“You had better send the children off to play, and never mind if everything is cold. It’s my own fault; it’s the fault of circumstances.” He seated himself at table as he spoke and helped himself to some of the cold bacon, which was not appetizing; nor had he much appetite. His face was full of care as he swallowed his cup of tea, keeping an eye uneasily upon the children as they were gradually coaxed and led and pushed away. When the door closed upon the last of them there was still a moment of silence. Sir Edward trifled with his cold bacon, he crumbled his roll, he swallowed his tea in large abstract gulps; but said nothing, his mind being so full, yet so confused and out of gear. And it was not till his wife repeated her question, this time with a tone of anxiety, that he replied,

“What is it? It’s something that has taken me all aback, as you see. It’s—something about a woman.”

“Something about a woman!” she repeated with the utmost astonishment; but had he said “something about a cabbage,” Lady Penton could not have been less alarmed.

“Living at old Crockford’s,” he went on. “I don’t understand the story. The old man talked and talked, and Walter—”

“What has Walter to do with it, Edward? He has gone out without any breakfast. Have you sent him to see after anything? Where has he gone?”

“Gone! is he gone? Why, he’s gone to her, I suppose; that’s the amusing thing. He says ‘there’s things one man doesn’t tell to another;’ one man!—that’s how Wat speaks to me, Annie.” He gave a laugh which was far from joyful. “I think the boy’s gone off his head.”

“Wat says—I don’t know what you mean, Edward.”

“No more do I; it’s past understanding. It’s the sort of thing people talk of, but I never thought it would come in our way. It’s an entanglement with some girl in the village. Don’t you know what that means?”

“Edward!” cried the mother; and a flash of color like a flame passed over her face. She was confounded, and unable to make any comment even in her thoughts.

“You can’t take it in, and I don’t wonder; neither can I, that know more of the world than you can do. Our Wat, that has never seemed anything but a school-boy! Why, Horry will be saying presently, ‘There are some things that one man doesn’t tell to—’ I don’t know what the world is coming to,” he cried, sharply. When Sir Edward himself was taken by surprise he felt by instinct that something sudden and unexpected must have occurred to the world.

Lady Penton was perhaps still more taken by surprise than her husband. But she did not make any observations against the world. The sudden flush faded from her face as she sat opposite to him, her astonished eyes still fixed upon him, her hands crossed in her lap. But a whole panorama instantly revealed itself before her mind. How could she have been so blind? Walter had been absent continually, whenever he could get an opportunity of stealing away. The reading in the evening, and a hundred little kindly offices which he had been in the habit of performing for his sisters, and with them, had all dropped, as she suddenly perceived. For weeks past he had been with them very little, taking little interest in the small family events, abstracted and dreamy, wrapped in a world of his own. She saw it all now as by a sudden flash of enlightenment. “Some things a man doesn’t tell to another man”—oh, no, not even to another woman, not to his mother! How strange, bewildering, full of confusion, and yet somehow how natural! This was not her husband’s point of view. To him it was monstrous, a thing that never used to happen, an instance of the decay and degradation of the world. Lady Penton, though the most innocent of women, did not feel this. To her, with a curious burst of understanding, as if a new world had opened at her feet, it seemed natural, something which she ought to have expected, something that expanded and widened out her own world of consciousness. Walter, then, her boy, loved somebody. It brought a renewed, fainter flush to her cheek, and a wonderfully tender light to her eyes. She thought of that first, before it occurred to her to think (all being the work of a moment) who it was who had opened this new chapter in her boy’s life, and made Walter a man, the equal of his father. Oh, that he should have become the equal of his father, a man, loving, drawing to himself the life of another, he who was only a boy! This wonder, though it might have an acute touch in it, had also a curious sweetness. For Lady Penton was not the hungering jealous mother of one child, but the soft expansive parent of many, and never had shut herself up in the hope of retaining them altogether for her own.

“It is very strange,” she said, after a pause, “it takes a good time to accustom one’s self to such an idea” (which was not the case, for she had done it in the flash of a moment). “It would be quite nice—and agreeable,” she added, with some timidity, “if it was a—right person; but did you say, Edward—what did you say?”

“Nice!” he cried, with an explosion like thunder, or so it seemed to his wife’s ears, a little nervous with all that had happened. “You can’t have listened to what I have been saying. I told you plainly enough. A girl that has been living at old Crockford’s, a girl out of the village—no, worse, much worse, sent down from London, to be out of some one’s way—”

Lady Penton had sprung to her feet, and came toward him with her hands clasped, as if praying for mercy. “Oh! Edward, no, no, no; don’t say all that, Edward,” she cried.

