Mrs. Nugent lingered a little with the others in the great relief and ease of mind which, though it was only momentary, was great. She had not after all been obliged to reveal any of her secrets, whatever they might be. If he had been less peremptory, more reasonable, she would have been obliged to explain to him; and that she had very little mind to do. After the first relief, however, she began to feel what a blow had been struck at her temporary comfort in this place by so untoward an accident. His mother and sister were her chief friends; they had received her so generously, so kindly, with such confidence. Her secret was no guilty one, but still it had made her uncomfortable, it had been the subject of various annoyances; but none of these kind people had asked her any questions; they had received her for herself, never doubting. And now it seemed that she had only appeared among them to do harm. She was a pretty and attractive young woman, and not altogether unaware that people liked her on that account; but yet she never had been one of those women with whom everybody is acquainted, in novels, at least, before whom every man falls down. She had had her share, but she had not been persecuted by inopportune lovers. And she had not entertained any alarm in respect to Mr. Wradisley. She hoped now that his pride would help him through it, and that nobody would be the wiser; but still she could not continue here under the very wing of the family after so humiliating its head, either meeting him, or compelling him to avoid her. She went on turning over this question in her mind, pausing to talk to this one and that one, to do her duty to Mrs. Wradisley still by amusing and occupying her guests, putting on her smiles as if they had been ribbons to conceal some little spot or rent beneath. Indeed, it was no rent. She had not been very long at Wradisbury. It would be no dreadful business to go away. She was neither without friends nor protectors, and London was always a ready and natural refuge, where it would be so simple to go. But this fiasco, as she called it to herself, vexed her. She wanted to get away as soon as possible, to think it over at leisure, to find Tiny, who no doubt was hanging on Lucy Wradisley’s skirts somewhere, or else playing with the other children, and to steal home as soon as there was any pretext for departure. She felt that she would prefer not to meet his mother’s eye.
She was beginning to get very impatient of waiting when at last she caught sight of Tiny being set down on the ground from somebody’s shoulders. She did not pay any attention for the moment to the man. Tiny had so many friends; for the child was not shy; she had no objection to trust herself to any one who pleased her, though it was not every one who had this advantage and pleased Tiny. The mother saw at once that Tiny’s best frock had suffered, and a momentary alarm about the pond, which was one of her favorite panics, seized her. But the child was evidently quite right, which settled that question. She went to meet Tiny with a word of playful reproof for her disheveled condition on her lips. The child and her guardian were coming round a clump of trees which hid them for a moment, and toward which Mrs. Nugent turned her steps. She heard the small voice running on in its usual little sing-song of monologue.
“Have zoo dot a little girl? Have zoo dot a little girl?”
What an odd question for Tiny to ask! The child must really be trained to be a little more like other children, not to push her little inquiries so far, not to ask questions. Mrs. Nugent could not help smiling a little at the sound of her small daughter’s voice, especially as there was no reply made to it. The man had a big beard, that was all she had observed of him; perhaps it was the other son, the brother Raaf, the adventurer, or perhaps prodigal, who had newly come home.
These were her thoughts as she turned round the great bole of that big tree of which the Wradisleys were so proud. Bertram was coming on the other side, half smiling, too, at Tiny’s little song; while she, spying some children in the distance, swayed backward from his hold to call to them, and then detaching herself from his hand altogether, ran back a few paces to show them her treasures. His face half averted for a moment looking after her thus, gave Mrs. Nugent one breath of preparation, but none to him, who turned round again half conscious of some one coming to meet him, with still that half smile and the tender expression in his eyes. He stood still, he wavered for a moment as if, strong man as he was, he would have fallen.
CHAPTER IX.
After the most successful party, even if it is only a garden party, a flatness is apt to fall upon the family of the entertainers who have been so nobly doing their best to amuse their friends. Besides the grateful sense of success, and of the fact that the trouble is well over, comes a flagging of both physical and mental powers. The dinner at Wradisbury was heavy after the great success of the afternoon; there was a little conversation about that, and about how everybody looked, and on Ralph’s part, who was decidedly the least dull of the party, on the changes that time had made, especially upon the women whom he remembered as little girls, and who were now, as he said, “elderly,” some of them with little girls of their own; but neither Mr. Wradisley nor Mr. Bertram were at all amused, and Lucy was tired, and agreeing with Ralph completely in his estimation of the old young ladies, was not exhilarated by it as she might have been. The master of the house did not indeed betray fatigue or ill-humor, he was too well bred for that. But he was a little cross to the butler, and dissatisfied with the dinner, which was an unusual thing; he even said something to his mother about “your cook,” as if he thought the sins of that important person resulted from the fact that she was Mrs. Wradisley’s cook, and had received bad advice from her mistress. When he was pleased he said “my cook,” and on ordinary occasions “the cook,” impersonally and impartially. Bertram on the other hand, had the air of a man who had fallen from a great height, and had not been able to pick himself up—he was pale, his face was drawn. He scarcely heard when he was spoken to. When he perceived that he was being addressed he woke up with an effort. All this Lucy perceived keenly and put down to what was in fact its real reason, though with a difference. She said to herself:
“Nelly Nugent must have known him. She must have known his wife and all about him, and how it was they didn’t get on. I’ll make her tell me,” Lucy said to herself, and she addressed herself very particularly to Mr. Bertram’s solace and entertainment, partly because she was romantically interested and very sorry for him, and partly to show her mother, who had told her with a certain air that Mr. Bertram was married, that his marriage made not the slightest difference to her. She tried to draw him out about Tiny, who was the first and most natural subject.
“Isn’t she a delightful little thing? I am sure she made a slave of you, Mr. Bertram, and got you to do everything she wanted. She always does. She is a little witch,” Lucy said.