All this by-play passed unnoticed by Miss Tweddle, who was probably too full of the cares of a hostess to pay attention to it; and, accordingly, she judged the pause that followed the fitting opportunity for a little speech.
"Mrs. Collum, ma'am," she began; "and my dearest Miss Matilda, the flower of all my lady lodgers; and you, Leandy; and Mr. Jauncy; and, though last mentioned, not intentionally so, I assure you, Miss Parkinson, my dear--I couldn't tell you how honoured I feel to see you all sitting, so friendly and cheerful, round my humble table. I hope this will be only the beginning of many more so; and I wish you all your very good healths!"
"Which, if I may answer for self and present company," said Mr. Jauncy, nobody else being able to utter a word, "we drink and reciprocate."
Leander was saved for the moment, and the dinner passed without further incident. But his aunt's vein of sentiment had been opened, and could not be staunched all at once; for when the cloth was removed, and the decanters and dishes of oranges placed upon the table, she gave a little preparatory cough and began again.
"I'm sure it isn't my wish to be ceremonial," she said; "but we're all among friends--for I should like to look upon you as a friend, if you'll let me," she added rather dubiously, to Bella. "And I don't really think there could be a better occasion for a sort of little ceremony that I've quite set my heart on. Leandy, _you_ know what I mean; and you've got it with you, I know, because you were told to bring it with you."
"Miss Tweddle," interrupted Matilda, hurriedly, "not now. I--I don't think Vidler has sent it back yet. I told you, you know----"
"That's all you know about it, young lady," she said, archly; "for I stepped in there yesterday and asked him about it, to make sure, and he told me it was delivered over the very Saturday afternoon before. So, Leandy, oblige me for once, and put it on the dear girl's finger before us all; you needn't be bashful with us, I'm sure, either of you."
"What is all this?" asked Mrs. Collum.
"Why, it's a ring, Mrs. Collum, ma'am, that belonged to my own dear aunt, though she never wore it; and her grandfather had the posy engraved on the inside of it. And I remember her telling me, before she was taken, that she'd left it to me in her will, but I wasn't to let it go out of the family. So I gave it to Leandy, to be his engagement ring; but it's had to be altered, because it was ever so much too large as it was."
"I always thought," said Mrs. Collum, "that it was the gentleman's duty to provide the ring."
"So Leandy wanted to; but I said, 'You can pay for the altering; but I'm fanciful about this, and I want to see dearest Miss Collum with my aunt's ring on.'"
"Oh, but, Miss Tweddle, can't you see?" said Matilda. "He's forgotten it; don't--don't tease him about it.... It must be for some other time, that's all!"
"Matilda, I'm surprised at you," said her mother. "To forget such a thing as that would be unpardonable in _any_ young man. Leander Tweddle, you _cannot_ have forgotten it."
"No," he said, "I've not forgotten it; but--but I haven't it about me, and I don't know as I could lay my hand on it, just at present, and that's the truth."
"_Part_ of the truth," said Bella. "Oh, what deceitful things you men are! Leave me alone, James; I will speak. I won't sit by and hear poor dear Miss Collum deceived in this way. Miss Collum, ask him if that is all he knows about it. Ask him, and see what he says."
"I'm quite satisfied with what he has chosen to say already, Miss Parkinson; thank you," said Matilda.
"Then permit me to say, Miss Collum, that I'm truly sorry for you," said Bella.
"If you think so, Miss Parkinson, I suppose you must say so."
"I do say it," said Bella; "for it's a sorrowful sight to see meekness all run to poorness of spirit. You have a right to an explanation from Mr. Tweddle there; and you would insist on it, if you wasn't afraid (and with good reason) of the answer you'd get!"
At the beginning of this short colloquy Miss Tweddle, after growing very red and restless for some moments, had slipped out of the room, and came in now, trembling and out of breath, with a bonnet in her hand and a cloak over her arm.
"Miss Parkinson," she said, speaking very rapidly, "when I asked you to come here with my good friend and former lodger, I little thought that anything but friendship would come of it; and sorry I am that it has turned out otherwise. And my feelings to Mr. Jauncy are the same as ever; but--this is your bonnet, Miss Parkinson, and your cloak. And this is my house; and I shall be obliged if you'll kindly put on the ones, and walk out of the other at once!"
Bella burst into tears, and demanded from Mr. Jauncy why he had brought her there to be insulted.
"You brought it all on yourself," he said, gloomily; "you should have behaved!"
"What have I done," cried Bella, "to be told to go, as if I wasn't fit to stay?"
"I'll tell you what you've done," said Miss Tweddle. "You were asked here with Mr. Jauncy to meet my dear Leandy and his young lady, and get all four of you to know one another, and lay foundations for Friendship's flowery bonds. And from the moment you came in, though I paid no attention to it at first, you've done nothing but insinuate and hint, and try all you could to set my dear Miss Collum and her ma against my poor unoffending nephew; and I won't sit by any longer and hear it. Put on your bonnet and cloak, Miss Parkinson, and Mr. Jauncy (who knows I don't bear him any ill-feeling, whatever happens) will go home with you."
