Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 256: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE RETREAT IN WALES 239 it shall be as succinctly as I can, for I am sure that you are impatient to have speech of her ladyship.”’ “Yes,”’ replied Lord Eagledean, “‘ but ere we meet, I would rather be acquainted with everything, so that she may be spared the pain of having any explanations to give.”’ “Your lordship can well understand,’’ resumed Mrs. Jameson, “ that the knowledge of my poor lady’s secret put her completely in the power of that bad man her brother- in-law. He came and gave his orders at the Park just as 1 he were the master. He represented to my poor mistress that after all he had learned, she was not a fit and proper person to have full charge of her son Adolphus during the father’s absence. He removed Adolphus to the western extremity of the building, lodging him in apartments to which there was a communication by means of the private staircase. He introduced creatures of his own to surround the boy, to attend upon him, and doubtless to keep watch over him also. As the time approached for my lord’s arrival _ from India, Mr. Everton sent up all the old servants of the Park to the town house in London, for the purpose, as he said, of making the fullest preparations there to receive his lordship. I was packed off along with the rest, and Everton Park was left in the hands of the strange domestics whom Mr. Everton had planted there. I went away with a heavy heart, for I suspected some mischief, but I was relieved to a certain extent when I found that Mr. Everton himself was about to proceed to London and pass. a few days at his own house. I will now describe what took place at the Park after I and my fellow servants had removed to the town resi- dence, although I did not learn the full particulars from my mistress’s lips until some time later. It appears that several days elapsed, during which her brother-in-law being absent, she was permitted to enjoy more of the society of Adolphus than she had previously been. But one day she was taken seriously ill. I must tell you that Mr. Everton had located a medical man at the Park under pretence of watching over the health of Adolphus. My poor lady has often declared to me her conviction that she was taken so seriously ill in consequence of some medicine which that surgeon had persisted in prescribing for herself. Certain it is that she fell into a complete state of stupor, — a lethargy which rendered her unconscious of all that was passing ECONNICLOOO eS) (EO)