“I think it is, dear. Anthony has suffered cruelly from this wicked report. And it is so miserable between us all, when—we used to be so happy—”
She stopped. She had been speaking in a low, almost humble voice, as if her heart felt a pang of shame in its sorrow.
“Anthony doesn’t care for her,” said Bessie, shaking her head with a little experienced air. “He can’t, because she isn’t really nice. I believe he has been stupid enough to do it because he was cross.”
Was it true?—this dread, that even Bessie could put into words? And if it was—O poor, poor Anthony!
The girls drove into Underham that afternoon, when the extreme heat of the day was supposed to be over. But there still remained a dry parching oppression in the air, the long weedy grasses hung listlessly one above the other, without a breeze to shake the dust from the motionless leaves, the pretty green hedges were all whitened and dead looking. Without any thought of avoiding it, it almost seemed to Winifred, as she drove along, as if the pain of the visit would be unendurable. But there was no such relief as hearing that Mrs Bennett and Miss Lovell were not at home, and the sisters were ushered into the comfortable drawing-room where Ada sat with a somewhat too apparent consciousness of being prepared to receive visitors, and quite disposed to make a little show off of the dignity she considered appropriate to the occasion.
“It was very kind of you to come in this heat. My aunt wished me to drive with her, but I really thought it too oppressive. Don’t you find it very trying?”
“I do not think we thought about it,” said Winifred, truly.
“Ah, then you are so strong. It must be very nice to be so strong, and not to be obliged to think so much of one’s self. Now, I am obliged to be so careful, for if I were to go out in the sun, very likely I should have quite a headache.”
It was so difficult to be sympathetic over this possibility, that Winifred found it hard to frame a suitable answer, and was grateful to Mrs Bennett for coming in at the moment, and presenting another outlet for conversation. Bessie was sitting upright, rigidly and girlishly contemptuous, and subjects seemed alarmingly few.
“My father begged me to leave his card for Mr Bennett,” Winifred said at last. “He would have come himself if some magistrate’s business had not been in the way, but he is such a dreadfully conscientious magistrate, that all our little persuasions are quite hopeless.”