[CHAPTER V.]
Wilful Disobedience.
Mary Ann Thornycroft sat in the large, luxurious, comfortable drawing-room of the Red Court Farm. The skies without were grey and wintry, the air was cold, the sea was of a dull leaden colour; but with that cheery fire blazing in the grate, the soft chairs and sofas scattered about, the fine pictures, the costly ornaments, things were decidedly bright within. Brighter a great deal than the young lady's face was; for something had just occurred to vex her. She was leaning back in her chair; her foot, peeping out from beneath the folds of her flowing dress, impatiently tapping the carpet: angry determination written on every line of her countenance. Between herself and Richard there had just occurred a passage at arms--as is apt to be the case with brother and sister, when each has a dominant and unyielding will.
At home for good, Miss Thornycroft had assumed her post as mistress of the house in a spirit of determination that said she meant to maintain it. The neighbours came flocking to see the handsome girl, a woman grown now. She had attained her nineteenth year. They found a lady-like, agreeable girl, with Cyril's love for reading, Isaac's fair skin and beautiful features, and Richard's resolute tone and lip. Very soon, within a week of her return, the servants whispered to each other that Miss Thornycroft and her brothers had already begun their quarrelling, for both sides wanted the mastery. They should have said her brother--very seldom indeed was it that Isaac interfered with her--Cyril never.
She had begun by attempting to set to rights matters that probably never would be set right; regularity in regard to the serving of the meals. They set all regularity at defiance, especially on the point of coming in to them. They might come, or they might not; they might sit down at the appointed hour, or they might appear an hour after it. Sometimes the dinners were simple, oftener elaborate; to-day they would be alone, to-morrow six or eight unexpected guests, invited on the spur of the moment, would sit down to table; just as it had been in the old days. Mr. Thornycroft's love of free-and-easy hospitality had not changed. To remedy this, Mary Anne did not attempt--it had grown into a usage; but she did wish to make Richard and Isaac pay more attention to decorum.
"They cannot be well-conducted, these two brothers of mine," soliloquized Miss Thornycroft, as she continued to tap her impatient foot. "And papa winks at it. I think they must have acquired a love for low companions. I hear of their going into the public-house, and, if not drinking themselves, standing treat for others. Last night they came in to dinner in their velveteen coats, and gaiters all mud--after keeping it waiting for five-and-forty minutes. I spoke about their clothes, and papa--papa took their part, saying it was not to be expected that young men engaged in agriculture could dress themselves up for dinner like a lord-in-waiting. It's a shame!"
Richard and Isaac did indeed appear to be rather loose young men in some things; but their conduct had not changed from what it used to be--the change lay in Miss Thornycroft. What as a girl she had not seen or noticed, she now, a young woman come home to exact propriety after the manner of well-conducted young ladies, saw at once, and put a black mark against. Their dog-cart, that ever-favourite vehicle, would be heard going out and coming in at all sorts of unseasonable hours; when Richard and Isaac lay abed till twelve (the case occasionally) Miss Thornycroft would contrive to gather that they had not gone to it until nearly daylight.
The grievance this morning, however, was not about any of these things: it concerned a more personal matter of Miss Thornycroft's. While she was reading a letter from Susan Hunter, fixing the day of the promised visit, Richard came in. He accused her of expecting visitors, and flatly ordered her to write and stop their coming. A few minutes of angry contention ensued, neither side giving way in the smallest degree: she said her friends should come, Richard said they should not. He strode away to find his father. The justice was in the four-acre paddock with his gun.
"This girl's turning the house upside down," began Richard. "We shall not be able to keep her at home."
"What girl? Do you mean Mary Anne?"