‘If you have Miss Moffat,’ said Alexandrina, ‘you must have dear Pussy too; and I really think that Pussy is too young; it will be troublesome.’ Pussy was the youngest Miss Gresham, who was now only eight years old, and whose real name was Nina.
‘Augusta,’ said Beatrice, speaking with some slight hesitation, some soupcon of doubt before the highest authority of her noble cousin, ‘if you do have Miss Moffat would you mind asking Mary Thorne to join her? I think Mary would like it, because, you see, Patience Oriel is to be one; and we have known Mary much longer than we have known Patience.’
Then out and spake the Lady Alexandrina.
‘Beatrice, dear, if you think of what you are asking, I am sure you will see that it would not do; would not do at all. Miss Thorne is a very nice girl, I am sure; and, indeed, what little I have seen of her I highly approve. But, after all, who is she? Mamma, I know, thinks that Aunt Arabella has been wrong to let be here so much, but —’
Beatrice became rather red in the face, and, in spite of the dignity of her cousin, was preparing to defend her friend.
‘Mind, I am not saying a word against Miss Thorne.’
‘If I am married before her, she shall be one of my bridesmaids,’ said Beatrice.
‘That will probably depend on circumstances,’ said the Lady Alexandrina; I find that I cannot bring my courteous pen to drop the title. ‘But Augusta is very peculiarly situated. Mr Moffat, is, you see, not of the very highest birth; and, therefore, she should take care that on her side every one about her is well born.’
‘Then you cannot have Miss Moffat,’ said Beatrice.
‘No; I would not if I could help it,’ said the cousin.
‘But the Thornes are as good a family as the Greshams,’ said Beatrice. She had not quite the courage to say, as good as the De Courcys.
‘I dare say they are; and if this was Miss Thorne of Ullathorne, Augusta probably would not object to her. But can you tell me who Miss Mary Thorne is?’
‘She is Dr Thorne’s niece.’
‘You mean that she is called so; but do you know who her father was, or who her mother was? I, for one, must own that I do not. Mamma, I believe, does, but —’
At this moment the door opened gently and Mary Thorne entered the room.
It may easily be conceived, that while Mary was making her salutations the three other young ladies were a little cast aback. The Lady Alexandrina, however, quickly recovered herself, and, by her inimitable presence of mind and facile grace of manner, soon put the matter on a proper footing.
‘We were discussing Miss Gresham’s marriage,’ said she; ‘I am sure I may mention to an acquaintance of so long standing as Miss Thorne, that the first of September has been now fixed for the wedding.’
Miss Gresham! Acquaintance of so long standing! Why, Mary and Augusta Gresham had for years, we will hardly say for how many, passed their mornings together in the same schoolroom; had quarrelled, and squabbled, and caressed and kissed, and been all but sisters to each other. Acquaintance indeed! Beatrice felt that her ears were tingling, and even Augusta was a little ashamed. Mary, however, knew that the cold words had come from a De Courcy, and not from a Gresham, and did not, therefore, resent them.
‘So it’s settled, Augusta, is it?’ said she; ‘the first of September. I wish you joy with all my heart,’ and, coming round, she put her arm over Augusta’s shoulder and kissed her. The Lady Alexandrina could not but think that the doctor’s niece uttered her congratulations very much as though she were speaking to an equal; very much as though she had a father and mother of her own.
‘You will have delicious weather,’ continued Mary. ‘September, and the beginning of October, is the nicest time of the year. If I were going honeymooning it is just the time of year I would choose.’
‘I wish you were, Mary,’ said Beatrice.
‘So do not I, dear, till I have found some decent sort of a body to honeymoon along with me. I won’t stir out of Greshamsbury till I have sent you off before me, at any rate. And where will you go, Augusta?’
‘We have not settled that,’ said Augusta. ‘Mr Moffat talks of Paris.’
‘Who ever heard of going to Paris in September?’ said the Lady Alexandrina.
The Lady Alexandrina was not pleased to find how completely the doctor’s niece took upon herself to talk, and sit, and act at Greshamsbury as though she was on a par with the young ladies of the family. That Beatrice should have allowed this would not have surprised her; but it was to be expected that Augusta would have shown better judgment.
‘These things require some tact in their management; some delicacy when high interests are at stake,’ said she; ‘I agree with Miss Thorne in thinking that, in ordinary circumstances, with ordinary people, perhaps, the lady should have her way. Rank, however, has its drawbacks, Miss Thorne, as well as its privileges.’
‘I should not object to the drawbacks,’ said the doctor’s niece, ‘presuming them to be of some use; but I fear I might fail in getting on so well with the privileges.’
The Lady Alexandrina looked at her as though not fully aware whether she intended to be pert. In truth, the Lady Alexandrina was rather in the dark on the subject. It was almost impossible, it was incredible, that a fatherless, motherless, doctor’s niece should be pert to an earl’s daughter at Greshamsbury, seeing that that earl’s daughter was the cousin of the miss Greshams. And yet the Lady Alexandrina hardly knew what other construction to put on the words she had just heard.
It was at any rate clear to her that it was not becoming that she should just then stay any longer in that room. Whether she intended to be pert or not, Miss Mary Thorne was, to say the least, very free. The De Courcy ladies knew what was due to them — no ladies better; and, therefore, the Lady Alexandrina made up her mind at once to go to her own bedroom.
‘Augusta,’ she said, rising slowly from her chair with much stately composure, ‘it is nearly time to dress; will you come with me? We have a great deal to discuss, you know.’
So she swam out of the room, and Augusta, telling Mary that she would see her again at dinner, swam — no, tried to swim — after her. Miss Gresham had had great advantages; but she had not been absolutely brought up at Courcy Castle, and could not as yet quite assume the Courcy style of swimming.
‘There,’ said Mary, as the door closed behind the rustling muslins of the ladies. ‘There, I have made an enemy for ever, perhaps two; that’s satisfactory.’
‘And why have you done it, Mary? When I am fighting your battles behind your back, why do you come and upset it all by making the whole family of the De Courcys dislike you? In such a matter as that, they’ll all go together.’
‘I am sure they will,’ said Mary; ‘whether they would be equally unanimous in a case of love and charity, that, indeed, is another question.’
‘But why should you try to make my cousin angry; you that ought to have so much sense? Don’t you remember that you were saying yourself the other day, of the absurdity of combatting pretences which the world sanctions?’
‘I do, Trichy, I do; don’t scold me now. It is so much easier to preach than to practise.