tell you what,” said she. “If you don’t take care, you will find yourself loose upon the world without even a house over your head; you don’t know him as well as I do. He’s very angry.”
Bertie stroked his big beard, sipped his tea, chatted over his misfortunes in a half-comic, half-serious tone, and ended by promising his sister that he would do his very best to make himself agreeable to the Widow Bold. Then Charlotte followed her father to his own room, softened down his wrath, and persuaded him to say nothing more about the Jew bill discounter, at any rate for a few weeks. He even went so far as to say he would pay the £700, or at any rate settle the bill, if he saw a certainty of his son’s securing for himself anything like a decent provision in life. Nothing was said openly between them about poor Eleanor, but the father and the daughter understood each other.
They all met together in the drawing-room at nine o’clock, in perfect good humour with each other, and about that hour Mrs. Bold was announced. She had never been in the house before, though she had of course called, and now she felt it strange to find herself there in her usual evening dress, entering the drawing-room of these strangers in this friendly, unceremonious way, as though she had known them all her life. But in three minutes they made her at home. Charlotte tripped downstairs and took her bonnet from her, and Bertie came to relieve her from her shawl, and the signora smiled on her as she could smile when she chose to be gracious, and the old doctor shook hands with her in a kind benedictory manner that went to her heart at once and made her feel that he must be a good man.
She had not been seated for above five minutes when the door again opened and Mr. Slope was announced. She felt rather surprised, because she was told that nobody was to be there, and it was very evident from the manner of some of them that Mr. Slope was not unexpected. But still there was not much in it. In such invitations a bachelor or two more or less are always spoken of as nobodies, and there was no reason why Mr. Slope should not drink tea at Dr. Stanhope’s as well as Eleanor herself. He, however, was very much surprised and not very much gratified at finding that his own embryo spouse made one of the party. He had come there to gratify himself by gazing on Madame Neroni’s beauty and listening to and returning her flattery: and though he had not owned as much to himself, he still felt that if he spent the evening as he had intended to do, he might probably not thereby advance his suit with Mrs. Bold.
The signora, who had no idea of a rival, received Mr. Slope with her usual marks of distinction. As he took her hand, she made some confidential communication to him in a low voice, declaring that she had a plan to communicate to him after tea, and was evidently prepared to go on with her work of reducing the chaplain to a state of captivity. Poor Mr. Slope was rather beside himself. He thought that Eleanor could not but have learnt from his demeanour that he was an admirer of her own, and he had also flattered himself that the idea was not unacceptable to her. What would she think of him if he now devoted himself to a married woman!
But Eleanor was not inclined to be severe in her criticisms on him in this respect, and felt no annoyance of any kind, when she found herself seated between Bertie and Charlotte Stanhope. She had no suspicion of Mr. Slope’s intentions; she had no suspicion even of the suspicion of other people; but still she felt well-pleased not to have Mr. Slope too near to her.
And she was not ill-pleased to have Bertie Stanhope near her. It was rarely indeed that he failed to make an agreeable impression on strangers. With a bishop indeed who thought much of his own dignity it was possible that he might fail, but hardly with a young and pretty woman. He possessed the tact of becoming instantly intimate with women without giving rise to any fear of impertinence. He had about him somewhat of the propensities of a tame cat. It seemed quite natural that he should be petted, caressed, and treated with familiar good nature, and that in return he should purr, and be sleek and graceful, and above all never show his claws. Like other tame cats, however, he had his claws, and sometimes made them dangerous.
When tea was over, Charlotte went to the open window and declared loudly that the full harvest moon was much too beautiful to be disregarded, and called them all to look at it. To tell the truth there was but one there who cared much about the moon’s beauty, and that one was not Charlotte, but she knew how valuable an aid to her purpose the chaste goddess might become, and could easily create a little enthusiasm for the purpose of the moment. Eleanor and Bertie were soon with her. The doctor was now quiet in his armchair, and Mrs. Stanhope in hers, both prepared for slumber.
“Are you a Whewellite or a Brewsterite, or a t’othermanite, Mrs. Bold?” said Charlotte, who knew a little about everything, and had read about a third of each of the books to which she alluded.
“Oh!” said Eleanor; “I have not read any of the books, but I feel sure that there is one man in the moon at least, if not more.”
“You don’t believe in the pulpy gelatinous matter?” said Bertie.
“I heard about that,” said Eleanor, “and I really think it’s almost wicked to talk in such a manner. How can we argue about God’s power in the other stars from the laws which he has given for our rule in this one?”
“How indeed!” said Bertie. “Why shouldn’t there be a race of salamanders in Venus? And even if there be nothing but fish in Jupiter, why shouldn’t the fish there be as wide awake as the men and women here?”
“That would be saying very little for them,” said Charlotte. “I am for Dr. Whewell myself, for I do not think that men and women are worth being repeated in such countless worlds. There may be souls in other stars, but I doubt their having any bodies attached to them. But come, Mrs. Bold, let us put our bonnets on and walk round the close. If we are to discuss sidereal questions, we shall do so much better under the towers of the cathedral than stuck in this narrow window.”
Mrs. Bold made no objection, and a party was made to walk out. Charlotte Stanhope well knew the rule as to three being no company, and she had therefore to induce her sister to allow Mr. Slope to accompany them.
“Come, Mr. Slope,” she said, “I’m sure you’ll join us. We shall be in again in a quarter of an hour, Madeline.”
Madeline read in her eye all that she had to say, knew her object, and as she had to depend on her sister for so many of her amusements, she felt that she must yield. It was hard to be left alone while others of her own age walked out to feel the soft influence of the bright night, but it would be harder still to be without the sort of sanction which Charlotte gave to all her flirtations and intrigues. Charlotte’s eye told her that she must give up just at present for the good of the family, and so Madeline obeyed.
But Charlotte’s eyes said nothing of the sort to Mr. Slope. He had no objection at all to the tête-à-tête with the signora which the departure of the other three would allow him, and gently whispered to her, “I shall not leave you alone.”
“Oh, yes,” said she; “go—pray go, pray go, for my sake. Do not think that I am so selfish. It is understood that nobody is kept within for me. You will understand this too when you know me better. Pray join them, Mr. Slope, but when you come in speak to me for five minutes before you leave us.”
Mr. Slope understood that he was to go, and he therefore joined the party in the hall. He would have had no objection at all to this arrangement, if he could have secured Mrs. Bold’s arm; but this of course was out of the question. Indeed, his fate was very soon settled, for no sooner had he reached the hall-door than Miss Stanhope put her hand within his arm, and Bertie walked off with Eleanor just as naturally as though she were already his own property.
And so they sauntered forth: first they walked round the close, according to their avowed intent; then they went under the old arched gateway below St. Cuthbert’s little church, and then they turned behind the grounds of the bishop’s palace, and so on till they came to the bridge just at the edge of the town, from which passers-by can look down into the gardens of Hiram’s Hospital; and here Charlotte and Mr. Slope, who were in advance, stopped till the other two came up to them. Mr. Slope knew that the gable-ends and old brick chimneys which stood up so prettily in the moonlight were those of Mr. Harding’s late abode, and would not have stopped on such a spot, in such company, if he could have avoided it; but