she said aloud to Mrs. West, “we may safely argue that she must already have made the acquaintance of the gentleman. And how could she have done it, and where could she have met him?”
“I thought that over with myself at the time the girl told me this, and it struck me that she might have met him here,” was the reply. “My husband’s brother was then living with us, Tom West, and a very open-hearted, pleasant young man he was. He had just passed for a surgeon, and he used to fill the house nearly with his companions, more so than I liked, but we knew he would soon be leaving, so I said nothing. Two of my cousins were on a visit to me that spring, merry girls, and they and Miss Beauchamp and Tom were much together.”
“Could he have married her?” breathlessly interrupted Lady Jane.
Mrs. West paused. It was the first time the idea had been presented to her.
“I should not think so. Tom was of an open disposition, above concealment, and they must both have been very sly, if it did take place—excuse my plainness of thought, Lady Jane; I am speaking of things as they occur to me. Oh no. If they had wished to marry, why have concealed it? Tom West was his own master, and I am sure we should have made no objection to Miss Beauchamp; we liked her very much. If she married any one of them, it was not Tom.”
“Where is Mr. Tom West?”
“Oh, poor fellow, he went abroad directly; about—let me see?—about the next February, I think. He was appointed assistant-surgeon to the staff in India, and there he died.”
“What more probable than that she should have accompanied him?” exclaimed Lady Jane.
Mrs. West cast her reflections back to the past.
“I do not fancy it,” she said; “it seems to me next to impossible. With him I am quite certain she did not go, for we saw him off, and arranged his baggage, and all that. He was at our house till he sailed. No; if he had been married, especially to Miss Beauchamp, rely upon it, Lady Jane, he would not have kept it from us.”
“Other gentlemen visited at your house, you say?” continued Jane.
“Plenty of them; Tom was rich in friends. Most of them were in the medical line, students or young practitioners; I daresay you may have observed how fond they are of congregating together. All were not introduced to our society: Tom used to have them in his own room. Three or four were intimate with us, and had, as may be said, the run of the house, as Tom had.”
“Who were they?” asked Jane. “It may have been one of them. What were their names?”
“Let me try and recollect; we have mostly lost sight of them since that period, Lady Jane. There was a Mr. Boys, who is now a doctor in good practice in Belgravia; and there was young Manning, a harumscarum fellow who came to no good; and there was Mr. Carlton. I think that was all.”
“Mr. Carlton!” repeated Jane, struck with the name. “What Mr. Carlton was that?”
“His father was a surgeon, in practice at the East end of London,” replied Mrs. West.
“He used to be very much here with Tom.”
“Was his name Lewis?”
“Lewis? Well, I think it was. Did you know him, Lady Jane?”
" A gentleman of that name married my sister, Lady Laura. I know him."
“He was a good-looking, clever man, this Mr. Carlton—older than Tom, and by far the most gentlemanly of them all. We have quite lost sight of him. Stay; there was another used to come, a Mr. Crane; and I don’t know what became of him. We did not like him.”
“If it be the same Mr. Carlton, he is in practice at South Wennock,” observed Jane, very much struck, she could scarcely tell why, with this portion of the intelligence. “Our family highly disapproved of Lady Laura’s choice, and declined to countenance him.”
“We fancied at the time that Mr. Carlton was paying attention to one of my two cousins; at least, she did. But his visits here ceased before Tom went out. I have an idea that he went to settle somewhere in the country.”
“Did it ever occur to you to fancy that any one of these gentlemen paid attention to my sister?” inquired Jane.
“Never,” said Mrs. West; “never at all. I remember that Tom and my cousins used to joke Miss Beauchamp about young Crane, but 1 believe they did so simply to tease her. She appeared to dislike him very much, and she could not bear being joked about him. None of us, except Tom, much liked Mr. Crane.”
And the remaining two gentlemen you have mentioned?—Mr. Manning and Mr.———I forget the other name.”
“Mr. Boys, Dr. Boys now. Oh no, it was neither of them, I am sure. They were not quite so intimate with us as the rest were. If she married any one of the young men, it must lie between Tom, Mr. Carlton, and Mr. Crane; but to hear that she had would astonish me more than anything ever astonished me yet.