HE few weeks which ensued were the most stormy and troublous period of all Miss Seton’s life; and through her there was naturally a considerable disturbance of the peace of the Cottage. Though she lived so quietly, she had what is called in the country “a large circle,” and had dwelt among her own people all her life, and was known to everybody about. It was a quiet neighbourhood, but yet there never was a neighbourhood so quiet as not to have correspondents and relations living out in the world, to whom all news went, and from whom all news came. And there were a number of “families” about Kirtell, not great people certainly, but very respectable people, gentry, and well-connected persons, hanging on by various links to the great world. In this way Winnie’s engagement, which nobody wanted to conceal, came to be known far and wide, as such facts are so apt to get known. And a great many people out in the world, who had once known Miss Seton, wrote letters to her, in which they suggested that perhaps she had forgotten them, but hoped that she would excuse them, and attribute it to the regard which they had never ceased to feel for her, if they asked, Did she know Captain Percival very well, who was said to be engaged to her pretty niece? Had she heard what happened in the Isle of Man when his regiment was stationed there? and why it was that he did not go out to Gibraltar after he had got that appointment? Other people, who did not know Aunt Agatha, took what was after all the more disagreeable step of writing to their friends in the parish about the young man, whose career had certainly left traces, as it appeared, upon the memory of his generation. To rise every morning with a sense that such an epistle might be awaiting her on the breakfast-table—or to receive a visitor with the horrible conviction that she had come to look into her face, and hold her hand, and be confidential and sympathetic, and deliver a solemn warning—was an ordeal which Aunt Agatha found it hard to bear. She was a woman who never forgot her character as a maiden lady, and liked to be justified by precedents and to be approved of by all the world. And these repeated remonstrances had no doubt a great effect upon her mind. They filled her with terrible misgivings and embittered her life, and drove her now and then into so great a panic that she felt disposed to thrust Captain Percival out of the house and forbid his reappearance there. But then, Winnie. Winnie was not the girl to submit to any such violent remedies. If she could not see her lover there, she would find means to see him somewhere else. If she could not be married to him with stately propriety in her parish church, she would manage to marry him somehow in any irregular way, and she would by no means hesitate to say so or shrink from the responsibility. And if it must be done, would it not be better that it should be done correctly than incorrectly, and with all things decent and in order? Thus poor Aunt Agatha would muse as she gathered up her bundle of letters. It might have been all very well for parents to exercise their authority in the days when their children obeyed them; but what was the use of issuing commands to which nobody would pay any attention? Winnie had very plainly expressed her preference for her own happiness rather than her aunt’s peace of mind; and though Miss Seton would never have consented to admit that Winnie was anything less than the most beautiful character, still she was aware that unreasoning obedience was not her faculty. Besides, another sentiment began to mingle with this prudential consideration. Everybody was against the poor young man. The first letters she received about him made her miserable; but after that there was no doubt a revulsion. Everybody was against him, poor fellow!—and he was so young, and could not, after all, have done so much harm in the world. “He has not had the time, Mary,” she said, with an appeal to Mrs. Ochterlony for support. “If he had been doing wrong from his very cradle, he could not have had the time.” She could not refuse to believe what was told her, and yet notwithstanding her belief she clung to the culprit. If he had found any other advocate it might have been different; but nobody took the other side of the question: nobody wrote a pretty letter to say what a dear fellow he was, and how glad his friends were to think he had found some one worthy of him—not even his mother; and Aunt Agatha’s heart accordingly became the avvocato del diavolo. Fair play was due even to Captain Percival. It was impossible to leave him assailed as he was by so many without one friend.
