Pistols For Two and Other Stories

1

‘His attentions,’ said the widow, fixing a pair of large, rather anxious brown eyes on her cousin’s face, are becoming most marked, I assure you, Honoria!’

‘Fiddle!’ said Lady Pednor.

The widow, who had just raised a delicate cup to her lips, started, and spilled some of the morning chocolate into the saucer. A drop fell on her dress. She set the cup and saucer down, and began to rub the mark with her handkerchief, saying despairingly: ‘There! Only see what you have made me do! I dare say it will never come out!’

‘Very likely it will not,’ agreed her hostess, in no way repentant. ‘You will be obliged to buy a new dress, and that, let me tell you, Clarissa, will be an excellent thing!’

‘I cannot afford a new dress!’ said the widow indignantly. ‘All very well for you, as rich as you are, to talk in that unfeeling way, but you know—’

‘I am not rich,’ said Lady Pednor composedly, ‘but I can afford a new dress, because I do not squander every penny I possess upon my daughter.’

Mrs Wingham blushed, but replied with spirit: ‘You have no daughter!’

‘What is more,’ continued her ladyship, unheeding, ‘I will accompany you to buy the dress, or I dare say you will choose just such another dowdy colour!’

‘Purple-bloom, and very suitable!’ said Mrs Wingham defiantly.

‘Extremely so—for dowagers!’

‘I am a dowager.’

‘You are a goose,’ replied her cousin calmly. ‘It would be interesting to know what you spent on that spangled gauze gown Fanny wore at Almack’s last night!’ She paused, but Mrs Wingham only looked guilty. ‘Pray, what is to be the end of all this extravagance, Clarissa? You will be ruined!’

‘No, no! I have saved every penny I could spare ever since Fanny was a baby, just for this one season! If only I can see her creditably established, it will have been worth it! And although you may say “fiddle!” if you choose to be so uncivil, it is true about Harleston! From the moment of your bringing him up to me at Almack’s that night, I could see that he was instantly struck by my darling’s beauty. And never can I be sufficiently obliged to you, Honoria!’

‘If I had thought that you would be so foolish, my dear, I never would have presented him,’ said Lady Pednor. ‘Harleston and Fanny! Good God, he must be forty if he is a day! How old is she? Seventeen? You are out of your senses!’

The widow shook her head. ‘I don’t wish her to be poor, and—’ She broke off, and looked away from her cousin. ‘Or to marry a very young man. It doesn’t endure, the sort of attachment one forms when one is young, and young men don’t make comfortable husbands, Honoria. With such a man as Lord Harleston—in every way so exactly what one would desire for one’s child!—she would be very happy and never know care, and—and the disagreeable effects of poverty!’

‘My love,’ said Lady Pednor, ‘because your mama made a bad bargain for you when she married you to Tom Wingham, is not to say that every young man must prove to be a monster of selfishness!’

‘I was in love with Tom: it was not all Mama’s doing!’

‘I dare say. An excessively handsome creature, and he could be perfectly amiable, if events fell out according to his wishes.’

‘I have sometimes thought,’ said Mrs Wingham wistfully, ‘that if only his Uncle Horsham had not married again and had a son, after all those years, and poor Tom had succeeded to the title, as he always expected to do, he would have been quite different!’

‘Well, he would have had more money to fling away,’ said Lady Pednor dryly. ‘That might, of course, have made him more amiable.’

‘But that is exactly what I have been saying,’ said the widow eagerly. ‘It was the poverty that made him often so cross and so disobliging! Heaven knows I do not wish to say unkind things of Tom, but can you wonder at me for—yes, for scheming, like the most odious matchmaker alive, to provide my Fanny with everything that will make her life all that mine was not?’

‘I wish you will stop talking as though you were in your dotage!’ said her ladyship irascibly. ‘Let me remind you that you are not yet thirty-seven years old! If you would not drape yourself in purple you might well pass for Fanny’s sister! As for these precious schemes of yours, Fanny should rather be falling in love with an ineligible young man. In fact, I thought that that was what she had done. Didn’t you tell me of some boy in the—th Foot?’

