On this occasion Miss Unity was singularly favoured by fortune, although she had not gone to the deanery with any idea of finding help in her perplexity, for before she had been there five minutes the conversation took a most lucky turn. Mrs Merridew had been so much concerned lately, she said, about her dear Ethel’s right shoulder. It was certainly growing out; and, indeed the four younger girls would all be much better for some dancing and drilling lessons. There was nothing she so much disliked as an awkward carriage. She was sure Miss Unity would agree with her that it was important for girls to hold themselves properly. Miss Unity, with Pennie in her mind, assented earnestly, and added that she believed Miss Cannon had a class for dancing at her school in the town.
“Oh yes, I know!” replied Mrs Merridew; “and I hear she has a very good master, Monsieur Deville; but I don’t quite fancy the children going there—all the townspeople, you know. I don’t think the dean would quite like it.”
“Oh no! to be sure not,” murmured Miss Unity.
“No, it’s not quite what one would wish,” continued Mrs Merridew; “but I’ve been wondering if I could get up a nice little class here!—just a dozen or so of children among my own friends, and have Monsieur Deville to teach them. You see he comes down to Miss Cannon every week, so there would be no difficulty about his coming on here.”
Miss Unity could hardly believe her ears, for, of course, the next step on Mrs Merridew’s part was to wonder if Mrs Hawthorne would let her children join the class. Could anything be more fortunate, not only because of Pennie’s deportment, but because it would give her a chance of improving her acquaintance with the dean’s daughters. It was the very thing of all others to be wished.
Quite stirred and excited out of her usual retirement, Miss Unity offered to lay the matter before Mrs Hawthorne in the course of a few days, when she was going to stay at Easney. She felt sure, she said, that it could be arranged; and she finally took her leave, feeling that she had at last accomplished some part of her duty towards her god-daughter, and much happier in her mind. This lasted until she reached her own door-step, and then she began to shrink from what she had undertaken to do. She had the deepest distrust of her own powers of persuasion, and as she thought of it, it seemed very unlikely to her that she should succeed in placing the subject in its proper light before Mrs Hawthorne. Never in her whole life had she ventured or wished to advise other people, or to see what was best for them. It was a bold step. “I shall say the wrong thing and offend Mary, or set her against it in some way,” she said to herself. “It would have been better to leave it in Mrs Merridew’s hands.”
She troubled herself with this during the days that remained before her visit to Easney, and grew more anxious and desponding as time went on. If the welfare of Pennie’s whole life had depended on her joining the dancing-class, poor Miss Unity could scarcely have made it of more importance.
It was, therefore, in a very wrought-up state that she arrived at the vicarage, determined to speak to Mrs Hawthorne that very same day, for until it was over she felt she should not have a moment’s comfort. She had brooded over it so constantly, and held so many imaginary conversations about it, that she had become highly nervous, and was odder in manner and more abrupt in speech than ever. As she sat at tea with Mrs Hawthorne, she answered all her inquiries about Nearminster strangely at random, for she was saying to herself over and over again, “It is my duty; I must do it.”
Suddenly the door was flung wide open, and Pennie threw herself hastily into the room.
“Oh mother!” she cried, “will you lend me your india-rubber?”