“What care has he ever taken of you? He was very little better acquainted with you than he was with me, when you came to keep house for him and make yourself useful. Of course, he had to pay for your board and lodging and education. The police would not have allowed him to leave you to the parish. Besides, he was proud of having a nice, pretty daughter to dispose of. You were quite welcome to be happy so long as you did not do anything except what he approved of. But the moment you claim your independence as a grown woman, the moment you attempt to dispose of yourself instead of letting him dispose of you! Bah! I might have been my father’s pet, if I had been a nonentity. As it was, he spared no pains to make me miserable; and as I was only a helpless little devil of a girl, he succeeded to his heart’s content. Uncle Reginald will try to do exactly the same to-morrow, he will come and bully you, instead of apologizing as he ought. See if he doesnt!”
“If I had as much reason to complain of my childhood as you have, perhaps I should not feel so shocked and disappointed by his turning on me to-night. Surely, when he saw me attacked as I was, he ought to have come to my assistance.”
“Any stranger would have taken your part. The footman would, if you had asked him. But then, James is not your father.”
“It seems a very small thing to be bidden to leave the room. But I will never expose myself to a repetition of it.”
“Quite right. But what do you mean to do? for, after all, though parental love is an imposition, parental authority is a fact.”
“I will get married.”
“Out of the frying pan into the fire! Certainly, if you are resolved to marry, the present is as good as another time, and more convenient. But there must be some legal formalities to go through. You cannot turn into the first church you meet, and be married off-hand.”
“Ned must find out all that. I am sadly disappointed and disilluded, Nelly.”
“Time will cure you as it does everybody; and you will be the better for being wiser. By the bye, what did Sholto mean about Mrs. Fairfax?”
“I dont know.”