“To go to the Grange! To live there?”
“Yes; that is his way of fulfilling his promise to our father. He says there are too many burdens on the estate for him to make me a suitable allowance, unless we go and live there. But I wouldn’t let you go there for the world!”
“But, Harry, I should be quite safe with you. You speak of your brother as if he were a savage.”
“So he is. We are all a set of savages; and, being a savage myself, you see, I know how to trust the rest. I tell you you shall not go; and, if you try to persuade me, I shall think you don’t love me.”
He flung his arm round her, and looked up into her face with an air of boyish authority which she did not attempt to resist, though it made her smile. A few months of self-dependence had made her so much older, so much wiser than this spoiled child who was her lord and master.
She knew he could not live long in defiance of his elder brother; she knew he had no money of his own, and no capabilities of making any, or that, if he had any capabilities, he had no intention of using them. He had indeed most of the qualities necessary in a groom and some of those wanted by a jockey; but, being a gentleman, though he could copy their manners and share their tastes, he could follow their occupations only as an amusement. He had given her money so recklessly at first that she, though inclined to be extravagant, had, without saying anything to him about it, put some by in case of an emergency; so that, when his supplies to her stopped rather suddenly, she was able to go on paying their weekly bills without running into debt. But this could not last long; and she began to look out for some music-pupils, still without saying anything to her husband, whose pride would have cried out at the idea of his wife working for her living and his.
It was easy enough by this time to leave some hours in the day unaccounted for. Harry had met some acquaintances in town and picked up some others, and spent but little of his time with his wife, who, he complained, did not take as much trouble to amuse him as at first, and who could always amuse herself with a book—a most unaccountable taste in his eyes, so that she could publish an advertisement, answer others, go for the few replies she got to a neighboring stationer’s, and give a lesson three times a week in Onslow Square without exciting his suspicions.
She knew that Lady Braithwaite and her daughter were now in town, staying with a sister of the former’s at Lancaster Gate, but, as she would have thought nothing less likely than that they should take any notice of her, she stood for a moment in the doorway in silent astonishment when, coming into her sitting-room, after having given a music-lesson, she found Lilian, looking superbly handsome in her deep mourning, walking about examining the pictures and ornaments.
“I think you must be very comfortable here,” said she, coming forward and kissing her, as if they had been affectionate friends of long standing.
Lilian’s manners were charming when she chose, and she was at her best this afternoon—always queenly, but smiling and willing to be pleased with anything. She drew her tiny sister-in-law on to the sofa and sat down beside her. Annie, very glad of this visit, yet hardly daring to believe that Lilian could have heard of her marriage, scarcely knew what to say; but the other saved her the trouble of finding a remark.