The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 42: what you’re looking at

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THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 29 pass some time—perhaps the whole interval until your majority. Lady Macdonald and Fiorina will be our visitors there, so that you may enjoy the company of your intended bride.” «What! go and bury myself in that out-of-the- way place!” exclaimed Edmund starting up from the sofa. “ No—I'll be banged if I do!” “In that cage,” responded Lady Saxondale, en- eavouring to maintain her dignified calmness, but all the evidences of her ill-suppreseed indigna- tion betraying themselves in her flushiug cheeks, ber fire-darting eyes, and her quivering lips—“ in that case,” she repeated, with strong accentuation, “it ig Lord Petersfield’s resolve to obtain for you the poet of Attaché to some distant and petty embassy, so as to remove you from London.” “ And what if I refuge to go—eh ? what then ?” demanded the young lord, with mingled inaolence and malignity. , “ Then, as it is in her Majesty's service,” re- plied Lady Saxondale, “you will be ordered abroad, and at your peril will you refuse.” “Well, we shall seo,” was Edmund's dogged answer. “Ah! but thisisnotall! Your guardians will stop your allowance,” continued Lady Saxondale, her lips now ashy with the pent-up rege that filled her bosom. “Well then, I must raise money with the bill- brokers in the City,” rejoined Edmund. “ Wicked and preverse boy!” cried Lady Saxon- dale, now no longer able to repress her wrath; and starting up from her chair, she stamped her foot violently upon the carpet; “do you mean to defy me altogether ?” “ I told you at the beginning that if there was a quarrel, it would be of your provoking !” “‘ Quarrel, sir!——« mother cannot quarrel with her son. She orders—and he obeys. “The deuce he does! I think rather differ- eatly,” exclaimed Edmund, witha taunting laugh. “ Vile and detestable disposition that you pos- seas!” exclaimed the lady, whose haughty beauty now looked terrible in her anger. “ If you only knew how much I suffered on your account when you were ap infant—if you only knew how much have done for you——But, no: you are in- capable of appreciating it !” “Oh! this is the old story over again,” inter- rapted Edmund, with so heartless a flippancy that his words and his manner were but too well calculated to plant daggers in tbe bosom of Lady Saxondale. “Because I was lost or stolen when an infant, and you discovered me again, you are elwaps flinging it in my teeth.” ‘‘Edmund! Edmund! do for heaven's sake treat me with more kindness, more respect!” said the unhappy lady now bursting into tears. “Oh! again I tell you that if you only knew all I have suffered on your account, you would not treat me thus! Consider !— reflect! your behaviour is most unnatural—most ungrateful——” “Then why can’t you leave me alone ?” de- manded the young man, entirely unmoved by the spectacle of that proud and haughty woman thus malting into the humiliation of tears and Srreatios in his presence and through his con- act, “Ah! I see that you are indeed heertless, thoroughly heartless!” she exclaimed, suddenly drawing her handkerchief across her eyes and in © moment recovering the stern stateliness of her demeanour. “ Never again will I appeal to you, Edmutd, for kindness and respect !—never again will I seek to touch your sympathies! Preverse boy, instead of imploring or entreating, I will act and command.” “ Well then, I suppose it’s a war to the knife,” he observed with flippant disdain; “and we shall ace who will get the better of it.” Thus speaking he gave another taunting laugh and lounged out of the room. The moment the door closed behind him, a terrible change came over Lady Saxondale; her entire appearance altered — her countenance became positively ghastly—her lips ashy white—and her whole frame convulsed with the inward working of the fiercest passions. “ Viper, that I have cherished in my bosom to sting me!" she said aloud: and the words came hissing from between her parched lips. “TI hate him—yes, I hate him!” But then she stopped short and glanced with a sudden start of uneasiness towards a door at the extremity of the apartment: for it struck her that a sound, resembling a ory of dismay, penetrating thence, had been wafted to her ear. Instan- taneously recovering all her self-possession she that door—opened it abraptly—and beheld her two daughters quite near enough and in an attitude to show they had been listening. That inner room was one where the young ladies were not wont to sit at this period of the day ; and therefore it had never occurred to Saxondale throughout the preceding interview with her son, that Juliana and Constance were by any probability so near. She fancied that the were in a more distant apartment, occupicd wi their music, drawing, or embroidery; and con- sequently their presence in that room, as well as the indications above mentioned, naturally struck her with the suspicion that they had penetrated thither on purpose to listen to what was taking place between Edmund and herself. We may add that Juliana, the eldest, was a perfect like- ness of her mother — with the same haughty aquiline profile, hair of the same raven glossiness, eyes of the same dark splendour, a complexion of the same clear delicate skin, and a figure modelled with a like voluptuous symmetry of proportions. Constance, the younger, though possessing the same Hebe-proportions of shape, was in all other respects of a different style of beauty, having light hair, a complexion of dazzling transparen¢y, and blue eyes; while the outline of her features was more delicate and more strictly classical, with nothing of that haughtiness of expression which characterized both her mother and her sister. “What means this?” demanded Lady Saxon- dale sternly. “Is it not sufficient that I should possess an undatifal and rebellious son? but am I also doomed to find that my daughters are playing the part of spies upon their mother's actions ?” “Spies!” echoed Juliana, the elder, her delicate brunette complexion suffusing with the glow of indignation at the “Oh! do not be angry with us, dear mother,” cried Constance, the younger, bursting into tears. The difference of the manner in which tl.e two young ladies received their mother's reproach, must at a glance afford the reader an accurate insight into their respectived!spositions—showing COMuicooOolkxs.conrn ‘iets — ———