“I’ll discharge Mr. Tom at once,” said her husband, “and tell him the reason.”
“Now, don’t be stupid, Furze; pull down that blind, will you? Fancy leaving it up, and the moon staring straight down upon me half undressed! Don’t you admit anything of the kind to Tom. I would not let him believe you could suspect it. Besides, if you were to dismiss him for a such a reason as that, you would make Catharine all the more obstinate, and the whole town would hear of it, and we should perhaps be laughed at, and lots of people would take Tom’s part and say we might go farther and fare worse, and were stuck up, and all that, for we must remember that all the Furzes were of humble origin, and Eastthorpe knows it. No, no, we will get rid of Tom, but it shall not be because of Catharine—something better than that—you leave it to me.”
“Well, how about Catharine?”
“We will have her in to-morrow morning, when we are not so flurried. I always like to talk to her just after breakfast if there is anything wrong; but do not you say a word to Tom.”
Mrs. Furze took another sip of the brandy-and-water and went to bed. Mr. Furze shut the window, mixed a little more brandy-and-water, and, as he drank it, reflected deeply. Most vividly did that morning come back to him when he had once before decided to eject Mr. Catchpole.
“I do not know how it is with other people,” he groaned, “but whenever I have settled on a thing something is sure to turn up against it, and I never know what to be at for the best. My head, too, is not quite what it used to be. Half a dozen worries at once do muddle me. If they would but come, one up and one down, nobody could beat me.” He took another sip of the brandy-and-water. “Want of practice—that’s all. I have been an idiot to let him do so much. He shall go”; and Mr. Furze put out the candles.
Catharine was down before either her father or mother, and stood at the window reading when her father came in. She bade him good morning and kissed him, but he was ill at ease, and pretended to look for something on the side-table. He felt he was not sufficiently supported by the main strength of his forces; he was afraid to speak, and he retreated to his bedroom, sitting down disconsolately on a rush-bottom chair whilst his wife dressed herself.
“She’s there already,” he said.
“Then it is as well you came back.”
“I think you had better begin with her; you are her mother, and we will wait till breakfast is over. Perhaps she will say something to us. How had we better set about it?”