’Father is quite right. Your place is with
us. I am glad, very glad.’
Mary looked from Mr. Lord to his daughter, tried vainly
to speak, and left the room.
His father’s contemptuous wrath had an ill effect
upon Horace. Of an amiable disposition, and without
independence of character, he might have been guided
by a judicious parent through all the perils of his
calf-love for Fanny French; thrown upon his own feeble
resources, he regarded himself as a victim of the
traditional struggle between prosaic age and nobly
passionate youth, and resolved at all hazards to follow
the heroic course—which meant, first of
all, a cold taciturnity towards his father, and, as
to his future conduct, a total disregard of the domestic
restraints which he had hitherto accepted. In
a day or two he sat down and wrote his father a long
letter, of small merit as a composition, and otherwise
illustrating the profitless nature of the education
for which Stephen Lord had hopefully paid. It
began with a declaration of rights. He was a man;
he could no longer submit to childish trammels.
A man must not be put to inconvenience by the necessity
of coming home at early hours. A man could not
brook cross-examination on the subject of his intimacies,
his expenditure, and so forth. Above all, a man
was answerable to no one but himself for his relations
with the other sex, for the sacred hopes he cherished,
for his emotions and aspirations which transcended
even a man’s vocabulary.—With much
more of like tenor.
To this epistle, delivered by post, Mr. Lord made
no answer.
Horace flattered himself that he had gained a victory.
There was nothing like ‘firmness,’ and
that evening, about nine, he went to De Crespigny
Park. As usual, he had to ring the bell two or
three times before any one came; the lively notes
of a piano sounded from the drawing-room, intimating,
no doubt, that Mrs. Peachey had guests. The door
at length opened, and he bade the servant let Miss.
Fanny know that he was here; he would wait in the
dining-room.
It was not yet dark, but objects could only just be
distinguished; the gloom supplied Horace with a suggestion
at which he laughed to himself. He had laid down
his hat and cane, when a voice surprised him.
‘Who’s that?’ asked some one from
the back of the room.
’Oh, are you there, Mr. Peachey?—I’ve
come to see Fanny. I didn’t care to go
among the people.’
‘All right. We’d better light the
gas.’
With annoyance, Horace saw the master of the house
come forward, and strike a match. Remains of
dinner were still on the table. The two exchanged
glances.
‘How is your father?’ Peachey inquired.
He had a dull, depressed look, and moved languidly
to draw down the blind.
’Oh, he isn’t quite up to the mark.
But it’s nothing serious, I think.’
