The Trial [83]
he was not bitten during his benevolent exertions last winter.' Meantime, Tom had observed that he had time to see that Aubrey was decently prepared for Cambridge, and further promoted the boy to be his out-of-door companion, removing all the tedium and perplexity of the last few weeks, though apparently merely indulging his own inclinations. Ethel recognized the fruit of her letter, and could well forgive the extra care in housekeeping required for Tom's critical tastes, nay, the cool expulsion of herself and Gertrude from her twenty years' home, the schoolroom, and her final severance from Aubrey's studies, though at the cost of a pang that reminded her of her girlhood's sorrow at letting Norman shoot ahead of her. She gave no hint; she knew that implicit reserve was the condition of his strange silent confidence in her, and that it would be utterly forfeited unless she allowed his fraternal sacrifice to pass for mere long-headed prudence. Aubrey's Saturday and Sunday meetings with his friend were not yielded, even to Tom, who endeavoured to interfere with them, and would fain have cut the connection with the entire family, treating Miss Ward with the most distant and supercilious bows on the unpleasantly numerous occasions of meeting her in the street, and contriving to be markedly scornful in his punctilious civility to Henry Ward when they met at the hospital. His very look appeared a sarcasm, to the fancy of the Wards; and he had a fashion of kindly inquiring after Leonard, that seemed to both a deliberate reproach and insult. Disputes had become less frequent at Bankside since Leonard's departure, and few occasions of actual dissension arose; but the spirit of party was not extinguished, and the brother and sister had adopted lines that perhaps clashed less because they diverged more. Averil had, in reply to the constant exhortations to economize, resolved to decline all invitations, and this kept her constantly at home, or with her harmonium, whereas Henry made such constant engagements, that their dining together was the exception, not the rule. After conscientiously teaching her sisters in the morning, she devoted the rest of her day to their walk, and to usefulness in the parish. She liked her tasks, and would have been very happy in them, but for the constant anxiety that hung over her lest her home should soon cease to be her home. Henry's devotion to Mrs. Pugh could no longer be mistaken. The conviction of his intentions grew upon his sister, first from a mere absurd notion, banished from her mind with derision, then from a misgiving angrily silenced, to a fixed expectation, confirmed by the evident opinion of all around her, and calling for decision and self- command on her own part. Perhaps her feelings were unnecessarily strong, and in some degree unjust to Mrs. Pugh; but she had the misfortune to be naturally proud and sensitive, as well as by breeding too refined in tone for most of those who surrounded her. She had taken a personal dislike to Mrs. Pugh from the first; she regarded pretension as insincerity, and officiousness as deliberate insult, and she took the recoil of her taste for the judgment of principle. To see such a woman ruling in her mother's, her own, home would be bad enough; but to be ruled by her, and resign to her the management of the children, would be intolerable beyond measure. Too unhappy to speak of her anticipations even to Leonard or to Mary May, she merely endeavoured to throw them off from day to day, till one evening, when the days had grown so long that she could linger in the twilight in the garden before her singing practice, she was joined by Henry, with the long apprehended 'I want to speak to you, Ave.' Was it coming? Her heart beat so fast, that she could hardly hear his kind commencement about her excellent endeavours, and the house's unhappy want of a mistress, the children's advantage, and so on. She knew it could only tend to one point, and longed to have it reached and passed. Of course she would be prepared to hear who was the object of his choice,