Chapter I: Harry's Farewells

THEY were a great contrast—these two—as they stood under the trees, in the deepening twilight of the shady garden.

She—Fay Grayling—very youthful-looking, even for her eighteen years, with her pretty, fair, flower-like face, her bright if somewhat shallow blue eyes, her light curly hair, and pouting red lips, which seemed like the unspent inheritance of childhood itself.

He—Harry Mayne—full ten years older—with his sturdy, well-developed manliness of form, his grave, earnest face, and quiet manner. The well-opened, steady eyes, and firm mouth and chin, spoke to force of character and tenacity of purpose; but there was gentleness too, and an infinite capacity for tenderness, in that dark, strong face.

Fay and Harry had plighted their mutual troth some few weeks before, and were now parting; for he was about to rejoin, as first officer, the big steamship which would carry him far away on a long year's cruise.

There were tears on Fay's round baby-cheeks as Harry at last unclasped from his arm the little hands that clung there.

"Time is going, dear; I must be off," he said firmly, though his lip quivered. "No, Fay, don't try to keep me. It is not true kindness, believe me, child. Where are your mother and sisters? I should like just to say good-bye to them. They have been so very good to me."

"They are all in the drawing-room," replied Fay, wiping her eyes; and, leading the way into the house, she opened a door, and ushered Harry in.

Mrs. Grayling and three girls were sitting round the table sewing by the light of a shaded lamp.

"Here's Harry come to say good-bye," said Fay. "He sails early to-morrow from Southampton, and he must catch the boat-train to-night."

"So you are really going, Harry?" said Mrs. Grayling. "We shall miss you very much, and our poor little Fay here will be quite inconsolable. You are one of us now, you know."

"How long shall you be away, Harry?" inquired Mattie, the eldest daughter.

"Over a year, I believe," replied the young man.

"That is a long time for you and Fay to be separated," remarked Lettie, the second girl.

All this time, Margie, the third, said nothing. Her head was bent low over her work, and she did not even look up.

"Well, I must not stay," said Harry; "to lose that train would be to lose my berth, and I can't afford that. Good-bye, Mrs. Grayling; good-bye, dear girls." And he kissed them all affectionately, as though already they were his mother and sisters.

Margie was the last. As he put his hand on her shoulder, she raised her flushed face from her work, and he saw those great grey eyes of hers brimming over with tears, and the lips were quivering as he pressed his own upon them. Somehow or other, the sight of her grief surprised and touched him, and as he lingered a moment longer with her hand in his, he heard her whisper, "God bless you, dear, dear Harry!"

Fay went with him to the door; she was crying again, and she clung to him as he bade her a fond farewell. But even lovers' farewells must end at last, for trains and tides do not wait for them. And in another minute, the door had closed and Harry was gone, while in Fay's ears were ringing his last words, "Be true to me, Fay, be true!"

* * * * * * *

"Oh dear me! Was ever a poor mother in such a dilemma? Just look here, girls! Another letter from the lawyer, and again bad news!" And Mrs. Grayling heaved a gusty sigh, and, sinking into the nearest arm-chair, stretched out a big, bony hand, in which was displayed the unwelcome letter, open to any one who wished to read it.

It was snatched from her, half playfully, half impatiently, by Mattie, a tall young woman of about five-and twenty, rather bony and angular, like the mother, but with a clever, sensible face, that atoned for her rather masculine figure, and bore no trace of the fretful anxieties that had made lines in Mrs. Grayling's worn countenance.

"Let me see too," said Lettie, who was a round, good-tempered-looking, sleepy-eyed, tow-haired girl of twenty-three or thereabouts; and she rose from her seat and came round behind Mattie, in order to read the letter over her shoulder. Margie, who was twenty-one years old; Fay, who was eighteen; and Nat, who was between nineteen and twenty, completed the family party; and all were eagerly waiting for the news in the lawyer's letter.

"Yes, mother, it is hard on you!" said Mattie, as she ran her eye through the one closely written page. "Only three months ago you heard that your income was to be reduced a hundred pounds a year, and now the value of the investments seems to have again fallen, and you are to lose another hundred, and probably more."

