The winter passed, uneventfully enough on the whole. There was a flying visit from Lilias and her husband on their way back from Italy to the small country-house that was to be their home for the next two years; there were old Mr Brooke and Mrs Brabazon and the two schoolgirls, Alexa and Josey, for Christmas; there were, for Mary, very occasional glimpses of Bournemouth society; but with these exceptions her daily life was what many girls of her age would have considered very monotonous. She did not seem to find it so, however; she appeared, indeed, what Lilias called so “aggravatingly contented” that she owned to Arthur, with a sigh, that, after all, she greatly feared that the family prophecy about Mary was going to turn out true.
“At one-and-twenty,” she said, lugubriously, “she really seems to be steadily developing into an old maid.”
“Wait a little,” said Arthur. “Mrs Brabazon is determined to have her in town for some weeks. There is still hope of Mary’s proving to be not altogether superior to youthful vanities and frivolities.”
“Very little, I fear,” said Lilias, half smiling, half provoked.
Mrs Brabazon had her way—Mary did go to town, and, after her own fashion, enjoyed herself. She was generally liked, in some cases specially admired, but that was all. She gently repulsed all approach to anything more, and, though grateful to Mrs Brabazon, perplexed her by her calm equability in the midst of a life novel and exciting enough to have turned a less philosophical young head. If, indeed, it were “all philosophy,” thought Mary’s shrewd cousin, and not, to some extent, preoccupation?
One day towards the end of April—Mary had been six weeks in town—there came a letter from Bournemouth, asking her, if possible, to go to Hathercourt for a day or two, to make some arrangements preparatory to Mr and Mrs Western’s return there, “which,” wrote her mother, “no one but you, dear Mary, can see to satisfactorily, sorry as I am to interrupt your pleasant visit.”
Mrs Brabazon was somewhat put out. She had two or three specially desirable engagements for the next few days; but, though Mary heartily expressed her regret at the summons being, from her hostess’s point of view, thus ill-timed, she owned to herself rather enjoying the prospect than otherwise.
“I am an incurable country cousin, dear Mrs Brabazon,” she said; “you will have more satisfaction in every way with Alexa, if you are kind enough to take charge of her next year.”
“And where do you intend to be then?” said Mrs Brabazon, amused, in spite of herself, at Mary’s tone.
“I shall have retired to my own corner. I have always been told I should be an old maid,” said Mary, laughingly.