Frederick made a rapid step to the door, but before he had reached it his wife’s mood had changed.
“Oh, you tell him to go, do you?” she cried. “Then I tell him to stay. Come here, Innocent; you shall stay and nurse me; I know you’ll like it; and, Fred, turn that woman out—turn her off, turn her out of doors. She has been my plague ever since I can recollect. Oh, you thought you would keep me all to yourself, did you, and get the better of me? but I haven’t got a husband for nothing. Fred, turn her out of doors.”
Frederick opened the door with servile haste. He dragged the poor aunty, the souffre-douleur of the household, out by the sleeve, escaping himself along with her. Amanda leant back upon her pillow, laying her hand upon her breast.
“How hot it is,” she said, panting. “Open the window—take this fan and fan me; can’t you make yourself useful? Oh, you are well named; you are a true Innocent! If you will tell me all that he was saying to you, I will forgive you. Tell me what he said.”
“He told me that I was to come and see you; that I was not to be frightened,” said the girl, who was trembling, yet not confused by mental dread, as she had sometimes felt on less occasion.
“And are you frightened?”
“N—no.” She spoke with a little hesitation, but still succeeded in making this answer. She did not shrink from Amanda’s blazing red-hazel eyes. The excited creature somehow did not alarm her. She had done all that Amanda had told her with the happy habit of instant obedience, which she had learned at the High Lodge, and kept fanning her, according to her orders, as she spoke.
“You are very odd,” said Amanda, whose passion was over. “But you know how to fan one; not like that woman who saws the air like a windmill. You may take off your hat and sit down by me. I have a hasty temper. I sometimes say things and do things I am sorry for; but I’m very good-hearted. There, sit down and let us have a talk. Weren’t you glad to get off? Don’t you hate that old cat, with her sermons and her prayers? So she is coming to call?—what an honour, to be sure, for me! But I think the Eastwoods can hold up their heads as high as the Vanes any day—and she’s nothing but an interloper. Why, John Vane’s father bought that house,” said Amanda; “it is no more an old family place than this is. I am glad you are going to stay. If you are a good girl, I will try what I can do for you, and make a friend of you. I never could make a friend of that little stuck-up Nelly. What airs she does give herself to be sure! and not so much to be proud of. Why, that wretched little Molyneux, that she thinks such great things, is no better than a shopkeeper’s grandson. I know the judge’s father was a jeweller in Brook Street, and there is nothing so very grand in having a judge in the family, unless you were going to be tried for your life, and wanted him to get you off——”
“Can judges get people off?” said Innocent. Heaven knows why she asked such a question! It was an echo rather of her companion’s last words than said by any free-will of her own. But Frederick heard it as he came in, and so did poor aunty, who stood outside, trembling at the door.
“Of course they can, you little stupid. It is all they are good for,” said Amanda, benignantly. “Oh, you may come in. I am such a soft-hearted ninny, I always forgive people when my passion is over. And none of you ought to cross me; you know you oughtn’t. Some of these days, if you don’t mind, just to punish you I shall die——”