It would not be fair to Aunt Aggie to omit to mention, especially as she continually made veiled allusions to the subject herself, that she also had known the tender passion. There had been an entanglement in her youth with a High Church archdeacon. But we all know how indefinite, how inconclusive, how meagre in practical results archidiaconal conferences are apt to be! After one of them it was discovered that the entanglement was all on Aunt Aggie's side. The archdeacon remained unenmeshed. Under severe pressure from Lady Blore, then an indomitable bride of forty, flushed by recent victory, he even went so far as to say that his only bride was the Church. It was after this disheartening statement that Aunt Aggie found herself drawn towards an evangelical and purer form of religion. The Archdeacon subsequently married, or rather became guilty of ecclesiastical bigamy. But Aunt Aggie throughout life retained pessimistic views respecting the celibacy of the clergy.
Aunt Mary bestowed a strong businesslike peck, emphasized by contact with the point of a stone-cold nose, on Magdalen's cheek. Aunt Aggie greeted her niece with small inarticulate cluckings of affection. Have you ever kissed a tepid poached egg? Then you know what it is to salute Aunt Aggie's cheek.
"Where are Fay and Bessie?" enquired Aunt Mary instantly. When the aunts announced their coming, which was invariably at an hour's notice, they always expected to find the whole family, including Colonel Bellairs, waiting indoors to receive them. This expectation was never realised, but the annoyance that invariably followed had retained through many years the dew of its youth.
"Bessie and Fay are out. I am expecting them back every moment."
"They will probably be later than usual to-day," said Aunt Mary grimly, with the half-conscious intuition of those whom others avoid. Did she know that with the exception of Sir John, whose vanity had led him to take refuge in a cul-de-sac, her fellow creatures rushed out by back doors, threw themselves out of windows, hid behind haystacks, had letters to write, were ordered by their doctors to rest, whenever she appeared? Did she know? One thing was certain. Magdalen was one of the very few persons who had never avoided her, who at times openly sought her society. And Aunt Mary, though she would have been ashamed to own it, loved Magdalen. She intended that Magdalen should live with her some day at the Towers, as an unpaid companion, when Sir John and Aunt Aggie had entered into peace.
"And your father," continued Aunt Mary. "Did he get my letter? I intend to have a serious conversation with him after tea."
"Father has this moment come in, and he asked me to tell you that he had business letters which he is obliged to write."
"I know what that means."
"Oh! Mary!" interpolated Aunt Aggie eagerly. "You forget that Algernon always, from the time he was a young man, left his letters to the last moment. All the Bellairs do."