Not that
she ever dreamed of breaking off her engagement on their account. She
was a milliner in a Kensington shop, and to marry Mark Rainham, who
was vaguely "something in the city," and belonged to a good club, and
dressed well, was a distinct step in the social scale, and two unknown
children were not going to make her draw back. But to mother them was
quite another question.
Luckily, Fate had a compassionate eye upon the young Rainhams, and was
quite willing to second their stepmother's resolve that they should come
into her life as little as possible. Their father had never concerned
himself greatly about them. A lazy and selfish man, he had always been
willing to shelve the care of his small son and daughter--babies were
not in his line, and the aunt who had brought up their mother was only
too anxious to take Bob and Cecilia when that girl-mother had slipped
away from life, leaving a week-old Cecilia and a sturdy, solemn Bob of
three.
The arrangement suited Mark Rainham very well. Aunt Margaret's house
at Twickenham was big enough for half a dozen babies; the children went
there, with their nurse, and he was free to slip back into bachelor
ways, living in comfortable chambers within easy reach of his club and
not too far, with a good train service, from a golf links. The regular
week-end visits to the babies suffered occasional interruptions, and
gradually grew fewer and fewer, until he became to the children a vague
and mysterious person named Papa, who dropped from the skies now
and then, asked them a number of silly questions, talked with great
politeness to Aunt Margaret--who, they instinctively felt, liked him
no better than they did--and then disappeared, whereupon every one
was immensely relieved.
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