‘If you think you will hurt my feelings, Jane, by speaking plainly, don’t let that weigh upon your mind. I know very well what Mrs. Swinford is, and I don’t care to make myself her champion.’
‘I don’t think she’s a nice woman,’ repeated the Rector’s wife; ‘I don’t think she’s a good woman. She looks to me—notwithstanding that she professes to be so fond of you, and Emily this and Emily that—as if she would like to do you a bad turn.’
Lady William took this alarming statement quite calmly. ‘Indeed I should not be surprised,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think it is in her power.’
‘We must try and make sure that it is not in her power. Don’t you think she could perhaps do you harm with the family? It occurred to me, and you will wonder to hear that it occurred to James. He said to me, “If that woman can injure Emily she will.” Dear Emily, you have never been such very good friends with the family, and they have never seen Mab. You know I’ve always wanted you to do something. If you were to put yourself forward a little——’
‘You are very kind, Jane, and James too. I don’t think the family can do us much harm; we have what they chose to give us, and they will not give us anything more, nor do I wish it. I have my pride, too.’
‘But their countenance, Emily!’
‘Their countenance!’ cried Lady William, rising to her feet with a quick start of indignation. ‘To me! I want none of their countenance; I can’t help bearing their name, and they cannot take it from me.’
‘Oh, my dear, my dear, there can be no question of that! They can’t take away your rank, nor Mrs. Swinford either, whatever she may do. My conviction,’ said Mrs. Plowden, nodding her head, ‘is that she can’t bear the thought of your rank. If you should meet anywhere out, and you were to pass before her, Emily—that’s the thought that she can’t bear.’
A gleam of light passed over Lady William’s face. ‘That would be a little compensation,’ she said, half to herself. ‘But don’t put such hopes in my head,’ she added laughing; ‘she and I will never meet out, alas!’
‘If it was only for that I should like to give a dinner party at the Rectory and ask her, Emily—just to show her. Oh, I should like that! It might look strange, James giving his arm to his own sister, but I should never mind how it looked. And it would be a kind of duty, by way of welcoming them back. But you know, Emily, though Mary Jane is an excellent parlourmaid, she is not equal to a formal party. We should require to have a butler, or some one who would look like a butler. And the dinner-service is very shabby and a great many pieces broken. I am sure I would do it with the greatest pleasure, and, indeed, would think it a duty; but only——’