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This statement was reported in the newspapers of the following morning, and was at once denied by Marsham himself, in a brief letter to the Times. It was this letter which Lady Felton discussed hotly with Sir James Chide on the day when Fanny Merton's misdemeanors also came up for judgment. "He says he didn't write it. Sir William declares a mere quibble!
Ferrier understood him perfectly, and he had never displayed more kindness or more tact than in the conversation which passed between them. Marsham finally agreed that Diana must be frankly informed of his mother's state of mind, and that a waiting policy offered the only hope. On this they were retiring to the front drawing-room when Lady Lucy opened the communicating door.
Diana listened silently, but inwardly her mind was full of critical reactions. Was this what Mr. Marsham most admired, his ideal of what a woman should be?
Some rumour of that proposed visit to Monkshade, and the way in which it had been prevented, had reached her ear. Some whispers had come to her that Fitzgerald still dared to love, as married, the woman whom he had loved before she was married. There was a rumour about that he still had some hope. Mrs Marsham had never believed that Mr Palliser's wife would really be false to her vows.
In God's name, let Marsham take the thing into his own hands! stand on his own feet! dissipate a nightmare which ought never to have arisen and gather the girl to his heart. Meanwhile Fanny's attention and the surging anger of her thoughts were more and more directed upon the girl with the fair hair opposite.
She had no mother; neither had he; and he had wished that Mrs Marsham should give to her some of that matronly assistance and guidance which a mother does give to her young married daughter.
His eyes, restless and bright, interrogated his old friend. At the first glance Sir James understood. He thrust his hands into his pockets. "You know?" he said, under his breath. Marsham nodded. "And you have known it all along?" "From the first moment, almost, that I set eyes on that poor child. Does she know? Have you broken it to her?" The questions hurried on each other's heels.
Sir James had rather coldly acknowledged the letter, with the remark that few words were best on a subject so painful; and since then there had been no intimacy between the two men. Marsham could only think with discomfort of the scene at Felton Park, when a man of passionate nature and romantic heart had allowed him access to the most sacred and tragic memories of his life.
He was strongly of opinion that Marsham should find an heiress as soon as possible, for there was no saying how "long the old lady would see him out of his money," and everybody knew that at present "she kept him beastly short." "As for me," the speaker wound up, with an engaging and pensive naïveté, "I've talked to him till I'm tired."
It certainly seemed to both mother and son that the ingenuous young face colored a little as its owner replied "Thank you it was very amusing" and then added, with a little hesitation "Mr. Marsham has been kindly advising me since, about the gardens and the Vavasours. They were to keep up the gardens, you know and now they practically leave it to me which isn't fair." Mrs.
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