‘Miss Grey knows, of course, everything about them. Miss Grey knows the whole story. She has been the longest here.’

‘Yes,’ said Miss Grey, ‘I know, I suppose, all the outs and ins of it; or, if not all, a great part; all is a big word to say. I don’t suppose anybody knows all—about the simplest of us—except the Almighty who made us, and understands all our curious ways.’

‘That is a true speech,’ said the old General, ‘for curious are our ways, and strange are the devices we have to hide ourselves from ourselves.’

‘Come, Stephen,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen, ‘let us have none of your philosophising. You like a story, or gossip, if you like to call it so, just as well as any of us; draw your chair nearer the fire, and listen to what Miss Grey has got to tell us, for I can read a whole story in her eye.’

It was General FitzStephen’s drawing-room in which this conversation was taking place, in the March afternoon, when evening was falling. It had been cold and boisterous all day, with the March wind, which the farmer loves, drying and parching everything outside; the roads all gray and dusty; the fields looking as if every drop of sap in every green blade or leaf had retired to the heart of the plant. The wind had blown itself out, and fallen a little before the darkening, and Miss Grey, out, like all the rest of the world, for a little walk, had been met and apprehended by the General and his wife, and brought in for tea. How much this was on Miss Grey’s account and how much for their own, I would not undertake to say. They were fond of Miss Grey, and so was everybody at Watcham: and people had a way of thinking that she was lonely and wanted cheering up—which, in most cases, only meant that they wanted cheering up themselves, and that there was nobody in the village who knew so well how to do this as the little lonely spinster. The FitzStephens’ house was exceedingly cosy, and though it was not large, it was much larger than Lady William’s, and more pleasantly built; with cheerful irregularities in the shape of bow-windows, which gave more light, and agreeable little recesses and corners to talk in. It was not so plain in any way. It was almost richly furnished with warm Persian carpets and thick curtains, and a great deal of wadding and cushioning. The General and his wife had, indeed, reached a proficiency in the art of making each other comfortable, which only an elderly pair, without children, can attain, and which, in their hands becomes a fine art. There were no rough corners in their house; nothing that was not padded and made soft. The draughts, which Lady William could only faintly struggle against, they shut out by curtains, artistically-planned, to the arrangement of which they had given their whole mind, two together, which everybody knows is better than one, and each for the other, which is better still: for not a suspicion, nor even a sensation, of selfishness can be in the man who is afraid of a chill for his wife, or the woman whose whole soul is bent on keeping her husband comfortable. The candles had not been lighted, but the firelight was shining brightly through the room, giving a brightness which no other artificial light possesses: and, through the windows, the yellow glow of a spring sunset, with a little pink in it, but none of winter’s violent and frosty red, came in. Thus, between the day and the night, with the sweetness of the western light outside like a picture, and the warm domestic glow within, Mrs. FitzStephen’s pretty tea-table was the most pleasant thing one could see on an evening while it was still cold. They had generally some one to share that darkening hour with them, and make it more cheerful; and on this particular evening there were two, Miss Grey, as has been said, and the wife of the Archdeacon, Mrs. Kendal, as quiet a meek woman as ever was, not capable of doing much in the way of addition to the mirth, but quietly receptive of it, which is the next best thing.

It is a curious fact, which I don’t seem to have seen commented on, how well and easily a kind old man who has fallen into quiet society along with his wife in the evening of his days, takes to the feminine element which is apt to preponderate in it. An old lady rarely makes herself at home with men in the same way, or if she does it is perhaps with the young friends of her sons who look up to her as a mother. But old soldiers as well as old parsons, to whom that might seem more natural, fall into ladies’ society with a relish and satisfaction that is amazing. Pride of sex, which is rarely wanting, takes refuge, we may suppose, in the little superiority so willingly accorded, the deferences and flatteries with which he is surrounded, and which he repays with little gallantries and pretty speeches with which the ladies on their side are amused and pleased. General FitzStephen was a great hero among all the ladies at Watcham, and he took his place among them with little sense of incongruity, with a pleasant ease and simplicity, not sighing for anything better, not wasting, or so it seemed, a thought upon his club or his men. He liked Miss Grey to come in to tea as well as his wife did, and was as pleased with Mrs. Kendal as with her husband—more so, indeed, for he thought and said that the Archdeacon was an old woman, an expression which he never employed to any lady. For Lady William he had a sort of devotion, but that was not remarkable, for Lady William was of a different species, and not unlikely to secure the homage of any age or kind of man.

