In the evening, with listless adroitness, she encouraged the maid who
dressed her for dinner to speak of Dr. Fitzpiers's marriage.
"Mrs. Fitzpiers was once supposed to favor Mr. Winterborne," said the
young woman.
"And why didn't she marry him?" said Mrs. Charmond.
"Because, you see, ma'am, he lost his houses."
"Lost his houses? How came he to do that?"
"The houses were held on lives, and the lives dropped, and your agent
wouldn't renew them, though it is said that Mr. Winterborne had a very
good claim. That's as I've heard it, ma'am, and it was through it that
the match was broke off."
Being just then distracted by a dozen emotions, Mrs. Charmond sunk into
a mood of dismal self-reproach. "In refusing that poor man his
reasonable request," she said to herself, "I foredoomed my rejuvenated
girlhood's romance. Who would have thought such a business matter
could have nettled my own heart like this? Now for a winter of regrets
and agonies and useless wishes, till I forget him in the spring. Oh! I
am glad I am going away."
She left her chamber and went down to dine with a sigh. On the stairs
she stood opposite the large window for a moment, and looked out upon
the lawn. It was not yet quite dark. Half-way up the steep green
slope confronting her stood old Timothy Tangs, who was shortening his
way homeward by clambering here where there was no road, and in
opposition to express orders that no path was to be made there. Tangs
had momentarily stopped to take a pinch of snuff; but observing Mrs.
Charmond gazing at him, he hastened to get over the top out of hail.
His precipitancy made him miss his footing, and he rolled like a barrel
to the bottom, his snuffbox rolling in front of him.
Her indefinite, idle, impossible passion for Fitzpiers; her
constitutional cloud of misery; the sorrowful drops that still hung
upon her eyelashes, all made way for the incursive mood started by the
spectacle. She burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, her very
gloom of the previous hour seeming to render it the more
uncontrollable. It had not died out of her when she reached the
dining-room; and even here, before the servants, her shoulders suddenly
shook as the scene returned upon her; and the tears of her hilarity
mingled with the remnants of those engendered by her grief.
She resolved to be sad no more. She drank two glasses of champagne,
and a little more still after those, and amused herself in the evening
with singing little amatory songs.