“I have only got one, Lady Rowley.”
“Mamma, you are thinking of Miss Petrie,” said Nora, clapping both her hands together.
“I mean the lady that wears the black bugles.”
“Of course you do;—Miss Petrie. Mamma has all along thought that Mr. Glascock was going to carry away with him the republican Browning!”
“Oh, mamma, how can you have made such a blunder!” said Sophie Rowley. “Mamma does make such delicious blunders.”
“Sophie, my dear, that is not a proper way of speaking.”
“But, dear mamma, don’t you?”
“If somebody has told me wrong, that has not been my fault,” said Lady Rowley.
The poor woman was so evidently disconcerted that Caroline Spalding was quite unhappy. “My dear Lady Rowley, there has been no fault. And why shouldn’t it have been so? Wallachia is so clever, that it is the most natural thing in the world to have thought.”
“I cannot say that I agree with you there,” said Lady Rowley, somewhat recovering herself.
“You must know the whole truth now,” said Nora, turning to her friend, “and you must not be angry with us if we laugh a little at your poetess. Mamma has been frantic with Mr. Glascock because he has been going to marry—whom shall I say—her edition of you. She has sworn that he must be insane. When we have sworn how beautiful you were, and how nice, and how jolly, and all the rest of it—she has sworn that you were at least a hundred, and that you had a red nose. You must admit that Miss Petrie has a red nose.”
“Is that a sin?”
“Not at all in the woman who has it; but in the man who is going to marry it—yes. Can’t you see how we have all been at cross-purposes, and what mamma has been thinking and saying of poor Mr. Glascock? You mustn’t repeat it, of course; but we have had such a battle here about it. We thought that mamma had lost her eyes and her ears and her knowledge of things in general. And now it has all come out! You won’t be angry?”
“Why should I be angry?”
“Miss Spalding,” said Lady Rowley, “I am really unhappy at what has occurred, and I hope that there may be nothing more said about it. I am quite sure that somebody told me wrong, or I should not have fallen into such an error. I beg your pardon—and Mr. Glascock’s!”
“Beg Mr. Glascock’s pardon, certainly,” said Lucy.
Miss Spalding looked very pretty, smiled very gracefully, and coming up to Lady Rowley to say goodbye, kissed her on her cheeks. This overcame the spirit of the disappointed mother, and Lady Rowley never said another word against Caroline Spalding or her marriage. “Now, mamma, what do you think of her?” said Nora, as soon as Caroline was gone.
“Was it odd, my dear, that I should be astonished at his wanting to marry that other woman?”
“But, mamma, when we told you that she was young and pretty and bright!”
“I thought that you were all demented. I did indeed. I still think it a pity that he should take an American. I think that Miss Spalding is very nice, but there are English girls quite as nice-looking as her.” After that there was not another word said by Lady Rowley against Caroline Spalding.
Nora, when she thought of it all that night, felt that she had hardly spoken to Miss Spalding as she should have spoken as to the treatment in England which would be accorded to Mr. Glascock’s wife. She became aware of the effect which her own hesitation must have had, and thought that it was her duty to endeavour to remove it. Perhaps, too, the conversion of her mother had some effect in making her feel that she had been wrong in supposing that there would be any difficulty in Caroline’s position in England. She had heard so much adverse criticism from her mother that she had doubted in spite of her own convictions;—but now it had come to light that Lady Rowley’s criticisms had all come from a most absurd blunder. “Only fancy;”—she said to herself;—“Miss Petrie coming out as Lady Peterborough! Poor mamma!” And then she thought of the reception which would be given to Caroline, and of the place the future Lady Peterborough would fill in the world, and of the glories of Monkhams! Resolving that she would do her best to counteract any evil which she might have done, she seated herself at her desk, and wrote the following letter to Miss Spalding:—
My dear Caroline,
I am sure you will let me call you so, as had you not felt towards me like a friend, you would not have come to me today and told me of your doubts. I think that I did not answer you as I ought to have done when you spoke to me. I did not like to say anything offhand, and in that way I misled you. I feel quite sure that you will encounter nothing in England as Mr. Glascock’s wife to make you uncomfortable, and that he will have nothing to repent. Of course Englishmen generally marry Englishwomen; and, perhaps, there may be some people who will think that such a prize should not be lost to their countrywomen. But that will be all. Mr. Glascock commands such universal respect that his wife will certainly be respected, and I do not suppose that anything will ever come in your way that can possibly make you feel that he is looked down upon. I hope you will understand what I mean.
As for your changing now, that is quite impossible. If I were you, I would not say a word about it to any living
