THE announcement of Winnie’s engagement made, as was to be looked for, a considerable commotion among all the people connected with her. The very next morning Sir Edward himself came down to the Cottage with a very serious face. He had been disposed to play with the budding affection and to take pleasure in the sight of the two young creatures as they drew towards each other; for Percival, though in love, was not without prudence (his friend thought), and Winnie, though very open to impressions, was capricious and fanciful, and not the kind of girl, Sir Edward imagined, to say Yes to the first man who asked her. Thus the only sensible adviser on the spot had wilfully blinded himself. It had not occurred to him that Winnie might think of Percival, not as the first man who had ever asked her, but as the only man whom she loved; nor that Percival, though prudent enough, liked his own way, and was as liable to be carried away by passion as a better man. These reflections had not come into Sir Edward’s head, and consequently he had rather encouraged the growing tenderness, which now all at once had turned into earnest, and had become a matter of responsibility and serious concern. Sir Edward came into Miss Seton’s pretty drawing-room with care on his brow. The young people had gone out together to Kirtell-side to visit the spot of their momentous interview, and doubtless to go over it all again, as people do at that foolish moment, and only Aunt Agatha and Mrs. Ochterlony were at home. Sir Edward went in, and sat down between the two ladies, and offered his salutations with a pensive gravity which made Mary smile, but brought a cloud of disquietude over Aunt Agatha’s gentle countenance. He sighed as he said it was a fine day. He even looked sympathetically at the roses, as if he knew of some evil that was about to befall them;—and his old neighbour knew his ways and knew that he meant something, and with natural consciousness divined at once what it was.
“You have heard what has happened,” said Aunt Agatha, trembling a little, and laying down her work. “It is so kind of you to come over at once; but I do hope that is not why you are looking so grave?”
“Am I looking grave?” said Sir Edward, clearing up in an elaborate way; “I did not mean it, I am sure. I suppose we ought to have seen it coming and been prepared; but these sort of things always take one by surprise. I did not think Winnie was the sort of girl to—to make up her mind all at once, you know—the very first man that asked her. I suppose it was my mistake.”
“If you think it was the very first that asked her!” cried Aunt Agatha, who felt this reproach go to her heart, “it is a mistake. She is only eighteen—a mere child—but I was saying to Mary only yesterday, that it was not for want of being admired——”
“Oh, yes,” said Sir Edward, with a little wave of his hand, “we all know she has been admired. One’s eyes alone would have proved that; and she deserves to be admired; and that is generally a girl’s chief stronghold, in my opinion. She knows it, and learns her own value, and does not yield to the first fellow who has the boldness to say right out——”
“I assure you, Sir Edward,” said Aunt Agatha, growing red and very erect in her chair, and assuming a steadiness which was unfortunately quite contradicted by the passionate quiver of her lip, “that you do Winnie great injustice—so far as being the first goes——”
“What does it matter if he were the first or the fiftieth, if she likes him?” said Mary, who had begun by being much amused, but who had ended by being a little indignant; for she had herself married at eighteen and never had a lover but Hugh Ochterlony, and felt herself disapproved of along with her sister.
Upon which Sir Edward shook his head.
“Certainly, my dear Mary, if she likes him,” said the Baronet; “but the discouraging thing is, that an inexperienced girl—a girl so very well brought up as Winnie has been—should allow herself, as I have said, to like the very first man who presents himself. One would have thought some sort of introduction was necessary before such a thought could have penetrated into her mind. After she had been obliged to receive it in that way—then, indeed—— But I am aware that there are people who have not my scruples,” said Sir Edward, with a sigh; for he was, as all the neighbourhood was aware, a man of the most delicate mind.
“If you think my dear, pure-minded child is not scrupulous, Sir Edward!” cried poor Aunt Agatha—but her emotion was so great that her voice failed her; and Mary, half amused and half angry, was the only champion left for Winnie’s character, thus unexpectedly assailed.
“Poor child, I think she is getting very hard measure,” said Mary. “I don’t mean to blame you, but I think both of you encouraged her up to the last moment. You let them be always together, and smiled on them; and they are young, and what else could you expect? It is more delicate to love than to flirt,” said Mrs. Ochterlony. She had not been nearly so well brought up as her sister, nor with such advanced views, and what she said brought a passing blush upon her matron cheek. Winnie could have discussed all about love without the shadow of a blush, but that was only the result of the chronological difference, and had nothing to do with purity of heart.
“If we have had undue confidence,” said Sir Edward, with a sigh, “we will have to pay for it. Mary speaks—as I have heard many women speak—without making any consideration of the shock it must be to a delicate young girl; and I think, after the share which I may say I have myself had in Winnie’s education, that I might be permitted to express my surprise; and Percival ought to have shown a greater regard for the sacredness of hospitality. I cannot but say that I was very much vexed and surprised.”
It may well be supposed that such an address, after poor Aunt Agatha’s delight and exultation in her child’s joy, and her willingness to see with Winnie’s eyes and accept Winnie’s lover on his own authority, was a most confounding utterance. She sat silent, poor lady, with her lips apart and her eyes wide open, and a kind of feeling that it was all over with Winnie in her heart. Aunt Agatha was ready to fight her darling’s battles to her last gasp, but she was not prepared to be put down and made an end of in this summary way. She had all sorts of pretty lady-like deprecations about their youth and Winnie’s inexperience ready in her mind, and had rather hoped to be assured that to have her favourite thus early settled in life was the very best that anybody would desire for her. Miss Seton had been so glad to think in former days that Sir Edward always understood her, and she had thought Winnie’s interests were as dear to him as if she had been a child of his own; and now to think that Sir Edward regarded an event so important for Winnie as an evidence of indelicacy on her part, and of a kind of treachery on her lover’s! All that Aunt Agatha coulddo was to throw an appealing look at Mary, who had hitherto been the only one dissatisfied or disapproving. She knew more about Captain Percival than any one. Would not she say a word for them now?
“He must have thought that was what you meant when you let them be so much together,” said Mary. “I think, if you will forgive me, Sir Edward, that it is nottheirfault.”
Sir Edward answered this reproach only by a sigh. He was in a despondent rather than a combative state of mind. “And you see I do not know so much as I should like to know about him,” he said, evading the personal question. “He is a very nice fellow; but I told you the other day I did not consider him a paladin; and whether he has enough to live upon, or anything to settle on her—— My dear Mary, at least you will agree with me, that considering how short a time they have known each other, things have gone a great deal too far.”
“I do not know how long they have known each other,” said Mary, who now felt herself called upon absolutely to take Aunt Agatha’s part.
“Ah,Iknow,” said Sir Edward, “and so does your aunt; and things did not go at railway speed like this inourdays. It is only about six weeks, and they are engaged to be married! I suppose you know as much about him as anybody—or so he gave me to understand at least; and doyouthink him a good match for your young sister?” added Sir Edward, with a tone of superior virtue which went to Mary’s heart.
Mary was too true a woman not to be a partisan, and had the feminine gift of putting her own private sentiments out of the question in comparison with the cause which she had to advocate; but still it was an embarrassing question, especially as Aunt Agatha was looking at her with the most pathetic appeal in her eyes.
“I know very little of Captain Percival,” she said; “I saw him once only in India, and it was at a moment very painful to me. But Winnie likes him—and you must have approved of him, Sir Edward, or you would not have brought him here.”
Upon which Aunt Agatha rose and kissed Mary, recognising perfectly that she did not commit herself on the merits of the case, but at the same time sustained it by her support. Sir Edward, for his part, turned a deaf ear to the implied reproach, but still kept up his melancholy view of the matter, and shook his head.
