Thus she spoke, and more to the same purport; but it was a long time before her words brought any consolation. Then the parents talked together, trying to arrange some plan whereby Guy's mind might be occupied and soothed, or else Edwin removed out of his sight for a little while. Once I hinted at the advantage of Guy's leaving home; but Mrs. Halifax seemed to shrink from this project as though it were a foreboding of perpetual exile.
"No, no; anything but that. Beside, Guy would not wish it. He has never left me in his life. His going would seem like the general breaking up of the family."
Alas! she did not, would not see that the family was already "broken." Broken, more than either absence, marriage, or death itself could have effected.
One thing more we had to consider—a thing at once natural and right in any family, namely, how to hide its wounds from the chattering, scandalous world. And so, when by a happy chance there came over that morning our good friend Lady Oldtower and her carriage full of daughters, Mrs. Halifax communicated, with a simple dignity that quelled all comment, the fact of "my son Edwin's engagement," and accepted the invitation for Maud and Miss Silver, which was willingly repeated and pressed.
One thing I noticed, that in speaking of or to the girl who in a single day from merely the governess had become, and was sedulously treated as, our own, Mrs. Halifax invariably called her, as heretofore, "Miss Silver," or "my dear;" never by any chance "Louise," or "Mademoiselle D'Argent."
Before she left Beechwood, Edwin came in and hurriedly spoke to his mother. What he said was evidently painful to both.
"I am not aware of it, Edwin; I had not the slightest intention of offending her. Is she already made your judge and referee as to the actions of your mother?"
Edwin was a good lad, though perhaps a little less loving than the rest of the boys. His self-restraint, his exceeding patience, lulled the threatened storm.
"But you will be kind to her, mother?—I know you will."
"Did I not say so?"