It was, perhaps, not generous of Mrs. Penton to indulge in these regrets, but it was expecting from her something more than humanity is capable of, to suppose that she would instantly turn into a consoler, and forget that she had ever prophesied woe. That is very well for an ideal heroine, a sweet young wife who is of the order of the embodied angel. But Mrs. Penton was the mother of a large family, and she had other things to think of than merely keeping her husband in a tranquillity which perhaps he did not desire. When there are so many interests involved, it is not easy for a woman to behave in this angelic way. Perhaps her husband did not expect it from her. He stood leaning his back upon the mantel-piece with a countenance which had relapsed into its usual half-resentful quiet. He was not angry nor surprised, nor did he look as if he were paying much attention. It gave him a little time to collect his own thoughts while she got her little plaint and irrestrainable reflections over. Sympathy is in this as much as in other more demonstrative ways. If she had got over it in a moment without any expression of feeling, he would probably have been shocked, and felt that nothing mattered to her; but he got calm, while she, too, had her little grumble and complaint against fate.
“The thing,” he said, “now, is to think what we must do. I sha’n’t hurry the Russell Pentons; they can take their time; and in the meantime we must look about us. The thing is there will be no rents coming in till Lady-day, and it’s only Christmas. I never thought I should have seen it in this light. To succeed to Penton seemed always the thing to look forward to. It is you that have put it in this light.”
“What other light could I put it in, Edward? Penton is very different from this, and we have never been much at our ease here. I was always frightened for what would happen when you began to realize—But, dear me,” she added, “what is the use of talking? We must just make the best of it. Nothing is quite so bad as it seems likely to be. With prudence and taking care, perhaps, after all, we may do—”
“Do!” he said, “to go to Penton, the great house of the family, and to be the head of the family, and to have nothing better before one than a hope that we shall be able to do—” And then there was a pause between this careful and troubled pair; and of all things in the world, any stranger who had seen them, would have imagined last of all that they had succeeded to a great inheritance, and that the man at least had attained to what had been his hope and dream for years.
“Well,” she said at last, “I can’t do you any good, Edward, and the bell for dinner will be ringing directly. You must have had an agitating morning, and I dare say eat no breakfast, and you will be the better for your dinner. I suppose we ought to draw down all the blinds.”
“Why should you draw down the blinds? There is not too much light.”
“I should not like,” said Mrs. Penton, “to be wanting in any mark of respect. And after all, Sir Walter was your nearest relation, and you are his successor, so that it is really a death in the family.”
She walked to the window as she spoke, and began to draw down the blind. He followed her hastily, and stopped her with an impatient hand.
“My windows look into the garden. Who is coming into the garden to see whether we pay respect or not? I won’t have it anywhere. On the funeral day if you please, but no more. I won’t have it!” It did him a little good to have an object for his irritation. She turned round upon him with some surprise, feeling the imperative grasp of his hand upon her arm. Perhaps that close encounter and her startled look affected him; perhaps only the disturbed state in which he was, with all emotions close to the surface. He put his other hand upon her further shoulder, and held her for a moment, looking at her. “My dear,” he said, “do you know you’re Lady Penton now?”
She gave him another look, full of surprise and almost consternation.