss Matilda, in dressing-gown and slippers, appeared suddenly before her.
“Sister,” she said, “what a pair of numskulls you and I must be to imagine that our only way of raising the sum of fifty pounds was by obtaining it on the loan of our jewellery and plate!”
“And what other way is there?” demanded Miss Jane with a stare. “A way that would have occurred to anyone but two ignorant women who know nothing about business affairs. We can, I feel sure, and that without the least difficulty, obtain an advance, not merely of fifty pounds, but of several times that amount, if required, on the security of the title-deeds of Vale View (our joint freehold property), which are at present in the custody of Mr. Linaway.”
“Oh, Mattie, how clever of you to have thought of such a thing! And what a relief it will be not to have mamma’s jewels go out of our own keeping even for a single day!”
Miss Matilda nodded assent. “I don’t mind confessing now,” she said, “that last night I scarcely slept a wink for thinking of my coming interview with Mr. Daykin. That I shall sleep soundly to-night I do not doubt.”
Lady Pell was as good as her word. She called next afternoon in an open carriage and carried off Ethel for a ten-miles drive. A couple of days later she was at Rose Mount again, this time accompanied by her stepdaughter, Mrs. Loftus. They had called for the keys of Vale View. On their return the sisters had the gratification of being told that Mrs. Loftus had agreed to take the house, and would enter upon its tenancy almost immediately.
If, after the conclusion of the business between them, the sisters imagined that, in all likelihood, they should see no more of Lady Pell, they were mistaken. As long as she should remain at Foljambe Court she evidently intended not to lose sight of them. Seldom did she let more than a couple of days go by without calling at Rose Mount, and at least twice a week she insisted on taking Ethel for an afternoon drive. They all grew to like her more than at one time they would have thought it possible that they should like anyone after so brief an acquaintance.
Meanwhile no further steps were taken in the matter of the loan. Thanks to Lady Pell, Ethel was already looking brighter and better, and when the former confided to the sisters that her visit would not terminate till the middle of September, Miss Matilda said to Miss Jane when they were alone: “We shall lose nothing by delaying our holiday till after Lady Pell’s departure. A decided improvement is already discernible in the dear girl’s health; besides which, all the seaside resorts will be much less crowded, and, consequently, far pleasanter during the latter half of September than they are now.”
But all these dispositions came to naught one afternoon when Lady Pell’s visit had still about a week to run. She was sitting with the sisters, Ethel being out of the room, when she startled them as they had rarely been startled by saying apropos to nothing that had gone before: “My dear friends, if I may be permitted to call you so, I want you to do me a very great favour, which is neither more nor less than to allow me to run off with your niece for a couple of months at the very least.”
The sisters gazed at each other in consternation. Neither of them spoke: they could not.