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Updated: June 29, 2025
Roylake out of the morning-room. She was followed by Lady Rachel. If I could only have heard their private conference, I should have seen the dangerous side of the Cur's character under a new aspect. "Gerard!" cried my stepmother, "what did I hear just now? You can't be going back to Germany!" "Certainly not," I answered. "Going to stay with some friends perhaps?" Lady Rachel suggested.
Roylake, he kicked me. Say no more about it, sir! I would never have mentioned it, if I hadn't had something else to tell you; only I don't know how." In this difficulty, he came back to my bedside. "Look here, sir! What I say is that kick has wiped out the debt of thanks I owe him. Yes. I say the account between us two is settled now, on both sides.
In two words, I found myself pledged, under pretence of visiting my lord, to improve my acquaintance with Lady Lena on the next day. "And pray be careful," Mrs. Roylake proceeded, still braving the atmosphere of the smoking-room, "not to look surprised if you find Lord Uppercliff's house presenting rather a poor appearance just now."
His quiet steady manner prepossessed me in his favour; it showed no servile reverence for the accident of birth, on the one hand, and no insolent assertion of independence, on the other. When I had told him that my name was Roylake, he searched one of the large pockets of his shooting jacket, produced a letter, and silently offered it to me.
Roylake talked as fluently as ever; exhausting one common-place subject after another, without the slightest allusion to my lord's daughter, to my matrimonial prospects, or to my visits at the mill.
I was secretly annoyed, feeling that my stepmother's singular indifference to domestic interests of paramount importance, at other times, must have some object in view, entirely beyond the reach of my penetration. If I had dared to commit such an act of rudeness, I should have jumped out of the carriage, and have told Mrs. Roylake that I meant to walk home. The day was Sunday.
My guests try to slip in a word or two, and can't find their opportunity. Enjoyment, Miss Cristel. Excitement, Mr. Roylake. For more than a year past, I have not luxuriated in the pleasures of society. I feel the social glow; I love the human family; I never, never, never was such a good man as I am now. Let vile slang express my emotions: isn't it jolly?"
I so delight in it that the temptation to-night was more than I could resist. Tea disagrees with my weak stomach. It always produces thirst." "What nonsense he talks!" Cristel exclaimed. "All mere fancy! He reminds me of the old song called 'The Nervous Man. Do you know it, Mr. Roylake?" In spite of my efforts to prevent her, she burst out with the first verse of a stupid comic song.
My dear Gerard! you look surprised. Surely you know who the ladies are?" I was obliged to acknowledge my ignorance. Mrs. Roylake was shocked. "At any rate," she resumed, "you have heard of their father, Lord Uppercliff?" I made another shameful confession. Either I had forgotten Lord Uppercliff, during my long absence abroad, or I had never heard of him. Mrs. Roylake was disgusted.
Roylake, she wrote in my book, 'either you will promise me to give it up, or I will never allow you to see me again; I will even leave home secretly, to be out of your way. In that strong language she expressed how shall I refer to it? shall I say the sisterly interest that she felt in your welfare?" I laid down the letter for a moment.
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