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Updated: June 27, 2025
Good boatman though he was, he rarely cared to spend his strength superfluously, when nothing was to be gained by it, and had no fancy to row his skiff back to its moorings, as most of the others were already doing with theirs. He leaped out. "Any one but you, Hartledon, would be glad to come out of that tilting thing, and enjoy a rest, and get your face cool," cried the countess-dowager.
"Oh!" said Mirrable, who had once had the honour of seeing the Countess-Dowager of Kirton. And the monosyllable was so significant that Val Elster drew down the corners of his mouth. "I don't like the Countess-Dowager, sir," remarked Mirrable in her freedom. "I can't bear her," returned Val Elster.
"You apparently do not see it, Lord Hartledon, but the young woman is the very essence of vulgarity." A pause followed the speech. The countess-dowager turned towards her daughter in a blazing rage, and Val Elster quitted the room. "Maude," said Lord Hartledon, "I am sorry to tell you that you have put your foot in it." "Thank you," panted Lady Maude, in her agitation.
But you must not" he seemed to search for his words "you must undertake not to come here, upsetting and indulging the children." "I'll undertake it. Good vintage, mind." "The same that you have here." The countess-dowager beamed.
The firelight played on her beautiful features; and her eyelashes glistened as if with tears: she was thinner and paler; he saw it at once. The countess-dowager kept to Hartledon and showed no intention of moving from it: she and her daughter had been there alone all these weeks. "How are you, Maude?" She looked round and started up, backing from him with a face of alarm.
"The other one, I meant," cried she, nodding towards Thomas Carr. "It is my friend Mr. Carr. You appear to have forgotten him." "I hope you are well, ma'am," said he, advancing towards her. Another curtsey, and the countess-dowager fanned herself, and sailed towards the fireplace. Meanwhile the children came home in a cab from Madame Tussaud's, and dinner was announced.
He caught the name Kattle; and being a somewhat singular name, he recognised it for that of the lady who had been sojourning at Cannes, and had sent the news of Miss Ashton's supposed engagement to the countess-dowager. There was the usual babble on both sides where each was staying, had been staying, would be staying; and then Lord Hartledon heard the following words from Mrs. Kattle.
"It is one of your jokes, Mr. Val!" "Indeed, it is the truth. My brother will be down with a trainful; and desires that everything shall be ready for their reception." "My patience!" gasped Mirrable. "And the servants, sir?" "Most of them will be here to-night. The Countess-Dowager of Kirton is coming as Hartledon's mistress for the time being."
But it was no joke to the countess-dowager, as he found to his cost when the morning came. She got him out of his chamber betimes, and commenced a "fumigating" process. The clothes he had worn she insisted should be burnt; pleading so piteously that he yielded in his good nature. But there was to be a battle on another score.
"No one at all, my lord. The countess-dowager sent for him, to ask what her diet had better be, and how she could guard against infection more effectually than she was doing. She did not allow him to come in, but spoke to him from one of the upper windows, with a cloak and respirator on." Lord Hartledon looked at his butler; the man was suppressing a grim smile. "Nonsense, Hedges!"
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