“Was he asleep when you went in?”
“I cannot say positively, ma’am: he undrew the curtain as I went in, and asked, ‘Who’s there?’”
“Did you go in on tiptoe?”
“I forget, really, ma’am.”
“You forget really! Idiot!”
“But, ma’am, I recollect he turned his head to go to sleep as I closed the curtain.”
“You need not wait,” said Mrs. Bolingbroke.
Provoked beyond the power of sleep, Mrs. Bolingbroke gave free expression to her feelings, in an eloquent letter to Mrs. Nettleby; but even after this relief, Griselda could not rest; so much was she disturbed by the repose that her husband enjoyed, or was reputed to enjoy. In the morning she placed her letter in full view upon the mantel-piece in the drawing-room, in hopes that it would strike terror into the heart of her husband. To her great mortification, she saw Mr. Bolingbroke, with an unchanged countenance, give it to the servant, who came to ask for “letters for the post.” She had now three days of grace, before Mrs. Nettleby’s answer could arrive; but of these she disdained to take advantage: she never mentioned what had passed to Mrs. Granby, but persisted in the same haughty conduct towards her husband, persuaded that she should conquer at last.
The third day came, and brought an answer from Mrs. Nettleby. After a prodigious parade of professions, a decent display of astonishment at Mr. Bolingbroke’s strange conduct, and pity for her dear Griselda, Mrs. Nettleby came to the point, and was sorry to say, that Mr. Nettleby was in one of his obstinate fits, and could not be brought to listen to the scheme so near her heart: “He would have nothing to do, he said, with settling the terms of Mr. and Mrs. Bolingbroke’s separation, not he!—He absolutely refuses to meddle between man and wife; and calls it meddling,” continued Mrs. Nettleby, “to receive you as an inmate, after you have parted from your husband. Mr. Bolingbroke, he says, has always been very civil to him, and came to see him in town; therefore he will not encourage Mrs. Bolingbroke in her tantarums. I represented to him, that Mr. B. desires the thing, and leaves the choice of a residence to yourself: but Mr. Nettleby replied, in his brutal way, that you might choose a residence where you would, except in his house; that his house was his castle, and should never be turned into an asylum for runagate wives; that he would not set such an example to his own wife, &c. But,” continued Mrs. Nettleby, “you can imagine all the foolish things he said, and I need not repeat them, to vex you and myself. I know that he refuses to receive you, my dear Mrs. Bolingbroke, on purpose to provoke me. But what can one do or say to such a man?—Adieu, my dear. Pray write when you are at leisure, and tell me how things are settled, or rather what is settled upon you; which, to be sure, is now the only thing that you have to consider.
“Ever yours, affectionately,