‘No, no!’ cried the widow. ‘At least, I did, but it was only a childish fancy. He has no expectations, and I am persuaded that it was nothing more than the circumstance of his being a neighbour of ours in Buckinghamshire. Why, he cannot afford even to buy his promotion! And since I have brought Fanny to town, and she has met so many gentlemen of far greater address than Richard Kenton, I am persuaded she has forgotten all about him. Fanny marry into a Line regiment, pinching and scraping, living in garrison towns, and—No, a thousand times, no!’

‘I dare say she would enjoy it very much,’ said Lady Pednor.

‘I won’t have it!’ declared the widow. ‘Call me worldly, if you will, but only consider! What comparison can there be between Richard Kenton and the Marquis of Harleston? Mind, if Harleston were not the man he is, I would not for one moment countenance his suit. But have you ever, Honoria—tell me candidly—have you ever, I say, met any gentleman more likely to make a female happy? Setting aside his position and his wealth, where will you find such delightful manners, such engaging solicitude, and, oh, such smiling eyes? What could Fanny find in Richard to rival these attributes?’

‘His youth,’ replied Lady Pednor, with a wry smile. ‘Indeed, I hope she may find a dozen things, for I tell you, Clarissa, if she is setting her cap at Harleston—’

‘Never! I have not uttered a word to her on this subject, and to suppose that she could do anything so vulgar—’

‘So much the better! Not, however, that she would be the first to do so, my love. No man has been more pursued than Harleston; no man has more frequently confounded expectation. They say that he suffered a severe disappointment in youth: be that as it may, it is certain that he has now no thought of marriage. If you had not buried yourself in the country these fifteen years, Clara, you would know that not even such a hardened matchmaker as Augusta Daventry would waste one moment’s speculation on Harleston.’

The widow began to pull on her gloves. ‘Very likely she might not. She has a bevy of daughters, but I fancy there is not one amongst them who would not be cast into the shade by my Fanny.’

‘That, I own, is true,’ said Lady Pednor fairly. ‘Fanny casts them all into the shade.’

Mrs Wingham turned quite pink. Her brown eyes sparkled through a sudden mist of tears. She said, in her pretty, imploring way: ‘Oh, Honoria, she is beautiful, is she not?’

‘She is beautiful; her manners are engaging—and to suppose that you will catch Harleston for her is the greatest piece of nonsense ever I heard,’ said her ladyship.

2

Since Lady Pednor’s mansion was in Berkeley Square, and the furnished house, hired by Mrs Wingham for the season at shocking cost, in Albemarle Street, the widow had not far to go to reach her own door when she parted from her cousin. Disregarding the solicitations of several chairmen, she stepped out briskly, one hand holding up her demi-train, the other plunged into a feather muff. Her face, framed by the brim of a bonnet with a high crown and three curled ostrich plumes, still wore its faintly anxious expression, for her cousin’s words had a little ruffled her spirits. Lady Pednor spoke with all the authority of one who moved habitually in the circle Mrs Wingham had re-entered only at the start of the season; and although her kind offices, as much as the Wingham connection (headed by the youthful Lord Horsham, whose birth had put an end to Tom Wingham’s expectations), had thrust an almost forgotten widow and her lovely daughter into the heart of the ton, there could be no doubt that she was in a better position to pronounce on the Marquis of Harleston’s probable intentions than one who had met him for the first time barely two months previously.

This reflection deepened the frown between Mrs Wingham’s brows. She had for some time been conscious of a depression of her spirits, which might, she thought, be due to fatigue, or to the prospect of losing the companionship of her child. Her morning visit had done nothing to lift the cloud. Not content with trying to damp her hopes of a brilliant marriage for Fanny, Lady Pednor had, most unnecessarily, recalled Richard Kenton to her mind.

