All in the Dark by Sheridan Le Fanu--Delphi Classics (Illustrated) by Sheridan Le Fanu

Author:Sheridan Le Fanu [LE FANU, SHERIDAN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Parts Edition 7 of 25 by Delphi Classics
Publisher: Delphi Classics (Parts Edition)
Published: 2017-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE EVENING.

WILLIAM MAUBRAY was bidden to luncheon, and was sad and abstemious at that pleasant refection, and when it was over Mrs. Kincton Knox said —

“My dear Clara, it’s quite out of the question my going with you to-day, I’m suffering so — that horrid neuralgia.”

“Oh! darling! how sorry I am!” exclaimed Miss Clara, with a look of such beautiful pity and affection as must have moved William Maubray if he had the slightest liking for ministering angels. “What can I do for you? You must, you know, try something.”

“No, love, no; nature — nature and rest. I shall lie down for a little; but you must have your ride all the same to Coverdale, and I am certain Mr. Herbert will be so kind as to accompany you.”

William Maubray would have given a great deal for a solitary ramble; but of course, he was only too happy, and the happy pair scampered off on their ponies side by side, and two hours after Miss Clara walked into her mamma’s room, looking cross and tired, and sat down silently in a chair before the cheval glass.

“Well, dear?” inquired her mother inquisitively.

“Nothing, mamma. I hope your head’s better?”

“My head? Oh! yes, better, thanks. But how did you like your ride?”

“Very stupid,” answered the young lady.

“I suppose you’ve been in one of your tempers, and never spoke a word — and you know he’s so shy? Will you ever learn, Miss Kincton Knox, to command your miserable temper?” exclaimed her mother very grimly, but the young lady only flapped the folds of her skirt lazily with her whip.

“You quite mistake, mamma, I’m not cross; I’m only tired. I’m sorry you did not let him go off to the sick old man. He’s plainly pining to go and give him his gruel and his medicine.”

“Did he speak of him?” asked the old lady.

“No, nor of anything else: but he’s plainly thinking of him, and thinks he has murdered him — at least he looks as if he was going to be hanged, and I don’t care if he was,” answered Miss Clara.

“You must make allowances, my dear Clara,” said she. “You forget that the circumstances are very distressing.”

“Very cheerful, I should say. Why he hates his father, I dare say. Did not you hear the picture he drew of him? and it’s all hypocrisy, and I don’t believe his father has really anything to do with his moping.”

“And what do you suppose is the cause of it?” inquired Mrs. Kincton Knox.

“I really can’t tell; perhaps he’s privately married, or in love with a milliner perhaps, and that has been the cause of this quarrel,” she said with an indolent mockery that might be serious, and, at all events, puzzled the elder lady.

“Ho! stuff, my dear child!” exclaimed her mother, with an uneasy scorn. “You had better call Brookes and get your habit off. And where did you leave him?”

“At the hall door,” replied Miss Clara, as she walked out of the room.

“H’m stuff!” repeated Mrs.

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