“But for your dear sister’s sake! Oh, Mary, my love, for Winnie’s sake!” said Aunt Agatha; and Mary yielded, though she saw no benefit in it. It was her part to go back into the drawing-room, and make the best of Winnie’s resistance, and convey the invitation to this unlooked-for guest, while Aunt Agatha looked after the dinner, and impressed upon Peggy that perhaps Major Percival might not be able to stay long; and was it not sad that the very day her husband came to see her, Mrs. Percival should have such a very bad headache? “She is lying down, poor dear, in hopes of being able to sit up a little in the evening,” said the anxious but innocent deceiver—doubly innocent since she deceived nobody, not even the housemaid, far less Peggy. As for Major Percival, he was angry and excited, as Winnie was, but not to an equal extent. He did not believe in his wife’s resistance. He sat down in the familiar room, and expected every moment to see Winnie rush down in her impulsive way, and throw herself into his arms. Their struggles had not terminated in this satisfactory way of late, but still she had gone very far in leaving him, and he had gone very far in condescending to come to seek her; and there seemed no reason why the monster quarrel should not end in a monster reconciliation, and all go on as before.
But it was bad policy to leave him with Mary. The old instinctive dislike that had existed between them from the first woke up again unawares. Mrs. Ochterlony could not conceal the fact that she took no pleasure in his society, and had no faith in him. She stayed in the room because she could not help it, but she did not pretend to be cordial. When he addressed himself to Will, and took the boy into his confidence, and spoke to him as to another man of the world, he could see, and was pleased to see, the contraction in Mary’s forehead. In this one point she was afraid of him, or at least he thought so. Winnie stayed upstairs with the door locked, watching to see him go away; and Hugh, to whom Winnie had been perhaps more confidential than to any one else in the house, went out and in, in displeasure ill-concealed, avoiding all intercourse with the stranger. And Mary sat on thorns, bearing him unwilling company, and Nelly watched and marvelled. Poor Aunt Agatha all the time arranged her best silver, and filled the old-fashioned épergne with flowers, thinking she was doing the very best for her child, saving her reputation, and leaving the way open for a reconciliation between her and her husband, and utterly unconscious of any other harm that could befall.
When the dinner-hour arrived, however (which was five o’clock, an hour which Aunt Agatha thought a good medium between the early and the late), Major Percival’s brow was very cloudy. He had waited and listened, and Winnie had not come, and now, when they sat down at table, she was still invisible. “Does not my wife mean to favour us with her company?” he asked, insolently, incredulous after all that she could persevere so long, and expecting to hear that she was only “late as usual;” upon which Aunt Agatha looked at Mary with anxious beseeching eyes.
“My sister is not coming down to-day,” said Mary, with hesitation, “at least I believe——”
“Oh, my dear love, you know it is only because she has one of her bad headaches!” Aunt Agatha added, precipitately, with tears of entreaty in her eyes.
Percival looked at them both, and he thought he understood it all. It was Mary who was abetting her sister in her rebellion, encouraging her to defy him. It was she who was resisting Miss Seton’s well-meant efforts to bring them together. He saw it all as plain, or thought he saw it, as if he had heard her tactics determined upon. He had let her alone, and restrained his natural impulse to injure the woman he disliked, but now she had set herself in his way, and let her look to it. This dinner, which poor Aunt Agatha had brought about against everybody’s will, was as uncomfortable a meal as could be imagined. She was miserable herself, dreading every moment that he might burst out into a torrent of rage against Winnie before “the servants,” or that Winnie’s bell would ring violently and she would send a message—so rash and inconsiderate as she was—to know when Major Percival was going away. And nobody did anything to help her out of it. Mary sat at the foot of the table as stately as a queen, showing the guest only such attentions as were absolutely necessary. Hugh, except when he talked to Nelly, who sat beside him, was as disagreeable as a young man who particularly desires to be disagreeable and feels that his wishes have not been consulted, can be. And as for the guest himself, his countenance was black as night. It was a heavy price to pay for the gratification of saying to everybody that Winnie’s husband had come to see her, and had spent the day at the Cottage. But then Aunt Agatha had not the remotest idea that beyond the annoyance of the moment it possibly could do any harm.
It was dreadful to leave him with the boys after dinner, who probably—or at least Hugh—might not be so civil as was to be wished; but still more dreadful ten minutes after to hear Hugh’s voice with Nelly in the garden. Why had he left his guest?
“He left me,” said Hugh. “He went out under the verandah to smoke his cigar. I don’t deny I was very glad to get away.”
“But I am sure, Hugh, you are very fond of smoking cigars,” said Aunt Agatha, in her anxiety and fright.
“Not always,” Hugh answered, “nor under all circumstances.” And he laughed and coloured a little, and looked at Nelly by his side, who blushed too.