Madonna Mary

“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 both were, 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 child of 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 against him,” 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 of her!”

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 better for 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 is my good 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 in our day.

CHAPTER XIX

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 got that appointment? 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 that she 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 the avvocato 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. She could 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 indisputably he? 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 was against 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.

CHAPTER XX

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 when I come 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 with excellent connexions,” 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, but she 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 not her fault, 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.