“No doubt—no doubt,” says Lady B., who does not in the least understand him; “I only say you are not accustomed here—in this kind of establishment, you understand—to that class of——”
But here Mrs. Bonnington could contain her wrath no more. “Lady Baker!” cries that injured mother, “is my son’s establishment not good enough for any powdered wretch in England? Is the house of a British merchant——”
“My dear creature—my dear creature!” interposes her ladyship, “it is the house of a British merchant, and a most comfortable house too.”
“Yes, as you find it,” remarks mamma.
“Yes, as I find it, when I come to take care of that departed angel’s children, Mrs. Bonnington!” (Lady B. here indicates the Cecilian effigy)—“of that dear seraph’s orphans, Mrs. Bonnington! You cannot. You have other duties—other children—a husband, whom you have left at home in delicate health, and who——”
“Lady Baker!” exclaims Mrs. Bonnington, “no one shall say I don’t take care of my dear husband!”
“My dear Lady Baker!—my dear—dear mother!” cries Lovel, éploré, and whimpers aside to me, “They spar in this way every night, when we’re alone. It’s too bad, ain’t it, Batch?”
“I say you do take care of Mr. Bonnington,” Baker blandly resumes (she has hit Mrs. Bonnington on the raw place, and smilingly proceeds to thong again): “I say you do take care of your husband, my dear creature, and that is why you can’t attend to Frederick! And as he is of a very easy temper,—except sometimes with his poor Cecilia’s mother,—he allows all his tradesmen to cheat him; all his servants to cheat him; Bedford to be rude to everybody; and if to me, why not to my servant Bulkeley, with whom Lord Toddleby’s groom of the chambers gave me the very highest character?”
Mrs. Bonnington in a great flurry broke in by saying she was surprised to hear that noblemen had grooms in their chambers: and she thought they were much better in the stables: and when they dined with Captain Huff, you know, Frederick, his man always brought such a dreadful smell of the stable in with him, that——Here she paused. Baker’s eye was on her; and that dowager was grinning a cruel triumph.
“He!—he! You mistake, my good Mrs. Bonnington!” says her ladyship. “Your poor mother mistakes, my dear Frederick. You have lived in a quiet and most respectable sphere, but not, you understand, not——”