Thus Mrs. de Burgh hurried on with affectionate alacrity, without giving Mary time to renew her reproaches or complaints, but by the tears which from her overcharged heart the poor girl still silently continued to shed.
Mrs. de Burgh did not mind those tears; she rather considered them a favourable sign. Had Mary appeared before her after the meeting into which she well knew she had been surprised—cold, calm, stern, silently upbraiding, she would have feared then for the success of the cause in which she was engaged.
But judging from herself, tears in her sex's eyes were marks of conscious weakness, and the melting mood of feeling rather than of any firmness or serious effect upon the mind; therefore with secret complacency she watched and awaited the close of her gentle cousin's agitated paroxysm of emotion. Then she had strong tea brought, of which she insisted upon her drinking, overwhelming Mary with care and tenderness, in the meantime sending for the children to stay a few moments to divert her thoughts, and restore her by their innocent presence to a more natural state of thought and feeling. Then, after partaking herself of some dinner, which Mary declined to share, she saw her guest ensconced in a comfortable arm-chair by the fire, looking very pale, it was true, and eyes bright only from nervous excitement, but her feelings apparently tranquillised and soothed; then struck bravely forth upon the anxious theme.
With tact, skill, and eloquence which would have graced a better cause, Mrs. de Burgh pleaded in her favourite's behalf—favouritism, alas! we fear drawing its source from principles doing little honour to the object of her partiality, and justifying still less the restless zeal with which she strove to forward a cause, in which the fate of a good and innocent being was so closely implicated.
But though "her tongue dropped manna and could make the worst appear the better reason," the time was past when the willing ear of the auditor could be thus beguiled. She had no longer to deal with the too credulous and easy-to-be-persuaded Mary of other days, but one with eyes too tremblingly awake, and ears too powerfully quickened, to the discernment of falsity from the truth.
Each specious statement rang false and hollow on her unpersuaded mind, touching not one atom of that weight of inward conviction which, alas! had been too firmly rooted there, for aught but the touch of genuine truth to undermine; and when, with her face buried in her hands, she listened with suspended respiration to the story of the brother's madness, which flowed so glibly from those eager, fluent lips, little Mrs. de Burgh deemed now every word thus uttered served but more forcibly to confirm the fearful impression which the simple-motived Jane had made upon her listener's mind.
"And then poor man," Mrs. de Burgh, continued, "after frightening the old man out of his wits by his violence, he fled from the house and hid himself no one knew where. Poor Eugene's anxiety on his behalf was extreme; but of course, as he supposed him to have gone abroad, all researches were taken on the wrong track. There is no one to vouch for the condition of his mind during that interval—when he came to your part of the world it seems that he had pretty well recovered."
Thus had Mrs. de Burgh concluded her plausible relation, pausing not a little, anxious for the effect produced upon her ominously silent auditor. Mary then lifted up her eyes, and with an expression upon her face, the fair Olivia did not know exactly how to understand, replied:
"Yes, he came to us, appearing like some being of a higher sphere, and in accordance with Mr. Wynne's earnest persuasion (Mr. Wynne, a man whose keen and sensitive discernment it would have been difficult to deceive) settled down amongst us at once—unmistakably endued with every attribute which bespeaks the spirit of wisdom and a sound mind. He had spent the winter at ——, and often spoke of the solitary life he led whilst at that wild spot. Since that time we have frequently visited the Lake; and very far seemed the idea of madness to have entered the minds of the poor simple people of the place, in connection with that 'great and noble gentleman,' as they called him, who, to their pride and profit, had taken up his abode amongst them for a time. Then he went to ----, and there he was taken very ill at the inn. The landlady and the doctor, who are both familiar to us, never had but one simple idea respecting the nature of his malady. He came to us with the signs of past suffering stamped too plainly on his countenance—suffering which, in such a man, appeared but to exalt and sanctify the sufferer in the eyes of those who beheld him.
"But all this would bear little on the point, were it not for the surer testimony which not myself only, but the many who for five years lived in daily witness of the calm excellency of his life and conduct—the undoubted strength and clearness of his mind and understanding are able to produce. Tell the poorest and most ignorant of the little flock, amongst whom Mr. Eustace Trevor (their beloved Mr. Temple) so familiarly endeared himself, that he—who even, though interchange of language was scarcely permitted between them, they had learned to venerate as some almost supernatural being—that his mind had been ever overthrown by an infirmity which had banished him from society, from his friends; and they would laugh to scorn the imputation, and say 'that the world rather must be mad, that imagined such an absurdity against him.'"