'I mean what I say,' was the cold response; 'moreover, as you seem in her confidence, perhaps you will be good enough to tell her that if I permit her in the drawing-room, occasionally to make herself useful when a little music or a hand at cards is wanted, she must not wear low bodies or short sleeves on any occasion,' added Lady Fettercairn, who had detected the eyes of more than one male guest wander appreciatively to the beautiful arms of Dulcie, that shone like polished alabaster, especially when contrasted with her black mourning costume.
And when Lady Fettercairn took the trouble to be ill, which was pretty frequently now, as she was worried by being kept away so long from London and London gaieties, for no purpose or end, apparently, so far as Finella and Shafto were concerned, she established a headache as a domestic institution, during the prevalence of which no one was to address her on any subject whatever—more than all, no one was to cross her. But Shafto's extravagance and growing evil habits were becoming a source of perpetual thought to the Craigengowan household now.
If Dulcie had her troubles, so had also Finella, for the family scheme 'anent' Shafto was always cropping up from time to time. Thus, when that young gentleman, who had a very indifferent seat in his saddle, got a terrible 'spill' one day, in leaping a hedge, and was brought home in a very prostrate condition, which his addiction to wine considerably enhanced, the episode gave the cold, selfish, and unpatriotic peer, who had no great love for his newly found heir, some cause for thought and consideration.
Failing heirs male, the Peerage of Fettercairn, being a Scottish one, made before the Union, would go to Finella in the female line (as so many similar peerages do, to the endless confusion of family names and interests), and to the heirs male of her body.
It was a kind of consolation, but a sad one. Whom might she marry? 'That fellow Vincent Hammersley perhaps!'
'Finella,' said Lord Fettercairn, in his hard, dry voice, and with the nearest attempt at a caress that ever escaped him, 'if aught was to happen to Shafto—which God forbid!—you will be the heiress to the title and estates.'
'Oh, don't talk thus, grandpapa!' she exclaimed.
'You care for the old name, child!'
'I do indeed, grandpapa.'
'And would make a sacrifice for it, if necessary?'