There could not have been
a happier girl for five or six years. For it was only at the end of
that time that clouds began, as the saying is, to arise. She was then
about twenty-three, and her purposeful efficiency made her
perhaps have a desire for mastery. She began to perceive that
Edward was extravagant in his largesses. His parents died just
about that time, and Edward, though they both decided that he
should continue his soldiering, gave a great deal of attention to the
management of Branshaw through a steward. Aldershot was not
very far away, and they spent all his leaves there.
And, suddenly, she seemed to begin to perceive that his
generosities were almost fantastic. He subscribed much too much
to things connected with his mess, he pensioned off his father's
servants, old or new, much too generously. They had a large
income, but every now and then they would find themselves hard
up. He began to talk of mortgaging a farm or two, though it never
actually came to that.
She made tentative efforts at remonstrating with him. Her father,
whom she saw now and then, said that Edward was much too
generous to his tenants; the wives of his brother officers
remonstrated with her in private; his large subscriptions made it
difficult for their husbands to keep up with them.
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