‘It is a capital joke—as it has turned out, Mab; but I don’t know what it might have been if Lucy Grey, devoured by curiosity, had not gone to my marriage without being asked, as she told us the other day.’
Mab opened her eyes very wide.
‘What could it matter whether Miss Grey was there or not?’
‘I will tell you, Mab—I can’t keep secrets. I was married in a great hurry, and got no—certificates, or things of that sort. The church has been burnt down; the clergyman is dead—accidents which your uncle James thinks have been partly my fault for being married there—and I might have had difficulty in proving my marriage——’
‘Why, mother?’
‘Well, Mab—— Why, because I had no evidence, don’t you see?’
‘You had me,’ said Mab calmly; ‘surely I am evidence. If you had not been married how could you account for me?’
Lady William kept an expression of perfect gravity, though not without some trouble.
‘That is an unquestionable proof, to be sure,’ she said, bending her head; ‘but,’ she added, in a lighter tone, ‘I could not send you by post to show the lawyers, as I could have done a certificate.’
‘A certificate!’ cried Mab, with mild disdain, ‘as if people would ever ask for certificates from you! But that,’ she added, ‘anyhow has nothing to do with Cousin Will. Why should he have come back so soon? and why should he be so kind? and why are we asked to lunch with the Marchioness, and all that? I think there must be more in this than meets the eye.’