“He has good connexions,” he said; “his mother was a great friend of mine. In other circumstances, and could we have made up our minds to it at the proper moment, she might have been Lady——. But it is vain to talk of that. I think we might push him a little if he would devote himself steadily to his profession; but what can be expected from a man who wants to marry at five-and-twenty? I myself,” said Sir Edward, with dignity, “though the eldest son——”
“Yes,” said Aunt Agatha, unable to restrain herself longer, “and see what has come of it. You are all by yourself at the Hall, and not a soul belonging to you; and to see Francis Ochterlony with his statues and nonsense!—Oh, Sir Edward! when you might have had a dozen lovely children growing up round you——”
“Heaven forbid!” said Sir Edward, piously; and then he sighed—perhaps only from the mild melancholy which possessed him at the moment, and was occasioned by Winnie’s indelicate haste to fall in love; perhaps, also, from some touch of personal feeling. A dozen lovely children might be rather too heavy an amount of happiness, while yet a modified bliss would have been sweet. He sighed and leant his head upon his hand, and withdrew into himself for the moment in that interesting way which was habitual to him, and had gained him the title of “poor Sir Edward.” It might be very foolish for a man (who had his own way to make in the world) to marry at five-and-twenty; but still, perhaps it was rather more foolish when a man did not marry at all, and was left in his old age all alone in a great vacant house. But naturally, it was not this view of the matter which he displayed to his feminine companions, who were both women enough to have triumphed a little over such a confession of failure. He had a fine head, though he was old, and his hand was as delicate and almost as pale as ivory, and he could not but know that he looked interesting in that particular attitude, though, no doubt, it was his solicitude for these two indiscreet young people which chiefly moved him. “I am quite at a loss what to do,” he said. “Mrs. Percival is a very fond mother, and she will naturally look to me for an account of all this; and there is your Uncle Penrose, Mary—a man I could never bear, as you all know—he will come in all haste, of course, and insist upon settlements and so forth; and why all this responsibility should come on me, who have no desire in this world but for tranquillity and peace——”
“It need not come on you,” said Mrs. Ochterlony; “we are not very great business people, but still, with Aunt Agatha and myself——”
Sir Edward smiled. The idea diverted him so much that he raised his head from his hand. “My dear Mary,” he said, “I have the very highest opinion of your capacity; but in a matter of this kind, for instance—— And I am not so utterly selfish as to forsake my old neighbour in distress.”
Here Aunt Agatha took up her own defence. “I don’t consider that I am in distress,” she said. “I must say, I did not expect anything like this, Sir Edward, from you. If it had been Mr. Penrose, with his mercenary ideas—— I was very fond of Mary’s poor dear mamma, and I don’t mean any reflection on her, poor darling—but I suppose that is how it always happens with people in trade. Mr. Penrose is always a trial, and Mary knows that; but I hope I am able to bear something for my dear child’s sake,” Aunt Agatha continued, growing a little excited; “though I never thought that I should have to bear——” and then the poor lady gave a stifled sob, and added in the midst of it, “this from you!”
This was a kind of climax which had arrived before in the familiar friendship so long existing between the Hall and the Cottage. The two principals knew how to make it up better than the spectator did who was looking on with a little alarm and a little amusement. Perhaps it was as well that Mary was called away to her own individual concerns, and had to leave Aunt Agatha and Sir Edward in the height of their misunderstanding. Mary went away to her children, and perhaps it was only in the ordinary course of human nature that when she went into the nursery among those three little human creatures, who were so entirely dependent upon herself, there should be a smile upon her face as she thought of the two old people she had left. It seemed to her, as perhaps it seems to most women in the presence of their own children, at sight of those three boys—who were “mere babies” to Aunt Agatha, but to Mary the most important existences in the world—as if this serio-comic dispute about Winnie’s love affairs was the most quaintly-ridiculous exhibition. When she was conscious of this thought in her own mind, she rebuked it, of course; but at the first glance it seemed as if Winnie’s falling in love was so trivial a matter—so little to be put in comparison with the grave cares of life. There are moments when the elder women, who have long passed through all that, and have entered upon another stage of existence, cannot but smile at the love-matters, without considering that life itself is often decided by the complexion of the early romance, which seems to belong only to its lighter and less serious side. Sir Edward and Aunt Agatha for their part had never, old as they bothwere, got beyond the first stage—and it was natural it should bulk larger in their eyes. And this time it was they who were right, and not Mary, whose children were but children, and in no danger of any harm. Whereas, poor Winnie, at the top of happiness—gay, reckless, daring, and assured of her own future felicity—was in reality a creature in deadly peril and wavering on the verge of her fate.
But when the day had come to an end, and Captain Percival had at last retired, and Winnie, a little languid after her lover’s departure, sat by the open window watching, no longer with despite or displeasure, the star of light which shone over the tree-tops from the Hall, there occurred a scene of a different description. But for the entire change in Winnie’s looks and manner, the absence of the embroidery frame at which she had worked so violently, and the languid softened grace with which she had thrown herself down upon a low chair, too happy and content to feel called upon to do anything, the three ladies were just as they had been a few evenings before; that is to say, that Aunt Agatha and Mary, to neither of whom any change was possible, were just as they had been before, while to the girl at the window, everything in heaven and earth had changed. The two others had had their day and were done with it. Though Miss Seton was still scarcely an old woman, and Mary was in the full vigour and beauty of life, they were both ashore high up upon the beach, beyond the range of the highest tide; while the other, in her boat of hope, was playing with the rippling incoming waters, and preparing to put to sea. It was not in nature that the two who had been at sea, and knew all the storms and dangers, should not look at her wistfully in her happy ignorance; perhaps even they looked at her with a certain envy too. But Aunt Agatha was not a woman who could let either ill or well alone—and it was she who disturbed the household calm which might have been profound that night, so far as Winnie was concerned.
“My dear love,” said Aunt Agatha, with a timidity which implied something to tell, “Sir Edward has been here. Captain Percival had told him, you know——”
“Yes,” said Winnie, carelessly, “I know.”
“And, my darling,” said Miss Seton. “I am sure it is what I never could have expected from him, who was always such a friend; but I sometimes think he gets a little strange—as he gets old, you know——”
This was what the unprincipled woman said, not caring in the least how much she slandered Sir Edward, or anybody else in the world, so long as she gave a little comfort to the childof her heart. And as for Winnie, though she had been brought up at his feet, as it were, and was supposed by himself and others to love him like a child of his own, she took no notice of this unfounded accusation. She was thinking of quite a different person, just as Aunt Agatha was thinking of her, and Mary of her boys. They were women, each preoccupied and absorbed in somebody else, and they did not care about justice. And thus Sir Edward for the moment fared badly among them, though, if any outside assailant had attacked him, they would all have fought for him to the death.
“Well!” said Winnie, still very carelessly, as Miss Seton came to a sudden stop.
“My dear love!” said Aunt Agatha, “he has not a word to say against Captain Percival, that I can see——”
“Against Edward?” cried Winnie, raising herself up. “Good gracious, Aunt Agatha, what are you thinking of? Against Edward! I should like to know what he could say. His own godfather—and his mother was once engaged to him—and he is as good as a relation, and the nearest friend he has. What could he possibly have to say? And besides, it was he who brought him here; and we think he will leave us the most of his money,” Winnie said, hastily—and then was very sorry for what she had said, and blushed scarlet and bit her lips, but it was too late to draw back.
