The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope [good story books to read .txt] 📗

of that kind was their strength. Had the bishop preached for forty-five minutes instead of half an hour they would not have complained. It was the same kind of endurance which enabled Georgiana to go on from year to year waiting for a husband of the proper sort. She could put up with any amount of tedium if only the fair chance of obtaining ultimate relief were not denied to her. But to be kept at Caversham all the summer would be as bad as hearing a bishop preach forever! After the service they came back to lunch, and that meal also was eaten in silence. When it was over the head of the family put himself into the dining-room armchair, evidently meaning to be left alone there. In that case he would have meditated upon his troubles till he went to sleep, and would have thus got through the afternoon with comfort. But this was denied to him. The two daughters remained steadfast while the things were being removed; and Lady Pomona, though she made one attempt to leave the room, returned when she found that her daughters would not follow her. Georgiana had told her sister that she meant to “have it out” with her father, and Sophia had of course remained in the room in obedience to her sister’s behest. When the last tray had been taken out, Georgiana began. “Papa, don’t you think you could settle now when we are to go back to town? Of course we want to know about engagements and all that. There is Lady Monogram’s party on Wednesday. We promised to be there ever so long ago.”

“You had better write to Lady Monogram and say you can’t keep your engagement.”

“But why not, papa? We could go up on Wednesday morning.”

“You can’t do anything of the kind.”

“But, my dear, we should all like to have a day fixed,” said Lady Pomona. Then there was a pause. Even Georgiana, in her present state of mind, would have accepted some distant, even some undefined time, as a compromise.

“Then you can’t have a day fixed,” said Mr. Longestaffe.

“How long do you suppose that we shall be kept here?” said Sophia, in a low constrained voice.

“I do not know what you mean by being kept here. This is your home, and this is where you may make up your minds to live.”

“But we are to go back?” demanded Sophia. Georgiana stood by in silence, listening, resolving, and biding her time.

“You’ll not return to London this season,” said Mr. Longestaffe, turning himself abruptly to a newspaper which he held in his hands.

“Do you mean that that is settled?” said Lady Pomona.

“I mean to say that that is settled,” said Mr. Longestaffe.

Was there ever treachery like this! The indignation in Georgiana’s mind approached almost to virtue as she thought of her father’s falseness. She would not have left town at all but for that promise. She would not have contaminated herself with the Melmottes but for that promise. And now she was told that the promise was to be absolutely broken, when it was no longer possible that she could get back to London⁠—even to the house of the hated Primeros⁠—without absolutely running away from her father’s residence! “Then, papa,” she said, with affected calmness, “you have simply and with premeditation broken your word to us.”

“How dare you speak to me in that way, you wicked child!”

“I am not a child, papa, as you know very well. I am my own mistress⁠—by law.”

“Then go and be your own mistress. You dare to tell me, your father, that I have premeditated a falsehood! If you tell me that again, you shall eat your meals in your own room or not eat them in this house.”

“Did you not promise that we should go back if we would come down and entertain these people?”

“I will not argue with a child, insolent and disobedient as you are. If I have anything to say about it, I will say it to your mother. It should be enough for you that I, your father, tell you that you have to live here. Now go away, and if you choose to be sullen, go and be sullen where I shan’t see you.” Georgiana looked round on her mother and sister and then marched majestically out of the room. She still meditated revenge, but she was partly cowed, and did not dare in her father’s presence to go on with her reproaches. She stalked off into the room in which they generally lived, and there she stood panting with anger, breathing indignation through her nostrils.

“And you mean to put up with it, mamma?” she said.

“What can we do, my dear?”

“I will do something. I’m not going to be cheated and swindled and have my life thrown away into the bargain. I have always behaved well to him. I have never run up bills without saying anything about them.” This was a cut at her elder sister, who had once got into some little trouble of that kind. “I have never got myself talked about with anybody. If there is anything to be done I always do it. I have written his letters for him till I have been sick, and when you were ill I never asked him to stay out with us after two or half-past two at the latest. And now he tells me that I am to eat my meals up in my bedroom because I remind him that he distinctly promised to take us back to London! Did he not promise, mamma?”

“I understood so, my dear.”

“You know he promised, mamma. If I do anything now he must bear the blame of it. I am not going to keep myself straight for the sake of the family, and then be treated in that way.”

“You do that for your own sake, I suppose,” said her sister.

“It is more than you’ve been able to do for anybody’s sake,” said Georgiana, alluding to a very old affair⁠—to an ancient