"Oh, Janetta, don"t look so solemn! No, I did not suggest it. He met me one day when I was out with Georgie shopping, and he walked with us for a little way and found out where we lived, and all about us. And then I heard from Mrs. Smith that she had arranged with him to teach drawing to the girls. She did not know who he was, except that he had all sorts of medals and certificates and things, and that he had exhibited in the Royal Academy."
"And you did not say to her openly that he was a connection of yours?"
"He isn"t," said Nora, petulantly. "He is _your_ connection, not mine.
There was no use in saying anything, only Georgie used to giggle so dreadfully when he came near her that I was always afraid we should be found out."
"You might at least have left Georgie out of your plot," said Janetta, who was very deeply grieved at Nora"s revelations. "I always thought that _she_ was straightforward."
"You needn"t be so hard on us, Janetta," murmured Nora. "I"m sure we did not mean to be anything but straightforward."
"It was not straightforward to conceal your acquaintance with Mr.
Cuthbert Brand from Mrs. Smith. Especially," said Janetta, looking steadily at her sister, "if you had any idea he came there to see you."
She seemed to wait for an answer, and Nora felt obliged to respond.
"He never said so. But, of course"--with a little pout--"Georgie and I knew quite well. He used to send me lovely flowers by post--he did not write to me, but I knew where they came from, for he would sometimes put his initials inside the lid; and he always looked at my drawings a great deal more than the others--and he--he looked at me too, Janetta, and you need not be so unbelieving."
There was such a curious little touch of Mrs. Colwyn"s irritability in Nora"s manner at that moment that Janetta stood and looked at her without replying, conscious only of a great sinking at the heart. Vain, affected, irresponsible, childish!--were all these qualities to appear in Nora, as they had already appeared in her mother, to lead her to destruction? Mr. Colwyn"s word of warning with respect to Nora flashed into her mind. She brought herself to say at last, with dry lips--
"This must not go on."
Nora was up in arms in a moment. "What must not go on? There is nothing to stop. We have done nothing wrong!"
"Perhaps not," said Janetta, slowly. "Perhaps there is nothing worse than childish folly and deceit on _your_ part, but I think that Mr.
Cuthbert Brand is not acting in an honorable manner at all. Either you must put a stop to it, Nora, or I shall."
"What can I do, I should like to know?"
"You had better tell Mrs. Smith," said the elder sister, "that Mr. Brand is a second-cousin of mine. That the connection was so distant that you had not thought of mentioning it until I pointed out to you that you ought to do so, and that you hope she will pardon you for what will certainly seem to her very underhand conduct."
Nora shrank a little. "Oh, I can"t do that, Janetta: I really can"t. She would be so angry!"
"There is another way, then: you must tell Cuthbert Brand not to send you any more flowers, and ask him to give no more drawing lessons at that school."
"Oh, Janetta, I _can"t_. He has never said that he came to see me, and it would look as if I thought----"
"What you do think in your heart," said Janetta. Then, thinking that she had been a little brutal, she added, more gently--"But there is perhaps no need to decide to-day or to-morrow what we are to do. We can think over it and see if there is a better way. All that I am determined upon is that your doings must be fair and open."
"And you won"t speak to anybody else about it, will you?" said Nora, rather relieved by this respite, and hoping to elude Janetta"s vigilance still.
"I shall promise nothing," Janetta answered. "I must think about it."
She turned to leave the room, but was arrested by a burst of sobbing and a piteous appeal.
"You are very unkind, Janetta. I thought that you would have sympathized."
Janetta stood still and sighed. "I don"t know what to say, Nora," she said.
"You are very cold--very hard. You do not care one bit what I feel."
Perhaps, thought Janetta, the reproach had some truth in it. At any rate she went quietly out of the room and closed the door, leaving Nora to cry as long and as heartily as she pleased.
The elder sister went straight to Georgie. That young person, frank and boisterous by nature, was not given to deceit, and, although she was reluctant at first to betray Nora"s confidence, she soon acknowledged that it was a relief to her to speak the truth and the whole truth to Janetta. Her account tallied in the main with the one given by Nora.
There did not seem to have been more than a little concealment, a little flirting, a little folly; but Janetta was aghast to think of the extent to which Nora might have been compromised, and indignant at Cuthbert Brand"s culpable thoughtlessness--if it was nothing worse.
