Mrs Chichester was the only lady who came to Fairview upon intimate terms; and she only came when she could make her escape, as she termed it, from a host of engagements. I had my suspicions that she did not find her 'dearest Lilian' quite so congenial as she affirmed. There was a grave uncompromising truth about Lilian which I believe Mrs Chichester found rather difficult to get on with for any length of time. In time I noticed something else: Mrs Chichester's visits were generally made on the days we expected Robert Wentworth.
For the first two or three times of our meeting, she took great pains to cultivate me, declaring that she foresaw we were to become great friends. But after a while I appear to have ceased to interest her; although she was none the less sweet and pleasant to me on the occasions we had anything to say to each other. In truth, I believe that neither her brother nor she took very cordially to me; though both seemed to consider it necessary to keep up the appearance of doing so. Had they been more open about their sentiments, they would not have offended me. I had no right to expect more from them than I gave; and I really gave very little.
Arthur Trafford might perhaps have been taken more into my favour than was his sister, but for his engagement to Lilian. As an every-day young man, with artistic tastes, there was nothing in him to positively object to. But such negative goodness was not, I told myself, sufficient for Lilian's husband. Her husband ought to be able to appreciate her in quite a different way from that of Arthur Trafford. I am not sure that he even knew the best part of her.
I think the principal reason for his not taking to me was jealousy. Lilian was a little too much absorbed in her new friend to please him. With his sister it was different; and I was very much amused by her tactics. It requires little intelligence to defeat schemers, who generally plan on the supposition that some complicated machinery will be used to circumvent them, and who are thrown out in their calculations when one does nothing. Mrs Chichester began to adopt the tone of being rather afraid of Miss Haddon; and some of her little speeches about my unapproachableness and so forth, reached the ears they were not intended for.
'If I did not see that you take to her so much, dearest, I should fancy her unsympathetic and cold—one of those natures one never can feel at home with.—O yes;' in reply to an earnest protest from Lilian; 'good of course; extremely, I have no doubt; but I am so enthusiastic in my friendships, and she quite chills me.'
It so happened that there was another hearer of this little speech besides myself. Our dinner-party had been enlarged that evening by the presence of Mr Wentworth as well as Mrs Chichester, and we had all dispersed afterwards, leaving Mr Farrar and his sister in the drawing-room for their after-dinner rest. I had contrived to slip away from the others, and went down to my favourite seat on the low wall a little more readily than usual, turning my back upon Fairview. As Mrs Chichester's speech sounded very close to me, I stood up. She would be able to see me across the gooseberry and currant bushes, and so be warned not to say more than she would like to do in my presence. But she and her companion had passed on, and were, I thought, already out of sight. I was sitting down again, when a voice by my side quietly asked: 'Of whom were they speaking?'
'Mr Wentworth!' I ejaculated in some surprise at his having found out my retreat. I thought no one penetrated beyond the kitchen gardens.
Robert Wentworth and I were becoming fast friends. The few times we had met at Fairview had been sufficient to shew me that I had found a friend, and no ordinary one. Moreover, I had built up a little romance about him. Though I had so soon discovered the mistake I had made in supposing that he was engaged to Lilian, I believed that he loved her, as only such men can love; and while I heartily wished he held Arthur Trafford's place in her heart, I felt all a woman's sympathy for one whose hopes were wrecked, and who yet could bear himself so manfully. This had in the outset inclined me to make friends with him more than with any one else who visited Fairview. The more I knew of him, the more I found to respect.
As I have said, I was not without a suspicion that Mrs Chichester regarded him with favourable eyes; and I will do her the justice to say that I believe she was in this instance false to her creed, and loved him for himself, though he was as yet said to be only a rising man. 'He had not worked and struggled in vain, thought one or two who had watched him with some interest; and there was now some chance of his succeeding at the bar,' said Arthur Trafford.
'Of whom were they speaking?' he repeated. It was his habit always to get an answer.