"You have not regretted it, of course."
"I hope I know my duty too well, to wish to stand between papa and his happiness. If it had been for his happiness to marry—a person of a suitable age and position, of course—I should not have considered my own feelings in the matter."
"Well, I suppose not," replied Lizzie, rather doubtfully; "still it is nice to have one's father all to oneself—to say nothing of being an heiress. And the worst of the business is, that when a widower of your papa's age does take it into his head to marry, he is apt to fall in love with some chit of a girl."
Miss Granger stared at the speaker with a gaze as stony as Antigone herself could have turned upon any impious jester who had hinted that Oedipus, in his blindness and banishment, was groping for some frivolous successor to Jocasta.
"My father in love with a girl!" she exclaimed. "What a very false idea you must have formed of his character, Miss Fermor, when you can suggest such an utter absurdity!"
"But, you see, I wasn't speaking of Mr. Granger, only of widowers in general. I have seen several marriages of that kind—men of forty or fifty throwing themselves away, I suppose one ought to say, upon girls scarcely out of their teens. In some cases the marriage seems to turn out well enough; but of course one does sometimes hear of things not going on quite happily."
Miss Granger was grave and meditative after this—perhaps half disposed to suspect Elizabeth Fermor of some lurking design on her father. She had been seated at the piano during this conversation, and now resumed her playing—executing a sonata of Beethoven's with faultless precision and the highest form of taught expression; so much emphasis upon each note—careful rallentando here, a gradual crescendo there; nothing careless or slapdash from the first bar to the last. She would play the same piece a hundred times without varying the performance by a hair's-breadth. Nor did she affect anything but classical music. She was one of those young ladies who, when asked for a waltz or a polka, freeze the impudent demander by replying that they play no dance music—nothing more frivolous than Mozart.
The day for the ball came, but there was no George Fairfax. Lady Geraldine had arrived at the Castle on the evening before the festival, bringing an excellent account of her father's health. He had been cheered by her visit, and was altogether so much improved, that his doctors would have given him permission to come down to Yorkshire for his daughter's wedding. It was only his own valetudinarian habits and extreme dread of fatigue which had prevented Lady Geraldine bringing him down in triumph.
Lady Laura was loudly indignant at Mr. Fairfax's non-appearance; and for the first time Clarissa heard Lady Geraldine defend her lover with some natural and womanly air of proprietorship.
"After pledging his word to me as he did!" exclaimed my lady, when it had come to luncheon-time and there were still no signs of the delinquent's return.