Lady William was silent for some time, clasping her fingers and unclasping them, gazing into the vacant air. At last she said: ‘James, you will think me too great a fool if I say that I did not know, at the time.’
‘Emily,’ he said, with a tone so sharp and keen that it went through her like a knife, ‘it is a long time since, and I have a right to know. Was it—was it through any fault of yours?’
She turned her eyes to him with a look of the utmost amazement. ‘Fault of mine!’ she said. ‘What could that have had to do with it—any fault of mine?’
She was a mature woman, and was supposed to know the world; but Mab herself could not have given him a more limpid look, could not have received his questions with more surprise. The Rector, quite confused, stepped back a pace, and said, ‘I beg your pardon,’ with a humility which was entirely out of his habits. He had grown quite pale, and glanced at her with a sort of fright, terrified lest perhaps it might dawn upon her what he meant.
‘I was bewildered,’ she said. ‘I was taken altogether by surprise. It was the romance that dazzled me—what seemed the romance—and all that they told me: that he had to leave England, must go, would be in danger of I know not what, yet would not go without me. And poor papa thought of—oh the folly, the pettiness of it!—the title, perhaps, and what he thought the connection. My poor father thought a great deal of connection.’ She smiled a little sadly, looking back with a sort of tenderness upon the weakness and folly of a time so long past. Then she drew herself up unconsciously, holding her head high. ‘I discovered the real meaning, but not till after. It was very bitter and terrible; but after all it is Mab’s father of whom we are speaking. James, let us return to the question of most importance. What is gained by this I don’t see. I don’t understand things of that kind.’
It was very conciliating and satisfactory to Mr. Plowden that she did not understand. ‘It gives a clue,’ he said. ‘We must look up Gepps. He must have been a friend of my father’s, and he must, of course, be in the “Clergy List.” I have been looking up what old ones I have, but I cannot find him. I have not got that year, but it can be got, it can be got. He was an old man, you say, and he must have died, I suppose, but he cannot have taken his church and his registers with him. We must ascertain what was his church.’
‘It was a little old-fashioned place, very dingy, with heavy pews; a small place with an old-fashioned pulpit and canopy. I remember the look of it—and the clergyman, an old man, with a white beard.’
‘In the City, most likely?’
Lady William shook her head. ‘I knew nothing of the City—nor anywhere except the parks and the streets round about that in which the Swinfords had a house. We went seldom, very seldom, to town in those days; I never, except with them.’
‘It must have been in the City,’ said Mr. Plowden. ‘What you describe settles the question. Well, then, I think now, Emily, there need be very little difficulty. Gepps must be in the “Clergy List.” If he is living, so much the better; he may have retired somewhere. But at all events the register must exist. I will go up to town to-morrow, and find the list for ‘sixty-five, and after that it will be plain sailing. All the same, how my father and you, but especially my father, could be such a fool!’