A pang went through the mother’s heart as she set the devotion and love and courageous unselfishness of this child against the heartless indifference, the callous selfishness of that other, that too well-loved eldest born, who had never been thwarted in any of her wishes, and from whom the phantom care—that had been stalking nearer and nearer to the home these past two years—had ever been eagerly hidden.
In none of the carking anxieties that had eaten their way, slowly but surely, to the mother’s heart, had Christina Pennington ever shared. Had her nature been different she could not, of course, have shut her eyes to the truth of things as they were under her father’s roof, but Chrissie had chosen to be blind.
She had always treated her mother’s difficulties, those celebrated “Monday agonies,” as Polly called them, very much in the way she would have treated some eccentric characteristic, and though the tears might have stained her mother’s face, and the trouble have proclaimed itself audibly, Chrissie would never have dreamed of sacrificing one shilling of her really ample allowance from her grandmother to help this poor mother to tide over a temporary financial gulf.
In the old days—not even to herself—would Mrs. Pennington permit the character of her eldest child to come up for criticism, but now, with her heart torn and aching from the blow Christina’s selfishness and worldliness had dealt her, she dissembled no longer, and she suddenly found in Polly’s hot, disheveled looks this night a beauty far greater than she had seen in her darling first born’s undoubted loveliness.
It had been the fashion in the Pennington family, with all its dozens of cousins and uncles and aunts, to consider Polly an exceedingly plain girl. Christina and Winifred, and the schoolboy, Harold, were permitted their claims to good looks, but Polly’s personality had had no admirers among her kinsfolk up to the present time, if, indeed, Hubert Kestridge may be excepted, who had always found a charm in the youngest Pennington girl, even when she had been a gawky, sallow child.
He did not look at her very much to-night. He felt if he did he might betray more than he judged wise to confess to the world just yet, but though he did not look very often, he saw enough to make him eat far more than he required.
He exerted himself to be very bright and cheery, and the very sound of his voice did poor, chilled, anxious Mrs. Pennington as much good as a tonic.
Winifred and he carried on most of the conversation till dessert came, and then the servant having withdrawn, the ever-pressing subjects of the moment were brought forward and dealt with by the young man in a practical, straightforward manner.
He was very sensible about Chrissie’s marriage.
“Now, don’t you fret your heart away; take my word for it, Christina will be as happy as the day is long. She was never born to be a poor man’s wife.”