‘And no doubt he was in love with her,’ said another; ‘Lord Portcullis’ son, and she a country clergyman’s daughter.’
‘Oh, as for that, God knows: she was perhaps dazzled with the miserable title, and her father of course, who was only a silly old man—and then she was besought and persuaded, God knows how, by those who did it for their own sake, not hers——’
‘But what reason could any one have?’ said Mrs. FitzStephen; ‘my dear Nelly Grey, you must be making up a story in your head; what cause could any one have, unless to satisfy the man who was in love with a girl, or to help forward the girl to a match above her? These are the only two reasons possible, and there’s no harm in them; we would, any of us, do it,’ she said.
‘Not if the man was of bad character,’ said the General.
‘And if the girl was not in love with him? Oh, I don’t call that romantic at all,’ Mrs. Kendal said.
Miss Grey shook her head again, shook it till her little bonnet, and all that could twitter and tremble about her, shook too.
‘You’re all good people,’ she said; ‘you don’t know the mystery of a wicked woman’s heart—or for that matter of a man’s either.’
‘Nelly,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen, almost sharply, ‘what can you know, a little single woman, about mysteries and wicked persons? A soldier’s wife like me, that has been knocked about the world——’
‘Or, oh, dear me, a clergyman’s!’ said Mrs. Kendal, ‘and they are told everything——’
‘Whatever you may know, you don’t know Mrs. Swinford,’ said Miss Grey, hastily tying her bonnet-strings—‘No, I must go home, thank you; I want to be in before it’s quite dark. And really there’s not much to tell; nothing that I’ve seen with my eyes, as you may have, my dear, knocking about as a soldier’s wife; or as a clergyman’s wife may have heard dreadful things trickling out through her husband. No, I’ve no husband. I haven’t knocked about the world. I may have fancied things, being always so quiet here. But good-night, for I must go; it’s nearly dark, and my little maid is always frightened if I’m not in before dark——’