‘At any rate I will have no settlement that can interfere with my payment of those incumbrances. That is a free gift to Sir Kenrick, as much as if I were to give you a hundred-pound note. I never want to hear about it, or to think about it. I look upon the fifty thousand pounds as gone—sunk at the bottom of a well.’
‘You are a most extraordinary young lady.’
‘If you waste your time in wondering at me, you will lose the London train.’
Mr. Scratchell got into the carriage obediently, and was driven to his own house, where his apparition in a landau drawn by a pair of spirited horses caused wonder and consternation in all the household. That wonder increased when Mr. Scratchell informed his family that he was going to London on particular business for Miss Harefield, that he wanted a carpet bag packed with three or four shirts—his best—meaning those that were not too conspicuously frayed at the edges of the pleats and collars—and that his wife and children were to look sharp, and were not to bother him with questions.
Poor Mrs. Scratchell ran off in a flutter to explore her husband’s wardrobe, in which everything was more or less the worse for wear, except the new suit he had bought for his daughter’s wedding. The girls and boys meanwhile surrounded their father, like the merchant’s daughters in the story of Beauty and the Beast, each anxious that he should bring something from London.
‘Bring me a new dress, papa. If you are going on Miss Harefield’s business you will get lots of money,’ pleaded Clementina.
‘Do bring me a winter bonnet, papa, black velvet lined with pink,’ asked Flora.
‘You might get us a cricket bat, father,’ said Adolphus, a boy who always spoke of himself in the plural, as if to give prominence to his insignificance.
‘Go and cut me some sandwiches, girls, and mix me a little weak gin and water in a bottle,’ said Mr. Scratchell. ‘It will be night before I get to London.’
‘And then you will go to an hotel, I suppose? Won’t you be grand!’ cried Clementina, who fancied that the people who stayed at hotels were a splendid and luxurious race apart from the mass of mankind.