I once heard it suggested that the typical Victorian saying was, “You must remember he is your un-cle ...”

—G. M. Young, Victorian Essays

“It is monstrous. Monstrous. I cannot believe he has not lost his senses.”

“He has lost his sense of proportion. But that is not quite the same thing.”

“But at this juncture!”

“My dear Tina, Cupid has a notorious contempt for other people’s convenience.”

“You know very well that Cupid has nothing to do with it.”

“I am afraid he has everything to do with it. Old hearts are the most susceptible.”

“It is my fault. I know he disapproves of me.”

“Come now, that is nonsense.”

“It is not nonsense. I know perfectly well that for him I am a draper’s daughter.”

“My dear child, contain yourself.”

“It is for you I am so angry.”

“Very well—then let me be angry on my own behalf.”

There was silence then, which allows me to say that the conversation above took place in Aunt Tranter’s rear parlor. Charles stood at the window, his back to Ernestina, who had very recently cried, and who now sat twisting a lace handker-chief in a vindictive manner.

“I know how much you love Winsyatt.”

How Charles would have answered can only be conjec-tured, for the door opened at that moment and Aunt Tranter appeared, a pleased smile of welcome on her face.

“You are back so soon!” It was half past nine of the same day we saw Charles driving up to Winsyatt House.

Charles smiled thinly. “Our business was soon . . . finished.”

“Something terrible and disgraceful has happened.” Aunt Tranter looked with alarm at the tragic and outraged face of her niece, who went on: “Charles had been disinherited.”

“Disinherited!”

“Ernestina exaggerates. It is simply that my uncle has decided to marry. If he should be so fortunate as to have a son and heir ...”

“Fortunate . . . !” Ernestina slipped Charles a scalding little glance. Aunt Tranter looked in consternation from one face to the other.

“But... who is the lady?”

“Her name is Mrs. Tomkins, Mrs. Tranter. A widow.”

“And young enough to bear a dozen sons.”

Charles smiled. “Hardly that. But young enough to bear sons.”

“You know her?”

Ernestina answered before Charles could, “That is what is so disgraceful. Only two months ago his uncle made fun of the woman to Charles in a letter. And now he is groveling at her feet.”

“My dear Ernestina!”

“I will not be calm! It is too much. After all these years...” Charles took a deep breath, and turned to Aunt Tranter. “I understand she has excellent connections. Her husband was colonel in the Fortieth Hussars and left her handsomely provided for. There is no suspicion of fortune hunting.” Ernestina’s smoldering look up at him showed plainly that in her mind there was every suspicion. “I am told she is a very attractive woman.”

“No doubt she rides to hounds.”

He smiled bleakly at Ernestina, who was referring to a black mark she had earlier gained in the monstrous uncle’s book. “No doubt. But that is not yet a crime.”

Aunt Tranter plumped down on a chair and looked again from one young face to the other, searching, as ever in such situations, for some ray of hope.

“But is he not too old to have children?”

Charles managed a gentle smile for her innocence. “He is sixty-seven, Mrs. Tranter. That is not too old.”

“Even though she is young enough to be his granddaugh-ter.”

“My dear Tina, all one has in such circumstances is one’s dignity. I must beg you for my sake not to be bitter. We must accept the event with as good a grace as possible.”

She looked up and saw how nervously stern he was; that she must play a different role. She ran to him, and catching his hand, raised it to her lips. He drew her to him and kissed the top of her head, but he was not deceived. A shrew and a mouse may look the same; but they are not the same; and though he could not find a word to describe Ernestina’s reception of his shocking and unwelcome news, it was not far removed from “unladylike.” He had leaped straight from the trap bringing him back from Exeter into Aunt Tranter’s house; and expected a gentle sympathy, not a sharp rage, however flatteringly it was intended to resemble his own feelings. Perhaps that was it—that she had not divined that a gentleman could never reveal the anger she ascribed to him. But there seemed to him something only too reminiscent of the draper’s daughter in her during those first minutes; of one who had been worste............