‘Aunt Cherry!’ cried Cara, with the colour rushing suddenly to her face as it had a way of doing when she was moved: and she half-turned and cast a glance at Edward of wonder and sudden dismay. As for him, he had not leisure to feel the strange delight of this confidential glance, so entirely struck dumb was he with the appalling news. He grew pale as Cara grew red, and felt as if all the blood was ebbing out of his heart.
‘It is not that we will not be happy—oh! happy beyond measure—to have you again, my darling,’ said Miss Cherry; ‘but I would be false if I did not say what a disappointment it is to think, after all our hopes for my poor James, that he is not able to settle down in his own house. I can’t tell you what a disappointment it is. So far as we are concerned—Aunt Charity and I—it will be new life to us to have you home. But we did not wish to be selfish, to think of our own comfort, and it will be such a shock to dear Aunt Charity. She always said, as you know, Cara, what a comfort it was to think that the only man of the family was at hand, whatever happened. I don’t know how I am to break it to her, and in her weak state of health.’
‘But, Aunt Cherry—what does it mean?—What has made him change?—Are you sure you are not mistaken? Don’t you think you have misunderstood? It does not seem possible. Are you quite, quite certain?’
‘I am not so silly as you think me, my dear,’ said Miss Cherry, half offended, ‘I know the meaning of words. Yes, there are reasons. He is not so happy as he thought he might be. No, my darling, I don’t think you are to blame. He does not blame you; he only says it is not possible. If you could get him to move perhaps to another house—but not here: he could not possibly stay here.’
Now it was Cara’s turn to grow pale and Edward’s to grow red. She looked at him again with a wondering, questioning glance, but he did not reply.
‘I hope it has nothing to do with the folly of any busybody—making mischief between him and his friends,’ Edward said, with indignation. ‘Mr. Beresford ought to have some philosophy—he ought not to mind.’
‘Ah—he might not mind for himself—but when others are concerned,’ said Miss Cherry, mysteriously. ‘But so it is, my dear, Whether we approve or not. I meant to have gone back to poor dear Aunt Charity, but now I am to stay on to shut up the house and settle everything. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good,’ she added, with a smile; ‘we shall have you back again, Cara; and that will be like the spring to the flowers. We gave you up without grumbling—but it is not in nature that we should not be glad to have you back.’
This gentle piece of self-congratulation was all, however, that was said. Cara had grown quite still and pale. She turned her eyes to Edward once more, and looked at him with a sort of woeful appeal that made his heart beat. ‘This is dreadful news,’ he said, with his voice trembling; and then, true to his brotherly generosity, added as steadily as he could, ‘It will be dreadful news for poor Oswald.’ Cara clasped her hands together in a kind of mute prayer.
‘Do you think nothing can be done?’ she said.
Now it was Miss Cherry’s turn to feel a little, a very little wounded. ‘You have soon forgotten your old home,’ she said. ‘I thought, though you might be sorry, you would be glad too—to get home.’