The letter and the postscript disappointed and enraged Mrs. Falconer and Georgiana beyond description.
English Clay left his D.I.O. at Mrs. Falconer’s door, and banged down to Clay-hall.
Georgiana, violent in the expression of her disappointment, would have exposed herself to Lady Trant, and to half her acquaintance; but Mrs. Falconer, in the midst of her mortification, retained command of temper sufficient to take thought for the future. She warned Lady Trant to be silent, and took precautions to prevent the affair from being known; providently determining, that, as soon as her daughter should recover from the disappointment of losing Clay-hall, she would marry her to Petcalf, and settle her at once at the lodge in Asia Minor.
“Till Georgiana is married,” said she to herself, “the commissioner will never let me have peace: if English Clay’s breaking off the match gets wind, we are undone; for who will think of a rejected girl, beautiful or fashionable though she be? So the best thing that can be done is to marry her immediately to Petcalf. I will have it so—and the wedding-clothes will not have been bought in vain.”
The bringing down the young lady’s imagination, however, from Clay-hall to a lodge was a task of much difficulty; and Mrs. Falconer often in the bitterness of her heart exclaimed, that she had the most ungrateful children in the world. It seems that it is a tacit compact between mothers and daughters of a certain class, that if the young ladies are dressed, amused, advertised, and exhibited at every fashionable public place and private party, their hearts, or hands at least, are to be absolutely at the disposal of their parents.
It was just when Mrs. Falconer was exasperated by Georgiana’s ingratitude, that her son Buckhurst was obliged to come to London after his marriage, to settle with his creditors. His bride insisted upon accompanying him, and chose this unpropitious time for being introduced to his family. And such a bride! Mrs. Buckhurst Falconer! Such an introduction! Such a reception! His mother cold and civil, merely from policy to prevent their family-quarrels from becoming public; his sisters—
But enough. Here let us turn from the painful scene, and leave this house divided against itself.