As this is a record of the history of a family and not only of individuals, Aunt Aggie must be seriously considered; it was the first ominous mistake that Philip made that he did not seriously consider her. Agnes Trenchard, when quite a young girl, had been pretty in a soft and rounded manner. Two offers of marriage had been made to her, but she had refused these because she had a great sense of her destiny. From her first thinking moment she had considered herself very seriously. She had very high ideals; the finest thing in this world was a life of utter unselfishness, a life of noble devotion and martyred self-interest. She looked about her and could see no signs of such lives; all the more then was it clear that she was set apart to give the world such an example. Unfortunately, allied to this appreciation of a fine self-sacrificing character was a nature self-indulgent, indolent and suspicious. Could she be unselfish without trouble or loss then how unselfish she would be! She liked the idea of it immensely....
For some years she was pretty, sang a little and obviously ‘thought more’ than either of her sisters. People listened then to her creed and believed in her intentions. She talked often of unselfishness, was always ready to do anything for anybody, and was always prevented or forestalled by less altruistic people. When, after her two offers of marriage, she stepped very quickly into the shapes and colours of an old maid, went to live with her sister-in-law and brother, and formed ‘habits’, people listened to her less readily. She herself however, quite unaware that at thirty-five, life for a woman is, sexually, either over or only just commencing, hoped to continue the illusions of her girlhood. The nobility of unselfishness appealed to her more than ever, but she found that the people around her were always standing in her way. She became, therefore, quite naturally, rather bitter. Her round figure expressed, in defiance of its rotundity, peevishness.
She had to account for her failures in self-sacrificing altruism, and found it not in her own love of ease and dislike of effort, but, completely, in other people’s selfishness. Had she been permitted she would have been the finest Trenchard alive, and how fine that was only a Trenchard could know! But the world was in a conspiracy against her—the world, and especially her sister Elizabeth, whom she despised and bullied, but, somewhere in her strange suspicious crust of a heart, loved. That was, perhaps, the strangest thing about her—that, in spite of her ill-humour, discontents and irritations, she really loved the family, and would like to have told it so were she not continually prevented by its extraordinary habit of being irritating just when she felt most affectionate! She really did love them, and she would go down sometimes in the morning with every intention of saying so, but in five minutes they had destroyed that picture of herself which, during her absence from them, she had painted—for that, of course, she could not forgive them.
In the mansion of the human soul there are many chambers; Aunt Aggie’s contradictions were numberless; but, on broad lines it may be said that her assurance of the injustice of her own fate was balanced only by her conviction of the good luck of everyone else. She hoped, perpetually, that they would all recognise this—namely, that their Life had treated them with the most wonderful good fortune. Her brother George Trenchard, for instance, with his careless habits, his indifference to the facts of life, his obvious selfishness. What disasters he would, had he not been incredibly favoured, most surely have encountered! Aunt Aggie was afraid that he did not sufficiently realise this, and so, in order that he might offer up thanks to God, she reminded him, as often as was possible, of his failings. Thus, too, with the others. Even Katherine, for whom she cared deeply, betrayed, at times, a haughty and uplifted spirit, and, frequently forestalled her aunt’s intended unselfishness, thus, in a way, rebuking her aunt, a thing that a niece should never do. With this consciousness of her relations’ failings went an insatiable curiosity. Aunt Aggie, because she was the finest character in the family, should be rewarded by the trust and confidence of the family; she must, at any rate, maintain the illusion that she received it. Did they keep her quiet with little facts and stories that were of no importance, she must make them important in order to support her dignity. She made them very important indeed....
A great factor was her religion. She was, like her sister, a most sincere and devout member of the Church of England. She believed in God as revealed to her by relations and clergymen in the day of her baptism; time and a changing world had done nothing to shake her confidence. But, unlike her sisters, she believed that this God existed chiefly as a friend and supporter of Miss Agnes Trenchard. He had other duties and purposes, of course, but did not hide from her His especial interest in herself. The knowledge of this gave her great confidence. She was now fifty years of age, and believed that she was still twenty-five; that is not to say that she dressed as a young woman or encouraged, any longer, the possibility of romantic affairs. It was simply that the interest and attraction that she offered to the world as a fine and noble character were the same as they had ever been—and if the world did not recognize this that was because fine and noble characters were few and difficult to discover. One knew this because the Trenchard family offered so seldom an example of one, and the Trenchards were, of course, the finest people in England.
She had great power with her relations because she knew, so intimately, their weaknesses. People, on the whole, may be said to triumph over those who believe in them and submit to those who don’t. The Trenchards, because life was full and time was short, submitted to Aunt Aggie and granted anything in order that they might not be made uncomfortable. They could not, however, allow her to abuse them, one to another, and would submit to much personal criticism before they permitted treachery. Their mutual affection was a very real factor in their lives. Aunt Aggie herself had her share in it. She possessed, nevertheless, a genius for creating discomfort or for promoting an already unsteady atmosphere. She was at her best when the family was at its worst, because then she could perceive, quite clearly, her own fine nobility.
Philip Mark had made a grave mistake when he disregarded her.
She had disliked Philip from the first. She had disapproved of the way that he had burst in upon the family just when she had been at her best in the presentation to her father. He had not known that she had been at her best, but then that was his fault. She had been ready to forgive this, however, if, in the days that followed, he had shown that he appreciated her. He had not shown this, at all—he had, in fact, quite obviously preferred her sister Elizabeth. He had not listened to her with close attention when she had talked to him about the nobility of unselfishness, and he had displayed both irritation and immorality in his views of life. She had been shocked by the abruptness with which he had rebuked Mr. Seymour, and she thought his influence on Henry was, already, as bad as it could be. It was of course only too characteristic of George that he should encourage the young man. She could see what her father and Aunt Sarah thought of him, and she could only say that she entirely shared their opinion.
Philip’s visit had upset her, and Millie’s return from Paris upset her still more. She had never cared greatly about Millie, who had never showed her any deference or attention, but Millie had until now always been a Trenchard. She had come back from Paris only half a Trenchard. Aunt Aggie was grievously afraid that troublesome times were in store for them all.