Not that the thought of Richard disturbed her very much. There had certainly been some boy-and-girl nonsense between him and Fanny, but both had behaved very well. Indeed, Richard seemed to realize that he could not support a wife on a lieutenant’s pay; and he had manfully agreed with Mrs Wingham that it would be wrong to permit Fanny to enter upon an engagement until she had seen rather more of the world. Nor had Fanny raised more than a faint demur at her mama’s plans for a London season. She had always been a biddable daughter, and if she had a will of her own it did not find expression in tantrums or odd humours. Launched into society, she behaved just as she ought, neither losing her head at so much unaccustomed gaiety, nor grieving her mama by appearing not to enjoy herself. She had many admirers, but not quite as many suitors, her want of fortune making her an ineligible choice for those who looked for more than birth and beauty in a bride. Mrs Wingham had foreseen that this would be so. She had been hopeful of achieving a good match for her; not until Lord Harleston had shown how strongly he was attracted towards Albemarle Street had she dreamed of a brilliant one. But his lordship, upon first setting eyes on Fanny, had requested Lady Pednor to present him to Fanny’s mama, and, during that evening, at Almack’s Assembly Rooms, when he had civilly devoted himself to Mrs Wingham, conversing with her while Fanny went down a country dance with young Mr Bute, she had known that he was the very man who could be depended on to make Fanny happy. When Fanny had joined them, he had solicited her to dance; later, he had called in Albemarle Street, and had begged Mrs Wingham to bring her daughter to a party of his contriving at Vauxhall Gardens. Since that day they had seemed always to be in his company; and if Mrs Wingham had at first doubted the serious nature of his intentions, such doubts were banished by a morning visit from his sister, a gentle lady who certainly called at her brother’s desire, and who not only treated the widow with distinguishing kindness, but complimented her on Fanny’s beauty, saying, with a smile: ‘My brother has told me, ma’am, that you have a very lovely daughter.’

Lady Pednor had not known that when she tried to depress her cousin’s hopes, reflected Mrs Wingham, mounting the steps to her own front door.

Fanny was going on a picnic expedition to Richmond Park, but her hostess’s carriage had not yet arrived in Albemarle Street. Mrs Wingham found her trying to decide whether to wear a green spencer over her muslin dress, or a shawl of Norwich silk. Mrs Wingham thought that the spencer would be the more suitable wear, and enquired who was to be of the party. Fanny, tying a straw bonnet over her dark curls, replied: ‘I don’t know, Mama, but there are to be two carriages, besides Mr Whitby’s curricle, and Eliza said that most of the other gentlemen would ride, so that it must be quite a large party. I think it was very obliging of Mrs Stratton to have invited me, don’t you?’

Mrs Wingham agreed to it, but added: ‘I hope you will be home in good time, dearest, for I should like you to rest before our own party. And I think you should wear the figured lace. I will lend you my pearls.’

‘And I think you will wear the pearls yourself, and on no account that horrid turban, which makes you look like some dreadful dowager, and not in the least like my own, pretty Mama!’ retorted Fanny, bestowing a butterfly’s kiss on the widow’s cheek. She then turned away and began to hunt for a pair of gloves. ‘We sent out a great many cards, didn’t we?’ she said. ‘I quite forget how many guests are coming!’

‘About fifty,’ said Mrs Wingham, with a touch of pride.

‘Gracious, it will be a regular squeeze! I suppose all our particular friends? The Shanklins, and the Yeovils, and Lord Harleston?’

This was airily said. Mrs Wingham, unable to see her daughter’s face, replied calmly: ‘Oh yes!’

‘Of course!’ Fanny said, considering the rival claims of one pair of silk mittens and one pair of French kid gloves. ‘Mama?’

‘My love!’

‘Mama, do you—do you like Lord Harleston?’ Fanny asked shyly.

Whatever ambitious schemes Mrs Wingham had in mind, she would have relinquished them all rather than have encouraged her unspoiled daughter to share them. She replied, therefore, in a cool tone: ‘Why, yes, very much! Do you?’

