I said I had no time to lose, and asked him to meet me at my aunt’s in the afternoon. I much feared that Arthur would get away before I was ready to talk to him.
Delaney had received my last letter and had answered it, but whither his reply went I cannot say. At all events, he had lingered here to find me. When we met at my Aunt Gainor’s that afternoon, it took but a few minutes to make clear to her the sad tale of Arthur’s visit to the jail.
My friend had no sooner done than the old lady rose, and began as usual to walk about, saying: “You will excuse me; I must think of this. Talk to Hugh.” What there was to think of I could not see.
Delaney looked on amused, and he and I chatted. She was evidently much disturbed, and while the captain and I talked, I saw her move a chair, and pick up and set down some china beast. At last she said: “Come in at nine to-night, Mr. Delaney. I want to think this over. I have still much I desire to ask you. It deeply concerns my nephew in a way I cannot now explain to you. May I have the privilege of another half-hour?”
Delaney bowed.
“Of course I do not want you, Hugh,” she added.
When you have known a woman as long as I had known my aunt, there are sometimes hints or warnings in her most casual expressions. When my aunt said I was not wanted that evening I knew at once that she was meditating something out of the common, but just what, I did not think to ask myself. My Aunt Gainor was all her life fond of what she called inventing chances, a fine phrase, of which she was proud. In fact, this sturdy old spinster liked to interfere authoritatively in the affairs of men and women, and believed that for this she had a special talent, which in fact she discovered no inclination to bury; but what now she had in hand to do I knew not.
She was deeply grieved for a season to find that her plans went awry, or that men were disappointed, or that women would not go her way. “When she hurts you,” said Mrs. Ferguson, “she is like a child, and has a dozen silly devices for doctoring your wounds. We have fought many times, and made up as often. There is no real malice in her,” which was true.
Jack Warder once remarked in his lively way that Mistress Wynne had a richly coloured character. I fear it may have looked at times very black to some and very rose-tinted to others, but assuredly never gray in its tones, nor other than positive.
With me she took all manner of liberties, and with Darthea too, and if ever she were in doubt if it were well to meddle in our affairs I know not. A vast richness of human love and an urgent desire of rule lay underneath the life she showed the outer world of quadrille and dinners and gossip.