But the other idea--No, I will not entertain it for a
moment! She is too good, too pure, too beautiful, for so horrible a
fate! Poor little girl! Poor, poor little girl!”




CHAPTER XV. The holiday season being now over, and the less fashionable people
returned to town, Harriet Brandt’s curiosity was much excited by the
number of visitors who called at the Red House, but were never shewn
into the drawing-room. As many as a dozen might arrive in the course of
an afternoon and were taken by Miss Wynward straight upstairs to the
room where Madame Gobelli and Mr. Milliken so often shut themselves
up together. These mysterious visitors were not objects of charity
either, but well-dressed men and women, some of whom came in their
own carriages, and all of whom appeared to be of the higher class of
society. The Baroness had left off going to the factory, also, and
stayed at home every day, apparently with the sole reason of being at
hand to receive her visitors. Harriet could not understand it at all, and after having watched two
fashionably attired ladies accompanied by a gentleman, ascend the
staircase, to Madame Gobelli’s room, one afternoon, she ventured to
sound Miss Wynward on the subject. “Who were the ladies who went upstairs just now?” she asked. “Friends of the Baroness, Miss Brandt!” was the curt reply. “But why do they not come down to the drawing-room then? What does
Madame Gobelli do with them in that little room upstairs? I was passing
one day just after someone had entered, and I heard the key turned in
the lock. What is all the secrecy about?”

“There is no secrecy on my part, Miss Brandt. You know the position I
hold here. When I have shewn the visitors upstairs, according to my
Lady’s directions, my duty is done!”

“But you must know why they come to see her!”

“I know nothing. If you are curious on the subject, you must ask the
Baroness.”

But Harriet did not like to do that. The Baroness had become less
affectionate to her of late--her fancy was already on the wane--she
no longer called the attention of strangers to her young friend as
the “daughter of the house”--and Harriet felt the change, though she
could scarcely have defined where it exactly lay. She had begun to feel
less at home in her hostess’s presence, and her high spirit chafed at
the alteration in her manner. She realised, as many had done before
her, that she had out-stayed her welcome. But her curiosity respecting
the people who visited Madame Gobelli upstairs was none the less. She
confided it to Bobby--poor Bobby who grew whiter and more languid ever
day--but her playful threat to invade the sacred precincts and find
out what the Baroness and her friends were engaged upon, was received
by the youth with horror. He trembled as he begged her not to think of
such a thing. “Hally, you mustn’t, indeed you mustn’t! You don’t know--you have no
idea--what might not happen to you, if you offended Mamma by breaking
in upon her privacy. O! don’t, pray don’t! She can be so terrible at
times--I do not know what she might not do or say!”

“My dear Bobby, I was only in fun! I have not the least idea of doing
anything so rude. Only, if you think that I am frightened of your Mamma
or any other woman, you are very much mistaken. It’s all nonsense! No
one person can harm another in this world!”

“O! yes, they can--if they have _help_,” replied the boy, shaking his
head. “Help! what help? The help of Mr. Milliken, I suppose! I would rather
fight him than the Baroness any day--but I fear neither of them.”

“O! Hally, you are wrong,” said the lad, “you must be careful, indeed
you must--for my sake!”

“Why! you silly Bobby, you are actually trembling! However, I promise
you I will do nothing rash! And I shall not be here much longer now! Your Mamma is getting tired of me, I can see that plainly enough! She
has hardly spoken a word to me for the last two days. I am going to ask
Mr. Pennell, to advise me where to find another home!”

“No! no!” cried the lad, clinging to her, “you shall not leave us! Mr.
Pennell shall not take you away! I will kill him first!”

He was getting terribly jealous of Anthony Pennell, but Harriet laughed
at his complaints and reproaches as the emanations of a love-sick
schoolboy. She was flattered by his feverish longing for her society,
and his outspoken admiration of her beauty, but she did not suppose
for one moment that Bobby was capable of a lasting, or dangerous,
sentiment. Mr. Pennell had become a familiar figure at the Red House by this time. His first visit had been speedily succeeded by another, at which he
had presented Harriet Brandt with the copy of his book--an attention,
which had he known it, flattered her vanity more than any praises of
her beauty could have done. A plain woman likes to be told that she
is good-looking, a handsome one that she is clever. Harriet Brandt
was not unintelligent, on the contrary she had inherited a very fair
amount of brains from her scientific father--but no one ever seemed
to have found it out, until Anthony Pennell came her way. She was a
little tired of being told that she had lovely eyes, and the most
fascinating smile, she knew all that by heart, and craved for something
new. Mr. Pennell had supplied the novelty by talking to her as if
her intellect were on a level with his own--as if she were perfectly
able to understand and sympathise with his quixotic plans for the
alleviation of the woes of all mankind--with his Arcadian dreams of
Liberty, Equality and Fraternity,--and might help them also, if she
chose, not with money only, but by raising her own voice in the Cause
of the People. Harriet had never been treated so by anyone before, and
her ardent, impetuous, passionate nature, which had a large amount of
gratitude in its composition, fixed itself upon her new friend with a
vehemence which neither of them would find it easy to overcome--or to
disentangle themselves from. Her love (eager to repair the void left
by the desertion of Captain Pullen) had poured itself, by means of
looks and sighs and little timid, tender touches upon Anthony Pennell
like a mountain torrent that had burst its bounds, and he had been
responsive--he had opened his arms to receive the flood, actuated
not only by the admiration which he had conceived for her from the
first, but by the intense, yearning pity which her loneliness and
friendlessness had evoked in his generous, compassionate nature. In
fact they were desperately in love with each other, and Harriet was
expecting each time he came, to hear Anthony Pennell say that he
could no longer live without her. And Bobby looked on from a little
distance--and suffered. The next time that Mr. Pennell came to see her,
Harriet confided to him the mystery of the upstairs room, and asked his
opinion as to what it could possibly mean. “Perhaps they are people connected with the boot trade,” suggested
Anthony jestingly, “does Madame keep a stock of boots and shoes up
there, do you think?”

“O! no!