"Hum!" replied her ladyship. "And if she keeps her mind a couple of years, it will be a wonder."
"Very bad for her this sort of thing--talked about," muttered Sir Franks. "Ferdinand was just the man."
"Well, yes; I suppose it"s her mistake to think brains an absolute requisite," said Lady Jocelyn, opening her book again, and scanning down a column.
Sir Franks, being imitative, adopted a similar refuge, and the talk between them was varied by quotations and choice bits from the authors they had recourse to. Both leaned back in their chairs, and spoke with their eyes on their books.
"Julia"s going to write to her mother," said he.
"Very filial and proper," said she.
"There"ll be a horrible hubbub, you know, Emily."
"Most probably. I shall get the blame; "cela se concoit"."
"Young Harrington goes the day after to-morrow. Thought it better not to pack him off in a hurry."
"And just before the pic-nic; no, certainly. I suppose it would look odd."
"How are we to get rid of the Countess?"
"Eh? This Bautru is amusing, Franks; but he"s nothing to Vandy. "Homme incomparable!" On the whole I find Menage rather dull. The Countess?
what an accomplished liar that woman is! She seems to have stepped out of Tallemant"s Gallery. Concerning the Countess, I suppose you had better apply to Melville."
"Where the deuce did this young Harrington get his breeding from?"
"He comes of a notable sire."
"Yes, but there"s no sign of the sn.o.b in him."
"And I exonerate him from the charge of "adventuring" after Rose. George Uplift tells me--I had him in just now--that the mother is a woman of mark and strong principle. She has probably corrected the too luxuriant nature of Mel in her offspring. That is to say in this one. "Pour les autres, je ne dis pas". Well, the young man will go; and if Rose chooses to become a monument of constancy, we can do nothing. I shall give my advice; but as she has not deceived me, and she is a reasonable being, I shan"t interfere. Putting the case at the worst, they will not want money. I have no doubt Tom Cogglesby means what he says, and will do it.
So there we will leave the matter till we hear from Elburne House."
Sir Franks groaned at the thought.
"How much does he offer to settle on them?" he asked.
"A thousand a year on the marriage, and the same amount to the first child. I daresay the end would be that they would get all."
Sir Franks nodded, and remained with one eye-brow pitiably elevated above the level of the other.
"Anything but a tailor!" he exclaimed presently, half to himself.
"There is a prejudice against that craft," her ladyship acquiesced.
"Beranger--let me see--your favourite Frenchman, Franks, wasn"t it his father?--no, his grandfather. "Mon pauvre et humble grand-pyre,"
I think, was a tailor. Hum! the degrees of the thing, I confess, don"t affect me. One trade I imagine to be no worse than another."
"Ferdinand"s allowance is about a thousand," said Sir Franks, meditatively.
"And won"t be a farthing more till he comes to the t.i.tle," added her ladyship.
"Well," resumed Sir Franks, "it"s a horrible bother!"
His wife philosophically agreed with him, and the subject was dropped.
Lady Jocelyn felt with her husband, more than she chose to let him know, and Sir Franks could have burst into anathemas against fate and circ.u.mstances, more than his love of a smooth world permitted. He, however, was subdued by her calmness; and she, with ten times the weight of brain, was manoeuvred by the wonderful dash of General Rose Jocelyn.
For her ladyship, thinking, "I shall get the blame of all this," rather sided insensibly with the offenders against those who condemned them jointly; and seeing that Rose had been scrupulously honest and straightforward in a very delicate matter, this lady was so const.i.tuted that she could not but applaud her daughter in her heart. A worldly woman would have acted, if she had not thought, differently; but her ladyship was not a worldly woman.
Evan"s bearing and character had, during his residence at Beckley Court, become so thoroughly accepted as those of a gentleman, and one of their own rank, that, after an allusion to the origin of his breeding, not a word more was said by either of them on that topic. Besides, Rose had dignified him by her decided conduct.
By the time poor Sir Franks had read himself into tranquillity, Mrs.
Shorne, who knew him well, and was determined that he should not enter upon his usual negociations with an unpleasantness: that is to say, to forget it, joined them in the library, bringing with her Sir John Loring and Hamilton Jocelyn. Her first measure was to compel Sir Franks to put down his book. Lady Jocelyn subsequently had to do the same.
"Well, what have you done, Franks?" said Mrs. Shorne.
"Done?" answered the poor gentleman. "What is there to be done? I"ve spoken to young Harrington."
"Spoken to him! He deserves horsewhipping! Have you not told him to quit the house instantly?"
Lady Jocelyn came to her husband"s aid: "It wouldn"t do, I think, to kick him out. In the first place, he hasn"t deserved it."
"Not deserved it, Emily!--the commonest, low, vile, adventuring tradesman!"
"In the second place," pursued her ladyship, "it"s not adviseable to do anything that will make Rose enter into the young woman"s sublimities.
It "s better not to let a lunatic see that you think him stark mad, and the same holds with young women afflicted with the love-mania. The sound of sense, even if they can"t understand it, flatters them so as to keep them within bounds. Otherwise you drive them into excesses best avoided."
"Really, Emily," said Mrs. Shorne, "you speak almost, one would say, as an advocate of such unions."
"You must know perfectly well that I entirely condemn them," replied her ladyship, who had once, and once only, delivered her opinion of the nuptials of Mr. and Mrs. Shorne.
In self-defence, and to show the total difference between the cases, Mrs. Shorne interjected: "An utterly penniless young adventurer!"
"Oh, no; there"s money," remarked Sir Franks.
"Money is there?" quoth Hamilton, respectfully.
"And there"s wit," added Sir John, "if he has half his sister"s talent."
"Astonishing woman!" Hamilton chimed in; adding, with a shrug, "But, egad!"
"Well, we don"t want him to resemble his sister," said Lady Jocelyn. "I acknowledge she"s amusing."
"Amusing, Emily!" Mrs. Shorne never encountered her sister-in-law"s calmness without indignation. "I could not rest in the house with such a person, knowing her what she is. A vile adventuress, as I firmly believe. What does she do all day with your mother? Depend upon it, you will repent her visit in more ways than one."
"A prophecy?" asked Lady Jocelyn, smiling.
On the grounds of common sense, on the grounds of propriety, and consideration of what was due to themselves, all agreed to condemn the notion of Rose casting herself away on Evan. Lady Jocelyn agreed with Mrs. Shorne; Sir Franks with his brother, and Sir John. But as to what they were to do, they were divided. Lady Jocelyn said she should not prevent Rose from writing to Evan, if she had the wish to do so.
"Folly must come out," said her ladyship. "It"s a combustible material.