Volume Ii Part 94 (2/2)
”Very unlike indeed!” said Fleda, endeavouring to understand what Mr. Carleton was saying to her about wood strawberries and _hautbois_.
”Will you allow that, Carleton?”
”What, my lord?”
”A rival banner to float alongside of St. George's?”
”The flags are friendly, my lord.”
”Hum ? just now ? they may seem so. Has your little standard- bearer anything of a rebellious disposition.”
”Not against any lawful authority, I hope,” said Fleda.
”Then there is hope for you, Mr. Carleton, that you will be able to prevent the introduction of mischievous doctrines.”
”For shame, Lord Peterborough!' said his wife ? ”what atrocious suppositions you are making! I am blus.h.i.+ng, I am sure, for your want of discernment.”
”Why ? yes” ? said his lords.h.i.+p, looking at another face whose blushes were more unequivocal ? ”it may seem so ? there is no appearance of anything untoward, but she is a woman after all.
I will try her. Mrs. Carleton, don't you think with my Lady Peterborough that in the present nineteenth century women ought to stand more on that independent footing from which lordly monopoly has excluded them?”
The first name Fleda thought belonged to another person, and her downcast eyelids prevented her seeing to whom it was addressed. It was no matter, for any answer was antic.i.p.ated.
”The boast of independence is not engrossed by the boldest footing, my lord.”
”She has never considered the subject,” said Lady Peterborough.
”It is no matter,” said his lords.h.i.+p. ”I must respectfully beg an answer to my question.”
The silence made Fleda look up.
”Don't you think that the rights of the weak ought to be on a perfect equality with those of the strong?”
”The rights of the weak _as such_ ? yes, my lord.”
The gentlemen smiled; the ladies looked rather puzzled.
”I have no more to say, Mr. Carleton,” said his lords.h.i.+p, ”but that we must make an Englishwoman of her!”
”I am afraid she will never be a perfect cure,” said Mr.
Carleton, smiling.
”I conceive it might require peculiar qualities in the physician ? but I do not despair. I was telling her of some of your doings this morning, and happy to see that they met with her entire disapproval.”
Mr. Carleton did not even glance towards Fleda, and made no answer, but carelessly gave the conversation another turn; for which she thanked him unspeakably.
There was no other interruption of any consequence to the well-bred flow of talk and kindliness of manner on the part of all the company, that put Fleda as much as possible at her ease. Still she did not realise anything, and yet she did realise it so strongly, that her woman's heart could not rest till it had eased itself in tears. The superbly appointed table at which she sat ? her own, though Mrs. Carleton this morning presided ? the like of which she had not seen since she was at Carleton before; the beautiful room with its arrangements, bringing back a troop of recollections of that old time; all the magnificence about her, instead of elevating, sobered her spirits to the last degree. It pressed home upon her that feeling of responsibility, of the change that come over her; and though beneath it all very happy, Fleda hardly knew it, she longed so to be alone, and to cry.
One person's eyes, however little seemingly observant of her, read sufficiently well the unusual shaded air of her brow and her smile. But a sudden errand of business called him abroad immediately after breakfast.
The ladies seized the opportunity to carry Fleda up and introduce her to her dressing-room, and take account of Lady Peterborough's commission, and ladies and ladies' maids soon formed a busy committee of dress and decorations. It did not enliven Fleda ? it wearied her, though she forgave them the annoyance in grat.i.tude for the pleasure they took in looking at her. Even the delight her eye had from the first minute she saw it, in the beautiful room, and her quick sense of the carefulness with which it had been arranged for her, added to the feeling with which she was oppressed; she was very pa.s.sive in the hands of her friends.
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