Jacob was perfectly certain that her ladyship had not left the ring with him; nevertheless he made diligent search for it, and afterwards accompanied Mr. Manessa to Lady Warbeck’s, to assure Lady de Brantefield that the ring was not in their house. He endeavoured to bring to her recollection her having put it on her finger just before she got into the carriage; but this her ladyship would not admit. Lady Anne supported her mother’s assertions; and Lady de Brantefield ended by being haughtily angry, declaring she would not be contradicted by a shopman, and that she was positive the ring had never been returned to her. Within eight-and-forty hours the story was told by Lady de Brantefield and her friends at every card-table at the polite end of the town, and it was spread by Lady Anne through the park and the ball-rooms; and the ladies’-maids had repeated it, with all manner of exaggerations, through their inferior but not less extensive circles. The consequence was, that the character of Mr. Manessa’s house was hurt, and Jacob, who was the person accused as the cause of it, was very unhappy. The confidence Mr. Manessa had in him, and the kindness he showed him, increased his regret. Lady de Brantefield had, in a high tone, threatened a prosecution for the value of her inestimable ring. This was what both Jacob and Mr. Manessa would have desired—a public trial, they knew, would bring the truth to light; but her ladyship was probably discouraged by her legal advisers from a prosecution, so that Mr. Manessa and Jacob were still left to suffer by the injustice of private whisperings. Jacob offered to replace, as far as he could, the value of this ring; but in Lady de Brantefield’s opinion nothing could compensate for its loss. Poor Jacob was in despair. Before I heard this story, I thought that nothing could have forced my attention from my own affairs; but I could not be so selfish as to desert or neglect Jacob in his distress. I went with my mother this evening to see Lady de Brantefield; her ladyship was still at her relation’s, Lady Warbeck’s house, where she had apartments to herself, in which she could receive what company she pleased. There was to be a ball in the house this evening, but Lady de Brantefield never mixed in what she called idle gaieties; she abhorred a bustle, as it infringed upon her personal dignity, and did not agree with her internal persuasion that she was, or ought to be, the first object in all company. We found her ladyship in her own retired apartment; her eyes were weak, and the room had so little light in it, that when we first went in, I could scarcely distinguish any object: I saw, however, a young woman, who had been reading to her ladyship, rise as we entered, put down her book, and prepare to retire. My mother stopped her as she was passing, and turning to me, said, that this was a young person, she was sure, I should be glad to see, the daughter of an old friend of mine.
I looked, and saw a face which awakened the most painful associations of my childhood.
“Did not I perceive any likeness?” my mother continued. “But it was so many years since I had seen poor Fowler, and I was so very young a child, no wonder I should not in the least recollect.”
I had some recollection—if I was not mistaken—I stammered—I stopped. In fact, I recollected too well to be able to pay the expected compliment. However, after I had got over the first involuntary shudder, I tried to say something to relieve the embarrassment which I fancied the girl must feel.
She, in a mincing, waiting-gentlewoman’s manner, and with a certain unnatural softness of voice, which again brought all the mother to my mind, assured me that if I’d forgot her mother, she had not forgot me; for that she’d often and often heard her mother talk of me, and she was morally confident her mother had never loved any child so doatingly, except, to be sure, her own present lady’s, Lady Anne Mowbray. Her mother had often and often regretted she could never get a sight or sentence of me since I grew up to be a great gentleman, she always having been stationary down at my lady’s, in Surrey, at the Priory—housekeeper—and I never there; but if I’d have the condescension to wish to gratify her mother, as it would be the greatest gratification in life—if Lady de Brantefield—
“Presently, perhaps—when I ring,” said Lady de Brantefield, “and you, Nancy Fowler, may come back yourself with my treble ruffles: Mrs. Harrington, I know, will have the goodness to permit. I keep her as much under my own eye, and suffer her to be as much even in the room with me, as possible,” added Lady de Brantefield, as Nancy left the room; “for she is a young person quite out of the common line, and her mother i—but you first recommended her to me, Mrs. Harrington, I remember.”
“The most faithful creature!” said my mother, in the very tone I had heard it pronounced twenty years before.
I was carried back so far, so forcibly, and so suddenly, that it was some time before I could recover myself sufficiently to recollect what was the order of the day; but no matter—my mother passed on quite easily to the jewels, and my silence was convenient, and had an air of perfect deference for Lady de Brantefield’s long story of Sir Josseline’s ring, now told over, I believe, for the ninety-ninth time this season. She ended where she began, with the conviction that, if the secretary of state would, as he ought, on such an occasion, grant a general search-warrant, as she was informed had been done for papers, and things of much less value, her ring would be found in that Jacob’s possession—that Jacob, of whom she had a very bad opinion!
I took the matter up as quietly as was in my nature, and did not begin with a panegyric on my friend Jacob, but simply asked, what reason her ladyship had for her very bad opinion of him?
Too good reason, her ladyship emphatically said: she had heard her son, Lord Mowbray, express a very bad opinion of him.