“Perhaps you are right,” she said, rallying her forces; “but—you won’t mind my speaking frankly? Nobody else has thought so, Mrs. Norton. He has seemed to entertain very different thoughts. I, for my part, have been quite deceived. I hope you will forgive me for saying so, but I have been watching Mr. Pandolfini very much of late, and I never suspected it was Sophy that was in his mind.”
Mrs. Norton smiled with gentle superiority. “I don’t know what you expect me to say, Mrs. Hunstanton. I have seen it, as I tell you, all along; and he must know best himself, one would suppose. When a gentleman proposes to a young lady, people do not usually set up their ideas of what they expected. He is the one that must know best.”
“I know—I know:” said Mrs. Hunstanton, driven to despair, and to a humility not at all in her way. What was there to answer to such a reasonable statement? She could not ask directly whether it was her husband who had done it all, and if it was only his word they had for Pandolfini’s sentiments. She was thoroughly wretched, and thoroughly subdued. “Have you seen him this evening?” she asked, faltering. That was the nearest approach she could make to the question she was longing to ask.
“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Norton, with smiling confidence. “He was with us just before we came here, and he was so sorry not to come with us. Knowing as he does our obligations to Diana, and feeling all her kindness, it quite grieved him not to come.”
“To Diana!” Mrs. Hunstanton repeated the words mechanically, catching them up without any clear comprehension of what the other said. Then she said, somewhat incoherently, “But you must have been startled, at least surprised, yourself—it must have taken you by surprise.”
“On the contrary,” said Mrs. Norton, meeting with a serene countenance the eyes full of care and trouble which her companion turned upon her, “I have already told you I had expected it all along.”
The inquirer withdrew baffled, with trembling lips and a clouded brow, leaving the little woman victorious. Mrs. Hunstanton was not used to such utter discomfiture, and bore it badly. She withdrew into a corner near the door. Perhaps Pandolfini would come after all, and she might waylay him, though she did not see what end would be served by so doing; for how could she ask him if it was true that it was Sophy and no other who was his choice? But Pandolfini did not come to answer any of these questions. He had never stayed away before.
The little community was convulsed by the news, but ended by accepting it, as what else was possible? It was not the first time that a community has been utterly taken by surprise by the announcement of a marriage. The small coterie at Pisa went through all the not unusual round of refusing to credit the report, being compelled to believe it, accepting it under protest, then forgetting the protest, and taking the matter for granted. At first it was supposed that the whole party would hasten home to prepare for an English wedding; but by-and-by it was rumoured about that Pandolfini did not wish to go to England for his bride, and that as there was nothing to wait for, the marriage would take place in Pisa, and the bride enter at once her Italian home. Some people wondered at this, some thought it very sensible, some were surprised at the ardour of the middle-aged lover, and some at the readiness of the girl’s friends to let her go; but, on the whole, it was quite reasonable, and the English visitors, who were all on the wing, were much amused by the excitement of such an unexpected event. They were doubly amused by the fact that Mrs. Hunstanton, under whose auspices the Nortons had appeared in society, was evidently disturbed, rather than pleased, by the marriage; and that Sophy’s great friend and patroness, the rich Miss Trelawny, did not throw herself into the arrangements with any enthusiasm.
And, of course, there were not wanting good-natured bystanders who averred that these ladies were disappointed, and that Miss Trelawny had intended the Italian for herself. Diana was but little disturbed, as may be supposed, by these insinuations, which, indeed, she never heard of; but she was disturbed by the complication of affairs, which she could not refuse to see through, now when it was fairly beneath her eyes.
Pandolfini was a very strange lover. He had become suddenly immersed in business—so much occupied that his visits to his betrothed were always hurried and brief. This was made necessary, he told them, by all the changes that had to be made, and successions rearranged, in consequence of this unexpected step in his life: and they were fain to accept the explanation. The strangest of all was, that notwithstanding that deep sense of obligation to Diana which it was Mrs. Norton’s delight to set forth, he never appeared in Diana’s rooms again. Once only they met by chance in Mrs. Norton’s little drawing-room, when all was nearly settled. He came in hurriedly, seeking Mrs. Norton, whom Diana also, by some unusual chance, had come to look for; and there they met alone, for both of the little ladies were out engaged in that occupation of shopping which furnishes the unoccupied female mind with so many delightful hours. Pandolfini was struck dumb by the sight of Diana, and she, as she hastened to explain how she came to be there, was so startled by his altered looks as almost to break down in her little speech. “They are out,” she said hurriedly; “I had just come to look for them.” And then she paused, faltering—“You are—ill—Mr. Pandolfini?”