“—— as some people do,” the girl went on. “Oh the men one knows! There was Algy Holt, went about with an American, getting him asked out to places. Everybody knew it, and no one was so very severe! But if you think Eddy would do that, Mrs. Rowland! he may be silly—oh, I know he is! and spends money when he has not got it, and has to do all kinds of dreadful things to pay up;—but if you think he would do that——”
“My dear Rosamond, if you prefer to think it was a practical joke—but I don’t wish to be severe—I should like to know, if you know, what dreadful things he has to do to pay up, as you say?”
“Oh! he has to buy carriage wheels, and cigar-holders, and pictures, and one time he had a lot of paving-stones——”
Evelyn, who was very much wound up by this time, expecting terrible revelations without thinking how very unlikely it was that Rosamond would be the confidant of any guilty practices—here burst into a fit of unsteady laughter.
“There is nothing very dreadful in all that: though it is very ridiculous, and, I dare say, a horrid imposition,” she said.
“It is enough to break one’s heart!” cried Rosamond striking her hands together: “he borrows a certain sum and he gets the half of it or less, and that—and then he has to pay back the whole—— Oh how awful it is to be poor! for there is no end to it—it is going on for ever. And when he gets Gilston, he will have to sell it, and where will he be then? He sees it as well as I, but what can he do? Of course,” added Rosamond, drying her eyes, which were shining with fierce tears, “if he could marry somebody with a great deal of money, it might all come right.”
This was all that she got from Rosamond, with much sense of guilt in thus endeavouring to persuade the sister into betrayal of the brother’s secrets. And presently Marion returned, who had been amusing herself at Miss Eliza’s house with the young people there, and came back escorted by a large party, for whom it was necessary to provide tea and amusement till the early darkness had fallen. Evelyn, who could not rest, and who felt that the two or three days of her husband’s absence was all the time she had at her disposal to solve this problem in, threw a shawl over her head and followed the merry party down the avenue, when Marion re-escorted them to the first gate. She could not have told what help she expected to get from Marion, and yet it was possible that some spark might fall from the girl’s careless discourse. She met her coming quickly back, her white and pink cheeks glowing with the cold and the fun, echoes of which had scarcely yet died on the frosty air. It was almost dark, though a gray light still lingered in the sky, and the lamps were shining on the other side of the water in the villages and scattered houses along the opposite shore.
“Mamma!” cried Marion,—a flush of anxiety came upon her face though it was scarcely visible—“did you hear how they were going on? But you must not think it was my fault.”
“I heard nothing,” said Evelyn, to Marion’s evident relief; “but I came out—to speak to you.—Have you heard anything of—your brother?”
“Archie?—oh, no,” said the girl. “He would not write to me, for he would know I could not approve of him, when he has gone like that and affronted papa.”