“Winnie,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, taking her hands, “I know the world better than you do—perhaps even better than Uncle Penrose, so far as a woman is concerned. I don’t care if you are rich or poor, but I want you to be happy. It will not do very well without trying. I will not say a word about him, for you have set your heart on him, and that must be enough. And some women can do everything for the people they love. I think, perhaps, you could, if you were to give your heart to it, and try.”
It was not the kind of address Winnie had expected, and she struggled against it, trying hard to resist the involuntary softening. But after all nature was yet in her, and she could not but feel that what Mary was saying came from her heart.
“I don’t see why you should be so serious,” she said; “but I am sure it is kind of you, Mary. I—I don’t know if I could do—what you say; but whatever I can do I will for Edward!” she added hastily, with a warmth and eagerness which brought the colour to her cheek and the light to her eye; and then the two sisters kissed each other as they had never done before, and Winnie knelt down by Mary’s knee, and the two held each other’s hands, and clung together, as it was natural they should, in that confidence of nature which is closer than any other except that between mother and daughter—the fellow-feeling of sisters, destined to the same experience, one of whom has gone far in advance, and turning back can trace, step by step, in her own memory, the path the other has to go.
“Don’t mistrust me, Winnie,” said Mrs. Ochterlony. “I have had a little to bear, though I have been very happy, and I could tell you many things—though I will not, just now; but, Winnie dear, what I want is, that you should make up your mind to it; not to have everything you like, and live in a fairy tale, but to keep right, and to keep him right. If you will promise to think of this, and to take it bravely upon you, I will still hope that all may be well.”
Her look was so serious that for the first time Winnie’s heart forgave her. Neither jealousy, nor ill-temper, nor fear of evil report on her own side could have looked out of Mary’s eyes at her little sister with such a wistful longing gaze. Winnie was moved in spite of herself, and thrilled by the first pang of uncertainty that had yet touched her. If Mary had no motive but natural affection, was it then really a hideous gulf of horrible destruction, on the verge of which she was herself tripping so lightly? Something indefinable came over Winnie’s face as that thought moved her. Should it be so, what then? If it was to save him, if it was to perish with him, what did it matter? the only place in the world for her was by his side. She had made her choice, and there was no other choice for her, no alternative even should see the gulf as Curtius did, and leap conscious into it in the eye of day. All this passed through her mind in a moment, as she knelt by Mary’s side holding her hands—and came out so on her face that Mary could read something like it in the sudden changing of the fair features and expansion of the eyes. It was as if the soul had been startled, and sprang up to those fair windows, to look out upon the approaching danger, making the spectator careless of their beauty, out of regard to the nobler thing that used them for the moment. Then Winnie rose up suddenly, and gave her sister a hearty kiss, and threw off her sudden gravity as if it had been a cloud.
“Enough of that,” she said; “I will try and be good, and so I think will—we all. And Mary, don’t look so serious. I mean to be happy, at least as long as I can,” cried Winnie. She was the same Winnie again—gay, bold, and careless, before five minutes had passed; and Mary had said her say, and there was now no more to add. Nothing could change the destiny which the thoughtless young creature had laid out for herself. If she could have foreseen the distinctest wretchedness it would have been all the same. She was ready to take the plunge even into the gulf—and nothing that could be said or done could change it now.
In the meantime, Mr. Penrose had gone up to the Hall to talk it over with Sir Edward, and was explaining his views with a distinctness which was not much more agreeable in the Hall than it had been in the Cottage. “I cannot let it go on unless some provision can be made,” he said. “Winnie is very handsome, and you must all see she might have done a great deal better. If I had her over in Liverpool, as I have several times thought of doing, I warrant you the settlements would have been of a different description. She might have married anybody, such a girl as that,” continued Mr. Penrose, in a regretful business way. It was so much capital lost that might have brought in a much greater profit; and though he had no personal interest in it, it vexed him to see people throwing their chances away.
“That may be, but it is Edward Percival she chooses to marry, and nobody else,” said Sir Edward testily; “and she is not a girl to do as you seem to think, exactly as she is told.”
“We should have seen about that,” said Mr. Penrose; “but in the meantime, he has his pay and she has a hundred a year. If Mrs. Percival will settle three hundred on him, and you, perhaps, two——”
“I, two!” cried Sir Edward, with sudden terror; “why should I settle two? You might as well tell me to retire from the Hall, and leave them my house. And pray, Mr. Penrose, when you are so liberal for other people, what do you mean to give yourself?”