“Oh yes; certainly.”
“Have you seen her since—since you came home from Italy?”
“Oh dear, yes! She was down at Matching when poor mamma died. And papa persuaded her to remain afterwards. Of course I will see her.” Then the servant was desired to ask Mrs. Finn to come in;—and while this was being done Lady Cantrip retired.
Mrs. Finn embraced her young friend, and asked after her welfare, and after the welfare of the house in which she was staying—a house with which Mrs. Finn herself had been well acquainted—and said half-a-dozen pretty little things in her own quiet pretty way, before she spoke of the matter which had really brought her to The Horns on that day.
“I have had a correspondence with your father, Mary.”
“Indeed.”
“And unfortunately one that has been far from agreeable to me.”
“I am sorry for that, Mrs. Finn.”
“So am I, very sorry. I may say with perfect truth that there is no man in the world, except my own husband, for whom I feel so perfect an esteem as I do for your father. If it were not that I do not like to be carried away by strong language I would speak of more than esteem. Through your dear mother I have watched his conduct closely, and have come to think that there is perhaps no other man at the same time so just and so patriotic. Now he is very angry with me—and most unjustly angry.”
“Is it about me?”
“Yes;—it is about you. Had it not been altogether about you I would not have troubled you.”
“And about—?”
“Yes;—about Mr. Tregear also. When I tell you that there has been a correspondence I must explain that I have written one long letter to the Duke, and that in answer I have received a very short one. That has been the whole correspondence. Here is your father’s letter to me.” Then she brought out of her pocket a note, which Lady Mary read—covered with blushes as she did so. The note was as follows:
The Duke of Omnium understands from Mrs. Finn’s letter that Mrs. Finn, while she was the Duke’s guest at Matching, was aware of a certain circumstance affecting the Duke’s honour and happiness—which circumstance she certainly did not communicate to the Duke. The Duke thinks that the trust which had been placed in Mrs. Finn should have made such a communication imperative. The Duke feels that no further correspondence between himself and Mrs. Finn on the matter could lead to any good result.
“Do you understand it?” asked Mrs. Finn.
“I think so.”
“It simply means this—that when at Matching he had thought me worthy of having for a time the charge of you and of your welfare, that he had trusted me, who was the friend of your dear mother, to take for a time in regard to you the place which had been so unhappily left vacant by her death; and it means also that I deceived him and betrayed that trust by being privy to an engagement on your part, of which he disapproves, and of which he was not then aware.”
“I suppose he does mean that.”
“Yes, Lady Mary; that is what he means. And he means further to let me know that as I did so foully betray the trust which he had placed in me—that as I had consented to play the part of assistant to you in that secret engagement—therefore he casts me off as altogether unworthy of his esteem and acquaintance. It is as though he had told me in so many words that among women he had known none more vile or more false than I.”
“Not that, Mrs. Finn.”
“Yes, that;—all of that. He tells me that, and then says that there shall be no more words spoken or written about it. I can hardly submit to so stern a judgment. You know the truth, Lady Mary.”
“Do not call me Lady Mary. Do not quarrel with me.”
“If your father has quarrelled with me, it would not be fit that you and I should be friends. Your duty to him would forbid it. I should not have come to you now did I not feel that I am bound to justify myself. The thing of which I am accused is so repugnant to me, that I am obliged to do something and to say something, even though the subject itself be one on which I would so willingly be silent.”
“What can I do, Mrs. Finn?”
“It was Mr. Tregear who first told me that your father was angry with me. He knew what I had done and why, and he was bound to tell me in order that I might have an opportunity of setting myself right with the Duke. Then I wrote and explained everything—how you had told me of the engagement, and how I had then urged Mr. Tregear that he should not keep such a matter secret from your father. In answer to my letter I have received—that.”
“Shall I write and tell papa?”
“He should be made to understand that from the moment in which I heard of the engagement I was urgent with you and with Mr. Tregear that he should be informed of it. You will remember what passed.”
“I remember it all.”
“I did not conceive it to be my duty to tell the Duke myself, but I did conceive it to be my duty to see he should be told. Now he writes as though I had known the secret from the first, and as though I had been concealing it from him at the very moment in which he was asking me to remain at Matching on your behalf. That I consider to be hard—and unjust. I cannot deny what he says. I did know of it while I was at Matching, for it was at Matching that you told
