Edward made no reply, and this was a thing Miss Vernon did not like. She required a response. Silence felt like disapproval, and as there was a strong silent protest in her heart against everything that was mean or petty in what she said, she was apt to resent this want of acquiescence all the more. She looked back at him when he did not expect it, and was startled to see a look she had never seen before, a look that astonished her, on his face. It was something like a snarl of contempt and despite, but it disappeared in a moment and she could not believe her eyes.
“Are you so sure that Hester will marry him?” was all that Edward said.
“Marry him! Why how could he have so much as looked that way without encouragement? To be sure she will marry him. Where could she find anyone who had so much to offer? The girl is not a fool. Besides, her mother would not let her if she wished it; and of course she would not wish it, an ambitious girl to whom her present position is intolerable. Don’t you remember her look on the Thursdays, which we both remarked?”
Edward had remarked it, not exactly in the same way as Catherine had done. Hester’s look had made him ashamed of himself, but he had not had the strength to go and display himself by her side as Harry had done. It made him furious to think of Harry standing there by her in the corner, not caring what their patroness might think. It was a courage of which he was not capable.
“Don’t you think,” he said, softly, “that we are going too fast, Aunt Catherine, in every way? Harry’s visit may be a chance one. There may be no purpose at all in it, or it may have some other purpose.”
“He was there last night and on last Saturday and Wednesday, and I don’t know how many evenings besides. Oh no, there can be no doubt on the subject. It will be a great amusement for the Vernonry; the dear old ladies want something to amuse them.”
This was said of the Ridgways and Mr. Mildmay, who were all younger than Catherine, and one of them a man. But that fact increased the pleasantry all the more.
The curious thing was, that through all this Catherine was aware that what she was saying was unworthy of her, and in reality was disgusted with herself, and kept a mental reckoning of all the meannesses of which she had been guilty. There were first her remarks upon Mrs. John, which indeed might be true enough, but which she ought not to have made; and her certainty that scheming and “encouragement” must have been used to entrap Harry, and that Hester would marry him for an equivalent. No moralist would have noted these faults more clearly than she did herself, yet somehow she went on with them all the same. But it vexed and annoyed her to find Edward so constrained. He said, “Will you come and have a turn in the garden?” but not in his usual tone. That turn in the garden had been doubly pleasant to her, because he had made it appear that it was pleasant to him too.
“I think not tonight,” she said.
“There is a new moon. It is a lovely evening,” said he. “I think you ought to go. The sunset on one side, and that clear, pale shining in the east on the other, make such a beautiful contrast. Come, Aunt Catherine, it will do you good.”
“You think it will blow the ill-natured thoughts out of my head,” she said with a laugh.
“Have you ill-natured thoughts? I was not aware of it,” said Edward; and then as she did not move he added—“If you will not come I think I must go and give a little attention to some papers I brought home with me. I had not time to look at them during the day.”
“What papers?” she said quickly.
“Oh, only some prospectuses and details about investments,” he said with a careless air, and left her: to her great surprise.
He had been in the habit of telling her of any work he had, all about it, and of sitting with her for an hour or two at least. Catherine was surprised, but as is natural in a first shock of this kind, having got over the momentary prick of it, assured herself that it was accidental and meant nothing: yet was a little more vexed with that girl and with Harry, because in the same way their concerns had brought about this little, little break, this momentary lapse in the continuance. She could not any longer amuse herself with the prospect of the Vernonry, and the little excitement of this dawning story. There were a great many pricks about the story altogether, sentiments and sensations of which, when left alone and without the support of any moral backer up, of Meredith’s stimulating disclosures or Edward’s assent, she felt ashamed. It was wrong to speak as she had done about the astuteness of Mrs. John’s simplicity. Why should not the mother wish to place her child in the position which she, after all by no fault of her own, poor creature! had lost? Catherine escaped from the tingling of shame at her own pettiness which had gone through her, by considering the final arrangements which she would have to make in view of Harry’s marriage. Practically she was always magnanimous; she would have scorned a petty cutting off, a restraint of liberality, a condition to her gifts. Her givings were always large, and if her mind was warped by the sense of benefactions unappreciated, or kindness unprized, of reaping envy and resentment where she should have got gratitude and love, was it not the fault of her pensioners more than her own, the fault
