I wish Mrs. Fordyce would have absolved her from the
promise not to mention Griff to us. That innocent
reliance might have touched him, as Emily would have
narrated it; but it only rendered my father more
indignant, and more resolved to reserve the message
till a repentant apology should come. And,
alas! none ever came. Just wrath on a voiceless
paper has little effect. There is reason to believe
that Griff did not like the air of my father’s
letter, and never even read it. He diligently
avoided Clarence, and the pain and shame his warm
heart must have felt only made him keep out of reach.
’The slippery verge her feet beguiled;
She tumbled headlong in.’
Gray.
One of Griffith’s briefest notes in his largest
hand announced that he had accepted various invitations
to country houses, for cricket matches, archery meetings,
and the like; nor did he even make it clear where
his address would be, except that he would be with
a friend in Scotland when grouse-shooting began.
Clarence, however, came home for a brief holiday.
He was startled at the first sight of Ellen.
He said she was indeed lovelier than ever, with
an added sweetness in her clear eyes and the wild rose
flush in her delicate cheek; but that she looked
as if she was being refined away to nothing, and
was more than ever like the vision with the lamp.
Of course the Fordyces had not been going into society,
though Ellen and Emily were as much together as before,
helping one another in practising their school children
in singing, and sharing in one another’s studies
and pursuits. There had been in the spring a
change at Wattlesea; the old incumbent died, and
the new one was well reported of as a very earnest
hardworking man. He seemed to be provided with
a large family, and there was no driving into Wattlesea
without seeing members of it scattered about the place.
The Fordyces being anxious to show them attention
without a regular dinner-party, decided on inviting
all the family to keep Anne’s ninth birthday,
and Emily and Martyn were of course to come and assist
at the entertainment.
It was on the morning of the day fixed that a letter
came to me whose contents seemed to burn themselves
into my brain. Martyn called across the breakfast-table,
’Look at Edward! Has any one sent you
a young basilisk?’
‘I wish it was,’ I gasped out.
‘Don’t look so,’ entreated Emily.
‘Tell us! Is it Griff?’
‘Not ill-hurt?’ cried my mother.
‘Oh no, no. Worse!’ and then somehow
I articulated that he was married; and Clarence exclaimed,
‘Not the Peacock!’ and at my gesture
my father broke out. ’He has done for
himself, the unhappy boy. A disgraceful Scotch
marriage. Eh?’
‘It was his sense of honour,’ I managed
to utter.
