“You heard what I said. Now, then, go away from here at once. There’s a ten-pound note. Don’t bother about your pay, but get away from here, for your dignity’s sake. Your box can be fetched at any time. Go down home.”
“Go down home!” said the girl in a low voice, full of suppressed anger; “home, eh? so as to be out of your way now? No,” she cried, flashing out into a fit of passion; “it’s to get rid of me. I’m in your way now that you are going to be master, and you don’t mean to marry me, as you’ve promised a hundred times. I know: it’s Miss Janet.”
“Lyddy, don’t be a fool,” cried Jessop, in a tone full of suppressed passion. “Now, go, there’s a good girl. It’s all for the best. Hush! you will be heard.”
“Then every one shall hear me,” she cried, tearing up the note he had placed in her hand and flinging it in his face. “No; I won’t be a fool any longer. You’re as good as master now; you’ve promised to marry me, and I will not be packed off in disgrace. You’re master here, Jessop, and I’m mistress; and come what may, I will not stir.”
She flung her arms round him as she spoke, and in his rage he raised his doubled fist to strike her down, but it fell to his side.
“Mr Jessop Reed is not master here,” said a stern voice at the door, “and you are not the mistress.”
Jessop flung the girl from him, so that she staggered, and would have fallen heavily, had not Clive, who had opened the door softly to come and sit with his brother, caught her in his arms.
“Jessop,” he said coldly, “have you not done enough to insult our father without this miserable disgraceful episode, now while he is lying upstairs almost at his last.”
“The woman’s mad,” cried Jessop. “Crazy with grief or drink, I suppose. I don’t know what she means.”
“I’m not, I’m not, Mr Clive,” cried the girl, bursting into a violent fit of weeping.