It was therefore a very cheerful old party that was assembled round the FitzStephen fire, none among them under fifty-five, the General within easy sight of three-score and ten, but all very well, with the exception of Mrs. Kendal, who had been more or less of an invalid all her life, but enjoyed her ill-health on the whole, and was as likely to live now as at thirty. She sat lost in the deepest of easy-chairs on the side of the fire opposite the window and where there was least light. Miss Grey was on the sofa in the full light of the fire, which sparkled in a pair of beautiful brown eyes she had, which looked none the worse for the number of years which had passed over their possessor. Miss Grey was very small, a little bit of a woman, with scarcely body enough to lodge a soul which was not little at all: at least the part of it which was heart, if there are any divisions in our spiritual being, was so big as to rim over continually. She was very dark, with hair that had been black before it became iron-gray, and a gipsy complexion of olive and cherry. Her feet and hands were not so small as would have become her tiny person, but as they were feet that were always in motion for the good of her poor fellow-creatures, and hands that were noted in their service, these things are the less necessary to look into.

Mrs. FitzStephen was remarkable for little more than the neatness of her cap, and the trimness of her dress and person generally. She had been what people call a pretty little woman, and on that character she lived. She was a pretty little woman still according to the limitations of her age, and her husband was still proud of her simple and somewhat faded beauty. He had always been pleased to hear it said what a pretty little woman Mrs. FitzStephen was, and he was still pleased with the thought. She had not changed for him. She was seated in front of the low tea-table, on a low chair, making the tea. The General, who was tall, looked taller than ever moving about in the little glowing room between the firelight and the dark, handing to the ladies their cake and tea.

‘We are all quite new people in the place in comparison with Miss Grey,’ said Mrs. Kendal, in her little invalid voice, ‘though we used to come here, the Archdeacon and I, long ago, before he was the Archdeacon or I was delicate: dear me, we used to go on the water! he was a great boating man once——’

‘I remember,’ said Miss Grey, ‘he once took the duty for old Mr. Plowden, before the present Rector left College. I remember you very well—you were the bride—and there were ever so many little parties made——’

‘To be sure,’ said the Archdeacon’s wife, sitting up in her chair—‘dear me—it is so strange to think of the time when one was young——’

‘Emily was a little thing who was about everywhere—the child of the parish I used to call her. A girl who has lost her mother is so often like that, everybody’s child. I don’t say it’s not very nice as long as they’re children. One gets more used to them. She was always dancing about through everybody’s house—thank you, General, I couldn’t take any more cake—there wasn’t a house in the parish, rich or poor, but Emily was dancing out and in——’

‘Very bad for the child,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen.

‘Do you think so?’ said Miss Grey; ‘well, I don’t know, as long as she was a child.’

‘If it was bad for the child, my dear, the woman has come handsomely out of it,’ said the General, carrying the cake into the dark corner to Mrs. Kendal. ‘My dear lady, one morsel more—to keep me company.’

‘Oh! General, on that inducement—but only a very, very small piece—— ’

‘It’s bad when the child grows into a woman,’ said little Miss Grey, shaking her little head; ‘she was as dear a girl as ever lived—not one of them now is fit to hold the candle to what she was. Mab?—Mab’s a darling, the honestest little straightforward thing: and she would have been safer than Emily—she would never have been taken in—as her mother was.’

‘Dear Miss Grey,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen, ‘another cup of tea: and you were going to tell us about the Swinfords—for we all know there was something: she was a Seymour, wasn’t she, of a very good family?’

‘But foreign blood in her,’ said Miss Grey; ‘I think her mother was a Russian; she always was fond of foreign things and foreign ways; he was a dear, good, quiet man. It never came into his head that anything could go wrong——’

‘No: why should it, in a quiet neighbourhood like this——?’

‘Oh! I like to hear you speak of a quiet neighbourhood. When the Hall was in full swing it was about as quiet as—as Windsor Castle in the old days, before Her Majesty knew what trouble was; always something going on, the town full of visitors; entertainments that were in The Morning Post, and every kind of pleasure. They used to come down in the middle of the summer, from their town house, for a few days at a time, and bring half the town with them; and in autumn in the time of the partridges——’

‘There could never be much shooting,’ said the General with satisfaction, as on a subject he knew.

‘At the other end of the estate, the forest end—I have heard there was not very much, but it was very good; that is to say, it didn’t last very long, but as long as it lasted—at all events the shooting might be only a pretence: but the house was always full, that is the only thing I know——’

‘I daresay,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen, ‘it will be so again; a young man fond of company, like young Mr. Swinford.’

‘Oh! you may be sure it will be so again. I don’t know about him; but I do know about Mrs. Swinford——’

‘Now, don’t be spiteful, Miss Grey; when one lady does not approve of another it is the right thing to say that she is spiteful——’ the General said in an explanatory way, to take away the sting of the word which had come out unawares.

‘And it is very pleasant in a country place to see a little company,’ said Mrs. Kendal, ‘not that I care for great parties—nor the Archdeacon; but it makes a little stir——’

‘It keeps a movement in the air,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen, retiring from the fire.

‘Well, there will be plenty of it,’ said Miss Grey.

‘But, my dear lady, we must not have you cross—cross is what you never were; and society don’t you know, in this paradise of Watcham is the only thing we want.’

‘It would be very nice,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen, with a little sigh; ‘though we have all done without it nicely, with our little tea parties, and a friend from town from Saturday to Monday, and so forth.’