“Winnie,” said Miss Seton, solemnly, “if he has been calculating upon what people will leave to him when they die, I will think it is all true that Sir Edward said.”
“You said Sir Edward did not say anything,” cried Winnie. “What is it you have heard? It is of no use trying to deceive me. If there has been anything said against him, it is Mary who has said it. I can see by her face it is Mary. And if she is to be heard againsthim,” cried Winnie, rising up in a blaze of wrath and indignation, “it is only just that he should be heard on the other side. He is too good and too kind to say things about my sister to me; but Mary is only a woman, and of course she does not mind what she says. She can blacken a man behind his back, though he is far too honourable and too—too delicate to say what he knows ofher!”
This unlooked-for assault took Mary so entirely by surprise, that she looked up with a certain bewilderment, and could not find a word to say. As for Aunt Agatha, she too rose and took Winnie’s hands, and put her arms round her as much as the angry girl would permit.
“It was not Mary,” she said. “Oh, Winnie, my darling, if it was for your good, and an ease to my mind, and betterfor you in life—if it was for your good, my dear love—that is what we are all thinking of—could not you give him up?”
It was, perhaps, the boldest thing Aunt Agatha had ever done in all her gentle life—and even Winnie could not but be influenced by such unusual resolution. She made a wild effort to escape for the first moment, and stood with her hands held fast in Aunt Agatha’s hands, averting her angry face, and refusing to answer. But when she felt herself still held fast, and that her fond guardian had the courage to hold to her question, Winnie’s anger turned into another kind of passion. The tears came pouring to her eyes in a sudden violent flood, which she neither tried to stop nor to hide. “No!” cried Winnie, with the big thunder-drops falling hot and heavy. “What ismygood without him? If it was for my harm I shouldn’t care. Don’t hold me, don’t look at me, Aunt Agatha! I don’t care for anything in the world but Edward. I would not give him up—no, not if it was to break everybody’s heart. What is it all to me without Edward?” cried the passionate girl. And when Miss Seton let her go, she threw herself on her chair again, with the tears coming in floods, but still facing them both through this storm-shower with crimson cheeks and shining eyes. As for poor Aunt Agatha, she too tottered back to her chair, frightened and abashed, as well as in distress; for young ladies had not been in the habit of talking so freely in her days.
“Oh, Winnie—and we have loved you all your life; and you have only known him a few weeks,” she said, faltering, and with a natural groan.
“I cannot help it,” said Winnie; “you may think me a wretch, but I like him best. Isn’t it natural I should like him best? Mary did, and ran away, and nobody was shocked at her; and even you yourself——”
“I never, never, could have said such a thing all my life!” cried Aunt Agatha, with a maiden blush upon her sweet old cheeks.
“If you had, you would not have been a——as you are now,” said the dauntless Winnie; and she recovered in a twinkling of an eye, and wiped away her tears, and was herself again. Possibly what she had said was true and natural, as she asserted; but it is an unquestionable fact, that neither her aunt nor her sister could have said it for their lives. She was a young lady of the nineteenth century, and she acted accordingly; but it is a certain fact, as Aunt Agatha justly observed, whatever people may think now, that girls did not speak like that inourday.
THE few weeks which ensued were the most stormy and troublous period of all Miss Seton’s life; and through her there was naturally a considerable disturbance of the peace of the Cottage. Though she lived so quietly, she had what is called in the country “a large circle,” and had dwelt among her own people all her life, and was known to everybody about. It was a quiet neighbourhood, but yet there never was a neighbourhood so quiet as not to have correspondents and relations living out in the world, to whom all news went, and from whom all news came. And there were a number of “families” about Kirtell, not great people certainly, but very respectable people, gentry, and well-connected persons, hanging on by various links to the great world. In this way Winnie’s engagement, which nobody wanted to conceal, came to be known far and wide, as such facts are so apt to get known. And a great many people out in the world, who had once known Miss Seton, wrote letters to her, in which they suggested that perhaps she had forgotten them, but hoped that she would excuse them, and attribute it to the regard which they had never ceased to feel for her, if they asked, Did she know Captain Percival very well, who was said to be engaged to her pretty niece? Had she heard what happened in the Isle of Man when his regiment was stationed there? and why it was that he did not go out to Gibraltar after he had gotthatappointment? Other people, who did not know Aunt Agatha, took what was after all the more disagreeable step of writing to their friends in the parish about the young man, whose career had certainly left traces, as it appeared, upon the memory of his generation. To rise every morning with a sense that such an epistle might be awaiting her on the breakfast-table—or to receive a visitor with the horrible conviction that she had come to look into her face, and hold her hand, and be confidential and sympathetic, and deliver a solemn warning—was an ordeal which Aunt Agatha found it hard to bear. She was a woman who never forgot her character as a maiden lady, and liked to be justified by precedents and to be approved of by all the world. And these repeated remonstrances had no doubt a great effect upon her mind. They filled her with terrible misgivings and embittered her life, and drove her now and then into so great a panic thatshe felt disposed to thrust Captain Percival out of the house and forbid his reappearance there. But then, Winnie. Winnie was not the girl to submit to any such violent remedies. If she could not see her lover there, she would find means to see him somewhere else. If she could not be married to him with stately propriety in her parish church, she would manage to marry him somehow in any irregular way, and she would by no means hesitate to say so or shrink from the responsibility. And if it must be done, would it not be better that it should be done correctly than incorrectly, and with all things decent and in order? Thus poor Aunt Agatha would muse as she gathered up her bundle of letters. It might have been all very well for parents to exercise their authority in the days when their children obeyed them; but what was the use of issuing commands to which nobody would pay any attention? Winnie had very plainly expressed her preference for her own happiness rather than her aunt’s peace of mind; and though Miss Seton would never have consented to admit that Winnie was anything less than the most beautiful character, still she was aware that unreasoning obedience was not her faculty. Besides, another sentiment began to mingle with this prudential consideration. Everybody was against the poor young man. The first letters she received about him made her miserable; but after that there was no doubt a revulsion. Everybody was against him, poor fellow!—and he was so young, and could not, after all, have done so much harm in the world. “He has not had the time, Mary,” she said, with an appeal to Mrs. Ochterlony for support. “If he had been doing wrong from his very cradle, he could not have had the time.” She could not refuse to believe what was told her, and yet notwithstanding her belief she clung to the culprit. If he had found any other advocate it might have been different; but nobody took the other side of the question: nobody wrote a pretty letter to say what a dear fellow he was, and how glad his friends were to think he had found some one worthy of him—not even his mother; and Aunt Agatha’s heart accordingly became theavvocato del diavolo. Fair play was due even to Captain Percival. It was impossible to leave him assailed as he was by so many without one friend.
It was a curious sight to see how she at once received and ignored all the information thus conveyed to her. A woman of a harder type would probably, as women do, have imputed motives, and settled the matter with the general conclusion that “an enemy hath done this;” but Aunt Agatha could not help, for the moment at least, believing in everybody. Shecould not say right out, “It is not true,” even to the veriest impostor who deceived and got money from her, and their name was legion. In her own innocent soul she had no belief in lies, and could not understand them; and it was easier for her to give credence to the wildest marvel than to believe that anybody could tell her a deliberate falsehood. She would have kissed the ladies who wrote to her of those stories about Captain Percival, and cried and wrung her hands, and asked, What could she do?—and yet her heart was by no means turned against him, notwithstanding her belief in what everybody said; which is a strange and novel instance, well enough known to social philosophers, but seldom remarked upon, of the small practical influence of belief upon life. “How can it be a lie, my dear child? what motive could they all have to tell lies?” she would say to Winnie, mournfully; and yet ten minutes after, when it was Mrs. Ochterlony she was speaking to, she would make her piteous appeal for him, poor fellow!—“Everybody is against him; and he is so young still; and oh, Mary, how much he must need looking after,” Aunt Agatha would say, “if it is all true!”
