style="font-size:15px;"> “Indeed!” said Arabella.
“I’m sorry she’s in the house, not for my sake, but for yours, since the proximity does not seem to… I needn’t explain. It comes of your eternal consultations. You are the eldest. Why not act according to your judgement, which is generally sound? You listen to Adela, young as she is; or a look of Cornelia’s leads you. The result is the sort of scene I saw this afternoon. I confess it has changed my opinion of you; it has, I grieve to say it. This woman is your father’s guest; you can’t hurt her so much as you hurt him, if you misbehave to her. You can’t openly object to her and not cast a slur upon him. There is the whole case. He has insisted, and you must submit. You should have fought the battle before she came.”
“She is here, owing to a miserable misconception,” said Arabella.
“Ah! she is here, however. That is the essential, as your old governess Madame Timpan would have said.”
“Nor can a protest against coarseness be sweepingly interpreted as a piece of unfilial behaviour,” said Arabella.
“She is coarse,” Wilfrid nodded his head. “There are some forms of coarseness which dowagers would call it coarseness to notice.
“Not if you find it locked up in the house with you—not if you suffer under a constant repulsion. Pray, do not use these phrases to me, Wilfrid. An accusation of coarseness cannot touch us.”
“No, certainly,” assented Wilfrid. “And you have a right to protest. I disapprove the form of your protest nothing more. A schoolgirl’s…but you complain of the use of comparisons.”
“I complain, Wilfrid, of your want of sympathy.”
“That for two or three weeks you must hear a brogue at your elbow? The poor creature is not so bad; she is good-hearted. It’s hard that you should have to bear with her for that time and receive nothing better than Besworth as your reward.”
“Very; seeing that we endure the evil and decline the sop with it.”
“How?”
“We have renounced Besworth.”
“Have you! And did this renunciation make you all sit on the edge of your chairs, this afternoon, as if Edward Buxley had arranged you? You give up Besworth? I’m afraid it’s too late.”
“Oh, Wilfrid! can you be ignorant that something more is involved in the purchase of Besworth?”
Arabella gazed at him with distressful eagerness, as one who believes in the lingering of a vestige of candour.
“Do you mean that my father may wish to give this woman his name?” said Wilfrid coolly. “You have sense enough to know that if you make his home disagreeable, you are taking the right method to drive him into such a course. Ha! I don’t think it’s to be feared, unless you pursue these consultations. And let me say, for my part, we have gone too far about Besworth, and can’t recede.”
“I have given out everywhere that the place is ours. I did so almost at your instigation. Besworth was nothing to me till you cried it up. And now I won’t detain you. I know I can rely on your sense, if you will rely on it. Good night, Bella.”
As she was going a faint spark of courage revived Arabella’s wits. Seeing that she was now ready to speak, he opened the door wide, and she kissed him and went forth, feeling driven.
But while Arabella was attempting to give a definite version of the interview to her sisters, a message came requesting Adela to descend. The ladies did not allow her to depart until two or three ingenuous exclamations from her made them share her curiosity.
“Ah?” Wilfrid caught her hand as she came in. “No, I don’t intend to let it go. You may be a fine lady, but you’re a rogue, you know, and a charming one, as I hear a friend of mine has been saying. Shall I call him out? Shall I fight him with pistols, or swords, and leave him bleeding on the ground, because he thinks you a pretty rogue?”
Adela struggled against the blandishment of this old familiar style of converse—part fun, part flattery—dismissed since the great idea had governed Brookfield.
“Please tell me what you called me down for, dear?”
“To give you a lesson in sitting on chairs. ‘Adela, or the Puritan sister,’ thus: you sit on the extremest edge, and your eyes peruse the ceiling; and…”
“Oh! will you ever forget that perfectly ridiculous scene?” Adela cried in anguish.
She was led by easy stages to talk of Besworth.
“Understand,” said Wilfrid, “that I am indifferent about it. The idea sprang from you—I mean from my pretty sister Adela, who is President of the Council of Three. I hold that young woman responsible for all that they do. Am I wrong? Oh, very well. You suggested Besworth, at all events. And—if we quarrel, I shall cut off one of your curls.”
“We never will quarrel, my darling,” quoth Adela softly. “Unless—” she added.
Wilfrid kissed her forehead.
“Unless what?”
“Well, then, you must tell me who it is that talks of me in that objectionable manner; I do not like it.”
“Shall I convey that intimation?”
“I choose to ask, simply that I may defend myself.”
“I choose to keep him buried, then, simply to save his life.”
Adela made a mouth, and Wilfrid went on: “By the way, I want you to know Lady Charlotte; you will take to one another. She likes you, already—says you want dash; but on that point there may be two opinions.”
“If dash,” said Adela, quite beguiled, “—that is, dash!—what does it mean? But, if Lady Charlotte means by dash—am I really wanting in it? I should define it, the quality of being openly natural without vulgarity; and surely…!”
“Then you two differ a little, and must meet and settle your dispute. You don’t differ about Besworth: or, didn’t. I never saw a woman so much in love with a place as she is.”
“A place?” emphasized Adela.
“Don’t be too arch. I comprehend. She won’t take me minus Besworth, you may be sure.”
“Did you, Wilfrid!—but you did not—offer yourself as owner of Besworth?”
Wilfrid kept his eyes slanting on the floor.
“Now I see why you should still wish it,” continued Adela. “Perhaps you don’t know the reason which makes it impossible, or I would say—Bacchus! it must be compassed. You remember your old schoolboy oath which you taught me? We used to swear always, by Bacchus!”
Adela laughed and blushed, like one who petitions pardon for this her utmost sin, that is not regretted as it should be.
“Mrs. Chump again, isn’t it?” said Wilfrid. “Pole would be a preferable name. If she has the ambition, it elevates her. And it would be rather amusing to see the dear old boy in love.”
Adela gave her under-lip a distressful bite.
“Why
