“I’m not impatient for it,” said he; “I have had a sufficient dose of bitters this morning, and I’d just as soon spare myself the acrid petulance of this poor creature.”
“You are very provoking, I must say,” said she, angrily, and turned away towards the house. Calvert watched her till she disappeared behind a copse, and then hastily broke open the letter.
“Middle Temple, Saturday.
“Sir—My father has forwarded to me a letter which, with
very questionable good taste, you addressed to him. The very
relations which subsisted between us when we parted, might
have suggested a more delicate course on your part. Whatever
objections I might then, however, have made to your
interference in matters personal to myself, have now become
something more than mere objections, and I flatly declare
that I will not listen to one word from a man whose name is
now a shame and a disgrace throughout Europe. That you
may quit the roof which has sheltered you hitherto without
the misery of exposure, I have forborne in my letter to
narrate the story which is on every tongue here; but, as
the price of this forbearance, I desire and I exact that you
leave the villa on the day you receive this, and cease from
that day forth to hold any intercourse with the family who
reside in it. If I do not, therefore, receive a despatch by
telegraph, informing me that you accede to these conditions,
I will forward by the next post the full details which the
press of England is now giving of your infamous conduct and
of the legal steps which are to be instituted against you.
“Remember distinctly, Sir, that I am only in this pledging
myself for that short interval of time which will suffer you
to leave the house of those who offered you a refuge against
calamity—not crime—and whose shame would be overwhelming
if they but knew the character of him they sheltered. You
are to leave before night-fall of the day this reaches, and
never to return. You are to abstain from all correspondence.
I make no conditions as to future acquaintanceship, because
I know that were I even so minded, no efforts of mine could
save you from that notoriety which a few days more will
attach to you, never to leave you.
“I am, your obedient servant,
“Joseph Loyd.”
Calvert tried to laugh as he finished the reading of this note, but the attempt was a failure, and a sickly pallor spread over his face, and his lips trembled. “Let me only meet you, I don’t care in what presence, or in what place,” muttered he, “and you shall pay dearly for this. But now to think of myself. This is just the sort of fellow to put his threat into execution, the more since he will naturally be anxious to get me away from this. What is to be done? With one week more I could almost answer for my success. Ay, Mademoiselle Florry, you were deeper in the toils than you suspected. The dread of me that once inspired a painful feeling had grown into a sort of self-pride that elevated her in her own esteem, She was so proud of her familiarity with a wild animal, and so vain of her influence over him! So pleasant to say, ‘See, savage as he is, he’ll not turn upon me!’ And now to rise from the table, when the game is all but won! Confound the fellow, how he has wrecked my fortunes! As if I had not enough, too, on my hands without this!” And he walked impatiently to and fro, like a caged animal in fretfulness. “I wanted to think over Drayton’s letter calmly and deliberately, and here comes this order, this command, to be up and away—away from the only spot in which I can say I enjoyed an hour’s peace for years and years, and from the two or three left to me, of all the world, who think it no shame to bestow on me a word or a look of kindness. The fellow is peremptory—he declares I must leave to-day.” For some time he continued to walk, muttering to himself, or moodily silent At last he cried out, “Yes; I have it! I’ll go up to Milan, and cash this bill of Drayton’s. When there I’ll telegraph to Loyd, which will show I have left the villa. That done, I’ll return here, if it be but for a day; and who knows what a day will bring forth?”
“Who has commands for Milan?” said he, gaily entering the drawing-room, where Miss Grainger sat, holding a half-whispering conversation with Emily.
“Milan! are you going to Milan?”
“Yes; only for a day. A friend has charged me with a commission that does not admit of delay, and I mean to run up this afternoon and be down by dinnertime to-morrow.”
“I’ll go and see if Florry wants anything from the city,” said Miss Grainger, as she arose and left the room.
“Poor Florry! she is so distressed by that letter she received this morning. Joseph has taken it in such ill part that you should have been consulted by Aunt Grainger, and reproaches her for having permitted what she really never heard of. Not that, as she herself says, she admits of any right on his part to limit her source of advice. She thinks that it is somewhat despotic in him to say, ‘You shall not take counsel except with leave from me.’ She knows that this is the old vicar’s doing, and that Joseph never would have assumed that tone without being put up to it.”
“That is clear enough; but I am surprised that your sister saw it.”