“I shall go distracted!” said Lady Bellingham, clasping her head in her hands, and sadly disarranging her cap. “Nothing could be worse! You have now lost them both through your tricks! I do not know how you can be so improvident, Deb, indeed I don’t! You must marry Adrian at once!”
“Nonsense! He is not of age, ma’am. Besides, I do not mean to marry him at all.”
“No! You mean to fob him off with this Laxton child, which is so downright wasteful of you I cannot bear to think of it! But if Ravenscar holds those dreadful bills, there is nothing to be done (unless you choose to give Adrian up altogether) but to marry him secretly at once! I know you will say these Gretna marriages are not at all the thing, but it can’t be helped now! Matters are desperate!”
“I must get them into my hands,” said Deborah, who had not been paying much heed to this speech.
“Get what into your hands?” demanded her ladyship.
“The bills, and the mortgage, ma’am; what else?”
“Do you mean you will agree to give Adrian up?” asked Lady Bellingham. “I own, it may come to that, but I do think it would be better if you married him.”
“Ravenscar and Lady Mablethorpe would have the marriage annulled if I did anything so foolish. Oh, he thinks he has me in a pretty corner, but I shall show him!”
“No, no, don’t show him anything more, Deb, I implore you!” begged her aunt, agitated. “You see what has come of showing him things! If only you would be a little conciliating!”
“Conciliating! I mean to fight him to the last ditch!” said Miss Grantham. “The first thing is to get those bills away from him!”