Court Netherleigh: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Lady Adela turned up her pretty nose. "Sick-clubs and schools! Yes, that suits Grace."

"At all events, it keeps her from being dull. What do you do all day long! Just sit with your head bent on your hand, or mope about the rooms like one demented! It gives me the fidgets to look at you! You should rouse yourself, Adela."

"Rouse myself to what?" she faintly asked. "There's nothing to rouse myself to."

"Make something: some interest for yourself. No life is open to you now except a quiet one. Even were it possible that you could wish for any other, I and your father would take care you did not enter on it. But quiet lives may be made full of interest, if we will; a great deal more so than noisy ones."

Good advice, no doubt: perhaps the only advice now open to Lady Adela. She did not profit by it. The weary time went on, and she grew more weary day by day. Lady Acorn called her obstinate; sometimes Adela retaliated. At last, the countess, losing all patience, wrote to Miss Upton to say she should send her for a little change to Court Netherleigh; for she was quite unaware of the critical state of Miss Upton's health.

And this was the first time, this morning when we see Miss Upton and Adela sitting together, that any special conversation had been held between them. The previous day had been one of Miss Margery's "bad days," when she was confined to the sofa in her chamber, and she had only been able to see Adela for a minute or two, to bid her welcome. Miss Upton criticizing Adela's appearance by the morning light, found her looking ill, but she quite believed her to be just as graceless as ever.

"Things change for all of us, Adela," observed she, continuing the conversation. "They have changed most especially for you."

Lady Adela raised her face, something like defiance on it. Was the miserable past to be recalled to her here, as well as at home?—was she going to be for ever lectured upon its fruits, as her mother lectured her? She was wretched enough herself about it, Heaven knew, and would undo it if she could; but that was no reason why all the world should be incessantly casting it in her teeth. She answered sharply.

"The past is over, Aunt Margery, and the less said about it the better. To be told of it will do me no good."

Aunt Margery did not like the tone. Could this mistaken girl—she really looked but as a girl—be extenuating the past, and her own conduct in it?