Perhaps it was stranger still that Mary, who did not like Captain Percival, and was convinced of the truth of all the stories told of him, and knew in her heart that he was her enemy and would not scruple to do her harm if the chance should come in his way—was also a little moved by the same argument. Everybody was against him. It was the Cottage against the world, so far as he was concerned; and even Mrs. Ochterlony, though she ought to have known better, could not help feeling herself one of a “side,” and to a certain extent felt her honour pledged to the defence of her sister’s lover. Had she, in the very heart of this stronghold which was standing out for him so stoutly, lifted up a testimony against him, she would have felt herself in some respects a domestic traitor. She might be silent on the subject, and avoid all comment, but she could not utter an adverse opinion, or join in with the general voice against which Aunt Agatha and Winnie stood forth so stedfastly. As for Winnie, every word that was said to his detriment made her more determined to stick to him. What did it matter whether he was good or bad, so long as it was indisputablyhe? There was but one Edward Percival in the world, and he would still be Edward Percival if he had committed a dozen murders, or gambled twenty fortunes away. Such was Winnie’s defiant way of treating the matter which concerned her more closely than anybody else. She carried things with a high hand in those days. All the world wasagainst her, and she scorned the world. She attributed motives, though Aunt Agatha did not. She said it was envy and jealousy and all the leading passions. She made wild counter-accusations, in the style of that literature which sets forth the skeleton in every man’s closet. Who could tell what little incidents could be found out in the private history of the ladies who had so much to say about Captain Percival? This is so ordinary a mode of defence, that no doubt it is natural, and Winnie went into it with good will. Thus his standard was planted upon the Cottage, and however unkindly people might think of him outside, shelter and support were always to be found within. Even Peggy, though she did not always agree with her mistress, felt, as Mrs. Ochterlony did, that she was one of a side, and became a partisan with an earnestness that was impossible to Mary. Sir Edward shook his head still, but he was disarmed by the close phalanx and the determined aspect of Percival’s defenders. “It is true love,” he said in his sentimental way; “and love can work miracles when everything else has failed. It may be his salvation.” This was what he wrote to Percival’s mother, who, up to this moment, had been but doubtful in her approbation, and very anxious, and uncertain, as she said, whether she ought not to tell Miss Seton that Edward had been “foolish.” He had been “foolish,” even in his mother’s opinion; and his other critics were, some of them, so tolerant as to say “gay,” and some “wild,” while a few used a more solemn style of diction;—but everybody was against him, whatever terms they might employ; everybody except the ladies at the Cottage, who set up his standard, and accepted him with all his iniquities upon his head.
It may be worth while at this point, before Mr. Penrose arrives, who played so important a part in the business, to say a word about the poor young man who was thus universally assailed. He was five-and-twenty, and a young man of expectations. Though he had spent every farthing which came to himself at his majority, and a good deal more than that, still his mother had a nice estate, and Sir Edward was his godfather, and the world was full of obliging tradespeople and other amiable persons. He was a handsome fellow, nearly six feet high, with plenty of hair, and a moustache of the most charming growth. The hair was of dull brown, which was rather a disadvantage to him, but then it went perfectly well with his pale complexion, and suited the cloudy look over the eyes, which was the most characteristic point in his face. The eyes themselves were good, and had, when they chose, a sufficiently frank expression, but there lay about the eyebrows a number of lurking hidden lines which looked like mischief—lines which could be brought into action at any moment, and could scowl, or lower, or brood, according to the fancy of their owner. Some people thought this uncertainty in his face was its greatest charm; you could never tell what a moment might bring forth from that moveable and changing forehead. It was suggestive, as a great many persons thought—suggestive of storm and thunder, and sudden disturbance, or even in some eyes of cruelty and gloom—though he was a fine young man, and gay and fond of his pleasure. Winnie, as may be supposed, was not of this latter opinion. She even loved to bring out those hidden lines, and call the shadows over his face, for the pleasure of seeing how they melted away again, according to the use and wont of young ladies. It was a sort of uncertainty that was permissible to him, who had been a spoiled child, and whom everybody, at the beginning of his career, had petted and taken notice of; but possibly it was a quality which would not have called forth much admiration from a wife.
And with Winnie standing by him as she did—clinging to him closer at every new accusation, and proclaiming, without faltering, her indifference to anything that could be said, and her conviction that the worse he was the more need he had of her—Captain Percival, too, took matters very lightly. The two foolish young creatures even came to laugh, and make fun of it in their way. “Here is Aunt Agatha coming with another letter; I wonder if it is to say that I poisoned my grandmother, this time?” cried the young man; and they both laughed as if it was the best joke in the world. If ever there was a moment in which, when they were alone, Winnie did take a momentary thought of the seriousness of the position, her gravity soon dissipated itself. “I know you have been very naughty,” she would say, clasping her pretty hands upon his arm; “but you will never, never do it again,” and the lover, thus appealed to, would make the tenderest and most eager assurances. What temptation could he ever have to be “naughty” with such an angel by his side? And Winnie was pleased enough to play the part of the angel—though that was not, perhaps, her most characteristic development—and went home full of happiness and security; despising the world which never had understood Edward, and thinking with triumph of the disappointed women less happy than herself, who, out of revenge, had no doubt got up this outcry against him. “For I don’t mean to defend him out and out,” she said, her eyes sparkling with malice and exultation; “I don’t mean to say that he has not behaved very badly to a great many people;” and there was a certain sweet self-glorification in the thought which intoxicated Winnie. It was wicked, but somehow she liked him better for having behaved badly to a great many people; and naturally any kind of reasoning was entirely ineffectual with a foolish girl who had taken such an idea into her mind.
Thus things went on; and Percival went away and returned again, and paid many flying visits, and, present and absent, absorbed all Winnie’s thoughts. It was not only a first love, but it was a first occupation to the young woman, who had never felt, up to this time, that she had a sufficient sphere for her energies. Now she could look forward to being married, to receiving all the presents, and being busy about all the business of that important moment; and beyond lay life—life without any one to restrain her, without even the bondage of habit, and the necessity of taking into consideration what people would think. Winnie said frankly that she would go with him anywhere, that she did not mind if it was India, or even the Cape of Good Hope; and her eyes sparkled to think of the everything new which would replace to her all the old bonds and limits: though, in one point of view, this was a cruel satisfaction, and very wounding and injurious to some of the other people concerned.
“Oh, Winnie, my darling! and what am I to do without you?” Aunt Agatha would cry; and the girl would kiss her in her laughing way. “It must have come, sooner or later,” she said; “you always said so yourself. I don’t see why you should not get married too, Aunt Agatha; you are perfectly beautiful sometimes, and a great deal younger than—many people; or, at least, you will have Mary to be your husband,” Winnie would add, with a laugh, and a touch of affectionate spite: for the two sisters, it must be allowed, were not to say fond of each other. Mary had been brought up differently, and was often annoyed, and sometimes shocked, by Winnie’s ways: and Winnie—though at times she seemed disposed to make friends with her sister—could not help thinking of Mary as somehow at the bottom of all that had been said about Edward. This, indeed, was an idea which her lover and she shared: and Mary’s life was not made pleasanter to her by the constant implication that he, too, could tell something about her—which she despised too much to take any notice of, but which yet was an offence and an insult. So that on the whole—even before the arrival of Mr. Penrose—the Cottage on Kirtell-side, though as bowery and fair as ever, was, in reality, an agitated and even an uncomfortable home.
