Ribbons and Laces by Ayres Ruby M

Author:Ayres, Ruby M.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Distributed Proofreaders Canada
Published: 1924-09-23T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter X

What was to become of her in the future? That was the one thought in Linda’s mind when the first shock of her grandmother’s death began to pass.

That she could not go on living in these rooms, where everything was such a painful reminder of her loss, was certain, and she determined that nothing should ever induce her to accept her mother’s offer of a home.

Mrs. Goring-Wells sent an enormous wreath to the funeral with a heart-broken message attached, and herself followed in a Rolls-Royce car with drawn blinds.

She invited Linda to ride with her, but the girl refused; it cut her to the heart to see her mother in such luxury when she remembered the circumstances of her grandmother’s death.

Once when Bill Sargent gently remonstrated with her, she turned on him fiercely.

“I don’t care if she is my mother. I never wish to see her again.”

“She is your only relative now, that is all I was thinking,” Bill said.

He was terribly worried about Linda. He was sure that she cared nothing for him save as a friend, and that reason, and her extreme youth, prevented him from asking her to marry him.

She was only seventeen, and as yet had seen nothing of the world. It was not fair, he told himself, to rush her into a promise which she might afterwards regret and blame him for.

But her loneliness and sorrow cut him to the heart. What would become of her?

“She must have some relations somewhere, surely,” he said to the sympathetic Jenny. “We’ve most of us got too many,” he added with a grim memory of his own family.

“That we have,” Jenny agreed. “The best way in my opinion is to be born an orphan.”

She proceeded to tell him the story of her own life—of her many quarrels with her mother and elder sister; of the trouble her brothers had been, and of how her father had drunk himself to death.

She might have gone on indefinitely but Bill cut her short by walking out of the room.

He liked Jenny, but he was in no mood just then to listen to her confidences.

It was the day following the funeral and he knew that down in Mrs. Lovelace’s room Linda was crying her heart out.

Robert Lorne had behaved unusually well, and had given Linda another four days’ leave. Miss Gillet was inclined to be aggrieved; she told Nelly Sweet that she had not had so many days off in all her many years of faithful service to the firm; she considered that Mr. Robert showed Miss Lovelace distinct favouritism.

Nelly Sweet tossed her head.

“She’s artful!” she said, bitterly. “She seems to me to have a way of getting round all the men.”

She had seen nothing of Bill for some time, and he had not answered her last letter, so she was amazed when on leaving the store that night she found him waiting outside for her.

“Bill!” She rushed at him with flushed cheeks and excited eyes.

This was like the old days

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