“Very well. Will you have some tea?”
And then the whole thing was finished.
On the next day she went after lunch to her mother’s
house, and never came back again to Princess Royal
Crescent. During that morning she packed up those
things which she cared to pack herself, and sent her
sisters there, with an old family servant, to bring
away whatever else might be supposed to belong to
her. “Dear, dear,” said Amelia, “what
trouble I had in getting these things together for
them, and only the other day. I can’t but
think she’s wrong to go away.”
“I don’t know,” said Margaretta.
“She has not been so lucky as you have in the
man she has married. I always felt that she would
find it difficult to manage him.”
“But, my dear, she has not tried. She has
given up at once. It isn’t management that
was wanting. The fact is that when Alexandrina
began she didn’t make up her mind to the kind
of thing she was coming to. I did. I knew
it wasn’t to be all party-going and that sort
of thing. But I must own that Crosbie isn’t
the same sort of man as Mortimer. I don’t
think I could have gone on with him. You might
as well have those small books put up; he won’t
care about them.” And in this way Crosbie’s
house was dismantled.
She saw him no more, for he made no farewell visit
to the house in Portman Square. A note had been
brought to him at his office: “I am here
with mamma, and may as well say good-bye now.
We start on Tuesday. If you wish to write, you
can send your letters to the housekeeper here.
I hope you will make yourself comfortable, and that
you will be well. Yours affectionately, A. C.”
He made no answer to it, but went that day and dined
at his club.
“I haven’t seen you this age,” said
Montgomerie Dobbs.
“No. My wife is going abroad with her mother,
and while she is away I shall come back here again.”
There was nothing more said to him, and no one ever
made any inquiry about his domestic affairs.
It seemed to him now as though he had no friend sufficiently
intimate with him to ask him after his wife or family.
She was gone, and in a month’s time he found
himself again in Mount Street,—beginning
the world with five hundred a year, not six.
For Mr Gazebee, when the reckoning came, showed him
that a larger income at the present moment was not
possible for him. The countess had for a long
time refused to let Lady Alexandrina go with her on
so small a pittance as four hundred and fifty;—and
then were there not the insurances to be maintained?
But I think he would have consented to accept his
liberty with three hundred a year,—so great
to him was the relief.
Lilian Dale Vanquishes Her Mother
