‘It may be something about Aunt Emily, mamma.’
‘What could there be about Emily? No, she has heard from Reginald, that is what it is, and he has told her he was sending back her money, or something of that sort, and your father has gone up to town to see if it was true. And he has found out, of course, that it was not true, as I could have told him before he went a step on such an errand. And now he can’t contain himself for rage and disappointment, and if I’m not mistaken, he has gone over to tell your aunt Emily that she is not to think of it any more.’
‘He did walk over to the cottage,’ one of the girls said; and the other added:
‘How do you find out things, mamma? Now I am sure I never should have thought of anything of that kind.’
‘My dears,’ said Mrs. Plowden with a certain complaisance, ‘you never knew Reginald Plowden. And I do. You cannot gather grapes off thorns, or figs off thistles; and if there ever was thorns and thistles in flesh and blood, Reginald Plowden is the man. That your Aunt Emily should still expect to get her money back from him, just shows what a thing family affection is; but she might as well expect it to drop down from those lilac-trees.’
The girls did not say anything in reply; but Emmy, for her part, thought of quite a different explanation. She believed that Leo Swinford, whose proceedings had been so great an object of interest, and of whom she knew both by her own observation and by common report that he was ‘always at the cottage,’ had offered himself and his fortune to Lady William. Proposed to Aunt Emily!—that was how poor Emmy put it. A girl cannot but think such a proposal wholly ridiculous, if not an absolute infatuation. Her respect for her aunt made her still believe and hope that the proposal had been rejected; but this wonderful event would quite account for the ‘something on his mind,’ which it was very clear the Rector had. What he had gone to town about, however, and whether his mission could have any bearing upon this disquieting question, Emmy could not say. Florence was so preoccupied with other matters that upon this, even though it cost her sister so much disquietude, she expressed no opinion at all.
The Rector, as had been perceived, had gone towards the cottage when he went out with care upon his brow. He had not, after all, as the reader will understand, proclaimed the wonderful news about Mab when he went home after his meeting with Lord Will. He reflected to himself that it might be some time before he could set his sister’s position quite straight, and that in the meantime the report of Mab’s heiress-ship would flash all over the parish, and that any question, any hesitation, any delay, on the subject would attract the curiosity and interest of the village folks. Mab an heiress! It would go from one end of the county to the other, and questions as to when she would come into her fortune would come from all sides; very likely that last horror of impertinent gossip which reveals what everybody leaves behind him to the admiration of the public, would communicate the news in spite of all precautions. Lord John’s death intestate and the amount of his fortune would be in all the papers, with a list of the kindred concerned. But at all events, the Rector said to himself, he would say nothing till the matter was more assured. It was not an easy thing to do. He felt it bursting from his lips during the first day when he allowed himself to mention Lord Will simply to relieve his mind, but by main force kept the other communication back. And to say that it was not with the most dreadful difficulty that he kept his mouth shut on those many occasions when it is so natural to let slip to your wife the secret that is in your heart, would be to do Mr. Plowden great injustice. He was not in the habit of keeping things to himself. Even the secrets of the parish, it must be allowed, sometimes slipped—things that ought to have been kept rigorously inviolate. He had not, perhaps, the most exalted opinion of his wife’s discretion, and yet she was his other self—a being indivisible, inseparable, with whom he could not be on his guard. But she had shown great discrimination when she said that the Plowdens stuck to each other. Nothing would have made him confess to his wife that there was any insecurity in the position of his sister. Emily was a thing beyond remark, a creature not to be criticised. He would have nothing said about her—not a word of compassion. There are a great many men who deliver over their sisters and mothers without hesitation to be cut in small pieces by their wives, but here and there occurs an exception. Emily was James Plowden’s ideal and the impersonation of the family honour and credit. He could not have a word on that subject, and thus he was strengthened in his resolution to say nothing of Mab’s prospects—until, at least, they were established beyond any kind of doubt.
This did not by any means look like the position in which they were now. Mr. Plowden went into the cottage almost with a little secrecy—looking round him before he opened the little garden gate—for the gossips in the parish were quite capable of reporting that there was something odd and unusual in the Rector’s constant visits to his sister, and that certainly something must be ‘up.’ To be sure it was only his second business visit—but even so much as that was unlike his usual habits, and he was extremely anxious that no question should be raised on the subject. He found her in the drawing-room, at her usual sewing. Mab was out, which was a thing of which the Rector was glad. She looked up hastily at the sight of him, reading his face, as women do with their eyes, before he had time to say a word.
‘You have not succeeded, James?’
‘How do you know I have not succeeded?’ he asked crossly. ‘I have not, perhaps, done all that I hoped to do—but Rome was not built in a day. It was absurd to expect that I had only to go up to London—an hour in the train—and walk into old Gepps’ parsonage and find him still there.’