'Oh yes,' said Stella; 'I know I'm too young, and I could not go away from everybody for a long long time.'
So the edict was given in form, with more assumption of authority on Felix's part than had been his wont towards his sisters' lovers; but he saw it was the best way to spare the little maid from what might prove trifling and end in disappointment, and the young lover from unfair usage of his grandparents, and its punishment. Someone must be resolute, and the father would not; so the brother had to depict the impossibility of fostering an attachment between an undergraduate and a child, under the certainty of displeasing the head of the family.
Charlie argued that it was hard his father's consent should not suffice—that he cared not for the property—he would go to his uncle in Australia, become printer's-devil at Bexley—anything to be free to win his Cynosure, while his father seemed far more disposed to applaud him than to say, Nonsense; and it fell to Felix to explain that whatever course Charlie might decide on, it must not be till his Oxford career was ended, and that till then there must be neither engagement nor correspondence, and the vacation must be spent elsewhere, since daily meetings in present circumstances would be a wrong towards all parties concerned.
Captain Audley could not gainsay that this was both reasonable and honourable, and even reminded Charlie of an invitation from Lord Liddesdale, to pay a visit at his foreign embassy in the long vacation. Meantime there was to be nothing to bind either party; but as Charlie had to return to Oxford that night, a parting interview was allowed in the drawing-room, in which he raved a good deal, and she was very quiet and rational.
Then Felix was left to repose, which he so sorely needed as to have to give up both coming in to dinner, and driving to meet Mr. Fulmort.
'Sisters' lovers are tough customers,' he said. 'Thank you, Cherry,' as she elevated the front and lowered the back of his chair, so as to render it a couch; 'it is well for me that you would have nothing to say to the sculptor.'
She kissed him silently; and as she looked at the pallid sunken face, with the eyes closed, she recollected her declaration that he must be more to her dead than any other man alive, and though far from retracting the sentiment, she wished she had uttered nothing so ill-omened.
The effect on Angela was the present anxiety; and it was impossible not to feel it staved off by the announcement, through a school-child, that she was staying to dine and spend the rest of the day at Miss Hepburn's. Whatever this might portend, it was a present relief to Cherry, though Clement looked very gloomy upon it; and the Vicar of St Matthew's had not been many hours in the house before Cherry, rather to her own surprise, found herself invited into Clement's library, to assist at a council over the perplexing girl.
Neither brother nor sister could say more than that, up to the moment of the accident, she had been in her usual state of ultra-observance and ultra-gaiety, alike wilful and exaggerated, and that on finding herself the real delinquent in the fatal catastrophe, she had petrified into hard fierce reserve. On Sunday alone had she been at Church, and then had been absent from the Feast where all the family had met; she had thrown over all the little ecclesiastical offices that had been her pride and pleasure, and repelled all sympathy, except perhaps that of the ladies to whom she had been most opposed, and whom she had derided and contemned for years. Indeed, she might be said to have hoisted their flag, for the cross round her neck had been discarded, and her hair had descended from the stupendous fabric which no asseveration would avail to persuade the Miss Hepburns to be of native growth, and was now coiled about her head—with an effect, certainly, preferable in itself, save for the signification. Things were come to a droll pass, that the absence of Angel's lofty coiffure should be complained of by one vicar to the other; but Mr. Fulmort had been Angela's first guide, who had prepared her for Confirmation and Communion, and Clement had from the first looked to him to deal with her; but Mr. Fulmort was scarcely encouraging. 'Nothing will be gained by forcing me on her,' he said. 'If I cannot draw, driving will be of no avail.'
'If Miss Isabella has got hold of her,' said Cherry, 'she is likely to imitate the people in books whose first act of virtue is shunning their priest; and when Angel's conscience gets on the side of perverseness, there is no saying what she will not do.'