‘Well, it does—you have to give up—ever so many things, and live like an old woman. I shan’t marry, I can tell you, Jan, not for years.’
‘Then I shall stop with you, Tom, and keep the house.’
‘Don’t you be too sure of that,’ said Tom; ‘I shall have too many fellows coming and going to do with a girl about the place.’
‘But you must have some one to keep house. Mother said so! She is not going to have me at Easton—that I am sure of; and if I am not to keep house for you, Tom, what shall I do?’ said Janet, with symptoms of coming tears.
Then Tom did what the men of a family generally do when a foolish sister relies upon them. He promptly threw her over. ‘You should not have cheeked mother,’ he said.
CHAPTER XI
Next day the brother and sister went out riding by themselves. The game had been but poorly preserved during Lady Car’s sway, and had not been of great importance at any time, so that Tom’s time was by no means absorbed by the shooting to be had, and Janet had begged for one long ride with him before he went back to school. It was a bright September afternoon, the air crisp with an autumnal chill, enough to make the somewhat sluggish blood thrill in the veins of the boy and girl, who were so like each other and had a certain attachment to each other—more strong, as was natural, on Janet’s side than on Tom’s. Lady Car had come out to the door to see them ride away. ‘Take care of Janet,’ she had said. Beaufort’s warning look, and her own consciousness, very different from that of Beaufort, that what she said would not bear the least weight, prevented her from saying more. But perhaps she looked more as she followed them with anxious eyes. ‘Don’t, Carry,’ her husband said as he drew her into the house—‘don’t show any distrust of the boy.’
‘Distrust?’ she said. ‘I don’t think he cares what I show.’
‘My love! don’t think so badly of the children.’
‘Oh, no; I don’t think badly of them. They are so young, they don’t know; but it is true all the same. They don’t mind how I look, Edward: which must be my blame and not theirs,’ she added, with a faint smile; ‘how should it be theirs? It is only part of the failure. Some people make no impression on—anyone. They are ineffective, like what you say of a wall-paper or a piece of furniture.’