marriage, but you must take care--'
The crimson of Mrs. Finch's cheeks, and the precipitation with which she started to her feet, would have disconcerted most persons; but Theodora, though she cast down her eyes, spoke the more steadily. 'You must be more guarded and reserved in manner if you wish to avoid unkind remarks.'
'What--what--what?' cried Georgina, passionately; 'what can the most ill-natured, the most censorious, accuse me of?'
'It is not merely the ill-natured,' said Theodora. 'I know very well that you mean no harm; but you certainly have an air of trying to attract attention.'
'Well, and who does not? Some do so more demurely and hypocritically than others; but what else does any one go into company for? Do you expect us all to act the happy couple, like Captain and Mrs. Martindale the other night? You should have brought your own Percy to set us the example!' said she, ending with a most unpleasant laugh.
'Georgina, you must not expect to see Percy. He has rigid notions; he always avoids people who seek much after fashion and amusement, and (I must say it) he will not begin an acquaintance while you go on in this wild way.'
'So!' exclaimed Georgina. 'It is a new thing for the gentlemen to be particular and fastidious! I wonder what harm he thinks I should do him! But I see how it is: he means to take you away, turn you against me, the only creature in this world that ever cared for me. Are not you come to tell me he forbids you ever to come near me!'
'No, no; he does not, and if he did, would I listen?'
'No, don't, don't displease him on my account,' cried Mrs. Finch. 'Go and be happy with him; I am not worth caring for, or vexing yourself about!'
The tears stood on her burning cheeks, and Theodora eagerly replied, 'Have no fancies about me. Nothing shall ever make me give up my oldest friend. You ought to know me better than to think I would.'
'You are so unlike those I live with,' said Georgina sadly, as an excuse for the distrust. 'Oh, you don't know what I have gone through, or you would pity me. You are the only thing that has not failed me. There is Jane, with her smooth tongue and universal obligingness, she is the most selfish creature in existence--her heart would go into a nutshell! One grain of sympathy, and I would never have married. It was all her doing--she wanted luxuries! O Theodora, if I had but been near you!'
'Hush, Georgina, this is no talk for a wife,' said Theodora, severely.
'I thought you pitied me!'
'I do, indeed I do; but I cannot let you talk in that way.'
'I never do so: no one else would care to hear me.'
'Now listen to me, Georgina. You say you rely on me as you do on no one else; will you hear me tell you the only way to be happy yourself--'
'That is past,' she murmured.
'Or to stand well in the opinion of others! I am putting it on low grounds.'
'I know what you are going to say--Go and live in the country, and set up a charity-school.'
'I say no such thing. I only ask you to be cautious in your manners, to make Mr. Finch of more importance, and not to let yourself be followed by your cousin--'
Again Georgina burst into her 'thorn crackling' laugh. 'Poor Mark! I thought that was coming. People will treat him as if he was a dragon!'
'I know you mean no harm,' repeated Theodora; 'but it cannot be right to allow any occasion for observations.'
'Now, Theodora, hear me. I dare say Jane has been telling you some of her plausible stories, which do more harm than good, because no one knows which part to believe. There was some nonsense between Mark and me when we were young and happy--I confess that. Perhaps I thought he meant more than he did, and dwelt upon it as silly girls do, especially when they have nothing else to care for. Then came the discovery of all his debts and scrapes, poor fellow, and--I won't deny it--it half killed me, more especially when I found he had been attached to some low girl, and avowed that he had never seriously thought of me--he believed I understood it as all sport. I was very ill. I wish I had died. There was no more to be done but to hate him. My uncle and aunt Edward were horridly savage, chiefly because I hindered them from going to Italy; and Mrs. George Gardner thought I had been deluding Mark! Then Lady Fotheringham asked us, and--it was dull enough to be sure, and poor Pelham was always in the way-- but they were kind comfortable folks. Lady Fotheringham is a dear old dame, and I was in dull spirits just then, and rather liked to poke about with her, and get her to tell me about your brother and his Helen--'
'Why, Jane said you were dying of low spirits!'
'Well, so I was. I hated it excessively sometimes. Jane is not entirely false in that. The evenings were horrid, and Sundays beyond everything unbearable. I confess I was delighted to get away to Bath; but there--if Jane would but have helped me--I would, indeed I would, have been thankful to have gone back to Worthbourne, even if I had had to play at draughts with Pelham for the rest of my days. But Jane was resolved, and all my strength and spirit had been crushed out of me. She would not even let me write to you nor to Lady Fotheringham till it was too late.'
'Well, that is all past,' said Theodora, whose face had shown more sympathy than she thought it right to express in words. 'The point is, what is right now?'
And you see it is folly to say there is any harm or danger in my seeing Mark: he never had any attachment to me seven years ago, nor any other time, and whatever I felt for him had a thorough cure. I am not ashamed to say I am glad he should be here to give him a chance of marrying a fortune. That is the whole story. Are you satisfied?'
'Satisfied on what I never doubted, your own intentions, but no further. You ought to abstain from all appearance of evil.'
'I am not going to give my cousin up to please Lady Albury--no, nor all the Fotheringhams put together! You used to say you did not care for gossip.'
'No more I do, but I care for a proper appearance.'
'Very well--hush--here he comes!
HE was Mr. Gardner, and whether it was that Mrs. Finch was more guarded, or that her pleading influenced Theodora's judgment, nothing passed that could excite a suspicion that anything remained of the former feeling between the cousins. It was in truth exactly as Mrs. Finch said; for whatever were her faults, she was perfectly frank and sincere, clinging to truth, perhaps out of opposition to her sister. Mark was not a man capable of any genuine or strong affection; and as Theodora rightly perceived, the harm of Georgina's ways was not so much what regarded him, as in the love of dissipation, the unguarded forward manner with all gentlemen alike, and the reckless pursuit of excitement. There was a heart beneath, and warmth that might in time be worked upon by better things.
'It is a great pity that people will drop her,' she said to Violet. 'The more she is left to that stamp of society, the worse it is for her whole tone of mind.'
Violet agreed, pitied, and wished it could be helped; but whenever they met Mrs. Finch in company, saw it was not wonderful that people did not like her.
Mr. Gardner was, on the contrary, a general favourite. Every one called him good for nothing; but then, he was so very amusing! Violet could never find this out, shrank from his notice, and withdrew as much as possible from his neighbourhood; Emma Brandon generally adhering closely to her, so as to avoid one whom she viewed as a desperate designer on the Priory.
It was in parties that Violet chiefly saw Emma this spring. Theodora's presence in Cadogan-place frightened her away; and, besides, her mornings were occupied by Miss Marstone's pursuits. Lady Elizabeth made no objection to her sharing in these, though sometimes not fully convinced of the prudence of all the accessories to their charities, and still less pleased at the influence exercised by Theresa over her daughter's judgment.
Emma's distaste to society was now far more openly avowed, and was regarded by her not as a folly to be conquered, but a mark of superiority. Her projects for Rickworth were also far more prominent. Miss Marstone had swept away the veil that used to shroud them in the deepest recess of Emma's mind, and to Violet it seemed as if they were losing their gloss by being produced whenever the friends wanted something to talk about. Moreover, Emma, who was now within a few months of twenty-one, was seized with a vehement desire to extort her mother's
