“Is there any likelihood of that?” Edgar asked with a great start, which made the light waggon they were driving in, swerve.
“Hallo! steady!” cried Mr. Tottenham, “likelihood of it? I don’t know. She wished it at one time. You see, Earnshaw, we don’t sufficiently understand, seeing how different they are, how much alike women are to ourselves. I suppose there comes a time in a girl’s life, as well as in a man’s, when she wants to be herself, and not merely her father’s daughter. You may say she should marry in that case; but supposing she doesn’t want to marry, or, put the case, can’t marry as she would wish? What can she do? I think myself they overdo the devotional part; but a Sisterhood means occupation, a kind of independence, a position of her own—and at the same time protection from all the folly we talk about strong-minded women.”
“But does it mean all this?” said Edgar surprised, “that is not the ordinary view?”
“My dear fellow, the ordinary view is all nonsense. I say it’s protection against idiotic talk. The last thing anyone thinks of is to bring forward the strong-minded abuse in respect to a Sisterhood. But look here; I know of one, where quite quietly, without any fuss, there’s the Sister Doctor in full practice, looking after as many children as would fill a good-sized village. She’s never laughed at and called Dr. Mary, M.D.; and there’s the Sister Head-Master, with no Governing Body to make her life miserable. They don’t put forward that view of the subject. Possibly, for human nature is very queer, they think only of the sacrifice, &c.; but I don’t wonder, for my part, that it’s a great temptation to a woman. Gussy Thornleigh is twenty-five, too old to be only her mother’s shadow; and if nothing else that she likes comes in her way—”
Mr. Tottenham made a pause. Did he mean anything by that pause? Poor Edgar, who felt himself to be a sport to all the wild imaginations that can torture a man, sat silent, and felt the blood boiling in his veins and his heart leaping in his throat. It was as well that his companion stopped talking, for he could not have heard any voice but that of his own nerves and pulses all throbbing and thrilling. Heaven and earth! might it be possible that this should come about, while he, a man, able and willing to work, to slave, to turn head and hands to any occupation on the earth, should be hanging on helpless, unable to interfere? And yet he had but this moment told Gussy’s mother that she need not fear him! A strong impulse came upon him to spring down from the waggon and walk back to town and tell Lady Augusta to fear everything, that he would never rest nor let her rest till he won her daughter back to a more smiling life. Alas, of all follies what could be so foolish? he, the tutor, the dependent, without power to help either himself or her. The waggon rushed along the dark country road, making a little circle of light round its lamps, while the sound of the horses’ feet, and the roll of the wheels, enveloped them in a circle of sound, separating, as it were, this moving speck of light and motion from all the inanimate world. It would have been as easy to change that dark indifferent sphere suddenly into the wide and soft sympathy of a summer evening, as for Edgar, at this period of his life, to have attempted from this hopeless abstraction, in which he was carried along by others, to have interfered with another existence and turned its course aside. Not now—if ever, not yet—and, ah, when, if ever? It was a long time before he was able to speak at all, and his companion, who thus wittingly or unwittingly, threw such firebrands of thought into his disturbed mind was silent too, either respectful of Edgar’s feelings, or totally unconscious of them, he could not tell which.
“May I ask,” he inquired, after a long pause, clearing his throat, which was parched and dry, “what was meant by ‘Helena’s sad business?’ What has become of that Miss Thornleigh?”
“What has become of her is, that she’s married,” said Mr. Tottenham. “A very natural thing, though Helena, I believe, was a little ashamed of herself for giving into it. She married a man who has nothing but his brains to recommend him—no family to speak of, and no money, which, between ourselves, is a good deal worse. He is a professor, and a critic, and that sort of thing—too clever for me, but he suits her better than anyone I know. Helena is a totally different sort of person, sure to have her own way, whatever she takes into her head. Now Gussy, on the contrary——”
“Mr. Tottenham,” said Edgar, hoarsely, “for God’s sake, don’t say any more.”
“Ah!” said the other; and then he added, “I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon,” and flourished his whip in the air by way of a diversion. This manœuvre was so successful that the party had quite enough to think of to keep their seats, and their heads cool in case of an accident, as the spirited beasts plunged and dashed along the remaining bit of way. “That was as near a spill as I remember,” Mr. Tottenham said, as he threw the reins to the groom, when, after a tearing gallop up the avenue, the bays drew up at the door. He was flushed with the excitement and the struggle; and whether he had put Edgar to the torture in ignorance, or with any occult meaning, the sufferer could not discover. The momentary gleam of danger at the end had however done even Edgar good.
Lady Mary met them at dinner, smiling and pretty, ready to lend an ear to anything interesting that might be said, but full of her own projects as when they left her. She had carried out her plans with the business-like despatch which women so often excel in, and Edgar, whose mind had been so remorselessly stirred and agitated all day, found himself quite established as an active coadjutor in her great scheme at night.