Mrs Maulfrey was staying at Basingstoke with her Mama-in-law, and drove over to Winwood to pay a morning call on her cousins. She was far more explicit than had been Mr Heron. She sat in a bergere chair in the saloon, facing Lady Winwood’s couch, and, as Charlotte afterwards remarked, that that afflicted lady did not suffer an immediate relapse was due to her own fortitude rather than to any consideration shown her by her guest.
It was quite obvious that Mrs Maulfrey had not come on any charitable errand. Charlotte, always just, said: “Depend upon it, Theresa tried to patronize Horry. You know her encroaching way. And really, I cannot altogether blame Horry for snubbing her, though I hope I am far from excusing Horry’s excesses.”
Horry, it seemed, was becoming the talk of the Town. Lady Winwood, receiving this piece of news, was moved to recall with complacency a day when she herself had been a reigning toast.
“A Toast!” said Mrs Maulfrey. “Yes, aunt, and I am sure no one need wonder at it, but Horry is not a Beauty, and if she is a Toast, which I never yet heard, it is certainly not on that account.”
“We ourselves think dear Horry very pretty, Theresa,” said Miss Winwood gently.
“Yes, my dear, but you are partial, as indeed I am too. No one is fonder of Horry than I am, and I put her behaviour down to her childishness, I assure you.”
“We are aware,” said Charlotte, sitting very straight and stiff in her chair, “that Horry is little more than a child, but we should find it hard to believe that the behaviour of a Winwood could be such as to call for that or any other excuse.”
Slightly quelled by that stern gaze, Mrs Maulfrey fidgeted with the strings of her reticule, and said with a light laugh: “Oh, certainly, my dear! But I saw with my own eyes Horry strip one of the bracelets off her wrist at Lady Dollabey’s card-party—pearls and diamond chips, my love! the most ravishing thing!—and throw it on to the table as her stake because she had lost all her money. You may imagine the scene: gentlemen are so thoughtless, and of course several must needs encourage her, staking rings and hair-buckles against her bracelet, and such nonsense.”
“Perhaps it was not very wise of Horry,” said Elizabeth. “But not, I think, such a very great matter.”
“I am bound to say,” remarked Charlotte, “that I hold gaming in any form in the utmost abhorrence.”