"Daisy's mother!" repeated George in astonishment. "Now I know what the likeness was that struck me; of course, it was just the steady business-like look I have seen Mrs. Stothard give at Annette."
Before the companions had started on the expedition arranged for the following day, the English mail arrived. George got his letters at the inn-door. One was from his father. He glanced over it, and ran up to Paul's room, breathless, and with a very pale face.
"Paul," he said, "there's a letter from my father. Such wonderful news! He says he will not tell me any particulars till we meet; but Dr. Hildebrand is sending Annette home at once, and--and she is perfectly well! Hildebrand says he has never had a more complete, a more thorough success."
Paul shook his friend's hand warmly, and eagerly congratulated him, adding with great promptitude:
"I'm all right also, you know; and so, old fellow, we'll start for England to-night."
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
MADAME VAUGHAN.
Captain and Mrs. Derinzy had not yet returned to the uncongenial seclusion of Beachborough. The Captain, who, since he had been coerced, by Dr. Wainwright's strong representation that he might find it uncomfortable if he refused, into permitting the experiment proposed by Hildebrand, had been unusually tractable, was not, it will be readily believed, eager to leave London. As things were looking at present--and he was aware they had assumed a very ugly complexion--there was a decidedly unpleasant uncertainty about the prospect of his getting back again to his favourite resorts, which quickened his appreciation of the wisdom of remaining in London as long as he could contrive to do so, and getting as much pleasure as possible out of the time.
Mrs. Derinzy considered that it was proper to await Annette's return in town; there would be so many things to settle when she came back; and if they really were to be finally defeated in all their plans, if Paul's folly and obstinacy were to defeat the marriage project, and Annette's restoration to health render her attainment of her majority a real acquisition of power, not a mere form, they would be better in London than elsewhere. Annette might or might not settle an annuity worth having upon them, if the power to manage her own affairs should accrue to her; but if they did not voluntarily abandon it, she could hardly do otherwise than invite them to continue to share her home. The accounts which Mrs. Derinzy had received from Mrs. Stothard were facsimiles of those which had been forwarded to Dr. Wainwright, and in their contents Mrs. Derinzy discerned defeat.
She was not a wicked, she was only a weak and selfish, woman; and though that combination has worked as much woe as the more positive evil, it is only fair to credit her with the palliation. No one could have been more genuinely shocked than Mrs. Derinzy, if she had been plainly told that she feared Annette's recovery, that she hoped for her continued infirmity of mind. She would have repudiated such an idea with vehemence and sincerity; but she would have been infinitely puzzled to define the distinction between the feeling of which she firmly believed herself incapable, and the feeling which she did, beyond dispute, entertain. If Annette could have been perfectly sane, but at the same time utterly passive in her hands; if she could have been thoroughly competent to manage her own affairs; and at the same time quite incapable of ever desiring to understand or interfere with them, that would have been charming. Mrs. Derinzy thought it unreasonable that so easy a state of things should not be immediately called into existence. At this particular period of her life she regarded herself as an ill-used individual, whose husband, son, and niece, separately and in combination, were in act to "worry her to death."