"Indeed I do;--I have always liked you. But--"

"But what? Do tell me what the but means. I will do anything that you bid me."

Then it occurred to him that if, after such a promise, he were to confide to her his feeling that the chignon which she wore was ugly and unbecoming, she would probably be induced to change her mode of head-dress. It was a foolish idea, because, had he followed it out, he would have seen that compliance on her part in such a matter could only be given with the distinct understanding that a certain reward should be the consequence. When an unmarried gentleman calls upon an unmarried lady to change the fashion of her personal adornments, the unmarried lady has a right to expect that the unmarried gentleman means to make her his wife. But Mr. Gibson had no such meaning; and was led into error by the necessity for sudden action. When she offered to do anything that he might bid her do, he could not take up his hat and go away. She looked up into his face, expecting that he would give her some order;--and he fell into the temptation that was spread for him.

"If I might say a word,--" he began.

"You may say anything," she exclaimed.

"If I were you I don't think--"

"You don't think what, Mr. Gibson?"

He found it to be a matter very difficult of approach. "Do you know, I don't think the fashion that has come up about wearing your hair quite suits you,--not so well as the way you used to do it." She became on a sudden very red in the face, and he thought that she was angry. Vexed she was, but still, accompanying her vexation, there was a remembrance that she was achieving victory even by her own humiliation. She loved her chignon; but she was ready to abandon even that for him. Nevertheless she could not speak for a moment or two, and he was forced to continue his criticism. "I have no doubt those things are very becoming and all that, and I dare say they are comfortable."

"Oh, very," she said.

"But there was a simplicity that I liked about the other."

Could it be then that for the last five years he had stood aloof from her because she had arrayed herself in fashionable attire? She was still very red in the face, still suffering from wounded vanity, still conscious of that soreness which affects us all when we are made to understand that we are considered to have failed there, where we have most thought that we excelled. But her womanly art enabled her quickly to conceal the pain. "I have made a promise," she said, "and you will find that I will keep it."

"What promise?" asked Mr. Gibson.

"I said that I would do as you bade me, and so I will. I would have done it sooner if I had known that you wished it. I would never have worn it at all if I had thought that you disliked it."

"I think that a little of them is very nice," said Mr. Gibson. Mr.

Gibson was certainly an awkward man. But there are men so awkward that it seems to be their especial province to say always the very worst thing at the very worst moment.

She became redder than ever as she was thus told of the hugeness of her favourite ornament. She was almost angry now. But she restrained herself, thinking perhaps of how she might teach him taste in days to come as he was teaching her now. "I will change it to-morrow," she said with a smile. "You come and see to-morrow."

Upon this he got up and took his hat and made his escape, a.s.suring her that he would come and see her on the morrow. She let him go now without any attempt at further tenderness. Certainly she had gained much during the interview. He had as good as told her in what had been her offence, and of course, when she had remedied that offence, he could hardly refuse to return to her. She got up as soon as she was alone, and looked at her head in the gla.s.s, and told herself that the pity would be great. It was not that the chignon was in itself a thing of beauty, but that it imparted so unmistakable an air of fashion! It divested her of that dowdiness which she feared above all things, and enabled her to hold her own among other young women, without feeling that she was absolutely dest.i.tute of attraction.

There had been a certain homage paid to it, which she had recognised and enjoyed. But it was her ambition to hold her own, not among young women, but among clergymen's wives, and she would certainly obey his orders. She could not make the attempt now because of the complications; but she certainly would make it before she laid her head on the pillow,--and would explain to Camilla that it was a little joke between herself and Mr. Gibson.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

MR. GIBSON IS PUNISHED.

Miss Stanbury was divine in her wrath, and became more and more so daily as new testimony reached her of dishonesty on the part of the Frenches and of treachery on the part of Mr. Gibson. And these people, so empty, so vain, so weak, were getting the better of her, were conquering her, were robbing her of her prestige and her ancient glory, simply because she herself was too generous to speak out and tell the truth! There was a martyrdom to her in this which was almost unendurable.

Now there came to her one day at luncheon time,--on the day succeeding that on which Miss French had promised to sacrifice her chignon,--a certain Mrs. Clifford from Budleigh Salterton, to whom she was much attached. Perhaps the distance of Budleigh Salterton from Exeter added somewhat to this affection, so that Mrs. Clifford was almost closer to our friend's heart even than Mrs. MacHugh, who lived just at the other end of the cathedral. And in truth Mrs.

Clifford was a woman more serious in her mode of thought than Mrs.

MacHugh, and one who had more in common with Miss Stanbury than that other lady. Mrs. Clifford had been a Miss Noel of Doddis...o...b.. Leigh, and she and Miss Stanbury had been engaged to be married at the same time,--each to a man of fortune. One match had been completed in the ordinary course of matches. What had been the course of the other we already know. But the friendship had been maintained on very close terms. Mrs. MacHugh was a Gallio at heart, anxious chiefly to remove from herself,--and from her friends also,--all the troubles of life, and make things smooth and easy. She was one who disregarded great questions; who cared little or nothing what people said of her; who considered nothing worth the trouble of a fight;--Epicuri de grege porca. But there was nothing swinish about Mrs. Clifford of Budleigh Salterton. She took life thoroughly in earnest. She was a Tory who sorrowed heartily for her country, believing that it was being brought to ruin by the counsels of evil men. She prayed daily to be delivered from dissenters, radicals, and wolves in sheep's clothing,--by which latter bad name she meant especially a certain leading politician of the day who had, with the cunning of the devil, tempted and perverted the virtue of her own political friends.

And she was one who thought that the slightest breath of scandal on a young woman's name should be stopped at once. An antique, pure-minded, anxious, self-sacrificing matron was Mrs. Clifford, and very dear to the heart of Miss Stanbury.