MR. PENROSE was the uncle of Mary and Winnie, their mother’s only brother. Mrs. Seton had come from Liverpool originally, and though herself very “nice,” had not been, according to Aunt Agatha’s opinion, “of a nice class.” And her brother shared the evil conditions, without sharing the good. He was of his class, soul and body, and it was not a nice class—and, to tell the truth, his nieces had been brought up to ignore rather than to take any pleasure in him. He was not a man out of whom, under the best circumstances, much satisfaction could be got. He was one of the men who always turn up when something about money is going on in the house. He had had to do with all the wills and settlements in the family, though they were of a very limited description; but Mr. Penrose did not despise small things, and was of opinion, that even if you had only a hundred pounds; you ought to know all about it, and how to take care of it. And he had once been very kind to Aunt Agatha, who was always defective in her arithmetic, and who, in earlier days, while she still thought of a possible change in her condition, had gone beyond the just limit of her income, and got into difficulties. Mr. Penrose had interfered at that period, and had been very kind, and set her straight, and had given her a very telling address upon the value of money; and though Miss Seton was not one of the people who take a favour as an injury, still she could have forgiven him a great many ill turns sooner than that good one. He had been very kind to her, and had ruffled all her soft plumes, and rushed up against her at all her tender points; and the very sound of his name was a lively irritant to Aunt Agatha. But he had to be acquainted with Winnie’s engagement, and when he received the information, he lost no time in coming to see about it. He was a large, portly, well-to-do man, with one of his hands always in his pocket, and seemed somehow to breathe money, and to have no ideas which did not centre in it; and yet he had a good many ideas, and was a clever man in his way. With him, as with many people in the world, there was one thing needful, and that one thing was money. He thought it was a duty to possess something—a duty which a man owed absolutely to himself, and to all who belonged to him—and if he did not acquit himself well on this point, he was, in Mr.Penrose’s opinion, a very indifferent sort of person. There is something immoral to most people in the fact of being poor, but to Mr. Penrose it was a crime. He was very well off himself, but he was not a man to communicate of his goods as he did of his advice; and then he had himself a family, and could not be expected to give anything except advice to his nieces—and as for that one good thing, it was at their command in the most liberal way. He came to the Cottage, which was so especially a lady’s house, and pervaded the whole place with his large male person, diffusing through it that moral fragrance which still betrays the Englishman, the man of business, the Liverpool man, wherever he may happen to bless the earth. Perhaps in that sweet-smelling dainty place, the perfume which breathed from Mr. Penrose told more decidedly than in the common air. As soon as you went in at the garden-gate you became sensible that the atmosphere was changed, and that a Man was there. Perhaps it may be thought that the presence of a man in Aunt Agatha’s maiden bower was not what might be called strictly proper, and Miss Seton herself had doubts on the subject; but then, Mr. Penrose never asked for any invitation, and it would have been very difficult to turn him out; and Mary was there, who at least was a married lady. He came without any invitation, and asked which was his room as if it had been his own house—and he complained of what he called “the smell” of the roses, and declared he would tear down all the sickly jasmine from the side of the house if it belonged to him. All this Miss Seton endured silently, feeling it her duty, for Winnie’s sake, to keep all her connexions in good humour; but the poor lady suffered terribly under the process, as everybody could see.
“I hope it is only a conditional sort of engagement,” Mr. Penrose said, after he had made himself comfortable, and had had a good dinner, and came into the drawing-room the first evening. The lovers had seized the opportunity to escape to Kirtell-side, and Mary was with her boys in the garden, and poor Aunt Agatha, a martyr of civility, was seated alone, awaiting the reappearance of her guest, and smiling upon him with anxious politeness. He threw himself into the largest and most solid chair he could find, and spread himself, as it seemed, all over the room—a Man, coarse and undisguised, in that soft feminine paradise. Poor Sir Edward’s graceful presence, and the elegant figure of Captain Percival, made no such impression. “I hope you have not settled it all without consulting anybody. To be sure, that don’t matter very much; but I know you ladies have a summary way of settling such affairs.”
“Indeed, I—I am afraid—I—I hope—it is all settled,” said Aunt Agatha, with tremulous dignity. “It is not as if there was a great deal of money to settle. They are not—not rich, you know,” she added, nervously. This was the chief thing to tell, and she was anxious to get it over at once.
“Not rich?” said Mr. Penrose. “No, I suppose not. A rich fellow would not have been such a fool as to entangle himself with Winnie, who has only her pretty face; but he has something, of course. The first thing to ascertain is, what they will have to live on, and what he can settle upon her. I suppose you have not let it go so far without having a kind of idea on these points?”
“Oh, yes,” said Aunt Agatha, with a very poor pretence at composure; “oh, yes, Mr. Penrose, that is all quite right. He has very nice expectations. I have always heard that Mrs. Percival had a charming little property; and Sir Edward is his godfather, and very fond of him. You will see it will come all right about that.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Penrose, who was nursing one of his legs—a colossal member, nearly as big as his hostess—in a meditative way, “I hope it will whenIcome to look into it. But we must have something more than expectations. What has he of his own?—and what do his mother and Sir Edward mean to do for him? We must have it in pounds, shillings, and pence, or he shan’t have Winnie. It is best that he should make up his mind about that.”
Aunt Agatha drew a frightened, panting breath; but she did not say anything. She had known what she would have to brave, and she was aware that Winnie would not brave it, and that to prevent a breach with her darling’s only rich relation, it was necessary and expedient as long as she was alone to have it all out.
“Let me see,” said Mr. Penrose, “you told me what he was in your letter—Captain, ain’t he? As for his pay, that don’t count. Let us go systematically to work if we are to do any good. I know ladies are very vague about business matters, but still you must know something. What sort of a fellow is he, and what has he got of his own?”
“Oh, he is very nice,” cried Aunt Agatha, consoled to find a question she could answer; “very, very nice. I do think you will like him very much; such a fine young fellow, and with what you gentlemen call no nonsense about him,” said the anxious woman; “and withexcellentconnexions,” she added, faltering again, for her enthusiasm awoke no answer in Mr. Penrose’s face.
“My dear Miss Agatha,” he said in his offensive way—and he always called her Miss Agatha, which was very trying to her feelings—“you need not take the trouble to assure me that a handsome young fellow who pays her a little attention, is always very nice to a lady. I was not asking whether he was nice; I was asking what were his means—which is a very much more important part of the subject, though you may not think so,” Mr. Penrose added. “A charming little house like this, for instance, where you can have everything within yourself, and can live on honey and dew I suppose, may be kept on nothing—though you and I, to be sure, know a little different——”
“Mr. Penrose,” said Aunt Agatha, trembling with indignation, “if you mean that the dinner was not particular enough——”
“It was a charming little dinner,” said Mr. Penrose, “just what it ought to have been. Nothing could have been nicer than that white soup; and I think I am a judge. I was speaking of something to live on; a pretty house like this, I was saying, is not an analogous case. You have everything within yourself—eggs, and vegetables, and fruit, and your butter and milk so cheap. I wish we could get it like that in Liverpool; and—pardon me—no increase of family likely, you know.”
