Chapter 14 - Page 2

to you in my note of this
morning, when you are in this town you must consider this house your
home. It is almost insulting of you to go to an inn. I am told it is
even ... quite an unfit place that you are stopping at--for a member of
our family."

I maintained for a few seconds a silence of astonishment.

"But," I returned to the charge, "the matter is one of importance. You
must understand that she...."

My aunt stiffened and froze. It was as if I had committed some flagrant
sin against etiquette.

"If I am satisfied as to her behaviour," she said, "I think that you
might be." She paused as if she were satisfied that she had set me
hopelessly in the wrong.

"I don't withdraw my invitation," she said. "You must understand I
_wish_ you to come here. But your quarrels you and she must settle. On
those terms...."

She had the air of conferring an immense favour, as if she believed that
I had, all my life through, been waiting for her invitation to come
within the pale. As for me, I felt a certain relief at having the
carrying out of my duty made impossible for me. I did not _want_ to tell
my aunt and thus to break things off definitely and for good. Something
would have happened; the air might have cleared as it clears after a
storm; I should have learnt where I stood. But I was afraid of the
knowledge. Light in these dark places might reveal an abyss at my feet.
I wanted to let things slide.

My aunt had returned to her accounts, the accounts which were the
cog-wheels that kept running the smooth course of the Etchingham
estates. She seemed to wish to indicate that I counted for not very much
in the scheme of things as she saw it.

"I should like to make your better acquaintance," she said, with her
head still averted, "there are reasons...." It came suddenly into my
head that she had an idea of testamentary dispositions, that she felt
she was breaking up, that I had my rights. I didn't much care for the
thing, but the idea of being the heir of Etchingham was--well, was an
idea. It would make me more possible to my pseudo-sister. It would be,
as it were, a starting-point, would make me potentially a somebody of
her sort of ideal. Moreover, I should be under the same roof, near her,
with her sometimes. One asks so little more than that, that it seemed
almost half the battle. I began to consider phrases of thanks and
acceptance and then uttered them.

I never quite understood the bearings of that scene; never quite whether
my aunt really knew that my sister was not my sister. She was a
wonderfully clever woman of the unscrupulous order, with a _sang-froid_
and self-possession