He laughed, as though it were a great joke.
'While you are in the kitchen I had better go and pay my respects to Miss Frost and the nurse, and break the news,' he added.
He ran up the stairs whistling, and Molly and the visitor disappeared down the hall to the door leading to the basement. Hal and Kitty looked at each other across the dining-room table.
'What does he mean?' said Kitty. 'What is he going to tell nurse and Miss Frost?'
'I don't know,' said Hal. 'It's queer.'
'Perhaps we're all going home to Clonmere, and this person is going to take the house from us. That's why she has to be shown all over it, and to see the kitchen. Oh, Hal, how lovely! Do you think it could be so?'
'Perhaps,' said Hal, 'it might be. Perhaps we're all going back there for Easter, and the Boles are giving it up.'
A wild hope surged in the heart of each of them. Kitty ran upstairs after her father. Hal went into the drawing-room. He pulled the miniature out of his pocket and looked at it once again. If they were going home he would be able to compare it with the original at Clonmere. What a fool he must have seemed at tea, jolting the teacup, and talking about that fellow Brown, whom he had gone for a walk with once, on a Sunday. Perhaps if he gave the miniature it would make up for it in some way. His father would know that there was something he could do, and it would show too that he knew his father was often lonely and unhappy without mamma.
He decided to make a secret of it, to put it somewhere where his father would find it at an odd moment.
Hal went over to the desk and wrote on a piece of paper 'Father-from his loving son, Hal,' and taking the miniature out of his pocket, he wrapped the paper round it, and put it just inside the desk. Then he went and sat down by the fire, and thought about going back home to Clonmere. Kitty must be right. That was the explanation of the whole business and why the Adeline person had brought so many trunks.
Clonmere again, the room in the tower, the horses, the dogs, old Tim, the woods and the creek, Uncle Tom and Aunt Harriet. Life would fall into pattern again, even if mamma could not be with them.
Life would have meaning. He would sail a boat in the creek. He would shoot hares on Doon Island.
He would make a painting of Hungry Hill Kitty came into the room, round-eyed, mysterious.
'Frostie's upset,' she said. 'What can father have said to her? And she's gone into the spare room to talk to that woman, with her tight-lipped face on, you know, the one she has when she's worried. Surely Frostie would want to go back home.'
She broke off, as her father came into the room, followed by Molly, who was white and strained. Henry shut the door. He went and stood over by the fire-place. He too looked anxious.
Perplexed also, as though he did not understand what was the matter with Molly.
'You must be sensible, dear girl,' he was saying.
'Why, it's for all your sakes, far more than for my own, that I have done this. Do you think it's been easy for me all these years?'
'We were happy as we were,' said Molly, 'we don't want anyone else.'
She began to cry, like a little girl, not like someone of fifteen. Kitty ran over to her and stood beside her.
Hal said nothing. He stared at his father.
'She's a wonderful woman,' Henry said, 'so efficient and so intelligent. The trouble is I've let things go to pieces for too long. You've all been allowed to do as you like-the servants, Miss Frost, and all of you. Now your stepmother will take a hand and put everything to rights. If you have any affection for me at all, you will be glad that, this has happened.
You'll soon become fond of her, I know you will.
I can't tell you what she hasn't done for me already.'
Stepmother… Hal went on staring at his father.
'You and Kitty were not in the room when I told Moily,' said Henry, feeling his son's eyes upon him. 'I married Mrs. Price in Nice a fortnight ago. She has been a wonderful friend to me. One day, when you are older, I may tell you all about it. In the meantime I ask you to give her a welcome, and to try to show her some sign of appreciation. Molly seems to have taken it badly, I don't quite know why. It does not mean I love her any the less.'
Molly was still crying, biting and twisting the ends of her handkerchief. Her eyes were red and swollen.
'You'd better go upstairs,' said Henry in despair. 'If Adeline sees you like that she will wonder what on earth is the matter. My God, what a welcome home! I wish to heaven we had stayed out in Nice.'
He began pacing up and down the room.
'Will she live here always?' said Kitty. 'Is that why she brought all those trunks?'
'Of course she will live with us,' said Henry impatiently. 'She is Mrs. Brodrick now.
You can call her Adeline.'
Molly ran out of the room. Hal could hear her rush up the stairs and slam her bedroom door.
Kitty followed her. Hal felt sick. He did not say anything. He and his father were alone. From the room above came the sound of trunks being dragged across the floor and the low murmur of voices. The little gold clock on the mantelpiece ticked fast and rather shrill.
'It's for your good,' repeated Henry, 'you must try to realise that. The two girls need a woman of culture and breeding to look after them. Miss Frost is no earthly use. It's not quite the same for you, because you will be at Eton most of the time, but there are always the holidays. Besides, one wants companionship. When you are my age''
He left the rest of his sentence in the air. What was he doing, appealing to this boy of fourteen for sympathy and understanding; who could not possibly know what he had endured these last years? The unprofitable days, the lonely nights, which now could be blotted out and forgotten.
'It's very hard for a parent,' he said, 'to be left alone with the responsibility of a young family on his shoulders. It happened to my mother. I believe now that she found it a great burden. Your uncles and I could not understand, naturally, and I have no doubt we were a trial to her.'
Still Hal said nothing. He went on staring at his father with blank eyes.
Henry walked over to his desk, and opened it, and began looking through the pile of letters that had accumulated during his absence. He tore them open one by one, scarcely reading the contents. He could hear Adeline's brisk, firm tread in the bedroom above as she unpacked her things. There was a constant coming and going on the stairs as the servants carried up the remainder of the luggage. Suddenly a small package and a piece of paper caught his eye: 'Father- from his loving son, Hal.' He picked it up, and glanced across at the boy.
'Is this your present?' he said, summoning a smile. 'Thank you very much, old fellow.'
He began to unwrap the paper.
Hal did nothing. He made no effort to stop him. It was as though he could not move, could not speak.
He stood in the middle of the room like a dumb thing, powerless to help, his heart aching with a strange anguish but imperfectly understood, his mind mocking, bitter, and a black devil whispering, 'Go on, open it, open it; damn you.'
Henry held the miniature in his hands. The paper wrapping fell to the floor. Hal watched his face, but no change came upon it, save that his lips tightened, making two hard lines at the corners of his mouth. It seemed to Hal that eternity passed as his father looked upon the miniature. The clock went on ticking. A cab passed in the street outside. A piece of coal fell from the fire into the hearth and smouldered there. Then his father spoke, his voice sounding distant,' coming from afar.
'It's very good,' he said, 'very capably done.
Thank you.' He opened a little drawer in his desk and put the miniature inside. Then he took a key from the bunch on his chain and locked the drawer. 'You had better go up to Molly,' he said. 'See that she does something to her face before dinner. By the way, Adeline likes it punctually at half-past seven, so you must all be ready and changed five minutes before.'
'Yes, father,' said Hal.
He waited a moment, but Henry did not meet his eyes. He had turned away, and was staring at the fire. Hal left the room and climbed the stairs to the first floor. The spare bedroom door was open.
There were folds of tissue paper on a chair, and silver brushes on the dressing-table. A strange black evening frock lay on the bed. Someone was drawing the water in his father's bathroom… Hal climbed slowly to the second floor.
