Anne Hereford: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Jemima retired. I went on with may tea, and Miss Delves began asking me questions about home and mamma. We were interrupted by a footman. He was bringing the fish out of the dining-room, and he laid the dish down on the table. Miss Delves turned her chair towards it, and began her dinner. I found that this was her usual manner of dining, but I thought it a curious one. The dishes, as they came out of the dining-room, were placed before her, and she helped herself. Her other meals she took when she pleased, Jemima generally waiting upon her. I did wonder who she could be.

It seemed that I had to sit there a long while. I was then taken upstairs by Jemima, and my hair brushed. It hung down in curls all round, and Jemima pleased me by saying it was the loveliest brown hair she ever saw. Then I was marshalled to the drawing-room. Jemima opened the door quietly, and I went in, seen, I believe, by nobody. It was a large room, of a three-cornered shape, quite full of bright furniture. Selina's grand piano was in the angle.

Standing before the fire, talking, were the clergyman and Mr. Edwin Barley. A stranger might have taken one for the other, for the clergyman was in his sporting clothes, and Mr. Barley was all in black, with a white neckcloth. On a distant sofa, apparently reading a newspaper, sat Philip King; his features were handsome, but they had a very cross, disagreeable expression. He held the newspaper nearly level with his face, and I saw that his eyes, instead of being on it, were watching the movements of Mrs. Edwin Barley. She was at the piano, not so much singing or playing, as trying scraps of songs and pieces; Mr. Heneage standing by and talking to her. I went quietly round by the chairs at the back, and sat down on the low footstool at the corner of the hearth. The clergyman saw me and smiled. Mr. Barley did not; he stood with his back to me. He also seemed to be watching the piano, or those at it, while he spoke in a low, confidential tone with the clergyman.

"I disagree with you entirely, Barley," Mr. Martin was saying. "Rely upon it, he will be all the better and happier for following a profession. Why! at Easter he made up his mind to read for the Bar!"

"Young men are changeable as the wind, especially those whom fortune has placed at ease in the world," replied Mr. Barley. "Philip was red-hot for the Bar at Easter, as you observe; but something appears to have set him against it now."

"You, as his guardian and trustee, should urge him to take it up; or, if not that, something else. A life of idleness plays the very ruin with some natures; and it strikes me that Philip King has no great resources within him to counteract the mischief of non-occupation. What is the amount of his property?" resumed Mr. Martin, after a pause.

"About eighteen hundred pounds a year the estate brings in."

"Nonsense! I thought it was only ten or twelve."

"Eighteen, full. Reginald's was a long minority, you know."

"Well, if it brought in eight-and-twenty, I should still say give him a profession. Let him have some legitimate work; occupy his hands and his head, and they won't get into mischief. That's sound advice, mind, Barley."