“Dearest Aunt Lizzie, this must surely be the last house in London where Lady Laxton would think of looking for her daughter! While she remains with us, by the way, she is to be known as Miss Smith, in case the servants should talk.”
“Yes, but how long is she to remain with us?” asked her ladyship. “If it is not just like you, Deb, to fill the house with guests when there is no money to pay the coal-bill! And poor Kit is coming next week besides! We shall be ruined! And I must tell you that Ormskirk was here last night, and when he asked me where you were I declare I hardly knew how to answer him. But I dare say he guessed, for he said in a very dry voice that he saw Mablethorpe was absent too. Oh dear, what a tangle we are in, my love, and you making it so much the worse with all this nonsense about Miss Laxton, let alone enraging Ravenscar, and behaving so abominably at Vauxhall that I declare I feel quite ashamed to own you! Where is this girl?”
Miss Grantham then offered to fetch Phoebe for inspection. Lady Bellingham said that she had no wish to see her, but if she were to be compelled to house her for the rest of her life, as she had little doubt would turn out to be the case, she supposed she had better make her acquaintance. So Miss Laxton was brought into her hostess’s room, clutching one of Deborah’s wrappers round her small person, and Lady Bellingham said that she understood nothing, but Deborah had better put on her hat at once, and go out to buy the poor child something to wear and, as for Filey’s thinking that he would be permitted to gobble up such a morsel as that, it would give her much pleasure to be able to bestow a piece of her mind upon him, which she very likely would do, one fine day, for she was sure he was a disagreeable creature with a bad heart, and she had never liked him, no, not from the start!
This rambling speech gave Miss Grantham to understand that her aunt was resigned to the unexpected addition to her household, so she kissed that long-suffering lady’s cheek, and went off to replenish Phoebe’s wardrobe. By noon, Phoebe, dressed in pale blue muslin, was able to emerge from the seclusion of her bedchamber; and when Lord Mablethorpe arrived to pay his promised call, she was sitting with Deborah in the small back-parlour half-way up the stairs.
Lord Mablethorpe heartily approved of Deborah’s plan to keep Phoebe in St James’s Square, and he could not help feeling rather flattered by her dependence on his judgement. She made him feel quite old, and responsible, and by the time he had endorsed all his Deborah’s suggestions, he was in a fair way to believing that he had thought of them for himself. He helped to draft a suitable letter to Lord and Lady Laxton, which Phoebe copied out in her best copyplate handwriting, and he said that he would give a monkey to see their faces when they received it. This made their undutiful daughter giggle. His lordship then asked if it were true that the Honourable Arnold Laxton had been rolled-up at Epsom, and Miss Laxton said, yes, it was all so dreadful because Arnold always backed horses which fell down, or crossed their legs, and that was why it was so important that she should make a good match. This exchange led to others and, since both lived in the same circle, and knew very much the same people, it was not many minutes before they were on the most comfortable terms, pulling most of their relatives’ characters to shreds, and laughing a great deal over the business.
Lady Bellingham, coming into the room presently, and seeing her niece sewing quietly by the window, while, on the sofa, Lord Mablethorpe and Miss Laxton had their heads close together, was quite dismayed. She seized the earliest opportunity of warning her niece that if she did not take care she would lose Mablethorpe as well as the twenty thousand pounds she had so recklessly refused.
“Well, I don’t want Mablethorpe,” said Miss Grantham, maddeningly placid. “I think it would be a charming thing if he were to fall out of love with me, and into love with Phoebe.”
“It might be a very charming thing if we had twenty thousand pounds,” said Lady Bellingham, with strong common sense. “When we have nothing but debts, it is a disaster! Do you know, my love, I have been trying to add up my accounts, and do what I will I cannot alter the truth! We lost seven thousand pounds last year by bad debts!”
“I dare say we might have,” said Miss Grantham. “It all comes of letting people run upon tick at the faro-table. I knew we ought not to do it.”
“Everything is so difficult!” sighed her ladyship. “No one can feel more conscious of the awkwardness of your situation than I, Deb, but if Ravenscar were to make his offer again, which I dare say he will, if you behaved as badly as you tell me you did, do you think you might—”