Winifred’s news had given her a great shock, and though she could not possibly object to the marriage, she did resent most keenly the way in which the matter had been carried out.
She saw in Winnie’s conduct a repetition of the heartless selfishness that had characterized Christina’s whole attitude during the past and especially the later past.
Mrs. Pennington had not been blind to all Winnie’s maneuvers with Hubert, and she had had a longing more than once to speak out plainly, and set matters right in the young man’s mind where Polly was concerned; but she was a woman of infinite delicacy and tact, and, moreover, she had never imagined that Winnie’s artful artlessness would have reached such a point in such a short time.
There was nothing to excuse this hurried and secret marriage; indeed, there was every reason why Winnie, if she had studied her right duty, should have set aside the thought of marriage until the difficult pathway of her parents’ troubles had been made a little smoother at least.
In her very natural resentment at this hasty act, Mrs. Pennington found herself condemning the man more even than the girl.
“Hubert has acted in a way I should never have believed it possible for him to act,” she said to Polly, after the matter had been discussed in a few short sentences. “I have always thought that he had a sincere affection for me.”
“Do not doubt that, mother, darling,” Polly had answered, in a low, hurried voice. “Hubert loves you most dearly.”
“Then, if he loves me, he has taken a very strange way of showing it. Surely some consideration was due to me. What is the meaning of this marriage at all? Hubert’s duty was to come to me, to speak out his intentions, and to have abided by my decision. I am deeply hurt, Polly, and it is useless for me to pretend otherwise, and how I am to explain the matter to your father I hardly know.”
The attitude her mother adopted was one that gave Polly sharp pain in one respect, but in another Mrs. Pennington’s outspoken blame did good. It roused the girl from that curious blighting sense of stupefaction that the realization of Winifred’s treachery had brought. For, to herself, Polly did not disguise matters. She knew Winnie had been a traitress to her, and she understood all those hurtful words Winnie had spoken so frequently in their true meaning, now that it was too late.
She was bitterly grieved, poor little Polly, to have to hold such thoughts in her heart against her sister; but she was essentially just, and she knew she was not wronging Winnie one iota when she set down the whole blame of this marriage to the girl, and not to the man. She grieved, too, for Hubert’s sake, for she, perhaps, out of all the world, knew Winnie in her true character, and she feared for the future.