The Billow and the Rock. Harriet Martineau

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СКАЧАТЬ servants drink tea in my house! Off they shall go—every one of them who does it.”

      “Oh! papa. No; pray papa!” implored Janet. “They will say I sent them away. Oh! I wish nobody had asked me anything about it.”

      “It was my doing,” said the President. “My dear lord, I make it my request that your servants may be forgiven.”

      Lord Carse bowed his acquiescence; but he shook his head, and looked very gloomy about such a thing happening in his house. The President agreed with him that it must not happen again, on pain of instant dismissal.

      The President next invited Janet to the drawing-room to see a grey parrot, brought hither since her last visit—a very entertaining companion in the evenings, the President declared. He told Lord Carse he would be back in three minutes, and so he was—with a lady on his arm, and that lady was—Lady Carse.

      She was not flushed now, nor angry, nor forward. She was quiet and ladylike, while in the house of one of the most gentlemanly men of his time. If her husband had looked at her, he would have seen her so much like the woman he wooed and once dearly loved, that he might have somewhat changed his feelings towards her. But he went abruptly to the window when he discovered who she was, and nothing could make him turn his head. Perhaps he was aware how pale he was, and desired that she should not see it.

      The President placed the lady in a chair, and then approached Lord Carse, and laid his hand on his shoulder, saying, “You will forgive me when you know my reasons. I want you to join me in prevailing on this good lady to give up a design which I think imprudent—I will say, wrong.”

      It was surprising, but Lady Carse for once bore quietly with somebody thinking her wrong. Whatever she might feel, she said nothing. The President went on.

      “Lady Carse—”

      He felt, as his hand lay on his friend’s shoulder, that he winced, as if the very name stung him.

      “Lady Carse,” continued the President, “cannot be deterred by any account that can be given her of the perils and hardships of a journey to London. She declares her intention of going.”

      “I am no baby; I am no coward,” declared the lady. “The coach would not have been set up, and it would not continue to go once a fortnight if the journey were not practicable; and where others go I can go.”

      “Of the dangers of the road, I tell this good lady,” resumed the President, “she can judge as well as you or I, my lord. But of the perils of the rest of her errand she must, I think, admit that we may be better judges.”

      “How can you let your Hanoverian prejudices seduce you into countenancing such a devil as that woman, and believing a word that she says?” muttered Lord Carse, in a hoarse voice.

      “Why, my good friend,” replied the President, “it does so vex my very heart every day to see how the ladies, whom I would fain honour for their discretion as much as I admire them for their other virtues, are wild on behalf of the Pretender, or eager for a desperate and treasonable war, that you must not wonder if I take pleasure in meeting with one who is loyal to her rightful sovereign. Loyal, I must suppose, at home, and in a quiet way; for she knows that I do not approve of her journey to London to see the minister.”

      “The minister!” faltered out Lord Carse.

      He heard, or fancied he heard his wife laughing behind him.

      “Come, now, my friends,” said the President, with a good-humoured seriousness, “let me tell you that the position of either of you is no joke. It is too serious for any lightness and for any passion. I do not want to hear a word about your grievances. I see quite enough. I see a lady driven from home, deprived of her children, and tormenting herself with thoughts of revenge because she has no other object. I see a gentleman who has been cruelly put to shame in his own house and in the public street, worn with anxiety about his innocent daughters, and with natural fears—inevitable fears, of the mischief that may be done to his character and fortunes by an ill use of the confidence he once gave to the wife of his bosom.”

      There was a suppressed groan from Lord Carse, and something like a titter from the lady. The President went on even more gravely.

      “I know how easy it is for people to make each other wretched, and especially for you two to ruin each other. If I could but persuade you to sit down with me to a quiet discussion of a plan for living together or apart, abstaining from mutual injury—”

      Lord Carse dissented audibly from their living together, and the lady from living apart.

      “Why,” remonstrated the President, “things cannot be worse than they are now. You make life a hell—”

      “I am sure it is to me!” sighed Lord Carse.

      “It is not yet so to me,” said the lady. “I—”

      “It is not!” thundered her husband, turning suddenly round upon her. “Then I will take care it shall be.”

      “For God’s sake, hush!” exclaimed the President, shocked to the soul.

      “Do your worst,” said the lady, rising. “We will try which has the most power. You know what ruin is.”

      “Stop a moment,” said the President. “I don’t exactly like to have this quiet house of mine made a hell of. I cannot have you part on these terms.”

      But the lady had curtseyed, and was gone. For a minute or two nothing was said. Then a sort of scream was heard from upstairs.

      “My Janet!” cried Lord Carse.

      “I will go and see,” said the President. “Janet is my especial pet, you know.”

      He immediately returned, smiling, and said, “There is nothing amiss with Janet. Come and see.”

      Janet was on her mother’s lap, her arms thrown round her neck, while the mother’s tears streamed over them both. “Can you resist this?” the President asked of Lord Carse. “Can you keep them apart after this?”

      “I can,” he replied. “I will not permit her the devilish pleasure she wants—of making my own children my enemies.”

      He was going to take Janet by force: but the President interfered, and said authoritatively to Lady Carse that she had better go: her time was not yet come. She must wait; and his advice was to wait patiently and harmlessly.

      It could not have been believed how instantaneously a woman in such emotion could recover herself.

      She put Janet off her knee. In an instant there were no more traces of tears, and her face was composed, and her manner hard.

      “Good-bye, my dear,” she said to the weeping Janet. “Don’t cry so, my dear. Keep your tears; for you will have something more to cry for soon. I am going home to pack my trunk for London. Have my friends any commands for London?”

      And she looked round steadily upon the three faces.

      The President was extremely grave when their eyes met; but even his eye sank under СКАЧАТЬ