Arminell, Vol. 2. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ know more than he supposes. He has no right to shelve his responsibilities. If a man has done wrong, let him be manful, and bear the consequences. I would do so. I would be ashamed not to do so.”

      She set her teeth, and her step was firm. She threw a light shawl over her head and shoulders and went into the avenue, where she paced with a rebellious, beating heart a few minutes alone, till her father joined her.

      “I know, papa, what you want; or rather what you have been driven to. My lady has been peaching of me, and has constituted you her executioner.”

      “Arminell, I dislike this tone. You forget that courtesy which is due to a father.”

      “Exacted of a father,” corrected the girl.

      “And due to him as a father,” said Lord Lamerton, gravely. His cigar was out. He struck a fusee and lighted it again. His hand was not steady, Arminell looked in his face, illumined by the fusee, and her heart relented. That was a good, kind face, a guileless face, very honest, and she could see by the flare of the match that it was troubled. But her perverse mood gained the upper hand again in a moment. She possessed the feminine instinct in dealing with men, when threatened, to attack, not wait to be attacked.

      “I do not think it fair, papa, that my lady should hide herself behind you, and thrust you forward, as besiegers attack a fortress, from behind a screen.”

      “You are utterly mistaken, Arminell, if you imagine that your mother – your step-mother – has intentions of attacking you. Her heart overflows with kindness towards you, the warmest kindness.”

      “Papa, when Vesuvius is in eruption, the villagers in proximity pray to heaven to divert into the sea, anywhere but towards them, the warm gush of incandescent lava.”

      “Arminell,” said her father, “you pain me inexpressibly. I suppose that it is inevitable that a daughter by a first wife should not agree thoroughly with her father’s second choice; but, ’pon my soul, I can see no occasion for you to take up arms against your step-mother, she has been too forbearing with you. She is the kindest, most considerate and conscientious of women.”

      “You may spare me the enumeration of her good qualities, papa; I am sure she is a paragon in your eyes, and I would not disturb the happy conviction. I suppose marriage is much like the transfusion of blood practised by the rénaissance physicians. An injection of rabbit’s blood into the arm of a turbulent man made him sensible to fear, and one of lion’s blood into the arteries of a coward infused heroism into his soul. When there was an interchange of blood between two individuals they came to think alike, feel alike, and act alike; it is a happy condition. But as there has been no infusion of my lady’s blood into me – I think and feel and act quite differently from her.”

      “We will leave her out of the question,” said Lord Lamerton, dropping his daughters arm which at first he had taken affectionately. “Confound it, my cigar is out again, the tobacco must be bad. I will not trouble to relight it.”

      “By all means let us leave my lady out of the question,” said Arminell. “I suppose I am not to be court-martialed for having discussed Noah’s Ark on Sunday with the tutor. I assure you we did not question the universality of the Flood, we talked only of the packing of the animals in the Ark.”

      “Was there any necessity for Mr. Saltren to come to you in the music-room?”

      “No necessity whatever. He came for the pleasure of talking to me, not even to turn over my music leaves.”

      “You must not forget, my dear, who he is.”

      “I do not, I assure you, papa, it is precisely that which makes me take such an interest in him.”

      “Well, my dear, I am glad of that; but you must not allow him to forget what is due to you. It will not do for you to encourage him. He is only a mining captain’s son.”

      “Papa,” said Arminell, slowly and emphatically, “I know very well whose son he is.”

      “Of course you do; all I say is, do not forget it. He is a nice fellow, has plenty of brains, and knows his place.”

      “Yes, papa,” said Arminell, “he knows his place, and he knows how equivocal that place is. He is regarded as one thing, and he is another.”

      “I daresay I made a mistake in bringing him here so near to his father.”

      “So very near to his father, and yet so separated from him.”

      “I suppose so,” said Lord Lamerton, “education does separate.”

      “It separates so widely that those who are divided by it hardly regard each other as belonging to the same human family.”

      “I daresay it is so; the miners cannot judge me fairly about the manganese, because we stand on different educational levels.”

      “It is not only those beneath the line who misjudge those above; it is sometimes the superiors who misunderstand those below.”

      “Very possibly; but, my dear, that lower class, with limited culture and narrow views, is nowadays the dominating class. It is, in fact, the privileged class, it pays no taxes, and yet elects our rulers; our class is politically swamped, we exist upon sufferance. Formerly the castle dominated the cottage, but now the cottages command the castle. We, the educated, and wealthy are maintained as parochial cows, to furnish the parishioners with milk, and when we run dry are cut up to be eaten, and our bones treated with sulphuric acid and given to the earth to dress it for mangel-wurzel.”

      Arminell was vexed at the crafty way in which, according to her view, her father shifted ground, when she approached too nearly the delicate secret. She wondered whether she had spoken plainly enough to let him understand how much she knew. It was not her desire to come to plain words, she would spare him that humiliation. It would be quite enough, it would answer her purpose fully to let him understand that she knew the real facts as to the relationship in which she stood to the tutor.

      “Papa,” said Arminell, “Giles Inglett Saltren strikes me as standing towards us much in the same relation as do those apocryphal books the names of which my lady was teaching the children on Sunday. He is not canonical, of questionable origin, and to be passed over.”

      “I do not understand you, Armie.”

      “I am sorry, papa, that I do not see my way to express my meaning unenigmatically.”

      “Armie, I have been talking to mamma about your paying a visit to Aunt Hermione. You really ought to see the Academy this year, and, as mamma and I do not intend to go to town, it will be an opportunity for you.”

      “Aunt Hermione!” – Arminell stood still. “I don’t want to go to her. Why should I go? I do not like her, and she detests me.”

      “My dear, I wish it.”

      “What? That I should see the Academy? I can take a day ticket, run up, race through Burlington House, and come home the same evening.”

      “No, my dear, I wish you to stay a couple of months at least, with Hermione.”

      “I see – you want to put me off, out of the way of the tutor, so as to have no more talk, no more confidences with him. That is my lady’s scheme. It is too late, papa, do you understand me? It is too late.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “What СКАЧАТЬ