Chapter Twenty One.
Circumstances.
“I can’t give you her precise words,” said Mr Gresham. “And I don’t think what she said was exactly premeditated. We were talking about Cannes and the people there—it was, in fact, the first time I had seen the Worthings since meeting them there, and I have not seen them again. Something was said about the Lermonts, and Mrs Worthing expressed her surprise at finding that the—the Raynsworths were cousins of theirs. She ‘had never heard of them before; who were they? it seemed odd somehow.’ I reminded her that Mrs Marmaduke Headfort was a Miss Raynsworth, and that the young lady of the same name was her sister. And to my amazement, what do you think the woman said next?”
Michael murmured something unintelligible. Bernard proceeded:
“She looked at me curiously, and said, ‘Ah, that is just it—is she her sister?’ I stared, naturally, and then said, carelessly, ‘Do you mean that they are only half-sisters? Possibly so, though I scarcely think it; they are not the least like each other, however.’ She agreed, and if no more had been said I daresay I should have thought no more about it. But I saw by Mrs Worthing’s manner that there was something more to come, and so, as at the bottom of my heart I was interested, I said nothing to turn the subject or to shut her up.”
“H-m,” said Michael.
“She hesitated, and then she began again. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I was not thinking of their being only half-sisters, but sisters at all. There is something odd about that family, Mr Gresham, mark my words. I know as a fact—as a fact—that that girl does not always assume the position of Mrs Marmaduke Headfort’s sister. She has been recognised as figuring in a very different capacity.’ ‘What?’ said I. ‘Mother, or grandmother, perhaps?’ ‘It is no laughing matter,’ Mrs Worthing replied; and to give her her due she was serious enough. She had been very anxious about it, for Aline’s sake, as it appeared that the child had taken a tremendous fancy to—to Miss Raynsworth. And then she went on to say that her maid—a treasure, of course, who had been with her twenty years, and all that sort of thing—had seen and known that same girl as a servant. Where and when she did not say, and I would not ask, but she vouched for it. I laughed at it as an absurd piece of nonsense, and I am glad to believe that I quite took her in. She does not think she made any impression upon me. I made some upon her. I asked her on the face of it how such a thing was possible. She had seen the Lermonts—Miss Lermont above all, who is far from a silly woman—making much of their guest. I did not say, ‘You have only to look at the girl to see how thorough-bred she is.’ I thought it wiser not. I inferred, politely, of course, my surprise at a woman like Mrs Worthing condescending to listen to servants’ gossip. On the whole, so far as she is concerned, I am by no means dissatisfied with my diplomacy.”
“And what are you dissatisfied about then?” inquired Michael, drily.
Mr Gresham got up and walked towards the window, where he stood for a moment or two staring out in silence. Then, without facing his cousin, he began again.
“I scarcely like to tell you; you will be down upon me for giving a moment’s thought to it, but half confidences are no good.” And he went on to relate the curious and annoying episode which had occurred at the picnic, an episode which he confessed had been emphasised to him by Philippa’s extreme reluctance to having any notice taken of the lady’s-maid’s impertinence. “So you see,” he added, in conclusion, “I could not help putting two and two together, when Mrs Worthing made her extraordinary statement to me, otherwise I should probably have sent it quite out of my mind, as utterly absurd and contemptible nonsense, or, possibly as one of those extraordinary cases of personal resemblance which one does come across or hear of now and then.”
“And why not explain it in that way still?”