‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed my mother: ‘you do no good by concealing it!’
‘Let me see his letter,’ said my father, in the voice there was no gainsaying, and absolutely taking it from Clarence. None of us will ever forget the tone in which he read it aloud at the breakfast-table.
‘Dear Bill—What possessed you to send a death’s-head to the feast? The letter would have bitten no one in my chambers. A nice scrape I shall be in if you let out that your officious precision forwarded it. Of course at the last moment I could not upset the whole affair and leave Lydia to languish in vain. The whole thing went off magnificently. Keep counsel and no harm is done. You owe me that for sending on the letter.—Yours,
‘J. G. W.’
Clarence had not read to the end when the letter was taken from him. Indeed to inclose such a note in a dispatch sure to be opened en famille was one of Griffith’s haphazard proceedings, which arose from the present being always much more to him than the absent. Clarence was much shocked at hearing these last sentences, and exclaimed, ‘He meant it in confidence, papa; I implore you to treat it as unread!’
My father was always scrupulous about private letters, and said, ‘I beg your pardon, Clarence; I should not have forced it from you. I wish I had not seen it.’
My mother gave something between a snort and a sigh. ‘It is right for us to know the truth,’ she said, ‘but that is enough. There is no need that they should know at Hillside what was Griffith’s alternative.’
‘I would not add a pang to that dear girl’s grief,’ said my father; ‘but I see the Fordyces were right. I shall never do anything to bring these two together again.’
My mother chimed in with something about preferring Lady Peacock and the Bella Vista crew to Ellen and Hillside, which made us rush into the breach with incoherent defence.
‘I know how it was,’ said Clarence. ‘His acting is capital, and of course these people could not spare him, nor understand how much it signified that he should be here. They make so much of him.’
‘Who do?’ asked my mother. ‘Lady Peacock? How do you know? Have you been with them?’