‘Exactly—it was then.’
He fell into thought, and neither Sir Ashley nor Lady Mottisfont took the trouble to answer the lawyer’s letter; and so the matter ended for the time.
One day at dinner, on their return from a short absence in town, whither they had gone to see what the world was doing, hear what it was saying, and to make themselves generally fashionable after rusticating for so long—on this occasion, I say, they learnt from some friend who had joined them at dinner that Fernell Hall—the manorial house of the estate next their own, which had been offered on lease by reason of the impecuniosity of its owner—had been taken for a term by a widow lady, an Italian Contessa, whose name I will not mention for certain reasons which may by and by appear. Lady Mottisfont expressed her surprise and interest at the probability of having such a neighbour. ‘Though, if I had been born in Italy, I think I should have liked to remain there,’ she said.
‘She is not Italian, though her husband was,’ said Sir Ashley.
‘Oh, you have heard about her before now?’
‘Yes; they were talking of her at Grey’s the other evening. She is English.’ And then, as her husband said no more about the lady, the friend who was dining with them told Lady Mottisfont that the Countess’s father had speculated largely in East-India Stock, in which immense fortunes were being made at that time; through this his daughter had found herself enormously wealthy at his death, which had occurred only a few weeks after the death of her husband. It was supposed that the marriage of an enterprising English speculator’s daughter to a poor foreign nobleman had been matter of arrangement merely. As soon as the Countess’s widowhood was a little further advanced she would, no doubt, be the mark of all the schemers who came near her, for she was still quite young. But at present she seemed to desire quiet, and avoided society and town.
Some weeks after this time Sir Ashley Mottisfont sat looking fixedly at his lady for many moments. He said:
‘It might have been better for Dorothy if the Countess had taken her. She is so wealthy in comparison with ourselves, and could have ushered the girl into the great world more effectually than we ever shall be able to do.’
‘The Contessa take Dorothy?’ said Lady Mottisfont with a start. ‘What—was she the lady who wished to adopt her?’
‘Yes; she was staying at Bath when Lawyer Gayton wrote to me.’