“If it is something papa has been telling you, I think Sir Charles knows already,” said Sara. Lady Motherwell gave her head an angry toss, and rang the bell violently. She took no farther notice of the girl whom she had professed to be so fond of. “Inquire if Sir Charles Motherwell is below,” she said. “Tell him I have ordered my carriage, and that his man is putting up his things. We are going in half an hour.”
It was at this moment the luncheon bell rang, and Sir Charles plunged wildly out into the woods. Perhaps the sound of the bell mollified Lady Motherwell. She was an old lady who liked luncheon. Probably it occurred to her that to have some refreshment before she left would do nobody any harm. Her son could not make any proposals at table under her very eyes; or perhaps a touch of human feeling came over her. “I meant to say we are going directly after luncheon,” she said, turning to Sara. “You will be very glad to get rid of us all, if Mr. Brownlow really means what he says.”
“Oh, yes, he means it,” said Sara, with a little smile of bitterness, “but it is always best to have luncheon first. I think you will find your son down stairs.”
“You seem to know,” said Lady Motherwell; “perhaps that is why we have had so little of your company this morning. The society of young men is pleasanter than that of old ladies like me.”
“The society of some young men is pleasant enough,” said Sara, unable to suppress the retort; and she stood aside and let her guest pass, sweeping in her long silken robes. Lady Motherwell headed the procession; and of the ladies who followed, two or three made little consoling speeches to Sara as they clustered after her. “It will not turn out half so bad as your papa supposes,” said one. “I don’t see that he had any need to tell. We have all had our losses—but we don’t go and publish them to all the world.”
“And if it should be as bad, never mind, Sara,” said another. “We shall all be as fond of you as ever. You must not think it hard-hearted if we go away.”
“Oh, Sara dear, I shall be so sorry to leave you; but he would not have told us,” said a third, “if he had not wanted us to go away.”
“I don’t know what you all mean,” said Sara. “I think you want to make me lose my senses. Is it papa that wants you to go away?”
“He told us he had lost a great deal of money, and perhaps he might be ruined,” said the last of all, twining her arm in Sara’s. “You must come to us, dear, if there is any breaking-up. But perhaps it may not be as bad as he says.”
“Perhaps not,” said Sara, holding up her head proudly. It was the only answer she made. She swept past them all to her place at the head of the table, with a grandeur that was quite unusual, and looked round upon her guests like a young queen. “Papa,” she said, at the top of her sweet young voice, addressing him at the other end of the table, “when you have unpleasant news to tell, you should not tell it before luncheon. I hope it will not hurt any body’s appetite.” This was all the notice she took of the embarrassing information that had thrown such a cloud of confusion over the guests. Mr. Brownlow, too, had recovered his calm. He had meant only to tell Lady Motherwell, knowing at the moment that her son was pleading his suit with Sara down stairs. He had told Sir Charles, and the news had but made him more eager; and, with a certain subtle instinct that came of his profession, Mr. Brownlow, that nobody might be able to blame him, went and told the mother too. It was Lady Motherwell’s amazed and indignant exclamations that spread the news. And now both he and the old lady were equally on tenter-hooks of expectation. They wanted to know what had come of it. Sara, for any thing they knew, might be Sir Charley’s betrothed at this moment. Mr. Brownlow, with a kind of hope, tried to read what was in his child’s face, and Lady Motherwell looked at her with a kind of despair. Sara, roused to her full strength, smiled and baffled them both.