It was quite years after before I heard anything more of the Greshams, and then it was by way of Lottie Stoke that the news came. She had grown thinner and more worn year by year. She had not had the spirits to go out, and they were so poor that they could have no society at home. And by degrees Lottie came to be considered a little old, which is a dreadful business for an unmarried girl when her people are so poor. Mrs. Stoke did not upbraid her; but still, it may be guessed what her feelings were. But, fortunately, as Lottie sank into the background, Lucy came to the front. She was pretty, and fresh, and gay, and more popular than her sister had ever been. And, by and by, she did fulfil the grand object of existence, and married well. When Lucy told me of her engagement she was very angry with her sister.
‘She says, how can I do it? She asks me if I have forgotten Gerald Gresham?’ cried Lucy. ‘As if I ever cared for Gerald Gresham; or as if anybody would marry him after—— I shall think she cared for him herself if she keeps going on.’
‘Lucy!’ said Lottie, flushing crimson under her hollow eyes. Lucy, for her part, was as bright as happiness, indignation, high health, and undiminished spirits could make her. But, for my part, I liked her sister best.
‘Well!’ she said, ‘and I do think it. You would lecture me about him when we were only having a little fun. As if I ever cared for him. And I don’t believe,’ cried Lucy courageously, ‘that he ever cared for me.’
Her sister kissed her, though she had been so angry. ‘Don’t let us quarrel now when we are going to part,’ she said, with a strange quiver in her voice. Perhaps the child was right; perhaps he had never cared for her, though Lottie and I both thought he did. He cared for neither of them, probably; and there was no chance that he would ever come back to Dinglewood, or show himself where his family had been so disgraced. But yet Lottie brightened up a little after that day, I can scarcely tell why.
Some time after she went on a visit to London in the season; and it was very hard work for her, I know, to get some dresses to go in, for she never would have any of Lucy’s presents. She was six weeks away, and she came back looking a different creature. The very first morning after her return she came over to me, glowing with something to tell. ‘Who do you think I met?’ she said with a soft flush trembling over her face. Her look brought one name irresistibly to my mind. But I would not re-open that old business; I shook my head, and said I did not know.
‘Why, Gerald Gresham!’ she cried. ‘It is true, Mrs. Mulgrave; he is painting pictures now—painting, you understand, not for his pleasure, but like a trade. And he told me about Ada and poor Harry. They have gone to America. It has changed him very much, even his looks; and instead of being rich, he is poor.’
‘Ah,’ I said, ‘“one of his brothers.” You always said it was Gerald;’ but I was not prepared for what was to come next.
‘Did not I?’ cried Lottie, triumphant; ‘I knew it all the time.’ And then she paused a little, and sat silent, in a happy brooding over something that was to come. ‘And I think she was right,’ said Lottie softly. ‘He had not been thinking of Lucy; it was not Lucy for whom he cared.’
I took her hands into my own, perceiving what she meant; and then all at once Lottie fell a crying, but not for sorrow.