"She will listen." Mrs. Mountstuart said: "She likes him, respects him, thinks he is a very sincere friend, clever, a scholar, and a good mountaineer; and thinks you mean very kindly. So much I have impressed on her, but I have not done much for Mr. Whitford."
"She consents to listen," said Willoughby, snatching at that as the death-blow to his friend Horace.
"She consents to listen, because you have arranged it so that if she declined she would be rather a savage."
"You think it will have no result?"
"None at all."
"Her listening will do."
"And you must be satisfied with it."
"We shall see."
"'Anything for peace', she says: and I don't say that a gentleman with a tongue would not have a chance. She wishes to please you."
"Old Vernon has no tongue for women, poor fellow! You will have us be spider or fly, and if a man can't spin a web all he can hope is not to be caught in one. She knows his history, too, and that won't be in his favour. How did she look when you left them?"
"Not so bright: like a bit of china that wants dusting. She looked a trifle gauche, it struck me; more like a country girl with the hoyden taming in her than the well-bred creature she is. I did not suspect her to have feeling. You must remember, Sir Willoughby, that she has obeyed your wishes, done her utmost: I do think we may say she has made some amends; and if she is to blame she repents, and you will not insist too far."
"I do insist," said he.
"Beneficent, but a tyrant!"
"Well, well." He did not dislike the character.
They perceived Dr. Middleton wandering over the lawn, and Willoughby went to him to put him on the wrong track: Mrs. Mountstuart swept into the drawing-room. Willoughby quitted the Rev. Doctor, and hung about the bower where he supposed his pair of dupes had by this time ceased to stutter mutually: — or what if they had found the word of harmony? He could bear that, just bear it. He rounded the shrubs, and, behold, both had vanished. The trellis decorated emptiness. His idea was, that they had soon discovered their inability to be turtles: and desiring not to lose a moment while Clara was fretted by the scene, he rushed to the drawing-room with the hope of lighting on her there, getting her to himself, and finally, urgently, passionately offering her the sole alternative of what she had immediately rejected. Why had he not used passion before, instead of limping crippled between temper and policy? He was capable of it: as soon as imagination in him conceived his personal feelings unwounded and unimperiled, the might of it inspired him with heroical confidence, and Clara grateful, Clara softly moved, led him to think of Clara melted. Thus anticipating her he burst into the room.
One step there warned him that he was in the jaws of the world. We have the phrase, that a man is himself under certain trying circumstances. There is no need to say it of Sir Willoughby: he was thrice himself when danger menaced, himself inspired him. He could read at a single glance the Polyphemus eye in the general head of a company. Lady Busshe, Lady Culmer, Mrs. Mountstuart, Mr. Dale, had a similarity in the variety of their expressions that made up one giant eye for him perfectly, if awfully, legible. He discerned the fact that his demon secret was abroad, universal. He ascribed it to fate. He was in the jaws of the world, on the world's teeth. This time he thought Lætitia must have betrayed him, and bowing to Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer, gallantly pressing their fingers and responding to their becks and archnesses, he ruminated on his defences before he should accost her father. He did not want to be alone with the man, and he considered how his presence might be made useful.
"I am glad to see you, Mr. Dale. Pray, be seated. Is it nature asserting her strength? or the efficacy of medicine? I fancy it can't be both. You have brought us back your daughter?"
Mr. Dale sank into a chair, unable to resist the hand forcing him.
"No, Sir Willoughby, no. I have not; I have not seen her since she came home this morning from Patterne."
"Indeed? She is unwell?"
"I cannot say. She secludes herself."
"Has locked herself in," said Lady Busshe.
Willoughby threw her a smile. It made them intimate.
This was an advantage against the world, but an exposure of himself to the abominable woman.
Dr. Middleton came up to Mr. Dale to apologize for not presenting his daughter Clara, whom he could find neither in nor out of the house.
"We have in Mr. Dale, as I suspected," he said to Willoughby, "a stout ally."
"If I may beg two minutes with you, Sir Willoughby," said Mr. Dale.
"Your visits are too rare for me to allow of your numbering the minutes," Willoughby replied. "We cannot let Mr. Dale escape us now that we have him, I think, Dr. Middleton."
"Not without ransom," said the Rev. Doctor.
Mr. Dale shook his head. "My strength, Sir Willoughby, will not sustain me long."
"You are at home, Mr. Dale."
"Not far from home, in truth, but too far for an invalid beginning to grow sensible of weakness."
"You will regard Patterne as your home, Mr. Dale," Willoughby repeated for the world to hear.
"Unconditionally?" Dr. Middleton inquired, with a humourous air of dissenting.
Willoughby gave him a look that was coldly courteous, and then he looked at Lady Busshe. She nodded imperceptibly. Her eyebrows rose, and Willoughby returned a similar nod.
Translated, the signs ran thus:
"— Pestered by the Rev. gentleman: — I see you are. Is the story I have heard correct? — Possibly it may err in a few details."
This was fettering himself in loose manacles.
But Lady Busshe would not be satisfied with the compliment of the intimate looks and nods. She thought she might still be behind Mrs. Mountstuart; and she was a bold woman, and anxious about him, half-crazed by the riddle of the pot she was boiling in, and having very few minutes to spare. Not extremely reticent by nature, privileged by station, and made intimate with him by his covert looks, she stood up to him. "One word to an old friend. Which is the father of the fortunate creature? I don't know how to behave to them." No time was afforded him to be disgusted with her vulgarity and audacity.
He replied, feeling her rivet his gyves: "The house will be empty to-morrow."
"I see. A decent withdrawal, and very well cloaked. We had a tale here of her running off to decline the honour, afraid, or on her dignity or something."
How was it that the woman was ready to accept the altered posture of affairs in his house — if she had received a hint of them? He forgot that he had prepared her in self-defence.
"From whom did you have that?" he asked.
"Her father. And the lady aunts declare it was the cousin she refused!" Willoughby's brain turned over. He righted it for action, and crossed the room to the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. His ears tingled. He and his whole story discussed in public! Himself unroofed! And the marvel that he of all men should be in such a tangle, naked and blown on, condemned to use his cunningest arts to unwind and cover himself, struck him as though the lord of his kind were running the gauntlet of a legion of imps. He felt their lashes.
The ladies were talking to Mrs. Mountstuart and Lady Culmer of Vernon and the suitableness of Lætitia to a scholar. He made sign to them, and both rose.
"It is the hour for your drive. To the cottage! Mr. Dale is in. She must come. Her sick father! No delay, going or returning. Bring her here at once."