There was a pregnant silence, while all the implications of this speech sank into the Vicar’s brain. He said at length, rather wistfully: “I had hoped that one day a suitable parti would present himself, to whom I might have given Arabella with a thankful heart.”
Mrs. Tallant threw him an indulgent glance. “Very likely, my dear, but it would be a great piece of nonsense to pretend that such things happen when one has made not the least push to bring them about! Eligible partis do not commonly appear as by magic in country villages: one must go out into the world to find them!” She saw that the Vicar was looking a little pained, and laughed. “Now, do not tell me that it was otherwise with us, Mr. Tallant, for you know very well I met you first at a party in York! I own it was not in the expectation of my falling in love with you that my Mama took me there, but in your turn you will own that we should never have met if I had sat at home waiting for you!”
He smiled. “Your arguments are always unanswerable, my love. Yet I cannot entirely like it. I believe Arabella to be a well-behaved girl enough, but she is very young, after all, and I have thought sometimes that her spirits might, lacking wiser guidance, betray her into unbecoming conduct. Under Lady Bridlington’s roof, she would, I fear, lead a life gay to dissipation, such as must make her unfit afterwards for rational society.”
“Depend upon it,” said Mrs. Tallant soothingly, “she is by far too well-behaved a girl to occasion us a moment’s anxiety. I am sure, too, that her principles are too sound to allow her to lose her head. To be sure, she can be a sad romp, and that, my dear sir, is because she has not yet enjoyed the advantages of town polish. I am hopeful of seeing her much improved by a season spent with Bella Bridlington. And if—mind, I only say—if!—she were to contract a suitable alliance I am sure you would be as thankful as anyone could be!”
“Yes,” agreed the Vicar, sighing. “I should certainly be glad to see her comfortably established, the wife of a respectable man.”
“And not the wife of young Dewsbury!” interpolated Mrs. Tallant.
“Indeed, no! I cannot suppose that any child of mine could attain happiness with a man whom I must—with reluctance—think a very vulgar fellow!”
“In that case, my dear,” said Mrs. Tallant, rising briskly to her feet, “I will write to accept Lady Bridlington’s most obliging invitation.”
“You must do as you think right,” he said. “I have never interfered with what you considered proper for your daughters.”
Thus it was that, at four o’clock on this momentous day, when the Vicar joined his family at the dinner-table, he surprised them by making a humorous reference to Arabella’s projected trip. Not even Betsy would have ventured to have mentioned the scheme, for it was generally supposed that he must disapprove of it. But after grace had been said, and the family had disposed themselves about the long table, Arabella began, not very expeditiously, to carve one of the side-dishes, and the Vicar, looking up from his own labours in time to see her place a slightly mangled wing of chicken on a plate, remarked, with a twinkle: “I think Arabella must take lessons in carving before she goes into society, or she will disgrace us all by her unhandiness. It will not do, you know, my dear, to precipitate a dish into your neighbour’s lap, as you seem to be in danger of doing at this moment!”