THE FRIGHTFUL1 warnings of Lady Knollys haunted me too. Was there no escape from the dreadful companion whom fate had assigned me? I made up my mind again and again to speak to my father and urge her removal. In other things he indulged me; here, however, he met me drily and sternly, and it was plain that he fancied I was under my cousin Monica’s influence, and also that he had secret reasons for persisting in an opposite course. Just then I had a gay, odd letter from Lady Knollys, from some country house in Shropshire. Not a word about Captain Oakley. My eye skimmed its pages in search of that charmed name. With a peevish2 feeling I tossed the sheet upon the table. Inwardly I thought how ill-natured and unwomanly it was.

 

After a time, however, I read it, and found the letter very good-natured. She had received a note from papa. He had “had the impudence3 to forgive her for his impertinence.” But for my sake she meant, notwithstanding this aggravation4, really to pardon him; and whenever she had a disengaged week, to accept his invitation to Knowl, from whence she was resolved to whisk me off to London, where, though I was too young to be presented at Court and come out, I might yet — besides having the best masters and a good excuse for getting rid of Medusa — see a great deal that would amuse and surprise me.

 

“Great news, I suppose, from Lady Knollys?” said Madame, who always knew who in the house received letters by the post, and by an intuition from whom they came.

 

 

 

 

“Two letters — you and your papa. She is quite well, I hope?”

 

“Quite well, thank you, Madame.”

 

Some fishing questions, dropped from time to time, fared no better. And as usual, when she was foiled even in a trifle, she became sullen6 and indignant.

 

That night, when my father and I were alone, he suddenly closed the book he had been reading, and said —

 

 

 

 

“I heard from Monica Knollys to-day. I always liked poor Monnie; and though she’s no witch, and very wrong-headed at times, yet now and then she does say a thing that’s worth weighing. Did she every talk to you of a time, Maud, when you are to be your own mistress?”

 

“No,” I answered, a little puzzled, and looking straight in his rugged7, kindly8 face.

 

“Well, I thought she might — she’s a rattle9, you know — always was a rattle, and that sort of people say whatever comes uppermost. But that’s a subject for me, and more than once, Maud, it has puzzled me.”

 

He sighed.