She saw plain enough, now it was too late, that there had not been a shadow of sentiment in that lively confiding Irishman, used to intimacy with a herd of cousins, and viewing all connexions as cousins. She remembered his conversation with her brother and her brother’s impression; she thought of the unloverlike dread of ague in Emily’s moonlight walk; she recalled the many occasions when she had thought him remiss, and she could not but acquit him of any designed flirtation, any dangerous tenderness, or what Mdlle. Belmarche would call legerete. He could not be reserved—he was naturally free and open—and how could she have put such a construction on his frankness, when Sophy herself had long been gradually arriving at a conviction of the truth! It was a comfort at least to remember that it had not been the fabrication of her own brain, she had respectable authority for the idea, and she trusted to its prompter to participate in her indignation, argue Ulick out of so poor a match, and at least put a decided veto upon Sophy’s Spartan magnanimity—Sophy’s health and feelings being the subject, she sometimes thought, which concerned him above all.
Ah! but the evil had not been his doing. He had but gossiped out a pleasant conjecture to his wife as a trustworthy help-meet. What business had she to go and telegraph that conjecture, with her significant eyes, to the very last person who ought to have shared it, and then to have kept up the mischief by believing it herself, and acting, looking, and arranging, as on a certainty implied, though not expressed? Mrs. Osborne or Mrs. Drury might have spoken more broadly, they could not have acted worse, thought she to herself.
The notion might never have been suggested; Sophy might have simply enjoyed these years of intimacy, and even if her heart had been touched, it would have been unconsciously, and the pain and shame of unrequited affection have merely been a slight sense of neglect, a small dreariness, lost in eagerness for the happiness of both friends. Now, two years of love that she had been allowed to imagine returned and sanctioned, and love with the depth and force of Sophy’s whole nature—the shame of having loved unasked, the misery of having lived in a delusion—how would they act upon a being of her morbid tendency, frail constitution, and proud spirit? As Albinia thought of the passive endurance of last year’s estrangement, her heart sank within her! Illness—brain-fever—permanent ill-health and crushed spirits—nay, death itself she augured—and all—all her own fault! The last and best of Edmund’s children so cruelly and deeply wounded, and by her folly! She longed to throw herself at his feet and ask his pardon, but it was Sophy’s secret as well as hers, and how could womanhood betray that unrequited love? At least she thought, for noble Sophy’s sake, she would not raise a finger to hinder the marriage, but as to forwarding it, or promoting the courtship under Sophy’s very eyes—that would be like murdering her outright, and she would join Mr. Kendal with all her might in removing their daughter from the trying spectacle. Talk of Aunt Maria! This trouble was ten thousand times worse!
Albinia began to watch the timepiece, longing to have the evening over, that she might prepare Mr. Kendal. It ended at last, and Genevieve took up her candle, bade good-night, and disappeared. Sophy lingered, till coming forward to her father as he stood by the fire, she said, ‘Papa, did you not promise Gilbert that Genevieve should be as another daughter?’
‘I wish she would be, my dear,’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘but she is too independent, and your mamma thinks she would consider it as a mere farce to call her little Albinia’s governess, but if you can persuade her—’
‘What I want you to do, papa, is to promise that she shall be married from this house, as her home, and that you will fit her out as you did Lucy.’
‘Ha! Is she beginning to relent?’
‘No, papa. It will be Ulick O’More.’
‘You don’t mean it!’ exclaimed Mr. Kendal, more taken by surprise than perhaps he had ever been, and looking at his wife, who was standing dismayed, yet admiring the gallant girl who had forestalled her precautions. Obliged to speak, she said, ‘I am afraid so, Sophy and I witnessed a scene to-day.’
‘Afraid?’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘I see no reason to be afraid, if Ulick likes it. They are two of the most agreeable and best people that ever fell in my way, and I shall be delighted if they can arrange it, for they are perfectly suited to each other.’