"What people have said of the Brands is true," she declared vehemently to herself. "They work mischief wherever they go; they have no goodness, no pity, no feeling of right and wrong. I thought that Cuthbert looked good, but he is no better than the others, and there is nothing to be hoped from any of them. And father told me to take care of his children--and I promised. What can I do? His "faithful Janetta" cannot leave them to take their own way--to go to ruin if they please! Oh, my poor Nora! You did not mean any harm, and perhaps I _was_ hard on you!"
She relieved herself by a few quiet but bitter tears; and then she was forced to leave the consideration of the matter for the present, as there were many household duties to attend to which n.o.body could manage but herself.
When she was again able to consider the matter, however, she began to make up her mind that she must act boldly and promptly if she meant to act at all. Nora had no father, and practically no mother: Janetta must be both at once, if she would fulfil her ideal of duty. And by degrees a plan of action formed itself in her mind. She would go to the Brands"
house, and ask for Cuthbert himself. Certainly she had heard that he was in Paris, but surely he would have returned by this time--for New Year"s Day if not for Christmas Day! She would see him and ask him to forbear--ask him not to send flowers to her little sister, who was too young for such attentions--to herself Janetta added, "and too silly." He could be only amusing himself--and he should not amuse himself at Nora"s expense. He had a nice face, too, she could not help reflecting, he did not look like a man who would do a wanton injury to a fatherless girl.
Perhaps, after all, there was some mistake.
And if she could not see him, she would see Mrs. Brand. The mother would, no doubt, help her: she had been always kind. Of Wyvis Brand she scarcely thought. She hoped that she might not see him--she had never spoken to him, she remembered, since the day when he had asked her to be his friend.
CHAPTER XX.
AN ELDER BROTHER.
She did not say a word to Nora about her scheme. The next day--it was the third of January, as she afterwards remembered--was bright and clear, a good day for walking. She told her sisters that she had business abroad, and gave them the directions respecting the care of their house and their mother that she thought they needed; then set forth to walk briskly from Gwynne Street to the old Red House.
She purposely chose the morning for her expedition. She was not making a call--she was going on business. She did not mean to ask for Mrs. Brand even, first of all; she intended to ask for Mr. Cuthbert Brand. Wyvis would probably be out; but Cuthbert, with his sedentary habits and his slight lameness, was more likely to be at home painting in the brilliant morning light than out of doors.
It was nearly twelve o"clock when she reached her destination. She went through the leafless woods, for that was the shortest way and the pleasantest--although she had thought little of pleasantness when she came out, but still it was good to hear the brittle twigs snap under her feet, and note the slight coating of frost that made the rims of the dead leaves beautiful--and it was hardly a surprise to her to hear a child"s laugh ring out on the air at the very spot where, months before, she and Nora had found little Julian Brand. A moment later the boy himself came leaping down the narrow woodland path towards her with a noisy greeting; and then--to Janetta"s vexation and dismay--instead of nurse or grandmother, there emerged from among the trees the figure of the child"s father, Wyvis Brand. He had a healthier and more cheerful look than when she saw him last: he was in shooting coat and knickerbockers, and he had a gun in his hand and a couple of dogs at his heels. He lifted his hat and smiled, as if suddenly pleased when he saw her, but his face grew grave as he held out his hand. Both thought instinctively of their last meeting at her father"s grave, and both hastened into commonplace speech in order to forget it.
"I am glad to see you again. I hope you are coming to our place," he said. And she--
"I hope Mrs. Brand is well. Is she at home?"
"No, she"s not," said little Julian, with the frank fearlessness of childhood. "She"s gone out for the whole day with Uncle Cuthbert, and father and I are left all by ourselves; and father has let me come out with him; haven"t you, father?" He looked proudly at his father, and then at Janetta, while he spoke.
"So it appears," said Wyvis, with a queer little smile.
"Grandmother said I was to take care of father, so I"m doing it," Julian announced. "Father thinks I"m a brave boy now--not a milksop. He said I was a milksop, you know, the last time you came here."
"Come, young man, don"t you chatter so much," said his father, with a sort of rough affectionateness, which struck Janetta as something new.
"You run on with the dogs, and tell the servants to get some wine or milk or something ready for Miss Colwyn. I"m sure you are tired," he said to her, in a lower tone, with a searching glance at her pale face.
It was hardly fatigue so much as disappointment that made Janetta pale.
She had not expected to find both Mrs. Brand and Cuthbert out, and the failure of her plan daunted her a little, for she did not often find it an easy thing to absent herself from home for several hours.
"I am not tired," said Janetta, unsteadily, "but I thought I should find them in--Mrs. Brand, I mean----"
"Did you want to see them--my mother, I mean--particularly?" asked Wyvis, either by accident or intention seeming to parody her words.