“Well, John, what do you think of this?” was her startling exordium when Hannah had left the room, and John—poor John—had no escape, and no longer even a reprieve from listening to abuse—abuse, it was to be feared, only too well merited—of his beloved one. “Well, John, this looks nice, doesn’t it? So milady stays in Lunnon, not to nurse her father, as she’d have us believe, but to go tearing about Hyde Park with Mr. Vavasour! Pretty doings, upon my word! I declare to goodness, if you take no notice of this, I shall think you’re just gone clean out of your mind, and are only fit for an asylum, so you are.”
She stopped, more from lack of breath to proceed than from any immediate prospect that appeared of John’s responding to her attack. He felt called upon, however, to make some reply to what sounded like an implied accusation of lukewarmness, and of a disposition to “take things” far more easily than he was in the humour to do. His mother’s abrupt onslaught had, however, already produced an effect directly contrary to what the indignant old lady had intended. She had either forgotten or ignored the sensible proverb which saith “Scald not thy lips in another man’s porridge,” and had aroused in her son that fraction of masculine dignity which causes its possessor to resist interference in the management of his house and harem. Besides, John’s love for the beautiful object of Mrs. Beacham’s jealousy was still far too strong for him to endure patiently the hearing his wife found fault with by any other than himself; and this being the case, his reply did not greatly tend to Mrs. Beacham’s satisfaction.
“Jack Winthrop is a chattering fool. I daresay he mistook Honor for someone else, for one of young Vavasour’s sisters probably; and even if she was riding in the Park, where’s the mighty harm? It was but yesterday he saw her—says he saw her, at least—and it’s quite time enough to pull her up if she says nothing of it herself next time she writes, which will be to-morrow if I’m not mistaken.” And John, having so said, pushed back his chair with the evident intention of closing the conference. His mother, however, was not to be thus cheated of her treat. She had not been waiting for six mortal hours to be put off with such a stupid shuffle as that! No! For once in his life John should hear reason, let what would come of it, and if there was no one else to tell him the truth, his mother would do her duty, and point out to the infatuated man what, in this crisis of his fate, was his!
“John, John!” she said, lifting up a stubborn finger warningly; “if I hadn’t heerd and seen this myself, I never could—and that’s the truth—have believed it. To think that you, a man grown and with a man’s blood in your veins, should let a woman lead you by the nose like this!”
“Nonsense, mother!” with an unsuccessful effort to laugh the matter off. “No one is leading me, or thinking of leading me, by the nose, as you call it. Honor is a silly girl, I don’t say she isn’t, and she’s fond of a horse; and if her father—gad! how I hate to speak of the fellow!—if her father put it into her foolish head to ride, why ride she would, nor I don’t blame her neither. So, mother, let you and I hear the rights of it before we blame her; and what’s more—you’ll forgive my speaking”—approaching nearer, and his breath coming shorter as he spoke—“but if you would remember, mother dear, not to speak to anyone in the village about this—story—of Honor and the—the Park, I should esteem it very kind, and—”
“Oh, my dear, you may make yourself quite easy,” snorted the old lady. “I’m not the bird to defile my own nest. It won’t be through me if disgrace comes upon the family, and if you like to encourage your wife in her goings on with gentlemen—”
“Come, come, mother,” broke in her son; “I must not have my wife spoken of, before she deserves it, as if she was a—a gay woman. I beg your pardon, but you make me more angry than I ought to be; and it isn’t right, mother, God’s book says it ain’t. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ we are told, and grievous words only stir up anger, they do; so let’s keep from ’em while we can. I’m expecting to hear from Honor to-morrow, and if she says she’s coming home and writes about this foolish ride of hers, why we shall be sorry then, poor pretty creature, that we said a word against her.” And John, perfectly unconscious of the strangely mixed feelings, the half fear—a dread unadmitted even to his own breast—that Honor both deserved and would be visited with punishment, wished his mother “good-night,” and left her to her reflections.
CHAPTER IV.
MRS. BEACHAM WRITES A LETTER.
The late post on Monday (the eventful Monday it was—for we have retrograded twenty-four hours in our story in order to recount what happened on that Sabbath afternoon at the Paddocks—the eventful Monday it was which Honor spent with Arthur Vavasour on horseback first, and afterwards in that feverishly enjoyable Richmond dinner), the second post, brought no letter from the truant, and John’s brow grew ominously dark as he turned over his numerous business-like-looking epistles, and amongst them found no dainty missive in a fair running hand, and adorned with an entwined H. B. in mingled shades of brown and blue, by way of monogram.
“There now! What did I tell you?” exclaimed his mother triumphantly. “I was as sure as sure could be, she wouldn’t write. Guilty consciences never do. And another time, my dear, I hope you’ll attend to your mother, old as she is, and act accordingly.”