“Very well indeed, I think.”
“They’re tiresome things in general—weddings. Don’t you think so?”
“Oh dear, no—except that some person one loves is always being taken away.”
“You’ll be the next person to be taken away yourself, I suppose?”
“I must be the next person at home, because I am the last that is left. All my sisters are married.”
“And how many are there?”
“There are five married.”
“Good heavens—five!”
“And they are all married to men in the same profession as Harry.”
“Quite a family affair,” said Sir Hugh. Harry, who was sitting on the other side of Florence, heard this, and would have preferred that Florence should have said nothing about her sisters. “Why, Harry,” said the baronet, “if you will go into partnership with your father-in-law and all your brothers-in-law you could stand against the world.”
“You might add my four brothers,” said Florence, who saw no shame in the fact that they were all engaged in the same business.
“Good heaven!” exclaimed Sir Hugh, and after that he did not say much more to Florence.
The rector had taken Lady Clavering in to dinner, and they two did manage to carry on between them some conversation respecting the parish affairs. Lady Clavering was not active among the poor—nor was the rector himself, and perhaps neither of them knew how little the other did; but they could talk Clavering talk, and the parson was willing to take for granted his neighbour’s good will to make herself agreeable. But Mrs. Clavering, who sat between Sir Hugh and Archie, had a very bad time of it. Sir Hugh spoke to her once during the dinner, saying that he hoped she was satisfied with her daughter’s marriage; but even this he said in a tone that seemed to imply that any such satisfaction must rest on very poor grounds. “Thoroughly satisfied,” said Mrs. Clavering, drawing herself up and looking very unlike the usual Mrs. Clavering of the rectory. After that there was no further conversation between her and Sir Hugh. “The worst of him to me is always this,” she said that evening to her husband, “that he puts me so much out of conceit with myself. If I were with him long I should begin to find myself the most disagreeable woman in England!” “Then pray don’t be with him long,” said the rector.
But Archie made conversation throughout dinner, and added greatly to Mrs. Clavering’s troubles by doing so. There was nothing in common between them, but still Archie went on laboriously with his work. It was a duty which he recognized, and at which he would work hard. When he had used up Mary’s marriage, a subject which he economized carefully, so that he brought it down to the roast saddle of mutton, he began upon Harry’s match. When was it to be? Where were they to live? Was there any money? What manner of people were the Burtons? Perhaps he might get over it? This he whispered very lowly, and it was the question next in sequence to that about the money. When, in answer to this, Mrs. Clavering with considerable energy declared that anything of that kind would be a misfortune of which there seemed to be no chance whatever, he recovered himself as he thought very skilfully. “Oh, yes; of course; that’s just what I meant;—a doosed nice girl I think her;—a doosed nice girl, all round.” Archie’s questions were very laborious to his fellow-labourer in his conversation because he never allowed one of them to pass without an answer. He always recognized the fact that he was working hard on behalf of society, and, as he used to say himself, that he had no idea of pulling all the coach up the hill by his own shoulders. Whenever therefore he had made his effort he waited for his companion’s, looking closely into her face, cunningly driving her on, so that she also should pull her share of the coach. Before dinner was over Mrs. Clavering found the hill to be very steep, and the coach to be very heavy. “I’ll bet you seven to one,” said he—and this was his parting speech as Mrs. Clavering rose up at Lady Clavering’s nod—“I’ll bet you seven to one, that the whole box and dice of them are married before me—or at any rate as soon; and I don’t mean to remain single much longer, I can tell you.” The “box and dice of them” was supposed to comprise Harry, Florence, Fanny, and Lady Ongar, of all of whom mention had been made, and that saving clause—“at any rate as soon,”—was cunningly put in, as it had occurred to Archie that he perhaps might be married on the same day as one of those other persons. But Mrs. Clavering was not compelled either to accept or reject the bet, as she was already moving before the terms had been fully explained to her.
Lady Clavering as she went out of the room stopped a moment behind Harry’s chair and whispered a word to him. “I want to speak to you before you go tonight.” Then she passed on.
“What’s that Hermione was saying?” asked Sir Hugh, when he had shut the door.
“She only told me that she wanted to speak to me.”
“She has always got some cursed secret,” said Sir Hugh. “If there is anything I hate, it’s a secret.” Now this was hardly fair, for Sir Hugh was a man very secret in his own affairs, never telling his wife anything about them. He kept two banker’s accounts so that no banker’s clerk might know how he stood as regarded ready money, and hardly treated even his lawyer with confidence.
He did not move from his own chair, so that, after dinner, his uncle was not next to him. The places left by the ladies were not closed up, and the table was very uncomfortable.
“I see they’re going to have another week after this with the Pytchley,” said Sir Hugh to his brother.
“I suppose
