Clarissa was glad to make her toilet an excuse for leaving Mr. Granger; but once in the sanctuary of her own room, she sat down in an absent manner, and made no attempt to begin dressing. Fosset, the maid, found her there at a quarter past ten o'clock—the ceremony was to take place at eleven—and gave a cry of horror at seeing the toilet uncommenced.
"Good gracious me, miss! what have you been thinking of? Your hair not begun nor nothing! I've been almost torn to bits with one and another—Miss Fermor's maid bothering for long hair-pins and narrow black ribbon; and Jane Roberts—Lady Emily Challoner's maid—who really never has anything handy, wanting half the things out of my work-box—or I should have been with you ever so long ago. My Lady would be in a fine way if you were late."
"I think my hair will do very well as it is, Fosset," Clarissa said listlessly.
"Lor, no, miss; not in that dowdy style. It don't half show it off."
Clarissa seated herself before the dressing-table with an air of resignation rather than interest, and the expeditious Fosset began her work. It was done very speedily—that wealth of hair was so easy to dress; there was no artful manipulation of long hair-pins and black ribbon needed to unite borrowed tresses with real ones. The dress was put on, and Clarissa was invited to look at herself in the cheval-glass.
"I do wish you had a bit more colour in your cheeks to-day, miss," Fosset said, with rather a vexed air. "Not that I'd recommend you any of their vinegar rouges, or ineffaceable blooms, or anything of that kind. But I don't think I ever saw you look so pale. One would think you were going to be married, instead of Lady Geraldine. She's as cool as a cucumber this morning, Sarah Thompson told me just now. You can't put her out easily."
The carriages were driving up to the great door by this time. It was about twenty minutes to eleven, and in ten minutes more the procession would be starting. Hale Church was within five minutes' drive of the Castle.
Clarissa went fluttering down to the drawing-room, where she supposed people would assemble. There was no one there but Mr. Granger, who was stalking up and down the spacious room, dressed in the newest and stiffest of coats and waistcoats, and looking as if he were going to assist at a private hanging. Miss Lovel felt almost inclined to ran away at sight of him. The man seemed to pursue her somehow; and since that night when George Fairfax had offered her his mocking congratulations, Mr. Granger's attentions had been particularly repugnant to her.
She could not draw back, however, without positive rudeness, and it was only a question of five minutes; so she went in and entered upon an interesting little conversation about the weather. It was still fine; there was no appearance of rain; a most auspicious day, really; and so on,—from Mr. Granger; to which novel remarks Clarissa assented meekly.
"There are people who attach a good deal of significance to that kind of thing," he said presently. "For my own part, if I were going to be married to the woman I loved, I should care little how black the sky above us might be. That sounds rather romantic for me, doesn't it? A man of fifty has no right to feel like that."