“My niece Mary and her three children have come to the Cottage since you were last here, Mr. Penrose,” said Aunt Agatha, with a blush of shame and displeasure. “It was the only house of all her relations that she could come to with any comfort, poor dear—perhaps you don’t call that an increase of family; and as for the milk and butter——”
“She must pay you board,” said Mr. Penrose, decisively; “there can be no question about that; your little money has not always been enough for yourself, as we both know. But all this is merely an illustration I was giving. It has nothing to do with the main subject. If these young people marry, my dear Miss Agatha, their family may be increased by inmates who will pay no board.”
This was what he had the assurance to say to an unmarried lady in her own house—and to laugh and chuckle at it afterwards, as if he thought it a capital joke. Aunt Agatha was struck dumb with horror and indignation. Such eventualities might indeed, perhaps must, be discussed by the lawyers where there are settlements to make; but to talk of them to a maiden lady when alone, was enough to make her drop through the very floor with consternation. She made no attempt to answer, butshe did succeed in keeping her seat, and to a certain extent her self-possession, for Winnie’s sake.
“It is a different sort of thing altogether,” said the family adviser. “Things may be kept square in a quiet lady’s house—though even that is not always the case, as we are both aware; but two young married people, who are just as likely as not to be extravagant and all that—— If he has not something to settle on her, I don’t see how I can have anything to do with it,” Mr. Penrose continued; “and you will not answer me as to what he has of his own.”
“He has his—his pay,” said poor Aunt Agatha. “I am told it is a great deal better than it used to be; and he has, I think, some—some money in the Funds. I am sure he will be glad to settle that on Winnie; and then his mother, and Sir Edward. I have no doubt myself, though really they are too young to marry, that they will do very well on the whole.”
“Do you know what living means, Miss Agatha?” asked Mr. Penrose, solemnly, “when you can speak in this loose way? Butchers’ bills are not so vague as your statements, I can tell you; and a pretty girl like that ought to do very well, even though she has no money. It is notherfault, poor thing,” the rich uncle added, with momentary compassion; and then he asked, abruptly, “What will Sir Edward do for them?” as if he had presented a pistol at his companion’s head.
“Oh, Mr. Penrose!” cried Aunt Agatha, forgetting all her policy, and what she had just said. “Surely, surely, you would not like them to calculate upon Sir Edward! He is not even a relation. He is only Edward’s godfather. I would not have him applied to, not for the world.”
“Then what have you been talking to me all this while about?” cried Mr. Penrose, with a look and sense of outraged virtue. And Aunt Agatha, seeing how she had betrayed her own position, and weary of the contest, and driven to her wits’ end, gave way and cried a little—which at that moment, vexed, worried, and mortified as she was, was all she could do.
And then Mr. Penrose got up and walked away, whistling audibly, through the open window, into the garden, leaving the chintz cover on his chair so crumpled up and loosened out of all its corners, that you could have told a mile off that a man had been there. What he left behind him was not that subtle agreeable suggestion of his presence which hung around the footsteps of young Percival, or even of Sir Edward, but something that felt half like an insult to the feminine inhabitants—a disagreeable assertion of another kind of creature whothought himself superior to them—which was an opinion which they did not in the least share, having no illusions so far as he went. Aunt Agatha sank back into her chair with a sense of relief, which she afterwards felt she ought not to have entertained. She had no right to such a feeling, for she had done no good; and instead of diverting the common enemy from an attack upon Winnie or her lover, had actually roused and whetted him, and made him more likely than ever to rush at those young victims, as soon as ever he should have the chance. But notwithstanding, for the moment to be rid of him, and able to draw breath a little, and dry her incipient tears, and put the cover straight upon that ill-used chair, did her good. She drew a long breath, poor soul, and felt the ease and comfort of being left to herself; even though next moment she might have to brace herself up and collect all her faculties, and face the adversary again.
But in the meantime he had gone out to the garden, and was standing by Mary’s side, with his hand in his pocket. He was telling Mary that he had come out in despair to her, to see if she knew anything about this sad business—since he found her Aunt Agatha quite as great a fool about business matters as she always was. He wanted to know if she, who knew what was what, could give him any sort of a reasonable idea about this young fellow whom Winnie wanted to marry—which was as difficult a question for Mrs. Ochterlony as it had been for Miss Seton. And then in the midst of the conversation the two culprits themselves appeared, as careless about the inquiring uncle as they were about the subject of his anxiety. Winnie, who was not given to the reticences practised by her aunt and her sister, had taken care to convey a very clear idea of her Uncle Penrose, and her own opinion of him, to the mind of Percival. He was from Liverpool, and not “of a nice class.” He was not Winnie’s guardian, nor had he any legal control over her; and in these circumstances it did not seem by any means necessary to either of the young people to show any undue attention to his desires, or be disturbed by his interference; for neither of them had been brought up to be dutiful to all the claims of nature, like their seniors. “Go away directly, that he may not have any chance of attacking you,” Winnie had said to her lover; for though she was not self-denying or unselfish to speak of, she could be so where Percival was concerned. “We can manage him among us,” she added, with a laugh—for she had no doubt of the cooperation of both her aunt and sister, in the case of Uncle Penrose. And in obedience to this arrangement, CaptainPercival did nothing but take off his hat in honour of Mary, and say half a dozen words of the most ordinary salutation to the stranger before he went away. And then Winnie came in, and came to her sister’s side, and stood facing Mr. Penrose, in all the triumph and glory of her youth. She was beautiful, or would be beautiful, everybody had long allowed; but she had still retained a certain girlish meagreness up to a very recent date. Now all that had changed, like everything else; she had expanded, it appeared, like her heart expanded and was satisfied—everything about her looked rounder, fuller, and more magnificent. She came and stood before the Liverpool uncle, who was a man of business, and thinking of no such vanities, and struck him dumb with her splendour. He could talk as he liked to Aunt Agatha, or even to Mary in her widow’s cap, but this radiant creature, all glowing with love and happiness, took away his breath. Perhaps it was then, for the first time in his life, that Mr. Penrose actually realized that there was something in the world for which a man might even get to be indifferent about the balance at his banker’s. He gave an involuntary gasp; and though up to this moment he had thought of Winnie only as a child, he now drew back before her, and stopped whistling, and took his hand out of his pocket, which perhaps was as decided an act of homage as it was in him to pay.
But of course such a manifestation could not last. After another moment he gave a “humph” as he looked at her, and then his self-possession came back. “So that was your Captain, I suppose?” he said.
“Yes, uncle, that was my Captain,” said the dauntless Winnie, “and I hope you approve of him; though it does not matter if you don’t, for you know it is all settled, and nobody except my aunt and his mother has any right to say a word.”
“If his mother is as wise a judge as your aunt——” said Mr. Penrose; but yet all the same, Winnie’s boldness imposed upon him a little. It was impossible to imagine that a grand creature like this, who was not pale nor sentimental, nor of Agatha Seton’s kind, could contemplate with such satisfaction any Captain who had asked her to marry him upon nothing a year.
“That is all very fine,” Mr. Penrose added, taking courage; “you can make your choice as you please, but it is my business to look after the money. If you and your children come to me starving, twenty years hence and ask how I could possibly let you marry such a——”
“Do you think you will be living in twenty years, UnclePenrose?” said Winnie. “I know you are a great deal older than Aunt Agatha;—but if you are, we will not come, I promise you. We shall keep our starvation to ourselves.”
“I can’t tell how old your Aunt Agatha is,” said Mr. Penrose, with natural offence; “and you must know, Miss Winnie, that this is not how you should talk to me.”