A glowing face was turned towards her. ‘Oh, Mama, indeed I do! I think him quite the nicest person we have met in London. One could tell him almost anything, and be sure that he would understand just how it was,’ Fanny said impulsively. She bestowed a brief hug upon the widow. ‘Dearest Mama, I am so glad you like him!’

Mrs Wingham, returning the embrace, felt tears-thankful tears—sting her eyelids, but was spared the necessity of answering by a scratch on the door, which heralded the entrance of the page-boy, come to inform Miss Wingham that Mrs Stratton’s barouche awaited her.

3

Fanny did not return from her picnic in time to indulge in rest, but she was in her best looks that evening. Several persons commented on her radiance; and Lord Harleston, obliging his hostess to recruit her energies with a glass of champagne, said, with his attractive smile: ‘You are to be congratulated, ma’am! I do not know when I have seen so engaging a creature as your daughter. Such a bloom of health! Such frank, open manners! I think, too, that she has a disposition that matches her face.’

‘Indeed, my lord, she is the dearest girl!’ Mrs Wingham said, blushing with gratification and raising her eyes to his. ‘I do think—but I might be partial—that she is very pretty. She favours her papa, you know.’

‘Does she?’ said his lordship, seating himself beside her on the sofa. ‘I own that it is her mama I perceive in her countenance.’

‘Oh no!’ the widow assured him earnestly. ‘My husband was an excessively handsome man.’

He bowed. ‘Indeed? I think I had not the pleasure of the late Mr Wingham’s acquaintance. He would certainly be proud of his daughter, were he alive today.’ His eyes had been resting on Fanny, as she chatted, not many paces distant, to a gentleman with very high points to his shirt-collar, but he brought them back to Mrs Wingham’s face, adding: ‘And also of her mama. It is seldom that one discovers a well-informed mind behind a lovely face, ma’am; and Fanny has told me that she owes her education to you.’

Why, yes!’ admitted Mrs Wingham frankly. ‘It has not been within my power to provide Fanny with the governesses and the professors I should have desired for her. If you do not find her deficient in attainments, I think myself complimented indeed!’

‘May I say that I believe no governess or professor could have achieved so admirable a result?’

‘You are too flattering, my lord!’ was all she could find to say, and that in faltering accents.

‘No, I never flatter,’ he responded, taking the empty glass from her hand. ‘I perceive that we are about to be interrupted by Lady Luton. I have something of a very particular nature to say to you, but this is neither the time nor the occasion for it. May I beg of you to indulge me with the favour of a private interview with you, at whatever time may be most agreeable to you?’

Such a tumult of emotion swelled in the widow’s breast that she could scarcely find voice enough to utter the words: ‘Whenever you wish, my lord! I shall be happy to receive you!’

He rose, as Lady Luton surged down upon them. ‘Then, shall we say, at three o’clock tomorrow?’

She inclined her head; he bowed and moved away; and a moment later she had the felicity of seeing his tall, well-knit frame beside Fanny. Fanny was looking up at him, with her sweet smile, and putting out her hand, which he took in his and held for an instant, while he addressed some quizzing remark to her that made her laugh and blush. A queer little pang shot through the widow, seeing them on such comfortable terms. She reflected that her absorption in Fanny had made her stupidly jealous, and resolutely turned her attention to Lady Luton.

4

Having ascertained that her daughter had no engagement on the following afternoon, Mrs Wingham was surprised, when she returned from a shopping expedition in Bond Street, to find that only one cover had been laid for a luncheon of cold meat and fruit. She enquired of the butler, hired, like the house, for the season, whether Miss Fanny had gone out with her maid.

‘No, madam, with a military gentleman.’

These fell words caused the widow to feel so strong a presentiment of disaster that she turned pale, and repeated numbly: ‘A military gentleman!’

‘A Mr Kenton, madam. Miss Fanny appeared to be well acquainted with him. Extremely well acquainted with him, if I may say so, madam!’

