‘No, my kindest Jane, you will do nothing of the sort for me. As for Mrs. Swinford, she will go out to no parties in the village. Don’t imagine for a moment that I want to be avenged upon her in that very small way.’
‘Avenged! I did not think of it in that light. And do you know James was very cool to her to-day, scarcely civil. I thought she had been very nice to you in the old times.’
‘Don’t let us talk of the Swinfords for ever,’ said Lady William, ‘we have had enough of them for one day. Let me know what the girls are going to wear at the FitzStephens’, and who is to be there——’
This new subject, notwithstanding that Mrs. Plowden had her head full of graver matters, was too interesting to be dropped quickly, and there ensued a long conversation, which Lady William, having set it going, left to be carried on by the others. Mrs. Plowden had naturally a great deal to say, and Emmy, whose heart was full of the consciousness that any social occasion where she could see and be seen was more important now in her life than it had ever been before, lent her attention with great earnestness to her mother’s view, to Mab’s remarks, and to the occasional word with which Lady William kept up the talk. Only Florence took no part in it. She had taken up a book, and so appeared to have her attention fixed; I don’t know if she held it upside down, but I am very sure that she did not read a page. Her mind was occupied with affairs of her own.
XIX
The dining-room at the Hall was gloomy but grand. The walls dark, save where they were relieved by scrolls of gilding and ornamental panels, in which were set some full-length portraits of doubtful merit, and more than doubtful antiquity. It was divided, like the drawing-room, by pillars, not of marble, though they assumed that virtue, leaving a darker strait at each end, intended, no doubt, to throw up the brilliancy of the larger central room, in which stood the dinner-table with all its lights. And this might have been the case had there been a large and brilliant party round the table, and abundance of light, with reflections of silver and crystal, as probably the builder of the house intended should be the case. But now the Swinfords, mother and son, alone at a round table of no great size, with a shaded lamp suspended over it, furnished little more than an oasis in the great desert of darkness. There was, indeed, a large fire blazing, against which Mrs. Swinford sat, shivering from time to time, notwithstanding the mild softness of the April night. And the table was adorned with a great bouquet of flowers, dazzling white azaleas, and the other brilliant children of the spring who come in such a triumph over the footsteps of winter. Mrs. Swinford was dressed, as she always was, elaborately, and like a picture, in dark velvet, just showing a little colour here and there where the light caught it—and a great deal of lace. She had a lace scarf fastened over her head, fantastically indeed, and scarcely enough to have been allowed by Mrs. Plowden to pass muster as a cap, but still softening the age of the face, and the tower of the abundant dark hair piled unnaturally upon her head. She might have been a dethroned and indignant queen. She, and the flowers, and Leo’s more youthful face, gave a centre to the dark solemnity around, through which the servants moved noiseless.
‘You have been in the village,’ he said; ‘I hear, making calls.’ But this was not till the lengthened and elaborate dinner—of which both ate fastidiously, with many criticisms and remarks little complimentary to a very ambitious and highly-paid cook—was done.
‘I am glad you take so much interest in my movements, Leo, as to know.’
‘Of course I know. I saw the carriage for one thing; and besides——’
‘You, I suppose, were paying visits, too?’