"I shall wait till I am asked," Mrs. Arundel said. "If his lordship has buried me in the dust of years—out of sight and out of mind—I don't see why he should unearth me now."
"And yet you sent your son to call you to mind; now that is unfair, mother. You urged me to go to the Palace at Wells, and now you won't take advantage of what is growing out of it. But to go back to Falconer; a stout, middle-aged gentleman, of small means and weak chest, wants to travel for a year. The bishop suggested Mr. Falconer should give him his son to lead about, as he had previously washed several black sheep to a very fair whiteness, paying expenses, but no further remuneration. If Melville can be got off under such auspices, it will be a grand step in the right direction. Poor fellow! he has got into his head the absolute necessity of seeing the world, and I, who know him pretty well, think that there would be less danger of mischief if he were allowed to follow his bent, than if he were to be forced to follow the pursuits of a country life at Fair Acres, which he thinks it grand to despise. He talks with amazing coolness of all he shall do when he does come, and till he has learned a lesson, he would be a frightful nuisance to them all. The airs he gives himself to the poor old steward are preposterous; but the worst thing about him is the way he speaks to his mother."
"What is she like?"
"She is a very good woman, rather priding herself on setting aside all conventionality, and bustling about the house, and keeping everyone up to their duty but her son! Is it not extraordinary? She has ruined him with stupid indulgence, and yet she is strict enough with the rest—even with——"
"Joyce!" His mother supplied the word with a smile.
"Yes, even with Joyce," he rejoined; but starting up, with an exclamation of dismay:
"Did you know Maythorne was in Clifton, mother?"
Mrs. Arundel followed the direction of her son's eyes, and there on the broken, uneven slopes which lay before Sion Hill, came Gratian, chatting gaily to a man of some six-and-thirty or forty, who answered very well to the description a poet gave some years after of "the dandy despot, the jewelled mass of millinery, oiled and curled, and smelling of musk and insolence."
"I am very sorry he has come to Clifton," Mrs. Arundel said quickly. "I suppose he is at the hotel."
"Gratian looks satisfied. I hope I shan't get very savage with him, mother. When we last parted it was the night when I—but I need not talk about it—he got that weak, foolish boy into his hands, and I helped to get him out, so he bears me a grudge."