CHAPTER X.
"Never, my dear, was honour yet undone By love, but by indiscretion!"
Cowley.
It was the second day of the three which were being devoted to the coming-of-age festivities of Lord Pendragon, and Miss Berwick had asked herself to lunch at Halnakeham Castle. Because of the great ball which was to take place that evening, this day was regarded by the Duchess and the more sober of her guests as an off-day—one in which there was to be a lull in the many old-fashioned jollifications and junketings which were being given in honour of the son of the house.
The Duchess of Appleby and Kendal had been a very good friend to Arabella and to her brother, and that over long years. Owing to a certain inter-marriage between her own family and that of the Berwicks, she chose to consider them as relations, and as such had consistently treated them. She was fond of James, and believed in his political future. Arabella she respected and admired: both respect and admiration having sure foundations in a fact which had come to the Duchess's knowledge in the days when she was still young, still slender, and still, so she sometimes told herself with a sigh, enthusiastic! This fact had been the sacrifice by Arabella Berwick of the small fortune left her by her parents, in order that some debts of her brother's might be paid.
At the present moment James Berwick was actually staying at the Castle, and his sister had asked herself to lunch in order, if possible to see, and if not, to hear, on what terms he found himself with that one of his fellow guests whom his hostess, knowing what she did know of Arabella's fears, should not have allowed him to meet under her roof.
To Miss Berwick's discomfiture, Louise Marshall was at lunch, more tragic, more mysterious in her manner, alas! more lovely, in her very modified widow's dress, than ever; but Arabella's brother, so her host informed her when they were actually seated at table, had gone over for the day to Chillingworth! This meant that the sister had had a four-mile drive for nothing—a drive, too, which was to be repeated that same evening, for the whole of the Fletchings party, even Lord Bosworth, were coming to the ball.
One of the most curious of human phenomena met with by the kindly and good-hearted who are placed by Providence in positions of importance and responsibility, is the extreme willingness shown by those about them to profit by that same kindliness and good-heartedness—joined to a keen disapproval when those same qualities are exercised on behalf of others than themselves!
There had been a time when the Duchess's rather culpable good-nature, strengthened by her real affection for the two young people concerned, had been of the utmost service to Arabella Berwick—when, indeed, without the potent help of Halnakeham Castle, Miss Berwick would have been unable to achieve what had then been, not only the dearest wish of her heart, but one of the utmost material moment—the marriage of her brother to the great heiress whose family had hoped better things for her than a union with Lord Bosworth's embarrassed though brilliant nephew and heir.