"I've said nothing," repeated Bella, "but what I'd a right to say, and what I'll stand to."
"If you don't put on those things," said Jauncy, "I shall go away myself, and leave you to follow as best you can."
"I'm putting them on," said Bella; and her hands were unsteady with passion as she tied her bonnet-strings. "Don't bully _me_, James, because I won't bear it! Mr. Tweddle, if you're a man, will you sit there and tell me you don't know that that ring is on a certain person's finger? Will you do that?"
[Illustration: HER HANDS WERE UNSTEADY WITH PASSION AS SHE TIED HER BONNET-STRINGS.]
The miserable man concluded that Ada had disregarded his entreaties, and told her sister all about the ring and the accursed statue. He could not see why the story should have so inflamed Bella; but her temper was always uncertain.
Everybody was looking at him, and he was expected to say something. His main idea was, that he would see how much Bella knew before committing himself.
"What have I ever done to offend you," he asked, "that you turn on me in this downright vixenish manner? I scorn to reply to your insinuations!"
"Do you want me to speak out plain? James, stand away, _if_ you please.
You may all think what you choose of me. _I_ don't care! Perhaps if _you_ were to come in and find the man who, only a week ago, had offered marriage to your youngest sister, figuring away as engaged to quite another lady, _you_ wouldn't be all milk and honey, either. I'm doing right to expose him. The man who'd deceive one would deceive many, and so you'll find, Miss Collum, little as you think it."
"That's enough," said Miss Tweddle. "It's all a mistake, I'm sure, and you'll be sorry some day for having made it. Now go, Miss Parkinson, and make no more mischief!"
A light had burst in upon Leander's perturbed mind. Ada had not broken faith with him, after all. He remembered Bella's conduct during the return from Rosherwich, and understood at last to what a mistake her present wrath was due.
Here, at all events, was an accusation he could repel with dignity, with truth. Foolish and unlucky he had been--and how unlucky he still hoped Matilda might never learn--but false he was not; and she should not be allowed to believe it.
"Miss Parkinson," he said, "I've been badgered long enough. What is it you're trying to bring up against me about your sister Ada? Speak it out, and I'm ready to answer you."
"Leander," said Matilda, "I don't want to hear it from her. Only you tell me that you've been true to me, and that is quite enough."
"Matilda, you're a foolish girl, and don't know what you're talking about," said her mother. "It is not enough for _me_; so I beg, young woman, if you've anything to accuse the man who's to be my son-in-law of, you'll say it now, in my presence, and let him contradict it afterwards if he can."
"Will he contradict his knowing my sister Ada, who's one of the ladies at Madame Chenille's, in the Edgware Road, more than a twelvemonth since, and paying her attentions?" asked Bella.
"I don't deny," said Leander, "meeting her several times, and being considerably struck, in a quiet way. But that was before I met Matilda."
"You had met Matilda before last Saturday, I suppose?" sneered Bella, spitefully--"when you laid your plans to join our party to Rosherwich, and trouble my poor sister, who'd given up thinking of you."
"There you go, Bella!" said her _fiance_. "What do you know about his plans? He'd no idea as Ada and you was to be there; and when I told him, as we were driving down, it was all I could do to prevent him jumping out of the cab."
"I'm highly flattered to hear it," said Bella. "But he didn't seem to be so afraid of Ada when they did meet; and you best know, Mr. Tweddle, the things you said to that poor trusting girl all the time you were walking and dancing and talking foolishness to her."
"I never said a word that couldn't have been spoke from the top of St.
Paul's," protested Leander. "I did dance with her, I own, not to seem uncivil; but we only waltzed round twice."
"Then why did you give her a ring--an engagement ring too?" insisted Bella.
"Who saw me give her a ring?" he demanded hotly. "Do you dare to say you did? Did she ever tell you I gave her any ring? You _know_ she didn't!"
"If I can't trust my own ears," said Bella, "I should like to know what I can trust. I heard you myself, in that railway carriage, ask my sister Ada not to tell any one about some ring, and I tried to get out of Ada afterwards what the secret was; but she wouldn't treat me as a sister, and be open with me. But any one with eyes in their head could guess what was between you, and all the time you an engaged man!"
"See there, now!" cried the injured hairdresser; "there's a thing to go and make all this mischief about! Matilda, Mrs. Collum, aunt, I declare to you I told the--the other young woman everything about my having formed new ties and that. I was very particular not to give rise to hopes which were only doomed to be disappointed. As to what Miss Parkinson says she overheard, why, it's very likely I may have asked her sister to say nothing about a ring, and I won't deny it was the very same ring that I was to have brought here to-day; for the fact was, I had the misfortune to lose it in those very gardens, and naturally did not wish it talked about: and that's the truth, as I stand here. As for giving it away, I swear I never parted with it to no mortal woman!"