CHAPTER XIX
A FAMILY SCENE
While Mr. Lawton still strove to regain his self-control he saw, passing out through the further gate, the big chestnut, the battered looking livery buggy, and the gorgeous William Henry Bulkley, whose cowed, dispirited "man" was driving, while he—W. H.—gave himself the pleasure of vigorously damning the entire outfit, individually and collectively. A little later the doctor drove his lightly built, dark bays out—full sisters they were, with faces so kind and manners so gentle as always to suggest a pair of nurses. After that John Lawton thought he might then go up to the house and get a quiet peep at Dorothy, whose face he half expected to see changed somehow since she had given him her morning kiss. "She had been a child then, and now, yes now, she was a woman." He did not realize that the sudden change had been but in his point of view.
Walking slowly up the steep rise to the porch, he thought he heard high voices, and, opening the door, he stood amazed. Looking up, where at the stair-top German Lena stood, one outstretched hand against the wall, the other on the bannister, both feet braced firm and wide apart, her small blue eyes a-light, a girl on guard! And just beneath her, hair disarranged, face crimson, and eyes snapping, Mrs. Lawton, in high, piercing tones, was spitting and hissing abusive epithets:
"You! how dare you? You German steerage rat! You stupid wooden-headed, wooden-shod thing! How dare you—dare you! In my days of wealth, my housekeeper, my cook, wouldn't have allowed you to care for my pots and pans! My daughter's nothing to you! I can say what I please to her, and say it how I please! How dare you interfere! You shall feel the law for your Dutch insolence! Stand aside, and let me into that room!"
"Nein! nein!" said Lena, savagely. "Nein! I don't stand on my sides! I make by Herr Doctor's orders, und I keep my Miss Lady quiet uf I can!" Then, catching sight of John Lawton, she cried: "Oh, my Herr Mister! is dat you? Oh, you vas velcome as never vas!"
"John Lawton!" cried Mrs. Lawton, at the same time, "if you have one spark of manhood in you, if you even dimly remember your promise to protect and cherish me, you will order this crazy Dutch slattern to the scullery!"
"Letitia! Letitia!" remonstrated the mortified and bewildered man, "come away, I beg of you, and explain quietly what has happened."
But a perfect shriek of rage leapt from the woman's throat: "What has happened? Do you know, that thing there has struck me—me—a lady!"