Part 4 (1/2)
”Do you know there's a ridiculous report about that you are going to be married?”
”Indeed!”
”They even tell her name--Miss Bruce. Do you know the girl?”
”Yes.”
”Is she pretty?”
”Very.”
”Modest?”
”As an angel.”
”And are you going to marry her?”
”Yes.”
”Then you are a villain.”
”The deuce I am!”
”You are, to abandon a woman who has sacrificed all for you.”
Sir Charles looked puzzled, and then smiled; but was too polite to give his thoughts vent. Nor was it necessary; Miss Somerset, whose brave eyes never left the person she was speaking to, fired up at the smile alone, and she burst into a torrent of remonstrance, not to say vituperation. Sir Charles endeavored once or twice to stop it, but it was not to be stopped; so at last he quietly took up his hat, to go.
He was arrested at the door by a rustle and a fall. He turned round, and there was Miss Somerset lying on her back, grinding her white teeth and clutching the air.
He ran to the bell and rang it violently, then knelt down and did his best to keep her from hurting herself; but, as generally happens in these cases, his interference made her more violent. He had hard work to keep her from battering her head against the floor, and her arms worked like windmills.
Hearing the bell tugged so violently, a pretty page ran headlong into the room--saw--and; without an instant's diminution of speed, described a curve, and ran headlong out, screaming ”Polly! Polly!”
The next moment the housekeeper, an elderly woman, trotted in at the door, saw her mistress's condition, and stood stock-still, calling, ”Polly,” but with the most perfect tranquillity the mind can conceive.
In ran a strapping house-maid, with black eyes and brown arms, went down on her knees, and said, firmly though respectfully, ”Give her me, sir.”
She got behind her struggling mistress, pulled her up into her own lap, and pinned her by the wrists with a vigorous grasp.
The lady struggled, and ground her teeth audibly, and flung her arms abroad. The maid applied all her rustic strength and harder muscle to hold her within bounds. The four arms went to and fro in a magnificent struggle, and neither could the maid hold the mistress still, nor the mistress shake off the maid's grasp, nor strike anything to hurt herself.
Sir Charles, thrust out of the play looked on with pity and anxiety, and the little page at the door--combining art and nature--stuck stock-still in a military att.i.tude, and blubbered aloud.
As for the housekeeper, she remained in the middle of the room with folded arms, and looked down on the struggle with a singular expression of countenance. There was no agitation whatever, but a sort of thoughtful examination, half cynical, half admiring.
However, as soon as the boy's sobs reached her ear she wakened up, and said, tenderly, ”What is the child crying for? Run and get a basin of water, and fling it all over her; that will bring her to in a minute.”
The page departed swiftly on this benevolent errand.
Then the lady gave a deep sigh, and ceased to struggle.