“Madam, I did not come to this house to hear my daughter abused——”
“It would have better become you, Sir John Kirkland, to keep away from this house.”
“Mother, silence! You distress me worse than my illness——”
“This, madam, is my farewell visit. You will not be plagued any more with me,” said Sir John, lifting his hat, and bowing low to Lady Warner.
He was gone before she could reply.
The baggage was ready—clothes, books, guns, plate, and linen—all necessaries for an exile that might last for years, had been packed for the sea voyage; but the trunks and bales had not yet been placed in the waggon that was to convey them to the Tower Wharf, where they were to be shipped in one of the orange-boats that came at this season from Valencia, laden with that choice and costly fruit, and returned with a heterogeneous cargo. At Valencia the goods would be put on board a Mediterranean coasting vessel, and landed at Cette.
Sir John began to waver about his destination after having heard from Henriette of her father’s possible embassy. Certainly if Fareham were to be employed in foreign diplomacy, Paris seemed a likely post for a man who was so well known there, and had spent so much of his life in France. And if Fareham were to be at Paris, Sir John considered Montpelier, remote as it was from the capital, too near his enemy.
“He has proved himself an indomitable villain,” thought the Knight. “And I could not always keep as close a watch upon my daughter as I have done in the last six weeks. No. If Fareham be for France, I am for some other country. I might take her to Florence, and put the Apennines between her and that daring wretch.”
It may be, too, that Sir John had another reason for lingering, after all was ready for the journey. He may have been much influenced by Angela’s concern about his grandchildren, and may have hesitated at leaving them alone in England with only salaried guardians.
“Their father concerns himself very little about them, you see,” he told Angela, “since he can entertain the project of a foreign embassy, while those little wretches are pining in a lonely barrack in Oxfordshire.”