“There need be no difficulty at all, Miss Camilla,” said Miss Stanbury, “if you will promise me that you will not repeat the statement. It can’t be true.”
“But it is true,” said Camilla.
“What is true?” asked Miss Stanbury, surprised by the audacity of the girl.
“It is true that Mr. Gibson authorised us to state what I did state when Mrs. Clifford heard me.”
“And what was that?”
“Only this—that people had been saying all about Exeter that he was going to be married to a young lady, and that as the report was incorrect, and as he had never had the remotest idea in his mind of making the young lady his wife—” Camilla, as she said this, spoke with a great deal of emphasis, putting forward her chin and shaking her head—“and as he thought it was uncomfortable both for the young lady and for himself, and as there was nothing in it the least in the world—nothing at all, no glimmer of a foundation for the report, it would be better to have it denied everywhere. That is what I said; and we had authority from the gentleman himself. Arabella can say the same, and so can mamma;—only mamma did not hear him.” Nor had Camilla heard him, but that incident she did not mention.
The circumstances were, in Miss Stanbury’s judgment, becoming very remarkable. She did not for a moment believe Camilla. She did not believe that Mr. Gibson had given to either of the Frenches any justification for the statement just made. But Camilla had been so much more audacious than Miss Stanbury had expected, that that lady was for a moment struck dumb. “I’m sure, Miss Stanbury,” said Mrs. French, “we don’t want to give any offence to your niece—very far from it.”
“My niece doesn’t care about it two straws,” said Miss Stanbury. “It is I that care. And I care very much. The things that have been said have been altogether false.”
“How false, Miss Stanbury?” asked Camilla.
“Altogether false—as false as they can be.”
“Mr. Gibson must know his own mind,” said Camilla.
“My dear, there’s a little disappointment,” said Miss French, “and it don’t signify.”
“There’s no disappointment at all,” said Miss Stanbury, “and it does signify very much. Now that I’ve begun, I’ll go to the bottom of it. If you say that Mr. Gibson told you to make these statements, I’ll go to Mr. Gibson. I’ll have it out somehow.”
“You may have what you like out for us, Miss Stanbury,” said Camilla.
“I don’t believe Mr. Gibson said anything of the kind.”
“That’s civil,” said Camilla.
“But why shouldn’t he?” asked Arabella.
“There were the reports, you know,” said Mrs. French.
“And why shouldn’t he deny them when there wasn’t a word of truth in them?” continued Camilla. “For my part I think the gentleman is bound for the lady’s sake to declare that there’s nothing in it when there is nothing in it.” This was more than Miss Stanbury could bear. Hitherto the enemy had seemed to have the best of it. Camilla was firing broadside after broadside, as though she was assured of victory. Even Mrs. French was becoming courageous; and Arabella was forgetting the place where her chignon ought to have been. “I really do not know what else there is for me to say,” remarked Camilla, with a toss of her head, and an air of impudence that almost drove poor Miss Stanbury frantic.
It was on her tongue to declare the whole truth, but she refrained. She had schooled herself on this subject vigorously. She would not betray Mr. Gibson. Had she known all the truth—or had she believed Camilla French’s version of the story—there would have been no betrayal. But looking at the matter with such knowledge as she had at present, she did not even yet feel herself justified in declaring that Mr. Gibson had offered his hand to her niece, and had been refused. She was, however, sorely tempted. “Very well, ladies,” she said. “I shall now see Mr. Gibson, and ask him whether he did give you authority to make such statements as you have been spreading abroad everywhere.” Then the door of the room was opened, and in a moment Mr. Gibson was among them. He was true to his promise, and had come to see Arabella with her altered headdress;—but he had come at this hour thinking that escape in the morning would be easier and quicker than it might have been in the evening. His mind had been full of Arabella and her headdress even up to the moment of his knocking at the door; but all that was driven out of his brain at once when he saw Miss Stanbury.
“Here is Mr. Gibson himself,” said Mrs. French.
“How do you do, Mr. Gibson?” said Miss Stanbury, with a very stately courtesy. They had never met since the day on which he had been, as he stated, turned out of Miss Stanbury’s house. He now bowed to her; but there was no friendly greeting, and the Frenches were able to congratulate themselves on the apparent loyalty to themselves of the gentleman who stood among them. “I have come here, Mr. Gibson,” continued Miss Stanbury, “to put a small matter right in which you are concerned.”
“It seems to me to be the most insignificant thing in the world,” said Camilla.
“Very likely,” said Miss Stanbury. “But it is not insignificant to me. Miss Camilla French has asserted publicly that you have authorised her to make a statement about my niece Dorothy.”
Mr. Gibson looked into Camilla’s face doubtingly, inquisitively, almost piteously. “You had better let her go on,” said Camilla. “She will make a great many mistakes, no doubt, but you had better let her go on to the end.”
“I have made no mistake as yet, Miss Camilla. She so asserted, Mr. Gibson, in the hearing of a friend of mine, and she repeated the assertion here in this room to me just before you came in.