“What am I to say? It’s all true so far as I know. You can ask Martha about her. Perhaps that’s the best way; trust one woman to tell you the worst that’s to be said of another. Yes, I think on the whole that’s the best way. Have her up and let us hear—”

“What!” said Lady Penton, “call up Martha, and question her about a thing that Walter’s mixed up in? let her know that we are in trouble about our boy? make her talk about—about that sort of thing—before you? I don’t know what sort of a woman you take me for, Edward. At all events, that is not what you would ever get me to do.”

He stared at her, only partially understanding—perhaps indeed not understanding at all, but feeling an obstacle vaguely shape itself in his path. “Annie,” he said, “there’s no room for sentiment here; whatever the girl is, she’s not a person that should ever have come in Walter’s way.”

Upon which his mother, without any warning, began suddenly to cry, a thing which was still more confusing to her husband; exclaiming by intervals, “Oh! my Wat!” “Oh! my poor boy! What did you say to him? You must have been harsh, Edward; oh, you must have been harsh; and to think he should have rushed out without any breakfast!” Lady Penton sobbed and cried.

It was not very long, however, before the mistress of the house, returning to the routine of domestic matters and with no trace of tears about her, though there was a new and unaccustomed look of anxiety in her eyes, found Martha in the pantry, where she was cleaning the silver, and lingered to give her a few orders, especially in respect to the plate. Lady Penton pointed out to her that she was using too much plate-powder, that she was not sufficiently careful with the chasings and the raised silver of the edges, with various other important pieces of advice, which Martha took with some courtesies but not much satisfaction. Lady Penton then made several remarks about the crystal which it would be impertinent to quote; and then she smoothed matters by asking Martha how her mother was. “I have not seen her for some time; I suppose she doesn’t go out in this cold weather, which is good for no one,” said Lady Penton.

“Oh, my lady, there’s worse things than the bad weather,” cried Martha. She was her father’s child, and apt, like him, to moralize.

“That is very true: but the bad weather is at the bottom of a great deal of rheumatism and bronchitis as well as many other things.”

“Yes, my lady, but there’s things as you can’t have the doctor to, and them’s the worst of all.”

“I hope none of your brothers are a trouble to her, Martha; I thought they were all doing so well?”

“Oh, it ain’t none of the boys, my lady. It’s one as is nothing to us, not a blood relation at all. Father was telling master—or at least he come up a purpose to tell master, but I begged him not,” said the young woman, rubbing with redoubled energy. “I said, ‘father, what’s the good?’”

“You are very right there, Martha; Sir Edward is only annoyed with complaints from the village; he can’t do anything. It is much better in such a case to come to me.”

“Yes, my lady; I didn’t want them to trouble you neither. I told ’em her ladyship had a deal to think of. You see, my lady, mother’s deaf, and things might go on—oh, they might go on to any length afore she’d hear.”

“I know she is deaf, poor thing,” Lady Penton said.

“That was why I didn’t want her to take a lodger at all, my lady. But Emmy’s not a lodger after all. She’s a kind of relation. She’s Uncle Sam’s wife’s daughter, and she didn’t look like one as would give trouble. She’s just as nice spoken as any one could be, and said she was to help mother; and so she does, and always kind. Whatever father says she’s always been kind—and that handy, turning an old gown to look like new, and telling you how things is worn, and all what you can see in the shops, and as good-natured with it all—”

“Of whom are you speaking, Martha? Emmy, did you say? who is Emmy? I have never heard of her before.”

“She’s the young woman, my lady; oh! she’s the one—she’s the young person, she’s—it was her as father came to speak of, and wouldn’t hold his tongue or listen to me.”

“What is there to say about her? Sir Edward, I am afraid, did not understand. He has a great many things to think of. It would have been much better if your father had come to me. Who is she, and what has she done?”

Lady Penton spoke with a calm and composure that was almost too complete; but Martha was absorbed in her own distress and suspected nothing of this.

“Please, my lady,” she cried, with a courtesy, “she have done nothing. She’s dreadful taking, that’s all. When she gets talking, you could just stop there forever. It’s a great waste of time when you’ve a deal to do, but it ain’t no fault of hers. She makes you laugh, and she makes you cry, and though she don’t give herself no airs, she can talk as nice as any of the quality, as if she was every bit a lady—and the next moment the same as mother or like me.”

“She must be very clever,” said Lady Penton. “Is she pretty, too?”

“I don’t know as I should have taken no notice of her looks but for other folks a-talking of them,” said Martha, “I don’t know as I sees her any different from other folks; but as for good nature and making things pleasant, there ain’t none like her high nor low.”

“And what is she doing here? and why did your father come to Sir Edward about her?” said Lady Penton, in her magisterial calm.

“Oh, my lady, you’ll not be pleased; I’d rather not tell you. When father does notice a thing he’s that suspicious! I’d rather not—oh, I’d rather not!”

“This is nonsense, Martha—you had much better tell me. What has this girl been doing that Sir Edward ought to know?”

