"I hope not," replied Isabella. "I did not know at all that he was a distressing person. I always thought him a very pleasant fellow, and imagined you thought so too, dear cousin; but how has he contrived to distress you?"
"Why, by some news of no very pleasant character," answered Mary Clifford, "he overheard, accidentally it seems, some conversation relating to your father, from which he learned some particulars, that grieve me greatly to hear."
"Indeed!" cried Miss Slingsby, with a start; "they are not going to shoot at him, I hope?"
"Oh, dear no," replied Mary, "nothing of that kind; but about his affairs generally."
"Well, speak out boldly, Mary, dear," answered her cousin, "I see you are going round the matter, love, for fear of vexing me; tell it at once, whatever it may be. You know I have a bold heart, not easily put down; and, though you judge me light and thoughtless, I know, believe me, Mary, it is more a necessity of my situation than any thing else. If I were to think by the hour together over all the things that are unpleasant to me, as you or my dear aunt would do, I should only kill myself without altering them. Papa has his own ways, which were formed before I was born; and, coming so late in the day, I don't think I have any right to meddle with them. I get out of the way of all that is disagreeable to me as much as I can; and, when I can't, like a good dutiful daughter, I submit. You know that he is, to use our good old gardener's expression, 'as kind as the flowers in May;' and I should be very ungrateful if I teazed him by constantly opposing habits which I cannot change, and which are my elder brothers and sisters. My philosophy may be a bad one, but pray leave it to me, Mary, for I could not be happy with any other."
Mary Clifford took her cousin's hand and pressed it kindly in her own; "I would not take it from you for the world," she said, "for I know and understand all you feel, and am quite well aware that you are performing the first of duties in endeavouring to make your father's house as happy for him as you can, while you don't suffer your own mind and manners to be tainted by customs you do not approve. You have had a hard part to play, dear cousin, and you have played it well; but it is not upon these subjects I come to speak to you, but upon one, which though perhaps of less vital importance, unfortunately affects the happiness of this life more. Your father's means and fortune, which I am sorry to say, from all I hear, are very much embarrassed."
"Good heavens! what do you mean?" exclaimed Isabella, gazing anxiously in her face, and Mary went on as delicately as she could to tell her all that Ned Hayward had communicated. At first, the poor girl seemed overwhelmed, exclaiming, "A week before they call for such a large sum! six weeks before the whole is finally gone from us! Good heavens, Mary, what is to be done?"
In a moment, however, she rallied: "Well," she exclaimed, "I have been very blind--as blind as a great politician, Mary. A thousand things should have prepared me for this that I now recollect, letters, and messages and intimations of various kinds. That sleek knave, Wharton, is at the bottom of it all; but he shall not crush me; and I dare say we shall do very well with what is left. I have jewels and trinkets of my own, and poor mamma's, to keep house for a longtime; and there must be something left out of the wreck."
"But the thing is, if possible, to prevent the ship from being wrecked at all," answered Mary Clifford; and she then went on to tell all that Captain Hayward proposed to do, in order to prevent any immediate catastrophe, not trusting her voice to comment upon his conduct for a moment.
But Isabella did it for her, "O, dear, kind, generous fellow," she cried, "how I love him! Don't you, Mary? Although papa may have many bad and foolish friends, you see there are some noble and wise ones--but I'll tell you what, Mary, we'll go down and talk to him after breakfast, and we'll all consult and see what is to be done; we'll have a plot to serve papa, whether he will or not; and I declare Mr. Beauchamp shall be one of the conspirators."