‘Would Sir Antony have consented?’
‘I have little doubt of it. He was hurt at first, but he was always fond of Jane. She is very attentive to him, and I hope makes him quite comfortable. He wrote to ask me to come and see them at Worthbourne, and I am on my way. I see it is getting late. Good-bye.’
Theodora’s heart had been bounding all this time. Her first impulse was to rush up to tell Violet; but as this could not be, she snatched up a bulky red volume, and throwing over the leaves till she came to F.—Fotheringham, Sir Antony, of Worthbourne, looked down the list of his children’s names, and beheld that the only one not followed by the fatal word “died” was Antony Pelham.
What had they all been doing not to have thought of this before? However, she recollected that it would have seemed as impossible that the half-witted youth should marry as that he should be on the Continent. The escape from the certainty that had so long weighed on her, taught her what the pain had been; and yet, when she came to analyze her gladness, it seemed to melt away.
She dwelt on her period of madness—her wilful, repeated rejection of warning; she thought of the unhappy Derby day—of her own cold ‘Very well’—her flirtation with Lord St. Erme. She recollected the passage with Annette Moss: and then, for her present person, it was changed beyond recognition, as had just been proved; nor could she wonder, as, turning to the mirror, she surveyed the figure in black silk and plain cap, beyond which the hair scarcely yet peeped out—the clearness and delicacy of skin destroyed, the face haggard with care and sorrow, the eyelids swollen by watchful nights. She almost smiled at the contrast to the brilliant, flashing-eyed, nut-brown maid in the scarlet-wreathed coronal of raven hair, whom she had seen the last time she cared to cast a look in that glass.
‘I am glad I am altered,’ said she, sternly. ‘It is well that I should not remind him of her on whom he wasted his hope and affection. It is plain that I shall never marry, and this is a mask under which I can meet him with indifference like his own. Yes, it was absolute indifference—nothing but his ordinary kindliness and humanity; neither embarrassment nor confusion—just as he would have met any old woman at Brogden.
If he remembers that time at all, it is as a past delusion, and there is nothing in me to recall what he once liked. He did not know me! Nonsense! I thought I was content only to know him safe from Jane—still his real self. I am. That is joy! All the rest is folly and selfishness. That marriage! How disgusting—and what crooked ways! But what is that to me? Jane may marry the whole world, so that Percy is Percy!’
The children were heard on the stairs, and Helen rushed in, shouting, in spite of the silencing finger, ‘Aunt, it is the owl man!’ and Johnnie himself, eager and joyous, ‘It is the man who came with papa.’
‘He met us,’ said Helen. ‘He knew my name, and he asked Annie’s, and carried her to our door.’
‘He said he had been into papa’s room,’ said Johnnie, ‘and had seen baby. He is a very good-natured gentleman. Don’t you like him, Aunt Theodora?’