She had accompanied her father to one or the rare entertainments he honoured with his presence, and finding herself at dinner very “stupidly” placed—her neighbour on the right being a discontented gourmand, (terrible conjunction! a good-natured gourmand being barely endurable), and he on the left a “highest” church curate, a class with whom she could never, unlike most young ladies, succeed in “getting on” as it is called—she gave them both up in despair, and amused herself by listening to the snatches of conversation that reached her ears.
Suddenly a name caught her attention.
“Severn, did you say? Oh yes, I know whom you mean. He was out there before; at A——, I mean. A peculiar person, is he not? A great linguist, or philologist, I should say. So he is going out again, you say?”
“So Sir Archibald told me just before he left. ‘I expect to have my old vice out again in a few months, when Cameron returns,’ was what he said. I take some interest in it, as my son and his wife are thinking of spending next winter out there, for her health.”
“Oh, indeed!” was the reply in the first voice, and then the conversation diverged to other topics.
It was very strange! What could be the meaning of it? It must be the same “Severn” they spoke of; the description suited, exactly. This did not look like marrying Florence Vyse! Marion thought it over till her brain was weary, looked at it first in one light, then in another; the final result of her cogitations being the letter to Cissy alluded to above. It was now about the middle of June. By the end of the month she was hoping to hear of Cissy’s arrival in India; by the end of September, at latest, she calculated she might receive an answer to her present letter.
This done, she felt more at rest than had been the case with her for many a day. It seemed to her she had acted wisely in allowing no false dignity to stand between her and the man she loved and trusted so entirely, and on the other hand the step she had taken in no way infringed the delicate boundary of her maidenly reserve, in after life need cause her no blush to look back upon.
Harry’s vacation was at hand, and he was looking forward with eager delight to spending it in her society. Marion resolved that he should not be disappointed of his anticipated pleasure. “The end of September,” she set before herself as a sort of goal, till then resolving to the utmost of her power to set aside her personal anxieties, and enjoy the present. Nor were her endeavours vain. Harry and she had never been happier together than during these holidays, and she herself unconsciously regained much of her usual health and elasticity both of mind and body.
A fortnight, by their father’s orders, was spent at Brighton. Here, one day, Altes and its precious associations were suddenly brought to her mind. Harry and she were strolling on the sands, when a voice beside her made her start.
“Could it be, is it then posseeble that I have the plaisir to look at Mees Feere?” It could be none other than Monsieur de l’Orme. He indeed it was, as large, or rather as small as life, got up in what he considered a perfectly unexceptionable English costume, the details of which can be better imagined than described. Poor little man! He was so inexpressibly delighted with himself and every one else, that his gaiety was infectious.