She obeyed without haste, and was introduced. She was not in the mood to affect for civility’s sake a cordiality she did not feel, nor was she conciliated by the easy graciousness of Lady Strange, the sharp, momentary smile of Mrs. Winter, or the unrestrained admiration of Mr. Rashleigh.
“You are a sweet child,” said Lady Strange, speaking in a sweet tone herself, “to have such a naughty uncle.”
“I dare say my uncle is not much worse than other people,” said Georgiana, coolly, with the intention, not of defending her relation, but of being pert.
“She means you, Cousin Rashleigh,” said Lady Strange, smiling gaily. “She sees your character in your face.—But, my dear, you can’t have known much of your uncle in London. I’ll tell you some tales!”
Instead of carrying out her threat immediately, however, the lady turned her attention to her maid, bidding her put down her burdens and go and dine in the kitchen.
The man servant and Georgiana’s attendant being dismissed for a like purpose, Foxwell and Rashleigh, to give the ladies that brief privacy from masculine eyes which a toilet-marring journey makes welcome, went down-stairs and paced the yard till dinner was ready.
“So this is the place of your retreat, Bob,” said Rashleigh; “or hereabouts, I mean.”
“An old house and some beggarly acres eight miles from here. ’Tis my last ditch. Perhaps I was lucky in having that to fall back into. Fortune was set upon driving me from the field in London.”
“But you might still have contrived to live there one way or another. Men do, who have lost their all.”
“By playing the parasite?—begging of people whom I scorn?—laughing at great men’s stupid jests, or enslaving myself to great ladies’ caprices? Not I. Neither could I play the common rook where I had once lived the gentleman. Nor had I any fancy for the debtors’ prison. I might have turned highwayman, but I am too old and indolent, and the risk is too great. No; for a gentleman who had made the figure I had, and who could no more keep up that figure,—curse the cards and the tables, the mercenary women and the swindling tradesmen!—there was nothing but self-banishment to the ancestral fields.”