Lady Penton had sprung to her feet, and came toward him with her hands clasped, as if praying for mercy. “Oh! Edward, no, no, no; don’t say all that, Edward,” she cried.
“What am I to say? It’s all true so far as I know. You can ask Martha about her. Perhaps that’s the best way; trust one woman to tell you the worst that’s to be said of another. Yes, I think on the whole that’s the best way. Have her up and let us hear—”
“What!” said Lady Penton, “call up Martha, and question her about a thing that Walter’s mixed up in? let her know that we are in trouble about our boy? make her talk about—about that sort of thing—before you? I don’t know what sort of a woman you take me for, Edward. At all events, that is not what you would ever get me to do.”
He stared at her, only partially understanding—perhaps indeed not understanding at all, but feeling an obstacle vaguely shape itself in his path. “Annie,” he said, “there’s no room for sentiment here; whatever the girl is, she’s not a person that should ever have come in Walter’s way.”
Upon which his mother, without any warning, began suddenly to cry, a thing which was still more confusing to her husband; exclaiming by intervals, “Oh! my Wat!” “Oh! my poor boy! What did you say to him? You must have been harsh, Edward; oh, you must have been harsh; and to think he should have rushed out without any breakfast!” Lady Penton sobbed and cried.
It was not very long, however, before the mistress of the house, returning to the routine of domestic matters and with no trace of tears about her, though there was a new and unaccustomed look of anxiety in her eyes, found Martha in the pantry, where she was cleaning the silver, and lingered to give her a few orders, especially in respect to the plate. Lady Penton pointed out to her that she was using too much plate-powder, that she was not sufficiently careful with the chasings and the raised silver of the edges, with various other important pieces of advice, which Martha took with some courtesies but not much satisfaction. Lady Penton then made several remarks about the crystal which it would be impertinent to quote; and then she smoothed matters by asking Martha how her mother was. “I have not seen her for some time; I suppose she doesn’t go out in this cold weather, which is good for no one,” said Lady Penton.
“Oh, my lady, there’s worse things than the bad weather,” cried Martha. She was her father’s child, and apt, like him, to moralize.
“That is very true: but the bad weather is at the bottom of a great deal of rheumatism and bronchitis as well as many other things.”
“Yes, my lady, but there’s things as you can’t have the doctor to, and them’s the worst of all.”
“I hope none of your brothers are a trouble to her, Martha; I thought they were all doing so well?”