“I am thinking that something must be done for you,” said Mary. “Lilias, I think it would be better for you to go away from home for a while.”
“Yes,” said Lilias. “I am almost beginning to think so myself. But I don’t see how to manage it, unless I advertise as a governess. We seem to have no friends.”
“By-the-bye,” said Mary, “that reminds me. Those Miss Morpeths at Uxley were talking about some Brookes who they think must be cousins of mother. I meant to have asked her about them, but I forgot.”
“They’re not likely to be much good to us, even if they are cousins of ours,” said Lilias, half bitterly. “None of mother’s rich relations have troubled themselves about her.”
And no more was said about the possible cousins just then.
A few days passed. Mary got back into home ways, from which even so short an absence as that of her visit to Uxley seemed to have separated her, and all was much as it had been before—much as it had been before that Sunday, now more than six months ago, when the little party of strangers had disturbed the equanimity of the Hathercourt congregation—before the still more fatal afternoon when Arthur Beverley had come over to see the Rector on business, and in his absence had stayed to tea with his wife and daughters in the Rectory drawing-room—much the same, but oh, how different! thought Lilias, wearily, as she tried her best to look as cheerful as of old—to take the same interest in daily life and its occurrences, which to a healthy mind is never wanting, however monotonous the daily life may be. She succeeded to some extent; she made herself believe that, at least, her trials were kept to herself, and allowed to shadow no other’s horizon. But she was mistaken. Her mother began to hope her child was “getting over it;” her father, who had but dimly suspected that anything was wrong, felt dimly relieved to hear her laugh, and joke, and tease as usual again; Alexa and Josey had their own private confabulations on the subject, deciding that either their eldest sister was a heartless flirt, or that, “between themselves, you know,” everything was satisfactorily arranged, though for some mysterious reason for a time to be kept secret, as any way it was clearly to be seen “that Lily was not in low spirits.” Only Mary, ignorant as she was and professed herself to be of all such misfortunes as are involved by falling in or out of love, was undeceived.
“Lilias is trying her best, but she is breaking her heart all the same,” she said to herself. “If only I could get her away for a while among new people and new scenes, there might be a chance for her.”
In the end it was kind Mrs Greville again who came to the rescue, and that, to Mary’s great relief, without any intervention of hers. Her one piece of concealment from Lilias had cost her dear; she had no wish to try again any independent action. What Mrs Greville did or did not suspect, Mary could not tell, but had their kindly friend known all, she could not have acted with greater consideration and tact. She was going to town for a fortnight, she wrote, most unexpectedly, to consult a famous doctor about some new symptoms in her husband’s chronic complaint. She was hopeful, yet fearful of the result. Should it be unfavourable, she would find it hard to “keep up” before her husband, away from home and all her friends. Would Mrs Western spare one of the girls to go with them and not exactly limit the time of her absence, as in case the doctor thought well of Mr Greville they might go on to Hastings, or somewhere for a month? Lilias, or Mary either, would be of the greatest comfort to her, but if she might venture to say so—Mary was too sensible to be offended—she would, if anything, prefer Lilias. She was such a special favourite of Mr Greville, and it was he, of course, who was to be the one most considered just now.
“Well, girls?” said Mrs Western, inquiringly, for there was silence when Mrs Greville’s note was first read in the conclave of three. Silence on Lilias’s part of mingled relief and repugnance. On Mary’s part the silence of caution, of fear lest her intense anxiety that Lilias should fall in with Mrs Greville’s proposal should injure its own cause by impulsive advocacy. “Well girls?”
“I think Mary had better go,” said Lilias.