He told her the whole story, for he was not given to half confidences. What he had said, and how Marion had answered. In the girl’s replies Veronica discerned something deeper Geoffrey had discovered. They told of more than mere disinclination to think of her young guardian in any more tender relation. Girls of nineteen do not speak so bitterly as Marion had spoken to Geoffrey unless they have had, or fancied they have had, some very disappointing, heart trying experience reverse side of the picture of “that sort of thing,” as Miss Vere called it. These suspicions however were not new to Miss Temple, and she wisely kept them to herself. She confined her advice to Geoffrey to impressing upon him the extreme expediency of not allowing this unfortunate disclosure of his to make any difference in the relations hitherto existing between his ward and himself.
“It is not only expedient,” she said, “it is most distinctly your duty to let the poor child see that you were most thoroughly in earnest when you asked her, as you did, to forget all this, and think of you again ‘as a sort of another Harry.’ Think only of her very desolate position! Save for you and her young brother actually friendless in the world. You, Geoffrey, of all men, are the last to wish another to suffer for your inconsiderate conduct, as assuredly she would, if you allowed this to affect your friendship.”
To which Geoffrey replied that it was his most earnest wish that, at whatever cost to himself, Miss Vere should learn again to trust and rely on him, as she had done hitherto.
“I only fear,” he added, “that it will be impossible for her to do so. She said she should never feel comfortable with me again.”
“Oh, yes,” replied Veronica, “but when she said that she was startled and distressed. There is no fear but what she will soon be quite happy and at ease with you—learn probably to esteem you more highly than before, for she is the sort of girl thoroughly to appreciate manly generosity of the kind—if only you do not allow time for the unavoidable feeling of awkwardness at first, to stiffen into lasting coldness and constraint. Do not put off seeing her. If you can arrange with Margaret and Georgie Copley to ride to-morrow, I will ask them here to luncheon in the first place, so that you can avoid the embarrassment of a tête-à-tête just at the very first.”
Geoffrey thanked Veronica warmly and promised for the future implicitly to follow her advice.
So it came to pass that the following day, somewhat to her surprise, Marion received a note from Mr. Baldwin, saying that at the usual hour the Misses Copley escorted by himself would call for her at the Cross House; as they had arranged to have a good long ride out past Brackley village in the direction of the Old Abbey.
“I am glad he has made up his mind to be sensible, was Marion’s reflection. “Really he is very good, and I hope he will soon fall in love with somebody much nicer and prettier than I.”
When they met, Geoffrey look just the same as usual.
“In better spirits than ever,” the Copley girls pronounced him. Even Marion hardly detected the forcedness in his merriment, the want of ring in his usually irresistibly hearty laugh. He did his very utmost in his unselfish anxiety to set her thoroughly at ease. Only he could not help the crimson flush that would overspread his fair, boyish face when she addressed him specially, or when, once or twice, their hands came in contact as he arranged her reins or helped her in mounting and descending from the rather imposing attitude of Bessy’s back. Marion heartily wished the bay mare were a pony that day; for in a perverse spirit of independence she chose to attempt to mount by herself; which endeavour, as under the circumstances might have been predicted, resulted in utter failure, and an ignominious descent into—of all places in the world—Geoffrey Baldwin’s arms! Oh, how angry Marion was!