But if she did her duty towards the supposed instructions of Holy Writ—which she did not doubt could be found somewhere, as her mother was so positive about them—she might claim as a set-off the pleasure of reading the literary columns of the daily Press in the hope of coming on Titus's name. She did more reading in that year-and-a-half than she had done in all the rest of her life put together. And as she was not literate enough to skim, she had to plod; and plodding is slow work in the columns of a voluminous Sunday paper—the largest possible paper in the smallest possible type. But one does get a lot for one's penny, whether it's Lloyd's Weekly, or the Dispatch, or the People; and there's sure to be all the theatrical news and recent publications, whichever you take. So Marianne pored intently over one or the other, every Sunday afternoon, on the sofa; while her parent dipped into sermons, or ran her eye through the Prayer-book, now and then looking at the newspaper. Not, that is to say, in the mere cant sense of the phrase, but glaring at it wolfishly over her own more legible type, with a basilisk eye to slay the profane intruder. The presence of the unhallowed secular abomination in the house on the Lord's Day was a bone of contention between the mother and daughter; but the old lady had had to give in, and every Sunday afternoon saw strained relations in abeyance, and the tension of a skin-deep concord, that might or might not last until the children should be allowed down, and given the obnoxious thing to make boats of.
On this particular Sunday—the day following the events of last chapter—Marianne's attention seemed deeper and more prolonged than usual. She had found something that interested her. It was taxing her apprehension severely, and she had no one to go to for enlightenment. But it is not human to accept exasperation in silence, and Marianne saw a prospect of relief in putting her mother's uselessness as an informant on record. So she said, as though referring to a matter of course, "I suppose it's no use asking you what these Parliament things mean," and went on reading.
Few people admit complete ignorance in any department without a struggle. "Perhaps I know nothing about anything," said the old woman, snarling meekly. "Perhaps I know more than you choose to think I know. Now snap!" These last words claimed the position of a private reflection made by a person of rare self-restraint in a den of mad dogs. There was nothing unlike her mother in them, and Marianne left them unnoticed, and continued:
"I suppose you don't know what is meant by 'an amendment to remove from the Bill its retrospective character'?" For Marianne had got at the report of the sitting of the House of Lords of two days since; and though she had kept herself uninformed, intentionally, on the subject related to, still, when she saw it all in print, her curiosity took the bit in its teeth, and she read.
"It happens that you are entirely wrong, because it happens that that is just the one thing I do happen to know. But I shall not talk about it on this day." This resolution lasted quite three minutes, when the speaker resumed, under a kind of protest that the little she had to say wouldn't count. "You know perfectly well what Mr. Tillingfleet said in his last letter about this wicked Bill business."
"What did he say?"
"You know perfectly well"
"I do not."
The self-denying ordinance of Sabbath silence became too hard to keep. The old lady broke out, "You know perfectly well that Mr. Tillingfleet said that, if this Bill was given a retrospective character, you would have to be Mr. Challis's wife again, and live with him, whether you liked it or not."
"I don't recollect that he said any such thing. I don't believe he did."