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Updated: August 27, 2024
He has been more thoughtful; and all the old vacillation is gone." The countess-dowager could not understand at all; neither did she believe; and she only stared at Maude. "His not coming down with me is a proof that he exercises his own will now. I wished him to come very much, and he knew it; but you see he has not done so." "And what do you say is keeping him?" repeated the countess-dowager.
Considering that Maude did not profess to love her husband very much, it was astonishing how keenly she felt this. "Are you and Hartledon upon good terms?" asked the countess-dowager after a pause, during which she had never taken her eyes from her daughter's face. "It would be early days to be on any other." "Oh," said the dowager.
At the close of a sharp winter, when they had come up to town in January, that Lord Hartledon might be at his post, and the countess-dowager was inflicting upon them one of her long visits, it happened that Lord Elster seemed very poorly. Mr. Brook was called in, and said he would send a powder.
"When one has to live as I do, one has to do many things decent and indecent," retorted the countess-dowager sharply. "He has had his hint, and you've got yours: and you are no true girl if you suffer yourself now to be triumphed over by Anne Ashton." Maude cried on silently, thinking how cruel fate was to have taken one brother and spared the other.
As Anne's children were born there were three now a sort of jealous rivalry seemed to arise between them and the two elder children; and this in spite of Anne's efforts to the contrary. The moving spring was the countess-dowager, who in secret excited the elder children against their little brothers and sister; but so craftily that Anne could produce nothing tangible to remonstrate against.
"Mr. Elster is in his own house, madam; and " "In his own house!" raved Lady Kirton. "It's no house of his; it's his brother's. And I wish I was his brother for a day only; I'd let Mr. Val know what presumption comes to. Can't dinner be delayed?" "I'm afraid not, my lady." "Ugh!" snapped the countess-dowager. "Send up tea at once; and let it be strong, with a great deal of green in it.
"What's all this about?" broke in the countess-dowager, darting upon the conference, her face flushed and her head-dress awry. "Are you two quarrelling?" "Val was attempting to explain something about Miss Ashton," answered Maude, rising from the sofa, and drawing herself up to her stately height. "He had better do it to you instead, mamma; I don't understand it."
"We have no adherents; this is a strictly private affair." "Did you send for Mr. Carr?" whispered the countess-dowager, looking white through her rouge. "No; his coming has taken me by surprise," replied Hartledon, with a nervousness he could not wholly conceal. They passed rapidly through the passages, marshalled by Hedges.
They could not be at tea yet, and she had told Lady Hartledon she was going to take her nap in her own room. The gratification of rummaging false Val's desk was an ample compensation; and the countess-dowager hugged herself with delight.
Without the slightest ceremony, the countess-dowager pushed herself foremost and advanced to the head of the table. "I shall occupy this seat in my nephew's absence," said she. "Dr. Ashton, will you be so good as to take the foot? There's no one else." "Nay, madam; though Lord Hartledon may not be here, Mr. Elster is."
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