And therefore certain news which he had obtained the night
before was very valuable to him, in that it put a fresh person into
his power, and might, if cunningly used, give him a hold upon the
ruling family of the place, and on Lord Scoutbush himself. He had
found out that Lucia and Elsley were unhappy together; and found out,
too, a little more than was there to find. He could not, of course, be
a month among the gossips of Aberalva, without hearing hints that the
great folks at the court did not always keep their tempers; for, of
family jars, as of everything else on earth, the great and just law
stands true:--"What you do in the closet, shall be proclaimed on the
housetop."
But the gossips of Aberalva, as women are too often wont to do, had
altogether taken the man's side in the quarrel. The reason was, I
suppose, that Lucia, conscious of having fallen somewhat in rank,
"held up her head" to Mrs. Trebooze and Mrs. Heale (as they themselves
expressed it), and to various other little notabilities of the
neighbourhood, rather more than she would have done had she married a
man of her own class. She was afraid that they might boast of being
intimate with her; that they might take to advising and patronising
her as an inexperienced young creature; afraid, even, that she might
be tempted, in some unguarded moment, to gossip with them, confide her
unhappiness to them, in the blind longing to open her heart to some
human being; for there were no resident gentry of her own rank in the
neighbourhood.
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