Sir George Tressady — Volume I

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

"Oh, George! it was so dark—I didn't see—I didn't know. George, will you have half an hour's talk with me after breakfast to-morrow? Oh, George, my dear boy, my dear boy! Your poor mammy understands!"

She laid one hand on his shoulder and, lifting her feather fan in the other, shook it with playful meaning in the direction whither Letty had departed.

George hastily withdrew himself. "Of course I will have a talk with you, mother. As for anything else, I don't know what you mean. But you really must let me go to bed; I am much too tired to talk now. Good-night."

Lady Tressady went back to her room, smiling but anxious.

"She has caught him!" she said to herself; "barefaced little flirt! It is not altogether the best thing for me. But it may dispose him to be generous, if—if I can play my cards."

Letty Sewell meanwhile had reached the quiet of a luxurious bedroom, and summoned her maid to her assistance. When the maid departed, the mistress held long counsel with herself over the fire: the general position of her affairs; what she desired; what other people intended; her will, and the chances, of getting it. Her thoughts dealt with these various problems in a skilled and business-like way. To a particular form of self-examination Letty was well accustomed, and it had become by now a strong agent in the development of individuality, as self-examination of another sort is said to be by other kinds of people.

She herself was pleasantly conscious of real agitation. George Tressady had touched her feelings, thrilled her nerves, more than—Yes! she said to herself decidedly, more than anybody else, more than "the rest." She thought of "the rest," one after the other—thought of them contemptuously. Yet, certainly few girls in her own set and part of the country had enjoyed a better time—few, perhaps, had dared so many adventures. Her mother had never interfered with her; and she herself had not been afraid to be "talked about." Dances, picnics, moonlight walks; the joys of outrageous "sitting-out," and hot rivalries with prettier girls; of impertinences towards the men who didn't matter, and pretty flatteries towards the men who did—it was all pleasant enough to think of. She could not reproach herself with having missed any chances, any opportunities her own will might have given her.

And yet—well, she was tired of it!—out of love altogether with her maiden state and its opportunities. She had come to Malford House in a state of soreness, which partly accounted, perhaps, for such airs as she had been showing to poor Mrs. Hawkins. During the past year a particular marriage—the marriage of her neighbourhood—had seemed intermittently within her reach. She had played every card she knew—and she had failed! Failed, too, in the most humiliating way. For the bride, indeed, was chosen; but it was not Letty Sewell, but one of Letty's girl-neighbours.

To-night, almost for the first time, she could bear to think of it; she could even smile at it. Vanity and ambition alone had been concerned, and to-night these wild beasts of the heart were soothed and placable.

Well, it was no great match, of course—if it came off. All that Aunt Watton knew about the Tressadys had been long since extracted from her by her niece. And with Tressady himself Letty's artless questions had been very effective. She knew almost all that she wished to know. No doubt Ferth was a very second-rate "place"; and, since those horrid miners had become so troublesome, his income as a coal-owner could not be what his father's had been—three or four thousand a year, she supposed—more, perhaps, in good years. It was not much.