“Look here, Barbara, let’s come to the point. Will you give up this moon-calf business of yours or not?”
“It is not a moon-calf business, whatever that may be, and I will not give it up.”
“Very well, then, I can’t make you as you are of age. But I have done with you. You will go to your room and stop there, and to-morrow morning you will return to your parents, to whom I will write at once. You have betrayed my hospitality and presumed upon my kindness; after all the things I have given you, too,” and her eyes fixed themselves upon a pearl necklace that Barbara was wearing. For Lady Thompson could be generous when she was in the mood.
Barbara unfastened the necklace and offered it to her aunt without a word.
“Nonsense!” said Lady Thompson. “Do you think I want to rob you of your trinkets because I happen to have given them to you? Keep them, they may be useful one day when you have a husband and a family and no money. Pearls may pay the butcher and the rent.”
“Thank you for all your kindness, Aunt, and good-bye. I am sorry that I am not able to do as you wish about marriage, but after all a woman’s life is her own.”
“That’s just what it isn’t and never has been. A woman’s life is her husband’s and her children’s, and that’s why—but it is no use arguing. You have taken your own line. Perhaps you are right, God knows. At any rate, it isn’t mine, so we had better part. Still, I rather admire your courage. I wonder what this young fellow is like for whose sake you are prepared to lose so much; more than you think, maybe, for I had grown fond of you. Well, good-bye, I’ll see about your getting off. There, don’t think that I bear malice although I am so angry with you. Write to me when you get into a tight place,” and rising, she kissed her, rather roughly but not without affection, and flung out of the room like one who feared to trust herself there any longer.
On the evening of the following day Barbara, emerging from the carrier’s cart at the blacksmith’s corner at Eastwich, was met by a riotous throng of five energetic young sisters who nearly devoured her with kisses. So happy was that greeting, indeed, that in it she almost forgot her sorrows. In truth, as she reflected, why should she be sorry at all? She was clear of a suitor whom she did not wish to marry, and of an aunt whose very kindness was oppressive and whose temper was terrible. She had fifty pounds in her pocket and a good stock of clothes, to say nothing of the pearls and other jewellery, wealth indeed if measured by the Walrond standard. Her beloved sisters were evidently in the best of health and spirits; also, as she thought, better-looking than any girls she had seen since she bade them farewell. Her father and mother were, as they told her, well and delighted at her return; and lastly, as she had already gathered, Anthony either was or was about to be at the Hall. Why then should she be sorry? Why indeed should she not rejoice and thank God for these good things?
On that evening, however, when supper was done, she had a somewhat serious interview with her father and mother who sat on either side of her, each of them holding one of her hands, for they could scarcely bear her out of their sight. She had told all the tale of the Hon. Charles Russell and of her violent dismissal by her aunt, of which story they were not entirely ignorant, for Lady Thompson had already advised them of these events by letter.
The Reverend Septimus shook his head sadly. He was not a worldly-minded man; still, to have a presumptive peer for a son-in-law, who would doubtless also become an ambassador, was a prospect that at heart he relinquished with regret. Also this young Arnott business seemed very vague and unsatisfactory, and there were the other girls and their future to be considered. No wonder, then, that he shook his kindly grey head and looked somewhat depressed.