“Yes, indeed! But it behoves us to previse that the doctor does not kill her before the lawyer comes.”
Caroline looked at Louisa, and said: “Are you ignorant?”
“No—what?” cried the Countess eagerly.
“Evan has written to tell Lady Jocelyn the state of her health, and—”
“And that naturally has aggravated her malady!” The Countess cramped her long fingers. “The child heard it from him yesterday! Oh, I could swear at that brother!”
She dropped into a chair and sat rigid and square-jawed, a sculpture of unutterable rage.
In the afternoon Lady Jocelyn arrived. The doctor was there—the lawyer had gone. Without a word of protest Juliana accompanied her ladyship to Beckley Court. Here was a blow!
But Andrew was preparing one more mighty still. What if the Cogglesby Brewery proved a basis most unsound? Where must they fall then? Alas! on that point whence they sprang. If not to Perdition—Tailordom!
CHAPTER XLI.v REVEALS AN ABOMINABLE PLOT OF THE BROTHERS COGGLESBY
A lively April day, with strong gusts from the Southwest, and long sweeping clouds, saluted the morning coach from London to Lymport. Thither Tailordom triumphant was bearing its victim at a rattling pace, to settle him, and seal him for ever out of the ranks of gentlemen: Society, meantime, howling exclusion to him in the background: “Out of our halls, degraded youth: The smiles of turbaned matrons: the sighs of delicate maids; genial wit, educated talk, refined scandal, vice in harness, dinners sentineled by stately plush: these, the flavour of life, are not for you, though you stole a taste of them, wretched impostor! Pay for it with years of remorse!”