Читать книгу Judith Paris. A Novel онлайн

19 страница из 76

And now in Seriousness, my dearest Sister, I have been so gravely disturbed over Judith that last Tuesday I was blooded and on two occasions my throat has been excoriated.

For the Child has a Devil that there's no exorcising. She is now high and now low and not altogether bad; David indeed swears that she is not bad at all and has as good a Heart as anyone in this house, which may be in Truth enough save that if she has a Heart she has also a Temper and a Disposition to Evil that I swear poor child is as great a Trouble to Herself as it is to Us.

I have no doubt as I have often said to you before but that it had its commencement in Mr. Gauntry's love for her as a Baby. We have forbidden her his Place for the Present. I have no Need to tell you, Sister, of the scandalous Conduct now current in Stone Ends. It is the Talk of the Countryside. The last Time Judith was there they had been wanting to make her drink with him and I must not be ingreateful to the Squire when I acknowledge that he will not have her contaminated and in any Case she can with a marvellous Discretion for a child of her years manage the whole Establishment at Stone Ends that she has under her little finger. It is Managing that she is always after and has been from a Baby. All the satisfaction that I have is that she has not yet learnt the Fashion of managing me nor ever will, but to see that Chit of a Child with her red hair and Herries Nose giving orders to my Will and Deb is so Unnatural as to be only partly Decent. Monnasett could deal with her and would have it that her Temper was from her Consciousness of and Uneasiness at her unlikely Parentage, but I have not seen her so Sensitive but have found again and again a brutal insensibility to the wants and opinions of others.