Reluctantly Mrs Ravenhill consented, though she declined to offer the
bait of a signature. She felt that Fanny's love must be real, since it
could not have sprung from imaginary causes.
"And the man is a gentleman," she said.
Millie sighed and owned amazement.
"So that no one has really the right to object. I have long wished her
to marry, and her own heart is more to be trusted than Milborough. He
shall be asked to luncheon, and shall have his opportunity. Whether
he'll take it!"
This communicated to Fanny by Millie, she was dolefully certain that he
would not come.
"Don't you think he may read encouragement?"
"Dear man, yes! But he'll think himself bound to quash encouragement.
And if he should come, and turns pink--I shall inevitably be cross.
This is your doing, Millie! I'll--"
She threatened.
"What?"
"Do the same for you some day."
There was a pause before the answer came, and Fanny prophesied disaster.
At first he had left London; when that idea was abandoned it was for
the certainty that she had so disgusted him at the last interview that
he would have no more to do with her.
"The more right I thought him, the more disagreeable I became. My dear,
depend upon it, he is blessing his stars for his escape. And his mind
once made up, no little inveiglements of luncheon will move him.
Millie, what possessed me to be such a wretch?"
Her presentiments were unfounded. Mr Elliot wrote to accept, and
Fanny's mood varied between mirth which sparkled sometimes through
tears, and a dignity which her friends found comic. When he arrived,
she was in her room. Millie went to fetch her, and was told that it was
no use, she should not come down.
"Two shy people will be ridiculously unmanageable, and you shan't be
saddled with them. Besides, I suppose he is roseately triumphant?"
A happy inspiration made Millie assure her that he looked as if he had
not slept for a week. Lady Fanny fidgeted.
"Absurd!"
"I only answer your question."
"Well, go. I will see about it. But don't expect me," she called after
her, warningly.
Luncheon was announced before she appeared, with dignity in the
ascendant. She hardly glanced at Mr Elliot, and her embarrassment was
greater than his, for he carried the look of a man who had been through
the worst, and has nothing to fear. Ice all round and about. Mrs
Ravenhill and Millie made heroic efforts to warm the chilly atmosphere,
but do what they would, it enveloped them Fanny without a tongue had
changed to lead and to a stranger.
The dreary meal ended, Mrs Ravenhill rose. "Millie and Fanny will take
you up-stairs, Mr Elliot," she said, "for I have to go out." Up spoke
Fanny.
"Mayn't I come with you?"
"Oh, certainly," said Mrs Ravenhill, provoked. Then, to her amazement,
Mr Elliot's voice was heard.
"There is something I should be glad of an opportunity of saying, if
Lady Fanny could give me five minutes."
And, "Certainly she will," interposed Mrs Ravenhill again. "The
drawing-room is at your service. Come, Millie."
Fanny's feet dragged all the way up-stairs. She marched into the
drawing-room, and sat stiffly on a seat by the window; tried to say
something jesting, and failed. All that she got out was--
"Well?"
"Forgive me if I speak of my own feelings. It is for the first and last
time," he said hurriedly.
A slight movement of her head.
"I--I am quite aware that they have no excuse, except in the law of our
nature; one must love what is lovable, however wide the distance. Your
kindness, your sweetness--"
His voice shook, but he controlled it, and she was aware of the effort.
"I don't want to talk of anything except just to tell you what, even
with the gap between us hopelessly widening, I think you should know.
If I could have fairly accepted this living, without harming another
man, I had a wild dream of trying whether my love could have won some
crumb of hope. I would have waited years, a lifetime, but I meant to
try to win your heart at last. That is at an end. Since I have been in
town I have made inquiries--to stay at Huntsdon would be impossible--I--
I am not strong enough--I have accepted an offer of work in London.
Forgive me for troubling you. It seemed to me that this much I might
say. You may trust to my giving you no more annoyance. I am very
grateful to you for letting me speak."
He stood looking down upon her, and all Fanny's composure had returned,
and with it her powers of teasing. She leaned back in the chair, and
glanced up at him with a wicked smile in her eyes.
"Oh, don't thank me. If you only knew how glad I am to hear your
plans!"
"They please you?"
She evaded the question.
"I admire your rapidity. It is all settled then? Perhaps you don't
return to Huntsdon at all?"
"It is necessary until my successor comes." He spoke quietly, but his
face was that of a man braced to meet strokes. Suddenly he put out his
hand. "Good-bye, Lady Fanny." She rose, without taking his hand, and
leaned against the window.
"You have decided so much that I should like to know if you have fixed
upon a house?"
"A house? Where? In London?"
"In your new parish, of course."
"I have not thought of it."
"And that's lucky," she said, with a smile which sent his head spinning.
"Why?" The word broke from him.
"I should hate a house I did not choose for myself."
"You!--Fanny!" He made a step nearer, but checked himself, gripping the
back of a chair, and breathing the words--"You are cruel!"
She darted a look at him.
"Do you want me to retract?"
He became incoherent.
"You--you know I daren't think of what I want--"
"You might."
"Fanny!"
She leaned forward a little, her lips curved into a smile.
"Well?"