Verner's Pride eBook

Ellen Wood (author)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,003 pages of information about Verner's Pride.

Verner's Pride eBook

Ellen Wood (author)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,003 pages of information about Verner's Pride.

Just the same innate refinement of feeling which had characterised him in the old days.  It so happened that Lionel had never bought a carriage since he came into Verner’s Pride.  Stephen Verner had been prodigal in his number of carriages, although the carriages had a sinecure of it, and Lionel had found no occasion to purchase.  Of course they belonged to John Massingbird; everything else belonged to him.  He, for the last time, ordered the close carriage for his wife.  His carriage, it might surely be said, more than John Massingbird’s.  Lionel did not deem it so, and asked permission ere he gave the order.

Sibylla had never seen her husband quietly resolute in opposing her whims, as he had been with regard to Benoite.  She scarcely knew what to make of it; but she had deemed it well to dry her tears, and withdraw her opposition.  She came down dressed at the time of departure, and looked about for John Massingbird.  That gentleman was in the study.  Its large desk, a whole mass of papers crowded above it and underneath it, pushed into the remotest corner.  Lionel had left things connected with the estate as straight as he could.  He wished to explain affairs to John Massingbird, and hand over documents and all else in due form, but he was not allowed.  Business and John had never agreed.  John was sitting now before the window, his elbows on the sill, a rough cap on his head, and a short clay pipe in his mouth.  Lionel glanced with dismay at the confusion reigning amid the papers.

“Fare you well, John Massingbird,” said Sibylla.

“Going?” said John, coolly turning round.  “Good-day.”

“And let me tell you, John Massingbird,” continued Sibylla, “that if ever you had got turned out of your home as you have turned us, you would know what it was.”

“Bless you!  I’ve never had anything of my own to be turned out of, except a tent,” said John, with a laugh.

“It is to be hoped that you may, then, some time, and that you will be turned out of it!  That’s my best wish for you, John Massingbird.”

“I’d recommend you to be polite, young lady,” returned John good-humouredly.  “If I sue your husband for back rents, you’d not be quite so independent, I calculate.”

“Back rents!” repeated she.

“Back rents,” assented John.  “But we’ll leave that discussion to another time.  Don’t you be saucy, Sibylla.”

“John,” said Lionel, pointing to the papers, “are you aware that some valuable leases and other agreements are amongst those papers?  You might get into inextricable confusion with your tenants, were you to mislay, or lose them.”

“They are safe enough,” said careless John, taking his pipe from his mouth to speak.

“I wish you had allowed me to put things in order for you.  You will be wanting me to do it later.”

“Not a bit of it,” said John Massingbird.  “I am not going to upset my equanimity with leases, and bothers of that sort.  Good-bye, old fellow.  Lionel!”

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Verner's Pride from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.