‘I never wish for more,’ said Mrs. Kendal, ‘nor the Archdeacon; it is just what we like: but dear me, when I was young—I’ve danced sometimes all night.’

‘We’ve heard the chimes at midnight,’ said the General, rubbing his hands; ‘so I don’t see any great occasion, my dear ladies, to be afraid.’

Miss Grey said nothing, but there was a little twitter and thrill in her, half visible in the firelight, as of a bird stirring on a bough; perhaps this proceeded from a little nodding of her head, very slight, but continued like a little protest under her breath.

‘And then think of the young ladies,’ said General FitzStephen jauntily; ‘I have always heard that Lady William met her husband there——’

‘There is not much chance for any of them to meet their husbands here: I often try to induce the General to ask a nice young man—from Saturday to Monday, you know—the only way we could ever induce a man from town to come here: but he says it isn’t good enough—and asks his old fogies instead——’

‘The old fogies are more agreeable to us, my dear,’ said the General, ‘and the young ladies must find their husbands for themselves: but when the Hall is full of fine company as our dear friend predicts——’

Upon which Miss Grey, nodding, introduced what seemed an entirely new and uncalled-for assertion.

‘James Plowden,’ she said, ‘though he is the Rector, is not a wise man any more than his father was before him——’

‘My dear lady!’ cried the General.

‘Miss Grey!’ said Mrs. Kendal mildly, out of the dark.

‘Nelly, Nelly!’ cried Mrs. FitzStephen, who was the one most intimate with the culprit.

‘James Plowden,’ repeated Miss Grey, ‘is no Solomon, as you all very well know. I am saying nothing against him—he’s a very good man: but though he hasn’t very much wisdom, if he thought one of his girls was to get a prince for her husband in the same way as his sister got hers, he is not the man I think him, if he ever let one of them put a foot inside that door.’

They all said ‘Lady William!’ with a joint cry, which, though it was very quietly uttered by each individual, rose into quite an outcry when uttered by the whole.

‘Poor little Emily!’ said Miss Grey, putting up her handkerchief to her eyes, ‘that’s how I think of her—though if she gets any pleasure out of her title, poor child, if you can call that a title——’

‘Of course it is a title—she takes precedence of all of us,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen.

‘A courtesy title,’ said the General.

‘Dear, I never knew there was anything against it,’ said Mrs. Kendal.

‘I hope she gets some pleasure out of it, poor dear,’ said Miss Grey; ‘little else has she ever got. A horrible man, who never, I believe, made himself pleasant to her, never for one day: and a horrible life for I don’t know how many years. If there had been a mother, or if he hadn’t been—— well, I won’t call him names now he’s in his grave—such a sacrifice would never have been made.’

‘But I suppose she liked him at the time,’ said one of the ladies.

‘And no doubt he was in love with her,’ said another; ‘Lord Portcullis’ son, and she a country clergyman’s daughter.’

‘Oh, as for that, God knows: she was perhaps dazzled with the miserable title, and her father of course, who was only a silly old man—and then she was besought and persuaded, God knows how, by those who did it for their own sake, not hers——’

‘But what reason could any one have?’ said Mrs. FitzStephen; ‘my dear Nelly Grey, you must be making up a story in your head; what cause could any one have, unless to satisfy the man who was in love with a girl, or to help forward the girl to a match above her? These are the only two reasons possible, and there’s no harm in them; we would, any of us, do it,’ she said.

‘Not if the man was of bad character,’ said the General.

‘And if the girl was not in love with him? Oh, I don’t call that romantic at all,’ Mrs. Kendal said.

Miss Grey shook her head again, shook it till her little bonnet, and all that could twitter and tremble about her, shook too.

‘You’re all good people,’ she said; ‘you don’t know the mystery of a wicked woman’s heart—or for that matter of a man’s either.’

‘Nelly,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen, almost sharply, ‘what can you know, a little single woman, about mysteries and wicked persons? A soldier’s wife like me, that has been knocked about the world——’

‘Or, oh, dear me, a clergyman’s!’ said Mrs. Kendal, ‘and they are told everything——’

‘Whatever you may know, you don’t know Mrs. Swinford,’ said Miss Grey, hastily tying her bonnet-strings—‘No, I must go home, thank you; I want to be in before it’s quite dark. And really there’s not much to tell; nothing that I’ve seen with my eyes, as you may have, my dear, knocking about as a soldier’s wife; or as a clergyman’s wife may have heard dreadful things trickling out through her husband. No, I’ve no husband. I haven’t knocked about the world. I may have fancied things, being always so quiet here. But good-night, for I must go; it’s nearly dark, and my little maid is always frightened if I’m not in before dark——’

‘The General will step round with you, Nelly dear—General, you’ll put on your greatcoat——’

‘Of course I am going,’ said the General. It was a duty he never was negligent of, to see a lady who came by herself to tea safely home.