Rex grew visibly paler. Yes, he remembered. But without waiting for his reply, Mabella turned and fled swiftly up the avenue to the house. And she left The Fells the next day.
It had been several years ago—five or six. Harry Curzon was a subaltern in his own regiment—handsome, attractive, weak, and easily influenced; and Rex had warned him against the, even then, fast and noisy and unscrupulous girl. He had thought it his duty, and he thought it might save Harry. It had not done so. The young man had gone from bad to worse, and the watching his downward career had been one of the saddest pages in Rex Winchester’s life. But as he glanced up the darkening road after Mabella’s retreating figure, a strange pity thrilled him.
“They say no one is all bad,” he thought to himself. “I suppose it is possible she really loved that poor, foolish fellow.”
Chapter Thirteen.
Eva.
Late autumn again. A year, a year fully since Imogen and her mother left The Fells that bright, chilly November morning. Since then their life had been a wandering and unsettled one. Mrs Wentworth’s dreams of a modest season in London had not been realised, for Imogen had shrunk from anything and everything of the kind. So, having disposed of their house at Eastbourne, they had travelled about aimlessly enough, the one guiding influence the girl’s fancy for the time being. For Mrs Wentworth had entirely, as the French say, “effaced herself” for her child. And in this there was a strong element of not altogether undeserved self-reproach, as well as of adoring maternal devotion.
Of course it had not been wisely done, but she was not a “wise” person. And the very unwisdom of her devotion should have touched a nature essentially generous as was Imogen’s. It did so from time to time, but not lastingly; only adding, therefore, to the poor girl’s restlessness and irritability, new and perplexing developments in her character.
They had been abroad for some months, and were now, when we meet them again, hesitating as to their winter destination. For once, there had been a diversity of opinion; that is to say, for once, Mrs Wentworth had expressed a wish, and Imogen had dissented from it. That this had not already occurred was no thanks to the latter, as with the spirit of contradiction fast becoming chronic in the formerly sweet-tempered and still gentle girl, it is much to be doubted if she would not have opposed any distinct suggestion. But hitherto every proposal had emanated from herself. That her mother had at last made one was due to the influence of Mrs Hume, Imogen’s sensible though not peculiarly refined godmother, who had of necessity been taken to a certain extent into the Wentworths’ confidence.