Making a creditable effort to maintain her composure, Mrs Wingham said: ‘Oh, Mr Kenton is an old friend! I had no notion he was in town. He and Miss Fanny went out together, I think you said?’

‘Yes, madam, in a hackney carriage. I understand, to the City, Mr Kenton desiring the coachman to set them down at the Temple.’

This very respectable address did nothing to soothe Mrs Wingham’s agitated nerves. The whole locality, from Temple Bar to St Paul’s Cathedral, appeared to her to be sinister in the extreme. Amongst the thoughts which jostled one another in her head, the most prominent were Fleet Marriages, Doctors’ Commons and Special Licences. She was obliged to sit down, for her knees were trembling. Her butler then proffered a tray on which lay a note, twisted into a little cocked hat.

It was scribbled in pencil, and it was brief.

Dearest Mama,-Forgive me, but I have gone with Richard. You shall know it all, but I have no time now. Pray do not be vexed with me! I am so happy I am sure you cannot be.

Mrs Wingham became aware that she was being asked if she would partake of luncheon or wait for Miss Fanny, and heard her own voice replying with surprising calm: ‘I don’t think Miss Fanny will be home to luncheon.’

She then drew her chair to the table and managed to swallow a few mouthfuls of chicken, and to sip a glass of wine. A period of quiet reflection, if it did not lighten her heart, at least assuaged the worst of her fears. She could not believe that either Fanny or Richard would for a moment contemplate the impropriety of a clandestine marriage. But that the sight of Richard had revived all Fanny’s tenderness for him she could not, in the face of Fanny’s note, doubt. What to do she could not think, and in a state of wretched indecision presently went up to her bedroom. After removing her hat, setting a becoming lace cap on her head and tying it under her chin, there seemed to be nothing to do but to await further news of the truants, so she went to sit in the drawing-room, and tried to occupy herself with her needle.

Fortunately, she had not long to wait. Shortly after two o’clock an impetuous step on the stair smote her listening ears, and Fanny herself came into the room, out of breath, her cheeks in a glow, and her eyes sparkling. ‘Mama? Oh, Mama, Mama, it is true, and you will give your consent now, won’t you?’

She came running across the room as she spoke and cast herself at her mother’s feet, flinging her arms round her, and seeming not to know whether to laugh or cry. Behind her Mr Kenton, very smart in his regimentals, shut the door and remained at a little distance, as though doubtful of his reception. He was a well-set-up young man, with a pleasant countenance and an air of considerable resolution. At the moment, however, he was looking a trifle anxious, and he seemed to find his neckcloth rather too tight.

‘Fanny, my dear, pray—!’ remonstrated Mrs Wingham. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about! How do you do, Richard? I am very pleased to see you. Are you on furlough?’

‘Mama, we have such news for you! Richard’s godmother has died!’ interrupted Fanny ecstatically. ‘And she has left Richard a great deal of money, so that he can support a wife after all! He came to tell me at once, and I went with him to the lawyer, and it is true!

Mrs Wingham turned her bewildered eyes towards Mr Kenton. He said bluntly: ‘No, it is not a great deal of money, ma’am, but it will enable me to buy my exchange, for you must know that I have been offered the chance of a company in the—th, only I never thought I should be able—. However, I can now afford the purchase money, and once I am in the—th, I hope I shan’t be obliged to wait upon the chance of Boney’s escaping a second time, and starting another kick-up, for my promotion. And I thought, if you would give your consent to our marriage, I would settle what will be left of the legacy on Fanny. It won’t be a fortune, but—but it will be something]’

‘Mama, you will consent?’ Fanny said imploringly. ‘You said I must see something of the world before I made up my mind, but I have now seen a great deal of the world, and I haven’t met anyone I like better than Richard, and I know I never shall. And although it is very amusing to lead a fashionable life, and, indeed, I have enjoyed all the parties, I would much prefer to follow the drum with Richard! You will consent?’

