Delphi Christmas Collection - Volume III by Delphi Classics

Author:Delphi Classics [Classics, Delphi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Delphi Classics
Published: 2014-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IV.

“WELL, Jack,” said Danby, when Miss Hawberk had left the diningroom, and he and Sir John were alone, with their chairs drawn up to the hearth, their cigarettes lighted, and a bottle of Château Lafitte on the table between them. “Have you forgiven the children for being so much smaller than you expected?”

“I could forgive that youngest mite anything — smashing the Portland vase, if I owned it. She is what your friends over yonder” (with a nod westward) “would call an amusing; little cuss.”

“She is a little lump of love,” answered Danby. “ One has to know that child well to know how much there is in her.”

“You are very weak about her evidently — very fond of all three, no doubt?”

“Yes, I am fond of them all. Lassie is going to grow up a beauty. I shall be very proud of her twelve years hence, if I live so long.”

“You say they are not actually your nephew and nieces?”

“Not actually!”

“But they are pretty nearly related to you, I take it?”

“They are as near to my heart as they can be!”

“You are not very explicit.”

“Why, no, Jack; that isn’t in the bond. It was agreed that the children were to come and go, and you were to know nothing about them, except that they were decently brought up, and not likely to make themselves obnoxious. They were to have no claim upon you. This visit was not to be the thin end of the wedge.”

“You needn’t echo me, Danby. I dare say I was rather cantankerous the other day.”

“No, no, Jack, you were open-handed and liberal, as you always are; but naturally you didn’t want, by a casual kindness, to establish a claim, or to give anybody’s poor relations the right to bother you. We’ll stick to the original notion, my dear friend. These children are hired to amuse you, and to give just the touch of homely mirthfulness that suits the season. They will enjoy all the good things your hospitality provides, and their frank happiness will enliven this solitary old house, and on the morning after Twelfth Night they will wish you good-bye, and will be seen no more at Penlyon Place.”

“Manage it your own way,” said Sir John, with a faint sigh.

He was thinking of his daughter Lilian, his elder daughter, who had never disobeyed him — whose marriage had gratified his pride as a father. If she had lived to be a mother how happy he would have been to see the third generation growing up about him, to have welcomed sturdy grandsons and blooming granddaughters to the house of his forefathers, to have seen the line of the Penlyons carried on towards the dim future, with the promise of new honours and increasing wealth.

The bell rang at half-past eight for morning prayers, a big bell in a cupola over the hall door. Sir John was in his armchair near the hearth, with the large crimson-bound prayer-book open on the table in front of him, waiting for the assembling of the household.

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