And then, how should he carry himself in her presence? If he were to say nothing to her, his saying nothing would be remarked; and yet he felt that all his powers of self-control would not enable him to speak to her in the same manner that he would speak to her sister. He had to ask himself, moreover, what line of conduct he did intend to follow. If he was still resolved to marry Mary Snow, would it not be better that he should take this bull by the horns and upset it at once? In such case, Madeline Staveley must be no more to him than her sister. But then he had two intentions. In accordance with one he would make Mary Snow his wife; and in following the other he would marry Miss Staveley. It must be admitted that the two brides which he proposed to himself were very different. The one that he had moulded for his own purposes was not, as he admitted, quite equal to her of whom nature, education, and birth had had the handling.
Again he dined alone; but on this occasion Mrs. Baker was able to elicit from him no enthusiasm as to his dinner. And yet she had done her best, and placed before him a sweetbread and dish of sea-kale that ought to have made him enthusiastic. "I had to fight with the gardener for that like anything," she said, singing her own praises when he declined to sing them.
"Dear me! They'll think that I am a dreadful person to have in the house."
"Not a bit. Only they sha'n't think as how I'm going to be said 'no' to in that way when I've set my mind on a thing. I know what's going and I know what's proper. Why, laws, Mr. Graham, there's heaps of things there and yet there's no getting of 'em;—unless there's a party or the like of that. What's the use of a garden I say,—or of a gardener neither, if you don't have garden stuff? It's not to look at. Do finish it now;—after all the trouble I had, standing over him in the cold while he cut it."
"Oh dear, oh dear, Mrs. Baker, why did you do that?"
"He thought to perish me, making believe it took him so long to get at it; but I'm not so easy perished; I can tell him that! I'd have stood there till now but what I had it. Miss Madeline see'd me as I was coming in, and asked me what I'd been doing."
"I hope you didn't tell her that I couldn't live without sea-kale?"
"I told her that I meant to give you your dinner comfortable as long as you had it up here; and she said—; but laws, Mr. Graham, you don't care what a young lady says to an old woman like me. You'll see her yourself this evening, and then you can tell her whether or no the sea-kale was worth the eating! It's not so badly biled, I will say that for Hannah Cook, though she is rampagious sometimes." He longed to ask her what words Madeline had used, even in speaking on such a subject as this; but he did not dare to do so. Mrs. Baker was very fond of talking about Miss Madeline, but Graham was by no means assured that he should find an ally in Mrs. Baker if he told her all the truth.
At last the hour arrived, and Augustus came to convoy him down to the drawing-room. It was now many days since he had been out of that room, and the very fact of moving was an excitement to him. He hardly knew how he might feel in walking down stairs, and could not quite separate the nervousness arising from his shattered bones from that other nervousness which came from his—shattered heart. The word is undoubtedly a little too strong, but as it is there, there let it stay. When he reached the drawing-room, he almost felt that he had better decline to enter it. The door however was opened, and he was in the room before he could make up his mind to any such step, and he found himself being walked across the floor to some especial seat, while a dozen kindly anxious faces were crowding round him.
"Here's an arm-chair, Mr. Graham, kept expressly for you, near the fire," said Lady Staveley. "And I am extremely glad to see you well enough to fill it."