“That you won't tell Miss Theo, else she'll hate me.”
“Why should she hate you?”
“Because I hate her, and wish she was dead!” breaks out the young lady. And the eyes that were looking so gentle and lachrymose but now, flame with sudden wrath, and her cheeks flush up. “For shame!” she adds, after a pause. “I'm a little fool to speak! But whatever is in my heart must come out. I am a girl of the woods, I am. I was bred where the sun is hotter than in this foggy climate. And I am not like your cold English girls; who, before they speak, or think, or feel, must wait for mamma to give leave. There, there! I may be a little fool for saying what I have. I know you'll go and tell Miss Lambert. Well, do!”
But, as we have said, George didn't tell Miss Lambert. Even from the beloved person there must be some things kept secret; even to himself, perhaps, he did not quite acknowledge what was the meaning of the little girl's confession; or, if he acknowledged it, did not act on it; except in so far as this, perhaps, that my gentleman, in Miss Lydia's presence, was particularly courteous and tender; and in her absence thought of her very kindly, and always with a certain pleasure. It were hard, indeed, if a man might not repay by a little kindness and gratitude the artless affection of such a warm young heart.
What was that story meanwhile which came round to our friends, of young Mr. Lutestring and young Mr. Drabshaw the Quaker having a boxing-match at a tavern in the city, and all about this young lady? They fell out over their cups, and fought probably. Why did Mr. Draper, who had praised her so at first, tell such stories now against her grandfather? “I suspect,” says Madame de Bernstein, “that he wants the girl for some client or relation of his own; and that he tells these tales in order to frighten all suitors from her. When she and her grandfather came to me, she behaved perfectly well; and I confess, sir, I thought it was a great pity that you should prefer yonder red-cheeked countrified little chit, without a halfpenny, to this pretty, wild, artless girl, with such a fortune as I hear she has.”
“Oh, she has been with you, has she, aunt?” asks George of his relative.
“Of course she has been with me,” the other replies, curtly. “Unless your brother has been so silly as to fall in love with that other little Lambert girl——”
“Indeed, ma'am, I think I can say he has not,” George remarks.
“Why, then, when he comes back with Mr. Wolfe, should he not take a fancy to this little person, as his mamma wishes—only, to do us justice, we Esmonds care very little for what our mammas wish—and marry her, and set up beside you in Virginia? She is to have a great fortune, which you won't touch. Pray, why should it go out of the family?”
George now learned that Mr. Van den Bosch and his granddaughter had been often at Madame de Bernstein's house. Taking his favourite walk with his favourite companion to Kensington Gardens, he saw Mr. Van den Bosch's chariot turning into Kensington Square. The Americans were going to visit Lady Castlewood, then? He found, on some little inquiry, that they had been more than once with her ladyship. It was, perhaps, strange that they should have said nothing of their visits to George; but, being little curious of other people's affairs, and having no intrigues or mysteries of his own, George was quite slow to imagine them in other people. What mattered to him how often Kensington entertained Bloomsbury, or Bloomsbury made its bow at Kensington?