IN consequence of the family dinner at Mrs. Baxter’s, and the impression there made upon the master of the house by the discovery of Mrs. Baldwin’s antecedents, that young lade received the honour of morning calls from some half dozen, more or less distinguished, Millington matrons. For a short time indeed, Marion ran some chance of becoming the fashion, but as the prospect was not a tempting one and the horrors of being patronised did not diminish on nearer view, she managed, quietly, though without giving offence, to let her new acquaintances understand that she and her husband were of one mind as to the expediency of living in a perfectly retired manner.
“Quite out of the world,” Mrs. Baxter called it, and though Marion smiled inwardly at the Millington lady’s notion of society, she had the good sense to say nothing which could have uselessly irritated the wife of Geoffrey’s superior.
“Nor indeed would it be right not to seem to appreciate what they think so attractive,” said she to her husband, “for after all, though our ways of looking at things may be utterly different, they are in their own way worthy people, and I suppose they mean to be kind to us.”
“I suppose they do,” said Geoffrey, “but I couldn’t stand many of those dreadfully heavy dinners. Even if we could afford the cabs, which we can’t.”
“In the bottom of her heart I think Mrs. Baxter is by no means sorry that we have decided against ‘visiting,’ ” said Marion. “I can’t make her out. She has been so wonderfully civil to me since we dined there, notwithstanding the dreadful revelation of my teaching Mrs. Allen’s boys. But yet I am certain she is not sincere in so urging us to accept her friend’s invitations.”
“She is a nasty little cat,” said Geoffrey; “she’s ready to scratch your eyes out because old Baxter has gone about praising you. He’s an old goose, (not for admiring you, I don’t mean that) but he talks in such an absurd pompous way. All the same, he’s a long way better than his wife, for he’s honest and she’s not. What a nice girl that little niece was we met there! The tall thin girl I mean.”
“Very,” assented Marion, and then her thoughts recurred to what had been little absent from them for some days—the tidings which had so strangely reached her of gentle Sybil’s death. She had not told Geoffrey about it. He had never heard any particulars of her life at Altes, and had she told him any she must have told him all, which on the whole she felt convinced was better not.
There was nothing really to be concealed, nothing of which she was ashamed. Years hence, some day when they had left all the past further behind, she would perhaps tell him the whole story. But not just yet. She had wounded him once so deeply, that even now, there were times at which she doubted if all was thoroughly healed; though for the last six months each day had but served to draw them closer together, in a way that, but for their loss of wealth, it might have taken years to achieve.
They were very happy together. Still, Geoffrey was at times dull and depressed almost to morbidness, and though Marion, correctly enough, attributed these moody fits greatly to outside circumstances, she yet could not but fear that to some extent they arose from misgivings as to her happiness, exaggerated self-reproach for what he had brought upon her.
At such times she found it best to ignore, in great measure, his depression. Protestations of affection did not come naturally to her, nor would they have convinced him of what, if he did doubt it, time alone would prove genuine. Her devotion to him in practical matters at such times even seemed to deepen his gloom.