The bait failed. Fanny was vehement in her entreaties not to be taken away from Bath. “Everyone would think it was because I have been jilted!!”
“Well,” said Abby dryly, “when I consider that poor Mitton is worn out with plodding to the front-door to take in flowers, and fruit, and books from your army of admirers, my love, I think it very much more likely that you will be held to have been the jilt!”
She did not press the matter; but derived a certain amount of comfort from the belief that Fanny’s pride had received almost as severe a blow as her heart.
Fanny meant to be good, not to be cross, or to allow it to be seen that she was in great affliction, but although she tried very hard, every now and then, to appear cheerful, her spirits remained low and oppressed, and, like her eldest aunt, she could not forbear discussion of her trouble with Abby. Hoping that she might soon talk herself out of her despair, Abby listened patiently, diverting her mind whenever an opportunity presented itself but never withholding her sympathy.
Selina, on the other hand, made no attempt to appear cheerful but as she kept her bed for three days after her brother’s disastrous visit, and complained when she left it of a great many aches and ails, perhaps only Fardle and Mrs Grimston ascribed her rather lachrymose condition to anything other than one of the disorders which so frequently attacked her. She spent most of her time on the sofa, wincing at the slamming of a door in the distance, or the postman’s horn in the street; infuriating her excellent cook by thinking, in the morning, that she could fancy a particular dish, and by laboriously eating three mouthfuls of it when it made its appearance on the dinner-table; and trying by every means known to her to keep Abby by her side. “Let me enjoy your company while I still may!” she said, shedding tears.
Between her sister and her niece, Abby’s lot was not enviable, and might well have driven her to distraction had it not been eased by Mr Oliver Grayshott, who came nearly every day with Lavinia to visit Fanny, to divert her with parlour-games, if the weather was inclement, or, on fine days, to accompany her on her drives, or to take her for gentle walks in the Sydney Gardens. It was noticeable that she was always more cheerful after these visits, and if Abby grew to dread the two words: Oliver says,she had the comfort of knowing that Oliver’s sayings were distinguished by their good sense. It was a little galling to discover that Fanny would accept Oliver’s advice rather than hers—particularly when his advice tallied exactly with hers—but she suppressed such ignoble feelings. She wondered what would be the outcome of this close friendship. Fanny was not in love with Oliver. She continued to regard him as a brother, and almost certainly confided in him, and sought his guidance; but Abby could not help feeling that he was too quiet a man to appeal to her. Still, one never knew: perhaps, in a year or two’s time, her trust and liking would have grown into love. One knew of many cases of a lively woman’s finding happiness with a husband who was cast in a more sober mould than her own. There was no doubt that Oliver loved Fanny, though he treated her just as he treated Lavinia. It was only when he looked at her that he unconsciously betrayed himself. One could always tell, Abby thought, and instantly tried to decide when it was that she had first seen in Miles Calverleigh’s very different eyes just that inner glow.
Chapter XVII
Meanwhile, Mr Stacy Calverleigh’s star had been in the ascendant, and this in spite of his uncomfortably diminishing resources He had been obliged to hang up his shot at the White Hart forseveral weeks; and he knew that only his increasing intimacy with the wealthy Mrs Clapham was restraining the proprietor of this establishment from indicating that the settlement of his bill would be appreciated. His efforts to persuade the widow to remove to Leamington had failed, and he had been obliged to show himself in public with her more often than was prudent; but these were small evils when compared with Mrs Clapham’s coquettish encouragement of his advances. He had not enjoyed his session with Mr James Wendover, but he had been swift to turn it to good account. He had taken great pains over the letter he had written to Fanny, and by the time he had polished its well-turned phrases, and copied the whole out fair, he really felt that in renouncing her he was behaving as nobly as he expected her to believe. He was a little afraid that she might address a passionate reply to him, or even accost him in public, and silently cursed the obstinacy of Mrs Clapham in refusing to withdraw from Bath; but when he received no letter from Fanny, and was accorded only a slight, distant bow from her when her carriage was held up by the usual press of traffic in Cheap Street, his mind was relieved of care, and he felt himself to be at liberty to pop the question to Mrs Clapham.
It had not occurred to him that he might meet with a refusal, nor did her response to his proposal alarm him.
“Marry you?” said Mrs Clapham, laughing. “Me? Good gracious no!”
He took this for coyness, and was rather impatient of it, but he said, in his most caressing voice: “I think it was your sportive playfulness which made me tumble headlong in love with you. And I had believed myself to be case-hardened!”
Her next words were disturbing. “Well, by what I’m told, you weren’t so case-hardened but what you were making up to that pretty little girl who bowed to you in Cheap Street, before I came to Bath!”
It was the manner in which she spoke which disturbed him more than her words. There had always been a danger that she might discover how particularly he had attached himself to Fanny, and he knew just how to deal with that. He was unprepared for the change in her voice, and in her demeanour, and it startled him. He had hitherto supposed her to be a silly, fluttering little ingenue,but she was not looking at all ingenuous, and her voice was not only decidedly tart, but it had lost some of its gentility. It disconcerted him, but only momentarily: he realized that she was suspicious of a rival, and jealous of her. He laughed, flinging up his hands. “What, little Fanny Wendover? Oh, Nancy, Nancy, you absurd and adorable witch! My dear, do you know how old she is? Seventeen! Not out of school yet!”
“More shame to you!” she said.
“Yes, indeed, if I had made up to her. Oh, these Bath quizzies! I warned you how it would be! But I own I did not think that at my age I should be suspected of dangling after a mere child only because I took notice of her, and indulged her with a little very mild flirtation!”
He trod over to her chair, and dropped gracefully on to his knee, and possessed himself of her hands, smiling up into her face. “I have had many flirts, but never a true love till now!” he said whimsically.
“Well, you haven’t got one in me!” said Mrs Clapham. “I’ve had many flirts too, but I’ve no wish for a husband, so you may as well stop making a cake of yourself! Going down on your knees, as if you was playing Romeo!”
“I know how unworthy of you I am, but I dared to hope you were not indifferent to me!” he persevered.
“Get up, do!” responded the lady unromantically, pulling her hands away.
He obeyed her, looking remarkably foolish, and shaken quite off his balance. He stammered: “How is this? It cannot be that you have been trifling with me! I cannot believe you could be so heartless!”
“Oh, can’t you?” she retorted, getting up, and shaking out her skirt. “Now, you listen to me, Mr Flat-catching Calverleigh! It don’t become you to talk of hearts, and it isn’t a particle of use pitching me any more of your gammon, because I’m up to all the rigs! We’ve had an agreeable flirtation, and the best thing you can do now is to own yourself beaten at your own game, and take yourself off! Otherwise you might hear a few things you wouldn’t relish. Taking notice of a school-girl! Cutting a sham with an heiress is what you were doing, and not for the first time, I’ll be bound! Well, I don’t want to say anything unladylike, but,”she ended, overcoming this reluctance, “you’re one as would marry a midden for muck, and that’s the truth!”