“To let Penton!” The cry burst from them all in every variation of tone, indignant, angry, astonished. To let—Penton! Penton, which had been the golden dream of fancy, the paradise of hope, the one thing which consoled everybody, from Mr. Penton down to Horry, for all that went amiss in life.
“Well?” said the mother, lifting her mild eyes, looking at them for a moment. “I have always thought so, but I would not say it, for what was the use? You all worship Penton, both you and the children. But I never was taken in by it. I have always seen that, however pleasant it might be, and beautiful and all that—and everybody’s prejudices in its favor—we never could keep it up.”
She turned round, having delivered her soul, and drew her basket toward her, in which were her needles and the worsted for her darning. She had settled exactly how these big holes were to be attacked, how the threads of the stocking went, and that it must be done in an oblique line to keep the shape. Without a little consideration beforehand, neither stockings can be mended nor anything else done. She had said her say, and no doubt, however it was settled, she would do her best, as well for Penton as for the stocking. And the others watched her without knowing they were watching her. She settled to her work with a little sigh of relief, glad to escape into a region where there could be no two opinions, where everything was straightforward. There was something in this which had a great effect upon the young ones, especially upon Walter, who was the most resistant, the most deeply and cruelly disappointed. There came upon him a great, a horrible consciousness that in all likelihood she was right.
Mr. Penton, as was natural, was not so much impressed. “All that,” he said, with a little wave of his hand, “is a truism.” He paused, then repeated it again with a sense that he had got hold of a new and impressive word. “It is a truism,” he said. “Everybody was aware from the beginning that to keep up Penton as it has been kept up would be impossible. My uncle and Alicia have made a toy of Penton. It would be really better, it would look more like the old house it is, if it were not cleaned up like that, shaven and shorn like a cockney villa. If I were a millionaire I should not choose to do it. So I don’t think very much of that argument.” Walter’s spirits rose as he followed eagerly his father’s utterance. But after a moment Mr. Penton continued, “There is no doubt, on the other side, that living would cost a great deal more than—more than perhaps we—have ever contemplated. There would be the furnishing, as your mother says—I had not thought of that.”
He made the children a sort of jury, before whom the pro and the con were to be set forth.
“It is beautifully furnished at present—every one says so, at least; that would be a great charge to begin with. And we might have a good deal to put up with in the confusion that would be made between the poor family and the rich. Your mother is quite right so far as that is concerned; what she doesn’t take into consideration is the family feeling—the traditions, the sense that it is ours, and that nobody can have any right to it except ourselves. Alicia, to be sure, is a Penton too, and, as she says, she has been born there, and never has known any other home. But still, as a matter of fact, she has entered another family. It would be an alienation. It has always gone in the male line. To give it up would be—would be—”
“Father,” said Walter, “you couldn’t think of it. It would be like tearing body and soul asunder. Give up Penton! I think I would rather die.”
“What has dying to do with it?” cried the father, impatiently. And then he sat silent for a moment, staring into the fire and twiddling his thumbs, unconscious of what he was doing. The young ones watched him anxiously, feeling with a certain awe that their fate was being decided, but that this question was too immense for their interference. At length he got up slowly and pushed back his chair. “We’ll sleep upon it,” he said.
CHAPTER X.
AN ADVENTURE.
But Walter, for his part, could not sleep upon it. He followed his father out of the room, he scarcely knew with what intention; perhaps with a hope of further discussion, of being able to open his own mind, of convincing the wavering mind of Mr. Penton. It seemed to him that he could set it all forth so clearly if only the permission were given him. But Mr. Penton gave his son no invitation to accompany him. He asked where Walter was going, what he meant to do moving about at that hour of the night.