In the meantime, however, when it had just been decided that Vernon’s, bolstered up by a great deal of supplementary aid, was to go on again, there was much commotion among all the dependents of the house. For one thing it was decided that as the Grange was to be sold, the most natural refuge for Catherine was at the Vernonry, her own house, from which some of her dependents must go to make room for her. This was the one point upon which she had made no personal decision, for it hurt her pride to be obliged to dismiss one of those for whom she had provided shelter so long. There had been a great effort made to make her retain the Grange, and continue her life in its usual course, a little retrenched and pared away, yet without any great disturbance of the habitual use and wont. This she would not consent to, making the protest we have seen, that external circumstances were nothing to her, that one of the Vernon almshouses would be as good a shelter as any other for an old woman. But she shrank from bidding any one of her pensioners to make room for her in the Vernonry. It raised a wonderful commotion, as may be supposed, in the house itself. All the dwellers on the garden side were disposed to think that Mrs. Reginald, whose boys were now growing up, and two of them in what their mother called “positions,” was the right person to go. But Mrs. Reginald herself was of opinion that her house, a good deal battered and knocked about by the boys in the course of their bringing up, was not in a fit state to receive Catherine Vernon, and that the other side, which was the best, was the natural place for her. The Miss Vernon-Ridgways could think or speak of nothing else.
“Our little place,” they said, “is far too small for Catherine. She could not turn round in it. Of course we would turn out in a moment; it would be our duty. But dear Catherine, used to such large rooms, what could she do in ours, which is the size of a pocket-handkerchief? And if Mrs. Reginald will not budge, why there is Mrs. John. She is so intimate with Catherine nowadays. Hester, that used to be such a rebel, and whom Catherine, we all know, could not endure, is always there. Dear me, of course there cannot be a doubt about it. Mrs. John’s house is the right thing; she must have that,” which was a great relief to their minds.
Mr. Mildmay Vernon made a great many faces over his newspaper as he sat in the summerhouse. He reflected that the hot water-pipes would be sure to get out of order in winter, and who would now repair them? He did not commit himself by any remark, but he thought the more. When Mrs. John told him of the opinion of the sisters, and consulted him with a troubled countenance, he only shook his head.
“I am sure I would do anything for Catherine,” Mrs. John said, “especially now when she is in trouble; but we cannot go far from here, for Hester is so much with her; and where are we to get a house? There is nothing within reach but that little cottage on the road. I am sure, if I were Mrs. Reginald, with no particular tie, and her boys in town, such a long way to come, I don’t think I should have any doubt as to what my duty was.”
It was a question which Hester at last solved in her hasty way, declaring that wherever they lived Catherine must have the best place in her own house—a principle to which her mother was obliged to make a faltering adhesion. But while everyone was thus resisting, Mr. Mildmay Vernon was carrying on his reflections about the hot water-pipes.
“She put me next the trees on account of my rheumatism,” he said to himself. “I know she did, and I shall never live through a winter if the apparatus gets out of gear. And I can’t afford to pay for the fire, that’s clear.” The result of which reflection was that Mr. Mildmay Vernon made it known that he had received a legacy which would make a little addition to his income, and he could not think any longer of taking up room which he believed was wanted. “Besides, one may accept a favour from one’s cousin,” he said, “especially when it is not much of a favour, being the damp part of the house which few people would have taken had they been paid for doing so—but to be indebted to a firm of bankrupts is impossible,” Mr. Mildmay Vernon said.
He took his departure in the beginning of the winter, just when the want of the hot water-pipes would be beginning to make itself felt. And it was almost without consulting her mother that Hester made arrangements for removing their few household goods into his house, to leave their own free for the mistress of all. Mrs. John consented to the arrangement, but not without a few tears.
“It is not that I mind the difference,” she said, “in the size of the rooms, or anything of that sort. But it feels like coming down in the world.”
“We have all come down in the world,” said Hester; “and Catherine most of all.”
And