“Very well, uncle,” said the daring girl; “but neither is your way the way to talk to me. You know I have made up my mind, and that everything is settled, and that it does not matter the least to me if Edward was a beggar; and you come here with your money, as if that was the only thing to be thought of. What do I care about money?—and you might try till the end of the world, and you never would break it off,” she cried, flashing into a brilliant glow of passion and vehemence such as Mr. Penrose did not understand. He had expected to have a great deal of difficulty, but he had never expected to be defied after this fashion; and the wildness of her womanish folly made the good man sad.
“You silly girl!” he said, with profound pathos, “if you only knew what nonsense you were speaking. There is nobody in this world but cares about money; you can do nothing without it, and marry least of all. And you speak to me with such an example before your eyes; look at your sister Mary, how she has come with all those helpless children to be, most likely, a burden on her friends——”
“Uncle Penrose!” cried Winnie, putting up her two beautiful hands to stop his mouth; but Mr. Penrose was as plain-spoken as Winnie herself was, though in a different way.
“I know perfectly well she can hear me,” he said, “and she ought to hear me, and to read you a lesson. If Mary had been a sensible girl, and had married a man who could make proper settlements upon her, and make a provision for his family, do you think she would have required to come here to seek a shelter—do you think——”
“Oh, Mary, he is crazy; don’t mind him!” cried Winnie, forgetting for the moment all about her own affairs, and clinging to her sister in real distress.
And then it was Mrs. Ochterlony’s turn to speak.
“I did not come to seek a shelter,” she said; “though I know they would have given it me all the same. I came to seek love and kindness, uncle, which you cannot buy with money: and if there was nothing more than want of money between Winnie and Captain Percival——”
“Mary!” cried Winnie, impetuously, “go in and don’t say any more. You shall not be insulted while I am here; butdon’t say anything about Edward. Leave me to have it out with Uncle Penrose, and go away.”
And somehow Mary obeyed. She would not have done it a month ago; but she was wearied of contention, and broken in spirit, and, instead of standing still and defending herself, she withdrew from the two belligerents, who were both so ready to turn their arms against her, and went away. She went to the nursery, which was deserted; for her boys were still outside in the lingering daylight. None of them were able to advise, or even to sympathize with their mother. They could give her their childish love, but nothing else in the world. The others had all some one to consult, some one to refer to, but Mary was alone. Her heart beat dull and low, with no vehement offence at the bitter words she had just heard, but with a heavy despondency and sense of solitude, which her very attitude showed—for she did not sit down, or lie down, or try to find any fictitious support, but stood up by the vacant fire-place with her eyes fixed upon nothing, holding unconsciously the little chain which secured her watch, and letting its beads drop one by one from her fingers. “Mary has come home to be a burden on her friends,” said Uncle Penrose. She did not resent it wildly, as she might have done some time before, but pondered with wondering pain and a dull sense of hopelessness. How did it happen that she, of all women, had come to such a position? what correspondence was there between that and all her past? and what was the future to be? which, even now, she could make no spasmodic changes in, but must accept and endure. This was how Mary’s mind was employed, while Winnie, reckless and wilful, defied Uncle Penrose in the garden. For the time, the power of defying any one seemed to have died out of Mary’s breast.
MR. PENROSE, however, was not a man of very lively feelings, and bore no malice against Winnie for her defiance, nor even against Mary, to whom he had been so cruel, which was more difficult. He was up again, cheerful and full of energy in the morning, ready for his mission. If Winnie began the world without something to live upon, or with any prospect of ever being a burden on herfriends, at all events it would not be his fault. As it happened, Aunt Agatha received at the breakfast-table the usual invariable letter containing a solemn warning against Captain Percival, and she was affected by it, as she could not help always being affected; and the evident commotion it excited in the party was such that Mr. Penrose could not but notice it. When he insisted upon knowing what it was, he was met by what was, in reality, very skilful fencing on Miss Seton’s part, who was not destitute altogether of female skill and art; but Aunt Agatha’s defence was made useless by the impetuosity of Winnie, who scorned disguise.
“Oh, let us hear it, please,” she said, “let us hear.Weknow what it is about. It is some new story—some lie, about my poor Edward. They may save themselves the trouble.Iwould not believe one of them, if it was written on the wall like Belshazzar’s feast; and if I did believe them I would not care,” said Winnie, vehemently; and she looked across, as she never could help looking, to where her sister sat.
“What is it?” said Mr. Penrose, “something about your Captain? Miss Agatha, considering my interest in the matter, I hope you will let me hear all that is said.”
“It is nothing, absolutely nothing,” said Aunt Agatha, faltering. “It is only some foolish gossip, you know—garrison stories, and that sort of thing. He was a very young man, and was launched upon life by himself—and—and—I think I may say he must have been imprudent. Winnie, my dear love, my heart bleeds to say it, but he must have been imprudent. He must have entangled himself and—and—— And then there are always so many designing people about to lead poor young men astray,” said Aunt Agatha, trembling for the result of her explanation; while Winnie divided her attention between Mr. Penrose, before whom this new view of the subject was unfolded for the first time, and Mary, whom she regarded as a natural enemy and the probable origin of it all.
“Wild, I suppose?” said Mr. Penrose, with sublime calm. “They’re all alike, for that matter. So long as he doesn’t bet or gamble—that’s how those confounded young fellows ruin themselves.” And then he dismissed the subject with a wave of the hand. “I am going up to the Hall to talk it all over with Sir Edward, and see what can be done. This sort of penniless nonsense makes me sick,” the rich man added; “and you women are the most unreasonable creatures—one might as well talk to a stone wall.”
Thus it was that for once in their lives the two Miss Setons, Agatha and Winnie, found Uncle Penrose for the moment halfdivine; they looked at him with wide open eyes, with a wondering veneration. They were only women after all, and had been giving themselves a great deal of trouble about Captain Percival’s previous history; but it all sank in mere contemptible gossip under the calm glance of Mr. Penrose. He was not enthusiastic about Edward, and therefore his impartial calm was all the more satisfying.Hethought nothing of it at all, though it had been drivingthemdistracted. When he went away on his mission to the Hall, Winnie, in her enthusiasm, ran into Aunt Agatha’s arms.
“You see he does not mind,” said Winnie,—though an hour before she had been far from thinking Mr. Penrose an authority. “He thinks it is all gossip and spite, as I always said.”
And Aunt Agatha for her part was quite overcome by the sudden relief. It felt like a deliverance, though it was only Mr. Penrose’s opinion. “My dear love, men know the world,” she said; “that is the advantage of having somebody to talk to; and I always said that your uncle, though he is sometimes disagreeable, had a great deal of sense. You see he knows the world.”
“Yes, I suppose he must have sense,” said Winnie; and in the comfort of her heart she was ready to attribute all good gifts to Mr. Penrose, and could have kissed him as he walked past the window with his hand in his pocket. She would not have forsaken her Edward whatever had been found out about him, but still to see that his wickedness (if he had been wicked) was of no consequence in the eyes of a respectable man like Uncle Penrose, was such a consolation even to Winnie as nothing can express. “We are all a set of women, and we have been making a mountain out of a molehill,” she said, and the tears came to her bright eyes; and then, as Mary was not moved into any such demonstrations of delight, Winnie turned her arms upon her sister in pure gaiety of heart.
“Everybody gets talked about,” she said. “Edward was telling me about Mary even—that she used to be called Madonna Mary at the station; and that there was some poor gentleman that died. I supposed he thought she ought to be worshipped like Our Lady. Didn’t you feel dreadfully guilty and wretched, Mary, when he died?”
“Poor boy,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, who had recovered her courage a little with the morning light. “It had nothing to do with Our Lady as you say; it was only because he had been brought up in Italy, poor fellow, and was fond of the old Italian poets, and the soft Italian words.”
