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Updated: June 16, 2025
O'Connor stayed two hours and a half, and as Aunt Theresa granted my request to be allowed to hear her narrative, I learnt a good deal of the history of my great-grandmother. "We are not really connected," Mrs. Buller began. "She is Margery's great-grandmother, and Margery and I are second cousins. That's all. But I knew her long ago, before my poor cousin Alice married Captain Vandaleur.
Bee Vandaleur sat in her boudoir thinking. Her pretty brow was puckered as she gazed at the photograph of a young man, tall, fair, and handsome. For some time she cogitated, then, setting her lips together, she tore the card straight across, dropped it into the waste-paper basket beside her, and shrugged her pretty shoulders, exclaiming in a tone more forcible than polite, "Brute!"
"She had a graceful gracious manner, if you like, and Mrs. Vandaleur was not to be named in the same day with her. Mrs. Vandaleur knew how to dress, I grant you " "You may go and play, Margery dear," said Aunt Theresa, with kindly delicacy. The "old one" had lowered his voice, but still I could hear what he said, as Mrs. Buller saw.
She gave Adolphe a sharp lecture one day for some lack of respect in his manner to "Miss Margery"; and, on the other hand, she taught me to curtsy at the door where I breakfasted with Mr. and Mrs. Vandaleur. Some dancing lessons that I had had in Riflebury helped me here, and Elspeth was well satisfied with my performance.
At first we thought it a development of what we had noticed. Then Mr. Vandaleur became ill also, and we sent Adolphe in haste for the doctor. At last we found out the truth. The salad was full of young leaves of monk's-hood. Under what delusion my poor grandfather had gathered them we never knew. Elspeth and I were busy with the old lady, and he had made the salad without help from any one.
Vandaleur was said to have in some measure lost his reason, a shudder came over me. In a moment more he saw me. I think my crimson cloak caught his eye, but his welcome was hardly less alarming than his abstraction. He started, and held up his hands, and a pained, puzzled expression troubled his face.
In the evening of the day on which I went to the Bullers, she took me by the hand, and tossing her curls said, "I have taken you up, Margery Vandaleur. Mrs. Minchin told Mamma that she has taken the bride up. I heard her say that the bride was a sweet little puss, only so childish. That's just what Mrs. Minchin said. I heard her. And I shall say so of you, too, as I've taken you up.
She clenched the gold in her hands, and then with a bitter, passionate cry threw it into the street, and watched while two street-urchins picked it up and ran off with their treasure-trove. "May I help you, my poor girl? Are you in trouble?" Bee Vandaleur spoke gently and softly; she had heard all that passed between the artist and his model. Eily looked up.
Leslie Hamilton stood outside the door of Mr. Vandaleur's handsome town residence. The footman, gorgeously attired, opened the heavy door. "Not at 'ome, sir," he answered pompously in answer to inquiries. "My good man, you have made some mistake; I am Leslie Hamilton, and I wish to see Miss Vandaleur."
Two days before she had been removed from the great London hospital, and brought by Miss Vandaleur to her father's country-home, where the kindliest of white-haired house-keepers watched over her beloved Miss Bee's protégée, tending her with gentlest care. "Good-morning, Eily;" Miss Vandaleur, in a simple morning gown of white, entered the room. Eily struggled to her feet.
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