Mrs. Brook had only fixed Mr. Longdon with the air of unutterable things. “You angel, you angel!”—they found expression but in that.
“I don’t need to ask you to bring her, do I?” Vanderbank now said to his hostess. “I hope you don’t mind my bragging all over the place of the great honour she did me the other day in appearing quite by herself.”
“Quite by herself? I say, Mrs. Brook!” Mr. Cashmore flourished on.
It was only now that she noticed him; which she did indeed but by answering Vanderbank. “She didn’t go for YOU I’m afraid—though of course she might: she went because you had promised her Mr. Longdon. But I should have no more feeling about her going to you—and should expect her to have no more—than about her taking a pound of tea, as she sometimes does, to her old nurse, or her going to read to the old women at the workhouse. May you never have less to brag of!”
“I wish she’d bring ME a pound of tea!” Mr. Cashmore resumed. “Or ain’t I enough of an old woman for her to come and read to me at home?”
“Does she habitually visit the workhouse?” Mr. Longdon enquired of Mrs. Brook.
This lady kept him in a moment’s suspense, which another contemplation might moreover have detected that Vanderbank in some degree shared. “Every Friday at three.”
Vanderbank, with a sudden turn, moved straight to one of the windows, and Mr. Cashmore had a happy remembrance. “Why, this is Friday—she must have gone to-day. But does she stay so late?”
“She was to go afterwards to little Aggie: I’m trying so, in spite of difficulties,” Mrs. Brook explained, “to keep them on together.” She addressed herself with a new thought to Mr. Longdon. “You must know little Aggie—the niece of the Duchess: I forget if you’ve met the Duchess, but you must know HER too—there are so many things on which I’m sure she’ll feel with you. Little Aggie’s the one,” she continued; “you’ll delight in her; SHE ought to have been mamma’s grandchild.”
“Dearest lady, how can you pretend or for a moment compare her—?” Mr. Cashmore broke in. “She says nothing to me at all.”