The confidence which Marjory thus injudiciously, and on the impulse of the moment, shared with her uncle, was premature and indiscreet. No doubt it is hard to shut up a discovery of importance in one’s own bosom, and for a woman accustomed to all the continual intercourse and confidence of domestic life, to carry on a series of secret operations, is almost impossible; but the relief afforded was not so great as she had hoped. Mr. Charles could think of nothing else. He questioned and cross-questioned—who was Isabell? what were her people? where did they come from? how did Marjory know that they were respectable or trustworthy? how had she made acquaintance with them? To these questions she could give but scanty answers. Mr. Charles groaned when he heard of the irregular marriage. He shook his head till it ached with the movement.
“In all our records,” he said, in piteous tones, “I do not believe, May, that such a scandal has ever happened before. We’ve had none but virtuous women, my dear, none but good women, and clever women, May. It has always been our strong point. God bless us! and all to end in two fools like these young women at Pitcomlie, and a—— I humbly beg your pardon, my dear.”
“Uncle, this girl, who is dying, is like a saint.”
Once more Mr. Charles shook his head.
“I never heard yet of a saint that made an irregular marriage,” he said, “and as for her dying, my dear, if she’s really the heir’s mother, far the best thing she can do will be to die. A woman like that would be a dreadful sort of apparition at Pitcomlie. Whatever her people are, they cannot be in a position that would do the infant any credit. Lord preserve us! am I speaking of my own family?” cried Mr. Charles, feeling the wound go to his heart. “One a fool, and the other a—— Poor fellows, they’ve gone to their account—but there must have been some imperfection in those two lads, my dear, though they were your brothers; there must have been some imperfection. They say the wife a man chooses is the best revelation of his own character. You need not be angry, my dear; I am saying nothing against the poor boys.”
“Let us say nothing at all about it, uncle, till we know.”
“That’s easy said, that’s easy said, my dear. You may be able to put it out of your mind, but I cannot. The whole future of the family! Perhaps I had better see the girl, May, and examine her myself?”
“Uncle, she is ill.”
“I’ll do her no harm, my dear,” said Uncle Charles; and he resumed the subject in the morning, to Marjory’s dread. He had been brought up to the law, and he had some faith, as was natural, in his own knowledge. “If I once hear her story, I will see at once what is to be made of it,” he said; and as he had been further stimulated by another letter about the proceedings, or intended proceedings of Miss Bassett, the old man was much in earnest. It was the agent of the Bank in Pitcomlie who had sent him this information, and Mr. Charles had come down to breakfast with his hair standing on end, at all the audacities that were contemplated. “I know no precedent—no precedent,” he said, with his forehead puckered into a hundred lines. “They say women are conservatives; but I never heard of rebels like them, when they take that lawless turn. A man would think twice before he would meddle with an old-established house; he would think that the past might have its rights, no to speak of the future.”
“I don’t think folly is of either sex,” said Marjory, who was not fond of hearing her own side assailed; “though Verna is not a fool——”