Friends and Lovers Read Online Free Page A

Manor for the children’s arrival, to see them,” Lady Althea added, while a calculating light shone in her eyes.
    “You may depend upon it. Menrod always does the right thing. Maybe that will convince you to prolong your visit, Althea,” Lady Menrod suggested, with a twinkle in her dark eyes,
    I had not realized before that moment that Lady Althea came to visit her relative with any other end than friendship in view. The last speech awakened me to the realization she was throwing her cap at Menrod. A perfectly suitable match it would be, too. I wondered she had not pulled it off long ago. She must have timed her visits poorly, to have failed in her goal.
    I was so preoccupied with worrying about meeting the children, that my attention wandered from their conversation. As soon as politely possible, I took my leave, to return home and discuss with Mama what ought to be done. She was all for letting Menrod handle it, but the awful suspicion would intrude that Menrod was not infallible. Suppose he did not handle it, then what? Were we to leave two children stranded on the docks of London?
    Mr. Everett, running back and forth from stairs to dining room table, caught the gist of our conversation. Being as encroaching as a mushroom, he did not hesitate a moment to offer his services.
    “I’ll just nip down to London and deliver the youngsters for you,” he told us.
    “That would give us time to prepare the nursery rooms for them, to air the beds, and make sure everything is ready,” Mama said at once.
    “I would not like to have them met by a stranger,” I objected.
    “No, really! Stranger indeed! You are too hard on me,” Everett declared.
    “You are a stranger to them yourself, Wendy. We all are,” Mama pointed out, quite correctly.
    Mr. Everett was hardly of a nature to frighten them out of their wits. He was friendly, fatherly, in a way.
    The trip represented such a high hurdle to me that in the end I allowed myself to be talked into accepting yet another favor from Mr. Everett.
    “Very likely Menrod will take care of them,” I reminded him, for to have him fighting with his lordship or his emissary in front of the children was a fearful conjecture. “If he is there, or if he has sent his man, you need do no more than say good day to them. It is a hard trip to take, with a possibility of its being entirely unnecessary.”
    “It happens I had to go anyway. It is nothing but a pleasure to me, to be able to serve you.”
    I feared he was telling another lie, but he did not correct himself on this occasion. Later I went to check out his progress on the box stairs. Nothing had been done, though a large sheet of wood lay on the dining table, the outline of the steps drawn on it with a black grease pencil, ready for sawing.
    “Remember, the panel is not to be cut, Mr. Everett. We want it right back up to the ceiling,” I reminded him. “Can the carpenters go ahead with it during your absence?”
    “Certainly they can, and will. It will be done before you can say one, two, three.”
    All his help earned him an invitation to take potluck that evening for dinner. It was the first time he had sat down to a formal meal with us. Mrs. Pudge was in the boughs with us for asking him. Ever since Hettie married Lord Peter, she has had ideas above our station. She thinks we are royalty, or nobility, at least.
    “What will his lordship think of you entertaining commoners?” she asked, a fire burning in her blue eyes, her chin wagging.
    About twenty years ago, my father gave her a Psalter for Christmas. It, her Bible, and the Pilgrim’s Progress are her library, sitting in state on her bed table, when they are not in her hands. She has them nearly by heart, and is liberal with her condemnations against the ungodly, and the unnoble.
    “How should he know, Mrs. Pudge?” I asked.
    “The scandal mongers won’t be slow to trot to him with the news. Bad enough the heathen sits down for tea three times a week, without having a