“I was afraid you might mean me, my Lady,”
said the pretty girl.
“I did mean you, child,” replied her mistress
calmly. “Put that shawl on me.”
She slightly stooped her shoulders to receive it,
and the pretty girl lightly dropped it in its place.
The Frenchwoman stood unnoticed, looking on with
her lips very tightly set.
“I am sorry,” said Lady Dedlock to Mr.
Jarndyce, “that we are not likely to renew our
former acquaintance. You will allow me to send
the carriage back for your two wards. It shall
be here directly.”
But as he would on no account accept this offer, she
took a graceful leave of Ada—none of me—and
put her hand upon his proffered arm, and got into
the carriage, which was a little, low, park carriage
with a hood.
“Come in, child,” she said to the pretty
girl; “I shall want you. Go on!”
The carriage rolled away, and the Frenchwoman, with
the wrappers she had brought hanging over her arm,
remained standing where she had alighted.
I suppose there is nothing pride can so little bear
with as pride itself, and that she was punished for
her imperious manner. Her retaliation was the
most singular I could have imagined. She remained
perfectly still until the carriage had turned into
the drive, and then, without the least discomposure
of countenance, slipped off her shoes, left them on
the ground, and walked deliberately in the same direction
through the wettest of the wet grass.
“Is that young woman mad?” said my guardian.
“Oh, no, sir!” said the keeper, who, with
his wife, was looking after her. “Hortense
is not one of that sort. She has as good a head-piece
as the best. But she’s mortal high and
passionate— powerful high and passionate;
and what with having notice to leave, and having others
put above her, she don’t take kindly to it.”
“But why should she walk shoeless through all
that water?” said my guardian.
“Why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her
down!” said the man.
“Or unless she fancies it’s blood,”
said the woman. “She’d as soon walk
through that as anything else, I think, when her own’s
up!”
We passed not far from the house a few minutes afterwards.
Peaceful as it had looked when we first saw it, it
looked even more so now, with a diamond spray glittering
all about it, a light wind blowing, the birds no longer
hushed but singing strongly, everything refreshed
by the late rain, and the little carriage shining
at the doorway like a fairy carriage made of silver.
Still, very steadfastly and quietly walking towards
it, a peaceful figure too in the landscape, went Mademoiselle
Hortense, shoeless, through the wet grass.
Moving On
