He tried his best, and she tried her best but it was rather a dull dinner, and she found no opportunity to say, as at last she had decided to say publicly, just as a piece of news, no more, that she had today met Sir Edwin Uniacke. And so it befell that the first who told the fact was Arthur, blurting out between his strawberries, "Oh, papa I want you to let me go to a place called Lake Hall."
"Lake Hall?"
"Yes; the owner of it invited me there; he did, indeed. He is the kindest, pleasantest gentleman I ever met. A "Sir," too. His name is Sir Edwin Uniacke."
"My boy, where did you meet Sir Edwin Uniacke?"
So the whole story came out. Dr. Grey listened in grave silence--even a little displeasure, or something less like displeasure than pain. At length, he said,
"I think you must have made some mistake, Arthur. Your mother could never have allowed--"
"She did not say she would allow me to go. She looked rather vexed; I don"t think she liked Sir Edwin Uniacke. And if she is very much against my going--well, I won"t go," said Arthur, heroically.
"You are a good boy; but I think this gentleman ought to have hesitated a little before he thus intruded himself upon my wife and my son."
"I think so, too," said Christian, the first words she had spoken.
Dr. Grey glanced at her sharply, but the most suspicious husband could have read nothing in her face beyond what she said.
"And I think," burst in Miss Gascoigne, who had listened to it all, her large eyes growing every minute larger and larger, "that it must be somehow a lady"s own fault when a gentleman is intrusive, I never believed--I never could have believed--after all Dr. Grey has said about Sir Edwin, that the three figures--a lady, and gentleman, and a child, whom I saw this afternoon sitting so comfortably together on the bench--as comfortably, I vow and declare, as if they had been sitting there an hour, which perhaps they had--"
"Not more than two minutes," interrupted Christian, speaking very quietly, but conscious of a wild desire to fly at Miss Gascoigne and shake her as she stood, putting forward, in her customary way, those mangled fragments of truth which are more irritating than absolute lies.
"Indeed, it was only two minutes. I did not choose, even if I had no other reason, that a man of whom Dr. Grey did not approve should hold any communication with Arthur?"
"Thank you, that was right," said Dr. Greg.
"Yet you let him walk with you--I know you did, up to the very Lodge door."
"To the bridge, Miss Gascoigne."
"Well, it"s all the same. And I must confess it is most extraordinary conduct. To refuse a gentleman"s visits--his open visits here--on the pretext that he is not good enough for your society, and then to meet him, sit with him, walk with him in the college grounds. What will people say."
Christian turned like a hunted creature at bay, "I do not care--not a jot, what people say."
"I thought not. People like you never do care. They fly in the face of society; they--"
"Husband!" with a sort of wild appeal, the first she had ever made for protection--for at least justice.
Dr. Grey looked up, started out of a long fit of thoughtfulness--sadness it might be, during which he had let the conversation pa.s.s him by.
"The only thing I care for is what my husband thinks. If he blames me--"
"For what, my dear?"
"Because, when I was walking in the college grounds, as any lady may walk, that man, Sir Edwin Uniacke, whose acquaintance I desire as little as you do, came up and spoke to me, or rather to Arthur. I could not help it, could I?"
"No, my child," with a slight emphasis on the words "my child," that went to Christian"s heart. Yes, surely, if she had only had courage to tell him, in his large tenderness he could have understood that childish folly, the dream of a day, and the long misery it had brought her. She would tell him all the very first opportunity; however much it pained and humiliated her, she would tell her good husband all.
"And, papa, have I been naughty too?" said Arthur? "I am sure I did not see any thing so very dreadful in Sir Edwin. He came up and spoke to mother as if he knew her quite well, and then he talked ever so much to me, and said if I would visit him he would give me a boat to row, and a horse to ride. And I"m sure he seemed the very kindest, pleasantest gentleman."
"So he is; and nothing shall ever make me believe he isn"t." cried Miss Gascoigne, always delighted to pull against the tide. "And I must say, Dr. Grey, the way you and your wife set up your opinion against that of really good society is perfect nonsense. For my part, when I have a house of my own once more, and can invite whomsoever I please--"
"I would nevertheless advise, so far as a brother may," interrupted Dr.
