At this the sisters interchanged glances again, and shook their heads in unison. “Ah, Catherine, that is just how you are deceived. We know Harry Vernon’s voice very well. It was Edward.”
Catherine turned upon them with a countenance perfectly cloudless, a laugh upon her lips. “When I tell you,” she said, “that he was in my own house! he could not, I think, be in two places at once—my house, his house—it is all the same. He was at home—” she added after a moment, in a deeper tone, “and with me.”
“Oh! with you!” The sisters broke off with sudden fright, not venturing to persevere. So sudden a check quenched Miss Matilda’s lively genius altogether. It was her sister, the practical member, who added with a spasmodic gasp, “Oh, of course, Catherine, if he was with you—”
“Yes, of course he was with me; he is only too attentive. I could wish he took a little more amusement. So your fine story is at an end, you see. If it had been anyone else I might have thought it my duty to inquire into it; but as I can prove it not to be Edward—not that I see much harm in it if it had been Edward,” she added, turning upon the accusers again. “I am not fond of Hester Vernon, but she is his cousin all the same.”
“Oh, no harm! oh, I never thought so,” cried the gossips, alarmed and faltering. “It was only just—it was merely—it frightened us, thinking that dear Catherine must be ill, or something happened—”
“Did you think then that your dear Catherine, if she were ill, would send for Hester Vernon?—as her prime favourite, I suppose, and the one that loved her best among all those who—”
Catherine paused; the native magnanimity in her, beneath all the pettiness which her laughing cynicism had taught her, would not insult even these heartless women by a reminder in so many words of their dependence. It cost her all her strength to stand up erect before them, and put off their assault. They had got at her heart, but they should never know it. She stood ample and serene between the two slim shabby figures and smiled defiance. Never were talebearers more completely discomfited. They turned upon each other with mutual reproaches in the confusion of the moment. “You need not have made such a fuss, Matilda.” “I told you, Martha, you oughtn’t to be so confident about a voice.”
“Come,” said Catherine, “we had better say nothing more about it; evidently there has been a mistake. Hester, who ought to be more careful if she is to live at the Vernonry, must have another admirer with whose voice you are not acquainted. But it is unwise to form conclusions on no better ground than the sound of a voice, and perhaps not very charitable or kind of you, so much older than she is, to tell anything that is uncomfortable about that girl, who is no favourite of mine already, to me. Don’t you think you would do better if you warned her, or her mother?” Catherine’s countenance was so calm, her eyes so commanding, that the Miss Vernon-Ridgways, altogether defeated in their malicious intention, which was chiefly to wound herself, felt their knees tremble under them, and were genuinely awestricken for perhaps the first time in their lives.
“Oh, as for that—it was not Hester we were thinking of—it was you,” they faltered between them, “that you might not allow—or be exposed—” Their words got incoherent and ran away to nothing, into breaks and frightened lapses. And when Catherine, opening her eyes still wider, said, “For me! to warn me!” and laughed them to scorn, Matilda, who being the most forward was at the same time the most sensitive, was so overcome by anger and alarm and mortification that she began to cry for sheer despite, and felt in her inmost heart that she hated the woman who could humiliate her so.
“You were kindly afraid that I should be tired a few minutes ago: and standing does tire me, though I like a walk,” Catherine said. “I will say goodbye now. Perhaps you meant it kindly; and if so, I’ll thank you too—all the more as it’s a mistake—for that is the best of it,” she said with a laugh, waving her hand: and leaving them, walked on homewards with an alert and energetic step. But it would have been balm to their feelings if they had been able to see how very little like laughter was her face when she had once turned her back upon them. There was nobody to observe her along that quiet road. The nursemaids with their children had all turned townwards some time ago. There was not a soul between her and the gate of the Grange. Catherine’s face lengthened and darkened as if by a sudden effect of years; the sanguine life and confidence and force went out of it. She looked an old woman in that moment, as indeed she had a right to do, but did not, nature interposing for her aid. She said to herself that she would not think, would not ask herself what it meant until she should get home, and could feel the shelter of her own walls about her. She wanted shelter and privacy before she faced the fact which had been dimly shadowing before her, but never in this form. She was a very resolute woman, and had not come so far in life without having to confront and overcome many things that looked terrible enough at the first glance. But never since those early days which were so far off that they were half forgotten had she been called upon to face those troubles which sap the strength out of heart and will, the disappointments and bitterness brought upon us by those we love. She had few of these sufferings for what seems the saddest reason, that she had nobody
