A horrible suspicion, as she afterwards called it, came over Gillian as she tore open the letter. There were two small notes. The first was—
‘DEAR LITTLE GILL—I am going to give you a new brother. Mother will tell you all.—Your loving sister,
‘P. E. M.’
She gasped, and looked at the other.
‘DEAREST GILLIAN—After all you have heard about Frank, perhaps you will know that I am very happy. You cannot guess how happy, and it is so delightful that mamma is charmed with him. He has got two medals and three clasps. There are so many to write to, I can only give my poor darling this little word. She will find it is only having another to be as fond of her as her old Alley.’
Gillian looked up in a bewildered state, and gasped ‘Both!’
Aunt Jane could not help smiling a little, and saying, ‘Yes, both at one fell swoop.’
‘It’s dreadful,’ said Gillian.
‘My dear, if you want to keep your sisters to yourself, you should not let them go to India, said Aunt Ada.
‘They said they wouldn’t! They were quite angry at the notion of being so commonplace,’ said Gillian.
‘Oh, no one knows till her time comes!’ said Aunt Jane.
Gillian now applied herself to her mother’s letter, which was also short.
‘MY DEAREST GILLYFLOWER—I know this will be a great blow to you, as indeed it was to me; but we must not be selfish, and must remember that the sisters’ happiness and welfare is the great point. I wish I could write to you more at length; but time will not let me, scattered as are all my poor flock at home. So I must leave you to learn the bare public facts from Aunt Jane, and only say my especial private words to you. You are used to being brevet eldest daughter to me, now you will have to be so to papa, who is mending fast, but, I think, will come home with me. Isn’t that news?
‘Your loving mother.’
‘They have told you all about it, Aunt Jane!’ said Gillian.
‘Yes; they have been so cruel as not even to tell you the names of these robbers? Well, I dare say you had rather read my letter than hear it.’
‘Thank you very much, Aunt Jane! May I take it upstairs with me?’
Consent was readily given, and Gillian had just time for her first cursory reading before luncheon.
‘DEAREST JENNY—Fancy what burst upon me only the day after my coming—though really we ought to be very thankful. You might perhaps have divined what was brewing from the letters. Jasper knew of one and suspected the other before the accident, and he says it prevented him from telegraphing to stop me, for he was sure one or both the girls would want their mother. Phyllis began it. Hers is a young merchant just taken into the great Underwood firm. Bernard Underwood, a very nice fellow, brother to the husband of one of Harry May’s sisters—very much liked and respected, and, by the way, an uncommonly handsome man. That was imminent before Jasper’s accident, and the letter to prepare me must be reposing in Harry’s care. Mr. Underwood came down with Claude to meet me when I landed, and I scented danger in his eye. But it is all right—only his income is entirely professional, and they will have to live out here for some time to come.
‘The other only spoke yesterday, having abstained from worrying his General. He is Lord Francis Somerville, son to Lord Liddesdale, and a captain in the Glen Lorn Highlanders, who have not above a couple of years to stay in these parts. He was with the riding party when Jasper fell, and was the first to lift him; indeed, he held him all the time of waiting, for poor Claude trembled too much. He was an immense help through the nursing, and they came to know and depend on him as nothing else would have made them do; and they proved how sincerely right-minded and good he is. There is some connection with the Underwoods, though I have not quite fathomed it. There is no fear about home consent, for it seems that he is given to outpourings to his mother, and had heard that if he thought of Sir Jasper Merrifield’s daughter his parents would welcome her, knowing what Sir J. is. There’s for you! considering that we have next to nothing to give the child, and Frank has not much fortune, but Alethea is trained to the soldierly life, and they will be better off than Jasper and I were.
‘The worst of it is leaving them behind; and as neither of the gentlemen can afford a journey home, we mean to have the double wedding before Lent. As to outfit, the native tailors must be chiefly trusted to, or the stores at Calcutta, and I must send out the rest when I come home. Only please send by post my wedding veil (Gillian knows where it is), together with another as like it as may be. Any slight lace decorations to make us respectable which suggest themselves to you and her might come; I can’t recollect or mention them now. I wish Reginald could come and tell you all, but the poor fellow has to go home full pelt about those Irish. Jasper is writing to William, and you must get business particulars from him, and let Gillian and the little ones hear, for there is hardly any time to write. Phyllis, being used to the idea, is very quiet and matter-of-fact about it. She hoped, indeed, that I guessed nothing till I was satisfied about papa, and had had time to rest. Alethea is in a much more April condition, and I am glad Frank waited till I was here on her account and on her father’s. He is going on well, but must keep still. He declares that being nursed by two pair of lovers is highly amusing. However, such homes being found for two of the tribe is a great relief to his mind. I suppose it is to one’s rational mind, though it is a terrible tug at one’s heart-strings. You shall hear again by the next mail. A brown creature waits to take this to be posted.—
Your loving sister,
L. M.’
Gillian came down to dinner quite pale, and to Aunt Ada’s kind ‘Well, Gillian?’ she could only repeat, ‘It is horrid.’
‘It is hard to lose all the pretty double wedding,’ said Aunt Ada.
‘Gillian does not mean that,’ hastily put in Miss Mohun.
‘Oh no,’ said Gillian; ‘that would be worse than anything.’
‘So you think,’ said Aunt Jane; ‘but believe those who have gone through it all, my dear, when the wrench is over, one feels the benefit.’
Gillian shook her head, and drank water. Her aunts went on talking, for they thought it better that she should get accustomed to the prospect; and, moreover, they were so much excited that they could hardly have spoken of anything else. Aunt Jane wondered if Phyllis’s betrothed were a brother of Mr. Underwood of St. Matthew’s, Whittingtown, with whom she had corresponded about the consumptive home; and Aunt Ada regretted the not having called on Lady Liddesdale when she had spent some weeks at Rockstone, and consoled herself by recollecting that Lord Rotherwood would know all about the family. She had already looked it out in the Peerage, and discovered that Lord Francis Cunningham Somerville was the only younger son, that his age was twenty-nine, and that he had three sisters, all married, as well as his elder brother, who had children enough to make it improbable that Alethea would ever be Lady Liddesdale. She would have shown Gillian the record, but received the ungracious answer, ‘I hate swells.’
‘Let her alone, Ada,’ said Aunt Jane; ‘it is a very sore business. She will be better by and by.’
There ensued a little discussion how the veil at Silverfold was to be hunted up, or if Gillian and her aunt must go to do so.
‘Can you direct Miss Vincent?’ asked Miss Mohun.
‘No, I don’t think I could; besides, I don’t like to set any one to poke and meddle in mamma’s drawers.’
‘And she could hardly judge what could be available,’ added Miss Ada.
‘Gillian must go to find it,’ said Aunt Jane; ‘and let me see, when have I a day? Saturday is never free, and Monday—I could ask Mrs. Hablot to take the cutting out, and then I could look up Lily’s Brussels—’
There she caught a sight of Gillian’s face. Perhaps one cause of the alienation the girl felt for her aunt was, that there was a certain kindred likeness between them which enabled each to divine