IN THE SEASON.
In the spring Mr. Granger took his wife and daughter to London, where they
spent a couple of months in Clarges-street, and saw a good deal of society
in what may be called the upper range of middle-class life--rich merchants
and successful professional men living in fine houses at the West-end,
enlivened with a sprinkling from the ranks of the baronetage and lesser
nobility. In this circle Mr. Granger occupied rather a lofty standing, as
the owner of one of the finest estates in Yorkshire, and of a fortune which
the common love of the marvellous exalted into something fabulous. He found
himself more popular than ever since his marriage, as the husband of one of
the prettiest women who had appeared that season. So, during the two months
of their London life, there was an almost unbroken succession of gaieties,
and Mr. Granger found himself yearning for the repose of Arden Court
sometimes, as he waited in a crowded ball-room while his wife and daughter
danced their last quadrille. It pleased him that Clarissa should taste this
particular pleasure-cup--that she should have every delight she had a right
to expect as his wife; but it pleased him not the less when she frankly
confessed to him one day that this brilliant round of parties and
party-giving had very few charms for her, and that she would be glad to go
back to Arden.
In London Clarissa met Lady Laura Armstrong; for the first time since
that September afternoon in which she had promised that no arts of George
Fairfax's should move her to listen to him. Lord Calderwood had been dead a
year and a half, and my lady was resplendent once more, and giving weekly
receptions in Mr. Armstrong's great house in Portland-place--a corner
house, with about a quarter of a mile of drawing-rooms, stretching back
into one of the lateral streets. For Mr. and Mrs. Granger she gave a
special dinner, with an evening party afterwards; and she took up a good
deal of Clarissa's time by friendly morning calls, and affectionate
insistance upon Mrs. Granger's company in her afternoon drives, and at her
daily kettle-drums--drives and kettle-drums from which Miss Granger felt
herself more or less excluded.
It was during one of these airings, when they had left the crowd and
splendour of the Park, and were driving to Roehampton, that Clarissa heard
the name of George Fairfax once more. Until this afternoon, by some strange
accident as it seemed, Lady Laura had never mentioned her sister's lover.
"I suppose you heard that it was all broken off?" she said, rather
abruptly, and apropos to nothing particular.
"Broken off, Lady Laura?"
"I mean Geraldine's engagement. People are so fond of talking about those
things; you must have heard, surely, Clary."
"No, indeed, I have heard nothing.
"That's very curious. It has been broken off ever so long--soon after poor
papa's death, in fact. But you know what Geraldine is--so reserved--almost
impenetrable, as one may say. I knew nothing of what had happened myself
till one day--months after the breach had occurred, it seems--when I made
some allusion to Geraldine's marriage, she stopped me, in her cold, proud
way, saying, 'It's just as well I should tell you that that affair is all
off, Laura. Mr. Fairfax and I have wished each other good-bye for ever.'
That's what I call a crushing blow for a sister, Clarissa. You know how I
had set my heart upon that marriage."
"I am very sorry," faltered Clarissa. "They had quarrelled, I suppose."
"Quarrelled! O, dear no; she had not seen him since she left Hale with
Frederick and me, and they parted with every appearance of affection. No;
there had been some letters between them, that was all. I have never been
able to discover the actual cause of their parting. Geraldine refused to
answer any questions, in a most arbitrary manner. It is a hard thing,
Clarissa; for I know that she loved him."
"And where is Lady Geraldine now?"
"At Hale, with my children. She has no regular home of her own now, you
see, poor girl, and she did not care about another season in London--she
has had enough of that kind of thing--so she begged me to let her stay at
the Castle, and superintend the governesses, and amuse herself in her own
way. Life is full of trouble, Clary!" and here the mistress of Hale Castle,
and of some seventy thousand per annum, gave a despondent sigh.
"Have you seen Mr. Fairfax since you came from Germany?" asked Clarissa.
"Yes, I have met him once--some months ago. You may be sure that I was
tolerably cool to him. He has been very little in society lately, and has
been leading rather a wild life in Paris, I hear. A prudent marriage would
have been his redemption; but I daresay it will end in his throwing himself
away upon some worthless person."
It was a relief to Clarissa to hear that George Fairfax was in Paris,
though that was very near. But in her ignorance of his whereabouts she
had fancied him still nearer, and in all her London festivities had been
tormented by a perpetual dread of meeting him. Many times even she had
imagined that she saw his face across the crowd, and had been relieved to
find it was only a face that bore some faint resemblance to his.
He had kept his word, then, so far as the breaking of his engagement
to Geraldine Challoner. He had been more in earnest than Clarissa had
believed. She thought that she was sorry for this; but it is doubtful
whether the regretful feeling in her heart was really sorrow for
Lady Geraldine. She thought of George Fairfax a good deal after this
conversation with Lady Laura--alas, when had she ceased to think of
him!--and all the splendours and pleasures of her married life seemed to
her more than ever worthless. What a hopeless entanglement, what a dismal
mistake, her existence was! Had she sold herself for these things--for
Arden Court and a town house, and unlimited millinery? No; again and again
she told herself she had married Daniel Granger for her father's sake, and
perhaps a little from a desire to keep faith with Lady Laura.
This marriage had seemed to her the only perfect fulfilment of her promise
that nothing should induce her to marry George Fairfax. But the sacrifice
had been useless, since he had broken his engagement to Geraldine
Challoner.
Sophia Granger's lynx eyes perceived a change in her step mother about this
time. Clarissa had never appeared especially enraptured by the gaieties
of fashionable London; but then had come upon her of late a languor and
weariness of spirit which she tried in vain to disguise by an assumed air
of enjoyment. That simulated gaiety deluded her husband, but it could not
deceive Miss Granger.
"She's getting tired of her life already, even here where we have a
perpetual round of amusements," Sophia said to herself. "What will she be
when we go back to Yorkshire?"
The time was close at hand for the return to Arden, when the thing which
Clarissa had feared came to pass, and the hazard of London life brought her
face to face with George Fairfax.
* * * * *