“We must go to bid them good-bye,” Sir Edward said. “We must not fail in any civility.”
“Do you call that civility? She will hate the sight of us. I should myself in her place,” Lady Penton cried.
But he had his way, as was to be expected. They drove to Penton in the new carriage, which Lady Penton could not enjoy for thinking how much it cost, behind that worthy and excellent pair of brown horses, more noted for their profound respectability and virtue than for appearance or speed, which Sir Edward had consented to buy with some mortification, but which his wife approved as a pair, without much knowledge of the points in which they were defective. He knew that Russell Penton set them down as a pair of screws at the first glance; but Lady Penton, who had never possessed a pair of horses before, was quite impervious to this, and appreciated the grandeur, though never without a pang at the cost. But the sight of the great drawing-room overwhelmed the visitor. The first coup d’œil of the beautiful, vast room, with its row of pillars, its vast stretches of carpets, its costly furniture, so stupefied her that the sight of Mrs. Russell Penton herself in her deep mourning, and that look of injured majesty of which she could not, with all her efforts, divest herself, failed to produce the effect which otherwise it must have had. Lady Penton had fully intended to take no notice, to banish if possible from her face all appearance of curiosity or of the natural investigation which a first visit to the house which was to be her own would naturally give rise to; but she could not quite conceal the startled dismay of her first glance—a sentiment which was more agreeable to the previous mistress of the house than any other would have been. It was not very amiable, perhaps, on the part of Mrs. Russell Penton, to be pleased that her successor should thus be overwhelmed by the weight of the inheritance—but perhaps it was natural enough.
It was not possible that the conversation should be otherwise than restrained and difficult. Russell Penton, as usual, threw himself into the breach. He entered into a lively description of their plans of travel.
“We both of us love the sunshine,” he said; “England is the noblest of countries, but she is far away from the center of warmth and light. There is no saying how far we may go southward before we come back.”
“But you were always fond of home, Alicia,” said (this being, of course, as all his companions remarked, the very last thing that ought to have occurred to him to say) the new proprietor of Penton.
“Home, I suspect,” she said, in her formal way, “is more where one chooses to make it than I have hitherto thought.” And then there was a pause.
“The weather will be quite delightful by this time in Italy, I suppose,” said Lady Penton, timidly. “I have never traveled at all; we have never had it in our power; but it seems as if it should always be fine there.”
“It is not, though. There is no invariable good weather,” said Russell Penton. “It generally turns out to be exceptional, and just as bad as what you have left, wherever you go.”
He had forgotten his little flourish of trumpets about the sunshine; and again they all sat silent, gazing at each other for a few terrible moments, asking each other on each side, Why did they come? and, Why did we come?