Dolphinton, who had been watching her with an expression of dog-like devotion, sighed heavily.
“But his Mama cannot prevent the marriage, if he is set upon it!” Kitty said. “Dolph, you are twenty-seven years old! Could you not be resolute?”
He looked frightened, and began to stammer. Miss Plymstock took his hand, and sat patting it. “Don’t be in a taking, Foster!” she said kindly. “Your Mama shan’t know of it until I have you safe, and so I promise you.”
The servant came in just then with a tray, which he set on one of the tables. Miss Plymstock rose, and said: “Now, you shall have a glass of the Madeira wine you like, and sit drinking it by the fire, while I take Miss Charing to my bedchamber. Sister’s out, so no one will come in to disturb you, and if your Mama should ask you about your visit here you may say that Miss Charing and I went off together and left you alone, and she will be satisfied.”
Kitty, feeling that in her own way Miss Plymstock wss quite as masterful as Lady Dolphinton, meekly went with her up two pairs of stairs to her bedroom at the back of the house.
“You’ll excuse my bringing you hene,” stated Hannah, putting forward a chair for her. “I was wishful to talk to you, and I don’t care to speak out before Foster, because it makes him nervous, poor fellow!”
“If only one could prevail upon him to be firm with that odious woman!” Kitty exclaimed. “I own, I am a little afraid of her myself, but there is nothing she can do to him, after all!”
“Yes, there is, Miss Charing, and she don’t scruple to hold it over his head. She and that precious doctor of hers! A pretty pair, and it would do me good, it would indeed! to tell them what I think of them! If he don’t do what she bids him, she threatens she’ll have him under lock and key, and tell everyone he’s mad.”
“Oh, no! She could not!” Kitty cried, horrified. “He is not! Not mad!”
“No, he’s not, but no one could deny he hasn’t all his wits,” said Miss Plymstock dispassionately. “However, there’s no harm in him, and I warrant you if he had me to look after him he would be a great deal better than he is now. For one thing, I don’t mean to let his Mama come scaring him out of his senses; and for another, I think it will suit him much better to live in this Irish place of his than to be racketing about town, the way he’s made to. He can have his horses, and though I daresay I shall find it a damp, ramshackle place, I don’t care for that, because I’ve always had a taste for the country, and I don’t doubt I shall soon set it in order.”