Elster's Folly Part 88

Maude screamed at the loss of her treasures, rose up with anger, and slapped Anne. The child cried out.

"Why d'you hit her?" cried Reginald. "It was Edward's fault; he pushed her."

"What's that!" exclaimed Edward. "My fault! I'll teach you to say that,"

and he struck Reginald a tingling slap on the cheek.

Of course there was loud crying. The dowager looked on with a red face.

Lady Margaret Cooper, who had no children of her own, stopped her ears.

Lady Laura laid her hand on her sister-in law's wrist.

"And you can witness these scenes, and not check them! You are changed, indeed, Anne!"

"If I interfere to protect my children, I am checked and prevented,"

replied Lady Hartledon, with quivering lips. "This scene is nothing to what we have sometimes."

"Who checks you--Val?"

"The dowager. But he does not interpose for me. Where the children are concerned, he tacitly lets her have sway. It is not often anything of this sort takes place in his presence."

The noise continued: all the children seemed to be fighting together.

Anne went forward and drew her own two out of the fray.

"Pray send those two screamers to the nursery, Lady Hartledon," cried the dowager.

"I cannot think why they are allowed in the drawing-room at all," said Lady Margaret, addressing no one in particular, unless it was the ceiling. "Edward and Maude would be quiet enough without them."

Anne did not retort: she only glanced at her husband, silent reproach on her pale face, and took up Anne in her arms to carry her from the room.

But Lady Laura, impulsive and warm, came forward and stopped the exit.

"Lady Kirton, I am ashamed of you! Margaret, I am ashamed of you! I am ashamed of you all. You are doing the children a lasting injury, and you are guilty of cruel insult to Lady Hartledon. This is the second scene I have been a witness to, when the elder children were encouraged to behave badly to the younger; the first was in the nursery this morning; and I have been here only a few hours. And you, Lord Hartledon, their head and father, responsible for your children's welfare, can tamely sit by, and suffer it, and see your wife insulted! Is this what you married Anne Ashton for?"

Lord Hartledon rose: a strange look of pain on his features. "You are mistaken, Laura. I wish every respect to be shown to my wife; respect from all. Anne knows it."

"Respect!" scornfully retorted Lady Laura. "When you do not give her so much as a voice in her own house; when you allow her children to be trampled on, and beaten--_beaten_, sir--and she dare not interfere!

I blush for you, and could never have believed you would so behave to your wife. Who are you, madam," turning again, in her anger, on the countess-dowager, "and who are you, Margaret, that you should dare to encourage Edward and Maude in rebellion against their present mother?"

Taken by surprise, the dowager made no answer. Lady Margaret looked defiance.

"You and Anne have invited me to your house on a lengthened visit, Lord Hartledon," continued Laura; "but I promise you that if this is to continue I will not remain in it; I will not witness insult to my early friend; and I will not see children incited to evil pa.s.sions. Undress that child, sir," she sharply added, directing Val's attention to Reginald, "and you will see bruises on his back and shoulder. I saw them this morning, and asked the nurse what caused them and was told Lord Elster kicked him."

"It was the little beggar's own fault," interposed Edward, who was standing his ground with equanimity, and seemed to enjoy the scene.

Lady Laura caught him sharply by the arm. "Of whom are you speaking!

Who's a little beggar?"

"Regy is."

"Who taught you to call him one?"

"Grand'ma."

"There, go away; go away all of you," cried Lady Laura, turning the two elder ones from the room imperatively, after Anne and her children. "Oh, so you are going also, Val! No wonder you are ashamed to stay here."

He was crossing the room; a curious expression on his drawn lips. Laura watched him from it; then went and stood before the dowager; her back to her sister.

"Has it ever struck you, Lady Kirton, that you may one day have to account for this?"

"It strikes me that you are making a vast deal of unnecessary noise, Madame Laura!"

"If your daughter could look on, from the other world, at earth and its scenes--and some hold a theory that such a state of things is not impossible--what would be her anguish, think you, at the evil you are inculcating in her children? One of them will very soon be with her--"

The dowager interrupted with a sort of howl.

"He will; there is no mistaking it. You who see him constantly may not detect it; but it is evident to a stranger. Were it not beneath me, I might ask on what grounds you tutor him to call Reginald a beggar, considering that your daughter brought my brother nothing but a few debts; whilst Miss Ashton brought him a large fortune?"

"I wouldn't condescend to be mean, Laura," put in Lady Margaret, whilst the dowager fanned her hot face.

They were interrupted by Hedges, showing in visitors. How much more Lady Laura might have said must remain unknown: she was in a mood to say a great deal.

"Mr. and Mrs. Graves."

It was the curate; and the tall, meek woman spoken of by Anne. Laura laughed as she shook hands with the former; whom she had known when a girl, and been given to ridiculing more than was quite polite.

Lord Hartledon had left the room after his wife. She sent the children to the nursery; and he found her alone in her chamber sobbing bitterly.

Certainly he was a contradiction. He fondly took her in his arms, beseeching her to pardon him, if he had unwittingly slighted her, as Laura implied; and his blue eyes were beaming with affection, his voice was low with persuasive tenderness.

"There are times," she sobbed, "when I am tempted to wish myself back in my father's house!"

"I cannot think whence all this discomfort arises!" he weakly exclaimed.

"Of one thing, Anne, rest a.s.sured: as soon as Edward changes for the better or the worse--and one it must inevitably be--that mischief-making old woman shall quit my house for ever."

"Edward will never change for the better," she said. "For the worse, he may soon: for the better, never."

"I know: Hillary has told me. Bear with things a little longer, and believe that I will remedy them the moment remedy is possible. I am your husband."

Lady Hartledon lifted her eyes to his. "We cannot go on as we are going on now. Tell me what it is you have to bear. You remind me that you are my husband; I now remind you that I am your wife: confide in me. I will be true and loving to you, whatever it may be."

"Not yet; in a little time, perhaps. Bear with me still, my dear wife."

His look was haggard; his voice bore a sound of anguish; he clasped her hand to pain as he left her. Whatever might be his care, Anne could not doubt his love.

And as he went into the drawing-room, a smile on his face, chatting with the curate, laughing with his newly-married wife, both those unsuspicious visitors could have protested when they went forth, that never was a man more free from trouble than that affable servant of her Majesty's the Earl of Hartledon.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.