Mrs Wingham stared down into the radiant face upturned to hers. A dozen objections died on her lips. She said, with a wavering smile:

‘Yes, Fanny. If you are quite, quite sure, I suppose I must consent!’

Her daughter’s lips were pressed to her cheek, Mr Kenton’s to her hand. Seated amongst the ruins of her ambition, with that weight of depression upon her heart, she said: ‘And Lord Harleston is coming to visit me at three o’clock!’

‘Lord Harleston!’ exclaimed Fanny. ‘Oh, will you tell him, Mama, that I am going to marry Richard? I should have wished to have told him myself, but the thing is that Richard has leave of absence only for one day, and he must rejoin the regiment immediately. Mama, if I take Maria with me, may I go with him to the coach office? Pray, Mama!’

‘Yes—oh yes!’ said Mrs Wingham. ‘I will tell Lord Harleston.’

5

Thus it was that when one of the biggest but most unobtainable prizes of the Matrimonial Mart was ushered into Mrs Wingham’s drawing-room, he found the widow alone and sunk in melancholy. The depression, of which she had been conscious for so many weeks, threatened now to overcome her, and was in no way alleviated by her inability to decide which of the various evils confronting her was at the root of her strong desire to indulge in a hearty bout of tears. The years of economy has been wasted; yet she could not regret the weeks spent in London. Her maternal ambition was utterly dashed; but when she saw the happiness in Fanny’s face she could not be sorry. She must soon lose the daughter on whom her every thought had been centred for years; but if by the lifting of a finger she could have kept Fanny, she would have held her hands tightly folded in her lap, as they were when the Marquis walked into the room.

He paused upon the threshold. The one glance she permitted herself to cast at his face showed her that there was an arrested expression in his eyes, a look of swift concern. The pain she was about to inflict on him most poignantly affected her; for a startling moment she found herself blaming Fanny for having wounded one of whom she was all unworthy. She was unable to sustain his steady regard; her eyes fell to the contemplation of the little gold tassels on his Hessian boots. They moved, swinging jauntily as he came towards her. ‘Mrs Wingham! Something has occurred to distress you. May I know what it is? If there is anything I may do—’

He was bending solicitously over her, one shapely hand lifting one of hers, and holding it in a sustaining clasp. She said disjointedly: ‘Yes—no! It is nothing, my lord! I beg you will not—! Indeed, it is nothing!’

She drew her hand away as she spoke. He said: ‘Shall I leave you? I have come, I believe, at an unfortunate time. Tell me what you wish! I would not for the world add to your distress!’

‘Oh no! Do not go! This interview ought not to be—must not be—postponed!’

He looked intently at her, as much anxiety in his eyes as there was in hers. ‘I came—I believe you must know for what purpose.’

She bowed her head. ‘I do know. I wish—oh, how deeply I wish that you had not come!’

‘You wish that I had not come!’

‘Because it is useless!’ said the widow tragically. ‘I can give you no hope, my lord!’

There was a moment’s silence. He was looking at once astonished and chagrined, but, after a pause, he said quietly: ‘Forgive me! But when I spoke to you last night I was encouraged to think that you would not be averse from hearing me! You have said that you guessed the object of my visit—am I a coxcomb to imagine that my suit was not then disagreeable to you?’

‘Oh no, no, no!’ she uttered, raising her swimming eyes to his face. ‘I should have been most happy—I may say that I most sincerely desired it! But all is now changed! I can only beg of you to say no more!’

‘You desired it! In heaven’s name, what can possibly have occurred to alter this?’ he exclaimed. Trying for a lighter note, he said: ‘Has someone traduced my character to you? Or is it that—’

‘Oh no, how could anyone—? My lord, I must tell you that there is Another Man! When I agreed last night to receive you today, I did not know—that is, I thought—’ Her voice became suspended; she was obliged to wipe teardrops from her face.

He had stiffened. Another silence fell, broken only by the widow’s unhappy sniffs into her handkerchief. At last he said, in a constrained tone: ‘I collect—a prior attachment, ma’am?’

