"And now, Mary, what do you mean to do?"
"Oh, I'll see and get these things taken away," said she.
"Yes, yes; stop a minute; that's of course. But what I mean is, what do you mean to do with yourself? you can't go back and live at Littlebath all alone?"
If I were to use the word "flabbergasted" as expressing Miss Baker's immediate state of mind, I should draw down on myself the just anger of the critics, in that I had condescended to the use of slang; but what other word will so well express what is meant? She had fully intended to go back to Littlebath, and had intended to do so at the earliest moment that would be possible. Was not Sir Lionel still at Littlebath? And, moreover, she fully intended to live there. That she would have some little difficulty in the matter, she had anticipated. Her own income—that which was indefeasibly her own—was very small; by far too small to admit of her permanently keeping on those rooms in Montpellier Terrace. Hitherto their income, her own and Caroline's put together, had been very comfortable; for Mr. Bertram had annually paid to her a sum which of itself would have been sufficient for her own living. But she had not known what difference Caroline's marriage might make in this allowance. It had been given to herself without any specification that it had been so given for any purpose; but yet it had been an understood thing that Caroline was to live with her and be supported. And though Caroline's income had also been used, it had gone rather in luxurious enjoyments than in necessary expenses; in the keep of a horse, for instance, in a journey to Jerusalem, in a new grand piano, and such like. Now there might naturally be a doubt whether under altered circumstances this allowance from Mr. Bertram would remain unaltered.
But it had never occurred to her that she would be asked to live at Hadley. That idea did now occur to her, and therefore she stood before her uncle hesitating in her answer, and—may my inability to select any better word be taken in excuse?—"flabbergasted" in her mind and feelings.
But her doom followed quickly on her hesitation. "Because," said Mr. Bertram, "there is plenty of room here. There can be no need of two houses and two establishments now; you had better send for your things and fix yourself here at once."
"But I couldn't leave the rooms at Littlebath without a quarter's notice;"—the coward's plea; a long day, my lord, a long day—"that was particularly understood when I got them so cheap."
"There will be no difficulty in reletting them at this time of the year," growled Mr. Bertram.
"Oh, no, I suppose not; one would have to pay something, of course. But, dear me! one can hardly leave the place where one has lived so long all of a moment."
"Why not?" demanded the tyrant.