‘Not wrong, but mistaken,’ said Percy. ‘You forgot your want of power to enforce obedience. You wanted victory, and treated her with the same determination she was treating you with. It was a battle which had the hardest will and could hold out longest.’
‘And if I had conquered she would have gone away angry with me, only having yielded because she could not help it. You softened her and made her sorry. I see. She really is a good child on the whole, and I dare say I shall do something with her now.’
‘Is old Benson alive?’
And a long conversation on village matters ensued. Theodora was happier that evening than she had been for more than a year. That home-thrust at her pride, astonishing as it was that any one should venture it, and the submission that followed, had been a positive relief. She thought the pleasure was owing to the appeal to old times, recalling happy days of wild frolics, sometimes shared, sometimes censured by her grown-up playfellow; the few hours with his sister that had influenced her whole life; and the lectures, earnest, though apparently sportive, by which he had strengthened and carried on the impression; that brief time, also, of their last spending together, when his sorrow for his sister was fresh, and when John was almost in a hopeless state, and when she had been the one of the family to whom he came to pour out his grief, and talk over what his sister had been.
It was a renewal of happiness to her heart, wearied with jealousy, to find one to whom old times were precious, and who took her up where he had last seen her. His blunt ways, and downright attacks, were a refreshment to a spirit chafing against the external smoothness and refinement of her way of life, and the pleasure of yielding to his arguments was something new and unexampled. She liked to gain the bright approving look, and with her universal craving for attention, she could not bear not to be engrossing him, whether for blame or praise, it did not matter; but she had the same wish for his notice that she had for Arthur’s.
Not that she by any means always obtained it. He was in request with every one except Mrs. Nesbit. Even Lady Martindale took interest in his conversation, and liked to refer questions about prints and antiques to his decision, and calls on his time and attention were made from every quarter. Besides, he had his own manuscript to revise, and what most mortified Theodora was to hear Violet’s assistance eagerly claimed, as she knew her way better than John did through the sheets, and could point to the doubtful passages. Never was work more amusing than this, interspersed with debates between the two friends, with their droll counter versions of each other’s anecdotes, and Mr. Fotheringham’s quizzings of John, at whom he laughed continually, though all the time it was plain that there was no one in the world whom he so much reverenced.
The solitary possession of her own mornings was now no boon to Theodora. She was necessary to no one, and all her occupations could not drive away the ever-gnawing thought that Violet attracted all the regard and attention that belonged to her. If the sensation went away when she was down-stairs, where Percy’s presence obliged her to be amiable against her will, it came back with double force in her lonely moments.
One day, when they had dispersed after luncheon, her father came in, inquiring for Violet. He was going to Rickworth, and thought she would like to go with him. He wished to know, as otherwise he should ride instead of driving; and, as she was up-stairs, desired Theodora to go and find out what would suit her.
‘Papa, too!’ thought Theodora, as with some reluctance she for the first time knocked at her sister’s door, and found her with the baby.
‘How very kind!’ said she. ‘I should be delighted, but I don’t know whether Arthur does not want me. Is he there?’