On a solid ecclesiastical-looking oak table in one of the windows Miss Granger had a row of brass-bound money-boxes, inscribed, "For the Home Mission," "For the Extra Curate Society," and so on—boxes into which Miss Granger's friends and visitors were expected to drop their mite. Clarissa felt that if she had been laden down with shillings, she could not for her very life have approached those formidable boxes to drop one in under Miss Granger's ken; but, of course, this was a morbid fancy. On another table there were little piles of material for plain work; so prim, so square, so geometrically precise, that Clarissa thought the flannel itself looked cold—a hard, fibrous, cruel fabric, that could never be of use to mortal flesh except as an irritant.
Miss Granger's bedroom and dressing-room were like Miss Granger's morning-room. No frivolous mediaevalism here, no dainty upholsterer's work in many-coloured woods, but solid mahogany, relieved by solemn draperies of drab damask, in a style which the wise Sophia called unpretentious. The chief feature in one room was a sewing-machine that looked like a small church organ, and in the other a monster medicine-chest, from the contents of which Miss Granger dealt out doses of her own concoction to her parishioners. Both of these objects she showed to Clarissa with pride, but the medicine-chest was evidently the favourite.
Having improved the time after this manner till twenty minutes past seven, with a very brief interval devoted to the duties of the toilet, the two young ladies went down to the drawing-room, where the lamps were lighted, and Mr. Lovel just arrived.
That gentleman had the honour of taking Miss Granger in to dinner, and did his utmost to render himself agreeable to her in a quiet undemonstrative way, and to take the gauge of her mental powers. She received his attentions graciously enough—indeed it would not have been easy for any one to be ungracious to Marmaduke Lovel when he cared to please—but he could see very clearly that she suspected the state of affairs, and would be, to the last degree, antagonistic to his own and his daughter's interests. He saw how close a watch she kept upon her father all through the dinner, and how her attention was distracted every now and then when he was talking to Clarissa.
"It is only natural that she should set her face against the business," he said to himself; "no woman in her position could be expected to act otherwise; but it strikes me that Granger is not a man likely to be influenced by domestic opposition. He is the kind of man to take his own way, I fancy, in defiance of an opposing universe—a very difficult man to govern. He seems over head and ears in love, however, and it will be Clarissa's own fault if she doesn't do what she likes with him. Heaven grant she may prove reasonable! Most women would be enchanted with such an opportunity, but with a raw school-girl there is no knowing. And that fellow Fairfax's influence may work against us, in spite of her protestations last night."
This was the gist of Mr. Lovel's disjointed musings during the progress of the dinner; but he took care not to neglect Miss Granger even for a moment, and he gave her very little time to listen to her father's conversation with Clarissa.
The dinner ceremonial was performed in a manner which seemed perfection, even to the fastidious taste of Marmaduke Lovel. There was not the faintest indication of ostentation. Daniel Granger's father had been rich before him; he had been born in the commercial purple, as it were, and none of these things were new to him. Before the Arden Court days he had occupied a handsome modern country house southward, near Doncaster. He had only expanded his style of living after the purchase of the Court, that was all. He had good taste too, and a keen sense of the incongruous. He did not affect the orchids and frivolous floral decorations, the fragile fairy-like glass, with which Lady Laura Armstrong brightened her dinner-table; but, on the other hand, his plate, of which he exhibited no vulgar profusion, was in the highest art, the old Indian china dinner-service scarcely less costly than solid silver, and the heavy diamond-cut glass, with gold emblazonment of crest and monogram, worthy to be exhibited behind the glazed doors of a cabinet. There was no such abomination as gas in the state chambers of Arden Court. Innumerable candles, in antique silver candelabra, gave a subdued brightness to the dining-room. More candles, in sconces against the walls, and two pairs of noble moderator-lamps, on bronze and ormolu pedestals six feet high, lighted the drawing-room. In the halls and corridors there was the same soft glow of lamplight. Only in kitchens and out-offices and stables was the gas permitted to blaze merrily for the illumination of cooks and scullions, grooms and helpers.
Miss Granger only lingered long enough to trifle with a cluster of purple grapes before giving the signal for withdrawal. Her father started up to open the dining-room door, with a little sudden sigh. He had had Clarissa all to himself throughout the dinner, and had been very happy, talking about things that were commonplace enough in themselves, but finding a perfect contentment in the fact that he was talking to her, that she listened to him and smiled upon him graciously, with a sweet self-possession which put him quite at his ease. She had recovered from that awkward scene of the morning, and had settled in her own mind that the business was rather absurd than serious. She had only to take care that Mr. Granger never had any second opportunity for indulging in such folly.
He held the door open as Clarissa and his daughter went out of the room—held it till that slim girlish figure had vanished at the end of the corridor, and then came back to his seat with another sigh.
"Very far gone," Mr. Lovel thought, smiling ever so little, as he bent over his claret-glass, pretending to admire the colour of the wine.