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"I thought you would be engaged so long that it was not worth while to wait for you." "Well, but did you know you had missed the Faulkners?" said Clara. "I knew they were here." Every one understood this except Clara, and very little did it please Mrs. Lyddell or Caroline. "Marian," said Mrs. Lyddell, "you really must not be so absurd about this matter. Your mourning is nothing.
Both knew, though neither said so, that it was not so much because it was a display and expense that Marian refused, as because it was the Faulkners' party. If it had been Lady Marchmont's, it would have been very different.
Still there stood the great unanswerable obstacle, the three words, "It is wrong!" If she stood alone, if there was no family on either side, she could, she would refuse, but dismay seized on her when she thought of the displeasure, the persecution at home if she rejected him; on the other hand she shrank from ingratitude for the kindness of the Faulkners.
She even found a niece for me, but that came to nothing, for the niece was a very nice girl and in a week we understood each other beautifully. She stayed a month with the Faulkners and thought of me as a brother, which was most satisfactory; sometimes, however, she treated me like one and then I was not so pleased.
Caroline's and Clara's time was a great deal taken up with the Faulkners, and Marian and Lionel were thus left out by all and almost obliged to make a coalition. Lionel haunted the drawing-room in the morning, either talking in the half-rhodomontade, half-in-earnest fashion of boys of sixteen, or listening if there was any reading aloud going forward.
Amy Robsart, Katherine Seymour, Anne Clifford, Frances Walsingham, Mildred Cecil, and other ladies of the time were mentioned, and then came the counting up of their eight living representatives, the two Misses Faulkner, Caroline, yes, and Clara herself, who started and danced with ecstasy, then glanced entreatingly at her mother, who looked doubtful; Marian, two cousins of the Faulkners, who were always ready for anything, and a Miss Mordaunt, were reckoned up, and their dresses quickly discussed; but all the time Marian said not a word.
Now Marian always maintained that archery, on their own lawn, and among themselves, was a very pretty sport; and for the sake of consistency with her own principles, she very diligently shot whenever the Faulkners were not there, and did her very best, by precept and example, to make Clara fit her arrows to the string in her own direct and purpose-like way, draw the bow-string to her ear with a steady effort and aim, instead of a fitful jerk or twitch; and in fact shoot, if she was to shoot, like a sensible woman, who really intended damage to the target.
They are coming next Monday morning," and having told me this, which he knew I should not like, he was kind enough to go away before I told him again what I thought of Mrs. Faulkner. For when Fred had been staying with me at home the Faulkners were a fertile source of dispute between us.
"My dear Godfrey, you are simply splendid," she went on, "the dearest old bungler I know. You remind me of the Faulkners' ostrich, which goes on tapping at the window when it has been opened and there is nothing to tap at." I did not know what she meant, and if that ostrich had not been rather a friend of mine I should have been insulted. As it was I did not feel pleased.
"Johnny always was crazy to be a sailor, so he is all right, and that is not what I care for; but I don't want to be beholden to Mr. Faulkner. I had rather Caroline had her own money, and not that we should all profit by her making this grand marriage." "I should quite feel with you." "Marian, we have never talked that over; but I know you cannot bear the Faulkners."
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