第8章 MY FOURTH STAGE

Oh, the little more, and how much it is! R.BROWING.

Mrs.Milton-Cleave had one weakness--she was possessed by an inordinate desire for influence.This made her always eagerly anxious to be interesting both in her conversation and in her letters, and to this end she exerted herself with unwearying activity.She liked influencing Mr.Blackthorne, and spared no pains on him that afternoon; and indeed the curate was a good deal flattered by her friendship, and considered her one of the most clever and charming women he had ever met.

Sigismund and Gertrude returned to the ordinary world just as Mrs.Milton-Cleave was saying good-bye to the hostess.She glanced at them searchingly.

"Good-bye, Gertrude," she said a little coldly."Did you win at tennis?""Indeed we did," said Gertrude, smiling."We came off with flying colours.It was a love set."The girl was looking more beautiful than ever, and there was a tell- tale colour in her cheeks and an unusual light in her soft grey eyes.As for Zaluski, he was so evidently in love, and had the audacity to look so supremely happy, that Mrs.Milton-Cleave was more than ever impressed with the gravity of the situation.The curate handed her into her victoria, and she drove home through the sheltered lanes musing sadly over the story she had heard, and wondering what Gertrude's future would be.When she reached home, however, the affair was driven from her thoughts by her children, of whom she was devotedly fond.They came running to meet her, frisking like so many kittens round her as she went upstairs to her room, and begging to stay with her while she dressed for dinner.During dinner she was engrossed with her husband; but afterwards, when she was alone in the drawing-room, I found my opportunity for working on her restless mind.

"Dear me," she exclaimed, throwing aside the newspaper she had just taken up, "I ought to write to Mrs.Selldon at Dulminster about that G.F.S.girl!"As a matter of fact she ought not to have written then, the letter might well have waited till the morning, and she was over-tired and needed rest.But I was glad to see her take up her pen, for I knew I should come in most conveniently to fill up the second side of the sheet.

Before long Jane Stiggins, the member who had migrated from Muddleton to Dulminster, had been duly reported, wound up, and made over to the Archdeacon's wife.Then the tired hand paused.What more could she say to her friend?

"We are leading our usual quiet life here," she wrote, "with the ordinary round of tennis parties and picnics to enliven us.The children have all been wonderfully well, and I think you will see a great improvement in your god-daughter when you next come to stay with us"-- "Oh dear!" sighed Mrs.Milton-Cleave, "how dull and stupid I am to-night! I can't think of a single thing to say." Then at length I flashed into her mind, and with a sigh of relief and a little rising flush of excitement she went on much more rapidly.

"It is such a comfort to be quite at rest about them, and to see them all looking so well.But I suppose one can never be without some cause of worry, and just now I am very unhappy about that nice girl Gertrude Morley whom you admired so much when you were last here.The whole neighbourhood has been dominated this year by a young Polish merchant named Sigismund Zaluski, who is very clever and musical and knows well how to win popularity.He has taken Ivy Cottage for four mouths, and is, I fear, doing great mischief.The Morleys are his special friends, and I greatly fear he is making love to Gertrude.Now I know privately, on the very best authority, that although he has so completely deceived every one and has managed so cleverly to pose as a respectable man, that Mr.Zaluski is really a Nihilist, a free-lover, an atheist, and altogether a most unprincipled man.He is very clever, and speaks English most fluently, indeed he has lived in London since the spring of 1881--he told me so himself.I cannot help fancying that he must have been concerned in the assassination of the late Czar, which you will remember took place in that year early in March.It is terrible to think of the poor Morleys entering blindfold on such an undesirable connection;but, at the same time, I really do not feel that I can say anything about it.Excuse this hurried note, dear Charlotte, and with love to yourself and kindest remembrances to the Archdeacon,"Believe me, very affectionately yours, "GEORGINA MILTON-CLEAVE.

"P.S.It may perhaps be as well not to mention this affair about Gertrude Morley and Mr.Zaluski.They are not yet engaged, as far as I know, and I sincerely trust it may prove to be a mere flirtation."I had now grown to such enormous dimensions that any one who had known me in my infancy would scarcely have recognised me, while naturally the more I grew the more powerful I became, and the more capable both of impressing the minds which received me and of injuring Zaluski.Poor Zaluski, who was so foolishly, thoughtlessly happy! He little dreamed of the fate that awaited him! His whole world was bright and full of promise; each hour of love seemed to improve him, to deepen his whole character, to tone down his rather flippant manner, to awaken for him new and hitherto unthought-of realities.

But while he basked in his new happiness I travelled in my close stuffy envelope to Dulminster, and after having been tossed in and out of bags, shuffled, stamped, thumped, tied up, and generally shaken about, I arrived one morning at Dulminster Archdeaconry, and was laid on the breakfast table among other appetising things to greet Mrs.Selldon when she came downstairs.