He made a sign of assent, and went on: ‘I will certainly talk to Pettilove, and have the place repaired, if it be at my own expense.’
Albinia lifted up her eyes, not understanding at whose expense it should be.
‘The fact is,’ continued Mr. Kendal, ‘that there has been little to induce me to take interest in the property. Old Mr. Meadows was, as you know, a successful solicitor, and purchased these various town tenements bit by bit, and then settled them very strictly on his grandson. He charged the property with life incomes to his widow and daughters, and to me; but the land is in the hands of trustees until my son’s majority, and Pettilove is the only surviving trustee.’
The burning colour mantled in Albinia’s face, and almost inaudibly she said, ‘I beg your pardon, Edmund; I have done you moat grievous injustice. I thought you would not see—’
‘You did not think unjustly, my dear. I ought to have paid more attention to the state of affairs, and have kept Pettilove in order. But I knew nothing of English affairs, and was glad to be spared the unpleasant charge. The consequence of leaving a man like that irresponsible never occurred to me. His whole conscience in the matter is to have a large sum to put into Gilbert’s hands when he comes of age. Why, he upholds those dens of iniquity in Tibbs’s Alley on that very ground!’
‘Poor Gilbert! I am afraid a large sum so collected is not likely to do him much good! and at one-and-twenty—! But that is one notion of faithfulness!’
Albinia was much happier after that conversation. She could better endure to regret her own injustice than to believe her husband the cruel landlord; and it was no small advance that he had afforded her an explanation which once he would have deemed beyond the reach of female capacity.
In spite of the lack of little Maurice’s bright presence, which, to Albinia’s great delight, his father missed as much as she did, the period of quarantine sped by cheerfully. Sophy had not a single sullen fit the whole time, and Albinia having persuaded Mr. Kendal that it would be a sanatory measure to whitewash the study ceiling, he was absolutely forced to turn out of it and live in the morning-room, with all his books piled up in the dining-room. And on that great occasion Albinia abstracted two fusty, faded, green canvas blinds from the windows, carried them off with a pair of tongs, and pushed them into a bonfire in the garden, persuaded they were the last relics of the old fever. She had the laurels cut, the curtains changed, the windows cleaned, and altogether made the room so much lighter, that when Mr. Kendal again took possession, he did not look at all sure whether he liked it; and though he was courteously grateful, he did not avail himself of the den half so much as when it had more congenial gloom. But then he had the morning-room as a resort, and it was one of Albinia’s bargains with herself, that as far as her own influence could prevent it, neither he nor Sophy should ever render it a literal boudoir.
The sense of snugness that the small numbers produced was one great charm, and made Mr. Kendal come unusually far out of his shell. His chief sanatory precaution was to take Albinia out for a drive or walk every day, and these expeditions were greatly enjoyed.
One day, after a visit from her old nurse, Sophy received Albinia with the words,—