'I do own that you have been a very good Naomi to me thus far; but Ruth was quite a fast widow in comparison with me, and yet Naomi never blamed her. You are unfortunate in your illustration. But it is dreadfully flippant of me to answer you like this, for you have been kind. But why will you provoke me!'
'Yes, you are flippant, Ethelberta. You are too much given to that sort of thing.'
'Well, I don't know how the secret of my name has leaked out; and Iam not ribald, or anything you say,' said Ethelberta, with a sigh.
'Then you own you do not feel so ardent as you seem in your book?'
'I do own it.'
'And that you are sorry your name has been published in connection with it?'
'I am.'
'And you think the verses may tend to misrepresent your character as a gay and rapturous one, when it is not?'
'I do fear it.'
'Then, of course, you will suppress the poems instantly. That is the only way in which you can regain the position you have hitherto held with me.'
Ethelberta said nothing; and the dull winter atmosphere had far from light enough in it to show by her face what she might be thinking.
'Well?' said Lady Petherwin.
'I did not expect such a command as that,' said Ethelberta. 'I have been obedient for four years, and would continue so--but I cannot suppress the poems. They are not mine now to suppress.'
'You must get them into your hands. Money will do it, I suppose?'
'Yes, I suppose it would--a thousand pounds.'
'Very well; the money shall be forthcoming,' said Lady Petherwin, after a pause. 'You had better sit down and write about it at once.'
'I cannot do it,' said Ethelberta; 'and I will not. I don't wish them to be suppressed. I am not ashamed of them; there is nothing to be ashamed of in them; and I shall not take any steps in the matter.'
'Then you are an ungrateful woman, and wanting in natural affection for the dead! Considering your birth--'
'That's an intolerable--'
Lady Petherwin crashed out of the room in a wind of indignation, and went upstairs and heard no more. Adjoining her chamber was a smaller one called her study, and, on reaching this, she unlocked a cabinet, took out a small deed-box, removed from it a folded packet, unfolded it, crumpled it up, and turning round suddenly flung it into the fire. Then she stood and beheld it eaten away word after word by the flames, 'Testament '--'all that freehold'--'heirs and assigns' appearing occasionally for a moment only to disappear for ever. Nearly half the document had turned into a glossy black when the lady clasped her hands.
'What have I done!' she exclaimed. Springing to the tongs she seized with them the portion of the writing yet unconsumed, and dragged it out of the fire. Ethelberta appeared at the door.
'Quick, Ethelberta!' said Lady Petherwin. 'Help me to put this out!' And the two women went trampling wildly upon the document and smothering it with a corner of the hearth-rug.
'What is it?' said Ethelberta.
'My will!' said Lady Petherwin. 'I have kept it by me lately, for Ihave wished to look over it at leisure--'
'Good heavens!' said Ethelberta. 'And I was just coming in to tell you that I would always cling to you, and never desert you, ill-use me how you might!'
'Such an affectionate remark sounds curious at such a time,' said Lady Petherwin, sinking down in a chair at the end of the struggle.
'But,' cried Ethelberta, 'you don't suppose--'
'Selfishness, my dear, has given me such crooked looks that I can see it round a corner.'
'If you mean that what is yours to give may not be mine to take, it would be as well to name it in an impersonal way, if you must name it at all," said the daughter-in-law, with wet eyelids. 'God knows I had no selfish thought in saying that. I came upstairs to ask you to forgive me, and knew nothing about the will. But every explanation distorts it all the more!'
'We two have got all awry, dear--it cannot be concealed--awry--awry.
Ah, who shall set us right again? However, now I must send for Mr.
Chancerly--no, I am going out on other business, and I will call upon him. There, don't spoil your eyes: you may have to sell them.'
She rang the bell and ordered the carriage; and half-an-hour later Lady Petherwin's coachman drove his mistress up to the door of her lawyer's office in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
