Great problems arose in Hagworth Street out of Jenny's embarkation upon the ship of life. So long as she had been merely a pupil of Madame Aldavini's, family opposition to her choice of a profession had slumbered; but with the prospect of her speedy debut, it broke out again very fiercely.
Old Miss Horner had died soon after her letter of protest against the dancing notion, and Miss Mary was left alone in Carminia House—in isolated survival, a pathetic more than a severe figure. However, she ventured to pay a visit to her niece in order to present a final remonstrance, but she lacked the power of her two elder sisters. What they commanded, she besought. What they declared, she hinted. Mrs. Raeburn felt quite sorry for the poor old thing, as she nodded on about salvation and temptation and the wages of sin. Old Miss Horner used to be able to wing her platitudes with the flame of God's wrath, but Miss Mary let them appear as the leaden things they really were. She made no impression but that of her own loneliness, went back to Carminia House after declining a slice of cherry cake, and died shortly afterwards, to the great comfort of the Primitive Methodists of Sion Chapel, who gained velvet cushions for the pews in consequence, and became less primitive than ever.
Mrs. Raeburn could not help speculating for an hour or two upon the course of Jenny's life if she had accepted her aunts' offer, but went to sleep at the end of it thinking, anyway, it would be all the same a hundred years hence.
Mrs. Purkiss came and registered a vow never to come again if Jenny really went; but she had registered so many vows in her sister's hearing that Mrs. Raeburn had come to regard them with something of that familiarity which must ultimately dull the surprise of a Commissioner for Oaths, and treated them as a matter of course.
Uncle James Threadgale, with face as pale and square as ever, but with hair slightly damper and thinner, suggested that Jenny should come down to Galton for a bit and think it over. This offer being pleasantly declined, he gave her a roll of blue serge and asked a blessing on the undertaking.
Charlie, having found that he was easily able to keep all knowledge of his daughter's lapse into publicity from his fellow-workmen at the shop in Kentish Town, decided to celebrate her imminent departure to the boreal pole (Glasgow soon achieved a glacial topography in Hagworth Street), by giving a grand supper-party.
"We'll have old Vergoe and Madame Neverseenher"—his witty periphrasis for Aldavini—"and a brother of mine you've none of you never seen either, a rare comic, or he used to be, though where he is now, well, that wants knowing."
"What's the good of saying he's to come to supper, then?" inquired Mrs. Raeburn.
"Only if he's about," explained Charlie. "If he's about, I'd like Jenny here to meet him, because he was always a big hand at club concerts twenty years ago, before he went to Africa. Arthur his name was."
"Oh, for goodness sake, stop your talking," said Mrs. Raeburn.