Sir Francis Tyrrell was certainly struck and surprised, for this determination was not at all what he had expected from a woman whom he fancied to be habitually his slave; but still there was far too much pride in his nature to suffer him to show the slightest disappointment or regret. On the contrary, he determined to punish and imbitter an act that he could not prevent.
"Just as you please, madam," he replied; "it is an arrangement I have long desired and coveted myself; but I, too, have been restrained by consideration for my son, and should have proposed such a thing some sixteen or seventeen years ago, had I not apprehended that I might thereby have cast some doubts upon his legitimacy."
Lady Tyrrell gazed at him for a moment as if utterly confounded and bewildered by astonishment and horror. She knew by sad experience that there were few points of malignity to which passion would not carry Sir Francis Tyrrell in his more violent moods; but, pure as light in every word, and thought, and action, she had not believed that even human malignity itself would have dared to risk an insinuation against her honour. She gazed upon her husband, therefore--upon him to whom that honour should have been most dear and sacred, while he made an insinuation only the more terrible, because it was not direct--with feelings that defy all description; while he, glaring at her from under his heavy eyebrows, saw, and saw with satisfaction, that he had succeeded in cutting her to the soul. The moment after, however, she turned deadly pale, and, without replying a word to the base speech he had just uttered, she fell fainting on the floor before him. For a moment Sir Francis Tyrrell fancied she was dead, and he felt some degree of apprehension, if not remorse; but the next instant he perceived he had but cast her into a swoon, and thinking that but a light punishment for the offence of resisting his will, he merely rang the bell for Lady Tyrrell's maid, and told her to take care of her mistress, for she had fainted.
"Poor thing!" said the woman when she saw her; and those words, with the plaintive tone in which they were uttered, made Sir Francis Tyrrell feel that he was generally hated, and acted, therefore, as some retribution for the sufferings he inflicted. But such retribution had only a tendency to harden, not to mitigate, his feelings. To know that he was hated, made him seek to deserve hatred; and turning round to the woman, he said, "You have warning to go!"
The woman had been with Lady Tyrrell for many years past; and, of a naturally fearless disposition, she lost all awe when she lost respect.
"I am my lady's servant, not yours, sir," she replied, "and take no warning from you. I shall stay with her till she bids me go, and do my best to comfort her, which you do not."
"We shall see, madam, we shall see," said Sir Francis Tyrrell, shaking his finger at her, and left the room.
CHAPTER XIV.
We must now turn for a time to Charles Tyrrell, and give some farther details of the events which had befallen him between his return to Oxford and his recall to Harbury Park, which we have hitherto purposely omitted.
Although there were many things unpleasant in his situation; although the conduct of his father towards himself had sent him back, as usual, with unpleasant memories fresh upon him, yet there was something now in the storehouse of remembrance which made up for all. There was a drop of that elixir cast into his cup, which is described by one of the greatest painters of human nature that ever lived, Le Sage, as giving flavour and sweetness to the sourest, the bitterest, or the most insipid cup. He had loved and was beloved; and when he looked back upon the last short month, it seemed as if the whole of the rest of life was as nothing compared with what he had done, enjoyed, and suffered in that brief space. The memory thereof afforded him sufficient matter to occupy his mind till he reached the university, and then it still remained, a comfort, a consolation, a hope, a joy. It was to him as an angel stretching out one hand towards the future and the other towards the past, and scattering flowers over both.