“Hugh, indeed! He’s to be brought in between us;—is he?”
“He’s my brother, and of course I’m obliged to think of him. And if you please, I’ll go home as soon as you are well enough to spare me.”
Quickly after this there were very many letters coming and going between the house in the Close and the ladies at Nuncombe Putney, and Hugh Stanbury and Brooke Burgess. The correspondent of Brooke Burgess was of course Miss Stanbury herself. The letters to Hugh and to Nuncombe Putney were written by Dorothy. Of the former we need be told nothing at the present moment; but the upshot of all poor Dolly’s letters was, that on the tenth of March she was to return home to Nuncombe Putney, share once more her sister’s bed and mother’s poverty, and abandon the comforts of the Close. Before this became a definite arrangement Miss Stanbury had given way in a certain small degree. She had acknowledged that Dorothy had intended no harm. But this was not enough for Dorothy, who was conscious of no harm either done or intended. She did not specify her terms, or require specifically that her aunt should make apology for that word immodest, or at least withdraw it; but she resolved that she would go unless it was most absolutely declared to have been applied to her without the slightest reason. She felt, moreover, that her aunt’s house ought to be open to Brooke Burgess, and that it could not be open to them both. And so she went;—having resided under her aunt’s roof between nine and ten months.
“Goodbye, Aunt Stanbury,” said Dorothy, kissing her aunt, with a tear in her eye and a sob in her throat.
“Goodbye, my dear, goodbye.” And Miss Stanbury, as she pressed her niece’s hand, left in it a banknote.
“I’m much obliged, aunt; I am indeed; but I’d rather not.” And the banknote was left on the parlour table.
LVIII
Dorothy at Home
Dorothy was received at home with so much affection and such expressions of esteem as to afford her much consolation in her misery. Both her mother and her sister approved of her conduct. Mrs. Stanbury’s approval was indeed accompanied by many expressions of regret as to the good things lost. She was fully alive to the fact that life in the Close at Exeter was better for her daughter than life in their little cottage at Nuncombe Putney. The outward appearance which Dorothy bore on her return home was proof of this. Her clothes, the set of her hair, her very gestures and motions had framed themselves on town ideas. The faded, wildered, washed-out look, the uncertain, purposeless bearing which had come from her secluded life and subjection to her sister had vanished from her. She had lived among people, and had learned something of their gait and carriage. Money we know will do almost everything, and no doubt money had had much to do with this. It is very pretty to talk of the alluring simplicity of a clean calico gown; but poverty will show itself to be meagre, dowdy, and draggled in a woman’s dress, let the woman be ever so simple, ever so neat, ever so independent, and ever so high-hearted. Mrs. Stanbury was quite alive to all that her younger daughter was losing. Had she not received two offers of marriage while she was at Exeter? There was no possibility that offers of marriage should be made in the cottage at Nuncombe Putney. A man within the walls of the cottage would have been considered as much out of place as a wild bull. It had been matter of deep regret to Mrs. Stanbury that her daughter should not have found herself able to marry Mr. Gibson. She knew that there was no matter for reproach in this, but it was a misfortune—a great misfortune. And in the mother’s breast there had been a sad, unrepressed feeling of regret that young people should so often lose their chances in the world through over-fancifulness, and ignorance as to their own good. Now when she heard the story of Brooke Burgess, she could not but think that had Dorothy remained at Exeter, enduring patiently such hard words as her aunt might speak, the love affair might have been brought at some future time to a happy conclusion. She did not say all this; but there came on her a silent melancholy, made expressive by constant little shakings of the head and a continued reproachful sadness of demeanour, which was quite as intelligible to Priscilla as would have been any spoken words. But Priscilla’s approval of her sister’s conduct was clear, outspoken, and satisfactory. She had been quite sure that her sister had been right about Mr. Gibson; and was equally sure that she was now right about Brooke Burgess. Priscilla had in her mind an idea that if B. B., as they called him, was half as good as her sister represented him to be—for indeed Dorothy endowed him with every virtue consistent with humanity—he would not be deterred from his pursuit either by Dolly’s letter or by Aunt Stanbury’s commands. But of this she thought it wise to say nothing. She paid Dolly the warm and hitherto unaccustomed compliment of equality, assuming to regard her sister’s judgment and persistent independence to be equally strong with her own; and, as she knew well, she could not have gone further than this. “I never shall agree with you about Aunt Stanbury,” she said. “To me she seems to be so imperious, so exacting, and also so unjust, as to be unbearable.”
“But she is affectionate,” said Dolly.
“So is the dog that bites you, and, for aught I know, the horse that kicks you. But it is ill living with biting dogs and kicking horses. But all that matters little as you are still your own mistress. How strange these
