THE MATRONS ADVISE.
'I think we had better go down and see what Gladys is about,' said Mrs.
Fordyce at the breakfast-table. 'Could you go down with me this
afternoon, Tom?'
'I daresay I could,' replied the lawyer. 'Surely we haven't heard
anything about her for a long time?'
'I should just think we hadn't,' said Mina, with energy. 'Perhaps by
this time she has gone off with somebody. We've shamefully neglected
her.'
'George hasn't been down either, Julia told me yesterday,' said Mrs.
Fordyce thoughtfully. 'There must have been a quarrel, girls. Did Gladys
say anything more before she went away that day?'
'Nothing; but they are both so proud, neither will give in first. I
certainly don't think, mother, that Gladys's feelings are very seriously
involved. She takes the whole thing very calmly.'
'George should not be too high and mighty at this early stage, my dear,'
said Mrs. Fordyce. 'He will find that Gladys has a mind of her own, and
will not be dictated to. All the same,' she added, with a faint sigh, 'I
admit that he was right to find fault with her having those girls at
Bourhill. Tom dear, I really think it is your duty, as guardian, to
interfere.'
'We can go down, anyhow, and see what she is about,' replied the lawyer;
and that afternoon, accordingly, they went out to Mauchline.
Not being expected, they had to hire from the hotel, and arrived just as
Gladys and Miss Peck were enjoying their afternoon tea. She was
unfeignedly glad to see them, and showed it in the very heartiness of
her welcome. It was somewhat of a relief to Mrs. Fordyce to find Gladys
alone with Miss Peck. She had quite expected to meet the objectionable
girls in the drawing-room, but there were no evidences of their presence
in the house at all, nor did Gladys allude to them in any way.
She had a thousand and one questions to ask about them all, and appeared
so affectionately interested in everything pertaining to the family,
that Mr. Fordyce could not forbear casting a rather triumphant glance at
his wife.
'As the mountain would not come to Mahomet, Mahomet has come to the
mountain,' he said in his good-natured way. 'You should have heard the
doleful conversation about you at breakfast this morning. Were your ears
not ringing?'
'No, I had something more serious to take up my attention,' said Gladys
a trifle soberly. 'I hope you have come to stay a few days--until
to-morrow, at least?'
'Are all your other guests away?' inquired Mrs. Fordyce, with the
faintest trace of hardness in her voice.
'Christina Balfour is here still. Her companion left this morning rather
suddenly,' said Gladys, and it was evident that she felt rather
distressed. 'In fact, she ran away from Bourhill.'
'Indeed!' exclaimed Mrs. Fordyce, in astonishment. 'Why should she have
run away? It would have been quite sufficient, surely, for her to have
said she wished to return to Glasgow. You were not keeping her here
against her will, I presume?'
'No,' replied Gladys a trifle unsteadily. 'I cannot say she has treated
us well. It was a very silly as well as a wrong proceeding to get up in
the middle of the night and leave the door wide open, as she did. She
has disappointed me very much.'
Mrs. Fordyce looked at Gladys in a kind of wonder. Her candour and her
justness were as conspicuous as her decision of character. It evidently
cost her pride no effort to admit that she had made a mistake, though
the admission was proof of the correct prophecy made by Mrs. Fordyce
when the hot words had passed between them concerning Liz at Bellairs
Crescent. Mrs. Fordyce, however, was generous enough to abstain from
undue triumph.
'Well, well, my dear, we all make mistakes, though we don't all admit so
readily as you have done that they are mistakes,' she said
good-humouredly. 'I suppose the girl felt the restraint of this quiet
life too much. What was her occupation before she came down? I don't
know that I heard anything about her.'
'She was once a mill girl with Mr. Fordyce,' answered Gladys. 'She is
the girl who disappeared, don't you remember?--Walter Hepburn's sister.'
'Oh!'
The lawyer drew a long breath.
'Perhaps it is just as well she has disappeared again. I did not know
_that_ was the girl all the talk was about. Well, are you not tired of
this quiet life yet?'
'Oh no; I like it very much. But when will you allow the girls to come
down, Mrs. Fordyce? I think it is too bad that they have never yet paid
me a proper visit at Bourhill.'
'They are talking of London again--wheedling their poor dear papa, as
they do every May. I think you must go with us again, my dear.'
'Yes, I should like that,' replied Gladys, with brightening face; and
Mrs. Fordyce perceived that she had sustained a very severe
disappointment, which had made her for the time being a trifle
discontented with her own fair lot.
