"It's such a comfort to leave my lady to you; only don't you be
deluded by her ways. She'll not show she's ill till she can't help
it. Consult with Bradley" (Lady Cumnor's "own woman,"--she disliked
the new-fangledness of "lady's-maid"); "and if I were you, I'd send
and ask Gibson to call--you might make any kind of a pretence,"--and
then the idea he had had in London of the fitness of a match
between the two coming into his head just now, he could not help
adding,--"Get him to come and see you, he's a very agreeable man;
Lord Hollingford says there's no one like him in these parts: and he
might be looking at my lady while he was talking to you, and see if
he thinks her really ill. And let me know what he says about her."
But Clare was just as great a coward about doing anything for Lady
Cumnor which she had not expressly ordered, as Lord Cumnor himself.
She knew she might fall into such disgrace if she sent for Mr. Gibson
without direct permission, that she might never be asked to stay at
the Towers again; and the life there, monotonous in its smoothness of
luxury as it might be to some, was exactly to her taste. She in her
turn tried to put upon Bradley the duty which Lord Cumnor had put
upon her.
"Mrs. Bradley," she said one day, "are you quite comfortable about
my lady's health? Lord Cumnor fancied that she was looking worn and
ill?"
"Indeed, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, I don't think my lady is herself. I can't
persuade myself as she is, though if you was to question me till
night I couldn't tell you why."
"Don't you think you could make some errand to Hollingford, and see
Mr. Gibson, and ask him to come round this way some day, and make a
call on Lady Cumnor?"
"It would be as much as my place is worth, Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Till my
lady's dying day, if Providence keeps her in her senses, she'll have
everything done her own way, or not at all. There's only Lady Harriet
that can manage her the least, and she not always."
"Well, then--we must hope that there is nothing the matter with her;
and I daresay there is not. She says there is not, and she ought to
know best herself."
But a day or two after this conversation took place, Lady Cumnor
startled Mrs. Kirkpatrick, by saying suddenly,--"Clare, I wish you'd
write a note to Mr. Gibson, saying I should like to see him this
afternoon. I thought he would have called of himself before now. He
ought to have done so, to pay his respects."