Thus Mrs Underwood carried out Miss Anna’s plans. That lady smiled when she heard the arrival, the boxes carried up-stairs, the sound of the young voices in the house. She thought it was all her doing, and that Geoff was a young precisian and his mother a fool, and she herself the only member of the family capable of doing anything in its defence.
It was, as his mother foresaw, a great surprise for Geoff, to see Grace and Milly established under her wing when he reached home. They seemed to have each got her corner of the drawing-room, as if they had been there all their lives. The windows with that great distance stretching blue and far underneath, and the smoke, which was London, at their feet, attracted them both--a standing wonder and miracle; but Milly had brought down her little work-basket, and placed it on a corner of Mrs Underwood’s special table, and there she had settled herself as if she belonged to it; while Grace had got to the books which stood in low bookcases on either side of the fireplace. For the first hour Geoffrey really believed, with a wonder which he could hardly restrain, that his mother had broken loose from her life-long bondage to her sister, and that this bold step had really been taken by herself on her own responsibility. It was herself who undeceived him on this point. When the dressing-bell rang, and the girls went up-stairs to prepare for dinner, he put his arm round her and thanked and praised her. “It was like yourself to do it, mother,” he said warmly. “When you follow your own kind heart, you always do what is best.”
“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs Underwood, faltering; “indeed, indeed, I hope it is for the best. At least, that has been my meaning, dear. And Anna said----”
“Anna?” cried Geoff, with a cloud coming over his face.
“She thought it was the only wise thing. But she is not to be supposed to know anything about it,” his mother said, lowering her voice and holding up a finger at him. “You must be very careful. If she looks as if she did not like it, you are not to take any notice. I was not to tell anybody she had a hand in it; but of course I never meant to conceal it from you.”
Geoff was so angry and disconcerted, and so sick of the domestic fraud into which his mother had been beguiled, that he went off to his room without a word, leaving her sadly put out, but quite unable to divine what could have offended him. However, by the time he had changed his dress, Geoff, all alone in his room, burst out into a sudden laugh. “She is an old witch,” he said to himself; “she is as clever as--the old gentleman himself.” He was ashamed of the artifice, but could not help being diverted by the skill of that unseen helms-woman who managed everything her own way.