It was a curious sight to see how she at once received and ignored all the information thus conveyed to her. A woman of a harder type would probably, as women do, have imputed motives, and settled the matter with the general conclusion that “an enemy hath done this;” but Aunt Agatha could not help, for the moment at least, believing in everybody. She could not say right out, “It is not true,” even to the veriest impostor who deceived and got money from her, and their name was legion. In her own innocent soul she had no belief in lies, and could not understand them; and it was easier for her to give credence to the wildest marvel than to believe that anybody could tell her a deliberate falsehood. She would have kissed the ladies who wrote to her of those stories about Captain Percival, and cried and wrung her hands, and asked, What could she do?—and yet her heart was by no means turned against him, notwithstanding her belief in what everybody said; which is a strange and novel instance, well enough known to social philosophers, but seldom remarked upon, of the small practical influence of belief upon life. “How can it be a lie, my dear child? what motive could they all have to tell lies?” she would say to Winnie, mournfully; and yet ten minutes after, when it was Mrs. Ochterlony she was speaking to, she would make her piteous appeal for him, poor fellow!—“Everybody is against him; and he is so young still; and oh, Mary, how much he must need looking after,” Aunt Agatha would say, “if it is all true!”
Perhaps it was stranger still that Mary, who did not like Captain Percival, and was convinced of the truth of all the stories told of him, and knew in her heart that he was her enemy and would not scruple to do her harm if the chance should come in his way—was also a little moved by the same argument. Everybody was against him. It was the Cottage against the world, so far as he was concerned; and even Mrs. Ochterlony, though she ought to have known better, could not help feeling herself one of a “side,” and to a certain extent felt her honour pledged to the defence of her sister’s lover. Had she, in the very heart of this stronghold which was standing out for him so stoutly, lifted up a testimony against him, she would have felt herself in some respects a domestic traitor. She might be silent on the subject, and avoid all comment, but she could not utter an adverse opinion, or join in with the general voice against which Aunt Agatha and Winnie stood forth so stedfastly. As for Winnie, every word that was said to his detriment made her more determined to stick to him. What did it matter whether he was good or bad, so long as it was indisputably he? There was but one Edward Percival in the world, and he would still be Edward Percival if he had committed a dozen murders, or gambled twenty fortunes away. Such was Winnie’s defiant way of treating the matter which concerned her more closely than anybody else. She carried things with a high hand in those days. All the world was against her, and she scorned the world. She attributed motives, though Aunt Agatha did not. She said it was envy and jealousy and all the leading passions. She made wild counter-accusations, in the style of that literature which sets forth the skeleton in every man’s closet. Who could tell what little incidents could be found out in the private history of the ladies who had so much to say about Captain Percival? This is so ordinary a mode of defence, that no doubt it is natural, and Winnie went into it with good will. Thus his standard was planted upon the Cottage, and however unkindly people might think of him outside, shelter and support were always to be found within. Even Peggy, though she did not always agree with her mistress, felt, as Mrs. Ochterlony did, that she was one of a side, and became a partisan with an earnestness that was impossible to Mary. Sir Edward shook his head still, but he was disarmed by the close phalanx and the determined aspect of Percival’s defenders. “It is true love,” he said in his sentimental way; “and love can work miracles when everything else has failed. It may be his salvation.” This was what he wrote to Percival’s mother, who, up to this moment, had been but doubtful in her approbation, and very anxious, and uncertain, as she said, whether she ought not to tell Miss Seton that Edward had been “foolish.” He had been “foolish,” even in his mother’s opinion; and his other critics were, some of them, so tolerant as to say “gay,” and some “wild,” while a few used a more solemn style of diction;—but everybody was against him, whatever terms they might employ; everybody except the ladies at the Cottage, who set up his standard, and accepted him with all his iniquities upon his head.
It may be worth while at this point, before Mr. Penrose arrives, who played so important a part in the business, to say a word about the poor young man who was thus universally assailed. He was five-and-twenty, and a young man of expectations. Though he had spent every farthing which came to himself at his majority, and a good deal more than that, still his mother had a nice estate, and Sir Edward was his godfather, and the world was full of obliging tradespeople and other amiable persons. He was a handsome fellow, nearly six feet high, with plenty of hair, and a moustache of the most charming growth. The hair was of dull brown, which was rather a disadvantage to him, but then it went perfectly well with his pale complexion, and suited the cloudy look over the eyes, which was the most characteristic point in his face. The eyes themselves were good, and had, when they chose, a sufficiently frank expression, but there lay about the eyebrows a number of lurking hidden lines which looked like mischief—lines which could be brought into action at any moment, and could scowl, or lower, or brood, according to the fancy of their owner. Some people thought this uncertainty in his face was its greatest charm; you could never tell what a moment might bring forth from that moveable and changing forehead. It was suggestive, as a great many persons thought—suggestive of storm and thunder, and sudden disturbance, or even in some eyes of cruelty and gloom—though he was a fine young man, and gay and fond of his pleasure. Winnie, as may be supposed, was not of this latter opinion. She even loved to bring out those hidden lines, and call the shadows over his face, for the pleasure of seeing how they melted away again, according to the use and wont of young ladies. It was a sort of uncertainty that was permissible to him, who had been a spoiled child, and whom everybody, at the beginning of his career, had petted and taken notice of; but possibly it was a quality which would not have called forth much admiration from a wife.
