She sat there, vividly conscious of herself, and sometimes she saw the whole room as a picture and she was part of it; sometimes she saw only those three whose lives, she felt, were practically over, for even Aunt Rose was comparatively old. She pitied them because their romance was past, while hers waited for her outside; she wondered at their happiness, their interest in their appearance, their pleasure in parties; but she felt most sorry for Aunt Rose, midway between what should have been the resignation of her stepsisters and the glowing anticipation of her niece. Yet Aunt Rose hardly invited sympathy of any kind and the smile always lurking near her lips gave Henrietta a feeling of discomfort, a suspicion that Aunt Rose was not only ironically aware of what Henrietta wished to conceal, but endowed with a fund of wisdom and a supply of worldly knowledge.
She continued to feel uncertain about Aunt Rose. She was always charming to Henrietta, but it was impossible to be quite at ease with a being who seemed to make an art of being delicately reserved; and because Henrietta liked to establish relationships in which she was sure of herself and her power to please, she was conscious of a faint feeling of antagonism towards this person who made her doubt herself.
Aunt Caroline and Aunt Sophia were evidently delighted with their niece’s presence in the house. They liked the sound of her laughter and her gay voice and though Sophia once gently reproached her for her habit of whistling, which was not that of a young lady, Caroline scoffed at her old-fashioned sister.
“Let the girl whistle, if she wants to,” she said. “It’s better than having a canary in a cage.”
“But don’t do it too much, Henrietta, dear,” Sophia compromised. “You mustn’t get wrinkles round your mouth.”
“No.” This was a consideration which appealed to Caroline. “No, child, you mustn’t do that.”
They admitted her to a familiarity which they would not have allowed her, and which she never attempted, to exceed, but she was Reginald’s daughter, she was a member of the family, and her offence in being also the daughter of her mother was forgotten. Caroline and Sophia were deeply interested in Henrietta. Henrietta was grateful and affectionate. The three were naturally congenial, and the happiness and sympathy of the trio accentuated the pleasant aloofness of Rose. Aunt Rose did not care for her, Henrietta told herself; there was something odd about Aunt Rose, yet she remembered that it was Aunt Rose who had thought of giving her the money.
Three thousand pounds! It was a fortune, and on that Sunday when Henrietta was to pay her first visit to Mrs. Batty, Aunt Caroline, turning the girl about to see that nothing was amiss, said warningly, “You are walking into the lion’s den, Henrietta. Don’t let one of those young cubs gobble you up. I know James Batty, an attractive man, but he loves money, and he knows our affairs. He married his own wife because she was a butcher’s daughter.”
“A wholesale butcher,” Sophia murmured in extenuation, “and I am sure he loved her.”
“And butchers,” Caroline went on, “always amass money. It positively inclines one to vegetarianism, though I’m sure nuts are bad for the complexion.”