He rode over to Floodborough, and saw Mrs. Flood Jones.
Mrs. Flood Jones, however, received him very coldly;
and Mary did not appear. Mary had communicated
to her mother her resolutions as to her future life.
“The fact is, mamma, I love him. I cannot
help it. If he ever chooses to come for me, here
I am. If he does not, I will bear it as well
as I can. It may be very mean of me, but it’s
true.”
Troubles at Loughlinter
There was a dull house at Loughlinter during the greater
part of this autumn. A few men went down for
the grouse shooting late in the season; but they stayed
but a short time, and when they went Lady Laura was
left alone with her husband. Mr. Kennedy had explained
to his wife, more than once, that though he understood
the duties of hospitality and enjoyed the performance
of them, he had not married with the intention of
living in a whirlwind. He was disposed to think
that the whirlwind had hitherto been too predominant,
and had said so very plainly with a good deal of marital
authority. This autumn and winter were to be
devoted to the cultivation of proper relations between
him and his wife. “Does that mean Darby
and Joan?” his wife had asked him, when the
proposition was made to her. “It means mutual
regard and esteem,” replied Mr. Kennedy in his
most solemn tone, “and I trust that such mutual
regard and esteem between us may yet be possible.”
When Lady Laura showed him a letter from her brother,
received some weeks after this conversation, in which
Lord Chiltern expressed his intention of coming to
Loughlinter for Christmas, he returned the note to
his wife without a word. He suspected that she
had made the arrangement without asking him, and was
angry; but he would not tell her that her brother
would not be welcome at his house. “It
is not my doing,” she said, when she saw the
frown on his brow.
“I said nothing about anybody’s doing,”
he replied.
“I will write to Oswald and bid him not come,
if you wish it. Of course you can understand
why he is coming.”
“Not to see me, I am sure,” said Mr. Kennedy.
“Nor me,” replied Lady Laura. “He
is coming because my friend Violet Effingham will
be here.”
“Miss Effingham! Why was I not told of
this? I knew nothing of Miss Effingham’s
coming.”
“Robert, it was settled in your own presence
last July.”
“I deny it.”
Then Lady Laura rose up, very haughty in her gait
and with something of fire in her eye, and silently
left the room. Mr. Kennedy, when he found himself
alone, was very unhappy. Looking back in his mind
to the summer weeks in London, he remembered that
his wife had told Violet that she was to spend her
Christmas at Loughlinter, that he himself had given
a muttered assent and that Violet,—as far
as he could remember,—had made no reply.
It had been one of those things which are so often
