while the events last recorded were working themselves out at st. oswyth's, affairs at withington chase had not been at a standstill.
luigi rispani, now known to the world under his assumed name of lewis clare, had taken up his quarters at the chase in his position as sir gilbert's grandson, while giovanna, otherwise mrs. care, his supposed mother, was duly installed at maylings, the house which the baronet had had specially fitted up for her occupancy.
plain to the verge of ugliness as far as its architectural pretensions were concerned, but roomy and homelike indoors, maylings, which dated from the era of the second george, was far too large a domicile for the limited requirements of mrs. clare; so much so, indeed, that sir gilbert contented himself with having about half its number of rooms furnished and made habitable. its situation was somewhat lonely, there being no other house within a quarter of a mile of it. it stood back from the high road, fronting a huge clump of evergreens and a small carriage sweep, but from the drawing-room windows in the rear of the house one looked into a charming old-fashioned flower-garden. to giovanna it all seemed very lonely and very dull.
one other thing, however, sir gilbert did which filled her with unfeigned pleasure, and that was to make her a present of a horse and brougham. and within a few days there arrived a grand piano, of which giovanna at once determined to avail herself to the utmost. she had been gifted by nature with a full rich contralto voice, together with a large measure of that musical talent which seems inherent in the children of the sunny south; but her life hitherto had afforded her no opportunity of cultivating either one or the other. now, however, her opportunity had come, and the very first time captain verinder came to see her, she requested him to find her a competent teacher, male or female, she did not care which. thus it presently came to pass that signor sampi, a grey-haired but clever musician, journeyed twice a week to maylings, and in the cultivation of her long-neglected gifts giovanna found a new pleasure in life.
not for many a long year had such a sensation been known among the good folk of mapleford and its neighbourhood as that with which sir gilbert clare had provided them, and they did not fail to appreciate it to the full.
giovanna had not been settled at maylings more than a couple of days, before one carriage after another of the local gentry began to include it in their round of afternoon calls, and she found herself the recipient of quite a shower of visiting cards. then presently giovanna found herself under the necessity of returning at least a portion of the calls. she was a firm believer in first impressions, and for some of her callers she had conceived an immediate dislike which caused her silently to determine to see as little of them as possible in time to come. that, of course, is not the code of english society, which teaches us to smile our sweetest on those whom we dislike the most. but giovanna had always been in the habit of giving way to her impulses, and she still had much to learn.
sir gilbert had felt from the first that it would not do for his daughter-in-law to live entirely alone. she must have some one of suitable age and character to fill the post of companion to her, whose services should be remunerated out of his own pocket. accordingly he made it his business to call upon mrs. merton, the vicar's wife, and enlist her services in his behalf. it did not take that lady long to find precisely the kind of person sir gilbert wanted, in a certain mrs. tew, the widow of a minor canon, who, owing to some unfortunate speculations on her late husband's part, had found herself at his death but just removed beyond the verge of penury. mrs. tew was a lively, well-preserved little lady of fifty-five, who had seen something of the world in her youth, was tolerably well read, and contrived to keep herself fairly au courant with the chief topics of the day. she had not been long in her new position before she discovered that one of her principal duties would be to "make talk," both when people called upon mrs. clare, and when the latter returned their visits. no task could have been found more congenial to the canon's widow. she had always cherished the opinion that she was gifted with considerable conversational powers, although it was one which her late husband, who was of a morose, brooding disposition, had not encouraged her to reduce to practice, either in public or private. now, however, that an opportunity was afforded her of compensating herself for the repression of years, she did not fail to avail herself of it. and as the little lady had a really pleasant manner, and never seemed at a loss for either ideas or words, and as no slightest tincture of malice ever tipped her tongue, everyone with whom she was brought into contact had a good word to say about her.
at no time had giovanna been a loquacious woman, and it was not likely that she would willingly allow the people among whom she now mixed to discover how terribly ignorant she was about many of the subjects on which they talked so glibly. she had naturally good manners, and had been well trained by her english mother as long as that mother had lived, besides which she had excellent taste in dress, all of which told in her favour. but, when it became a question of something beyond manners and dress, giovanna knew that, for her own credit's sake, her part in the social comedy must to all intents and purposes be a silent one. her place was to listen to everybody with smiling courtesy, and to look as if she felt an intelligent interest in all that was talked about, but to say as little as possible in return; and, above all, unless driven into a corner, never to originate any proposition of her own.
