“Pray don’t write to Count Fosco,” persisted Lady Glyde, more earnestly than ever.
“Why not, I should like to know?” cried Sir Percival, with a sudden burst of anger that startled us both. “Where can you stay more properly in London than at the place your uncle himself chooses for you—at your aunt’s house? Ask Mrs. Michelson.”
The arrangement proposed was so unquestionably the right and the proper one, that I could make no possible objection to it. Much as I sympathised with Lady Glyde in other respects, I could not sympathise with her in her unjust prejudices against Count Fosco. I never before met with any lady of her rank and station who was so lamentably narrow-minded on the subject of foreigners. Neither her uncle’s note nor Sir Percival’s increasing impatience seemed to have the least effect on her. She still objected to staying a night in London, she still implored her husband not to write to the Count.
“Drop it!” said Sir Percival, rudely turning his back on us. “If you haven’t sense enough to know what is best for yourself other people must know it for you. The arrangement is made and there is an end of it. You are only wanted to do what Miss Halcombe has done before you——”
“Marian?” repeated her Ladyship, in a bewildered manner; “Marian sleeping in Count Fosco’s house!”
“Yes, in Count Fosco’s house. She slept there last night to break the journey, and you are to follow her example, and do what your uncle tells you. You are to sleep at Fosco’s to-morrow night, as your sister did, to break the journey. Don’t throw too many obstacles in my way! don’t make me repent of letting you go at all!”
He started to his feet, and suddenly walked out into the verandah through the open glass doors.
“Will your ladyship excuse me,” I whispered, “if I suggest that we had better not wait here till Sir Percival comes back? I am very much afraid he is over-excited with wine.”
She consented to leave the room in a weary, absent manner.
As soon as we were safe upstairs again, I did all I could to compose her ladyship’s spirits. I reminded her that Mr. Fairlie’s letters to Miss Halcombe and to herself did certainly sanction, and even render necessary, sooner or later, the course that had been taken. She agreed to this, and even admitted, of her own accord, that both letters were strictly in character with her uncle’s peculiar disposition—but her fears about Miss Halcombe, and her unaccountable dread of sleeping at the Count’s house in London, still remained unshaken in spite of every consideration that I could urge. I thought it my duty to protest against Lady Glyde’s unfavourable opinion of his lordship, and I did so, with becoming forbearance and respect.