The idea was shocking to the earl, but very delightful to Annabella. “I could endure it very well,” she said coldly; “I see no harm in the thing.”
“But I see it, madam,” exclaimed Dashleigh, “and what’s more, I will not suffer it to be done! Your dignity is connected with my own; it may be nothing to you, but it is something to me. If my wishes have no effect, you will at least listen to my commands.”
“Tyrant!” whispered the demon Pride; and the heart of Annabella echoed the treasonous word ‘tyrant!’
The earl was satisfied with having taken a step so decided. He had no wish to prolong a discussion with his wife, in which, as he knew by experience, she generally had the advantage. Having uttered his mandate he quitted the room, leaving Annabella in a state of angry excitement.
“Private circulation! I may print for private circulation! most condescending concession from my lord!” she muttered to herself, as she sat gloomily surveying the proofs which had lately afforded her such keen delight. Then a thought seemed at once to strike the countess, her over-cast countenance lighted up with a gleam as if of triumph. “Yes; I will write something for private circulation,” she cried, “something which my lord will find so very amusing, so highly diverting, that he will be glad to compound for its suppression by letting me do what I like with my book. Mine shall be a little romance in real life, an incident in the life of a peer of the realm!” and, dashing the drops from her eyes, Annabella at once sat down to her desk.
She wrote in a fit of resentment, and what she penned naturally took the colour of her feelings. The countess wrote a ludicrous account of a little adventure which had occurred to the Earl of ——, the dash serving as a transparent veil which every one could see through. She recounted how the earl, accompanied by his wife, who was fired with the ambition of emulating the feats which Albert Smith has rendered famous, ascended part of the way up a Swiss mountain. She described how, long ere the snowy region was reached, the nobleman had been seized with giddiness and nervous fear; how he had stood on a steep slope, with a precipice on either hand, clutching tremblingly at the rock-plants which gave way in his grasp, calling out in alarm for aid, and thankful at last to catch hold of the end of a boa which his more active and fearless partner extended from the summit of a cliff. It was a relief to Annabella to give vent to her anger and malice in this little, humorous sketch. She wrote without any deliberate intention of ever showing it to a human eye; her paper took to her the place of a female confidante, that too often mischievous companion to a woman who is not happily married.
Having finished her little piece the countess descended to the drawing-room, to pass a sullen, uncomfortable evening in the society of her aristocratic husband.