“A boy like you—not of age yet, and whom I only carried in my arms the other day! You deserve to be whipped and sent to bed, sir! I never heard of such a thing in all my born days! And as for that little chit—she—she, I don’t know what oughtn’t to be done with her. Little minx! But it serves me right, putting that jackanapes of a brother of hers into that snug living down there.” And the dowager with a wave of her hand indicated Hartwood village. “There is he prancing about on that little beast of a pony of his every day after the heels of that fine my lady who wanted to poke her nose in here if I had only let her. I can see what’s going on, although I do mind my own business! And now that artful little jade is trying to catch you with her big staring eyes! I wonder what you can see in her I’m sure. I know what she’s after: they have heard that you are the heir, and they want to secure you for the family, but I’ll spoil their tricks. I’m not going to be turned out of my own house yet. I’ll pack that jackanapes of a brother off about his business, and as for the artful little minx—it’s positively indecent a girl running after a boy like that! I saw what they were fishing for, in sending up every day that Gezaba of a servant of theirs to enquire ‘how Mister Tom was.’ Mister Tom, indeed! It ought to be Master Tom, and he to be birched. The artful little minx! I’ll—I’ll—”
“Stop, mother,” shouted Tom, seizing upon a favourable opportunity when the dowager paused a moment from loss of breath. “Stop, mother, I won’t have you say a word against that young lady. I don’t mind what you say of me, but I won’t stand by and hear you abuse an innocent girl like that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, mother, to use such language. Against your own sex, too, and a lady whom I intend to make my wife.”
“Your wife!” screamed the old lady with tenfold vehemence and passion. “Your wife! I’d sooner see you in your grave first!”
“You forget yourself, mother,” said Tom, hotly. Like all easy-going men who have good tempers and are seldom roused up to anger, Tom took some time to lose his temper thoroughly, and when he did, he lost it completely. He was now in a regular passion, and his mother’s taunts sent him up to fever heat.
“Forget myself, indeed!”—It was a case of flint and steel between the two.—“It is you that forget yourself, talking like a Bashaw of Nine Tails of marrying whom you please, as if you were a lord and master. Fine doings, indeed! why you’re as mad as your sister Susan.”
“You need not bring poor Susan into the conversation, mother. I’m sure she’s very happy, and I believe she did for the best, if this be a sample of a mother’s affection, and what she would have met with at home”—Tom ejaculated bitterly.
“Oh! she did for the best, did she? And a fine mess she made of it, running off with that swindling vagabond. I would like to see him on the treadmill! If that was the only way in which she could get back her senses, it would have been better for her to have been dead at once. But it is the way with all silly women; they never seem to have their senses until they have tied themselves to some scoundrel who has only married them for their money. You are more mad than she is, Thomas. Marry, indeed! A pretty pass things are coming to. You’re an idiot, and she’s a minx, there!”
“I tell you, mother, I won’t have you say a word against that lady. If there be any fault attached to the business, which I can’t see myself, she’s not to blame at any rate.”
“She’s a little minx, there,” repeated the dowager, with increased venom. She saw how well the shaft was aimed, and like a woman she pushed it in.
“I won’t have it, mother.”