“Oh, work, child! what do you mean by work?” cried Lady Augusta, driven to her wits’ end. “Home is surely better than the ‘House,’ as you call it, and I am sure Ada and I find plenty to do at home. Why cannot you do as we do?”
“Perhaps because Ada and you do it all,” said Gussy, unmoved by that despairing appeal which the old is always making to the new. Why cannot you do as we do?
Poor Lady Augusta! It was she who had to give in, not her daughter. And you may easily understand, dear reader, how such a good mother was affected by the break-down of all her elder hopes—Ada, Helena, Gussy. Her three eldest children—all failures! What a heart-breaking thought it was to a woman of fashion, surrounded by contemporaries who had married their daughters well, and whom no man could reproach as negligent of their highest duties! She would wake sometimes in the middle of the night, and ask herself was it her fault? Had she put foolish notions into the heads of the girls? Certainly on the Thornleigh side there were no “views” nor “crotchets;” and Lady Augusta was aware that she herself had accomplished her own fate, not altogether because she preferred it, and had, perhaps, smothered personal predilections, which her children showed no inclination to smother. “Why cannot they do as I did?” she would say in her heart, with a sigh.
But now at last a moment had come, in which her natural cares were rewarded. When Lord Granton proposed for Mary, her mother had almost cried with joy. For the first time here was a satisfactory—a completely satisfactory conclusion. So unexceptionable a young man, such a title, such estates, and a family which any girl might be proud to enter! The delight was all the sweeter from being so long deferred, so sadly missed. She forgave Helena her bad match, and Gussy and Ada their no matches at all, in the exhilaration of this happy moment. All her little grievances and grudges vanished in the sudden flood of sunshine. She was reconciled to all the world, even to Helena’s husband, the Professor, over whom, too, a heavenly radiance would be flung, when he was brother-in-law to a marquis. Poor Lady Augusta! In the full height of her exhilaration she betook herself to Tottenham’s to send the good news to her sister, feeling that now at least, perhaps for the first time, there was no trouble to lessen her happiness; and there she encountered, without any warning, Edgar! Heaven help her! a man still more objectionable, because more hopelessly penniless than Helena’s professor, a man without a name, without a shilling, without a connection! but whom Gussy, her favourite daughter, was ready, she knew, to follow to the end of the world. When she drove out to the rural Tottenham’s after this, to tell her sister the story of Mary’s engagement, is it wonderful that her agitated mind should have poured forth all its mingled strain of joy, tribulation, content, and alarm? The wholly joyful part of her budget was soon swallowed up in the revelation of her fears about Gussy, and in the reproaches she could not quite restrain. Why had her sister so added to her burdens, by this injudicious, this uncalled-for interference in Edgar’s fortunes? He was not so friendless, Lady Augusta protested, half indignant, half weeping, that they, of all the world, should have rushed into the breach, and taken him up—bringing him even into their house, where he could not fail to see Gussy one time or other. And then the anxious mother cried, and told her sister that she had no confidence in Gussy. In Edgar she had every confidence; he had promised never to thrust himself into her way; but Gussy had made no such promise, and her mother did not even dare to speak to her on the subject, knowing that she would be met by unanswerable arguments. Thus the two ladies, talking over the whole matter, fell into a not unnatural snare, and resolved to confide in Edgar, and trust to him to keep Gussy, as well as himself, right—not foreseeing how that confidence would change to him the whole aspect of affairs. When Ada heard how far her mother’s revelations had gone, and of the step Lady Mary was commissioned to take, she did not give it her approval, as Lady Augusta had hoped, but looked very grave, and doubted much the wisdom of the proceeding. “He promised never to stand in my way,” Lady Augusta said, much depressed by her privy-councillor’s disapproval. “But he did not promise for Gussy—what right would he have to undertake for Gussy?” said Ada, shaking her head. It was an idea which had not entered her mother’s mind, for Lady Augusta had that kind of confidence in Edgar, as of a man born to set everything right, which women, especially when surrounded by practical difficulties, are so ready to place in an ideal man. He had never objected to her commands hitherto; why should he now? Nevertheless, when Ada disappeared, Lady Augusta began to quake lest she should have done more harm than good.
“We must try to get something for him to do,” she said, faltering, “something abroad. Notwithstanding all those absurd new arrangements, people of influence can still command situations abroad, I hope, if they choose to take the trouble. I shall speak to Lord Millboard, Ada; and I am sure Granton, dear fellow, would take any trouble, if he knew how important it was.”
“Because he is happy himself, to prevent poor Gussy from being happy?” said Ada. “Oh, I am not saying anything against it, mamma. I suppose it will have to be.”
“Of course it will have to be,” said her mother, “you are all very unkind—you girls. Not one of you has exerted herself as I had a right to expect. Do you think that I thought of nothing but pleasing myself when I married? And who has lost the most in losing Edgar? Well, Gussy, you may say, in one way; but I too. What a help he would have been to me! so kind and so understanding. Oh, Ada! if you knew how much it goes against my heart to shut him out. But it must be; what would your father—what would every one say?”
To this, Ada could return but little answer, except to murmur something about “leaving it in the hands of Providence,” which was not so consolatory to Lady Augusta as it was meant to be.
“It is all very well to say, leave it to Providence!” cried that much tried mother, “if you had lived as long as I have, Ada, you would have found that all the most inconvenient things that happen in the world are said to be brought about by Providence—especially in the way of marriages. No, we must take precautions; Gussy must not go near Tottenham’s while he is there; and I’ll tell you what I will do. Harry is at home doing nothing particular, and probably quarrelling with your poor papa, who has so much to vex him. I have just been wondering how they could possibly get on with all of us away. I will write and tell him to offer himself to your aunt Mary for a visit.”
“Harry! what good will Harry do?” asked Ada, wondering.