Of all these things Mrs. Trebasson encouraged Mr. Mortomley to speak as she would have encouraged any former Mortomley to talk of his hunters, his hounds, his library, or anything else in which he took delight; and Mortomley, flattered and pleased, talked of his plans and hopes with the simplicity of a boy, and further, as the intimacy grew closer, told the old lady about his lonely home, his lack of all near relatives, the love he had borne for his mother, and the tender respect, the unquestioning admiration, the devoted affection he had felt for his father—a Mortomley every inch—though a Mortomley of The Place no more.
And Miss Trebasson, in her plain nun-like dress, her beauty unheightened by decking or jewel, sat by and listened; and Mortomley never knew he had spoken to such purpose of himself and his surroundings, that the daughter had given him her heart and the mother was willing to give him her daughter before his holiday came to an end. But it was not to be. Had that ever been, this story must have remained unwritten. With Leonora Trebasson for his wife, it is quite certain Mortomley never would, whether ill or well, successful or defeated, have been permitted to make the awful fiasco of delivering himself, hair-shorn, strength gone, into the hands of the Philistines. There are wives and wives; and Mortomley, people said, was not fortunate in the choice of his. Spite of her almost judicial wisdom, other people thought Miss Trebasson had not been fortunate in the choice of her dearest friend. Perhaps for a time she thought so herself, when she found that friend had bound Mortomley to her chariot wheels. Perhaps for one night her heart did feel very bitter towards her inseparable companion; but if this were so, she was too essentially just to allow her disappointment to overpower her reason. If her eyes had been unclouded by prejudice, she would have understood long before, that although Dolly Gerace was not apparently possessed of a single quality likely to win a man like Mortomley, yet in reality she was precisely the sort of girl a keen observer would have prophesied certain to attract him.
And yet so little observant had she been that the truth came upon her like the stab of a sharp knife, and so little observant had Mrs. Trebasson been that she actually encouraged Dolly to visit the Court more frequently than ever during Mr. Mortomley's stay in the neighbourhood to act as a foil—so the would-be worldly old lady thought—to her own stately and beautiful daughter.
From which remarks it will readily be concluded that Dolly Gerace was no beauty; further, that she was not merely destitute of good looks, but that she had several undesirable points about her.
These things were the case. Dolly had not a good feature in her face. In person she was small, slight, insignificant; mentally, she was an utter anomaly to those who came in contact with her; while in more serious matters, though born in a Christian land of Christian parents—having been duly baptized and confirmed—being the daughter of a clergyman, and the only living child of a most truly good woman, Dolly was as thorough a little heathen as if she had called a squaw mother—and a brave father.
More so indeed, for then she would have had some settled idea of a certain code of morals and religion.
As matters stood, Dolly, for all she seemed to reverence or respect anything, might have been her own Creator—her own all in all.
Not that any one could accuse her of flippancy, irreverence, undue selfishness, or habitual ill-humour.
She had a want of something, rather than an excess of any evil quality; indeed she had no evil quality, unless an occasional tendency to flame up could be so considered. But then she never flamed up except when her equanimity had been long and sorely tried, and the usual happy brightness of her temper was pleasant as sunshine—as music—as the songs of birds—as the perfume of flowers.
Long before Mortomley came upon the scene, Miss Trebasson had exercised her mind upon the subject of Dolly Gerace.