From every point of view—almost, the evening was highly successful.
But I shall never forgive Spenworth, never... As long as I live...
X
LADY ANN SPENWORTH IS A PRISONER IN HER OWN HOUSE
Lady Ann (to a friend of proved discretion): You must forgive me for making you wait like this. The servants have positive instructions to say that I am not at home to any one until I have been specifically asked. Why one should be at the mercy of anybody who chooses to burst in... When all is said and done, the Englishman's home is still his castle.
Partly I have been busy, partly I have been very much worried, partly I have been driven to it in self-defence. I only wish I had been more unyielding before. I told you of the mad clergyman from Morecambe who swept like a whirl-wind into this room, demanding to see my husband and, so far as I can make out, trying to browbeat my boy into marrying his daughter... It began from that day, and I find it hard to forgive Arthur for not enlightening me. With Will it was altogether different; no man that I should care to meet would try to get out of a difficulty at the expense of a woman. The code forbids that...
But, if Arthur—who knew as soon as there was anything to know—had told me, I should have acted at once; we should not be in our present state of absolute uncertainty, simply waiting with folded hands for the next blow to fall... Men have a strange idea that certain things are exclusively their province; their wives, even the mothers of their children must remain outside the door until it is too late to repair the damage. I was not told the facts until two days ago...
When my boy was offered that position at Morecambe, I went with him to see that he had a place fit to live in. The Phentons seemed our best hope, they were highly recommended, and I will say ungrudgingly that they played their cards well. An elderly clergyman, who had resigned his benefice on account of ill-health, a decent motherly woman for wife—and these two girls, young, presentable and thoroughly nice... If you tell me that I am too unready to think ill of people, I have no defence—except to say that I am not prepared to go through life suspecting... Molly Phenton was very much "the old country parson's pretty little daughter"; simple, innocent, shy; a little fluttered, you would say, when she heard who we were, and agreeably excited by the prospect of having a good-looking young man to stay in the house...
Perhaps she overdid the innocence. Eyes are eyes, and saucers are saucers... But I don't wish to appear wise after the event. I was completely taken in...
And so was Will. She was clever enough to guess that this was the appeal to reach him quickest: the simple little girl with the soft hair and the big grey eyes, living out of the world with her old father, no brothers to protect her or teach her anything. One would never have been surprised to find her affecting a lisp... She deliberately laid herself out to catch my boy.