Red Rose and Tiger Lily; Or, In a Wider World, L. T. Meade [digital book reader txt] 📗

if I were you. You might suggest——"

"Yes; do you think it would be any use?"

"There is no saying—it's your own affair. If you choose to die of ennui, don't tell me that I haven't warned you. Now I see you are wide awake, so you may dry your hair and get up."

"Oh, dear, oh, dear," sighed Susy after Antonia had swung herself out of the room, "I'm chilled to the bone and every scrap of spirit taken out of me. I hate that awful Towers—why did father buy it?"

One of Antonia's great ideas was on all occasions to strike while the iron is hot. It was her plan to leap over obstacles or to push them vigorously aside. She had no respect for people's corns. Their preconceived prejudices were nothing to her. Having succeeded in disturbing Susy, she now went straight to her mother's room. Mrs. Bernard Temple was seated in an easy chair by the open window, enjoying a quiet ten minutes for thought and rest before It was time for her to dress for dinner. Pinkerton was moving about putting the different accessories for her mistress's toilet in order. Antonia pushed her almost rudely aside as she swept across the room.

"Go away, Pinkerton," she said, "I want to speak to mother by herself."

"Oh, really, not at present, Antonia," said Mrs. [Pg 230]Bernard Temple, with a look of alarm spreading over her high-class features. "I have gone through a great deal to-day and am quite tired, and I shall have to begin to dress for dinner in a few minutes. Sir John is very particular about my appearance, and I wish Pinkerton to try the effect of arranging my hair in a new manner. I thought, Pinkerton, that you might pile it up high on a sort of cushion—it has a very old-picture effect."

"You ought to wear a cap," said Antonia, standing in front of her parent; "it would be much more suitable and appropriate, and would save you a lot of trouble."

"A cap!" almost screamed Mrs. Bernard Temple. "To hear you speak, Antonia, one would think that I was advanced in years."

"As it's only I who think that, it doesn't matter, mother," said Antonia. "You shall wear your hair any way you please, only I really must have a little talk with you first. The sooner I begin my talk the sooner it will be over, so please go away at once, Pinkerton."

Pinkerton knew Antonia too well to dream of disobeying her. She left the room, slamming the door behind her, and Mrs. Bernard Temple looked up at her resolute daughter with a frown between her brows.

"Now, out with it, whatever it is," she said. "You have got something at the back of your head, and you can say it in ten words as well as twenty. What do you want me to do?"

"You have great influence with Sir John Thornton, haven't you, mother?" asked Antonia, kneeling down as she spoke by the open window, and leaning one pointed elbow on the sill. [Pg 231]Mrs. Bernard Temple permitted herself to smile agreeably.

"A man's fiancée has generally influence over him," she said in a sentimental voice.

"That's what I thought," said Antonia. "I'll never be anybody's fiancée—the mere thought would make me ill—but that's neither here nor there. Granted that you have influence over Sir John, I want you to use it in my way—now, do you understand?"

"Really, Antonia, really,"—Mrs. Bernard Temple looked quite alarmed—"Sir John cannot bear erratic people, he tells me so from morning to night. I am afraid you have managed to displease him very seriously, my dear. When you spilt your tea in the garden this evening, he acknowledged, when I pressed him on the subject, that it gave him quite a sense of nausea. You see, Antonia, how careful you ought to be. The comforts of the home I have provided for you may be jeopardised if you are too erratic. You know I did not wish you to come to the Grange until after my wedding. The fact is, Sir John is very much annoyed about you. He has spoken to me most seriously on the subject of your extraordinary manners, and has asked me why I permit you to do the things you do. When I tell him that I have not the smallest scrap of influence over you, he simply does not believe me; and then he has such an aggravating way of drawing comparisons between you and that icy-mannered girl, Hester."

"Oh, I'm not a patch upon Hester," said Antonia; "she is a very nice, well-bred, English young lady. I'm Bohemian of the Bohemians. I'm nobody—nobody at all. I extinguish myself at the shrine of [Pg 232]great Art. I love to extinguish myself. I adore being a shadow."

"I think, Antonia, you are quite mad."

"Think it away, my dearest mother, only grant my request; influence Sir John in my way."

"Oh, you terrible, terrible child! Well, what do you want me to do?"

"Now you're becoming reasonable," said Antonia, "and I really won't keep you from your hair a moment longer than I can help. I went to the Towers this morning, mother; it's really a heavenly old place; quite steeped in the best sort of mediæval art. In the house, old china and low ceilings; out of doors, nature untrammelled. Think of a place like the Towers in the possession of Susy Drummond and her father, the ex-coal-merchant. Mother, it is not to be."

"My dear Antonia, I can't listen to you another moment." Mrs. Bernard Temple rose as she spoke. "Pinkerton, come at once," she called.

Pinkerton turned the handle of the door.

"Go away, Pinkerton!" shouted Antonia. "Now, mother, sit down; there's oceans of time."

"Really, really, my dear! Oh, what a trial one's children sometimes are. The Drummonds have bought the Towers. The whole thing is an accomplished fact."

"It is not too late," pursued Antonia. "I have been giving a spice of my mind to Susy, and she hates and detests the place, and will do what she can to get her father to back out of his bargain. Well, the Lorrimers are almost dying at the thought of going. The ugly duckling told me the whole story to-day, and I never listened to anything more [Pg 233]piteous; and Squire Lorrimer is hiding in London because of his poor feelings. In short, the moment for strong measures has arrived; and if you won't speak to Sir John, I will."

