“Well, my dear, at least he will be on the spot,” said Lady Augusta; and she breathed a long sigh, as if a weight had been taken off her mind. Any stop-gap, however imperfect, which takes, or seems to take, a responsibility off the mind, is enough to give a sense of relief to one so overborne by many businesses as Lady Augusta was. “And now, my dear, let us look over Mary’s patterns,” she said, drawing a chair towards Ada’s table, on which a mass of samples, of linen, silk, muslin, and every other fabric, known to human ingenuity, were lying, ticketed and arranged in packets. This was a little bit of pure enjoyment, which refreshed the anxious mother in the midst of all her cares.
I need not tell what commotion was made in the household when the news crept out and stole secretly from one girl to another, that Edgar had come back. Mary and Beatrice put their curly heads together over it, and the result was a communication to the young Granton, which effectually fortified him against making himself a tool of any of poor Lady Augusta’s schemings to get rid of the danger. These two were the children of the house, and the elder sisters paid but little attention to their innocent conspiracies. The elders were more interesting personages than little Mary and Bee, though Mary was a predestined marchioness, and there was no knowing what Bee might come to in the way of matrimonial elevation. There are people, no doubt, who will think the old maid of the family its least interesting member; but you, dear unknown friend, my gentle reader, are not of that complexion; and there may be others who will feel that Ada’s obscure life was a poor enough thing to settle down to, after all the hopes and all the disappointments of youth, both of which are more exciting and sustaining than the simple monotony of such a commonplace existence. I am not sure, however, for my own part, whether Ada’s soft self-renunciation never expressed in words, and her constant readiness in trouble, and the numberless frocks she made for her poor children—and even her mother’s meetings, though the family laughed at them—were half so bewildering an anti-climax to the high aspirations of youth as was Helena’s Professor, and the somewhat humdrum, if highly intellectual routine into which she had dropped with him. Helena, herself now and then, had a confused and giddy consciousness that ministering to a man’s comforts, who was not at all a demi-god, and attending lectures at the Royal Society was a very odd and sudden downfall from all her dreams of social amelioration and “a great work;” but fortunately she was happy, a thing which deadens the moral perception. Ada was happy, too, in her different way; but Gussy was not happy. She had not the tranquil soul of her elder sister, nor that curious mixture of sense and talent, and self-confidence and absence of humour which made Helena what she was. She had not “given up,” as in various ways both of them had done. She was dissatisfied, for life as yet had lost none of its possibilities, neither by fulfilment nor renunciation. All clouds might yet be cleared away from her sky, and what she considered perfect happiness might yet be waiting for her somewhere. This remnant of possibility that the soul may still have all it craves, ought, you might think, to have kept Gussy’s heart alive, and given her a secret support; but it was in fact a very fire of restlessness within her. The first step towards attaining the secondary happinesses of life, is to have given up and recognised as impossible the primary and greater happiness. Gussy had been compelled to occupy herself closely, in order to save herself from becoming discontented, morbid, sour, and miserable, by reason of this sense within her, that everything might yet come right.
“Why should you say it was injudicious?” she said to her sister, when they at length discussed the subject, “why should not they help him, since he wants it, because of the chance of meeting me? I heard what mamma said as I came in. If he does meet me, I dare say he has forgotten all about me by this time, or at least remembers me only as a friend. It would be hard indeed if any ghost of me, after all these years, were to come in his way.”
“And you,” said her sister, “could you meet him as a friend whom you remembered? Would that be all?”
Gussy’s lip quivered in spite of herself. “I hope I could do—whatever was necessary,” she said proudly. But in the midst of uttering these two or three words, a sudden tear fell unexpectedly out of her eye and betrayed her. “How silly!” she said, dashing it away; “you forget I did see him. Oh, Ada, fancy travelling with him all those hours, and never saying a word! It was as if we were in two different worlds—like looking into another existence, and seeing those whom one has lost, without any power to communicate with them.”
“Ah! but we are not permitted to do even that,” said Ada; “do you think he did not recognise you? Not at all? That is so strange to me.”
