Gussy was shaken for the moment by his change of tone, by his sudden compassion. She felt as if the ground had suddenly been cut from under her feet, and a dizzy sense of insecurity came over her. She looked at her mother, half frightened, not knowing what to think or say.
“When you have come to your senses, Harry, you will perhaps tell us the meaning of this!” cried Lady Augusta. “Girls, it is time for you to keep your appointment with Elise. Ada will go with you to-day, for I don’t feel quite well. If you have anything to say to me another time,” she added with dignity, addressing her son, “especially if it is of a violent description, you will be good enough to wait until Mary has left the room. I do not choose that she should carry away into her new family the recollection of brutality at home.”
Lady Augusta’s grand manner was known in the household. Poor Gussy, though sad and sorry enough, found it difficult to keep from a laugh in which there would have been but little mirth. But Harry’s perceptions were not so lively, or his sense of the ridiculous so strong. He was somehow cowed by the idea of his little sister carrying a recollection of brutality into so new and splendid a connection as the Marquis of Hauteville’s magnificent family.
“Oh, bosh!” he said; but it was almost under his breath. And then he told them of Edgar’s departure from Tottenham’s, and of the discovery he had made that Margaret had gone too. “You set him on, I suppose, to cross me,” said Harry; “because I let you know there was one woman in the world I could fancy—therefore you set him on to take her from me.”
“Oh! Harry, how can you say so? I set him on!” cried Lady Augusta. “What you are telling me is all foolishness. You are both of you frightening yourselves about nothing. If there is anyone dying, and they were sent for, there is no harm in two cousins travelling together. Harry, did this lady—know what your feelings were?”
“I suppose,” said Harry, after a moment’s hesitation, “women are not such fools but that they must know.”
“Then you had said nothing to her?” said his mother, pursuing the subject. Perhaps she permitted a little gleam of triumph to appear in her eye, for he jumped up instantly, more excited than ever.
“I am going after them,” he said. “I don’t mean to be turned off without an answer. Whether she has me or not, she shall decide herself; it shall not be done by any plot against us. This is what you drive me to, with your underhand ways. I shall not wait a day longer. I’ll go down to Scotland to-night.”
“Do not say anything to him, Gussy,” cried Lady Augusta. “Let him accuse his mother and sister of underhand ways, if he likes. And you can go, sir, if you please, on your mad errand. If the woman is a lady, she will know what to think of your suspicions. If she is not a lady——”
“What then?” he cried, in high wrath.