Gwendolen by Clare Darcy

Author:Clare Darcy
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2019-12-17T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

GWENDOLEN SPENT THE short period occupied by the drive back to Brightleaves in considerable dread of the scene she envisioned would be played out there when Lady Otilia received the news that all three of her daughters had once again been relegated to the role of unattached spinsters. She thought of the announcement she would be obliged to make as being more or less in the nature of a bomb to be cast into the peaceful, shabby drawing room; but what was her astonishment when, upon stepping across the threshold of that same drawing room, she found that the bomb—or at least a bomb of some sort—had apparently already been exploded there even before she had entered. For Mr. Quarters, with a face like a thundercloud, was striding up and down the long, sunlit apartment like a lion in a cage, uttering pithy expletives from time to time in place of angry roars, while Lady Otilia, seated on the somewhat dilapidated Chippendale sofa, appeared to be wringing her hands in the best tradition of theatrical melodrama.

"Papa! Mama! What in the world is the matter?" exclaimed Gwendolen, checking so abruptly upon the threshold that Campaspe, who was following directly behind her, almost fell over her.

Lady Otilia and Mr. Quarters, becoming aware that they were not alone, looked up and began speaking simultaneously, so that the four newcomers were greeted with a confused medley of words, from which only such salient phrases as "damned scoundrels," "ruined forever," and "never bear the disgrace" detached themselves ominously. Gwendolen, from whose head all thoughts of broken engagements had now departed, cast a glance of dismay at her sisters and went quickly across the room to seat herself on the sofa beside her mother.

"Now, Mama, don't cry," she urged, as Lady Otilia, at sight of her daughters, showed alarming signs of being about to burst into tears. She put her arms about her mother and looked up at Mr. Quarters, who had halted his pacing and now stood before the sofa, grimly surveying her. "Papa, do tell us what has happened to put you both in such a state!" she said. “You look as if the end of the world had come!"

"Aye, and so it has, my girl, as far as the lot of us are concerned!" Mr. Quarters said roughly, obviously controlling his temper only with the greatest difficulty. "We're being sold up. Those damned rascally cent-percenters are foreclosing."

"Foreclosing?" Gwendolen stared up at him. She had lived for so long under the threat of a financial disaster that had always, by some minor miracle or other—a winning horse, a small legacy—been staved off at the last minute that she had grown used to believing that it would never really happen, and she could not in a moment adjust her thinking to the idea that it had now actually occurred. "But—but you can't mean we shall have to leave Brightleaves!" she expostulated.

"Oh, can't I?" retorted Mr. Quarters. "That's just what I do mean, and as

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