Page:Bleak House.djvu/260

 “I think you knew my sister, when we were abroad together, better than you knew me?” she said, looking at him again.

“Yes, we happened to meet oftener,” he returned.

“We went our several ways,” said Lady Dedlock, “and had little in common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I suppose, but it could not be helped.”

Lady Dedlock again sat looking at the rain. The storm soon began to pass upon its way. The shower greatly abated, the lightning ceased, the thunder rolled among the distant hills, and the sun began to glisten on the wet leaves and the falling rain. As we sat there, silently, we saw a little pony phaeton coming towards us at a merry pace.

“The messenger is coming back, my Lady,” said the keeper, “with the carriage.”

As it drove up, we saw that there were two people inside. There alighted from it, with some cloaks and wrappers, first the Frenchwoman whom I had seen in church, and secondly the pretty girl; the Frenchwoman, with a defiant confidence; the pretty girl, confused and hesitating.

“What now?” said Lady Dedlock. “Two!”

“I am your maid, my Lady, at the present,” said the Frenchwoman. “The message was for the attendant.”

“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.

“O 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.”