Grey, very seriously, "that you do not invite Sir Edwin Uniacke. And now, aunts both," with that sun-shiny smile which could disperse almost any domestic cloud, "as this conversation is not particularly interesting to the children, suppose we end it. When do you intend to have us all to tea at Avonside?"
Chapter 13.
_"Forgive us each his daily sins, If few or many, great or small; And those that sin against us, Lord, Good Lord! Forgive them all._
_"Judge us not as we others judge; Condemn us not as we condemn; They who are merciless to us, Be merciful to them._
_"And if the cruel storm should pa.s.s, And let Thy heaven of peace appear, Make not our right the right--or might, But make the right shine clear."_
"Well, the least I can say of it is that it is very extraordinary!"
"What is extraordinary?" asked Miss Grey, looking up placidly from her knitting, which did not get on very fast now. For Aunt Maria was exceedingly busy and exceedingly happy. If ever her brother or his wife had the least qualms of conscience about her removal from the Lodge to Avonside, they would have been dispelled by the sight of the dear little fat woman trotting about, the picture of content, full of housekeeping plans, and schemes for her poultry-yard, her pigeon- house, and her green-house. As for her garden, it was a source of perpetual pride, wonder, and delight. The three years which she had spent at the Lodge--which, in her secret heart, she owned were rather dull and trying years--were ended.
She herself, and, indeed, the whole establishment, resumed again exactly the place they had filled in the lifetime of the first Mrs. Grey.
Avonside became once more a regular aunts" house--devoted to children, who now, at the distance of a mile and a half, thought nothing so delightful as to spend long days there, and be petted by Aunt Maria.
The sudden revolution had succeeded--as honest revolutions usually do.
when any one has the courage to attempt them--to break through a false domestic position, and supply it with a true one. Even Miss Gascoigne was the happier for it; less worried in her mind, having no feeling of domestic responsibility, and being no longer haunted by the children.
The poor little souls! she could get on well enough with them for an hour or two at Avonside, but they had been a sore affliction to her at the Lodge. Any woman who can not wholly set aside self is sure to be tormented by, and be a still worse torment to, children.
No; much as she pitied herself, and condoled with Aunt Maria every hour in the day, Aunt Henrietta was a great deal better in every way since she came to Avonside--less cross, less ill-natured; even her perpetual mill-stream of talk flowed on without such violent outbreaks of wrath against the whole as had embittered the atmosphere of the Lodge. Now, though her answer was sharp, it was not so sharp as it might have been--would certainly have been--a few weeks before.
"Maria, I don"t think you ever do listen to me when I"m talking. I am afraid all I say goes in at one ear and out at the other," which was not impossible, perhaps not unfortunate otherwise, since Miss Gascoigne talked pretty nearly all day long, Miss Grey"s whole life might have been spent in listening. She replied, with a meek smile, "Oh no, dear Henrietta!"
"Then you surely would have made some observation on what I have been telling you--this very extraordinary thing which Miss Smiles told me last night at the Lodge, while Mrs. Grey was singing--as I forewarned you, Mrs. Grey sings every where now--and her husband lets her do it--likes it, too--he actually told me it was a pleasure to him that his wife should make herself agreeable to other people. They mean to give tea-parties once a week to the undergraduates at Saint Bede"s, because she says the master ought to be like a father over them, invite them and make his house pleasant to them. Such a thing was never heard of in our days."
"No; but I dare say dear Arnold knows best. And what about Miss Smiles?"
"I"ve told you twenty times already, Maria, how Miss Smiles said that Mrs. Brereton said--you know Mrs. Brereton, who has so many children, and never can keep a governess long--that her new governess, who happens to be Miss Susan Bennett, whom, you may remember, I once got for Let.i.tia--told her a long story about Mrs. Grey and Sir Edwin Uniacke--how he was an old acquaintance of hers before she was married."
"Of Christian"s? She never said so. Oh no! it can"t be, or she would have said so."
"Don"t be too sure of that," said Aunt Henrietta, mysteriously.
"Besides, she dislikes him. You know, Henrietta, that when he called here last week, and she happened to be with us, she put on her bonnet and went home immediately, without seeing him!"
"And a very rude thing, too, on her part. Any visitors whom I choose to invite to my house--"
"But he invited himself."