Martha twisted her fingers together in overwhelming embarrassment.

“Oh, my lady, don’t ask me! I could not bear to tell you—and you’d not be pleased.”

“What have I to do with it, my good girl?” said Walter’s mother, as steadily as if she had been made of marble; and then she added, “but after hearing so much I must know. You had better tell me. I may perhaps be of use to her, poor thing!”

“Oh, my lady, Sir Edward’ll tell you. Oh, what have I got to do pushing into it! Oh, if you’re that kind, my lady, and not angry!” Here Martha paused, and took a supreme resolution. “It’s all father’s doing, though I say it as shouldn’t. He thinks as Mr. Walter—oh, my lady, Mr. Walter’s like your ladyship—he’s that civil and kind!”

“I am glad you think so, Martha. Gentlemen are very different from us; they don’t think of things that come into every woman’s mind. I shall be angry, indeed, if you keep me standing asking questions. What has all this to do with my son?”

“It’s all father’s ways of thinking. There’s nothing in it—not a thing to talk about. It’s just this—as Mr. Walter has seen Emmy a time or two at the cottage door. And he’s said a civil word. And Emmy is one as likes to talk to gentlefolks, being more like them in herself than the likes of us. And so—and so—father’s taken things into his head—as he did, my lady,” cried Martha, with a blush and a sudden change of tone, “about John Baker and me.”

“About John Baker and you?”

“Yes, my lady,” cried Martha, very red; “and there’s no more truth in it the one nor the other. Can’t a girl say a word but it’s brought up against her, like as it was a sin? or give a civil answer but it’s said as she’s keeping company? It ain’t neither just nor right. It’s as unkind as can be. It’s just miserable livin’ where there’s naught but folks suspecting of you all round.”

“Martha, is that how your father treated John Baker and you? I think you’re hard upon your father. He behaved very well about that, and you know you were yourself to blame. This that you tell me is all nonsense, to be sure. I will speak to Mr. Walter.” She paused a little, and then asked, “This Emmy that you tell me of—is she a nice girl?”

“Oh, yes, my lady.”

“Is she one that gives a civil answer, as you say, whoever talks to her?”

“Oh, yes, my lady.”

“Not particularly to young men?”

“Oh, no, my lady,” said Martha, with vehemence, her countenance flaming red, like the afternoon sun.

“If that is all true,” said Lady Penton, “you may be sure she shall have a friend in me. But I hope it is all true.”

“As sure as—oh, as sure as the catechism or the prayer-book! Oh, my lady, as sure as I’m speaking; and I wouldn’t deceive your ladyship—no, I wouldn’t deceive you, not for nothing in the world!”

“Except in respect to John Baker,” said Lady Penton, with a smile; at which Martha burst out crying over the silver that she had been cleaning, and made her plate-powder no better than a puddle of reddish mud.

This led Lady Penton, to make a few more observations on the subject with which she had begun the conversation; and then she went away. But if Martha was left weeping her mistress did not carry a light heart out of the pantry, where she had got so much information. The picture of the village siren was not calculated to reassure a mother. She had thought at first that Martha was an enemy, and ready to give the worst version of the story; and then it had turned out that Martha herself was on the side of the girl who had fascinated Walter. Had she fascinated Walter? Was it possible—a girl at a cottage door—a girl who—gave a civil answer? Lady Penton’s imagination rebelled against this description; it rebelled still more at the comparison with John Baker, with whom Martha herself had gone through a troublous episode. Walter Penton like John Baker! She tried to smile, but her lips quivered a little. What was this new thing that had fallen into the peaceful family all in a moment like a bomb full of fire and trouble? She could not get rid of the foolish picture—the girl at the cottage door, smiling on whosoever passed, with her civil answer; and Walter—her Walter, her first-born, the heir of Penton—Walter caught by that vulgar snare as he passed by! Had it been a poor lady, the curate’s daughter, the immaculate governess of romance—but the girl whose conversation was so captivating to Martha, who described what things were worn, and all that you could see in the shops—and then, with a smile at the cottage door, caught the unwary boy to whom every girl was a thing to be respected. Martha’s little bubble of tears in the pantry were nothing to the few salt drops that came to her mistress’s eyes. But Lady Penton went afterward to the book-room and told her husband that, so far as she could make out, old Crockford must have made a mistake. “Martha gives a very good account of the girl,” she said, “and Walter, no doubt, had only talked to her a little, meaning no harm.”

“He would not have answered me as he did this morning if there had been no harm,” said Sir Edward, shaking his head.

“You must have been harsh with him,” said his wife. “You must have looked as if you believed Crockford, and not him.”

“I was not harsh; am I ever harsh?” cried the injured father.

“Edward, the boy darted out without any breakfast! How is he to go through the day without any breakfast? Would he have done that if you had not been harsh to him?” Lady Penton said.