"I hardly know what I shall do," said Mrs. Grayling. "When your dear father was alive, he always attended to business matters, and even the household accounts; but now I am burdened with so many things, and what with this reduction of income and the increasing expenses of Fan's and Eva's schooling, I really do not know how I shall make both ends meet, unless—unless—"

"I know what you are going to say, mother," interrupted Margie. "Unless some of us marry, and take ourselves off your hands."

"Yes, my dear, that is just what I was going to say, and I think you will see that for one or two of you to have homes of your own would save my pocket and lift a load of care from my heart."

"Poor mother!" said Margie, coming nearer, and putting an arm round her mother's gaunt shoulders. "I daresay it would be a good thing, as you say; but it takes two to make a marriage, as it does a quarrel, and you see we have no gay cavaliers to serenade and carry us off; and even Fay's sailor boy," added Margie, with a sudden flush on her clear cheek, "is of no practical use at present."

Margie and her young sister Fay were the only really good-looking members of the Grayling family. Margie was tall, like Mattie, but not angular and bony. On the contrary, she had one of those natural, pliant figures upon which almost any sort of dress looks comfortable and becoming, and whose ease and grace of movement seem absolutely spontaneous and unstudied. Fay was more like Lettie, both in face and figure. But her complexion was clear and bright, her hair a pretty blonde shade, instead of dead tow-colour; her eyes had none of the sleepy languor, and her figure, though plump, none of the lumpiness which spoiled Lettie's looks.

"My dear," remonstrated Mrs. Grayling, with a dark solemnity which was in marked contrast to Margie's cheerful manner, "you should be the last to say there are no gentlemen whom you could marry. I know of two who would be thankful to have you, only that you are so dreadfully fastidious."

Margie's face became grave all of a sudden; her laughing grey eyes grew thoughtful, and her pleasant mouth assumed an expression almost grim in its determination.

"If you mean Sir Peter Brooks and Mr. Elmes," said the girl, "I—"

"Why, of course I mean them," replied the mother quickly. "And only think what a marriage with one of them would mean! A comfortable, nay, a luxurious home, an indulgent husband, and all the pleasures that money and position can give."

"Sir Peter is an old dear!" responded the girl warmly. "There's nothing I would not do for Sir Peter except marry him. As for Mr. Elmes, he is a vulgar, purse-proud snob, with a large family of horrid grown-up children. No, thank you, mother; I'd rather be an old maid."

"You children think only of yourselves," sighed Mrs. Grayling, putting on her most fretful and disconsolate face. "You never consider me and all my troubles and worries, or how you can help me in these straits I am come to."

"I do not think we quite deserve your reproaches, mother," said Mattie, folding the letter; "there is not one of us who is not willing to do our utmost to lessen the burden upon you. I am the eldest, and I will make the first proposal. Let Fan and Eva come home, and I will teach them myself; that will save a hundred a year, will it not?"

"There's not much I can do, for I only understand one thing," said Lettie; "but I am willing to do that. Send our cook away, mother, and I will cook for the family. That will save twenty-five pounds at least."

"And I'll give up all thought of going to college," said Nat, the youth, who had not yet spoken. "I will try for a situation somewhere. Perhaps a clerk's in an office."

"And I will help with the parlour-work," said Fay, "and you can dismiss one of the maids. If we all take our share of the duties, we can get along quite well with one servant."

All this time Margie had not spoken. At last she said, "I do not know enough to teach, and if I take up other work I would rather it were not at home. I must think what I can do."

Then the conference broke up, and each member of the family went to his or her own duties.

For a few days Margie was wonderfully silent and preoccupied; but she gave no explanation of the change in her manner, and her sisters rallied her on it in vain, and teased her because during these days she was always studying the newspapers.

But Margie had a very definite object in view, and when she eventually came across the following advertisement, it struck her that she had found what she had been in search of:

WANTED, by an invalid widow lady, a respectable young person of intelligence and refinement, as attendant. She must have perfect health, pleasant looks, and a good temper. Liberal salary and a comfortable home to a suitable person. Personal interview indispensable.—Apply, Mrs. BEACH, Garden Lodge, River Park, Surrey.

"I may not get the post, but I'll try for it," said Margie to herself.