Washington Square

Catherine went rigidly through her usual occupations; that is, up to the point of going with her aunt to church on Sunday morning.  She generally went to afternoon service as well; but on this occasion her courage faltered, and she begged of Mrs. Penniman to go without her.

“I am sure you have a secret,” said Mrs. Penniman, with great significance, looking at her rather grimly.

“If I have, I shall keep it!” Catherine answered, turning away.

Mrs. Penniman started for church; but before she had arrived, she stopped and turned back, and before twenty minutes had elapsed she re-entered the house, looked into the empty parlours, and then went upstairs and knocked at Catherine’s door.  She got no answer; Catherine was not in her room, and Mrs. Penniman presently ascertained that she was not in the house.  “She has gone to him, she has fled!” Lavinia cried, clasping her hands with admiration and envy.  But she soon perceived that Catherine had taken nothing with her—all her personal property in her room was intact—and then she jumped at the hypothesis that the girl had gone forth, not in tenderness, but in resentment.  “She has followed him to his own door—she has burst upon him in his own apartment!”  It was in these terms that Mrs. Penniman depicted to herself her niece’s errand, which, viewed in this light, gratified her sense of the picturesque only a shade less strongly than the idea of a clandestine marriage.  To visit one’s lover, with tears and reproaches, at his own residence, was an image so agreeable to Mrs. Penniman’s mind that she felt a sort of æsthetic disappointment at its lacking, in this case, the harmonious accompaniments of darkness and storm.  A quiet Sunday afternoon appeared an inadequate setting for it; and, indeed, Mrs. Penniman was quite out of humour with the conditions of the time, which passed very slowly as she sat in the front parlour in her bonnet and her cashmere shawl, awaiting Catherine’s return.

This event at last took place.  She saw her—at the window—mount the steps, and she went to await her in the hall, where she pounced upon her as soon as she had entered the house, and drew her into the parlour, closing the door with solemnity.  Catherine was flushed, and her eye was bright.  Mrs. Penniman hardly knew what to think.

“May I venture to ask where you have been?” she demanded.

“I have been to take a walk,” said Catherine.  “I thought you had gone to church.”

“I did go to church; but the service was shorter than usual.  And pray, where did you walk?”

“I don’t know!” said Catherine.

“Your ignorance is most extraordinary!  Dear Catherine, you can trust me.”

“What am I to trust you with?”

“With your secret—your sorrow.”

“I have no sorrow!” said Catherine fiercely.

“My poor child,” Mrs. Penniman insisted, “you can’t deceive me.  I know everything.  I have been requested to—a—to converse with you.”

“I don’t want to converse!”

“It will relieve you.  Don’t you know Shakespeare’s lines?—‘the grief that does not speak!’  My dear girl, it is better as it is.”

“What is better?” Catherine asked.

She was really too perverse.  A certain amount of perversity was to be allowed for in a young lady whose lover had thrown her over; but not such an amount as would prove inconvenient to his apologists.  “That you should be reasonable,” said Mrs. Penniman, with some sternness.  “That you should take counsel of worldly prudence, and submit to practical considerations.  That you should agree to—a—separate.”

Catherine had been ice up to this moment, but at this word she flamed up.  “Separate?  What do you know about our separating?”

Mrs. Penniman shook her head with a sadness in which there was almost a sense of injury.  “Your pride is my pride, and your susceptibilities are mine.  I see your side perfectly, but I also”—and she smiled with melancholy suggestiveness—“I also see the situation as a whole!”

This suggestiveness was lost upon Catherine, who repeated her violent inquiry.  “Why do you talk about separation; what do you know about it?”

“We must study resignation,” said Mrs. Penniman, hesitating, but sententious at a venture.

“Resignation to what?”

“To a change of—of our plans.”

“My plans have not changed!” said Catherine, with a little laugh.

“Ah, but Mr. Townsend’s have,” her aunt answered very gently.

“What do you mean?”

There was an imperious brevity in the tone of this inquiry, against which Mrs. Penniman felt bound to protest; the information with which she had undertaken to supply her niece was, after all, a favour.  She had tried sharpness, and she had tried sternness: but neither would do; she was shocked at the girl’s obstinacy.  “Ah, well,” she said, “if he hasn’t told you! . . . ” and she turned away.

Catherine watched her a moment in silence; then she hurried after her, stopping her before she reached the door.  “Told me what?  What do you mean?  What are you hinting at and threatening me with?”

“Isn’t it broken off?” asked Mrs. Penniman.

“My engagement?  Not in the least!”