Mrs. Bernard Temple turned white.

"If you speak to him, Antonia," she said, "he will break off the match, and we shall be ruined—ruined."

"Very well, mother; you must have a conversation with him. One or other of us must have it, that is certain."

"Oh, you most terrible child! What am I to say to him?"

"Say this, and say it firmly. Say that you won't marry him unless he goes to see Squire Lorrimer, and makes an arrangement to lend him sufficient money to stay on at the Towers. The Drummonds will be delighted to get out of their bargain, and the Lorrimers will be saved. That's the plan of campaign. Either I undertake to see it through, mother, or you do. Now, which is it to be?"

"You must give me until to-morrow morning to think over your wild words. Really, my poor head is splitting."

Antonia went up and kissed her mother.

"You can come now, Pinkerton," she called out.

[Pg 234]

CHAPTER XXV. MOLLY'S SORROW.

Hester was a good deal astonished that same day, when, just before dinner, Annie Forest came up to her with a request.

"I don't want to dine here to-night," she said. "I want to go to the Towers to have a good long talk with Molly."

"But, really, Annie," replied Hester, "is it necessary for you to go to-night? I did not know—I mean I did not think that—that you and Molly——"

"That we were special friends?" interrupted Annie. "Oh, yes, we are quite friendly enough for the little talk I mean to have. You'll spare me, won't you, Hetty, and if Molly offers me a bed, I'll sleep there and be back quite early in the morning."

"I can't refuse you, of course," said Hester, "but that won't prevent my missing you. It will be rather a dreadful dinner party, with only Mrs. Bernard Temple and Antonia and that dreadful, sleepy Susy. You are so full of tact and so bright, Annie, that you generally make matters go off fairly well. But to-night there won't be anyone to stem the current. Oh, dear, I do trust that Antonia won't talk too much high art."

As Hester spoke, she looked at her friend with an expression of great anxiety on her face. Under ordinary circumstances this look would have completely overmastered Annie, who would immediately [Pg 235]have yielded up her own wishes to please Hester, but now she remained quite obdurate.

"I am sure you will manage very well," she said, in an almost hard voice for her. "You know, Hetty, you won't always have me, and you will have Mrs. Bernard Temple and Antonia."

"It is too dreadful," sighed Hester. "When my father thought of marrying again, why did he not think of someone more congenial?"

"I suppose Mrs. Bernard Temple is congenial to him," replied Annie, "and that he doubtless considers of the first importance. After all, Hetty, I'm sure she will let you have your own way in everything, and I don't really think that Antonia is half bad. If I were you I would try and make friends with her."

"It is not in my nature to make friends easily," replied Hester.

She was standing in her pretty bedroom as she spoke, and Annie was leaning by the open window, swinging her garden hat in her hand.

"Hester," she said, suddenly, "forgive me if I ask you rather a rude question. Is your father a very rich man?"

Hester looked surprised.

"I suppose so," she answered; "to tell the truth, I have never thought about it. Oh, yes, I conclude that he is quite well off."

"But I want him to be more than well off. Is he rich—very rich? so rich that he would not miss a lot of money if he had suddenly to—to lose it?"

"What a very queer question to ask me, Annie," replied Hester. "I am really afraid I cannot reply to it. I think my father must be rich, but I don't know if he is rich enough to be able to afford to lose [Pg 236]a lot of money—I don't think anyone is rich enough for that."

"Oh, yes, some people are," answered Annie. "Well, good-bye, Hetty, keep up your heart. I'll be back early to-morrow morning."

"I must get that question of Sir John Thornton's wealth clearly answered somehow or other," thought Annie, "for there is no manner of use in Antonia stirring up a lot of mischief if there is no money to be found. I wonder if nursey could help me. I think I'll just have a word with her before I go to the Towers."

Mrs. Martin was alone when Annie entered the room.

"Well, my dear, and why ain't you at dinner?" asked the old woman. She was still fond of Annie, whom she invariably spoke of as "a winsome young body," but recent events had soured her considerably, and as she herself expressed it, the keenest pleasure now left to her in life was to "mope and mutter."

"Moping and muttering eases the mind," she said; "it's a wonderful relief not to have to sit up straight and smiling when you feel crooked and all of a frown."

Accordingly Mrs. Martin received Annie Forest with brief displeasure.

"I have no heart for dinner," said Annie, who took her cue at once from the old woman's face. "I know you are miserable, Nurse Martin, but you need not look at me so scornfully, for I am trying to mend matters."

"You," exclaimed nurse, "a child like you! Now, Miss Annie, I would try and talk sensibly, I would, really."

[Pg 237]

"Well, I'm going off to the Towers for the night," said Annie, "and if you weren't so cross I'd like to say good-bye and give you a kiss before I started."

"Eh, dear," replied nurse, her countenance visibly softening however; "kisses, however sweet they be, don't heal sore places."

"But you'll take one, won't you, nursey?"

"Eh, my bairn, you have a winsome way, but don't you come canoodling me now, when my heart is like to break about my own dear children; and the young ladies at the Towers, too, in such a muck of trouble."

"Dear nursey," exclaimed Annie; "dear, loving, faithful, true-hearted nursey."

She stroked the old woman's brow and rubbed her soft cheek against hers.

"Out with it