“Oh,” remarked Rosalind shortly. “Is he, indeed!” She tried to say she was rejoiced to hear it, but her lips refused to form the lie, for Peggy’s words had been so many daggers in her heart. Arthur would be “relieved,” he was in “good spirits,” he was coming down to enjoy himself in the country in company with. Eunice Rollo! Could anything be more wounding to the vanity which made her treasure the idea of broken-hearted grief? Once more Rosalind called Peggy cruel in her heart, and Peggy mentally justified her harshness by reminding herself that the knowledge of Arthur’s fortitude would do more towards turning Rosalind’s heart toward her fiancé than a volume of moral reflections. Some slave to worship and adore, she must possess, and if she could no longer think of Arthur in that position, so much the more chance that she would appreciate his successor. No more was said on the subject, and in a few minutes Rosalind rose to say good-bye and take her way to the vicarage.
“For I must congwatulate Esther!” she said, laughing.
“That is to say, if I can contwive to do it without laughing outwight. It is too widiculous to think of Esther being mawwied! She is a born old maid, and I hear he is quite old, nearly forty, with grey hair and spectacles and a stoop to his back. He teaches, doesn’t he, or lectures or something, and I suppose he is as poor as a church mouse. What in the world induced the silly girl to accept him?”
“Look in her face and see!” said Peggy shortly. “And don’t waste your pity, Rosalind, for it is not required. Professor Reid is as big a man in his own way as Lord Everscourt himself; and from a worldly point of view Esther is making a good match. That, however, is not what her face will tell you. They are going to be married in October, and Mellicent and I are to be bridesmaids.”
“And drive to church in a village fly, and come back to a scwamble meal in the dining-woom! Pwesents laid out on the schoolwoom table, and all the pawishioners cwowding together in the dwawingwoom. I can’t just imagine a vicarage marriage, and how you have the courage to face it, Mawiquita, I weally can’t think!” cried Rosalind, in her most society drawl. “You must be my bwidesmaid, dear, and I’ll pwomise you a charming gown and a real good time into the bargain. I’m determined it shall be the smartest affair of the season!”
Peggy murmured a few non-committal words, and Rosalind floated away, restored to complacency by the contrast between the prospect of her own wedding and that of poor old Esther. They would indeed be different occasions; and so thought Peggy also, as she stood watching her friend depart, contrasting her lovely restless face with Esther’s radiant calm, and the gloomy town residence of Lord Darcy with the breezy country vicarage.
The next morning at breakfast Colonel Saville discussed the coming weddings from an outsider’s point of view.
“Two presents!” he groaned. “That’s what it means to me, and pretty good ones too, I suppose, for everything has grown to such a pitch of extravagance in these days that one is expected to come down handsomely. When we were married we thought ourselves rich with twenty or thirty offerings, but now they are reckoned by hundreds, and the happy recipients have to employ detectives to guard their treasures. Esther, I suppose, will be content with a piece of silver, but we shall have to launch out for once, and give Miss Darcy something worthy of her position.”
“I think, dear, if we launch out at all it must be for Esther, not Rosalind. If I had my way, I should give some pretty trifle to Rosalind, who will be overdone with presents, and spend all we can spare on something really handsome for Esther,” said his wife gently; and Peggy cried, “Hear! Hear!” and banged such uproarious applause with her heels that the colonel felt himself hopelessly out-voted.
“If you had your way, indeed!” he grumbled, pushing his chair back from the table and preparing to leave the room. “When do you not get your way, I’d like to know? It’s a case of serving two masters with a vengeance, when a man has a wife and a grown-up daughter! Settle it to please yourselves, and don’t take any notice of me. I’m going out shooting, and won’t be home until tea-time, so you will have plenty of time to talk it over in peace and quietness!”