Gussy shook her head. “I don’t think he did; but you must remember,” she said humbly, “that he never was what you might call so very much in love with me. He liked me; he was even fond of me—but not exactly in love. It is different—I always felt that, even when you all made so sure. And what he thinks of me now, I don’t know. If I saw him once, I should be able to tell you; but I shall try not to see him. It is best I should not see him,” said Gussy very low, “best in every way.”
“My poor child!” said Ada; but she did not contradict her, as her sister almost hoped; and Gussy went away immediately after, with her heart full, to put on her black cloak and close bonnet, and to go forth into some very unsavoury region indeed, where a serene Sister, so smiling and cheery that you might be certain her mind was taken up by no possible happiness, was hard at work. Gussy had some very disagreeable work allotted to her which gave her full occupation till it was time to return to “the world,” and as long as she was thus engaged she was able to forget all about herself and Edgar, and everything else in the other existence. Thus Rag Fair was good for her, and gave her a certain amount of strength with which to return to Berkeley Square.
But the reader will perceive that if Edgar’s mind was disturbed by what he had heard, a similar, if less violent commotion had been raised, by the mere intimation of his return, in the opposite camp, where every member of the family instinctively felt the danger, though the young and the romantic among them welcomed it as rather an advantage than a peril. Gussy went about her ordinary work, whether in “the world” or out of it, with a soft perpetual tremor, feeling that at any moment, round any corner, she might meet him with whom her youthful thoughts had wandered all these years. I will not say that she was not somewhat anxious and uncertain as to the effect which this long interval might have had upon Edgar’s mind; for women seldom have a very strong faith, unassisted by evidence, in the fidelity of a long absent lover; but she had no sense of having given love unsought, or shame in her own secret devotion. She knew that if Edgar had remained rich and prosperous she would have been his wife long ere now, and this gave to Gussy’s maiden love that sweet legitimacy and pride of duty which is so much to a woman, and emboldens her to give without shame, and with all her heart.
In the meantime, however, Lady Augusta took that other precautionary measure which had suddenly occurred to her, to Ada’s great surprise and consternation, and sent private orders to her son, Harry—who was at that moment under a cloud, and doing his best to act the part of a good son to a very irritable father who had just paid his debts for him, and was taking them out in abuse of every description at Thornleigh, while the mother and sisters were in town. I don’t believe she had the least notion what good Harry could do; but it relieved him from a very trying ordeal, and the young man jumped at it, though Ada shook her head. “He will be on the spot at least, my dear,” said Lady Augusta, all unconscious of slang. She explained to her husband that the Tottenhams had taken one of their fancies to Mr. Earnshaw, whom they had all once known so well as Edgar Arden, and that she thought it would be well that one of the family should be there to keep an eye upon him, lest he and Gussy should meet. “For you know, Gussy has not been the same since that affair,” wrote the careful mother. Mr. Thornleigh, who had a more than ordinary contempt at this moment for Harry’s capabilities, wrote her a rather rude letter in reply, telling her that she was a fool indeed if she trusted in anything her hopeful son could do; but nevertheless, he made no objection to the visit. Thus it will be seen how emphatically their own doing was all the confusion that followed this momentous step, which the Thornleighs all combined in their ignorance to make Harry take—and which he accepted as he would have accepted any change, at that moment; not having the least idea of what was wanted of him, any more than of what fate had in store for him. Lady Augusta went on more calmly with her preparations for little Mary’s grand wedding when she had thus, to her own satisfaction, secured a representative at Tottenham’s. And Ada studied the patterns indefatigably, and gave the mother the very best advice as to which was most suitable; and Gussy had a perfect carnival of work, and spent almost all her time in Rag Fair—with occasional expeditions to the shop, where Mr. Tottenham had established a chapel, chiefly to please her, and where one of the clergymen attached to the Charity-House kept up daily service. This was much more dangerous, had Lady Augusta been aware of the fact, than the rural Tottenham’s, where Harry was set to be sentinel without knowing it.