[CHAPTER IX.]
THE SANDS RUN DOWN.
The household in St. James's Square bowed themselves before the new Lady Kilrush, and made obeisance to her, as the wheat-sheaves bowed down to Joseph in his dream. The butler remembered his master's first wife, a pretty futile creature, always gadding, following the latest craze in modish dissipations, greedy of pleasure and excitement. It had been no surprise to him when she crept through the hall door in the summer gloaming, carrying her jewels in a handbag, to join the lover who was waiting in a coach and four round the corner. It was only her husband who had been blind—blind because he was indifferent.
To the household this strange marriage was a matter for profound satisfaction.
"Her ladyship desires to retain your services, and will make no changes except on your recommendation," Mr. Thornton told the late lord's house-steward and business manager, with a superb patronage; but without any authority from Antonia, who sat in a stony silence when he talked about plans for the future, and of all the pomps and pleasures that were waiting for his beloved girl after a year of mourning.
"Oh, why do you talk of servants, and horses, and things?" she exclaimed once, with an agonized look. "Can't you see—don't you understand—that I loved him?"
"I do understand. Yes, yes, my love. I can sympathize with your grief—your natural grief—for so noble a benefactor. But when your year of widowhood is past, my Tonia will awaken to the knowledge of her power. A beauty, a fortune, a peeress, and a young widow! By Heaven, you might aspire to be the bride of royalty! And a temper!" muttered Thornton, as his daughter rose suddenly from her chair and walked out of the room, before he had finished his harangue.
It was only when there was a question of the funeral that the new Lady Kilrush asserted herself.
"His lordship will be buried in the family vault at Limerick," she said decisively. "Be kind enough to make all needful arrangements, Mr. Goodwin. I shall travel with the funeral cortège."
"My dearest Tonia—so remote a spot, so wild and unsettled a country," pleaded Thornton. "Would it not be wiser to choose a nearer resting-place, among the sepulchres of the noble and distinguished; as, for instance, at St. Paul's, Covent Garden?"