make your acquaintance before I left it. I did not know it would be disagreeable to you.”
“It is not disagreeable to me. I am pleased to see you here. Is Lewis in town with you?”
“As if he would not have come to you if he had been!” retorted Laura. “I was summoned to town on grievous business,” she continued, her eye and voice alike softening. “My father was dying. I did not get up in time to see him alive.”
“Your father? I beg your pardon, I forget who———”
“The Earl of Oakburn,” imperiously answered Laura, feeling excessively offended, and scarcely believing in the forgetfulness.
“The Earl of Oakburn: true. When I read of his death I felt sure that I ought to remember that name by some particular cause, but I forgot that he was the father of my son’s wife. You look angry, my dear; but if you had the work on your hands that I have, you would not wonder at my forgetting things. I and Lewis had but scant correspondence on the subject of his marriage, and I am not sure that your father’s name was mentioned in it more than once. Your own name is Laura.”
“I am Lady Laura,” was the answer, given with a flash of impetuosity.
“And a very pretty name it is! Laura! I had a little sister of that name once, who died. Dear me, it seems ages and ages ago to look back upon! And how is Lewis getting on in South Wennock? He ought to be a skilful practitioner by this time; he has the metal in him if he chooses to put it out.”
“He gets on as well as a doctor can do who has his way to make unassisted,” returned Laura. “Nobody helps him. He ought to keep a close carriage, but he can’t afford it.”
If he had afforded it, his wife would have appropriated it to her own use. Driving down in that coroneted carriage with all the signs of rank and wealth about it, was just the pastime acceptable to Laura in her vanity.
“Ah, Lewis must be content to wait for that,” remarked Mr. Carlton. “I did not keep a close carriage until I had been more years in practice than Lewis has. Tell him from me, my dear, that those who know how to win, generally know how to wait”
“I’ll not tell him,” said Laura, boldly. “I think, sir, you ought to help him.”
“Do you, young lady? What does he get by his practice? Six or seven hundred a year?”
“Well, yes; I think he gets that”
“It’s more than I got at his age. And I would recommend him to make it suffice.”
The peculiar emphasis which accompanied the words, told a tale to Laura: that no help must be expected from Mr. Carlton. Laura threw back her head disdainfully. Only asking it for the sake of him whom she so loved, really careless of money herself, she felt anger rather than disappointment. She rose to leave with a haughty gesture.
“Your husband knows my disposition, Lady Laura: that I never can be badgered into anything—and you must pardon the word. Tell him I have not altered my will; I shall not alter it if he keeps in my good books; but he must look to his own exertions while I live, not to me.”
“I think you are a very unkind father, Mr. Carlton.”
“My dear, you can think so if you please,” was the equable answer, given in all courtesy. “You don’t know your husband’s disposition yet. Shall I tell you what he is? He makes, you say, six or seven hundred a year. If I allowed him from to-day six or seven hundred on to it making twelve or fourteen, by the year’s end he would find that too little, and ask for fourteen hundred more. Lewis is one, safe to spend all his income, no matter from what sources it may be derived; and I don’t care to have my hard-earned money wasted in my lifetime.”
Laura drew her black lace shawl round her with supercilious meaning, and swept from the room, deaf to offers of wine and other good things. Mr. Carlton followed and held out his arm. Had it been anyone but her husband’s father she would have refused it.
“Where are you staying?” he asked.
“In the house with my dead father,” passionately answered Laura. “I should not have quitted it on any errand but this.”
“I have been glad to see you, my dear. I shall always be glad to see you and Lewis. Come and stay with me, both of you, for a week at any time. Should business or pleasure bring you to London, Lady Laura, and you can reconcile yourself to this end of the town, make my house your home. You shall be heartily welcome.”
He led her out with quite an excess of stately courtesy, bowed her into the waiting carriage, lifted his hat, and stood bareheaded until she had driven away.
“He is a gentleman in manners, with all his meanness,” quoth Laura to herself. “Somehow I had feared he might not be. And I can understand now why he and Lewis have been so antagonistic—they are too much like each other.”
CHAPTER XXXVI.THE FACE AGAIN!