And with Winnie standing by him as she did—clinging to him closer at every new accusation, and proclaiming, without faltering, her indifference to anything that could be said, and her conviction that the worse he was the more need he had of her—Captain Percival, too, took matters very lightly. The two foolish young creatures even came to laugh, and make fun of it in their way. “Here is Aunt Agatha coming with another letter; I wonder if it is to say that I poisoned my grandmother, this time?” cried the young man; and they both laughed as if it was the best joke in the world. If ever there was a moment in which, when they were alone, Winnie did take a momentary thought of the seriousness of the position, her gravity soon dissipated itself. “I know you have been very naughty,” she would say, clasping her pretty hands upon his arm; “but you will never, never do it again,” and the lover, thus appealed to, would make the tenderest and most eager assurances. What temptation could he ever have to be “naughty” with such an angel by his side? And Winnie was pleased enough to play the part of the angel—though that was not, perhaps, her most characteristic development—and went home full of happiness and security; despising the world which never had understood Edward, and thinking with triumph of the disappointed women less happy than herself, who, out of revenge, had no doubt got up this outcry against him. “For I don’t mean to defend him out and out,” she said, her eyes sparkling with malice and exultation; “I don’t mean to say that he has not behaved very badly to a great many people;” and there was a certain sweet self-glorification in the thought which intoxicated Winnie. It was wicked, but somehow she liked him better for having behaved badly to a great many people; and naturally any kind of reasoning was entirely ineffectual with a foolish girl who had taken such an idea into her mind.
Thus things went on; and Percival went away and returned again, and paid many flying visits, and, present and absent, absorbed all Winnie’s thoughts. It was not only a first love, but it was a first occupation to the young woman, who had never felt, up to this time, that she had a sufficient sphere for her energies. Now she could look forward to being married, to receiving all the presents, and being busy about all the business of that important moment; and beyond lay life—life without any one to restrain her, without even the bondage of habit, and the necessity of taking into consideration what people would think. Winnie said frankly that she would go with him anywhere, that she did not mind if it was India, or even the Cape of Good Hope; and her eyes sparkled to think of the everything new which would replace to her all the old bonds and limits: though, in one point of view, this was a cruel satisfaction, and very wounding and injurious to some of the other people concerned.
“Oh, Winnie, my darling! and what am I to do without you?” Aunt Agatha would cry; and the girl would kiss her in her laughing way. “It must have come, sooner or later,” she said; “you always said so yourself. I don’t see why you should not get married too, Aunt Agatha; you are perfectly beautiful sometimes, and a great deal younger than—many people; or, at least, you will have Mary to be your husband,” Winnie would add, with a laugh, and a touch of affectionate spite: for the two sisters, it must be allowed, were not to say fond of each other. Mary had been brought up differently, and was often annoyed, and sometimes shocked, by Winnie’s ways: and Winnie—though at times she seemed disposed to make friends with her sister—could not help thinking of Mary as somehow at the bottom of all that had been said about Edward. This, indeed, was an idea which her lover and she shared: and Mary’s life was not made pleasanter to her by the constant implication that he, too, could tell something about her—which she despised too much to take any notice of, but which yet was an offence and an insult. So that on the whole—even before the arrival of Mr. Penrose—the Cottage on Kirtell-side, though as bowery and fair as ever, was, in reality, an agitated and even an uncomfortable home.