CHAPTER VI.

IN WHICH MISS SUDLOW HAS HER WAY.

Although Mrs. Empson, the Rev. Louth Sudlow's widowed sister, was a cross-grained, selfish old woman, to whom existence, unseasoned by the fulsome flatteries of Miss Pudsey, or one of her genus, would have seemed barely tolerable, she was not quite oblivious of the claims of relationship. She knew that, for his position in life, her brother was a poor man, encumbered with a numerous and increasingly expensive family, and it was probably her knowledge of those facts that was her inducement for writing the following letter:

"My dear Louth,--That you rarely trouble yourself so far as to inquire whether I am alive or dead is a fact which, with that regard for truth which is supposed to pertain to your cloth, but does not invariably do so, you would find it difficult to deny; still, it does not on that account follow that I should treat you and your interests with an equal amount of indifference.

"Although your eldest daughter, who, as far as I can judge, must, when young, have been allowed to have far too much her own way, and cannot now help betraying the results of her defective bringing-up, chose to quit my roof in a very abrupt and off-hand fashion, after flouting certain suggestions which, entirely for her own good, I was at pains to lay before her, I bear no ill-feeling towards her on that account. Indeed, were you here, Miss Pudsey, my _dame-de compagnie_, would tell you that one of the most marked traits of my character is that I invariably strive to return good for evil.

"As a proof that such is the case, I write these few lines to inform you that Lady Charlotte Mawby is looking out for a companion (who must be a young gentlewoman) for her daughter, who is somewhat of an invalid; and should you think it worth your while to allow Fanny to leave home in the capacity in question, I have little doubt about being able to secure the position for her. The salary would be thirty-five guineas a year.

"Don't shilly-shally over this offer, as you have a way of doing over most things, but let me have a positive 'yes' or 'no' by return of post.

"Your affectionate sister,

"Charlotte Empson."

"P.S.--Pray remember me to Mrs. Sudlow."

This characteristic effusion was like another apple of discord dropped among the inmates of the Vicarage. Needless to say, Mrs. Sudlow's indignation took immediate flame. What business, she should like to know, had Mrs. Empson to assume that _her_ daughter, who was second cousin once removed (on her mother's side) to the Earl of Beaumaris, was desirous on her own account, or would be permitted by her parents, to accept the position of companion to anyone?--much less to the daughter of a woman whose husband was nothing more than a rich tallow-chandler who had been created a baronet, for what reason nobody seemed to know, at the close of his year of office as Lord Mayor. It was like Mrs. Empson's low-bred impertinence to dare to propose such a thing.

But fully one-half of Mrs. Sudlow's indignation was due to the tone in which the letter was written. It was gall and wormwood to her to have to submit to reflections on the manner in which her daughter had been brought up. And then, too, the way in which all reference to herself was relegated to a postscript! Yet she dared not, by way of retort courteous, wing even the tiniest of envenomed shafts in return. For her children's sake she could not afford to quarrel with their rich, but odious, old aunt. It was very hard.

But what was Mrs. Sudlow's amazement and bitter indignation when Fanny remarked in her calmly aggravating way that she felt greatly obliged to her aunt, whose offer had come at a most opportune moment, seeing that she had been on the point of asking her parents to allow her to look out for some such situation as the one in question. She was quite aware, she went on to say, that her father's means were cramped, and it seemed to her that she was now of an age when she ought no longer to be a burden to him, but in a position to earn her own living. Her next sister, Winifred, was quite old enough to help her mother with the younger children and to take that position in the household which had heretofore been filled by her--Fanny. In short, this self-opinionated young person made it clearly manifest that she was possessed by a strong desire to work out an independent position for herself, pending a certain event which just now was only dimly discernible as something which pertained to a far-distant future.

As regards this little episode it is enough to add that, in the result, Fanny had her way, and a fortnight later was duly installed as companion to Miss Mawby.

In her encounter with her daughter Mrs. Sudlow had been beaten "all along the line," but even in her defeat she contrived to extract a grain of comfort from the fact that, as Miss Mawby rarely visited London, but spent nearly all her time at one or another watering-place, either in England or on the Continent, it would not be possible for Fanny and her lover to see much, if anything, of each other. That they would correspond was a foregone conclusion, but Mrs. Sudlow had seen something of the world, and had very limited faith in the axiom that "absence makes the heart grow fonder." Within her experience she had not infrequently found that absence has a precisely opposite effect, and that young men--and young maidens too, for that matter--lacking the presence of the object on whom their affections are supposed to be fixed, have a habit of gradually cooling down and of being drawn, as by a magnetic influence which they are unable to resist, to worship at some other shrine, and to conveniently forget, or ignore, the vows they have already whispered in the ear of another. Fanny had told her parents that, as regarded her engagement, no further steps should be taken by her till she was of age; therefore did Mrs. Sudlow derive some barren comfort from the thought that in two years many things might happen.

She found it far easier to forgive Philip Winslade than to forgive his mother; indeed, the latter was a piece of magnanimity which transcended the scope of her limited nature. After all, the young man had not been so much to blame. Fanny was an attractive girl, and it was small wonder that he had fallen in love with her. The head and front of his offending lay in the fact that he had been presumptuous enough to aspire to the hand of one in whose veins ran the blood of the ennobled Penmarthens.