She took an early opportunity, when Gladys conducted her to the
guest-chamber, to put another question to her.
'Gladys, how long is it since George was here?'
'I have never seen him since that night in your house, when he didn't
come up to the drawing-room,' answered Gladys calmly.
'But he has written, I suppose?'
'No; nor have I.'
'My dear girl, this is very serious,' said Mrs. Fordyce gravely. 'What
was the difference about? You will tell me, my dear? I have your best
interests at heart, but I cannot help thinking it is rather soon to
disagree.'
'I don't think we disagreed, only I said I should ask whom I like to
Bourhill. Surely that was within my rights?' said Gladys proudly.
'Oh yes, to a certain degree, but not when you harbour questionable
characters--yes, I repeat it, questionable characters, such as the girl
who ran off this morning I hope you counted your spoons to-day, Gladys?'
Gladys could have laughed, only she was too miserable.
'Oh, what absurd mistakes you make!' was all she said.
'Not so very absurd, I think. Well, as I said, I think George only
showed that he had a proper regard for you and your peculiar position
here. We know the world, my love; you do not. I think now, surely, you
will allow us to be the judges of what is best for you?'
'I think he has behaved shamefully to me, not having come, or even
written, for so long, and I don't think I can forgive him. Think, if he
were to treat me so after I was his wife, how dreadful it would be. It
would certainly break my heart.'
'My dear, the cases are not parallel. When you are his wife your
interests will be identical, and there never will be any dispute.'
Gladys shook her head. She did not feel at all sure of any such thing.
'I cannot help thinking, my dear child, that the sooner you are married
the better it will be for you. You are too much isolated here, and that
Miss Peck, good little woman though she is, is only an old sheep. I must
for ever regret the circumstances which prevented Madame Bonnemain
coming to Bourhill.'
Mrs. Fordyce felt the above conversation to be so unsatisfactory that
she occupied herself before dinner in writing a letter to her nephew, in
which she treated him to some very plain-speaking, and pointed out that
unless he made haste to atone for past shortcomings, his chance of
winning the heiress of Bourhill was not worth very much.
This letter reached the offender when he was seated at his father's
breakfast-table with the other members of the family. He slipped it into
his pocket, and his mother, keenly watching him, observed a curious
look, half surprise, half relief, on his face. She was not therefore in
the least surprised when he came to her immediately after breakfast for
a moment's private conversation.
'I've had a letter from Aunt Isabel, written at Bourhill last night; you
can read it if you like.'
She took it from him eagerly, and perused it with intense interest. Like
her son, she had really abandoned hope, and had accepted the silence of
Gladys as her lover's final dismissal.
'This is extraordinary, George,' she said excitedly. 'The girl has been,
and gone, evidently, and never uttered a word. Can you believe it?'
'I must. Gladys would not be fretting, as Aunt Isabel says she is, if
she knew all that. What shall I do?'
His mother thought a moment. She had been very unhappy during the last
two weeks, daily dreading the revelation of the miserable story which
would make her idolised boy the centre of an unpleasant scandal. Her
relief was almost too great, and it was a few minutes before she could
collect her thoughts and gather up the scattered threads of her former
ambition.
'You may have a chance yet. It is a slender one; but still I advise you
to make instant use of it. Go down and make it up with Gladys, at any
cost. If she has heard nothing, and is at all pliable, press for an
early marriage.'
She gave the advice in all good faith, and without a thought of the
great moral wrong she was committing. The supreme selfishness of her
motherly idolatry blinded her to the cruel injustice she was meting out
to the innocent girl whose heritage she coveted for her son. Yet she
counted herself a Christian woman, and would have had nothing but
indignant scorn for the individual who might presume to question her
right to such a title.
This is no solitary or exceptional case. Such things are done daily,
and religion is made the cloak to cover a multitude of sins. Mrs.
Fordyce had so long striven to serve both God and Mammon that she had
lost the fine faculty which can discern the dividing line. In other
words, her conscience was dead, and allowed her to give this deplorable
advice without a dissenting word.
'It would be deuced awkward,' said the amiable George, 'if anything were
to come out after.'
'After marriage, you mean? Oh, there would be a scene, a few hysterics
perhaps, and there the matter would be at an end. A wife can't afford to
be so punctilious as a maiden fancy free. She has herself too much to
lose.'
George accepted the maternal advice, and went out to Mauchline after
business hours that very day.
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