Part 47 (1/2)
”What do you mean, Randal?” demands his aunt, with a snort that would have done credit to a war-horse. ”To whom are you addressing your remarks? Are you calling _me_ indelicate?”
”Oh no--not for worlds!” says Mrs. Chichester, who is choking with laughter, and who only emerges from behind her fan to say this, and go back again. ”Who could? But we feared--we thought you were going to say her _skirt.”_
”It is my opinion that you fear nothing,” says Miss Gower, with a withering glance at the fan. ”And let me tell you that there are _other_ people,”--with awful emphasis--”besides Mrs. Tyneway who would do well to put a tucker round their----”
”Ankles!” puts in Mrs. Chichester sweetly.
”No; their----”
”What was her dress made of?” breaks in Margaret hurriedly, who is afraid of their going too far with the irascible old lady.
”Goodness knows! She was all black and blue, at all events!”
”No! You don't say so?” exclaims Mr. Gower, with a tragic gesture.
”So her husband has been at it again!”
At this they all roar, as people will, at _anything,_ when they have nothing else to do. Even t.i.ta, who, though smiling always, is looking rather depressed, gives way to a merry little laugh. Hearing her, Margaret blesses Randal for his silly old joke.
”Oh, Randal! you are too stupid for anything,” says t.i.ta, showing all her pretty teeth.
”You have for once lighted on a solemn truth,” puts in Randal's aunt grimly. ”Let us hope you are getting sense.”
”Or a wise tooth,” says Colonel Neilson, with a friendly smile at t.i.ta. ”Lady Rylton is very _nearly_ old enough to be thinking of that now.”
”As for that wretched Mrs. Tyneway,” says Miss Gower, taking no notice of him, ”if her husband did so far take the law into his own hands as to make her black and blue, I, for one, should not blame him.”
”That's funny!” says Mrs. Chichester, giving her a saucy little smile.
”What is funny, may I ask?”
”To hear you defend a man. I thought you despised them in a body.”
”I have my own views about them,” says Miss Gower, with a sniff.
”But I admit they have rights of their own.”
”Fancy allowing a man to have rights nowadays!” cries Mrs.
Chichester, uplifting her long arms as if in amazement. ”Good heavens! What a wife you would have made! Rights?” She looks up suddenly at Captain Marryatt, who is, as usual, hanging over the back of her chair. ”Do you think a man has any rights?”
”If you don't, I don't,” returns that warrior, with much abas.e.m.e.nt and perhaps more sense than one would have expected from him.
”Good boy,” says she, patting his hand with her fan.
”I suppose husbands have some rights, at all events?” says Sir Maurice.
He says it quite lightly--quite debonnairly, yet he hardly knows why he says it. He had been looking at t.i.ta, and suddenly she had looked back at him. There was something in the cold expression of her face, something defiant, that had driven him to make this foolish speech.
”Husbands? Pouf! They least of all,” says Mrs. Chichester, who loves to shock her audience, and now finds Miss Gower ready to her hand.
”Where is your husband now, Mrs. Chichester?” asks Colonel Neilson, quite without _malice prepense_.