Chatty faltered a little, feeling that Mr. Cavendish had never been so intimate in the family as these questions seemed to imply. “The Wilberforces were quite well when we left,” she said, with the honesty of her nature, for to be sure it was the Wilberforces rather than the Warrenders who were his friends.
“Oh, never mind the Wilberforces,” he said, “tell me something about you.”
“There is something to tell about us, for a wonder,” said Chatty. “My sister Minnie is married: but perhaps you would hear of that.”
“I think I saw it in the papers, and was very glad—” here he stopped and did not finish his sentence. A more experienced person than Chatty would have perceived that he meant to express his satisfaction that it was not she: but Chatty had no such insight.
“Yes, he has a curacy quite close, for the time: and he will have an excellent living, and it is a very nice marriage. We came to town for a little change, mamma and I.”
“That is delightful news. And Theo? I have not heard from Theo for ages. Is he left behind by himself?”
“Oh! Theo is very well. Theo is—Oh, I did not mean to say anything about that.”
Chatty did not know why she was so completely off her guard with Dick Cavendish. She had almost told him everything before she was aware.
“Not in any trouble, I hope. Don’t let me put indiscreet questions.”
“It is not that. There is nothing indiscreet, only I forgot that we had not meant to say anything.”
“I am so very sorry,” cried Cavendish. “You must not think I would ask anything you don’t wish to tell me.”
“But I should like to tell you,” said Chatty, “only I don’t know what mamma will say. I will tell her it came out before I knew: and you must not say anything about it, Mr. Cavendish.”
“Not a syllable, not even to your mother. It shall be something between you and me.”
The way in which this was said made Chatty’s eyes droop for a moment: but what a pleasure it was to tell him! She could not understand herself. She was not given to chatter about what happened in the family, and Dick was not so intimate with Theo that he had a right to know; but still it was delightful to tell him. “We don’t know whether to be glad or sorry,” she said. “It is that perhaps Theo, after a while, is going to marry.”
“That is always interesting,” said Dick; but he took the revelation calmly. “What a lucky fellow! No need to wait upon fortune like the rest of us. To marry—whom? Do I know the lady? I hope she is all that can be desired.”
“Oh, Mr. Cavendish, that is just the question. There is mamma coming, perhaps she will tell you herself, which would be so much better than if you heard it from me.”
Mrs. Warrender came up at this moment very glad to see him, and quite willing to disclose their number in Half Moon Street, and to grant a gracious permission that he should call and be “of use,” as he offered to be. “I am not a gentleman at large, like Warrender, I am a toiling slave, spending all my time in Lincoln’s Inn. But in the evening I can spare a little time—and occasionally at other moments,” he added, with a laugh, “when I try. A sufficient motive is the great thing. And of course you will want to go to the play, and the opera, and all that is going on.”
“Not too much,” said Mrs. Warrender. “The air of London is almost enough at first, but come, and we shall see.”
She said nothing, however, about Theo, nor was there any chance of saying more. But when Cavendish took Chatty downstairs to put her in the carriage (only a cab, but that is natural to country people in town), he hazarded a whisper as they went downstairs, “Remember there is still something to tell me.” “Oh yes,” she replied, “but mamma herself, I am sure—” “No,” he said, “she has nothing to do with it. It is between you and me.” This little conference made her wonderfully bright and smiling when she took her place beside her mother. She did not say anything for a time, but when the cab turned into Piccadilly, with its long lines of lights—an illumination which is not very magnificent now, and was still less magnificent then, but very new and fine to Chatty, accustomed to little more guidance through the dark than that which is given by the light of a lantern or the oil lamp in Mrs. Bagley’s shop—she suddenly said, “Well! London is very pleasant,” as if that was a fact of which she was the first discoverer.
“Is it not?” said her mother, who was far more disinterested and had not had her judgment biased by any whisper on the stairs. “I am very glad that you like it, Chatty. That will make my pleasure complete.”
“Oh, who could help liking it, mamma?” She blushed a little as she said this, but the night was kind and covered it; and how could Mrs. Warrender divine that this gentle enthusiasm related to the discovery of what Chatty called a friend among so many strangers, and not to the mere locality in which this meeting had taken place? Who could help liking it? To be talked to like that, with eyes that said more than even the words, with that sudden look of pleasure, with the delightful little mystery of a special confidence between them, and with the
