“But all that’s over, you know,” said Lady Wyndale; “you would insist on putting a very effectual extinguisher upon it, so there’s an end of my match-making, and I hope you may be very happy your own way, and I’m sure you will, and you know any little money trouble can’t last long; for old Mr. Fairfield you know can’t possibly live very long, and then I’m told Wyvern must be his; and the Fairfields were always thought to have some four or five thousand a year, and although the estate, they say, owes something, yet a prudent little woman like you, will get all that to rights in time.”
“You are always so kind and cheery, you darling,” said Alice, looking fondly and smiling in her face, as she placed a hand on each shoulder. “It is delightful seeing you at last. But you are tired, ain’t you? You must take something.”
“Thanks, dear. I’ll have a little tea—nothing else. I lunched before we set out.”
So Alice touched the bell, and the order was taken by Mildred Tarnley.
“And how is that nice, good-natured old creature, Dulcibella Crane? I like her so much. She seems so attached. I hope you have her still with you?”
“Oh, yes. I could not exist without her—dear old Dulcibella, of course.”
There was here a short silence.
“I was thinking of asking you if you could all come over to Oulton for a month or so. I’m told your husband is such an agreeable man, and very unlike Mr. Harry Fairfield, his brother—a mere bear, they tell me; and do you think your husband would venture? We should be quite to ourselves if you preferred it, and we could make it almost as quiet as here.”
“It is so like you, you darling, and to me would be so delightful; but no, no, it is quite out of the question; he is really—this is a great secret, and you won’t say a word to any one—I am afraid very much harassed. He is very miserable about his affairs. There has been a quarrel with old Mr. Fairfield which makes the matter worse. His brother Harry has been trying to arrange with his creditors, but I don’t know how that will be; and Charlie has told me that we must be ready on very short notice to go to France or somewhere else abroad; and I’m afraid he owes a great deal—he’s so reserved and nervous about it; and you may suppose how I must feel, how miserable sometimes, knowing that I am, in great measure, the cause of his being so miserably harassed. Poor Charlie! I often think how much happier it would have been for him never to have seen me.”
“Did I ever hear such stuff! But I won’t say half what I was going to say, for I can’t think you such a fool, and I must only suppose you want me to say ever so many pretty things of you, which, in this case, I am bound to say would be, unlike common flatteries, quite true. But if there really is any trouble of that kind—of the least consequence I mean—I think it quite a scandal, not only shabby but wicked, that old Mr. Fairfield, with one foot in the grave, should do nothing. I always knew he was a mere bruin; but people said he was generous in the matter of money, and he ought to think that, in the course of nature, Wyvern should have been his son’s years ago, and it is really quite abominable his not coming forward.”