Mr. Penton did not say anything. He made a little impatient wave of his hand, but he did not contradict or even attempt to stop her soft, slow, gentle voice as she went on.
“And then the gardeners! they are a kind of army in themselves. To pay them all their wages every week, the men that are in the houses, and the men that are outside, and the people at the lodges, and the carpenters, and the men that roll the lawns; where should we find the money? If we could have the rents and go on living _here_, of course I don’t say anything against it, we should be rich. But to live at Penton we should just be as poor as we are now--as poor but much grander--obliged to give parties and keep horses--and dress--If I ever had ventured to tell you my opinion, Edward, I should have told you, instead of looking forward to Penton it has been my terror night and day. I always thought,” she continued, after a pause, “that I should try and persuade you to let it, until, at least, we had a little money to the good.”
“To let Penton!” The cry burst from them all in every variation of tone, indignant, angry, astonished. To let--Penton! Penton, which had been the golden dream of fancy, the paradise of hope, the one thing which consoled everybody, from Mr. Penton down to Horry, for all that went amiss in life.
“Well?” said the mother, lifting her mild eyes, looking at them for a moment. “I have always thought so, but I would not say it, for what was the use? You all worship Penton, both you and the children. But I never was taken in by it. I have always seen that, however pleasant it might be, and beautiful and all that--and everybody’s prejudices in its favor--we never could keep it up.”
She turned round, having delivered her soul, and drew her basket toward her, in which were her needles and the worsted for her darning. She had settled exactly how these big holes were to be attacked, how the threads of the stocking went, and that it must be done in an oblique line to keep the shape. Without a little consideration beforehand, neither stockings can be mended nor anything else done. She had said her say, and no doubt, however it was settled, she would do her best, as well for Penton as for the stocking. And the others watched her without knowing they were watching her. She settled to her work with a little sigh of relief, glad to escape into a region where there could be no two opinions, where everything was straightforward. There was something in this which had a great effect upon the young ones, especially upon Walter, who was the most resistant, the most deeply and cruelly disappointed. There came upon him a great, a horrible consciousness that in all likelihood she was right.