"I'm sure so, my dear!"
And, as response, the Reverend George Benthall whistled in a loud and unclerical manner.
When Walter Joyce arrived in Chesterfield Street, he found Lady Caroline was absent--passing the holidays with Lord and Lady Hetherington at Westhope--and, after a little hesitation, he determined to go down there and see her. He had not seen anything of the Hetheringtons since his election: his lordship was occupied with some new fad which kept him in the country, and her ladyship did not care to come to town until after Easter. Lord Hetherington had viewed the progress of his ex-secretary with great satisfaction. His recollections of Joyce were all pleasant; the young man had done his work carefully and cleverly, had always been gentlemanly and unobtrusive, and had behaved deuced well--point of fact, deuced well--brave, and all that kind of thing--in that matter of saving Car'line on the ice. Her ladyship's feelings were very different. She disliked self-made people more than any others, and those who were reckoned clever were specially obnoxious to her. She had heard much, a great deal too much, of Joyce from Mr. Gould, who, in his occasional visits, delighted in dilating on his recent foeman's abilities, eloquence, and pluck, partly because he respected such qualities wherever he met with them, but principally because he knew that such comments were very aggravating to Lady Hetherington (no great favourite of his); and she was not more favourably disposed towards him, because he had adopted political principles diametrically opposed to those which she believed. But what actuated her most in her ill-feeling towards Mr. Joyce was a fear that, now that he had obtained a certain position, he might aspire to Lady Caroline Mansergh, who, as Lady Hetherington always suspected, would be by no means indisposed to accept him. Hitherto the difference in their social status had rendered any such proceeding thoroughly unlikely. A tutor, or a--what did they call it?--reporter to a newspaper, could scarcely have the impertinence to propose for an earl's sister; but, as a member of Parliament, the man enjoyed a position in society, and nothing could be said against him on that score. There was Lady Violet Magnier, Lord Haughtonforest's daughter. Well, Mr. Magnier sold ribbons, and pocket-handkerchiefs and things, in the City; but then he was member for some place, and was very rich, and it was looked upon as a very good match for Lady Violet. Mr. Joyce was just the man to assert himself in a highly disagreeable manner; he always held views about the supremacy of intellect, and that kind of rubbish; and the more he kept away from them, the less chance he would have of exercising any influence over Lady Caroline Mansergh.
It may be imagined, then, that her ladyship was not best pleased when her sister-in-law informed her that she had had a telegram from Walter Joyce, asking whether he might come down to Westhope to see her on special business, and that she "supposed Margaret had no objection."
Margaret had strong objections, but did not think it politic to say so just then, so merely intimated that she would be happy to see Mr. Joyce whenever he chose to come.
The tone in which this intimation was conveyed was so little pleasing to Lady Caroline, that she took care to impress on her sister-in-law the fact that Joyce's visit was to her, Lady Caroline, and that she had merely mentioned his coming as a matter of politeness to her hostess, which did not tend to increase Lady Hetherington's regard for Walter Joyce.
But the bien-séances were never neglected on account of any personal feeling; and when Joyce arrived at the station, he recognised the familiar livery on the platform, and found a carriage in waiting to convey him to Westhope.
During the drive he occupied himself in thinking over the wondrous changes which had taken place since his first visit to that neighbourhood, when, with a wardrobe provided by old Jack Byrne, and a scanty purse supplied from the same source, he had come down in a dependent position, not knowing any of those amongst whom his lot in life was to be passed, and without the least idea as to the kind of treatment he might expect at their hands. That treatment, he knew, would have been very different had it not been for Lady Caroline Mansergh. But for her counsel, too, he would have suffered himself to have remained completely crushed and vanquished by Marian Ashurst's conduct, would have subsided into a mere drudge without energy or hope. Yes, all the good in his life he owed to the friendship, to the kindly promptings of that sweetest and best of women. He felt that thoroughly, and yet it never struck him that in asking her to advise him as to his marriage with some one else, he was committing, to say the least of it, a solecism. The axiom which declares that the cleverest men have the smallest amount of common sense, has a broader foundation than is generally believed.
On his arrival at Westhope, Joyce was informed by the butler that Lord Hetherington had gone round the Home Farm with the bailiff, and that her ladyship was out driving, but that they would both be home to luncheon, when they expected the pleasure of his company; meanwhile would he walk into the library, where Lady Caroline Mansergh would join him? He went into the library, and had just looked round the room and viewed his old associations--glanced at the desk where he had sat working away for so many hours at a stretch, at the big tomes whence he had extracted the subject-matter for that great historical work, still, alas! incomplete--at the line of Shakespearean volumes which formed Lady Caroline Mansergh's private reading--when the door opened, and Lady Caroline came in. Country air had not had its usual beneficial effect, Joyce thought as he looked at her; for her face was very pale, and her manner nervous and odd. Yet she shook him warmly by the hand, and bade him be seated in her old cheery tone.
"It is very good of you to let me come down here, breaking in upon the rest which I have no doubt you want, and boring you with my own private affairs," said Joyce, seating himself in the window-sill close by the armchair which Lady Caroline had taken.