“The Rector asked her to go and see his sister—she is at the Old Wood House,” said Mrs Atheling. “I am very sorry—but we never thought of you coming to-day.”
“I might come any day,” said Miss Rivers, abruptly—“but that is not the question—I prefer not to see her—she is a frightened little dove of a girl—she is not in my way. Is she good for anything?—you ought to know.”
“She is a very sweet, amiable girl,” said Mrs Atheling, warmly—“and she sings as I never heard any one sing, all my life.”
“Ah!” said Miss Rivers, with a look of gratification, “it belongs to the family—music is a tradition among us—yes, yes! You remember my great-grandfather, the fourth lord—he was a great composer.” Miss Anastasia was perfectly destitute of the faculty herself, and more than half of the Riverses wanted that humblest of all musical qualifications, “an ear”—yet it was amusing to mark the eagerness of the old lady to find a family precedent for every quality known as belonging to Louis or his sister. “I recollect,” added Miss Rivers, bending her brows darkly, “they wanted to make a singer of her—the more disgrace the better—Oh, I understand their tactics! You are sorry for him?—look at the devilish plans he made.”
Mrs Atheling shook her head, but did not reply; she only knew that she would have been sorry for the vilest criminal in the world, had he lost his only son.
“I have heard from your boy,” said Miss Rivers. “He is gone now, I suppose. What does Will Atheling think of his son? If he does but as I expect he will, the boy’s fortune is made; he shall never repent that he did this service for me.”
“But it is a great undertaking,” said Mrs Atheling. “I know Charlie will do his best—he is a very good boy, Miss Rivers; but he may not succeed after all.”
“He will succeed,” said the old lady; “but even if he does not—which I cannot believe—so long as he does all he can, it will not alter me.”
The mother’s heart swelled high with gratification and pleasure; yet there was a drawback. All this time—since the first day when she heard of it, before she made her discovery—Miss Anastasia had never referred to the engagement between Louis and Marian. Did she desire to discourage it? Was she likely to perceive a difference in this respect between Louis nameless and without friends, and Louis the heir of Winterbourne?
But Mrs Atheling’s utmost penetration could not tell. Miss Rivers began to pull down the books, to look at them, to strike her riding-whip on the floor, and call out good-humouredly in her loud voice, which every one in the house could hear, that she was not to be kept waiting by a parcel of girls. Finally the girls made their appearance in their best dresses; their new patroness hurried them into her carriage, and drove instantly away.