“I don’t suppose she’ll know anything about it.”
“She knows about everything, Mr. Gibson. It’s astonishing what she knows. She has eyes and ears everywhere. I shouldn’t care, if she didn’t see and hear so very incorrectly. I’m told now that she declares—; but it doesn’t signify.”
“Declares what?” asked Mr. Gibson.
“Never mind. But wasn’t it odd how all Exeter believed that you were going to be married in that house, and to live there all the rest of your life, and be one of Miss Stanbury’s slaves. I never believed it, Mr. Gibson.” This she said with a sad smile, that ought to have brought him on his knees, in spite of the chignon.
“One can’t help these things,” said Mr. Gibson.
“I never could have believed it;—not even if you had not given me an assurance so solemn, and so sweet, that there was nothing in it.” The poor man had given the assurance, and could not deny the solemnity and the sweetness. “That was a happy moment for us, Mr. Gibson; because, though we never believed it, when it was dinned into our ears so frequently, when it was made such a triumph in the Close, it was impossible not to fear that there might be something in it.” He felt that he ought to make some reply, but he did not know what to say. He was thoroughly ashamed of the lie he had told, but he could not untell it. “Camilla reproached me afterwards for asking you,” whispered Arabella, in her softest, tenderest voice. “She said that it was unmaidenly. I hope you did not think it unmaidenly, Mr. Gibson?”
“Oh dear no;—not at all,” said he.
Arabella French was painfully alive to the fact that she must do something. She had her fish on the hook; but of what use is a fish on your hook, if you cannot land him? When could she have a better opportunity than this of landing the scaly darling out of the fresh and free waters of his bachelor stream, and sousing him into the pool of domestic life, to be ready there for her own household purposes? “I had known you so long, Mr. Gibson,” she said, “and had valued your friendship so—so deeply.” As he looked at her he could see nothing but the shapeless excrescence to which his eyes had been so painfully called by Miss Stanbury’s satire. It is true that he had formerly been very tender with her, but she had not then carried about with her that distorted monster. He did not believe himself to be at all bound by anything which had passed between them in circumstances so very different. But yet he ought to say something. He ought to have said something; but he said nothing. She was patient, however, very patient; and she went on playing him with her hook. “I am so glad that I did not go out tonight with mamma. It has been such a pleasure to me to have this conversation with you. Camilla, perhaps, would say that I am—unmaidenly.”
“I don’t think so.”
“That is all that I care for, Mr. Gibson. If you acquit me, I do not mind who accuses. I should not like to suppose that you thought me unmaidenly. Anything would be better than that; but I can throw all such considerations to the wind when true—true—friendship is concerned. Don’t you think that one ought, Mr. Gibson?”
If it had not been for the thing at the back of her head, he would have done it now. Nothing but that gave him courage to abstain. It grew bigger and bigger, more shapeless, monstrous, absurd, and abominable, as he looked at it. Nothing should force upon him the necessity of assisting to carry such an abortion through the world. “One ought to sacrifice everything to friendship,” said Mr. Gibson, “except self-respect.”
He meant nothing personal. Something special, in the way of an opinion, was expected of him; and, therefore, he had striven to say something special. But she was in tears in a moment. “Oh, Mr. Gibson,” she exclaimed; “oh, Mr. Gibson!”
“What is the matter, Miss French?”
“Have I lost your respect? Is it that that you mean?”
“Certainly not, Miss French.”
“Do not call me Miss French, or I shall be sure that you condemn me. Miss French sounds so very cold. You used to call me—Bella.” That was quite true; but it was long ago, thought Mr. Gibson—before the monster had been attached. “Will you not call me Bella now?”
He thought that he had rather not; and yet, how was he to avoid it? On a sudden he became very crafty. Had it not been for the sharpness of his mother wit, he would certainly have been landed at that moment. “As you truly observed just now,” he said, “the tongues of people are so malignant. There are little birds that hear everything.”
“I don’t care what the little birds hear,” said Miss French, through her tears. “I am a very unhappy girl;—I know that; and I don’t care what anybody says. It is nothing to me what anybody says. I know what I feel.” At this moment there was some dash of truth about her. The fish was so very heavy on hand that, do what she would, she could not land him. Her hopes before this had been very low—hopes that had once been high; but they had been depressed gradually; and, in the slow, dull routine of her daily life, she had learned to bear disappointment by degrees, without sign of outward suffering, without consciousness of acute pain. The task of her life had been weary, and the wished-for goal was ever becoming more and more distant; but there had been still a chance, and she had fallen away into a lethargy of lessening expectation, from which joy, indeed, had been banished,
