Lady Elizabeth’s reply startled us all.
“He has no wife at present,” she said, “but I have good reason for asserting that he contemplates marriage at an early date, provided the lady of his choice condescends to accept him.”
“Condescends to accept him!” I knew very well what was the gist of Belle’s thoughts, as she sat with a sullen and dismayed face, without making even a pretense of eating the dainty fare which lay on her breakfast plate.
Who wouldn’t condescend to accept him? Wasn’t he nearly seventy years old? And wasn’t he likely to die ere many years were over, leaving his widow in the untrammeled possession of a title that would give her the entrée to any society? He was sure, too, to scrape and save all he could to provide for his widow after his death, and that would mean a considerable curtailment of the allowance which Lord Egreville looked for on his marriage. Besides, if the earl brought a countess to the castle, and Lord Egreville was asked to retire to the dower-house with his bride, her position would be by no means so imposing as she had expected it to be. Residence at the castle, as its nominal mistress, had been one of Lord Egreville’s special pleas when urging his suit, and, next to the acquisition of the secondary title, with the prospect of a succession to the primary one, had been one of her chief reasons for considering him much more of an eligible parti than her other suitors.
And then, oh, horror! suppose the earl’s new wife should be young! Suppose there should actually be a child born! Why Cyril would be still further despoiled to provide for the bringing up of the little brat. True, he could not be robbed of his prospective right to the earldom, as he was the eldest son. But an active fancy could easily picture no end of humiliations for him and his wife, if the foolish old earl were permitted to bring his infatuation for some pretty face into fruition.
That these thoughts flew through Belle’s brain in the sequence in which I have recorded them is more than I am able to vouch for. But I knew her temperament and disposition so well that I had no hesitation in guessing the direction of her reflections.
“I believe you are just saying all this to try me,” she said at last, looking up at Lady Elizabeth with a face from which she was trying to banish some of the shadows. “Now I come to think of it, he spends the greater part of his time with us, and if he were attracted by anybody in London, he would be more likely to seek her society than ours.”
Lady Elizabeth smiled very mysteriously, but did not vouchsafe a more explicit reply.
“Papa,” said Belle, impatiently, “suppose you look up from that stupid paper and take a little intelligent interest in what is going on around you. It’s perfectly exasperating to see you absorbed in an account of a shooting or fishing expedition, when the future of your eldest daughter is being discussed.”
“My eldest daughter, eh? To be sure, I have two daughters, but the future of one of them is considerably in embryo yet, I should imagine. And what do you wish me particularly to say?”