Magdalen's visits can hardly have conduced to her own pleasure, so ungracious was her reception when she appeared, except only from Bessie, who was too tender-hearted to be unkind, unconciliatory to any one. Anthony, senior, regarded and spoke of his sister as an old and stupid harridan, and the younger Anthony took his tone from his father, and did not accord to his aunt the respect that was due to relationship and age.
Although one of her periodical visits to Hall usually brought on Magdalen a rebuff, yet she did not desist from them, partly because it satisfied her curiosity to see how matters fared in the old house, and partly, if not chiefly, because she gave herself in Tavistock considerable airs as the sister of the Squire of Hall, and she liked to appear to her neighbours as if on the best of terms with her kindred there.
Magdalen had never been pretty. Hers was one of those nondescript faces which Nature turns out when inventive faculty is exhausted, and she produces a being, much as a worn-out novelist writes a tale, because she is expected to be productive, though she has nothing but hackneyed features to produce. Or her face may be said to have resembled a modern hymn-tune that is made up of strains out of a score of older melodies muddled together, and void of individual character. Magdalen had, however, not a suspicion that her personal appearance was unattractive. If she had not been sought in marriage, that was due wholly to the inadequate manner in which she had been provided for by her father's will; he had, she held, sacrificed her to his ambition to make a rich man of Anthony.
She was a short, shapeless woman, with a muddy complexion and sandy hair, now turning grey, and therefore looking as if it were full of dust. Her eyes were faded, so were the lashes. She had bad teeth, and when she spoke she showed them a great deal more than was necessary. Any one conversing with her for the first time found nothing in her to notice except these teeth, and carried away from the interview no other recollection of her than one of—teeth.
She made a point of being well-dressed when she made her periodical visits to Hall, to show her consequence, and to let her brother see that she held herself in condition equal to his pretensions.
When she learned that her nephew and niece were not at Hall, but had gone to the moor for the day to watch the fires, and to endeavour to recover some colts that had been turned out on it by old Cleverdon, she expressed her satisfaction to her brother.
"It is as well, Tony," she said, "for I want to have a talk with you; I am thinking——"
"What? Talk first and think after? That is the usual way," said Cleverdon, rudely.
Magdalen tossed her chin. She did not think it prudent to notice and resent her brother's discourtesy. She was not likely to gain much by flattering or humouring him; but to quarrel with him was against her wishes.
"Really, Tony, I have your interests so much at heart——"