silent till Charlotte had completed her plans, and Mrs. Bold stood equally silent, intently occupied as it appeared in the arrangement of her rings.
And yet these two people were thoroughly in love with each other; and though one was a middle-aged clergyman, and the other a lady at any rate past the wishy-washy bread-and-butter period of life, they were as unable to tell their own minds to each other as any Damon and Phillis, whose united ages would not make up that to which Mr. Arabin had already attained.
Madeline Neroni consented to her sister’s proposal, and then the two ladies again went off in quest of Bertie Stanhope.
Chapter XLII.
Ullathorne Sports—Act III
And now Miss Thorne’s guests were beginning to take their departure, and the amusement of those who remained was becoming slack. It was getting dark, and ladies in morning costumes were thinking that, if they were to appear by candlelight, they ought to readjust themselves. Some young gentlemen had been heard to talk so loud that prudent mammas determined to retire judiciously, and the more discreet of the male sex, whose libations had been moderate, felt that there was not much more left for them to do.
Morning parties, as a rule, are failures. People never know how to get away from them gracefully. A picnic on an island or a mountain or in a wood may perhaps be permitted. There is no master of the mountain bound by courtesy to bid you stay while in his heart he is longing for your departure. But in a private house or in private grounds a morning party is a bore. One is called on to eat and drink at unnatural hours. One is obliged to give up the day, which is useful, and is then left without resource for the evening, which is useless. One gets home fagged and désoeuvré, and yet at an hour too early for bed. There is no comfortable resource left. Cards in these genteel days are among the things tabooed, and a rubber of whist is impracticable.
All this began now to be felt. Some young people had come with some amount of hope that they might get up a dance in the evening, and were unwilling to leave till all such hope was at an end. Others, fearful of staying longer than was expected, had ordered their carriages early, and were doing their best to go, solicitous for their servants and horses. The countess and her noble brood were among the first to leave, and as regarded the Hon. George, it was certainly time that he did so. Her ladyship was in a great fret and fume. Those horrid roads would, she was sure, be the death of her if unhappily she were caught in them by the dark night. The lamps she was assured were good, but no lamp could withstand the jolting of the roads of East Barsetshire. The De Courcy property lay in the western division of the county.
Mrs. Proudie could not stay when the countess was gone. So the bishop was searched for by the Revs. Messrs. Grey and Green and found in one corner of the tent enjoying himself thoroughly in a disquisition on the hebdomadal board. He obeyed, however, the behests of his lady without finishing the sentence in which he was promising to Dr. Gwynne that his authority at Oxford should remain unimpaired, and the episcopal horses turned their noses towards the palatial stables. Then the Grantlys went. Before they did so, Mr. Harding managed to whisper a word into his daughter’s ear. Of course, he said, he would undeceive the Grantlys as to that foolish rumour about Mr. Slope.
“No, no, no,” said Eleanor; “pray do not—pray wait till I see you. You will be home in a day or two, and then I will I explain to you everything.”
“I shall be home tomorrow,” said he.
“I am so glad,” said Eleanor. “You will come and dine with me, and then we shall be so comfortable.”
Mr. Harding promised. He did not exactly know what there was to be explained, or why Dr. Grantly’s mind should not be disabused of the mistake into which he had fallen, but nevertheless he promised. He owed some reparation to his daughter, and he thought that he might best make it by obedience.
And thus the people were thinning off by degrees as Charlotte and Eleanor walked about in quest of Bertie. Their search might have been long had they not happened to hear his voice. He was comfortably ensconced in the ha-ha, with his back to the sloping side, smoking a cigar, and eagerly engaged in conversation with some youngster from the further side of the county, whom he had never met before, who was also smoking under Bertie’s pupilage and listening with open ears to an account given by his companion of some of the pastimes of Eastern clime.
“Bertie, I am seeking you everywhere,” said Charlotte. “Come up here at once.”
Bertie looked up out of the ha-ha and saw the two ladies before him. As there was nothing for him but to obey, he got up and threw away his cigar. From the first moment of his acquaintance with her he had liked Eleanor Bold. Had he been left to his own devices, had she been penniless, and had it then been quite out of the question that he should marry her, he would most probably have fallen violently in love with her. But now he could not help regarding her somewhat as he did the marble workshops at Carrara, as he had done his easel and palette, as he had done the lawyer’s chambers in London—in fact, as he had invariably regarded everything by which it had been proposed to him to obtain the means of living. Eleanor Bold appeared before him, no longer as a beautiful woman, but as a new profession called matrimony. It was a profession indeed requiring but little labour, and one in which an income was insured to him. But nevertheless he had been as it were goaded on to it; his sister had talked to him of Eleanor, just as she had talked of busts and portraits. Bertie did not dislike money, but he hated the very thought of earning it. He was now called away from his pleasant cigar to earn it, by offering himself as a husband to Mrs. Bold. The work indeed was made easy enough, for in lieu of his having to seek the widow, the widow had apparently come to seek him.
He made some sudden absurd excuse to his auditor and then, throwing away his cigar, climbed up the wall of the ha-ha and joined the ladies on the lawn.
“Come and give Mrs. Bold an arm,” said Charlotte, “while I set you on a piece of duty which, as a preux chevalier, you must immediately perform. Your personal danger will, I fear, be insignificant, as your antagonist is a clergyman.”
Bertie immediately gave his arm to Eleanor, walking between her and his sister. He had lived too long abroad to fall into the Englishman’s habit of offering each an arm to two ladies at the same time—a habit, by the by, which foreigners regard as an approach to bigamy, or a sort of incipient Mormonism.
The little history of Mr. Slope’s misconduct was then told to Bertie by his sister, Eleanor’s ears tingling the while. And well they might tingle. If it were necessary to speak of the outrage at all, why should it be spoken of to such a person as Mr. Stanhope, and why in her own hearing? She knew she was wrong, and was unhappy and dispirited, yet she could think of no way to extricate herself, no way to set herself right. Charlotte spared her as much as she possibly could, spoke of the whole thing as though Mr. Slope had taken a glass of wine too much, said that of course there would be nothing more about it, but that steps must be taken to exclude Mr. Slope from the carriage.
“Mrs. Bold need be under no alarm about that,” said Bertie, “for Mr. Slope has gone this hour past. He told me that business made it necessary that he should start at once for Barchester.”
“He is not so tipsy, at any rate, but what he knows his fault,” said Charlotte. “Well, my dear, that is one difficulty over. Now I’ll leave you with your true knight and get Madeline off as quickly as I can. The carriage is here, I suppose, Bertie?”
“It has been here for the last hour.”
“That’s well. Goodbye, my dear. Of course you’ll come in to tea. I shall trust to you to bring her, Bertie, even by force if necessary.” And so saying, Charlotte ran off across the lawn, leaving her brother alone with the widow.
As Miss Stanhope went off, Eleanor bethought herself that, as Mr. Slope had taken his departure, there no longer existed any necessity for separating Mr. Stanhope from his sister Madeline, who so much needed his aid. It had been arranged that he should remain so as to preoccupy Mr. Slope’s place