“Then perhaps it was Madonna Mary he was thinking of,” said Winnie, with gay malice, “and you must have felt a dreadful wretch when he died.”
“We felt very sad when he died,” said Mary,—“he was only twenty, poor boy; but, Winnie dear, Uncle Penrose is not an angel, and I think now I will say my say. Captain Percival is very fond of you, and you are very fond of him, and I think, whatever the past may have been, that there is hope if you will be a little serious. It is of consequence. Don’t you think that I wish all that is best in the world for you, my only little sister? And why should you distrust me? You are not silly nor weak, and I think you might do well yet, very well, my dear, if you were really to try.”
“I think we shall do very well without trying,” said Winnie, partly touched and partly indignant; “but it is something for you to say, Mary, and I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good advice all the same.”
“Winnie,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, taking her hands, “I know the world better than you do—perhaps even better than Uncle Penrose, so far as a woman is concerned. I don’t care if you are rich or poor, but I want you to be happy. It will not do very well without trying. I will not say a word about him, for you have set your heart on him, and that must be enough. And some women can do everything for the people they love. I think, perhaps, you could, if you were to give your heart to it, and try.”
It was not the kind of address Winnie had expected, and she struggled against it, trying hard to resist the involuntary softening. But after all nature was yet in her, and she could not but feel that what Mary was saying came from her heart.
“I don’t see why you should be so serious,” she said; “but I am sure it is kind of you, Mary. I—I don’t know if I could do—what you say; but whatever I can do I will for Edward!” she added hastily, with a warmth and eagerness which brought the colour to her cheek and the light to her eye; and then the two sisters kissed each other as they had never done before, and Winnie knelt down by Mary’s knee, and the two held each other’s hands, and clung together, as it was natural they should, in that confidence of nature which is closer than any other except that between mother and daughter—the fellow-feeling of sisters, destined to the same experience, one of whom has gone far in advance, and turning back can trace, step by step, in her own memory, the path the other has to go.
“Don’t mistrust me, Winnie,” said Mrs. Ochterlony. “I have had a little to bear, though I have been very happy, andI could tell you many things—though I will not, just now; but, Winnie dear, what I want is, that you should make up your mind to it; not to have everything you like, and live in a fairy tale, but to keep right, and to keephimright. If you will promise to think of this, and to take it bravely upon you, I will still hope that all may be well.”
Her look was so serious that for the first time Winnie’s heart forgave her. Neither jealousy, nor ill-temper, nor fear of evil report on her own side could have looked out of Mary’s eyes at her little sister with such a wistful longing gaze. Winnie was moved in spite of herself, and thrilled by the first pang of uncertainty that had yet touched her. If Mary had no motive but natural affection, was it then really a hideous gulf of horrible destruction, on the verge of which she was herself tripping so lightly? Something indefinable came over Winnie’s face as that thought moved her. Should it be so, what then? If it was to save him, if it was to perish with him, what did it matter? the only place in the world for her was by his side. She had made her choice, and there was no other choice for her, no alternative even should see the gulf as Curtius did, and leap conscious into it in the eye of day. All this passed through her mind in a moment, as she knelt by Mary’s side holding her hands—and came out so on her face that Mary could read something like it in the sudden changing of the fair features and expansion of the eyes. It was as if the soul had been startled, and sprang up to those fair windows, to look out upon the approaching danger, making the spectator careless of their beauty, out of regard to the nobler thing that used them for the moment. Then Winnie rose up suddenly, and gave her sister a hearty kiss, and threw off her sudden gravity as if it had been a cloud.
“Enough of that,” she said; “I will try and be good, and so I think will—we all. And Mary, don’t look so serious. I mean to be happy, at least as long as I can,” cried Winnie. She was the same Winnie again—gay, bold, and careless, before five minutes had passed; and Mary had said her say, and there was now no more to add. Nothing could change the destiny which the thoughtless young creature had laid out for herself. If she could have foreseen the distinctest wretchedness it would have been all the same. She was ready to take the plunge even into the gulf—and nothing that could be said or done could change it now.
In the meantime, Mr. Penrose had gone up to the Hall to talk it over with Sir Edward, and was explaining his views with a distinctness which was not much more agreeable in theHall than it had been in the Cottage. “I cannot let it go on unless some provision can be made,” he said. “Winnie is very handsome, and you must all see she might have done a great deal better. If I had her over in Liverpool, as I have several times thought of doing, I warrant you the settlements would have been of a different description. She might have married anybody, such a girl as that,” continued Mr. Penrose, in a regretful business way. It was so much capital lost that might have brought in a much greater profit; and though he had no personal interest in it, it vexed him to see people throwing their chances away.
“That may be, but it is Edward Percival she chooses to marry, and nobody else,” said Sir Edward testily; “and she is not a girl to do as you seem to think, exactly as she is told.”
“We should have seen about that,” said Mr. Penrose; “but in the meantime, he has his pay and she has a hundred a year. If Mrs. Percival will settle three hundred on him, and you, perhaps, two——”
“I, two!” cried Sir Edward, with sudden terror; “why should I settle two? You might as well tell me to retire from the Hall, and leave them my house. And pray, Mr. Penrose, when you are so liberal for other people, what do you mean to give yourself?”
“I am a family man,” said Uncle Penrose, taking his other hand out of his pocket, “and what I can give must be, in justice to my family, very limited. But Mrs. Percival, who has only four sons, and yourself who have none, are in very different circumstances. If he had had a father, the business might have been entered into more satisfactorily—but as you are his godfather, I hear——”
“I never understood before, up to this minute,” said Sir Edward, with great courtesy, “that it was the duty of a godfather to endow his charge with two hundred a year.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir Edward,” said Mr. Penrose; “I am a plain man, and I treat things in a business way. I give my godchildren a silver mug, and feel my conscience clear: but if I had introduced a young man, not otherwise very eligible, to a handsome girl, who might have done a great deal better for herself, that would make a great difference in the responsibility. Winnie Seton is of very good family by her father’s side, as you know, I suppose, better than I do; and of very good business connexions by her mother’s; and her beauty is first rate—I don’t think there can be any doubt about that. If she had been an ordinary pretty girl, I would not have said so much; but with all her advantages, I should say that any fair equivalent in the shape of a husband should be worth at least five thousand a year.”
Mr. Penrose spoke with such seriousness that Sir Edward was awed out of his first feeling of amusement. He restrained his smile, and acknowledged the logic. “But I did not introduce him in any special way,” he said. “If I can negotiate with Mrs. Percival for a more liberal allowance, I will do it. She has an estate of her own, and she is free to leave it to any of her sons: but Edward, I fear, has been rather unsatisfactory——”
“Ah, wild?” said Mr. Penrose: “all young men are alike for that. I think, on the whole, that it is you who should negotiate with the mother. You know her better than I do, and have known all about it from the beginning, and you could show her the state of the case better. If such a mad thing could be consented to by anybody in their senses, it must at least be apparent that Winnie would bring twice as much as the other into the common stock. If she were with me in Liverpool she would not long be Winnie Seton; and you may trust me she should marry a man who was worthy of her,” the rich uncle added, with a confirmatory nod of his head. When he spoke of a man who would be worthy of Winnie, he meant no sentimental fitness such as Aunt Agatha would have meant, had she said these words, nor was it even moral worth he was thinking of. What Mr. Penrose meant, was a man who would bring a fair equivalent in silver and gold to Winnie’s beauty and youth, and he meant it most seriously, and could not but groan when he contemplated the possibility of so much valuable capital being thrown away.