"And will the other poor dears be content to wait to make a holiday
for your grandchildren? 'To make a Roman holiday.' Pope, or somebody
else, has a line of poetry like that. 'To make a Roman holiday,'"--he
repeated, pleased with his unusual aptitude at quotation.
"It's Byron, and it's nothing to do with the subject in hand. I'm
surprised at your lordship's quoting Byron,--he was a very immoral
poet."
"I saw him take his oaths in the House of Lords," said Lord Cumnor,
apologetically.
"Well! the less said about him the better," said Lady Cumnor. "I have
told Clare that she had better not think of being married before
Christmas: and it won't do for her to give up her school in a hurry
either."
But Clare did not intend to wait till Christmas; and for this once
she carried her point against the will of the countess, and without
many words, or any open opposition. She had a harder task in setting
aside Mr. Gibson's desire to have Cynthia over for the wedding,
even if she went back to her school at Boulogne directly after the
ceremony. At first she had said that it would be delightful, a
charming plan; only she feared that she must give up her own wishes
to have her child near her at such a time, on account of the expense
of the double journey.
But Mr. Gibson, economical as he was in his habitual expenditure,
had a really generous heart. He had already shown it, in entirely
relinquishing his future wife's life-interest in the very small
property the late Mr. Kirkpatrick had left, in favour of Cynthia;
while he arranged that she should come to his home as a daughter as
soon as she left the school she was at. The life-interest was about
thirty pounds a year. Now he gave Mrs. Kirkpatrick three five-pound
notes, saying that he hoped they would do away with the objections
to Cynthia's coming over to the wedding; and at the time Mrs.
Kirkpatrick felt as if they would, and caught the reflection of his
strong wish, and fancied it was her own. If the letter could have
been written and the money sent off that day while the reflected
glow of affection lasted, Cynthia would have been bridesmaid to
her mother. But a hundred little interruptions came in the way of
letter-writing; and by the next day maternal love had diminished;
and the value affixed to the money had increased: money had been
so much needed, so hardly earned in Mrs. Kirkpatrick's life; while
the perhaps necessary separation of mother and child had lessened
the amount of affection the former had to bestow. So she persuaded
herself, afresh, that it would be unwise to disturb Cynthia at her
studies; to interrupt the fulfilment of her duties just after the
_semestre_ had begun afresh; and she wrote a letter to Madame Lefevre
so well imbued with this persuasion, that an answer which was almost
an echo of her words was returned, the sense of which being conveyed
to Mr. Gibson, who was no great French scholar, settled the vexed
question, to his moderate but unfeigned regret. But the fifteen
pounds were not returned. Indeed, not merely that sum, but a
great part of the hundred which Lord Cumnor had given her for her
trousseau, was required to pay off debts at Ashcombe; for the school
had been anything but flourishing since Mrs. Kirkpatrick had had it.
It was really very much to her credit that she preferred clearing
herself from debt to purchasing wedding finery. But it was one of the
few points to be respected in Mrs. Kirkpatrick that she had always
been careful in payment to the shops where she dealt; it was a little
sense of duty cropping out. Whatever other faults might arise from
her superficial and flimsy character, she was always uneasy till she
was out of debt. Yet she had no scruple in appropriating her future
husband's money to her own use, when it was decided that it was not
to be employed as he intended. What new articles she bought for
herself, were all such as would make a show, and an impression upon
the ladies of Hollingford. She argued with herself that linen, and
all under-clothing, would never be seen; while she knew that every
gown she had, would give rise to much discussion, and would be
counted up in the little town.