Magdalen looked unaccountably startled, and Miss Garth unaccountably relieved, by his announcement of Frank’s good fortune. He talked on about it, quite unsuspiciously, until the luncheon-bell rang — and then, for the first time, he noticed Norah’s absence. She sent a message downstairs, after they had assembled at the table, to say that a headache was keeping her in her own room. When Miss Garth went up shortly afterward to communicate the news about Frank, Norah appeared, strangely enough, to feel very little relieved by hearing it. Mr. Francis Clare had gone away on a former occasion (she remarked), and had come back. He might come back again, and sooner than they any of them thought for. She said no more on the subject than this: she made no reference to what had taken place in the shrubbery. Her unconquerable reserve seemed to have strengthened its hold on her since the outburst of the morning. She met Magdalen, later in the day, as if nothing had happened: no formal reconciliation took place between them. It was one of Norah’s peculiarities to shrink from all reconciliations that were openly ratified, and to take her shy refuge in reconciliations that were silently implied. Magdalen saw plainly, in her look and manner, that she had made her first and last protest. Whether the motive was pride, or sullenness, or distrust of herself, or despair of doing good, the result was not to be mistaken — Norah had resolved on remaining passive for the future.
Later in the afternoon, Mr. Vanstone suggested a drive to his eldest daughter, as the best remedy for her headache. She readily consented to accompany her father; who thereupon proposed, as usual, that Magdalen should join them. Magdalen was nowhere to be found. For the second time that day she had wandered into the grounds by herself. On this occasion, Miss Garth — who, after adopting Norah’s opinions, had passed from the one extreme of overlooking Frank altogether, to the other extreme of believing him capable of planning an elopement at five minutes’ notice — volunteered to set forth immediately, and do her best to find the missing young lady. After a prolonged absence, she returned unsuccessful — with the strongest persuasion in her own mind that Magdalen and Frank had secretly met one another somewhere, but without having discovered the smallest fragment of evidence to confirm her suspicions. By this time the carriage was at the door, and Mr. Vanstone was unwilling to wait any longer. He and Norah drove away together; and Mrs. Vanstone and Miss Garth sat at home over their work.
In half an hour more, Magdalen composedly walked into the room. She was pale and depressed. She received Miss Garth’s remonstrances with a weary inattention; explained carelessly that she had been wandering in the wood; took up some books, and put them down again; sighed impatiently, and went away upstairs to her own room.
“I think Magdalen is feeling the reaction, after yesterday,” said Mrs. Vanstone, quietly. “It is just as we thought. Now the theatrical amusements are all over, she is fretting for more.”
Here was an opportunity of letting in the light of truth on Mrs. Vanstone’s mind, which was too favorable to be missed. Miss Garth questioned her conscience, saw her chance, and took it on the spot.
“You forget,” she rejoined, “that a certain neighbour of ours is going away tomorrow. Shall I tell you the truth? Magdalen is fretting over the departure of Francis Clare.”
Mrs. Vanstone looked up from her work with a gentle, smiling surprise.
“Surely not?” she said. “It is natural enough that Frank should be attracted by Magdalen; but I can’t think that Magdalen returns the feeling. Frank is so very unlike her; so quiet and undemonstrative; so dull and helpless, poor fellow, in some things. He is handsome, I know, but he is so singularly unlike Magdalen, that I can’t think it possible — I can’t indeed.”
“My dear good lady!” cried Miss Garth, in great amazement; “do you really suppose that people fall in love with each other on account of similarities in their characters? In the vast majority of cases, they do just the reverse. Men marry the very last women, and women the very last men, whom their friends would think it possible they could care about. Is there any phrase that is oftener on all our lips than ‘What can have made Mr. So-and-So marry that woman?’ — or ‘How could Mrs. So-and-So throw herself away on that man?’ Has all your experience of the world never yet shown you that girls take perverse fancies for men who are totally unworthy of them?”
“Very true,” said Mrs. Vanstone, composedly. “I forgot that. Still it seems unaccountable, doesn’t it?”
“Unaccountable, because it happens every day!” retorted Miss Garth, good-humoredly. “I know a great many excellent people who reason against plain experience in the same way — who read the newspapers in the morning, and deny in the evening that there is any romance for writers or painters to work upon in modern life. Seriously, Mrs. Vanstone, you may take my word for it — thanks to those wretched theatricals, Magdalen is going the way with Frank that a great many young ladies have gone before her. He is quite unworthy of her; he is, in almost every respect, her exact opposite — and, without knowing it herself, she has fallen in love with him on that very account. She is resolute and impetuous, clever and domineering; she is not one of those model women who want a man to look up to, and to protect them — her beau-ideal (though she may not think it herself) is a man she can henpeck. Well! one comfort is, there are far better men, even of that sort, to be had than Frank. It’s a mercy he is going away, before we have more trouble with them, and before any serious mischief is done.”
“Poor Frank!” said Mrs. Vanstone, smiling compassionately. “We have known him since he was in jackets, and Magdalen in short frocks. Don’t let us give him up yet. He may do better this second time.”
Miss Garth looked up in astonishment.
“And suppose he does better?” she asked. “What then?”
Mrs. Vanstone cut off a loose thread in her work, and laughed outright.
“My good friend,” she said, “there is an old farmyard proverb which warns us not to count our chickens before they are hatched. Let us wait a little before we count ours.”
It was not easy to silence Miss Garth, when she was speaking under the influence of a strong conviction; but this reply closed her lips. She resumed her work, and looked, and thought, unutterable things.
Mrs. Vanstone’s behavior was certainly remarkable under the circumstances. Here, on one side, was a girl — with great personal attractions, with rare pecuniary prospects, with a social position which might have justified the best gentleman in the neighbourhood in making her an offer of marriage — perversely casting herself away on a penniless idle young fellow, who had failed at his first start in life, and who even if he succeeded in his second attempt, must be for years to come in no position to marry a young lady of fortune on equal terms. And there, on the other side, was that girl’s mother, by no means dismayed at the prospect of a connection which was, to say the least of it, far from desirable; by no means certain, judging her by her own words and looks, that a marriage between Mr. Vanstone’s daughter and Mr. Clare’s son might not prove to be as satisfactory a result of the intimacy between the two young people as the parents on both sides could possibly wish for!
It was perplexing in the extreme. It was almost as unintelligible as that past mystery — that forgotten mystery now — of the journey to London.
In the evening, Frank made his appearance, and announced that his father had mercilessly sentenced him to leave Combe-Raven by the parliamentary train the next morning. He mentioned this circumstance with an air of sentimental resignation; and listened to Mr. Vanstone’s boisterous rejoicings over his new prospects with a mild and mute surprise. His gentle melancholy of look and manner greatly assisted his personal advantages.
In his own effeminate way he was more handsome than ever that evening. His soft brown eyes wandered about the room with a melting tenderness; his hair was beautifully brushed; his delicate hands hung over the arms of his chair with a languid grace. He looked like a convalescent Apollo. Never, on any previous occasion, had he practiced more successfully the social art which he habitually cultivated — the art of casting himself on society in the character of a well-bred Incubus, and conferring an obligation on his fellow-creatures by allowing them to sit under him. It was undeniably a dull evening. All the talking fell to the share of Mr. Vanstone and