Dressed in Black

Chapter 13

"Certainly!" he said, leaning back casually, as though he were in his own home in Derbyshire – though he had another property in Hampshire, which he much preferred. "You have as stout and constant a heart as anyone I know – besides your good old father, that is. I still remember him in our Harrow days. He and I were inseparable, we were. They called us lovers, but how silly! We were so embarrassed of it that we did not speak to each other for one whole day. For all that, we were undividable again the next day."

"How amusing," she smiled, these pleasant memories reminding her not of death, but of life, and of how good and amiable a man her father had been. She was growing and brightening with mirth, when their attentions were divided by the General, who had gradually crept toward them and addressed Mr. Borne with a rather fierce expression.

"Mr. Borne, I believe you came to discuss an important matter with me," he said insistently.

"Ah yes," said Mr. Borne, rising languidly from his chair and then looking with wistful endearment at Catherine, whose face was beginning to fall. "You must forgive me, Cathy, but business is business, and your guardian is quite urgent about settling it."

After the two men had left, the room hummed with chatter. "Men always have some unsettled business to attend to," said Poppy, smiling knowingly at her brother. "I wonder if it's merely an excuse to smoke and drink rum-and-water?"

"My dear Poppy!" Joseph cried, in earnest amusement. "You fancy such odd, ungenerous things. Your imagination is downright vulgar. However I must say that men like Slater and Winthrop will always have some sort of business with other men of their rank. I say this, Poppy, so as to warn you, if ever you decide to marry anyone, though I'm sure no one is worthy enough to tempt you."

"Poppycock, brother!" she cried, rising in mock indignation. "You know I shall never marry. I think too independently, and most men wish for pretty puppets, instead of real women with real thoughts."

"Why is it," Mr. Willkie Richmond said, revealing a gap in his teeth as he smiled. "That all the ladies who declare themselves unwilling to marry, marry the next day?"

"Of course you don't mean that literally," Poppy said with a stern calmness generally attributed to those who try not to seem overly enthusiastic about a subject they are particularly interested in. "But I cannot make out your meaning. Have you any proof of such occasions, Mr. Willkie?"

"Certainly. When Sam and I were in London this Season, we heard four – say, brother, can you confirm this?"

"It was four, indeed," nodded his pale, languid brother, who was rather busy eyeing Pearl Badeau, who was flirting with clever young Peter Winthrop. He thought him neither stylish nor handsome, so why did he see him as a rival? I may answer that, though Samuel Richmond, who knew himself too little to understand his own jealousy, could not. Peter Winthrop was humbly clever, kind, had a comfortable private fortune, and was a busy man of law, making good use of his time, and not wasting it in idle pleasures – in short; he was everything the eldest Mr. Richmond was not.

"Yes. So you see, these four young ladies each proclaimed their determination never to marry, yet all, by the end of the Season, were engaged – to be married."

"I never quite understood the gentler sex in general," Sir Arthur said with a handsome, simpering smile peeking out from beneath his black whiskers. "They seem to take violent delight in contradicting themselves. My wife is not present to humour me, so I am obliged to ask the young ladies in this room why they all have such deceiving natures." The conversation by this time had become general, for all were listening closely to what was being said, and Catherine, feeling that she disagreed with every part of his statement, presently spoke up, despite her reservations.