She nodded; a sob shook her. He said gently: ‘I will say no more. Pray do not cry, ma’am! You have been very frank, and I thank you for it. Will you accept my best wishes for your future happiness, and believe that—’

‘Happiness!’ she interrupted. ‘I am sure I am the wretchedest creature alive! You are all kindness, my lord: no one could be more sensible than I am of the exquisite forbearance you have shown me! You have every right to blame me for having encouraged you to suppose that your suit might be successful.’ Again her voice failed.

‘I have no blame for you at all, ma’am. Let us say no more! I will take my leave of you, but before I go will you permit me to discharge an obligation? I may not have the opportunity of speaking to you alone again. It concerns Fanny.’

‘Fanny?’ she repeated. ‘An obligation’?’’

He smiled with a slight effort. ‘Why, yes, ma’am! I had hoped to have won the right to speak to you on this subject. Well—I have not won that right, and you may deem it an impertinence that I should still venture, but since Fanny has honoured me with her confidence, and I promised her that I would do what I might, perhaps you will forgive me, and hear me with patience?’

She looked wonderingly at him. ‘Of course! That is—What can you possibly mean, my lord?’

‘She is, I collect, deeply attached to a young man whom she has known since her childhood. She has told me that you are opposed to the match, ma’am. Perhaps there exists some reason beyond his want of fortune to render his suit ineligible, but if it is not so—if your dislike of it arises only from a very natural desire that Fanny should contract some more brilliant alliance—may I beg of you, with all the earnestness at my command, not to stand between her and what may be her future happiness? Believe me, I do not speak without experience! In my youth I was the victim of such an ambition. I shall not say that one does not recover from an early disappointment—indeed, you know that I at least have done so!—but I am most sincerely fond of Fanny, and I would do much to save her from what I suffered. I have some little influence: I should be glad to exert it in this young man’s favour.’

The damp handkerchief had dropped from the widow’s clutch to the floor; she sat gazing up at his lordship with so odd an expression in her face that he added quickly: ‘You find it strange that Fanny should have confided in me. Do not be hurt by it! I believe it is often the case that a girl will more easily give her confidence to her father than to a most beloved mother. When she spoke, it was in the belief that I might become—But I will say no more on that head!’

The widow found her voice at last. ‘My lord,’ she said, ‘do I—do I understand that you are desirous of becoming Fanny’s father?’

‘That is not quite as I should phrase it, perhaps,’ he said, with a wry smile.

‘Not,’ asked the widow anxiously, ‘not—you are quite sure?—Fanny’s husband?’

He looked thunderstruck. ‘Fanny’s husband?’ he echoed. ‘I? Good God, no! Why—is it possible that you can have supposed—?’

‘I have never fainted in all my life,’ stated Mrs Wing-ham, in an uncertain voice. ‘I very much fear, however—’

‘No, no, this is no time for swoons!’ he said, seizing her hands. ‘You cannot have thought that it was Fanny I loved! Yes, yes, I know what Fanny has been to you, but you cannot have been so absurd!’

‘Yes, I was,’ averred the widow. ‘I could even be so absurd as not to have the remotest guess why I have felt so low ever since I met you, and thought you wished to marry her!’

He knelt beside her chair, still clasping her hands. ‘What a fool I was! But I thought my only hope of being in any way acceptable to you was to praise Fanny to you! And, indeed, she is a delightful girl! But all you have said to me today—you were not speaking of yourself?

‘Oh no, no! Of Fanny! You see, she and Richard—’

‘Never mind Fanny and Richard!’ he interrupted. ‘Is it still useless for me to persist in my errand to you?’

‘Quite ridiculous!’ she said, clinging to his hands. ‘You have not the least need to persist in it! That is, if you do indeed wish to marry such a blind goose as I have been!’

His lordship disengaged his hands, but only that he might take her in his arms. ‘I wish it more than for anything else on this earth!’ he assured her.