“I didn’t mean it in that sense,” replied Mrs Eyrecourt, meekly. “I only meant – ”
“Yes, I know what you meant,” interrupted Roma again. “You meant that, as we are both penniless, or very nearly so, and, what is worse, both of us blessed with most luxurious tastes and a supreme contempt for economy, we couldn’t do worse than set out on our travels through life together. Of course I quite agree with you. Even if I cared for Beauchamp – which I don’t – I know we should be wretched. I couldn’t stand it, and I am quite sure he couldn’t. The age for that sort of thing is past long ago. Every sensible person must see that, though now and then, in weak moments, one has a sort of hazy regret for it, just as one regrets one’s childish belief in fairy tales.” She sat silent for a minute or two, looking down absently, idly turning the spoon round and round in her empty cup. Then suddenly she spoke again. “It is very puzzling to know what is best to do,” she said, looking up. “Do you know, Gertrude, notwithstanding your repeated injunctions to me to try to snub Beauchamp without letting it come to a regular formal proposal, and all that, I really believe I should, on my own responsibility (it couldn’t cause more uncomfortable feeling than the present state of things), have let it come to a crisis and be done with, but for another, a purely unselfish, reason.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mrs Eyrecourt, looking alarmed.
“Just this: I think it possible that his fancy – after all, I am not sure that it is anything but fancy, or whatever you call it – for me, may keep him from something still sillier.”
“What do you mean?” repeated Gertrude again. “You can’t mean that Beauchamp would think of marrying any one still – ”
She hesitated.
“Still less desirable than I?” said Roma, coolly. “Yes – that is exactly what I do mean.”
“He would never be so foolish!” exclaimed her sister-in-law. “He is too alive to his own interests – too much a man of the world. And think what numberless flirtations he has had! Oh, no, Roma! he would never do anything foolish of that kind, I feel sure.”
“I don’t,” said the younger lady. “He is a man of the world, he is alive to his own interests; but still, Gertrude, remember what we know as a fact – that at this moment, though it should ruin all his prospects for life, he is ready – more than ready, absurdly eager to marry me. So we mustn’t count too much on his worldly wisdom, cool-headed and experienced in such matters as he seems. Certainly, contradiction may have had a good deal to do with the growth and continuance of his feelings for me. There is that to be considered; and knowing that, I was idiotic enough to try to warn him.”
“To warn him! Oh, Roma; do you mean that there is some one already that he would ever really think of seriously?” asked Mrs Eyrecourt, with great anxiety.
“Not exactly that – at least, not as yet,” replied Roma. “What I mean is, that if I succeeded, as I could easily, if it came to the point, in quite convincing him he must altogether give up thoughts of me, he would be very likely to do worse – or more foolishly, at least. I have no doubt the girl is as good as she is pretty – I was taken by her myself – but utterly, completely unsuited to him in every single respect. And for this reason, Gertrude, I was very civil to Beauchamp at the end: I let him come to the station to see me off – we parted most affectionately. I wanted to do away with the bad effects of my warning, which I feared had offended him deeply the night before. But after all, perhaps, the warning was rather encouraging to his vain hopes than otherwise. I do believe he thought I was jealous.”
She smiled at the recollection. “The worst of it is,” she went on, “if he thinks so, it will probably lead to his flirting all the more desperately, in hopes of my hearing of it. And then if it comes to my being driven into formally refusing him, what shall I do when he comes to us in February? He told me he is to have six weeks then. And he will go back to Wareborough again after that. Oh dear, oh dear, it is all dreadfully plain to my prophetic vision.”
“Roma, do be serious. You don’t mean to say – you can’t mean, that this girl, whoever she is, is a Wareborough girl. Wareborough!” with supreme contempt, “Why, we all thought your cousin, Mary Pevensey, throwing herself away when she married Henry Dalrymple, though he didn’t exactly belong to Wareborough, and was so rich. By-the-bye, this girl may be rich; not that that would reconcile me to it,” with a sigh.
“But it might somewhat modify the vehemence of your opposition,” said Roma, in her usual lazy, half-bantering tone, from which her unwonted earnestness had hitherto roused her. “No, Gertrude; you must not even apply that unction to your damask cheek – what am I saying? I never can remember those horrid little quotations we had to hunt up at school, and I am so sleepy with travelling all yesterday – lay that flattering unction to your soul, I mean. Beauchamp would say I was trying to make a female Dundreary of myself – a good thing he’s not here. No, she is not rich. I told you she was utterly unsuited to him in every way. I found out she wasn’t rich before Beauchamp ever saw her; something interested me in her, I don’t know what exactly, and I asked Mary about her.”
“Not rich, and Wareborough! Oh, no, Roma; I am quite satisfied. There is no fear in that quarter. It is only one of his incessant flirtations, I am sure.”
“If so, it will be all on his side. She isn’t the sort of girl to flirt. It would be all or nothing with her, I expect,” said Roma, oracularly.
“I can’t understand what makes you think so much of it,” said Mrs Eyrecourt, fretfully. “How often did you see them together?”
“Only once – that last evening at the Dalrymples! There was a carpet dance. Don’t you remember I wrote and told you they would ask Beauchamp, when they heard he was coming?” said Roma.
“Only once. You only saw them together once, and that at a dance, where Beauchamp was sure to flirt – especially as you snubbed him! Really, Roma, you are absurdly fanciful,” exclaimed Mrs Eyrecourt.
Roma took the remark in good part.
“Perhaps I am,” she replied; “but it isn’t generally a weakness of mine to be so. For all I know, the girl is engaged to someone else, or she and Beauchamp may never see each other again. I don’t say I have any grounds for what I fear. One gets impressions sometimes that one can’t account for.”
“Ah, yes, and I really think, dear, you are a little morbid on the subject. You have had so much worry about Beauchamp,” said Gertrude, consolingly. “But as you’ve told me so much, tell me a little more. Is she such a very pretty girl? There must be something out of the common about her to have attracted you. Who is she?”
“She is a – ” began Miss Eyrecourt, but a noise at the door interrupted her. There was a bang, then a succession of tiny raps, then a fumbling at the handle.
“That tiresome child!” exclaimed Mrs Eyrecourt. “Floss,” in a higher key, “be quiet, do. Run up stairs – never mind her, Roma; go on with what you were saying.” But the fumbling continued. Roma’s nerves, perhaps, were not quite in train this morning; however that may have been, the noise was very irritating. She got up at last and opened the door.
“Come in, Floss,” she said, good-humouredly, but her invitation was not accepted.
“I won’t come into rooms when people call me a tiresome child at the door and I haven’t been naughty,” said the new-comer, with much dignity and scanty punctuation.
She was a very small person indeed. Of years she numbered five, in height and appearance she might easily have passed for three. She was hardly a pretty child, for her features, though small and delicate, were wanting in the rosebud freshness so charming in early childhood; her eyes, when one succeeded in penetrating to them through the tangle of wavy light hair