All at once, there was a revival. A rumour, a piquant rumour, began to be whispered at the clubs. Men again looked at Gerald Neston, wondering if he had heard it, and at George, asking how he would take it. Mr. Blodwell had to protest ignorance twenty times a day, and Sidmouth Vane intrenched himself in the safe seclusion of his official apartment. If it were true, it was magnificent. Who knew?
Mr. Pocklington heard the rumour, but, communing with his own heart, held his tongue. He would not disturb the peace that seemed again to have settled on his house. Laura, having asserted her independence, had allowed the subject to drop; she had been bright, cheerful, and docile, had seen sights, and gone to entertainments, and made herself agreeable; and Mrs. Pocklington hoped, against a secret conviction, that the rebellion was not only sleeping but dead. She could not banish herself from London; so, with outward confidence and inward fear, she brought her daughter home in November, praying that George Neston might not cross her path, praying too, in her kind heart, that time might remove the silent barrier between her and her daughter, against which she fretted in vain.
But certain other people had no idea of leaving the matter to the slow and uncertain hand of time. There was a plot afoot. George was in it, and Sidmouth Vane, and Mr. Blodwell; so was the Marquis, and another, whose present name it would ruin our deep mystery to disclose—if it be guessed, there is no help for it. And just when Laura was growing sad, and a little hurt and angry at hearing nothing from George, she chanced to have a conversation with Sidmouth Vane, and emerged therefrom, laughing, blushing, and riotously happy, though the only visible outcome of the talk was an invitation for her mother and herself to join in the mild entertainment of afternoon tea at Vane’s rooms the next day. Now, Sidmouth Vane was very deceitful; he, so to say, appropriated to his own use and credit Laura’s blushes and Laura’s laughter, and, when the invitation came, innocent Mrs. Pocklington, without committing herself to an approval of Mr. Vane, rejoiced to think it pleased Laura to take tea with any young man other than George Neston, and walked into the trap with gracious urbanity.
Vane received his guests, Mr. Blodwell supporting him. Mrs. Pocklington and her daughter were the first arrivals, and Vane apologised for the lateness of the others.
“Lord Mapledurham is coming,” he said, “and he’s been very busy lately.”
“I thought he was out of town,” said Mrs. Pocklington.
“He only came back yesterday.”
The door opened, and Vane’s servant announced with much pomp, “The Marquis and Marchioness of Mapledurham.”
The Marquis advanced straight to Mrs. Pocklington; then he took Neaera’s hand, and said, “You have always been good to me, Mrs. Pocklington. I hope you’ll be as good to my wife.”
It was hushed up as far as possible, but still it leaked out that, on this sole occasion, Mrs. Pocklington was at a loss—was, in fact, if the word be allowable, flabbergasted. Vane maliciously hinted at burnt feathers and other extreme remedies, and there was really no doubt at all that Laura untied her mother’s bonnet-strings.