“Did he tell why he wouldn’t marry her?” asked Joan, with a desperate effort to look unconcerned beneath her aunt’s searching gaze.
“I don’t know that he did. If so, Lucilla doesn’t know, so I suppose that Mary Roberts couldn’t hear. She did hear one thing, however: she heard your name, miss, twice, so there wasn’t no mistake about it.”
“My name? Oh! my name!” gasped Joan.
“Yes, yours, unless there is another Joan Haste in these parts, which I haven’t heard on. And now, perhaps, you will tell me what it was doing there.”
“How can I tell you when I don’t know, aunt?”
“How can you tell me when you won’t say, miss? That’s what you mean. Look here, Joan: do you take me for a fool? Do you suppose that I haven’t seen through your little game? Why, I have watched it all along, and I’m bound to say that you don’t play half so bad for a young hand. Well, it seems that you pulled it off this time, and I’m not saying but what I am proud of you, though I still hold that you would have done better to have married Samuel; for I believe, when all is said and finished, he will be the richer man of the two. It’s very nice to be a baronet’s lady, no doubt; but if you have nothing to live on—and I don’t fancy that there are many pickings left up there at Rosham—I can’t see that it helps you much forrarder.”
“What do you mean, aunt?”
“Mean? Now, Joan, don’t you begin trying your humbug on me: keep that for the men. You’re not going to pretend that you haven’t been making love to the Captain—I beg his pardon, Sir Henry he is now—as hard as you know how. Well, it seems that you have bamboozled him finely, and have made him so sweet on your pretty face that he’s going to throw over marrying the Levinger girl in order to marry you, for that’s what it comes to, and you may very well be proud of it. But don’t you be carried away; you wouldn’t take my advice about Samuel Rock, and I spoke to you rough that night on purpose, for I wanted you to make sure of one or the other. Well, take my advice about Sir Henry. Remember there is many a slip between the cup and the lip, and that out of sight is apt to be out of mind. Don’t you keep out of sight too long. You strike while the iron is hot, and marry him; on the quiet if you like, but marry him. Of course there will be a row, but all the rows under heaven can’t unmake a wife and a ladyship. Now listen to me. I have gone out of my way to talk to you like this, because you are a fine girl and I’m fond of you, which is more than you are of me, and I should like to see you get on in the world; and perhaps when you’re up you will not forget your old aunt who is down. I tell you I have gone out of my way to give you this tip, for there’s some as won’t be pleased to see you turned into Lady Graves. Yes, there’s some who’d give a good deal to stop it: Samuel Rock, for instance; he don’t like parting, but he’d lay down something handsome, and I doubt if I’ll ever see the coin out of you that I might out of him and others, for after all you won’t be a rich woman at best. However, we must sacrifice ourselves at times, and that’s what I am doing on your account, Joan. And now, if you want to get a note up to Rosham, I will manage it for you. But perhaps you had better wait and go yourself.”
