Part 14 (2/2)
”In the name of heaven, what does all this mean?” asked Henry, addressing his aunts, who, for the first time in their lives, were struck dumb by astonishment. But Miss Jacky, at length recollecting herself, turned to Lady Juliana, who was still testifying her delight by a variety of childish but graceful movements, and thus addressed her:
”Permit me to put a few questions to your Ladys.h.i.+p, in presence of those who were witnesses of what has already pa.s.sed.”
”Oh, I can't endure to be asked questions; besides, I have no time to answer them.”
”Your Ladys.h.i.+p must excuse me; But I can't permit you to leave this room under the influence of an error. Have the goodness to answer me the following questions, and you will then be at liberty to depart. Did I inform your Ladys.h.i.+p that my brother had given my nephew a great quant.i.ty of money?”
”Oh yes! a great, great deal; I don't know how much, though--”
”Did I?” returned her interrogator.
”Come, come, have done with all this confounded nonsense!” exclaimed Henry pa.s.sionately. ”Do you imagine I will allow Lady Juliana to stand here all day, to answer all the absurd questions that come into the heads of three old women? You stupefy and bewilder her with your eternal tattling and roundabout harangues.” And he paced the room in a paroxysm of rage, while his wife suspended her dancing, and stood in breathless amazement.
”I declare--I'm sure--it's a thousand pities that there should have been any mistake made,” whined poor Miss Grizzy.
”The only remedy is to explain the matter quickly,” observed Miss Nicky; ”better late than never.”
”I have done,” said Miss Jacky, seating herself with much dignity.
”The short and the long of it is this,” said Miss Nicky, ”My brother has not made Henry a present of money. I a.s.sure you money is not so rife; but he has done what is much better for you both,--he has made over to him that fine thriving farm of poor Macglashan's.”
”No money!” repeated Lady Juliana in a disconsolate tone: then quickly brightening up, ”It would have been better, to be sure, to have had the money directly; but you know we can easily sell the estate. How long will it take?--a week?”
”Sell Clackandow!” exclaimed the three horrorstruck daughters of the house of Douglas. ”Sell Clackandow! Oh! oh! oh!”
”What else could we do with it?” inquired her Ladys.h.i.+p.
”Live at it, to be sure,” cried all three.
”Live at it!” repeated she, with a shriek of horror that vied with that of the spinsters--”Live at it! Live on a thriving farm! Live all my life in such a place as this! Oh! the very thought is enough to kill me!”
”There is no occasion to think or say any more about it,” interrupted Henry in a calmer tone; and, glancing round on his aunts, ”I therefore desire no more may be said on the subject.”
”And is this really all? And have you got no money? And are we not going away?” gasped the disappointed Lady Juliana, as she gave way to a violent burst of tears, that terminated in a fit of hysterics; at sight of which, the good spinsters entirely forgot their wrath; and while one burnt feathers under her nose, and another held her hands, a third drenched her in floods of Lady Maclaughlan'shysteric water. After going through the regular routine, the lady's paroxysm subsided; and being carried to bed, she soon sobbed herself into a feverish slumber; in which state the hara.s.sed husband left her to attend a summons from his father.
CHAPTER XII.
”See what delight in sylvan scenes appear!”
Pope.
”Haply this life is best, Sweetest to you, well corresponding With your stiff age; but unto us it is A cell of ignorance, a prison for a debtor.”
_Cymbeline._
HE found the old gentleman in no very complaisant humour, from the disturbances that had taken place, but the chief cause of which he was still in ignorance of. He therefore accosted his son with:
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