"Anne," continued Mrs. Eliott, "was so reticent. The thing was all settled before anybody could say a word."
"Well," said Dr. Gardner, "there"s no good worrying about it now."
"Isn"t it possible," said the little year-old bride, "that Mr. Majendie may have told her himself?"
For Dr. Gardner had told her everything the day before he married her, confessing to the light loves of his youth, the young lady in the Free Library and all. She looked round with eyes widened by their angelic candour. Even more beautiful than Mrs. Gardner"s intellect were Mrs.
Gardner"s eyes, and the love of them that brought the doctor"s home from their wanderings in philosophic dream. n.o.body but Dr. Gardner knew that Mrs. Gardner"s intellect had cause to be jealous of her eyes.
"There"s one thing," said Mrs. Eliott, suddenly enlightened. "Our not having said anything at the time makes it easier for us to receive him now."
"Aren"t we all talking," said Mrs. Gardner, "rather as if Anne had married a monster? After all, have we ever heard anything against him--except Lady Cayley?"
"Oh no, never a word, have we, Johnson dear?"
"Never. He"s not half a bad fellow, Majendie."
Dr. Gardner rose to go.
"Oh, please--don"t go before they come."
Mrs. Gardner hesitated, but the doctor, vague in his approaches, displayed a certain energy in his departure.
They pa.s.sed Mrs. Walter Majendie on the stairs.
She had come alone. That, Mrs. Eliott felt, was a bad beginning. She could see that it struck even Johnson"s obtuseness as unfavourable, for he presently effaced himself.
"f.a.n.n.y," said Anne, holding her friend"s evasive eye with the determination of her query, "tell me, who are the Ransomes?"
"The Ransomes? Have they called?"
"Yes, but I was out. I didn"t see them."
"Oh, my dear," said Mrs. Eliott, in a tone which implied that when Anne _did_ see them----
"Are they very dreadful?"
"Well--they"re not your sort."
Anne meditated. "Not--my--sort. And the Lawson Hannays, what sort are they?"
"Well, we don"t know them. But there are a great many people in Scale one doesn"t know."
"Are they socially impossible, or what?"
"Oh--socially, they would be considered--in Scale--all right. But he is, or was, mixed up with some very queer people."
Anne"s cold face intimated that the adjective suggested nothing to her.
Mrs. Eliott was compelled to be explicit. The word queer was applied in Scale to persons of dubious honesty in business; whereas it was not so much in business as in pleasure that Mr. Lawson Hannay had been queer.
"Mr. Hannay may be very steady now, but I believe he belonged to a very fast set before he married her."
"And she? Is she nice?"
"She may be very nice for all I know."
"I think," said Anne, "she wouldn"t call if she wasn"t nice, you know."
She meant that if Mrs. Lawson Hannay hadn"t been nice Walter would never have sanctioned her calling.
"Oh, as for that," said her friend, "you know what Scale is. The less nice they are the more they keep on calling. But I should think"--she had suddenly perceived where Anne"s argument was tending--"she is probably all right."
"Do you know anything of Mr. Charlie Gorst?"
"No. But Johnson does. At least I"m sure he"s met him."
Mrs. Eliott saw it all. Poor Anne was being besieged, bombarded by her husband"s set.
"Then he isn"t impossible?"
"Oh no, the Gorsts are a very old Lincolnshire family. Quite grand. What a number of people you"re going to know, my dear. But, your husband isn"t to take you away from _all_ your old friends."
"He isn"t taking me anywhere. I shall stay," said Anne proudly, "exactly where I was before."
She was determined that her old friends should never know to what a sorrowful place she had been taken.
"You dear," said Mrs. Eliott, holding out a suddenly caressing hand.
Anne trembled a little under the caress. "f.a.n.n.y," said she, "I want you to know him."
"I mean to," said Mrs. Eliott hurriedly.
"And I want him, even more, to know you."
"Then," Mrs. Elliot argued to herself, "she knows nothing; or she never could suppose we would be kindred spirits."
But she carried it off triumphantly. "Well," said she, "I hope you"re free for the fifteenth?"
"The fifteenth?"
"Yes, or any other evening. We want to give a little dinner, dear, to you and to your husband--for him to meet all your friends."
Anne tried not to look too grateful.
The upward way, then, was being prepared for him. Beneficent intelligences were at work, influences were in the air, helping her to raise him.
In her gladness she had failed to see that, considering the very obvious nature of the civility, f.a.n.n.y Eliott was making the least shade too much of it.