it was precisely here that she found mrs. tew so invaluable. that lady proved herself a person of infinite tact and resource. whenever there seemed a risk of mrs. clare being drawn into a conversation about matters concerning which, as the canon's widow surmised, she was probably more or less ignorant, she, mrs. tew, came boldly to her rescue, and by means of some apposite remark or pertinent question, addressed directly to some other person in the company, contrived, to attract the current of talk to herself, or else to deflect it into some less dangerous channel.
giovanna was sufficiently clear-sighted to see through mrs. tew's object, and was proportionately grateful; not being like some of her sex, who would have been more than annoyed at finding that their paid dependent had taken upon herself to gauge their ignorance, and had had the impertinence to assume that their educational acquirements were not on a par with those of the people with whom, for anything the said dependent was supposed to know to the contrary, they had been in the habit of mixing from youth upward. but whatever her faults in other directions might be, giovanna had no false pride about her, and was not afflicted with any deficiency of common-sense.
then again, the canon's widow had the tact never to bore giovanna with too much, either of her talk or her company, when they two were at home together. the widow had her own cosy sitting-room, and there, when her presence was not required elsewhere, what between needlework and novel-reading, she never found the time hang heavy on her hands. the late canon had objected to novels on principle as being a species of mental pabulum beneath the consideration of reasonable beings, as well as entailing results which in many cases were positively harmful, and as long as he lived his wife had meekly acquiesced in his dictum. now, however, that she was her own mistress, she proceeded to indemnify her starved imagination for its long abstinence. fortunately there was a very tolerable library in mapleford, which for her proved an inexhaustible mine of intellectual treasures. it mattered not that numbers of the works on its shelves dated back a quarter of a century or more, to her they were as new, fresh, and wonderful--perhaps more so--as if they had borne yesterday's imprimatur. and how she revelled in the love stories, dear little lady that she was! hers had been a repressed and unsatisfied existence, and now when she sat, often till long after the rest of the household was abed, deep in some sweet tale of love and constancy, of partings and comings together again, she would feel for a little while as if she were again a girl in her teens with all life's possibilities still before her. then, when she had read the last line of the last chapter, she would shut the book with a sigh and remove her spectacles, and murmur under her breath, "what would dear stephen say if he knew how i had been occupying my time? i am afraid he would think me greatly to blame." for all that, undeterred by any qualms of conscience, she would begin a fresh novel next day with an unappeased appetite.
while sir gilbert had been at the pains to provide his daughter-in-law with a suitable companion, he doubtless expected, if the matter ever crossed his mind, that she would provide her own maid. but giovanna, who all her life had been used to wait on herself, would have been quite satisfied to go on doing the same for ever had not captain verinder impressed upon her that, for a person in her position, a maid was an absolute necessity. further than that, he undertook to supply her with the necessity in question, which he did in the person of lucille fretin, the daughter of one of his many more or less impecunious foreign acquaintances. it was quite understood between lucille and the captain that she should keep both her eyes and ears open, so as to be in a position to furnish him with a minute account of everything that went on under the roof at maylings, together with any scraps of gossip, or information which might reach her anent the chase and its inmates.
captain verinder, in view of the unaccountable dislike which sir gilbert clare had conceived for him, kept strictly within the limits of the line of conduct which he had laid down for himself. the chase itself he never went near, but on one evening in each week, when he knew that giovanna was not dining with the baronet, he ran down by the train which reached mapleford at seven o'clock, driving from the station to maylings in a fly, and walking back in time to catch the last up train.
when giovanna, before her arrival at maylings, put into her uncle's hands the cheque given her by sir gilbert, with a request that he would get it cashed for her, he made up his mind that ten pounds out of the hundred should find their way into his own pocket, as representing his modest commission on the very clever stroke of business which he had just succeeded in bringing to so fortunate a termination. he would give her further to understand that he should look forward to being allowed a similar sum out of each quarterly cheque of which his niece would henceforward be the recipient. but when, without a word or a hint on his part, giovanna put into his hands, not ten, but twenty pounds of the hundred, he determined to wait and see what the next quarter would do for him; for it seemed not unlikely that he might benefit more by trusting to her generosity than by putting forward anything in the shape of a definite claim on his own account.
certainly, forty, or even eighty pounds a year was not a very magnificent sum: still, it would make an acceptable addition to his limited income; besides which, he looked forward to squeezing a further allowance out of luigi. of course, when in the not distant future, as he trusted, luigi should have become sir lewis clare, with a rent-roll of something like eight thousand a year (for there was little doubt, unless he should make a consummate ass of himself meanwhile, that his grandfather would constitute him his heir), then indeed matters would assume a very different aspect so far as he, augustus verinder, was concerned. meanwhile it was the day of small things and he must content himself as best he could to play a waiting game.