After lunch was over on the day in question Mrs. Clifford got Miss Stanbury into some closet retirement, and there spoke her mind as to the things which were being said. It had been a.s.serted in her presence by Camilla French that she, Camilla, was authorised by Mr.

Gibson to declare that he had never thought of proposing to Dorothy Stanbury, and that Miss Stanbury had been "labouring under some strange misapprehension in the matter." "Now, my dear, I don't care very much for the young lady in question," said Mrs. Clifford, alluding to Camilla French.

"Very little, indeed, I should think," said Miss Stanbury, with a shake of her head.

"Quite true, my dear,--but that does not make the words out of her mouth the less efficacious for evil. She clearly insinuated that you had endeavoured to make up a match between this gentleman and your niece, and that you had failed." So much was at least true. Miss Stanbury felt this, and felt also that she could not explain the truth, even to her dear old friend. In the midst of her divine wrath she had acknowledged to herself that she had brought Mr. Gibson into his difficulty, and that it would not become her to tell any one of his failure. And in this matter she did not herself accuse Mr.

Gibson. She believed that the lie originated with Camilla French, and it was against Camilla that her wrath raged the fiercest.

"She is a poor, mean, disappointed thing," said Miss Stanbury.

"Very probably;--but I think I should ask her to hold her tongue about Miss Dorothy," said Mrs. Clifford.

The consultation in the closet was carried on for about half-an-hour, and then Miss Stanbury put on her bonnet and shawl and descended into Mrs. Clifford's carriage. The carriage took the Heavitree road, and deposited Miss Stanbury at the door of Mrs. French's house. The walk home from Heavitree would be nothing, and Mrs. Clifford proceeded on her way, having given this little help in counsel and conveyance to her friend. Mrs. French was at home, and Miss Stanbury was shown up into the room in which the three ladies were sitting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Miss Stanbury visits the Frenches.]

The reader will doubtless remember the promise which Arabella had made to Mr. Gibson. That promise she had already fulfilled,--to the amazement of her mother and sister;--and when Miss Stanbury entered the room the elder daughter of the family was seen without her accustomed head-gear. If the truth is to be owned, Miss Stanbury gave the poor young woman no credit for her new simplicity, but put down the deficiency to the charge of domestic slatternliness. She was unjust enough to declare afterwards that she had found Arabella French only half dressed at between three and four o'clock in the afternoon! From which this lesson may surely be learned,--that though the way down Avernus may be, and customarily is, made with great celerity, the return journey, if made at all, must be made slowly. A young woman may commence in chignons by attaching any amount of an edifice to her head; but the reduction should be made by degrees.

Arabella's edifice had, in Miss Stanbury's eyes, been the ugliest thing in art that she had known; but, now, its absence offended her, and she most untruly declared that she had come upon the young woman in the middle of the day just out of her bed-room and almost in her dressing-gown.

And the whole French family suffered a diminution of power from the strange phantasy which had come upon Arabella. They all felt, in sight of the enemy, that they had to a certain degree lowered their flag. One of the ships, at least, had shown signs of striking, and this element of weakness made itself felt through the whole fleet. Arabella, herself, when she saw Miss Stanbury, was painfully conscious of her head, and wished that she had postponed the operation till the evening. She smiled with a faint watery smile, and was aware that something ailed her.

The greetings at first were civil, but very formal, as are those between nations which are nominally at peace, but which are waiting for a sign at which each may spring at the other's throat. In this instance the Juno from the Close had come quite prepared to declare her casus belli as complete, and to fling down her gauntlet, unless the enemy should at once yield to her everything demanded with an abject submission. "Mrs. French," she said, "I have called to-day for a particular purpose, and I must address myself chiefly to Miss Camilla."

"Oh, certainly," said Mrs. French.

"I shall be delighted to hear anything from you, Miss Stanbury," said Camilla,--not without an air of bravado. Arabella said nothing, but she put her hand up almost convulsively to the back of her head.

"I have been told to-day by a friend of mine, Miss Camilla," began Miss Stanbury, "that you declared yourself, in her presence, authorised by Mr. Gibson to make a statement about my niece Dorothy."

"May I ask who was your friend?" demanded Mrs. French.

"It was Mrs. Clifford, of course," said Camilla. "There is n.o.body else would try to make difficulties."

"There need be no difficulty at all, Miss Camilla," said Miss Stanbury, "if you will promise me that you will not repeat the statement. It can't be true."

"But it is true," said Camilla.

"What is true?" asked Miss Stanbury, surprised by the audacity of the girl.

"It is true that Mr. Gibson authorised us to state what I did state when Mrs. Clifford heard me."

"And what was that?"

"Only this,--that people had been saying all about Exeter that he was going to be married to a young lady, and that as the report was incorrect, and as he had never had the remotest idea in his mind of making the young lady his wife,--" Camilla, as she said this, spoke with a great deal of emphasis, putting forward her chin and shaking her head,--"and as he thought it was uncomfortable both for the young lady and for himself, and as there was nothing in it the least in the world,--nothing at all, no glimmer of a foundation for the report, it would be better to have it denied everywhere. That is what I said; and we had authority from the gentleman himself. Arabella can say the same, and so can mamma;--only mamma did not hear him." Nor had Camilla heard him, but that incident she did not mention.

The circ.u.mstances were, in Miss Stanbury's judgment, becoming very remarkable. She did not for a moment believe Camilla. She did not believe that Mr. Gibson had given to either of the Frenches any justification for the statement just made. But Camilla had been so much more audacious than Miss Stanbury had expected, that that lady was for a moment struck dumb. "I'm sure, Miss Stanbury," said Mrs.

French, "we don't want to give any offence to your niece,--very far from it."