"Well, it is just this," said Aneta. "You sent a letter yesterday to Maggie."
"I did," said Mrs. Martin; "and great need I had to send it."
"In that letter you informed Maggie that you and your husband were coming to see her to-morrow."
"Bo-peep wishes--I mean, James wishes--to."
"Really, Aneta, had not we better go?" said Lady Lysle.
"Not yet, auntie, please.--Mrs. Martin, I begged for a holiday to-day on purpose to come and see you."
"If it"s because you think I"ll keep James--Bo-peep--I mean James--from having his heart"s wish, I am sorry you have wasted your time," said Mrs. Martin. "The fact is, he is very angry indeed with Maggie. He considers her his own child now, which of course is true, seeing that he has married me, and I really can"t go into particulars; but he is determined to see her and to see Mrs. Ward, and he"s not a bit ashamed of being--being--well, what he is--an honorable tradesman--a grocer."
"But perhaps you are aware," said Lady Lysle, "that the daughters of grocers--I mean tradesmen--are not admitted to Aylmer House."
Mrs. Martin turned her frightened eyes on the lady. "Maggie isn"t the real daughter of a tradesman," she said then. "She is only the stepdaughter. Her own father was"----
"Yes," said Aneta, "we all know what her own father was--a splendid man, one of the makers of our Empire. We are all proud of her own father, and we do not see for a moment why Maggie should not live up to the true circ.u.mstances of her birth, and I have come here to-day, Mrs. Martin, to ask you to help me. If you and your husband come to Aylmer House there will be no help, for Maggie will certainly have to leave the school."
"Of course, and the sooner the better," said Lady Lysle.
"But if you will help us, and prevent your husband from coming to our school to-morrow, there is no reason whatever why she shouldn"t stay at the school. Even her expenses can be paid from quite another source."
Mrs. Martin looked intensely nervous. A bright spot of color came into her left cheek. Her right cheek was deadly pale.
"I--I cannot help it," she said. "I never meant Bo-peep to go; I never wished him to go. But he said, "Little-sing, I will go"--I--I forgot myself--of course you don"t understand. He is a very good husband to me, but he and Maggie never get on."
"I am sure they don"t," said Aneta with fervor.
"Never," continued Mrs. Martin. "I got on with her only with difficulty before I married my present dear husband. I am not at all ashamed of his being a grocer. He gives me comforts, and is fond of me, and I have a much better time with him than I had in shabby, dirty lodgings at Shepherd"s Bush. I don"t want him to go to that school to-morrow; but I thought it right to let Maggie know he was coming, for, all the same, go he will. When James puts his foot down he is a very determined man."
"This is altogether a most unpleasant interview," said Lady Lysle, "and I have only come here at my niece"s request.--Perhaps, Aneta, we can go now."
"Not yet, auntie darling.--Mrs. Martin, Maggie and I had a long talk yesterday, and will you put this matter into my hands?"
"Good heavens! what next?" murmured Lady Lysle to herself.
"Will you give me your husband"s address, and may I go to see him?"
"You mean the--the--shop?" said Mrs. Martin.
"I don"t go into that shop!" said Lady Lysle.
"Yes, I mean the shop," said Aneta. "I want to go and see him there."
"Oh, he will be so angry, and I am really terrified of him when he is angry."
"But think how much more angry he will be if you don"t give me that address, and things happen to-morrow which you little expect. Oh!
please trust me."
Aneta said a few more words, and in the end she was in possession of that address at Shepherd"s Bush where Martin the grocer"s flourishing shop was to be found.
"Thank you so very much, Mrs. Martin. I don"t think you will ever regret this," said the girl.
Lady Lysle bowed to the wife of the grocer as she went out, but Aneta took her hand.
"Perhaps you never quite understood Maggie," she said; "and perhaps, in the future, you won"t have a great deal to say to her."
"I don"t want to; she never suited me a bit," said the mother, "and I am very happy with Bo-peep."
"Well, at least you may feel," said Aneta, "that I am going to be Maggie"s special friend."
Mrs. Martin stood silent while Lady Lysle and her niece walked down the little path and got into the carriage. When the carriage rolled away she burst into a flood of tears. She did not know whether she was glad or sorry; but, somehow, she had faith in Aneta. Was she never going to see Maggie again? She was not quite without maternal love for her only child, but she cared very much more for Bo-peep, and quite felt that Maggie would be a most troublesome inmate of Laburnum Villa.
"Now, Aneta," said her aunt as the carriage rolled away, "I have gone through enough in your service for one day."
"You haven"t been at all nice, auntie," said Aneta; "but perhaps you will be better when you get to the shop."
"I will not go to the shop."
"Auntie, just think, once and for all, that you are doing a very philanthropic act, and that you are helping me, whom you love so dearly."
"Of course I love you, Aneta. Are you not as my own precious child?"
"Well, now, I want you to buy no end of things at Martin"s shop."
"Buy things! Good gracious, child, at a grocer"s shop! But I get all my groceries at the Stores, and the housekeeper attends to my orders."
"Well, anyhow, spend from five to ten pounds at Martin"s to-day. You can get tea made up in half-pound packets and give it away wholesale to your poor women. Christmas is coming on, and they will appreciate good tea, no matter where it has been bought from."
"Well, you may go in and give the order," said Lady Lysle; "but I won"t see that grocer. I will sit in the carriage and wait for you."
Aneta considered for a few minutes, and then said in a sad voice, "Very well."
Lady Lysle looked at her once or twice during the long drive which followed. Aneta"s little face was rather pale, but her eyes were full of subdued fire. She was determined to carry the day at any cost.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A VISIT TO THE GROCER.
James Martin abhorred the aristocracy--so he said. Nevertheless, he greatly admired his elegant wife in her faded beauty. He liked to hear her speak, and he made some effort to copy her "genteel p.r.o.nunciation." He also, in his inmost heart, admired Maggie as a girl of spirit, although not a beautiful one. He had his own ideas with regard to female loveliness, and, like all men, was impressed and attracted by it.
On this special foggy day, as he was standing behind his counter busily engaged attending to a customer who was only requiring a small order to be made up, he gave a visible start, raised his eyes, dropped his account-book, let his pencil roll on to the floor, and stared straight before him. For somebody was coming into the shop--somebody so very beautiful that his eyes were dazzled and, as he said afterwards, his heart melted within him. A radiant-looking girl, with wonderful blue eyes and hair of the color of pure gold, a girl with a refined face--most beautifully dressed--although Martin could not quite make out in what fashion she was apparelled--came quickly up to the counter and then stood still, waiting for some one to attend to her. The other men in the shop also saw this lovely vision, and an attendant of the name of Turtle sprang forward to ask what he could do.