The Jamiesons have taken lodgings in West Kensington, which they describe as being "most central"—a phrase which I have begun to think means inexpensive—and near a line of omnibuses. George and the Pirate are assiduous in taking their sisters to the Play and other places of amusement, and are showing them something of London with a zeal which speaks much for their goodness of heart. Even Mrs. Jamieson has been out once or twice, and although doubly tearful on the morning following any little bit of dissipation, her family feel that the variety has been good for her. Eliza has found that London is radio-active, hence enjoyable. And Eliza had been only once to the Royal Institution when she said it! Maud's engagement to the Hampstead young man has been finally broken off, and Maud has cried so much that her family have forgiven her. Maud explains that it is such an upset for a girl to break off an engagement, and The Family say soothingly that she must just try and get over it.
"We hope," said Kate, "that next time things will arrange themselves more happily, and at least we can all feel that Maud might have married many times, had she wished to do so." There seems to be a strong feeling in The Family that Maud will go on having opportunities. Arguing from the general to the particular, they have proved, with a sort of tribal feeling of satisfaction, that Maud is undoubtedly very attractive to men, and that if one man likes her, why should not another?
Still, we all felt that we could not have sympathized immediately with another love affair of Maud's, and it was refreshing, not to say most pleasing and surprising, to find that since her arrival in Town, it was Margaret who attracted the notice of a gentleman, Mr. Swinnerton by name, a friend of George's, who brought him to supper one Sunday evening. The Jamiesons could see at a glance that Mr. Swinnerton was "struck," and, as he called two or three times in the following week, Margaret made the usual Jamieson opportunity of seeing Palestrina home, one afternoon when she had been to call, to embark in confidences about her lover in the usual Jamieson style. Margaret was diffident, bashful, shy, uncertain about Mr. Swinnerton's feelings for her, and hopelessly nervous lest her family should have had their expectations raised only to be disappointed. She implored Palestrina over and over again to say nothing about it to them, though it has been more than obvious to us all along how full of expectation every member of The Family is. It was a very wet evening as Margaret and my sister left the Jamiesons' lodgings, but she hardly seemed conscious of the inclemency of the weather, and begged Palestrina not to think of taking a cab, as she particularly wished to speak to her.
"At first," she began, "I thought it must be Maud, although she has but just broken off her engagement to Mr. Evans; still, one knows she is the pretty one, and if any one calls often, it is generally her."
It was a little difficult to follow Margaret's rapid, ungrammatical speech, but Palestrina and I both knew that to the vigorous minds of the Jamiesons there must be a direct purpose in every action, and that therefore if Mr. Swinnerton came to call he must have a purpose, presumably a matrimonial purpose, for paying his visits. After two or three afternoon calls from a gentleman the Jamiesons generally ask each other ingenuously, "Which of us is it?" It hardly seems to them respectable that a man should continue to pay them visits unless he means to show a preference for one of them.
Presuming that it was not Maud he came to see, Margaret, with modest hesitation and many blushes, asked Palestrina if she did not think it possible that these visits might be intended for her.
"Please do not say anything about it to the others. I always have hoped that if ever I had a love affair it would be when I was away from home. Do you know at all what they think about it?"
She did not pause for a reply, but began again: "You see he has called three times in one week, but" (hopelessly) "I am always surrounded by The Family, and he couldn't say anything if he wanted to. Of course I don't think it has come to anything of that sort yet; still, you know, we could get to know each other better if there were not so many of us always about. Maud doesn't mind a bit; she has had love affairs in front of us all, and she does not mind talking about them in the least, or even asking us to let her have the drawing-room to herself on certain afternoons. But I don't feel as if I could bear to have this discussed before anything is settled. And then we have so few opportunities. Maud generally takes them to a distant church, and then they have the walk home together. But I never quite know whether she makes the suggestion about church, or if she merely thinks it would be nice, and leaves the man to make it."
"Maud," I remarked parenthetically to Palestrina, "has raised love-making to a science—an exact science."
"I hope you don't think for a moment," Margaret had gone on, "that I am abusing Maud; you know how fond we all are of each other."