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This room the Mainwarings called the drawing-room, and it was really furnished with great daintiness and care. At one end was the bay window, at the other were glass doors which opened directly into the garden. The kitchen was at the other end of the narrow hall, and this also looked on the garden. Hannah, the one servant, was often heard to object to this arrangement.
Could it be possible that the secretary, having familiarized himself with the family history of the Mainwarings, was now masquerading under an assumed name for some object of his own? But she dismissed this idea at once. She had assured him at Fair Oaks that she believed him incapable of anything false or dishonorable, and she would abide by that belief until convinced otherwise.
Then he added, musingly, "Your uncle's name seems to be rather unusual among the Mainwarings; I do not recall your having mentioned it before." "What, Harold? On the contrary, it is the great name in our family, especially in the main line. I would have been given that name if the governor had not been looking out for Hugh Mainwaring's money.
She goes to stay with the Essex Mainwarings for a month; after that, I hope that she will give me a long visit. I do not know where one could find a sweeter girl, or one more eminently calculated to make a man happy. Beautiful, strictly speaking, she is not, perhaps, but of excellent connections, not without a portion, young, clever, and ambitious.
"Has your experience of the last few days made you so cynical as that?" the attorney inquired, again smiling into the bright, fair face beside him. "It is not cynicism, Mr. Whitney; it is the plain truth. I have always known that the Mainwarings as a family were mercenary; but I confess I had no idea, until within the last few days, that they were capable of such beastly ingratitude."
She saw at a glance that the girls were ladies, and would not be patronized. Her task had seemed easy enough when she assured Miss Martineau that the poor young Mainwarings must be helped. When she ordered her carriage and drove into Rosebury she made up her mind to discuss their affairs boldly with them, and to offer them practical advice, and, if necessary, substantial assistance.
"Might I make bold to inquire, miss," she asked, "if the thirty pounds is once for all, or if it's a yearly recurrence?" "Oh, it's an income, Poppy how stupid you are!" "Then I'll consult my aunt in town, miss, and try to find out if you three dear young ladies couldn't contrive a London visit out of part of the savings." After this sapient speech Poppy bade the Mainwarings good-bye.
There was a ripple of excitement through the court-room, and the Mainwarings, father, and son, watched the young man with strangely varying emotions, neither as yet fully comprehending the real significance of his presence there. "The secretary!" exclaimed Mr. Whitney, in a low tone. "Can it be possible that he is concerned in this?"
Miss Martineau told her news with considerable agitation. She considered it a terrible revelation. It seemed to her a very fearful and disastrous thing that three girls brought up like the Mainwarings, three girls still almost children, should be thrown on the world without any means for their support.
Upon these sums Varney had lived very pleasantly, and he saw with a deep sigh the approaching failure of so facile a resource. In one of the melancholy moods engendered by this reflection, Varney happened to be in the very town in France in which the Mainwarings, in their later years, had taken refuge, and from which Helen had been removed to the roof of Mr. Fielden.
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